News Currents

MIDDLE EASTA resolution permitting the sale of up to $1.6 billion worth of embargoed Iraqi oil over a six-month period was circulated late Wednesday among all members of the United Nations Security Council. Purchasers of the oil would pay the full price into a UN escrow account. Part of the money would be used to buy food and humanitarian goods needed by Iraq, under strict controls.... Turkey says its troops and planes would return home only after dealing a devastating blow to rebel Turkish Kurds in northern Iraq. Turkish jet fighters, joined by ground forces early Wednesday, had pounded 24 camps of the autonomy-seeking Kurdish Workers Party just inside Iraq. UNITED STATES Sen. John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV (D) of West Virginia says he has abandoned his brief flirtation with running for president and announced he will not seek the Democratic nomination in 1992.... The rape trial for William Kennedy Smith has been postponed until Jan. 13. Smith's defense attorneys say they needed more time to investigate the unexpected release of statements from three women who say they were attacked by Smith in the past eight years.... A federal judge declared Louisiana's tough new anti-abo rtion law unconstitutional, saying a Supreme Court decision 18 years ago that legalized most abortions remains the law of the land. State Attorney General William Guste said that he would appeal to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and try to get the case certified with the Supreme Court immediately.... The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights has added its influential voice to a growing list of groups fighting the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.... Columbia Pictures En tertainment, acquired two years ago by Japan's Sony Corporation, announced it has changed its corporate name to Sony Pictures Entertainment.