News Currents

WAR IN THE GULF A British television correspondent taken 100 miles into Kuwait reported Monday that opposition to allied troops driving into Kuwait has been very light. In a report on Sky television, reporter Aernout van Lynden said that Apache helicopter raids had evidently ``taken out'' most of the Iraqi opposition. He said the troops also told him that the moment they began shooting, the Iraqis fled.... During the first 24 hours of the ground assault, about 14,000 Iraqis had been captured or surrendered.... Coalition pilots reported some 80 Republican Guard tanks moving south toward advancing coalition forces in southern Iraq.... A Non-Aligned Movement peace team, representing Iran, Cuba, Yugoslavia, and India and seeking an end to the Gulf war, has canceled a planned visit to Baghdad to meet President Saddam Hussein, the Iranian news agency IRNA said Monday.... US Army units plan holding Iraqi territory for up to three weeks as part of their plan to free Kuwait, ``borrowing'' necessary food or supplies from Iraqi civilians during the brief stay, says Lt. Col. Kenneth Biser, a civil affairs officer who has planned the administration of the occupied areas.... A basic goal of the coalition ground war is to sprint behind the Iraqi army in Kuwait, cut off its supplies, then destroy it unit by unit. SOVIET UNION President Mikhail Gorbachev named conservative economist Vladimir Orlov Monday as the Soviet Union's new finance minister and kept hard-line defense and KGB chiefs in his new cabinet. Orlov advocates very gradual transition to market economics. Orlov's appointment must be confirmed by parliament. The Cabinet is the first to be drawn up under new power structures allowing Gorbachev direct control over his ministers, an arrangement Russian Federation leader Boris Yeltsin has bitterly criticized.... The Soviet parliament ordered rebel republics Monday to abandon their boycott of a nationwide referendum on the future of the Soviet Union. Seven out of 15 Soviet republics have decided not to take part in the March 17 referendum. ASIA AND THE PACIFIC Vietnam is trying to normalize relations with China and recently sent a secret delegation to its giant neighbor, but Beijing's response has been cool, Vietnamese party sources said. A separate trade delegation traveled to Beijing in January ostensibly to discuss the progress of China's economic reforms.... Thailand's military junta that seized power in a bloodless weekend coup said Monday it would install a caretaker government with a civilian prime minister until new elections, and freeze assets of corrupt ministers. Banners denouncing the overthrow of the democratically elected civilian government of ousted Prime Minister Chaticahi Choonhavan were put up at Bangkok's Ramkamhaeng University.... Mongolia's ruling communist party is dropping its most basic tenets, the teachings of Marx and Lenin, because they are outdated, party secretary Gombojavyn Ochirbat said Monday. -PATHNAME- /usr/local/etc/httpd/plweb/DBGROUPS/paper/database/tape/91/mar/week10/curr26.