Hinn

Yeltsin advised rest: kUUm

Bocls.,Yc)ta)n , has .been laid tow by an acute respiratory- viral infection and his doctors have ordered him Ip rest fqr JO^o days. Reuter reports from Moscow.

However. Kremlin officials insist his Illness Is not serious and say the 66-year old president will continue working on documents at the sanatorium outside Moscow where he is staying. Today. Yeltsin was expected to record a radio address to be broadcast to the Russian people on Friday’s constitution day. which is a national holiday.

Canadian jet crash survivors' airlifted:

Survivors of a Canadian plane crash spent the night at a nursing station in a remote northern community, and reached a Winnipeg hospital Wednesday after rescuers finally managed to overcome bad weather, AP reports from Little Grand Rapids.

The injured had been pulled from the wreckage Tuesday afternoon by police and volunteers who raced to the crash site on snow machines. Four Manitobans were killed as the commuter plane tried to land at the gravel airstrip in Little Grand Rapids, an aboriginal community near the Ontario-Manitoba boundary.

UN team to begin work in Congo: un investigators finally got the go-ahead to begin interviewing residents Thursday in a town where President Laurent Kabila's forces allegedly slaughtered Rwandan refugees, often in full view of townspeople. AP reports from Kinshasa.

Team members met with Congo officials Wednesday in the northwestern town of Mbandaka. and the officials pledged to assist the probe, team leader Jose Diaz said.

Seventeen UN investigators and 10 local workers have set up camp in Mbandaka. a remote town with no electricity or clean water.

Fiji to restore rule of Queen:

Ten years after a military coup broke ties with Britain and made the nation a republic, Fiji will restore Queen Elizabeth II as its constitutional monarch, the prime minister said Thursday, AP reports from Suva.

Prime Minster Sitiveni Rabuka — who led two coups in 1987 against an Indian-dominated government — was, addressing Fijian clans celebrating Fiji's return to the Commonwealth last October.

Rabuka said the stage should be set for the return of normal relations with Britain, and said the Queen's restoration as the monarch of Fiji reflected the wishes of the Fijian people.

Gorbachev ready to join Solzhenitsyn:

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said Wednesday that he was ready to join with writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn to save the people of Russia. AP reports from Moscow.

Gorbachev has little influence in Russia today and for his gesture to the Russian people he chose another figure from the past whose star has fallen.

"I am ready to support Solzhenitsyn, ready to sign an appeal to Russians with him. to call for agreeing to a new combination of political forces in order to change something." Gorbachev said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ramos names new army chief:

President Fidel Ramos yesterday named Lieutenant General Clemente Mariano as the new Chief of Staff of the Philippine Armed Forces, a presidential aide said. AFP reports from Manila.