World IN BRIEF : GUATEMALA : Rebels to Negotiate on Ending Civil War

Representatives of Guatemala’s guerrilla alliance met with a government-approved commission in Oslo and signed an agreement to open talks on ending the nation’s 28-year-old civil war. The accord said the United Nations was asked to monitor the peace process. The head of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity rebel alliance, Luis Becker Guzman, also said the Guatemalan government had rejected an offer for an Easter truce. The pact calls for a second round of talks, tentatively scheduled for late May, between the rebels and Guatemala’s political parties. The talks in Norway are the first since 1989.