News In Brief
Phone calls lasting until 4 a.m. local time by Secretary of State Albright failed to keep the leaders of Lebanon's government from rejecting UN certification that Israeli troops had completely vacated their former border security zone. Prime Minister Salim Hoss said Lebanese working with the UN inspectors had found "several" Israeli outposts still on Lebanon's soil and that his government "insists on recovering every inch" of its territory. The Lebanese position was a stinging rebuff to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who's due in Beirut today.
A peace accord aimed at ending the 25-month border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea was signed by the parties after weeks of negotiations. The 15-point deal falls short of an unconditional cease-fire, but does call for an end to hostilities while experts delineate their disputed border and for a force of international peacekeepers to patrol a "security zone" while the experts are at work. UN diplomats have suggested as many as 4,000 peacekeepers are needed for the mission.
Security forces retaliated with plastic bullets as Catholic protesters threw ball bearings, stones, bottles, and fire bombs at them during a Protestant parade in Lurgan, Northern Ireland. Four people, all from the security force, were hurt in the clash. The Protestant Orange Order had official permission to stage the parade, which was otherwise peaceful. The incident was the first of its type to be reported since Protestant and Catholic politicians resumed their home-rule administration of the province June 1.
Visibly angry over the low turnout at what was to be the largest campaign rally in his stronghold, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe exhorted supporters to "shame" the rival Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in this coming weekend's national election. He admitted for the first time that Harare province, which sends 19 members to parliament, will be a battleground for his ZANU-PF movement. The MDC attracted an estimated twice as many people to a rally yesterday as turned out for ZANU-PF's event.
The largest cache of illegal weapons since fighting ended in Kosovo last year was found by NATO peacekeepers, who said it "almost certainly" belonged to ethnic Albanian separatists. It also appeared that some weapons recently had been removed, a NATO spokesman said. The cache was uncovered in a former stronghold of the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army, which has been reorganized as a civil protection force.
Elian Gonzalez's name led a list of Cubans whose Father's Day card to Fidel Castro from Washington was read aloud on TV on the communist-ruled island. Elian's signature, contested by the Immigration and Naturalization Service when it appeared on an earlier appeal for asylum in the US, followed a greeting that called the Cuban leader "the father whom we love very much for his unequaled teaching." Hours later, a crowd estimated at more than 300,000 people, the largest outside Havana since early December, rallied in Camaguey to protest the latest legal delays blocking Elian's return from the US.
(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society
