NAIROBI: More than 300 people were killed when about 1,200 Hutu rebels attacked a jail in northwest Rwanda in a bid to free hundreds of prisoners awaiting trial on genocide charges. Rwandan officials said the jail attack was launched and repulsed on Monday night, but clashes between the rebels and the Tutsi-dominated army continued in the area until Wednesday. Most of those in jail are awaiting trial on charges that they participated in the 1994, Rwandan genocide in which up to 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.

Russian official

MOSCOW: Boris Yeltsin named an unknown junior official to the No 2 in the presidential administration, replacing a disgraced official sacked over a graft scandal. Yeltsin had made molecular electronics experts Viktoriya Mitina, Kremlin's deputy chief of administration. Before being plucked from obscurity to the influential Kremlin post, Mitina had served as deputy prefect in Moscow's Zelenograd district, where she had a wide ranging brief covering industry, science and the media.

China quake

BEIJING: An earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale rocked the sparsely-populated Kunlun Mountains between Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and the Tibet autonomous region on Friday. The State Seismological Bureau here said, the epicentre of the quake was located at 37.0 degrees north latitude and 88.0 degrees east longitude. No casualties were reported.

Roy statue

BRISTOL: In a rare gesture, a nine feet statue of Raja Rammohan Roy, a prominent figure of the 19th century social and Renaissance in India, was unveiled at the place of his death near here by the Indian High Commissioner, Dr L M Singhvi. The bronze statue , sculptured by N Pradhan was unveiled in the presence of the Lord Mayor of Bristol, Jack Fisk, who described the event as ``satisfying to the city council in the year of celebrations for India's 50th independence anniversary''.

Jupiter's ring

WASHINGTON: The Hubble space telescope has peered deep into Jupiter's atmosphere for the first time, getting new images of the huge planet's ring, clouds and moon, astronomers said. The orbiting telescope's infrared camera was able to ``see'' bands of high-altitude clouds, which have never before been visible because lower-level clouds reflected back so much light that the higher clouds were indistinguishable. The presence of high-level and low-level clouds could provide clues about Jupiter's weather, since on earth, clouds carrying ice crystals sit higher in the atmosphere.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.