EVENTS
KURDISH REBELS STRIKE AGAIN IN EUROPE For the second time this year, the Kurdish Workers' Party, a Marxist group seeking to carve an independent Kurdistan out of Turkey, is being blamed for a series of coordinated attacks on Turkish targets throughout Western Europe. Stones and fire bombs were hurled at Turkish Airlines and Turkish information offices yesterday in Denmark's capital, Copenhagen. The same day, demonstrators threw fire bombs at four Turkish premises in London including the embassy and a Turkish Airlines office injuring five people. No one was hurt when demonstrators struck the Turkish Embassy and other targets in Bern, Switzerland. And in Germany, attacks were reported in Berlin, Bonn, Frankfurt, Mainz, Hanover, Wiesbaden, and other cities. Police in Wiesbaden said a man was killed in an arson attack on a building in the city. ``It looks like concerted action,'' a police spokesman in Frankfurt said. Sikh rebellion
The Indian government's chief negotiator in the standoff at Kashmir's holiest mosque was critically injured yesterday when his car collided head on with a military truck. The accident is likely to set back the government's efforts to persuade Muslim militants to drop their weapons and leave the shrine after a 20-day standoff. In a related development, Indian commandos arrested Dr. Sohan Singh, alleged mastermind of the Sikh war for independence. The arrest may break the backbone of the independence movement. UN on Cuba embargo
Key allies, from France to Australia, snubbed the United States by siding with Fidel Castro in a largely symbolic vote this week to end the longstanding American embargo of Cuba. The vote was 88 to 4, with 57 abstentions. Voting against the anti-embargo resolution were the US, Israel, Albania, and Paraguay. Haiti strike
Haitians braced for the start of a two-day strike yesterday while the UN tried to draw army leaders into negotiating the return of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The strike, called by the far-right FRAPH, is aimed at shutting down business and keeping people off the streets. Military leader Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras responded to the UN invitation for the conference, which is planned for Friday and Saturday, but diplomats said he had tried to twist the conditions of the meeting. California fires
Firefighters stopped flames advancing on Los Angeles as investigators stepped up the search for an arsonist whose inferno destroyed some 200 Malibu homes. Duncan Gibbins, a British screenwriter whose credits include ``Fire with Fire,'' became the first person to die in the blaze after returning to his cottage to rescue his cat. The southern California fires have destroyed more than 1,000 homes and burned 200,000 acres since Oct. 26. House on Somalia
House Republicans failed by just one vote to send a bill to the floor that would have moved the deadline for the US withdrawal from Somalia from March 31 to Jan. 31. The vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee shows that there is still considerable dissatisfaction on Capitol Hill with the president's policy toward that African nation. Waste in Superfund
A third of the billions of dollars private companies pay to clean up toxic waste sites goes for lawyers and trying to negotiate who is responsible for the pollution, the independent Rand Corporation reports. The report was presented yesterday at a Senate hearing examining how to improve the 1980 Superfund law. Unprofessional work
What you're reading wasn't written by a professional. A judge in Concord, N.H., ruled Wednesday that newspaper reporters and photographers are not professionals as defined by federal labor law. The decision, which caps a 12-year court battle, means that journalists must be paid overtime like ordinary workers but unlike lawyers, doctors, and other professionals.
