News Currents

MIDDLE EAST

Israeli newspapers reported yesterday that an American team sent to probe alleged transfers of US technology, including Patriot anti-aircraft systems, to China had apparently found no evidence of transfer.... Israel voiced regret yesterday over German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's meeting Friday with Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, previously shunned by the West because of allegations of hiding a Nazi past. UNITED STATES AND THE CARIBBEAN

Six former Polish government officials were among eight people arrested in a US Customs Service sting operation for allegedly trying to sell $96 million in arms to Iraq. The perpetrators allegedly said they also could provide uranium, bomb triggers, and even nuclear bombs. And three more nuclear warheads have disappeared from a storage facility in the former Soviet Union, U.S. News and World Report magazine said.... Political insider P.J. Patterson won a strong victory Saturday in the race for prime mini ster of Jamaica, defeating rival Labor Minister Portia Simpson at a conference of the National Party. ENVIRONMENT AND SCIENCE

Earth's atmosphere is in much worse shape than two years ago because of a heavy layer of dust and smoke, astronaut Kathy Sullivan, aboard space shuttle Atlantis, said Saturday. She last flew a shuttle mission in April 1990. Volcanic dust is one problem, she said, as well as heavy burning in many areas where farmers use fire to clear land. And large amounts of dust were kicking up from northern Africa.... Toshiba has developed a high definition TV digital video cassette recorder it hopes to sell to movie studios by 1993. It offers cinema-like images and compact-disc-quality sound.