News Currents

UNITED STATES

President Bush's campaign has raised more than $17 million for primary contests that it confidently predicts winning. A Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll yesterday, however, revealed he faces a daunting prospect in the fall election. AFRICA

Five southern African countries agreed at a conference in Japan yesterday to consider a temporary voluntary moratorium on ivory trade to allow time to put in place a trading system that would discourage illegal trading. This is a compromise position; Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, and Zimbabwe are seeking to legalize ivory trade.... Police in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, yesterday tear-gassed and arrested secondary-school students demonstrating against a three-year prison term handed to a student leader last week. ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

Japanese auto imports are down for the 14th straight month due to a continuing economic slump, reported the Japan Automobile Importers Association yesterday. But the number of American cars imported increased 15 percent over last year. EUROPE

The United Nations Human Rights Commission strongly criticized the government of Iraq's Saddam Hussein for engaging in mass executions, causing the "disappearance" of thousands of people and engaging in systematic torture, even of children.... Irish Chief Justice Thomas Finlay yesterday explained that he had lifted a ban on a 14-year-old rape victim flying to Britain for an abortion because he feared she would commit suicide.