Arafat leaves for US: Palestinian President Yasser Arafat left for the United States yesterday after a day of talks in Cairo on Israel’s decision to build a new Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem. Reuter reports from Cairo.

Arafat told the Cairo-based Arab League on Saturday the Israeli plan was an attempt to destroy the peace process. Peace with settlements was impossible, he said. Arafat suggested he might retaliate by declaring a Palestinian state, a gesture likely to anger rightwing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

36,000 lost homes in Iran: As many as 36.000 people lost their homes in the strong earthquake which devastated the northwestern Iranian province of Ardebil on Friday. Radio Tehran reported Sunday, AFP says from Tehran.

The quake which hit 5.5 degrees on the Richter scale whose theoretical maximum is nine, killed 502 people and left more than 2.000 injured, according to the latest provisional toll given by the Iranian authorities. The quake which occurred at 16:31 local time Friday (1301 GMT) totally wiped out or seriously damaged 110 villages in the mountainous Ardebil region, according to the Iranian Red Crescent organisation.

Albenian PM's resignation accepted: Albanian President Sali Berisha accepted Prime Minister Aleksander Meksi's resignation on Saturday, the state-run news agency ATA said. Reuter reports from Tirana.

It quoted a presidential office statement as saying Berisha had asked him to stay on in a caretaker role until a successor was named following consultations among political parties. Berisha had announced earlier that Meksi would quit.

Quake hits northern Japan: a moderate earthquake hit off Japan's northernmost main island Sunday morning. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, AP reports from Tokyo.

The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 5.0. was centred about 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) beneath the ocean off the eastern coast of the island of Hokkaido, the Meteorological Agency said. The quake struck at 10:04 am (0104 GMT).

8 Arab states due to meet in Cairo: Experts from eight Arab nations are due to meet in Cairo next week to discuss a security protocol proposed by Saudi Arabia to bolster cooperation between them, officials said on Saturday, AFP reports from Cairo.

The meeting of the So-called Damascus Declaration countries. which group Egypt. Syria and the six-member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), will take place March 5 and 6 at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, they said. Saudi Arabia, which proposed the protocol, has been hit by a series of terrorist attacks in recent months. In June 1996. a booby-trapped truck rammed into a US base in Dhahran killing 19 Americans.

Liz hospitalised after brain surgery: Elizabeth Taylor has suffered a seizure and been hospitalised, nine days after surgeons carved a golfball-size tumor from her brain, her publicist said. AP reports from Los Angeles.

Miss Taylor, who turned 65 on Thursday, was stricken by the seizure about 4 pm Saturday (0000 GMT Sunday) at her Bel-Air home and was immediately taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, said Shirine Ann Coburn. "She's fine now.