November 12, 1995
Web posted at: 8:40 p.m. EST (0140 GMT)
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israel will issue a postage stamp next month bearing a picture of slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The stamp will go on sale on the 30-day anniversary of Rabin's November 4 assassination. Communications Minister Shulamit Aloni said stamps commemorating prime ministers usually appear a year after their death, but this one had been speeded up because of the assassination.
BAKU, Azerbaijan (CNN) - The former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan on Sunday held its first parliamentary election since it won independence in 1991. Citizens also voted on a constitution expected to increase President Haydar Aliyev's powers.
International election monitors cast doubt on the fairness of the election, saying that some people voted several times. The vote had already been criticized because many opposition parties and candidates had been excluded. Aliyev, a 72-year- old former member of the ruling Soviet politburo, said the election was democratic.
ZAGREB, Croatia (CNN) - Serbs abandoned a four-year separatist revolt in Croatia Sunday, signing an accord to hand over the strategic Eastern Slavonia region and lifting the threat of fighting that could have wrecked peace hopes in the Balkans.
The agreement calls for restoration of Croatian control over Eastern Slavonia after a transitional period of one year under international military authority.
The accord ends a Serb rebellion that erupted in war when Croatia broke away from former Yugoslavia in 1991. Almost 100,000 Croat inhabitants driven out of the Eastern Slavonia region in the fighting would be able to return, while Serbs who lived there when the war erupted could retain their homes.
The Croatian army recaptured two other rebel Serb enclaves earlier this year and President Franjo Tudjman had threatened to use force in East Slavonia if peace efforts did not work by the end of November.
From Reuters news service
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala (CNN) -- For the first time in decades, Guatemalans voted Sunday in presidential and legislative elections supported by both government and opposition forces.
Leftist guerrillas called a two-week cease fire for the vote, ending 35 years of election boycotts. The left has close allies in the running, and the variety of participants marks a departure in Guatemala's turbulent history.
Still, the corruption of past presidents has left many voters skeptical. The current crop of 19 candidates includes a former defense minister fined millions in a U.S. court for human rights abuses, an ex-attorney general once arrested for conning elderly relatives, and a businessman allegedly involved in several coup attempts during the 1980s.
From Reuters news service.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) -- The toll from avalanche-related deaths in the Himalayan region rose to 43 Sunday as buildings collapsed from heavy rains, killing 17 people.
On Saturday, an avalanche left 26 people dead, 13 of them Japanese trekkers near Mount Everest. The trekkers and their Nepali guides were swamped in snow at their overnight camp at Pangka, approximately 275 km (170 miles) northwest of Kathmandu. Nineteen others were ferried out by helicopter.
Sunday's heavy rains and landslides left another 50 foreign trekkers stranded elsewhere in the region.
From Reuters news service.
LONDON (CNN) -- After three false alarms this century, the Jehovah's Witnesses now say they will no longer predict the date of the end of the world.
The group first predicted that in the year 1914, the world would end and its followers would be saved. It later made the same prediction for the year 1925, and then for 1975.
"We do not need to know the exact timing of events," senior church officials said in its official Watchtower magazine. "Rather our focus must be on being watchful, cultivating strong faith and keeping busy in Jehovah's service."
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