Datelines

Croatia

ZAGREB - Gojko Susak, Croatia's defense minister and a close ally of President Franjo Tudjman, is dead at age 53, the state-run HINA news agency reported.

Israel

TEL AVIV - Tel Aviv Mayor Roni Milo announced that he will run for prime minister in 2000 as the head of a new centrist party.

France

PARIS - The Louvre reopened with one fewer painting after the museum shut down over the weekend when a thief walked off with a 19th century landscape painted by Camille Corot.

Tajikistan

DUSHANBE - A senior Tajik official warned on Monday that the killing of three soldiers by an Islamist opposition group could shatter a fragile peace which was holding after days of fierce fighting.

Australia

CANBERRA - In a major setback for Prime Minister John Howard's conservative government, Australia's High Court has ordered the Patrick ship-loading company to rehire its fired union dockworkers.

Japan

TOKYO - Two British pilots trying to circle the globe in 80 days in a microlight plane to match the feat of the fictitious Phileas Fogg were looking eastward after landing in Japan.

Cyprus

NICOSIA - U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke blamed the breakaway Turkish Cypriot administration for the failure of talks to halt a slide towards conflict on the divided island of Cyprus.

China

BEIJING - China's maritime police have arrested 12 Indonesians for hijacking a Malaysian-flagged petroleum tanker and for smuggling in Chinese waters, a Chinese official said.

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