News Currents

WAR IN THE GULF President Bush said Monday the air campaign against Iraq will continue for a while, noting that more bombing is needed to wear down Iraqi troops before any coalition ground offensive.... Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, back from a trip to Iraq, said Monday that Iraq estimated between 6,000 and 7,000 of its civilians had been killed during coalition bombing raids. An additional 370 refugees crossed from Iran into Iraq to escape coalition air raids, the Iranian news agency IRNA said Tuesday. The new arrivals - from Sudan, Yemen, and Vietnam - were given temporary shelter at the western border crossing of Khosravi.... Soviet envoy Yevgeny Primakov arrived in Baghdad Tuesday for talks with President Saddam Hussein on ways of ending the Gulf War, Cable News Network reported.

UNITED STATES

A jury in Portland, Oregon, ordered 34 anti-abortion demonstrators Monday to pay $8.2 million in damages for locking a Portland abortion clinic's doors. The award was believed to be the largest ever reached in such a case.... California citrus growers and workers hurt by a winter freeze will be eligible for federal disaster relief approved by President Bush Monday.... Policewoman Tina Kerbrat became the first female officer in the 138-year history of the Los Angeles Police Department to die in the line of duty. The the mother of two was gunned down Monday while investigating two men drinking alcoholic beverages on a sidewalk.... Trans World Airlines said Monday it would cut fares by 50 percent between Britain and six US cities.

EUROPE

Czechoslovakia's President Vaclav Havel said Monday that NATO should serve as the basis for a new pan-European security structure.... The Soviet charge d'affairs to Poland said Tuesday Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has proposed dissolving the military structures of the Warsaw Pact, but a Gorbachev spokesman denied the statement.... The Lithuanian parliament voted Monday to use a declaration of an independent democratic state - approved over the weekend by over 75 percent of all eligible voters - as the basis of its proposed new constitution.... Iceland's Parliament voted Monday to recognize Lithuania.

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Haiti's army said Monday that eight top military officers had retired as requested by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the newly-inaugurated leader, who has launched a reform program to demilitarize the country. The US said Monday it was giving $82 million in aid to help Haiti complete its transition to democracy. Some $54 million was provided in fiscal 1990.... South American nations banned food imports from Peru and began border medical controls Monday to prevent the spread of a cholera epidemic that has killed 50 Peruvians in a week.