Breakthrough on landmines

GENEVA - The UN-sponsored Conference on Disarmament appointed a special co-ordinator, the Australian ambassador, Mr John Campbell, yesterday to try to start global negotiations to ban landmines, which are blamed for killing 25,000 people a year. In agreeing to the Western-backed move, non-aligned states cleared the way for the question of landmines to be tackled separately from dead-locked nuclear issues, diplomats said.