EVENTS
CHRISTOPHER TRIES SHUTTLE DIPLOMACY Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak joined forces yesterday to urge Israel and its Arab neighbors to put the violence in Lebanon behind them and quickly resume Middle East peace negotiations. The two men spoke to reporters after a long luncheon meeting at Mr. Mubarak's Ras al-Tin Palace in Alexandria, Egypt. Mubarak blamed the violence in southern Lebanon on actions that "were being done just to delay these negotiations." Mr. Christopher said he hoped during his four-d ay visit to the region "to capitalize on the tragic situation in Lebanon, to use it to remind the parties how important it is to move forward with the peace talks." He cautioned, however, that "we don't expect any breakthroughs on this trip." Lebanese Army deployed
The Lebanese Army command ordered troops at Mediterranean garrisons yesterday to prepare for deployment in the United Nations-policed areas of war-torn southern Lebanon, military sources said. The move, if approved by the UN, would give the Army the power to prevent guerrillas from using the villages as staging points for attacks on the Israeli-occupied "security zone," which Israel has long demanded.
The Lebanese government has not decided to ban guerrilla attacks on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, which it considers an occupying force. But it has said it opposes the guerrillas' firing of rockets into northern Israel. UN under fire in Cambodia
As the UN began withdrawing its troops yesterday from Cambodia, UN officials said guerrillas attacked peacekeepers near the Thai border and seized their base. The violence cast doubt on the success of the 17-month UN peacekeeping operation. The UN withdrew 400 peacekeepers yesterday, and the last of the 16,000 peacekeepers are to leave the country by mid-November.
The mission aimed to monitor a cease-fire between Cambodia's four factions and disarm all the troops before organizing May elections. But the Khmer Rouge guerrillas have violated almost every provision of the accord, refusing to disarm and boycotting the elections. Russians shot by horsemen
Viktor Polyanichko, President Boris Yeltsin's hand-picked military governor of North Ossetia and Ingushetia, and Gen. Anatoly Koretsky died Sunday when gunmen on horseback fired automatic rifles on Polyanichko's motorcade, the governor's spokeswoman said today. A bodyguard was killed and three bodyguards were wounded in the ambush.
The assassinations are certain to increase ethnic tensions in this volatile region in Russia's Caucasus Mountains, where several thousand Russian troops are on patrol to separate feuding Ingush Muslims and Christian Ossetians. Liberia cease-fire holds
Rebel leader Charles Taylor urged his fighters on Sunday to honor a cease-fire approved by Liberia's three warring factions, saying the country's 3-1/2-year-old civil war was over. There have been no reports of violations, said a spokesman for the West African force responsible for policing it. The civil war has killed 150,000 of Liberia's 2.6 million people and forced 750,000 to flee. Baby-swap trial begins
A trial that began yesterday should decide whether a Florida husband and wife have a right to see the child they lost when she was switched at birth with another couple's daughter 14 years ago. After five years at the center of a tug of war, Kimberly Mays says she wants nothing more to do with her biological parents, Ernest and Regina Twigg. She says she is devoted to the man who raised her, Bob Mays. North Korean missiles
A senior US defense official denounced Communist North Korea yesterday for developing an intermediate-range missile system that is believed capable of carrying nuclear payloads. The missiles, thought to be called "Rodong-1," would have a range of 625 miles, far enough to reach Japan, and would be able to carry nuclear, chemical, or conventional warheads, US officials say.
