News Currents

UNITED STATES AND CANADARonald Lehman, director of the US government's Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, said Sept. 10 the US believes the Soviet Union and other states had active germ warfare programs in violation of an international treaty.... US defense experts say the time is ripe for a US military withdrawal from the Philippines, Reuters reports. Joshua Epstein of the Brookings Institution and others, including former RAND Corporation analyst Tom McNaugher, said US naval facilities in Guam and Japan, along with ship rep air depots in Singapore and elsewhere, would supplant any loss of the Subic facility.... About 110,000 federal employees in Canada, protesting a government plan to limit wages, went on strike Sept. 9, crippling airports and causing traffic jams and general confusion at public buildings across the country.... Engineers sailed through the initial hours of the shuttle Discovery's countdown Sept. 10, readying the ship for blastoff Sept. 12 on a flight to launch a $500 million environmental satellite.... The Bus h administration reaffirmed its commitment to help Israel absorb Soviet immigrants and said delaying action on $10 billion in housing loan guarantees would boost prospects of Middle East peace. "One reason for asking for a delay is to give peace a chance," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Sept. 9.... Former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson may be facing the fight of his life - in court. He was indicted on a rape charge Sept. 9 by a six-member grand jury in Indianapolis. If convicted, he could face a 60-year sentence.

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC A leading Taiwanese dissident, Kuo Pei-hung, chairman of the US branch of the outlawed World United Formosans for Independence, was charged Sept. 9 in Taipei with conspiring to overthrow the government, setting the stage for a sedition trial likely to inflame tensions between the government and the opposition.... The ruling Japanese Liberal Democratic Party and two key opposition parties said Sept. 10 they have reached agreement on the outlines of a bill that could send Japanese troops overseas on a regu lar basis for the first time since World War II.... A Hong Kong businessman, freed after spending 23 months in a Chinese jail for trying to help dissidents flee China, returned home Sept. 10 with a personal message in hand from British Prime Minister John Major, who had personally appealed for his release. Luo Haixing, 42, was released Sept. 9 from a prison in southern China.

MIDDLE EAST Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdullah En Sour, arriving in Cairo Sept. 10 for a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers, said his nation and Egypt should put aside their differences from the Gulf War. He added his government's recently released "White Book consisting of documents, messages and information about the Gulf crisis - was intended only to show Jordan as a crucial witness of the war.