News Currents
EUROPE
The Yugoslav army ruled out an immediate withdrawal from Bosnia-Herzegovina yesterday, despite an order to do so from the republic's leaders. Yugoslav Defense Minister Blagoje Adzic said the Serb-led army could not immediately pull out because most of its troops were Serbs from Bosnia and therefore had nowhere to withdraw to. Serbs, Croats, and Muslims have been fighting over Bosnia's recently won independence.... Romania has 22.75 million inhabitants, an increase of 1.19 million since the last count 15 years ago, according to a census. UNITED STATES
President Bush raised more than $9 million for the Republican Party Tuesday night at the annual President's Dinner, said to be the most lucrative in US political history. Contributions ranged up to several hundred thousand dollars. Since the party takes in the cash instead of individual candidates, donors do not have to abide by the federal limit of $2,000 for a candidate.... Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger cautioned Tuesday against the US devoting too much aid to Russia, saying the former Sovi et Union holds the seeds for ethnic conflict worse than that in Yugoslavia.... Representatives of 14 countries met in Washington this week to discuss ways of helping Cambodia normalize its relations with the International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank, restarting payments on old loans so that new help can be provided. Japan and France are leading the effort. MIDDLE EAST
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati met the leadership of Hizbullah (Party of God) yesterday and reiterated Tehran's support for its struggle in south Lebanon, Tehran Radio said.... A United Nations envoy began contacts in Nicosia yesterday, saying he expected stalled talks on the problem of divided Cyprus to resume in May. ENVIRONMENT AND SCIENCE
China is to spend $55 million to protect its dwindling population of pandas, setting up 14 new panda preserves over the next 10 years.... The star guests will be sadly absent when the bustling market town of Birecik, Turkey, on the banks of the Euphrates, hosts its annual Bald Ibis festival next week. The mayor postponed the event from mid-April in hope that some of the spectacular migratory birds with long, curved red beaks would return from their African winter quarters by May 7. Three centuries ago, t he birds once ranged as far as the Danube in central Europe. In Turkey, a population of 500 to 800 breeding pairs thrived until the mid-1950s when DDT, dieldrin, and other pesticides were sprayed for several years throughout the Euphrates basin.... Japan's major carmakers say they will eliminate chlorofluorocarbons, which damage the Earth's ozone layer, from production processes about five years before an international deadline of 2000.