Niger
NIAMEY - An army rebellion over pay spread to two more towns, including the base of the West African nation's uranium mining industry, military sources said.
Bangladesh
DHAKA - A fire raged through a shanty township, injuring 50 people and leaving at least 25,000 people homeless, police said.
Algeria
ALGIERS - A bus hit a mine planted on a road south of the Algerian capital, killing 10 people and wounding 13 others, security forces said.
Kenya
NAIROBI - The United Nations started dropping food to thousands of desperate refugees in southwestern Sudan, hours after Sudan lifted a 3-week-old ban on relief flights.
Japan
TOKYO - The widow of a Japanese politician who committed suicide last week amid a stock scandal has decided not to run for her husband's parliamentary seat, her son said.
Russia
MOSCOW - The Kremlin said President Boris Yeltsin might take no immediate decisions on a government reshuffle following a key Cabinet meeting that he abruptly left.
Albania
TIRANA - Police thwarted an attempted breakout by hundreds of prisoners at a Tirana jail, Justice Minister Thimio Kondi said.
Zimbabwe
HARARE - The country's main industrial body urged the country's main labor union on Thursday to call off a strike planned to press the government to scrap a recent sales tax increase.
Spain
MADRID - A court convicted disgraced former Civil Guard chief Luis Roldan of corruption and sentenced him to 28 years in prison, officials said.
Comoro
MORONI - Voters in the Indian Ocean island of Anjouan have voted for a complete break from the Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros, official results of a constitutional referendum showed.
Cambodia
PHNOM PENH - Leader Hun Sen will order government forces to stop fighting opposition troops under deposed co-Premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh when the prince declares a cease-fire, an aide to Hun Sen said.
China
BEIJING - A group of 17 Chinese dissidents sent a petition to parliament on Thursday, demanding the unconditional release of all political prisoners and of toppled Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang who lives under house arrest.
BEIJING - The Communist elite approved a broad government reshuffle and a proposal to streamline the bloated government bureaucracy at a two-day plenum.
Pakistan
ISLAMABAD - Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan accused India's nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of seeking to provoke tension between the two archrival countries.
Turkey
ANKARA - A police officer denied charges that he raped a Kurdish woman repeatedly while she was in custody on suspicion of links to Kurdish rebels, Anatolian news agency said.
Paraguay
ASUNCION - President Juan Wasmosy is considering temporarily handing power to a military junta if he succeeds in legal attempts to postpone elections, government party officials said.