December 14, 1995
Web posted at: 1:10 a.m. EST (0610 GMT)
CAIRO, Egypt (CNN) -- Two people have been killed and 56 arrested in a sweeping crackdown on militants trying to topple the Egyptian government and establish Islamic rule.
Police also seized $57,000 in weapons and explosives from militant hideouts across Egypt, a statement from the Interior Ministry said Wednesday.
The two men killed were leaders of the military wing of Jihad, or Holy War, which claimed responsibility for the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981, the statement said.
The ministry said the suspects arrested in the past two weeks planned to assassinate government and military officials, attack "vital public establishments" and carry out suicide bombings. The statement did not name any of the targets.
Five of the suspects are Sudanese, and some of the suspects received military training in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, the ministry said.
Fighting since 1992 between Islamic militants and the government has killed more than 860 people. Sudanese-Egyptian relations worsened after Egypt accused Sudan of masterminding an assassination attempt on President Hosni Mubarak in June.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Rebel forces fired rockets into residential areas of the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday, killing at least two civilians and destroying homes, government-controlled Kabul Radio said.
The broadcast blamed the Taleban Islamic militia for a fourth successive day of firing. The militia seeks to topple President Burhanuddin Rabbani's government.
BRUSSELS, Belgian (CNN) -- Thousands of public sector workers in Brussels followed the lead of their French neighbors and took to the streets Wednesday, protesting impending budget cuts in their nation.
The demonstration paralyzed the capital's transport and other public services as disgruntled workers raised concerns about pay, employment and pensions.
Like France, the Belgian government is being forced to make some tough budgetary choices to help set the stage for a unified economic and monetary policy in Europe.
GENEVA (CNN) -- The World Health Organization put to rest fears of another potential Ebola epidemic Wednesday, clarifying that 10 of 15 suspected cases in Liberia were cholera.
WHO had investigated reports from a Liberian village of 10 people dying of Ebola-like symptoms -- diarrhea, fever and hemorrhaging -- which turned out to be caused by cholera, which is rampant in the impoverished, war-torn country in West Africa.
However, Ebola had struck residents of a Liberian village close to the Ivory Coast border, WHO officials said. They reckoned that one Liberian refugee had contracted the disease, and had probably infected four other people sharing his hut.
The agency was checking into reports of two possible Ebola cases in Angola, but had no further details.
Earlier this year, the virus killed 244 people in Kikwit, Zaire. But the strain in Liberia, more than 1,500 miles to the North, is milder and has not killed anyone.
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (CNN) -- Ten thousand refugees from Sierra Leone's civil war marched to the U.N. headquarters here Wednesday and accused its agencies of depriving them of food.
The refugees have been put up in a camp jointly sponsored by UNICEF, other relief agencies and the military government. Many of the refugees in the camps have not been receiving food for the last three months, demonstrators said.
Sierra Leone has been torn by a bitter civil war between the government and rebels who accuse it of corruption. About 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict and about a third of the nation's 4.5 million people have fled to refugee camps.
The demonstrators blamed the U.N. World Food Program, and said they were told the agency was no longer supplying the camp because of the growing number of people who cannot prove they are victims of the war.
A coordinator for the Food program said their regulations prohibited them from distributing food to unverified people, particularly because the available resources were limited.
KHARTOUM, Sudan (CNN) -- At least 70,000 Sudanese workers have been expelled from Libya since the summer. Sudanese officials expect the number to rise to 300,000 by February.
Libya began expelling Sudanese and Egyptian workers in the summer, saying they did not have valid work permits.
The brunt of the expulsions seems to be borne by the Sudanese, possibly because of Libyan suspicions that the Sudanese government was involved in clashes with Muslim militants in Libya.
Sudanese officials said at least five workers have died while making the exhausting, two-week journey across the desert from Libya to Sudan.
MOSCOW (CNN) -- ITAR-Tass news agency said Wednesday searchers had found the wreckage of a Russian plane that disappeared near Russia's Pacific coast last week with 97 people aboard.
Satellite photos showed what appeared to be the wreckage at a remote mountainous site covered with deep snow. A spokeswoman for the Emergency Situations Ministry said "it's impossible to tell anything for sure," but ITAR-Tass, quoting Lt. Col. Artur Afanasiyev of the search headquarters, said the plane was found broken in two.
Planes, helicopters and ships have been hunting for the Aeroflot Tupolev-154 jetliner since it lost radio contact and vanished last Thursday. It was traveling from Sakhalin Island to Khabarovsk on the mainland.
Meanwhile, in an unrelated incident, Interfax news agency said Wednesday that three Russian Sukhoi-27 fighter planes had crashed in bad weather on a mountainous Vietnamese island while flying from an air show in Malaysia. There was little hope for the four pilots, the report said.
MANILA, Philippines (CNN) -- At least 15 people are dead and more than a dozen missing after a ferry caught fire Wednesday off Mindoro Island, south of the Philippine capital.
Survivors and rescuers said the fire aboard the 490-ton Kimelody Cristy spread so rapidly that some people were forced to jump into the sea without lifejackets. Officials estimated there were more than 160 people on board.
Officials said the Coast Guard had three ships scouring the area for more survivors.
The ferry, which could carry more than 400 passengers, was on its way from Manila to Mindoro Island, about 125 kilometers (80 miles) to the south, when the fire broke out in the ferry's galley around 2 a.m.
In 1987, more than 4,000 people died in the world's worst peacetime sea disaster when the ferry Dona Paz collided with a tanker in Philippine waters.
PARIS (CNN) - French Prime Minister Alain Juppe offered a new olive branch Wednesday to strikers who have paralyzed France for 20 days. He said talks on reforms for the state-owned railways SNCF can start from scratch. Rail workers have led the strike, protesting proposals to streamline the SNCF.
Earlier Wednesday, the government also offered a new concession to public sector workers, pledging neither their retirement age nor the way of calculating their pensions would be changed. A "social summit" with union and business leaders was set for December 21.
Meanwhile, effects of the French strike had stretched to Belgium, where the luxury liner the Queen Elizabeth Two made an unscheduled stop. The QE2's passengers were scheduled to stop at the French port of Le Havre for a day shopping trip to Paris.
But with the nationwide strike to consider, the ship's owner Cunard decided stopping in Zeebrugge, Belgium, might be more relaxing.
LONDON (CNN) -- Two men who threatened to release vermin into the food halls of London's famed department store Harrods unless they were paid a five million pound ($7.7 million U.S.) ransom have been arrested, Harrods said Wednesday.
A source close to the store said police had mounted an elaborate operation to capture the two men, who started making threats to the store two weeks ago. The source said the men had made a 'vicious and very nasty blackmail attempt' by threatening to release mice into six food halls.
A police spokeswoman said two men had been arrested late Tuesday and would probably be charged Wednesday.
Harrods' tiled food halls are well-known for their wide variety of expensive worldwide delicacies. Overseas tourists pack the halls in December to stock up for Christmas.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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