Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Headline Article Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 13:27:07 EST Message-ID: \SE A;TOP OF THE NEWS;WORLD \BY FROM WIRE DISPATCHES AND STAFF REPORTS S=NEW STORY Cuban Communists expel ex-Castro aide HAVANA - Cuba's ruling Communist Party expelled from its ranks yesterday former Politburo member Carlos Aldana, completing the political disgrace of a man who had been one of President Fidel Castro's closest aides. The party Central Committee, which met over the weekend, said it made the decision after analyzing Mr. Aldana's "errors," a reference to his involvement in a financial scandal disclosed last month. At the same time, the Central Committee appointed two new members to the party Politburo - Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, who was named foreign minister in June, and Jose Ramon Balaguer Cabrera, who replaced Mr. Aldana in his party posts. S=NEW STORY South Sudan killings anger U.N. workers LOKICHOGGIO, Kenya - The mysterious killing of three U.N. workers and a journalist in rebel-held southern Sudan has poisoned relations between aid workers and the rebel movement that claims to be the government of the area. Aid workers said over the weekend that the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army had disintegrated into three factions and harassed and treated foreigners with contempt in a growing wave of insecurity and lack of discipline. Two of the foreigners appeared to have been put on trial. Their heads had been shaved and they were killed with single bullets to the head in the style of an execution, the aid workers said. S=NEW STORY S. Africa said to sell China arms technology TAIPEI, Taiwan - South Africa is providing China with military technology to help it develop its next generation of weapons, a newspaper here reported yesterday. The United Evening News quoted unnamed officials in Taiwan's Defense Ministry as saying South Africa, which makes weapons including the world-class G-6 artillery gun, had sold parts for long-range artillery to China. The parts will help Beijing overcome technical difficulties in developing a long-range gun, the paper said. It said China is also interested in buying South African missile-guidance technology. South Africa is one of Taiwan's last formal diplomatic allies and does not have official ties with China, which views Taiwan as a renegade province. S=NEW STORY Kurdistan weather hampers Turkish raids ANKARA, Turkey - Bad weather over the high mountains of northern Iraq was hampering Turkish attacks against Kurdish rebels, the semiofficial Anatolia news agency said yesterday. Helicopters could not deliver ammunition and food because of heavy rain and high winds Saturday and Sunday, a dispatch said. Mules were used to dispatch some supplies to Turkish soldiers up at the 9,240-foot-high Hakhurk area, about six miles from the Turkish border, it added. S=NEW STORY State Department dismisses KAL story The State Department yesterday dismissed a claim by South Korean opposition lawmaker Son Sae-il that passengers of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 might have survived the 1983 downing of the Boeing 747 by a Soviet jet. During recent talks with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, "our delegation asked about possible survivors of the crash," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "President Yeltsin replied that there had been no survivors, and we have no reason to doubt the Russian government's statement." The Washington Times reported in August that U.S. government communications intercepts indicated the jumbo jet did not explode at high altitude and may have ditched near Sakhalin Island. Avraham Shifrin, an Israeli researcher of Soviet labor camps, has said two expatriate Russians told him some KAL passengers survived the crash and were imprisoned, including U.S. Rep. Larry McDonald, Georgia Democrat. S=NEW STORY Karens cross border fleeing Burmese army MAE SOT, Thailand - Hundreds of refugees fled into Thailand after the Burmese army attacked an ethnic rebel base, a Thai border patrol officer said yesterday. About 1,000 Burmese soldiers attacked Maw Pha Su camp, a Karen base opposite Thailand's Tak province, 230 miles northwest of Bangkok, police Col. Somsak Ninprapa said. The ground assault Sunday was supported by 120mm mortars, he said. Several hundred Karen civilians fled to Ban Huay Pa Kong village in Thailand, and many more refugees were expected, Col. Somsak said. Burma has been fighting ethnic rebels since the country won independence from Britain in 1948. The Karens, a converted Christian group, are the strongest. S=NEW STORY Japanese mourners urge U.S. gun ban TOKYO - Parents of a Japanese high school exchange student who was shot to death in Louisiana urged at his funeral yesterday that the United States ban guns to prevent similar tragedies. Masakazu Hattori asked some 1,000 mourners to sign a petition that he said would be sent to President Bush. The killing shocked many Japanese, unused to the idea of homeowners wielding guns. Handguns are outlawed in Japan. Mr. Hattori's son, Yoshihiro, 16, was shot to death Oct. 17 in Baton Rouge when he went to the wrong house while looking for a Halloween party. He did not heed the homeowner's order to "freeze" - an English word he didn't understand - and was shot in the chest with a .44-caliber Magnum. S=NEW STORY Killer comet could smash world in 2116 SYDNEY, Australia - A huge comet is on course to collide with Earth 124 years from now, and it could kill off most forms of life with an explosion more powerful than a million atom bombs, an expert on asteroids told a space conference this week. The 3.1-mile-wide ball of ice and rock is traveling so fast that, if it does smash into Earth in 2116, it could plunge the world into dark ages, astronomer Duncan Steel of the Anglo-Australian Observatory told delegates to the second Australian Space Development Conference on Sunday. The International Astronomical Union noted the comet's discovery Oct. 15 and, for the first time since keeping records of such finds, could not rule out a collision with Earth, Mr. Steel said. Comet Smith-Tuttle was first sighted in 1862 and was rediscovered last month. S=NEW STORY Cameroon riot police disperse vote protest YAOUNDE, Cameroon - Riot police scattered hundreds of protesters with tear gas yesterday and arrested about 50 people, beating them severely, eyewitnesses said. The demonstrators, in the economic capital Douala, were angry at reported election results giving President Paul Biya a slim victory in Cameroon's first free elections Oct. 11. Opposition parties accuse him of massive vote fraud. S=NEW STORY 'Safe sex' video impounded as obscene AMSTERDAM - British customs has seized a Dutch video promoting "safe sex" among homosexuals on grounds it is "indecent and obscene" and violates British decency laws, the film's producer said yesterday. "Safe-sex Videoshow: In the Heat of the Moment" was presented in July at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam. "It was one of the crowd pullers," said director Leo de Kam. The video was on its way to the Norwich Gay Men's Health Project when it was seized last week, he added. 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