News Currents
MIDDLE EASTArmed Jewish settlers rampaged through the curfew-bound West Bank town of Ramallah on the fourth anniversary of the intifada yesterday, protesting against the killing of a settler by Palestinians there. The settlers smashed house and car windows and posted leaflets warning Palestinians they could not kill Jews with impunity.... Jordan's King Hussein, in remarks published yesterday in the United News of India, rejected Israeli demands to move Middle East peace talks to the region. Israel wants to win the recognition that would go with holding the talks in both Israel and Arab capitals.
UNITED STATES The 112-year-old Dallas Times Herald published its final edition yesterday, one day after selling most of its assets to rival Dallas Morning News's parent company. During the past year, more than 100 potential investors or buyers were unsuccessfully contacted about purchasing the Times Herald.... Helen Thomas, veteran UPI White House bureau chief, will assume the vice presidency of the Gridiron Club Jan. 1, making her the first woman to serve as an officer of the prestigious journalism organization. She is now in line to take over the presidency of the group.... Agriculture Secretary Edward Madigan and European Community Farm Commissioner Ray MacSharry said Sunday that progress was made in their weekend negotiations to revive flagging world trade reform talks.
EUROPE A court on Monday froze the worldwide assets of media mogul Robert Maxwell's sons, Kevin and Ian, and ordered them to surrender their passports at the request of a liquidator inquiring into missing pension fund assets.... The immediate family of 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi will be in Oslo Tuesday to receive the award on behalf of the Burmese dissident. Suu Kyi, behind the heavily guarded walls of her Rangoon house-prison, joins an exclusive group of Nobel laureates prevented from recei ving the prize in person by their government, including the late Andrei Sakharov and Lech Walesa.... Mircea Snegur has become the first elected president of the Soviet republic of Moldavia with 98 percent of the vote, according to results released yesterday in an election rejected by Moldavian minorities.
AFRICA The world's Islamic leaders opened a summit in Dakar, Senegal, yesterday with the Arab world still deeply divided by the Gulf War. Absentees from the summit of the 45-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference included the kings of Morocco and Saudi Arabia and the presidents of Egypt, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Delegates said that PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Jordan's King Hussein, who both arrived in Dakar Sunday, would be unable to mend bridges with the pro-Saudi camp.
