News Currents

UNITED STATES

A city councilman called Saturday for the firing of Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates if Gates does not retire at the end of this month. Gates said in interviews published Saturday that he might go back on his word to retire unless city officials agree to promote eight police captains to the rank of commander.... About 20 white supremacists clashed with about 350 counter-demonstrators Saturday at a rally in Simi Valley, Calif., in support of the policemen acquitted in the Rodney King beating.... The c leanup of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill is over and a new phase, restoring the wilderness, has begun. Exxon will send $900 million to Alaska over the next 10 years for restoration of Prince William Sound. MIDDLE EAST

Israeli raids on south Lebanon are raising tension in the region and could draw Syria further into the confrontation, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara said yesterday.... A Beirut newspaper Sunday released a photograph of Heinrich Struebig, one of two remaining Western hostages whose kidnappers say will be freed if they receive assurances about two Shiite Muslims jailed in Germany. EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

The EC finance ministers, scheduled to meet tomorrow, face a tough task of persuading anxious marketers that plans for a single EC currency are still intact after Danes' "no" vote last week, financial analysts say. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, admitting that many neighbors still fear a powerful united Germany, pressed Sunday for a swift European union as an antidote to nationalist tendencies. Ireland is scheduled to hold a referendum on political union on June 18.