EVENTS
UN AID AGENCIES FLEE SOMALIA Two UN aid agencies evacuated their Mogadishu offices yesterday as humanitarian groups confronted a wave of attacks throughout Somalia. The UN Development Program and High Commission for Refugees emptied their shared compound two days after an unidentified attacker threw a Molotov cocktail at a nearby building. UNHCR protection officer Lawrence Mgangson said the agencies had received further threats that prompted the evacuation. He did not elaborate. Other parts of the city also saw tensions rise during the day. Machine-gun fire could be heard near the line that divides the competing militias of south and north Mogadishu. And outside the compound that serves as command center for the 33,000 UN and US troops in Somalia, Turkish guards backed by US soldiers held a tense face-off with a crowd of Somalis who had gathered in the hopes of securing work with the UN. US, Japanese economies
US Labor Secretary Robert Reich yesterday predicted that about 2 million jobs will be added to the US economy in 1994 and the unemployment rate, 6.4 percent in November, will be between 6.0 and 6.4 percent during 1994. Mr. Reich said the bulk of the new jobs would be service jobs. Most would be higher-paid professional jobs providing services to business. The others would be lower-paid restaurant and hotel positions. In related news, Japanese business leaders predict a hard year ahead with the economy in the doldrums and a government unable to act swiftly to enact economic-boosting measures, according to a Kyodo news poll released yesterday. It showed pessimism running high over business prospects in fiscal 1994, running until March 1995. More than 80 percent said even if business prospects do improve, economic growth is likely to be negligible. Croat-Bosnian talks
The foreign ministers of Croatia and Bosnia plan to hold peace talks in Vienna today, a Croatian spokeswoman said yesterday. Croatia's Mate Granic will meet the Muslim-led government's Haris Silajdzic to discuss territorial disputes as well as humanitarian questions. All three warring factions Croats, Bosnians, and Serbs are to hold peace negotiations in Geneva later this month. Relations between the Croats and Bosnians deteriorated over the past few months after Muslim-led forces launched an offensive against Bosnian Croats. Afghan fighting
In a third day of fighting, Islamic factions fired scores of rockets at government targets in the Afghan capital, Kabul, yesterday, but President Burhanuddin Rabbani's forces held out in several key buildings. Mr. Rabbani's air force counterattacked, bombing several positions around the capital. Rabbani's men were trying to withstand an onslaught by the combined forces of Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Rashid Dostum, a former communist army general. At least six separate Islamic factions hold parts of the capital. Roberto Escobar appeal
Roberto Escobar, wounded by a letter bomb in prison two weeks after his brother, Medellin drug lord Pablo, was killed by security forces, made an appeal for peace Sunday. The ruthless Medellin cartel was attacked not only by security forces but also by a death squad called People Persecuted By Pablo Escobar. It is reportedly composed of members of the rival Cali cocaine cartel, police, and former Medellin cartel members. No genetic engineering
The French government will ask parliament to ban medical techniques being used to help women give birth past child-bearing age, Health Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said yesterday. Controversy over the ethics of genetic engineering flared last month when a 59-year-old British woman gave birth to twins following artificial insemination at a Rome clinic. Cesar Romero
Cesar Romero, the tall, suave actor best known for his role as The Joker on television's ``Batman,'' died Saturday. Romero appeared in musicals, comedies, dramas, and westerns, doing TV movies up into the 1990s.