Zambia Government

Rebels tried unsuccessfully to overthrow Zambian President Frederick Chiluba on Tuesday, raising fears of political instability in a country considered a bulwark of peace in Southern Africa. The putsch was thwarted about five hours after it was announced on state radio by the leader of a previously unknown military group calling itself the National Redemption Council.

Under international pressure to either free former President Kenneth D. Kaunda or put him on trial, Zambia's government released him from prison Wednesday but put him under house arrest. Kaunda was arrested Dec. 25, soon after returning from a trip abroad. Zambia accused the 73-year-old former leader of inciting an Oct. 28 coup attempt. Kaunda arrived home in the capital, Lusaka, at dusk Wednesday after an 80-mile journey from prison.

This small kingdom's new Military Council was sworn in at the royal palace Friday, and at least 60 members of the African National Congress guerrilla group were deported in a bid to remove strains with neighboring South Africa. Maj. Gen. Justin Lekhanya, head of Lesotho's 1,500-man paramilitary force and the man who overthrew the autocratic prime minister, Chief Leabua Jonathan, on Monday, took the oath of office as chairman of the new six-member council.

The government accused UNITA rebels Saturday of shooting down an army helicopter and killing 22 soldiers on board, but said it was not a major violation of the current truce. The official Jornal de Angola newspaper said the helicopter was downed Friday in southeastern Cuando-Cubango province while carrying sick and wounded soldiers. An accompanying editorial indicated that the government did not consider it a major incident.

In the village of Kooma, people compete with baboons and birds for nuts and wild fruit to survive. "We share with animals," said Elliot Magoloi, 68. "It's a shame." His face was gaunt. Frayed blue coveralls hung from his body. Drought has left as many as 14.4 million people facing possible starvation, according to United Nations estimates. Here, in Zambia's southern province, a flat landscape of sandy soil and crackling, dry yellow grasses, the crisis has hit especially hard.

Big game is big business in parts of Africa. Tourists pay millions of dollars a year to come and see Africa's wildlife--and smugglers pay millions more in strictly illegal purchases of ivory and rhino horn from poachers. In Tanzania, the government charges $2,500 for each elephant legally shot by a hunter.

Two South African police officers were killed and four others were seriously wounded early Sunday in an ambush by gunmen believed to be black insurgents. Police headquarters in Pretoria said that a small truck carrying seven black police officers, most of them returning home at the end of their shift, was fired upon from another vehicle in Soweto, the black satellite city outside Johannesburg.

The South African government imposed severe restrictions Friday on the political activities of Govan Mbeki, the recently freed chairman of the outlawed African National Congress. Mbeki was prohibited from leaving the coastal city of Port Elizabeth, where he lives, without police permission, from giving interviews to journalists and from preparing any material for publication. Gen. Hendrik G.

The African National Congress, unbanned by the South African government Friday, is the oldest liberation movement in Africa and has spent the past 30 years as an outlaw guerrilla organization dedicated to overthrowing white minority-led rule.

My downstairs neighbor, eight months pregnant, recently stopped me in the elevator to share her dilemma about whether to have her baby boy circumcised. For a growing number of American parents today -- particularly in urban centers like Los Angeles and New York -- the decision to cut or not to cut is not the foregone conclusion it used to be.