Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko is reportedly resting in Togo. Togolese government sources say that Mobutu is staying at the home of the country’s dictator. Earlier reports had Mobutu on his way to Morocco. Mobutu fled his homeland yesterday after rebels captured his jungle palace in northern Zaire.

This news in this country: Defense firms emerged relatively unscathed in the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, expected to be released today. No major programs were canceled. In fact, the review calls for cuts in troops and bases in order to spend more on weapons. The procurement budget is set to rise to nearly $60 billion a year in 2002, from $40 billion today.

President Clinton has set a target of 10 years for developing an AIDS vaccine but offered no new federal spending. Speaking in Maryland, the president urged drug companies to put more money into AIDS vaccine research. Some AIDS activists criticized the plan, citing its ambitious goal and lack of new federal funding.

This news from Cleveland: Trying to guarantee freedom of speech has proved difficult for Cleveland police. Riot-equipped officers used pepper spray last night to hold back anti-Ku Klux Klan protesters who rallied outside a venue where former KKK leader David Duke spoke. Three people were arrested and charged with inciting to riot. Duke called the protesters communists and said their rally shows he’s doing a doggone good job.

Prosecutors prepare to wrap up their case this week with FBI laboratory evidence they hope will show Timothy McVeigh used a fertilizer truck bomb to destroy the Oklahoma City Federal Building. FBI chemist Steven Burmeister is expected to tell jurors that he found explosive residue on the T-shirt and faded black jeans McVeigh was wearing when he was arrested 90 minutes after the April '95 blast. A Justice Department report last month criticized parts of the FBI crime lab. The report said a lab supervisor had decided a 4,000-pound ammonium nitrate fuel oil bomb was used at Oklahoma City, based on alleged ingredient purchases by the defendants rather than scientific evidence. Prosecutors removed four FBI agents criticized for their lab work from their list of witnesses. It was unknown whether U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch will allow Jones to pursue the lab's problems during his defense.

South Africa, grappling with a spiraling crime wave and overcrowded prisons, is inviting the private sector to build new jails. Tender documents asking companies to bid for the financing, design, construction and operation of four new prisons will be issued on May 21. The government is looking for private firms to build two maximum-security jails, each for 1,500 prisoners.

This news from Hong Kong: Chinese pro-democracy dissident Chai Ling voiced concern today about the future of freedom in Hong Kong and urged the People’s Liberation Army not to repeat the 1989 massacre of protesters in Beijing. Chai was one of the student leaders who spearheaded the 1989 democracy movement in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. He was in Hong Kong for a short visit, held a news conference, when asked to comment on moves by Hong Kong’s post-handover leader Tung Chee-hwa to curb civil liberties. Tung unveiled his plan to limit protest rights and ban foreign funding of political groups last month. The curbs would take effect on July 1, after Britain hands its 156-year-old colony back to China as a quasi-autonomous capitalist region.

The leaders of Sinn Féin, the IRA’s political wing, arrived at the House of Commons today to protest against a ruling that they may not use offices in the Parliament to which they were elected on May 1. Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams and the party’s chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, shook hands with a few cheering supporters and posed for photographers before going in for talks with parliamentary authorities.