News Currents

UNITED STATES

Aviation giant Boeing Company announced it will likely lay off nearly 2,400 workers within two months due in part to defense-spending cutbacks.... The US House has rejected President Bush's 1993 budget, setting the stage Thursday for action on the $1.5 trillion Democratic proposal. AFRICA

Former South African President Pieter Botha said Saturday he would vote "no" in South Africa's referendum on democratic reform. "I cannot participate in what I perceive as a direction of suicide for my own people," he said in a statement which could have a strong influence on white voters.... A Moroccan women's group launched a campaign yesterday for the abolition of polygamy and the right to divorce in a complete revision of the Islamic law governing family affairs. EUROPE

The Russian government has lifted the remaining price controls for specific consumer goods including bread, a number of milk products, sugar, salt, and cooking oil, the news agency Itar-Tass yesterday. ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

Voters in northern Japan went to the polls yesterday in a special legislative election regarded as a crucial electoral test for the scandal-plagued ruling party before national elections in July. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), humiliatingly defeated in a similar election a month ago, could be thrown into disarray by another setback, political analysts said.... Armenia and Azerbaijan pressed yesterday for intensified diplomatic efforts to end the fighting between their combatants in the enclave of Na gorno-Karabakh.