News Currents

MIDDLE EAST AND ASIA

About 10,000 Iranians converged yesterday on the golden-domed tomb of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on the third anniversary of the Islamic revolution leader's death.... President Corazon Aquino yesterday declared a state of calamity in three provinces in the northern Philippines threatened by mudflows from the Mt. Pinatubo volcano. UNITED STATES

The US has chosen its "king" for a new 29- cent US stamp to be released next January. The young Elvis Presley of "Hound Dog" fame has been elected in the first public vote ever held by the Postal Service for postage-stamp art.... Forest Service chief Dale Robertson was to unveil a new timber management policy yesterday for national forests that he says will reduce clear-cutting by 70 percent. Environmentalists say the policy is full of loopholes.... The Los Angeles Police Department went on alert for vio lence after a judge decided not to retry a former policeman for killing two unarmed Samoan brothers. No unrest was reported.... The US Army has reprimanded two colonels and a captain for negligence in the first known punishment of officers for "friendly fire" deaths in the Gulf war. EUROPE

Two Germans, the last Western hostages in Lebanon, could be freed within 10 days, an aide to Chancellor Helmut Kohl said yesterday.... Denmark backed off yesterday from its demand that the treaty on European unity, which Danish voters rejected Tuesday, be modified. AFRICA

Pope John Paul II left Rome yesterday on a visit to Angola.