News Currents

MIDDLE EAST

Thousands of suspected Islamic opposition members in Tunisia have been arrested and held illegally, Amnesty International says.... An Algerian court March 3 sentenced to death three leaders of the underground Islamic organization Hizbullah (Party of God).

UNITED STATES

The government's main economic forecasting gauge - the Index of Leading Indicators - rose in January by 0.9 percent, its strongest gain in six months, exceeding economists' expectations.... President Bush said he regrets violating his pledge against raising taxes in the 1990 federal budget deal, according to the March 3 Atlanta Journal-Constitution.... Paul Tsongas has been ruled eligible to appear on the Democratic primary ballot in New York State, where the nation's second largest number of presidentia l delegates are at stake. EUROPE

The German government has welcomed plans by Russian President Boris Yeltsin to resettle ethnic Germans in their traditional Volga homeland, averting a mass exodus to Germany.... Hamburg officials have ordered a freeze on plans to build a shopping mall on a former Jewish cemetery after some 150 orthodox Jews from England, Belgium, Switzerland, and Israel protested in Hamburg against the plans. ASIA AND AFRICA

Beijing said March 3 that President Bush's veto of a bill attaching conditions to US trade with China would help put US-Chinese relations back on track.... Efforts by five southern African countries to overturn the ban on ivory trading ran into new barriers at a conference in Kyoto on international trade in endangered species.