January 19, 1996
Web posted at: 10 p.m. EST (0300 GMT)
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- The U.N. Security Council has approved sending a technical assessment mission to war-ravaged Burundi, as recommended by the secretary-general earlier this week. The country's latest civil war between Hutu and Tutsis is threatening to become a holocaust as the number of corpses continues to multiply.
The team would look at security of humanitarian aid workers.
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has also recommended that international troops be stationed in Zaire to help prevent bloodshed in Burundi. In a letter to the United Nations released Friday, the Burundian ambassador firmly rejects any U.N. military deployment within or outside Burundi's borders.
Burundi has volatile ethnic mixture, with 85 percent Hutu and 15 percent Tutsi. The latest round of violence began in late 1993, when soldiers of the Tutsi-controlled army assassinated the country's first Hutu president in a failed coup.
ATHENS, Greece (Reuter) -- New Greek socialist Prime Minister Costas Simitis will swear in his government on Monday after a series of weekend meetings to decide on the cabinet.
Major ministries were expected to change hands and big changes were also likely on the boards of state companies and banks.
Old Socialist party faithfuls, many of whom owe their jobs to political favors, will be sidelined in favor of professional technocrats, government sources said.
At least seven ministers, confidants of former Premier Andreas Papandreou, looked set to be replaced, and their successors will be faced by a number of long-pending issues, including privatization of certain government entities.
Simitis, 59, received a mandate on Friday to form a government after the Socialist party parliamentary group elected him on Thursday to replace Papandreou, who resigned earlier in the week because of poor health .
SAN ANDRES LARAINZAR, Mexico (Reuter) -- Mexico's government and Zapatista rebels have reached their first agreement on indigenous rights in a bid to end the two-year-old rebellion in the southern state of Chiapas.
The accord, which must be ratified by both sides within 20 days, seeks to improve the constitutional rights of Chiapas indians, victims of poverty and racism that the rebels say forced them to take up arms on January 1, 1994.
The agreement, reached after eight days of negotiation in the ramshackle Chiapas town, seeks to give indians more rights to elect officials according to their own customs and to use their own judicial practices.
But according to congressional mediators, it falls short of allowing indigenous communities to take full control of sub-soil land rights, which are protected by the constitution to safeguard oil rights in petroleum-rich states like Chiapas.
The Zapatista National Liberation Army -- a largely Mayan guerrilla movement that has avoided combat for most of the last two years -- reacted cautiously to the accord, though the government saw it as an important step toward peace.
NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuter) -- Sudan Friday accused Ethiopia of launching cross-border raids and shelling villages as part of an intensified campaign to topple the Khartoum regime.
A statement issued by the Sudanese Embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, said positions inside Sudan were occupied by the Ethiopian military who had massed tanks and troops along the two countries' common border.
The statement said that Sudan had launched a formal complaint to the United Nations Security Council. "The letter demanded an immediate withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Sudanese territories and called on the (Prime Minister Meles) Zenawi government to refrain from the use of force in settling regional disputes," it added.
Ethiopia has previously denied raiding Sudan.
The Sudanese statement accused Ethiopia of taking military action after accusing Khartoum of harboring three suspects wanted in connection with an assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last June 26.
The president of the Security Council said Tuesday he would urge Sudan to comply with requests to extradite the men.
LUEBECK, Germany (CNN) -- Investigators on Friday released without charge three men detained in connection with a blaze at an immigrants' hostel in which at least 10 people died.
Police sources said there were no indications that the men had any link to Thursday's fire, whose cause has yet to be determined. The three men had been seen near the scene of the fire 10 minutes after it broke out. One of them was a shaven- headed skinhead, similar to many members of the far-right or neo-Nazi scene.
PYONGYANG, North Korea (CNN) -- North Korea's de-facto leader Kim Jong-Il made a rare public appearance Friday and the ruling party newspaper published a list of what it called his "priceless witty remarks."
Kim Jong-il, 53, the son of president Kim Il-Sung, who died in 1994, has not formally taken over the presidency and party leadership posts held by his father.
North Korea's official media said Friday of Kon Jong-il, "He has become an outstanding great master of witty remarks as well as the greatest man ever known in history." The report added, "His extraordinariness is beyond human imagination."
LAHORE, Pakistan (CNN) -- At least 31 people were injured on Thursday when two bombs exploded in Lahore.
No one claimed responsibility for either blast but a Lahore police official said after the second blast: "Terrorists are active and this (second) incident is similar to the previous one."
The first bomb, which wounded 23 students, went off around about 9.30 a.m. at a college library. Eight people, including four soldiers, were wounded in the second blast at 8.15 p.m. at a commercial building.
Lahore has been the scene of intermittent sectarian violence during the past year involving rival Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim groups.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Amid reports she faces possible bankruptcy, the Duchess of York flew first class to Washington and checked into a luxury hotel.
Sarah Ferguson, known as Fergie, arrived at the Four Seasons Hotel with her two daughters and a small security detail Thursday evening. She refused to comment on her finances.
Reports in London this week said Fergie had run up about $1.5 million in debts. But on Thursday, unidentified royal sources told London newspapers her overdraft with bankers Coutts and Company was closer to $4.5 million.
Her mother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth II, refused to bail her out. "These are matters which the Duchess of York must discuss and resolve with her bankers and other financial advisers," a palace spokesman said.
LONDON (CNN) -- Kevin Maxwell, youngest son of the late media tycoon Robert Maxwell, and his elder brother Ian were acquitted on Friday of conspiring to defraud the Maxwell group pension funds.
Former Maxwell company director Larry Trachtenberg, 42, was also acquitted.
Robert Maxwell's media empire collapsed in December 1991 shortly after his body was found floating in the sea off the Canary Islands. His corporate empire collapsed and about $700 million of pension fund assets were found to be missing.
Kevin, 36, was accused of conspiring with his father before his death to defraud the Maxwell group pension fund by using $152 million of its shares in the Israeli company Scitex.
He was also charged along with Ian, 39, and Trachtenberg of conspiring to defraud by risking $33 million of pension fund shares in another Israeli company called Teva Pharmaceuticals.
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