EVENTS

ARABS PLAN WAR ON FUNDAMENTALISTS

Arab governments led by Algeria and Egypt are meeting in Algiers this week to develop a plan to crush Muslim fundamentalists they blame for hundreds of killings, sabotage attacks, and assaults on tourists. They blame the attacks mainly on the governments of Iran and Sudan. Eighty people were killed in extremist attacks in Egypt 1992, the highest toll since 1981. Yesterday, suspected Muslim extremists in southern Egypt killed a Christian politician, wounded a shopkeeper, and threw a bomb at a church. US carrier sails

The aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy steamed out of Marseilles, France, yesterday for a six-month stint in the Mediterranean, carrying 6,000 personnel and 80 planes and helicopters. The Kennedy, which participated in the Persian Gulf war against Iraq, sailed a day after Presidents Bush and Francois Mitterrand said in Paris that they backed military enforcement of the United Nations no-fly zone over Bosnia. Hamas killing suspected

An Arab collaborator with ties to the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement is the main suspect in the slaying of an Israeli undercover agent, police said yesterday. The agent, Haim Nahmani, was stabbed and beaten to death Sunday in Jerusalem, apparently by an informer he had met at a "safe house" to collect information on Hamas. Plutonium arrives

Police and protesters drew battle lines in the small Japanese port of Tokai yesterday, ahead of the arrival of a ship carrying a cargo of highly toxic plutonium. Government officials have sought to assure critics worldwide that the shipment, first in a planned long-term program, poses no threat. Sihanouk withdraws

Cambodian reconciliation leader Prince Norodom Sihanouk said yesterday he would no longer cooperate with the United Nations peacekeeping operation in his country because of continuing politically motivated violence there. If the mercurial prince carries out his decision, the Cambodian peace process would be seriously damaged. US builds faster

Construction spending jumped 2.1 percent in November to the highest level in more than two years, the United States government said today. The Commerce Department said residential, nonresidential, and government outlays totaled $441.8 billion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, up from $432.8 billion a month earlier. Somalia's clans meet

Leaders of Somalia's warring factions held talks in Addis Ababa yesterday aimed at ending the bitter rivalries that led to mass starvation and a complete breakdown of order in their land. The clan leaders plan to implement a cease-fire, establish a national police force, disarm gunmen, and establish a national government. Mexican bus crash

A bus carrying tourists from the United States, Europe, and Asia to Mayan ruins crashed on a rain-slicked road near Cancun early Sunday, police say, killing at least 22 people. The bus was reportedly speeding.