Around the world
CHECHNYA: Fresh fighting in Chechnya imperiled a preliminary cease-fire Saturday, when Russian and Chechen military leaders canceled a meeting to work out technical details. The truce was drawn up Thursday between Chechen clergy and Moscow's administrators in the southern breakaway republic.SOUTH AFRICA: A government crisis was averted Saturday when Zulu nationalist leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi signaled that his party would end its walkout of Parliament and would not withdraw from the Cabinet. But Inkatha Freedom Party insiders predicted that the party may instead express its anger over lack of progress in provincial autonomy talks by boycotting the assembly writing a new constitution.
HONG KONG: With China's takeover of Hong Kong just two years away, voters trooped to the polls Sunday to show whether they would give pro-Beijing politicians the support they want. With China's 1997 takeover of the British colony approaching, the election results will show how Hong Kong citizens feel about China when they choose between pro-Beijing candidates and the Democratic Party, a critic of Beijing.
ESTONIA: Estonians choose new leaders Sunday in a generational struggle that by all indications will end two years of rule by young radical reformers. Widespread discontent over reform's hardships is expected to produce a landslide victory for a mix of former low-level communists, plant directors and farm activists in this Baltic coast nation.
Across the nation
SLAYINGS: In a city already beset by murder and police corruption, a police officer on Saturday held up a restaurant in New Orleans where she moonlighted as a guard, killing a fellow officer and two workers. Officer Annette Frank was arrested along with Roger Lacaze, 18, who helped in the robbery, said police Superintendent Richard Pennington. Frank, 23, left the Kim Anh restaurant after the shootings and returned later under the guise of bringing help, Detective Sgt. Eddie Rantz said. Restaurant workers were able to identify her when she returned. She later confessed, Rantz said.
ARREST: The brother of a top Mexican official killed last year was arrested at Newark International Airport in Newark, N.J., for allegedly failing to declare $28,000 in currency. Mario Ruiz Massieu, former Mexican deputy attorney general, was arrested Friday evening, Steve Duchesne, a U.S. Customs Service spokesman, said Saturday.
In Washington
5TH TERM: Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., said Friday he will seek re-election for a fifth term in 1996. Helms, a member of the Senate the past 22 years and now chairman of its Foreign Relations Committee, confirmed his intentions in a response to a question during a taping Friday of "John McLaughlin's One on One," a syndicated television show.