Yugoslavia
U.S. troops open fire on Albanian rebels
U.S. peacekeepers in Kosovo opened fire Wednesday on ethnic-Albanian guerrillas, wounding two of them. Nearby, violence also flared in southern Serbia's volatile Presevo Valley, where three Yugoslav soldiers were killed by a land mine.
The fresh upsurge of bloodshed could mark an important turning point in NATO's involvement in the separatist Serbian province. The peacekeeping mission began as an attempt to protect Kosovo's ethnic-Albanian majority from Serbian repression but now, for the first time, has seen U.S. troops cause confirmed casualties of ethnic-Albanian guerrillas. The tough U.S. action Wednesday "definitely sends a message ... that we're more than capable of defending ourselves," said Sgt. Richard Puckett, a spokesman for the peacekeepers, "and we're not going to let these groups use Kosovo as a safe haven."
UNITED NATIONS
Sanctions imposed in gems-for-guns swap
The Security Council imposed an embargo Wednesday on Liberia's trade in weapons and diamonds in an effort to halt the country's arms-for-gems support for rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone. The weapons ban is an extension of an embargo put in place in 1992 during the country's civil war. Other sanctions will not go into effect for two months to give Liberia a chance to prove it has stopped backing the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front in their movement to topple the government of Sierra Leone.
The RUF has terrorized Sierra Leone's population by raping, murdering or chopping off the hands and limbs of thousands of civilians in its quest to wrest control of the country and its diamond mines.
Alberta
Gunman subdued on college campus
Police overpowered a man with a shotgun at the University of Alberta campus on Wednesday after getting a tip that he might attack people.
Two plainclothes police tackled the man outside the university's engineering building around midday. They confiscated a shotgun and a knife. No one was injured.
The suspect, whose name was not released, was a former student barred from campus in November for violent behavior, a school official said. No further details were disclosed.
Russia
Siberian avalanche strands motorists
An avalanche of snow has trapped about 200 people in vehicles on a Siberian highway and at least two people died from carbon monoxide poisoning as they tried to keep warm in their truck, officials said Wednesday.
About 50 cars and four passenger buses were stuck along a 2 1/2-mile stretch of highway in the Yermakov district, about 2,100 miles east of Moscow. By late Wednesday, most stranded motorists had been evacuated from the road to nearby villages.
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