The Sudanese leader, accompanied by Mozambique’s President, Joaquim Chissano, at a rally in a Khartoum suburb, told cheering crowds that their country was the target of Egyptian conspiracies because it had chosen to follow Islamic policies AFP. Patrick Juppe, 51, allegedly shot dead a 16-year-old boy on Thursday night with a pump-action rifle in the suburb of Haillan after being wakened by noisy adolescents celebrating the end of school exams Mr Juppe was elected Mayor of Bordeaux earlier this month AFP. Sudanese call to arms

Khartoum – Sudan’s leader General Omar al-Beshir appealed to his countrymen to arm themselves and come to the defence of the nation following threats from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Juppe’s cousin held over shotgun killing

Bordeaux – The French Prime Minister, Alain Juppe, called a press conference to reveal say an alleged murderer is his cousin, but that they had had no contacts since childhood. Vice-President Al Gore and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin called from Moscow, where the two were conducting talks on foreign policy and science and technology issues Reuter. Space link-up begins with call from Earth

Cape Canaveral – The largest space crew in history took a congratulatory phone call from two world leaders and exchanged gifts at the start of their first full day of co-operative work aboard the docked US space shuttle and Russian space station. With torrential rains lashing the Chinese coast and setting off mudslides, an official in Jiangxi province, population 14 million, said the death toll there stood at 194 and was rising AFP.

Hundreds die in China floods disaster

Shanghai – Rising floodwaters have killed hundreds of people and devastated farms and fisheries in east China, confirming fears that weather changes could bring the worst flooding disaster this century. The deal was seen as a sign Anglo-Sino relations are warming after three years of acrimony AP. Democrats set to win Thai elections

Bangkok – Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai’s Democrat Party is projected to win the most seats in Thailand’s general elections tomorrow, according to a nationwide poll. The Democrats were expected to win 99 seats in the 391-seat lower house of parliament, with the main opposition Chart Thai Party running a close second with 94 seats, the poll said AFP. Peking signs Hong Kong airport deal

Hong Kong – Britain and China signed an agreement removing obstacles to financing Hong Kong’s new airport, although British officials said the project would not be ready for the colony’s return to China in 1997.

Mr Leotard, 53, was defence minister from 1993 until last month. The Republican Party is the biggest of several groups making up the Union for French Democracy (UDF), junior partner in the coalition government Reuter. Leotard to undergo heart bypass

Paris – Francois Leotard, elected this week to head France’s Republican Party, was in hospital yesterday after suffering heart trouble and will undergo bypass surgery. Instead of letting Mr Hussain return and holding municipal elections, which the MQM would win, she is using security forces, unsuccessfully, to try crushing the Mohajirs’ party.Inevitably, other ethnic communities are being swept up in the battle.Tired of having their lorries burned by Mohajir gunmen, the Pathans and Baluchis are kidnapping and torturing to death Mohajirs who stray into their neighbourhoods.As for Mr Khan – the storyteller and Islamic scholar who once brought peace to Orangi – he is in a US hospital with heart trouble “I’m glad he’s in America,” Mr Rashid said “I wouldn’t want him to see what’s happening to Karachi.”. To split the MQM, the Pakistani army gave support to a breakaway Mohajir faction, the MQM (Haqiqi), said by many Karachi businessmen to comprise blackmailers and thieves. Benazir Bhutto, the Prime Minister, has compounded the mistakes of her rival, Mr Sharif.

The former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was one who feared them; in 1992 he sent the army into Karachi to clean out MQM armed gangs.Mr Hussain fled to exile in London, and the MQM seemed defeated. Under Altaf Hussain, leader of the Mohajir Quami Movement, they became feared by some Pakistani politicians and courted by others. Until the mid-Eighties, they were jostled out of jobs and power by the native Sindhis and the other Pakistani ethnic communities living in Karachi.Then, after the 1985 riots, in which police failed to protect more than 120 Mohajirs from being killed by Pathans, the Mohajirs began arming themselves. Those shopkeepers who don’t strike are visited by youths with automatic rifles and cellular telephones beeping in their pockets – calls from gang leaders saying which shop to hit next.So what is happening to Karachi? The angriest people are the Mohajirs, who make up the majority of the city’s 12 million inhabitants. Ethnic communities that once planted neem trees together are digging war trenches and barricades against each other and the Rangers’ armoured cars.Rooftop snipers pick off mothers and small children; the pistol is being replaced by a rocket-propelled grenade; and even the Rangers are afraid to enter many Karachi neighbourhoods Yesterday, the Mohajirs forced the city to shut down. Even though the project gave loans without collateral, its low record of defaults would be the envy of any British bank.”We divide the defaulters into three categories: dishonest, incompetent and unfortunate,” he explained “These days, they are mostly the unfortunate ones. How can people work with so many bullets?” The “art of survival” means buying a gun.