News Currents

MIDDLE EAST

Libyan officials won't give exit visas to British subjects living in Libya, a Foreign Office spokesman in London said March 31.... Two Nepalese officers with the UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon were wounded when shots fired by unidentified gunmen shattered windows of their car March 31. UNITED STATES

The nation's main economic forecasting gauge posted a second consecutive monthly rise in February, the Commerce Department said March 31. The 0.8 percent increase in the department's Index of Leading Indicators, designed to forecast economic activity six to nine months ahead, followed a 1 percent gain in January.... The US Supreme Court asked the Justice Department March 30 for its views on a lawsuit, which a federal appeals court had thrown out, charging that a company discriminated against an employee with AIDS by sharply reducing its group health insurance coverage. EUROPE

German Defense Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg resigned March 31 over the sale of tanks to Turkey in defiance of a parliamentary ban.... Fourteen Kurdish nationalist members of parliament deserted Turkey's coalition government March 31, accusing it of pursuing "policies of pain and tears" in the southeast, where more than 100 Kurds have been killed in the last 10 days. ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

The US will turn the western Pacific island of Guam into a major military base to help cushion the loss of Subic naval base in the Philippines, a US Navy official said March 31.