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AID TO THE SOVIET UNIONThe European Community Nov. 26 granted the Soviet Union a credit guarantee worth $625 million. The credit must be used to buy food from the 12 EC states and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The latter arrangement, called the triangular operation, requires the Soviet Union to use 25 percent of the credit to buy food in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia.... In Washington, President Bush sent to the United States Senate for ratification the Strate gic Arms Reduction Treaty, which will cut US and Soviet strategic nuclear arsenals by at least 30 to 40 percent.... Congress was expected to approve this week up to $500 million of US defense money for emergency food and medicine to Soviet republics; the money will also be used to help destroy half of Moscow's nuclear weapons. The Senate also agreed on a measure approving favorable tariff treatment for Soviet exports to the US. UNITED STATES William Taylor, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, told the Senate the government's closure of failing banks has been slowed because the insurance fund is depleted. The fund has about $2 billion on hand and is expected to be exhausted by the end of the year. Taylor asked for immediate authorization to borrow as much as $30 billion to cover bank-fund losses over the next two years.... The US Nov. 26 returned control to the Philippines of Clark Air Base. Global defense cuts and the end of the cold war were cited as reasons to release the base.... New York City school authorities prepared the nation's first condom handout to high school students Nov. 26.... The US Supreme Court upheld a stay of execution for Justin Lee May, a Texas man convicted of murder, because two ex-convicts who testified against the man recanted their testimony.

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC China's Communist Party has begun its first full Central Committee meeting in nearly a year, considering agricultural reforms and the promotion of officials to the ruling Politburo.... In Toyko, the Liberal Democrats and two opposition parties narrowed differences Nov. 26 over a peacekeeping bill, making it likely Japanese troops soon will be dispatched overseas regularly for the first time since World War II.... In Manila, Army mutineers raided the Philippines's main police camp and seized antitank weap ons and other guns in what could be preparations for another coup attempt, the military said Nov. 26.... North Korea has said it will allow inspection of nuclear facilities for the first time as soon as the US begins removing its nuclear weapons from South Korea.... In Seoul, more than 15,000 farmers and students chanting anti-American slogans marched Nov. 26 to protest US pressure on South Korea to open its rice market.... Japan Nov. 26 announced it would halt its practice of drift-net fishing by the end o f 1992.

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