News Currents

MIDDLE EAST

PLO chairman Yasser Arafat was listed in stable condition in a hospital in Amman, Jordan, sources said yesterday. He was rushed there to be treated for what doctors said were complications from his April airplane crash. UNITED STATES

Most Americans, especially blacks, yearn to own their own home and are ready to work two jobs or postpone retirement, according to a survey released by the Federal National Mortgage Association on Sunday.... The Bush administration has proposed almost tripling the $15 million CIA budget for covert operations to help overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. The request calls for an increase in CIA spending to $40 million for the campaign.... Primary voting in Califo rnia and five other states today will likely hand Democrat Bill Clinton his party's presidential nomination, but opinion polls show many voters these days have eyes only for Ross Perot.... The US plans to deploy about 12 Black Hawk helicopters for strikes against cocaine traffickers in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica, costing about $30 million over two years, the Washington Post reported yesterday.... The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee called yesterday for an end to US nuclear

tests as a step towards winning international cooperation to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. ENVIRONMENT AND SCIENCE

Britain joined the US Sunday in expressing reservations about the "biodiversity" treaty due to be signed at this week's Earth Summit in Brazil. A British official said the treaty is too weak and questioned its financing mechanism.