News Currents

EUROPE

Russia headed off a strike at the Krasnoyarsk nuclear plant in Siberia June 2 by delivering a railway wagon packed with 25 million rubles ($300,000 at the central-bank rate). The Itar-Tass news agency reported the cash was to make up for wages unpaid over recent weeks.... Georgia and Israel have established diplomatic relations, helping to break Georgia's international isolation. UNITED STATES

The Pentagon is suspending the aircraft- engine division of General Electric Company from competing for future contracts because of alleged fraud in selling military jet engines to Israel. GE will appeal the suspension.... The Strategic Air Command, America's global nuclear strike force during the cold war, was retired June 1 after 46 years of service.... Nearly a third of the riot-related looting cases to come up for preliminary hearings have been dismissed because officers who made multiple arrests are

having trouble identifying suspects, said John Lynch, head of the district attorney's Central Trial Division, June 1.... A Pentagon report suggests a congressional plan to deploy the $35 billion "star wars" antimissile system by 1997 could risk significant cost overruns and could result in a "technologically inferior" system. UNITED NATIONS

More women worldwide work outside the home than ever before, but their jobs are often "part time and precarious," and they face low pay and sexual harassment, the International Labor Organization said June 2.... Iraq has spurned the first key condition of the Persian Gulf war cease-fire by refusing to recognize its new border with Kuwait, diplomats say.