News Currents
MIDDLE EAST DEVELOPMENTS Israel renewed its policy of deporting Palestinian activists in an attempt to end a wave of Arab attacks inside Israel. The Army said that four Palestinian activists from the occupied Gaza Strip, accused of acting as field leaders of the outlawed fundamentalist Hamas movement, were issued deportation orders Saturday.... US Congressmen Richard Gephardt and Charles Schumer said Saturday that the United States had not done enough to obtain allied financial and troop support in the Gulf crisis. They said US allies had pledged only 29 percent of the $37 billion they estimated the Gulf operations will cost this year.... A US Army helicopter flying to Houston on its way to join the allied forces in Saudi Arabia has crashed, killing all three people aboard, Army officials said Saturday.
EUROPE
In Rome, European Community leaders have welcomed Britain back into the fold, granted $1.5 billion in aid to the Soviet Union, and eased sanctions against South Africa prohibiting new investments. An arms ban and a prohibition on imports of South African gold coins, iron, and steel remain intact.... A third of the work force in eastern Germany will be unemployed by the middle of next year and job prospects will not improve until 1992. The prognosis was more pessimistic than previous Bonn government forecasts of between 2.1 million and 2.5 million jobless and short-time workers in eastern Germany.... In Warsaw, President-elect Lech Walesa has chosen prominent Solidarity lawyer Jan Olszewski to be Poland's new prime minister and asked him to form a government.... Romanian opposition parties have lined up a coalition against the post-Communist government amid a swell of worker and student unrest. The six biggest parliamentary opposition parties came together Saturday to form the National Convention for the Introduction of Democracy to oppose the ruling National Salvation Front.
LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
Two Brazilian ranchers were convicted Saturday of the 1988 murder of rain-forest activist Chico Mendes and were sentenced to 19 years in prison. Mendes fought to preserve the rain forest and made enemies of cattle ranchers who wanted to clear the forest for pasture land.... Nicaraguan legislators cut proposed military spending by 25 percent Saturday after three weeks of intense debate with Sandinista leaders who demanded no reductions in the Sandinista-dominated military. The National Assembly voted to slash $19.6 million from the $78.6 million in military spending.... Costa Rican President Rafael Calderon opened a Central American summit Saturday, praising President Bush's free-trade ambitions as a potential bedrock for increased regional trade and cooperation.... In Colombia, leftist guerrillas destroyed an airliner and 24 people were killed in three massacres. Guerrillas of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces took over a small airport at Villa Garzon Saturday.
