News Currents

MIDDLE EAST International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Hans Blix Saturday said the agency is preparing to inspect all nuclear installations in Iraq to see if any of them contain weapons-grade uranium. The statement by Blix, released by the Vienna-based IAEA, was in response to recent news media reports that an Iraqi defector had revealed secret sites in northern Iraq where weapons-grade uranium was prepared (See story, p. 3).... The last contingent of allied forces in Dohuk left the northern Iraqi city Saturday, turning over to UN guards the task of protecting its Kurds from Saddam Hussein's army.... Kuwait's martial law court Saturday sentenced six journalists to death for helping Iraqis publish a propaganda newspaper during Baghdad's nearly seven-month occupation of the oil-rich emirate.

EUROPE

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has said that a landmark new union treaty of relations with his nation's republics may be signed in the first part of July.... Turkey's ruling center-right Motherland Party has chosen a youthful new leader, Mesut Yilmaz, to revive its fading election prospects, dumping incumbent Prime Minister Yildirim Akbulut, who subsequently submitted his resignation.... Gorbachev has said he will go to July's Group of Seven economic summit as neither beggar nor blackmailer, but offering mutually beneficial economic cooperation to the West. He gave an outline of his intentions in an interview with Soviet television Saturday night, hours after accepting a formal invitation from British Prime Minister John Major.... Britain's opposition Labour Party has opened up a 10-point lead over Major's Conservatives, according to an opinion poll Sunday by the Observer newspaper.

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

Mount Pinatubo shook yesterday with its strongest eruptions yet, combining with a typhoon and series of earthquakes to produce a string of disasters blamed for at least 36 deaths and the collapse of hundreds of houses and buildings. An even worse eruption was possible at any time.... Nagano, Japan, was elected host city of the 1998 Winter Olympics Saturday by the International Olympic Committee, beating out Salt Lake City by four votes.

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

An assembly reforming Colombia's Constitution voted overwhelmingly over the weekend to dissolve Congress and to hold new legislative elections Oct. 27, two and a half years early. The new Congress will take office Feb. 2, 1992.... A US lawyer well known for his work for Nicaragua's former Sandinista government has resigned as special representative for the present government. The Chamorro government had hired Paul Reichler in April to aid Nicaragua's efforts to broke r an El Salvador peace agreement, but members of the US Congress protested his hiring. The peace talks will resume in Mexico soon.