News Currents

BUSH IN ASIA

President Bush, in Canberra, Australia, rejected pleas by Australian farmers to end US agriculture subsidies yesterday and said Japan and the European Community were mainly to blame for the world's economic doldrums. On other topics, he rejected a move by congressional Democrats to slash Japanese imports unless Tokyo eliminates its $41 billion trade surplus with the US within five years, and told Australia's Parliament the US will retain an appropriate military presence in the Pacific region. Bush travel s to Melbourne today and Singapore tonight. ASIA

The Khmer Rouge wants more United Nations offices spread around Cambodia and officers from all four competing Cambodian factions stationed in each of them to secure the peace settlement. In a radio broadcast, Khmer Rouge Defense Minister Son Sen said military officers of the three resistance groups and the Phnom Penh government should be stationed at every UN office.... South Korean President Roh Tae Woo and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Il-sung, have tentatively agreed to meet in March. EUROPE AND FORMER SOVIET UNION

Russian prices were freed yesterday ending 70 years of communist subsidies that had kept them artificially low. President Boris Yeltsin's radical economic reform is designed to put goods back into the shops.... Talks between Croatia and federal defense officials were expected yesterday in Sarajevo to discuss details of a new cease-fire in Yugoslavia. Croatia and Serbia Wednesday agreed to the deployment of a 10,000-strong UN peacekeeping force.