Revolts

Liberia handed over the body of warlord Sam Bockarie to neighboring Sierra Leone, which has indicted him for atrocities. Bockarie, a former disco dancer and hairdresser who became one of the region's most feared rebel commanders, was killed in a shootout with Liberian government forces May 6. Since then, Sierra Leone's U.N.-backed special court for war crimes had demanded that the corpse be handed over for independent identification. The court is probing crimes such as amputations and mass rape.

Donning the mantle of regional leader again after a series of illnesses, President Boris N. Yeltsin won pledges from Russia's neighbors Friday to make common cause against terrorism and announced steps to end three armed conflicts in its former empire.

Militant Corsican nationalists occupied the French Mediterranean island's parliament building while police outside used tear gas to disperse demonstrators in Corsica's capital. A fire erupted on the building's fifth floor. Its cause was not immediately clear. Nationalists occupied the building after several hundred people demonstrated to protest what they said was growing repression on the island.

Battles, bombings and air raids killed at least 34 people across northern Sri Lanka, the military said, as a Japanese envoy met with officials to try to stop the fighting. In the latest attack, soldiers thrust into Tamil Tiger rebel territory in northern Mannar district and captured nine bunkers, killing nine insurgents, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said. Two soldiers also died in the fighting, he said. Earlier, a roadside bomb hit a van just south of the front lines separating government forces from the Tigers' de facto state in the north, Nanayakkara said.

In his dreams, Tu Tongjin is back on the battlefield, a terror-stricken young medic wandering the Chinese countryside with Mao Tse-tung and his fledgling Red Army. He is marching again, always marching. All around him are the bodies, including those of the 40,000 killed in one battle alone. He's starving, eating only grass. He feels the nagging cold and desperation of being hounded by death and pursued by a relentless enemy army. "What I remember most," the 94-year-old says, "is the chaos."

He seems more fable than flesh and blood, a general who marched with serendipity at his side. Wartime comrades say he walked away from downed aircraft, defied bullets and dodged artillery shells. Once, the story goes, a barrage of bombs landed around him and not one exploded. Even in defeat, Gen. Vang Pao of the Royal Lao Army consistently beat the odds. After the communists conquered his homeland in 1975, he fled with six wives and more than 20 children to the U.S.

As rebels in Chad fought for a second day to take control of the nation's capital, analysts said Sunday that the outcome of the attempted coup could have far-reaching implications for the Darfur conflict in neighboring Sudan.

Thousands of frightened Chadians took advantage of a lull in fighting Monday to flee N'Djamena when rebels withdrew from the capital after two days of heavy clashes with government troops. Officials, however, warned that battles were probably not over; rebel leaders vowed to attack again. "Rebels still have a capability of fighting," said Capt.

Hundreds of civilians have died in fierce fighting between rebels and government forces here in Chad's capital, Red Cross officials said Tuesday, as the insurgents agreed to a cease-fire. Rebel leader Mahamat Nouri, leader of the biggest of three rebel groups in a coalition, told BBC radio Tuesday afternoon that the coalition accepted a Libyan-brokered cease-fire. Nouri said he did not think that the government had accepted.

Two top U.N. officials said Friday that the continuing conflict in Darfur had thwarted a yearlong effort to start peace talks and deploy a peacekeeping force there, while new conflict in neighboring Chad could ignite a regional war. U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno and the special envoy for Sudan, Jan Eliasson, told the Security Council that increasing clashes between Sudanese troops and rebels in western Darfur made it difficult to deliver aid to the area and deploy peacekeepers.