News Currents

MIDDLE EAST

Iraqi Kurds say Baghdad is jamming the Voice of America news broadcasts in Kurdish, which they had received for a week.... The semiofficial al-Ahram newspaper in Egypt questioned yesterday how Washington could guarantee a fair trial for two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie airline bombing after a jury verdict sparked the worst US riots in 25 years. EUROPE AND AFRICA

The EC and the European Free Trade Area signed a treaty Saturday joining their 19 states and 380 million people in a new European Economic Area. Effective Jan. 1, 1993, when the EC drops the last of its own internal customs barriers, the area will represent 40 percent of the world's trade.... Striking German government workers plan to widen their walkout today by grounding commercial air traffic and halting freight trains, unless the government makes a last-minute pay offer.... The US and Russia have dis cussed adding Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan - all nuclear powers - as signatories to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the Russian Foreign Ministry said yesterday.... A 28,000-ton Russian tanker leaked oil into the Aegean Sea yesterday after a collision with a freighter.... The new military rulers in Sierra Leone reopened borders and restored links with the outside world Saturday after a coup in which at least 12 people were reported killed. ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

China yesterday called for direct air links with Taiwan, saying the only remaining barrier was Taipei's failure to permit flights across the Taiwan Strait.... China plans to import a large amount of arms and military technology from the former Soviet Union to modernize its armed forces, Japan's Kyodo news agency said.