LONDON

The engineering group Vickers announced its intention to accept $570 million from Germany's BMW for the luxury car maker Rolls-Royce. Despite the announcement, rival bidder Volkswagen raised its offer. Vickers might stick with BMW's bid even if VW's is higher. BMW could invest another $1.6 billion in Rolls, tripling its production to 6,000 cars per year, and is also favored because it is already partnered with the separate Rolls-Royce aircraft engine company and has threatened to stop supplying engines and other components if Rolls goes to another buyer.

BORDEAUX

After six months of testimony and 19 hours of deliberations, a Bordeaux court convicted Maurice Papon, 87, a former official of the collaborationist Vichy regime, of complicity in crimes against humanity. A panel of three judges and nine jurors sentenced Papon to 10 years in prison and stripped him of his civil rights for 10 years. As secretary-general of the Bordeaux prefecture, Papon had signed the arrest and deportation orders that sent more than 1,500 Jews to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. Papon argued that he had only obeyed orders and was unaware of the deportees' fates. He remains free pending an appeals process that could last at least a year.

BRUSSELS

As negotiations to enlarge the European Union formally began, the presence of Cyprus--along with the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia--among the applicants increased tensions on the divided island and provoked threats from both Greece and Turkey. Ankara warned the E.U. that starting talks with the Greek-ruled segment of Cyprus before the problems of Turkish Cypriots had been solved could be "very dangerous." The self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus brought formal union with Turkey closer by announcing a joint economic zone between the two. Athens threatened to block the whole enlargement process if Cyprus' application is held up.

KARLSRUHE

When Germany's Constitutional Court threw out a civil suit challenging the country's entry into European Monetary Union, it removed the last sticking point before the introduction of a single currency. The petition, introduced by a former Bundesbank council member and three other academics, had sought to enjoin the government, arguing that the Maastricht criteria have not been strictly fulfilled. But the court decided that the complaint was "clearly unfounded" because the treaty allows ample scope for government decision making. Next day the Bundestag voted overwhelmingly to approve the timetable for a complete changeover from deutsche mark to euro by July 1, 2002.

BELGRADE

After the U.N. Security Council voted 14-0 in favor of a largely symbolic arms embargo against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, President Slobodan Milosevic once again rebuffed international pressure and announced a plebiscite on foreign involvement in the troubled Serbian province of Kosovo. Milosevic, though, could not avoid the severe economic pressures dogging him and was forced to devalue the Yugoslav dinar by 45%, sparking fears of a return to the hyper-inflation of 1993 and 1994.

NIZHNI NOVGOROD

The election of Andrei Klimentyev--a millionaire businessman twice convicted of fraud and currently on trial on new fraud charges--as mayor of Russia's third largest city provoked outrage in the Kremlin. The electoral commission in the city, touted as the show case of reform, moved swiftly to annul the vote. After the police arrested Klimentyev for instigating public disobedience, his supporters protested outside the courthouse demanding his release and reinstatement. Klimentyev's 34% of the vote came mostly from those protesting long-unpaid wages and declining living standards

JERUSALEM

Israel's government for the first time accepted a 20-year-old U.N. Security Council resolution that calls on it to withdraw Israeli troops from southern Lebanon. "Israel is expressing... its determination to leave Lebanon," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel conditioned the pullout on the Lebanese government's assuming control over the area and "guaranteeing" that its territory will not be used for attacks on Israel. Beirut dismissed the gesture as meaningless and repeated the call for an unconditional Israeli retreat. Syria, Lebanon's overlord, prefers the Israelis mired in south Lebanon as a means of pressuring them to return the occupied Golan Heights.

JOHANNESBURG

South African rugby is embroiled in a scrimmage with the government-appointed National Sports Council over the conduct of Louis Luyt, the abrasive Afrikaner who is president of the South African Rugby Football Union. Luyt--whose dictatorial hold over the game, say members of the N.S.C., has not changed from the old racist order--had mounted a High Court challenge to a government-appointed commission of inquiry into S.A.R.F.U.'s activities. The Union further enraged black officials of the N.S.C. by securing a subpoena ordering President Mandela himself to appear. Now the sport's governing body has given Luyt and his executive an ultimatum: Resign or face government action to encourage other countries to boycott the country's international rugby team as well as other South African teams competing overseas.

CHANDIGARH

Indian officials in the northern state of Haryana had to admit that prohibition had failed when they lifted a 21-month long ban on liquor sales. Boozers had simply made a bee-line for the capital New Delhi, across the state line, or ended up buying illicit moonshine--ofen so toxic that it killed dozens of people. The state also lost nearly $3 million in liquor taxes, and suffered a fall in property prices because tipplers preferred living in wet New Delhi. On April 1, when the ban was repealed, thousands of revelers swarmed to roadside stalls--known as English Wine Shops--to tank up on Indian brands of liquor.

PHNOM PENH

Violent protests broke out when Prince Norodom Ranariddh returned to Cambodia from exile to prepare his royalist party for a general election on July 26. It was his first visit since being ousted by co-Prime Minister and archrival Hun Sen in a bloody coup last July. Armed police broke up street fighting between supporters and opponents of the prince. It is believed Hun Sen orchestrated a series of protests to bolster his demand that Ranarridh pay the estimated $54 million he was fined on charges of arms smuggling, conspiring with the Khmer Rouge, and for damage caused during the coup, charges on which he was later pardonned by King Sihanouk.

BERKELEY

California's ban on racial preferences in university admissions has resulted in a huge drop in the number of minorities offered a place at the state's top two public undergraduate colleges. The University of California at Berkeley reported a 61% decrease in the number of blacks, Hispanics and American Indians admitted to the first freshman class affected by the ban; at UCLA the number fell 36%. There was a slight increase for Asian-Americans, who are not considered underrepresented in the UC system and did not receive preferential treatment before the ban. Proposition 209, the anti-affirmative action referendum approved by California voters in 1996, had a similar effect on law school admissions when it was phased in at the graduate level last year.

MEXICO CITY

Retired Army General Julio Cesar Santiago Diaz, chief adviser to the Chiapas state police and head of the auxiliary police, was charged with homicide by neglect of duty for his role in a massacre at the village of Acteal last December in which 45 died. Santiago Diaz, said the Attorney General's Office, listened for five hours to the guns firing at the villagers and not only failed to intervene but also told his superiors that nothing was going on. Of the more than 150 people--including several state policemen--who have been charged or are under investigation in connection with the killings, Santiago Diaz is the most senior official to date to be implicated.

BOA VISTA

Brazilian prayers were answered when long-awaited rains finally arrived to put out the fires that had devastated the state of Roraima for over six weeks. On Wednesday alone 30 mm of rain fell, putting out 95% of the blazes, with hopes that soon Roraima would be totally free of fires. According to official estimates, 15% of the vegetation in the state, some 40,000 sq. km, has been destroyed in the worst fires ever recorded there. The vast majority of the devastation involved savannah land which should regenerate in the next year, the damaged rain forests will take up to 40 years to recover.