News Currents

MIDDLE EAST

Palestinian delegates may boycott Mideast peace talks scheduled to resume this month to protest the Bush administration's plan to guarantee $10 billion in new loans for Israel, a senior PLO official said Saturday. UNITED STATES

In Florida, a federal judge Friday called off Sept. 1 elections for the Dade County Commission, ruling that the at-large voting system discriminates against minority candidates. Under the system every voter in the county casts ballots for every commission seat.... The Los Angeles Unified School District has settled a 1986 discrimination case by agreeing to spend equally on suburban and inner-city students for 10 years. The lawsuit charged that the district unfairly distributed funds and experienced staff

to suburban schools at the expense of inner-city ones. AFRICA

Anglican church leaders in southern Africa voted to allow women to be ordained as priests. Anti-apartheid campaigner Archbishop Desmond Tutu was one of the prime supporters of the move.... In Zaire, Etienne Tshisekedi, a key adversary of President Mobutu Sese Seko, has been elected interim prime minister, official sources said Saturday.... Ten southern African states, anticipating competitive trade relations with a powerful post-apartheid South Africa, will today transform their voluntary alliance into t he Southern African Development Community. The group plans to include South Africa soon. LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

The El Salvadoran army demobilized the first of its five US-trained counter-insurgency units Saturday under a UN-backed peace pact.