BBC reports:
Israel welcomes charter assurances
Israel has welcomed assurances that the Palestinian National Council will hold a vote to remove clauses in its charter which deny Israel's right to exist.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told Israeli reporters the PNC would be prepared to vote on the anti-Israel clauses, going further than the conditions laid down in the Wye River agreement.
http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST reports:
Hurricane Mitch Survivors cut off and dying from hunger
Thousands of Hondurans remain cut off from emergency food supplies shipped in after Hurricane Mitch and some are close to starvation, religious and political leaders said.
Hurricane Mitch tore through Honduras and Nicaragua late last month, killing an estimated 11,000 people in Central America, leaving thousands missing feared dead, and forcing three million from their homes.
Despite an international outpouring of help, the sheer extent of the destruction means many victims are still in need, Honduran officials said.
But those pledges are far outweighed by the economic damage, which is estimated at US$3 billion in Honduras, an amount nearly equal to its annual gross domestic product, and US$1 billion in Nicaragua, half its annual output.
http://www.scmp.com/news/template/World-Template

THE TIMES reports:
Simpson faces third 'murder trial'
O.J. SIMPSON may lose his two children after an Appeals Court demanded new custody hearings that threaten to take on the appearance of yet another murder trial.
Californian judges on Tuesday threw out a ruling that returned the former sport star's children to him after he was acquitted of murdering their mother, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman. Evidence that Mr Simpson was homicidal should not have been banned from the custody hearings, the judges said.
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk:80/news/pages/Times/frontpage.htm

THE TIMES reports:
Strikers challenge Mugabe
Business and industrial centres in all key urban areas in Zimbabwe were deserted, while townships were filled with thousands of riot police and soldiers with automatic rifles and machineguns. Harare's volatile townships were tense.
In the eastern city of Mutare, a man aged 20 was killed and an unknown number of people injured when soldiers opened fire on a mob which stoned cars and looted a petrol station.
The industrial action is the first in a series of strikes that the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) says will be held every Wednesday until the Government reverses a 70 per cent fuel price increase imposed on October 31, raises wages by 20 per cent and negotiates with unions and the private sector for comprehensive economic reforms.
The labour action is the most serious challenge to Mr Mugabe in his 18-year rule.
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk:80/news/pages/Times/frontpage.

THE TIMES reports:
OPEC demands compensation for global warming curbs
OIL-PRODUCING nations demanded compensation yesterday from the rest of the world for cash losses linked to fighting global warming.
They astonished delegates to a United Nations climate change conference here by claiming a share of what is likely to become a multibillion-pound fund being set up under the UN Climate Change Convention. The fund, called the Clean Development Mechanism, will allow rich nations to build clean power stations in the developing world and claim carbon credits to offset their emissions at home. A percentage of the funds will be used to help poor countries to adapt to rising sea levels, floods, drought and other effects of climate change.
But yesterday in Buenos Aires, Opec nations, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, argued that reducing the threat of global warming would lead to a sharp cut in oil demand. This would damage their economies, forcing them to adapt and thus giving them the right to a payout from the Clean Development Mechanism. The move, which includes Qatar, Venezuela and Nigeria, was attacked by Dr Ute Collier, climate change policy officer with the World Wide Fund for Nature. She said: "It is scandalous. These are some of the countries with the highest per capita incomes in the world wanting to take money meant for those with the poorest per capita income."
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk:80/news/pages/Times/frontpage.html?2646294

AP reports
Arab world warns Iraq
Eight Arab foreign ministers issued a statement in Qatar saying Iraq's continuing refusal to submit to U.N.-mandated weapons inspections could have serious consequences for the Arab country.
Citing the statement as evidence of ``near unanimity'' in the Arab world, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said, ``The U.S. feels this is a pretty good indicator of where the key Gulf countries stand on the latest crisis.''
http://wire.ap.org/?FRONTID=HOME&SITE=IOJKO