News Currents

WAR IN THE GULF Allied tanks in a massive flanking movement closed in on Iraq's Republican Guard in southern Iraq Tuesday as Iraqi troops hurriedly abandoned Kuwait City and moved north toward the Iraqi border, coalition military officials in Riyadh said.... In Washington, a senior defense official said early Tuesday that the Pentagon has no reports so far that Iraqi troops are withdrawing from Kuwait, as ordered by Saddam Hussein, and US forces will continue to press the Gulf war until President Bush orders them to stop.... Iraq accused the US-led allies of attacking its forces as they retreat from Kuwait.... Iraq's most destructive attack of the war came Monday when Scud missile debris smashed into a two-story barracks in Saudi Arabia housing US military, killing at least 27 American servicemen and wounding many more.... A Canadian oil well blowout and firefighting specialist said Monday in Calgary, Alberta, that it may take as much as four years to extinguish all the oil fires set by Iraqis in Kuwait.

JUSTICE

The US Supreme Court Monday let stand a decision that New York City police did not need a warrant to raid an apartment because their knowledge of ongoing drug sales there, coupled with the presence of loaded weapons, allowed an exception to the Fourth Amendment. The court also let stand a ruling that a Minnesota jury erred when it found Carlton County Attorney Donald Diesen had been libeled by a newspaper whose facts were corr ect but whose ``implication'' in a series of articles was false. The case involved three 1981 articles in the Duluth News-Tribune.... Jury selection got under way Monday in the trial of deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.

AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST

Tribal Chief Mhlabunzima Maphumulo, who had close links to Nelson Mandela's ANC, was killed Tuesday in an overnight attack by unknown gunmen. He was a bitter political enemy of the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party.... Israel has asked Washington for an extra billion dollars of military aid to cover higher, Gulf war-related defense costs, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Monday.

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

On Tuesday, South Korea said it has resolved major differences with North Korea on forming a joint team for the World Youth Soccer Tournament to be held in Portugal in June.... Australia will immediately normalize relations with China and lift sanctions imposed after the 1989 Beijing massacre, Foreign Minister Gareth Evans said Tuesday.... King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand gave unprecedented official approval Tuesday t o the military junta that seized power last weekend, stating that ``it appears the government of Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan failed to administer the country in a way that earned the trust of the people.''