Preliminary full-year figures also showed a 5.9-percent drop in cotton output to 4.33 million tonnes and a five-percent increase in oil-bearing crops to 22.65 million tonnes, the official Xinhua news agency quoted him as telling a media briefing here.

China's grain harvest was 494 million tonnes in 1997, down from the all-time record of 504 million tonnes set

The sources said that about 20 truckloads of such troops were brought from their Lungi garrison, 16 kilometres (10 miles) across the Sierra Leone estuary to the city itself in a three-day transfer.

The government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who returned to power in March after being ousted in May last year

The granting of "temporary protected status" affects an estimated 90,000 Hondurans and 60,000 Nicaraguans living in the United States as of Wednesday, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) said.

"Given the extent of the devastation of Hurricane Mitch we recognize that the way of recovery will be long,"

"Government sources have informed us that the aircraft fell in UNITA-controlled areas and we need UNITA assistance to determine the exact site of the crash and provide immediate relief to any survivors that may still be there on the ground," said UN special representative Issa Diallo.

The plane, a C-130 transport carrying

The Juijiang project will involve the repair and consolidation of banks, dykes and levees along a 196 kilometre (123 mile) section of the Yangtze river after waters breached existing banks, the news agency said.

China's summer flooding, the worst to hit the country since 1954, left 3,656 dead, mainly in the Yangtze River valley.

Although Jiangxi provincial Governor

The spokesman said a study of the impact of the four nights of US and British bombing, which ended on December 20, on the oil-for-food programme was under way in the centre and south of Iraq.

A skeleton crew of UN workers remained in the country during the assault but 100-odd staff took refuge in Jordan and returned last Wednesday.

They had not yet resumed full duties because of the holiday period, the spokesman explained.

LUANDA, Dec 28 (AFP) - Angolan government soldiers have broken a UNITA stranglehold on the strategic central town of Kuito, but still battled the rebel forces in nearby districts on Monday, reports from the region said.

During the morning, heavy guns of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) shelled Luanda's troops in Kunje, some seven kilometres (four miles) from Kuito, the private Ecclesia radio reported.

Kunje was in the hands of the government Angolan Armed Forces (FAA), but has been deserted by its inhabitants

Medhi told reporters UN staff monitoring the deal would stay in the country and implement the accord normally until it expires at the end of May.

But he restated Iraq's call for an end to sanctions and the lifting of the oil embargo imposed in 1990 after President Saddam Hussein sent troops into Kuwait triggering the Gulf War.

"The oil-food programme is a temporary

Ogata, who arrived here Sunday in an attempt to boost cooperation between aid groups, was accompanied with the OSCE verification mission chief, US diplomat William Walker Monday, western reporters at the scene said.

They visited central Kosovo town Malisevo, former stronghold of the ethnic Albanian rebels of the Kosovo Liberation