February 2001 World Headlines

Thursday, February 15, 2001 - Web posted at 9:54:21 AM GMT

World News Summary

*JERUSALEM - Israeli ministers called for the Palestinian territories to be totally sealed after at least nine people were killed when a Palestinian bus driver mowed down a group of Israelis near Tel Aviv.

*LUANDA - At least five people including a policeman were killed in a rebel attack near a key Angolan army base, Church-run Radio Ecclesia reported.

The raid in Chicuma village followed a similar rebel attack in the same place on Monday in which five civilians died.

The radio did not say how many rebels had launched the latest attack.

*MANILA - The Philippine Senate opened to public scrutiny bank records under the name that prosecutors say ousted president Joseph Estrada used in laundering money linked to his alleged 200-million-dollar fortune.

*FREETOWN - President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah proposed during a visit by UN refugee agency chief Ruud Lubbers, that a security corridor be set up to allow Sierra Leonean refugees to return from Guinea.

*WASHINGTON - A civilian guest was at the helm of a US submarine when it struck and sank a Japanese fishing vessel as it surfaced off Hawaii last week, leaving nine people missing, a US Navy official said.

*NEW YORK - A former Osama bin Laden aide, who has received almost US$1 million for assistance as an informant, said the Saudi dissident's militant group discussed bombing the American embassy in Riyadh in 1994.

Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl, the first witness in a trial of four bin Laden followers charged in a conspiracy that included the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, acknowledged during cross-examination that he had learned of the proposed attack in the Saudi capital but did nothing to discourage the plans.

*ABUJA - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, citing scheduling problems, has cancelled a planned visit to Nigeria to deliver a public lecture in the capital Abuja, Nigerian officials said.

Nigerian presidential spokesman Tunji Oseni said Gaddafi explained his decision to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo at a regional summit in Sudan attended by both leaders. - Nampa-Reuters - Sapa-AFP

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