🚀 go-pugleaf

  	  	
	 WASHINGTON - A partial shutdown of the federal government 
entered its second day after the White House and the Republican- 
led Congress failed to resolve their differences over the 
federal budget. Crisis talks between administration officials 
and Republican leaders in Congress failed on Tuesday to reach a 
budget deal to end the shutdown and send 800,000 federal 
employees back to work.  
	 - - - -	 
	 DAYTON, Ohio - The Bosnian peace talks remained stalemated 
despite a 12-hour intervention by U.S. Secretary of State Warren 
Christopher that ``narrowed some differences'' but left the major 
issues unresolved.  
	 - - - -	 
	 LAGOS - Demonstrators took to the streets in several 
Nigerian states in support of the embattled government of 
military ruler General Sani Abacha, local media reported. People 
in northern Nigeria said anti-Western feelings were running high 
in the government's face-off with the international community 
over the execution last Friday of nine minority rights activists 
including writer Ken Saro-Wiwa.  
	 LAGOS - Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell resisted pressure to 
shut its huge Nigerian operations over the execution of the nine 
minority rights activists and, to the relief of Lagos, said it 
would stay in the African country.  
	 - - - -	 
	 ALGIERS - The thud of a huge explosion was heard in Algiers 
a day before Algeria's presidential elections which Moslem 
rebels have vowed to wreck. There were no immediate details on 
the cause of the blast or its exact location.  
	 - - - -	 
	 RIYADH - Four Americans wounded by a bomb that blasted a 
U.S.-run military centre in Saudi Arabia fought for their lives 
as an FBI team began investigating the explosion. An Indian 
maimed in Monday's blast died on Tuesday night, bringing to six 
the death toll from the explosion.  
	 - - - -	 
	 MADRID - Spain said its foreign minister, Javier Solana, 
would make a ``magnificent'' NATO chief and reserved the right to 
put him forward as a formal candidate for the alliance's vacant 
top job.  
	 - - - -	 
	 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla - The space shuttle Atlantis docked 
successfully with the Russian space station Mir and its crew 
opened up a hatch to float through a 15-foot docking module to 
greet three cosmonauts aboard the Mir.  
	 - - - -	 
	 SEOUL - South Korea's disgraced ex-president Roh Tae-woo was 
grilled by state prosecutors for the second time over his $654 
million slush funds and media reports said his arrest was 
imminent.  
	 - - - -	 
	 OSAKA, Japan - Asia-Pacific ministers began hard talking 
about how far and how fast to open up the world's fastest- 
growing economies -- and whether to start concerning themselves 
with keeping regional peace. Ministers from the Asia-Pacific 
Economic Cooperation forum started make-or-break talks on 
freeing farm trade, the most contentious issue to be settled 
before this weekend's summit.  
	 - - - -	 
	 JAKARTA - Twenty-one East Timorese who sought sanctuary in 
the Japanese embassy in Jakarta will probably leave for Portugal 
late on Wednesday, an official of the International Committee of 
the Red Cross (ICRC) said.  
	 - - - -	 
	 SRINAGAR, India - Kashmiri separatists and the Indian 
government appealed to Al-Faran guerrillas to free four Western 
hostages after the captors said one of the hostages was close to 
death.  
	 - - - -	 
	 COLOMBO - Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger guerrillas said they killed 
several soldiers and damaged an army battle tank in frontal and 
flank assaults on thousands of troops closing in on their 
northern Jaffna stronghold.  

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