Around The World

TYPHOON PETER KILLS WOMAN, DISRUPTS JAPANESE TRANSIT

TOKYO - Typhoon Peter stormed through southern Japan today, killing one person, disrupting air, rail and road traffic and triggering landslides.

Peter, the second typhoon to hit Japan this month, was packing maximum winds of 67 mph and was expected to dump up to 14 inches of rain, the Meteorological Agency said.

Early today, the storm was whirling through Nagasaki, 600 miles southwest of Tokyo, and moving northeast toward the main island of Honshu, the agency said.

More than 100 domestic flights were canceled.

Police said a 44-year-old woman drowned after falling into a river while trying to get into her car.

Flash-flood warnings were issued throughout southern and central Japan, including Tokyo.

Last week, Typhoon Opal killed one person and disrupted air, rail and road traffic in central Japan.

Opposition leader freed after detention in Congo

KINSHASA, Congo - Congo's leading opposition figure, Etienne Tshisekedi, was released early yesterday from several hours of detention and interrogation that touched off sporadic violence by his supporters.

Mobs of young men burned several cars and trucks, rampaged through three gas stations and torched dozens of tires to protest his incarceration by the Congolese government. Soldiers loyal to newly installed President Laurent Kabila fired warning shots in the air several times to disperse rock-throwing crowds.

Kabila's troops detained the longtime opposition leader Thursday night after Tshisekedi apparently refused to attend a meeting with the president.

No agreement on what to do about the Earth

UNITED NATIONS - The spirit of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit came down to Earth here yesterday.

The world's nations were ending their five-year follow-up summit with a warning that the oceans, the forests, the atmosphere are still in trouble, and the population of poor is growing. But they couldn't agree on what to do about it - especially on where the money should come from.

"Very serious divisions" kept representatives of 170 governments from agreeing on a keynote political statement to conclude the conference, the summit chairman said.

The biggest division was between the industrial world and a Third World "aggrieved" over a shortfall in development aid, said chairman Razali Ismail, Malaysian president of the U.N. General Assembly.

Death toll climbs to 9 from Caribbean volcano

OLVESTON, Montserrat - The death toll from Montserrat's rumbling volcano rose to nine yesterday as searchers found three more bodies in debris left behind when a surge of ultra-hot rocks and gas burned through seven villages on the Caribbean island.

"Nine, that is correct," government spokesman Claude Hogan said. Authorities were able to identify only three of those who had been killed on Wednesday, two women from Dominica and a man from Guyana.