News Currents

WORLD NEWS Iraq has freed about 1,500 Kuwaitis captured during its occupation of Kuwait and they will be flown home from Saudi Arabia Friday, Kuwaiti military sources Thursday. The prisoners had been transferred under Red Cross auspices to a Saudi base in the desert town of Arar, in northwestern Saudi Arabia over the past several days.... Kurdish rebels, claiming to control almost all of northern Iraq's Kurdistan province, said they were ready to host a ``government-in-waiting'' for the overthrow of Presiden t Saddam Hussein.... An Egyptian magazine, Al Mussawar, said Wednesday that prominent Iraqi opposition ranks agreed in a meeting last week to stage military action in a bid to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.... President Corazon Aquino pledged Thursday to lift the ban on former first lady Imelda Marcos, allowing her to return to the Philippines to face trial and defend herself once charges are filed against her.... On the eve of a visit by Czechoslovakian President Vaclav Havel to Brussels, a senior N ATO official said East European nations are not candidates to join the alliance.