EVENTS
CHRISTOPHER TO GO TO UNITED NATIONS
US Secretary of State Warren Christopher is planning to enter United Nations diplomacy directly on Monday with day-long talks at its headquarters in New York on the Clinton administration's foreign policy agenda. Administration sources say he wants to show the new administration's confidence in the United Nations' influence in post-cold-war peace-making. Pressure is building on the US especially to do more to stop the killing in Bosnia. Other topics will be an Arab drive to impose sanctions against Israe l for its expulsion of some 400 Palestinians and encouraging the UN to name an independent mediator to help Somalia's factions forge peace. The US special envoy to Somalia, Robert B. Oakley, has accused the UN of "dragging its feet" on taking over the military command from the US there.
US economy growing
Spending by American consumers pushed United States economic growth to a moderately robust annual rate of 3.8 percent during the last quarter of 1992, the Commerce Department said yesterday. Gross domestic product, the sum of all goods and services produced in the country, for all of 1992 was an inflation-adjusted $4.92 trillion, up 2.1 percent from the previous year. It had declined 1.2 percent during the recession year of 1991 and grew a scant 0.8 percent in 1990. Texas hit on judges
Texas has six months to come up with a method of electing judges that does not dilute black and Hispanic votes in eight counties, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. A three-judge panel of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, said at-large judicial elections in Bexar, Dallas, Ector, Harris, Jefferson, Lubbock, Midland, and Tarrant Counties are unconstitutional. Starvation in Angola
Millions of people in Angola, forced from their homes by civil war or trapped in cities surrounded by fighting, could face starvation in the next few months if the fighting does not stop, a UN official says. As government troops and UNITA rebels battle for control of this vast country, between 1 million and 1.5 million people are caught in cities where fighting prevents food from reaching market, said Philippe Brel, who directs the UN's World Food Programme in Angola. East European reactors
The world's top industrialized nations have pledged to spend millions of dollars to shore up nuclear reactors in the former East Bloc. A French government source in Paris said the Group of Seven established a $75 million fund Wednesday. France will contribute $18.8 million. Cable TV violence in US
Violence is as frequent on programs made for cable television as on those made for the broadcast networks, and often children's programming is the most violent, according to a study done by the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania. The study defined violence as "clear-cut and overt episodes of physical violence hurting or killing or the threat of hurting or killing."