News Currents

MIDDLE EAST

Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qaddafi, under pressure to hand over agents charged by the West with blowing up a Pan Am aircraft, rejected the demand as illogical in an interview with an Algerian publication.... The Algerian leadership yesterday took control of a mosque in a stronghold of the Islamic Salvation Front. EUROPE

Russian President Boris Yeltsin has called on Britain, France, and China to join Russia and the US in reducing their nuclear arsenals. China responded that it would not do so immediately.... Prime Minister Charles Haughey, who has dominated Irish politics for a decade, told his party yesterday that he will resign next week.... Europe's chief security forum, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, yesterday admitted 10 former Soviet republics as members.... NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woe rner said the West should look for ways to keep nuclear- and chemical-weapons scientists from the former Soviet Union from emigrating to places where their knowledge could be used in dangerous ways.... Polish President Lech Walesa plans to visit Germany in late March. UNITED STATES

Orders for expensive durable goods fell 5 percent in December, a sharp decline... Senate Democratic leader George Mitchell, responding to President Bush's call for action by Congress by March 20 on Bush's economic plan, said: "We don't operate that way." ... Apple Computer plans to forge partnerships with a number of big Japanese companies in its effort to enter the consumer electronics business. It would offer such items as personal organizers, personal communicators that receive and send information, and special display phones.