Sudan frees UNICEF Dllot: Sudan has I freed the pilot of a UNICEF-leased aircraft detained since mid-March on suspicion of aiding southern rebels, the official Sudan News Agency said Saturday, AFP reports from Khartoum.

Sudan said it detained Richard Stewart, a Kenyan pilot, on March 15 after he landed the airplane without permission in the southern town of Bor, 1.050 kilometres (650 miles) south of Khartoum. Sudanese authorities accused Stewart of carrying documents they said he intended to pass on to rebels. The government is fighting the Sudan People's Liberation Army in the south.

Road mishap claims 19 in Mali: Nineteen people died ana 38 others were injured when a truck plunged into a ravine in southern Mali, police said yesterday. AFP reports from Bamako.

Ten of the injured were in serious condition after the accident which happened Thursday near Banamba. northeast of the capital Bamako. The truck also transported diesel canisters, scrap, building material and potash.

Noted British journalist Junor dies: Sir John Junor. one of the great editors and columnists in British journalism over the past-half century, died Saturday. He was 78. AP reports from London.

The cause and place of death was not announced. Junor was editor of the Sunday Express newspaper for 32 years and was knighted by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher shortly after she came to power in 1979. After leaving the editor's chair in 1986 he continued to write columns in the Sunday Express and later in The Mail on Sunday. "He was the best Sunday paper editor of his generation, taking the Sunday Express to an all-time high in both circulation and prestige," said Sir David English, editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Mail on Sunday.

Gunman kills 1 in Spain: A Spanish civil I guard officer was killed on Saturday in an attack in the Basque county town of Zierbena the prefecture in Vizcaya province said. AFP reports from Bilbao.

Jose Manuel Garcia Fernandez, 43. was shot in the back of the neck as he stood at the bar of a restaurant of the port by a young man who then fled in a car that waited outside. The assassination as typical of the Basque separatist group ETA. which has killed eight other people, including two policemen, since the beginning of this year, four more than for the whole of 1996.

Ivory Coast President visit China: Ivory Coast President Henri Konan Bedie arrived in Beijing yesterday for the first state visit to China by an Ivorian President since the country switched allegiance from Taiwan in 1983, Xinhua reported. AFP reports from Beijing.

Bedie's one-week visit to China at the . invitation of Chinese President Jiang Zemin came as state councillor Song Jian left for the Ivory Coast to promote scientific and technological contracts there. Last year. China granted the Ivory Coast a 6.2 million dollar loan, spread over a 15-year period, to build a light vehicle plant.

Oldest Japanese woman dies: Japan's oldest person, Sue Lltagawa. aged 113. died yesterday, her family said. AFP reports from Tokyo.

Utagawa died of natural causes at a hospital in Ube, western Japan, where she lived since turning 100 in 1984. She passed away as if falling asleep, a family member reportedly said.