Gurkhas

Warren Skaaren, who rewrote troubled screenplays into such box office blockbusters as "Top Gun" and "Batman," has died at his home in Austin, Tex. He was 44. Skaaren, who also worked on the scripts of "Beetlejuice" and "Beverly Hills Cop II," was writing "Beetlejuice II" when he died last Friday of bone cancer. Born March 9, 1946, in Rochester, Minn., Skaaren moved to Houston to study chemical engineering at Rice University.

An Afghan border policeman on Monday turned his weapon on Western troops, fatally shooting six of them. NATO did not disclose the nationalities of the slain soldiers, but a Pentagon official said they were American. The Western military said it was investigating the attack, which took place during a training exercise in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan. The regional commander of the Afghan border police, Gen. Aminullah Amarkhail, said all the trainers were U.S. troops. Pentagon spokesman Marine Col. David Lapan in Washington confirmed the nationalities.

Peace came lumberingly, noisily and poignantly to Kosovo on Saturday as what appeared to be endless convoys of thundering tanks and heavily armored vehicles inched across the border to clear and secure the two-lane road leading to the provincial capital, Pristina. KFOR, as the international peacekeeping force for the Serbian province is known, got off to a roaring start about 5:30 a.m.

Runners competing in the New York marathon will face some unusual competition Sunday when five Ghurka soldiers line up for the annual race. The soldiers are stationed in Hong Kong, where, during working hours, they chase down illegal immigrants trying to enter the British crown colony from China. The Ghurkas, sturdy Nepalese mountain men, have served in the British Army since the mid-19th Century, and have fought enemies of the empire from Afghanistan to the Falkland Islands.

In India, where peaceful protests gave birth to a nation four decades ago, the cradle of nonviolence is being rocked by regional rebellions, terrorist attacks and the taking of hostages. To some, the land of gurus has become the land of guns. At least 1,837 people were killed and more than 5,000 wounded in political and sectarian violence in 1987, according to figures compiled by the government. "India is a boiling caldron. I mean, a boiling, democratic caldron," a Home Ministry spokesman says.

A look at selected games Friday in the City and Southern sections. CITY SECTION SCORE: Fremont 26 Garfield 15 SYNOPSIS: David Espinoza kicked two field goals, including a 45-yarder, and James Tillman rushed for 180 yards and two touchdowns in 21 carries for the Pathfinders (8-2). * SCORE: Westchester 56 Fairfax 0 SYNOPSIS: Brennan Crooks completed six of 10 passes for 211 yards and four touchdowns, including two to Jeron Tatum, to leads the visiting Comets (10-0).

Violent repercussions of a Koran-burning at an obscure Florida evangelical church shook Afghanistan again Saturday, with authorities in the southern city of Kandahar reporting up to eight deaths in an angry street protest a day after an attack on the U.N. headquarters in a northern city left seven foreigners dead. Nerves were further jangled in the Afghan capital when a team of gunmen and at least one suicide bomber tried to storm an American-run military installation on Kabul's outskirts early Saturday.

It is our own fault. We Brits have picked and worried at this old scab of the "special relationship" until President Bill Clinton mercifully stepped in to stop the bleeding and save us from our own foolish myths and self-inflicted wound. In Bonn last week, Clinton dispatched the British concept of the Anglo-American partnership to the mists of the sentimental past, and embraced America's new intimacy with Germany. Quite right, too, from Clinton's point of view.

Can a mix of international cooperation, great power diplomacy and well-crafted political constraints prevent yet another Cambodian tragedy? The departure of about 50,000 Vietnamese troops from Cambodia gives this question new urgency.