News Currents
MIDDLE EAST AND GULF
Libyan authorities were silent yesterday after the UN Security Council called unanimously for the surrender of two Libyan agents accused of blowing up a Pan Am plane over Scotland. PLO leader Yasser Arafat welcomed the UN Security Council's request, saying the world body was asking for cooperation and was not condemning Libya.... Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy arrived in China yesterday to establish diplomatic ties. China also confirmed it would take part in Middle East peace talks due to begin next
week in Russia. China is the only member of the UN Security Council without official links to Israel.... A Warner Brothers crew making a film about black American radical leader Malcolm X, who converted to Islam, has been allowed to shoot the Muslim pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca - a first for Hollywood.... The United Arab Emirates yesterday became the ninth member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to reduce oil output to stem a decline in prices. UNITED STATES
President Bush said he will announce next week a suspension of new federal regulations on the manufacturing and services industry.... US intelligence officials say Libya is expanding its chemical weapons program and is dispersing stockpiles to avoid detection, the New York Times reported yesterday.... The Los Angeles school board Tuesday night approved a plan to make condoms available to 132,000 school students as a precaution against AIDS, but only with parental permission. EUROPE
Secessionist Macedonia, in a further erosion of the Yugoslav federation, ordered its personnel withdrawn from the federal Foreign Ministry and invited Macedonians serving in the Serbian-led Yugoslav army to join the republic's defense forces.... Russia plans to cut military spending this year to one-eighth of last year's expenditures and says it expects dramatic falls in industrial output, Reuters reports.... Olympic chief Juan Antonio Samaranch will meet Russian President Boris Yeltsin Saturday to discu ss the participation of a unified team representing the former Soviet republics at this year's Olympic Games.... A team investigating the crash of an Airbus in eastern France came under pressure yesterday to answer a growing number of questions about the safety of the ultramodern plane. ENVIRONMENT AND SCIENCE
Dubai burned 12 tons of ivory and rhino horn yesterday in a display of its compliance with a UN ban on a trade that is decimating elephant and rhino herds in Africa and Asia. Dubai has been a strategic free-trade port processing ivory from Africa for markets in Asia, Europe, and elsewhere.... Japan will ban trade at the end of January in three endangered reptiles - two kinds of giant lizard and a turtle. In March, Japan will hold a conference on the illegal trade in endangered fauna and flora.