REUTER WORLD NEWS HIGHLIGHTS 1800 GMT APRIL 7
Scores of Syrian troops marched into the battered
Shatila Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut in a bid to quell
five months of fighting in Lebanon's "camps war," witnesses said.
Beirut radio stations said Syrian troops would deploy at points
around the camp, besieged by Shi'ite Moslem Amal militia, to
guarantee freedom of movement for refugees.
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    WASHINGTON - President Reagan said neither the United
States nor the Soviet Union would occupy new embassies in each
other's capitals until he was certain the new U.S. Building in
Moscow was secure. He added a special review board headed by
former Defence Secretary Melvin Laird would examine serious
security breaches at the U.S. Diplomatic mission in Moscow.
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    BAHRAIN - Iran reported launching a new offensive east of
Iraq's southern city of Basra, saying troops supported by
planes had killed over 2,400 Iraqis. Baghdad said its forces
had repulsed the attack, killing thousands of Iranians.
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    ZEEBRUGGE, Belgium - A capsized British car ferry with up
to 140 bodies entombed inside was winched upright in a mammoth
salvage operation.
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    BONN - West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl told President
Ronald Reagan in a letter that Bonn backed a superpower pact to
ban medium-range missiles from Europe but was concerned about
any parallel ban on shorter-range missiles.
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    BRUSSELS - Syria, a key state in Middle East politics, is
showing flexibility towards the idea of an international
conference on peace in the region, Belgian Foreign Minister Leo
Tindemans said after talks with King Hussein of Jordan.
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    WASHINGTON - Kuwait has asked at least four countries,
including the United States and Soviet Union, for use of their
flags or tankers to protect oil shipments in the Gulf, U.S.
Officials said. Britain and China were also asked, they added.
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    CHANDIGARH, India - Sikh extremists killed five people and
set ablaze cigarette, liquor and barber shops in Punjab in a
new trial of strength with the state's moderate government over
fundamentalist reforms.
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    LONDON - Prospects for a June election in Britain rose
after senior members of Prime Minister Thatcher's Conservative
party urged her to go to the country a year early in the wake
of more polls giving the party a commanding lead.
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    ROME - Italy's government is expected to fall tomorrow
following a decision by the majority Christian Democrats to
withdraw their 16 ministers unless Socialist Prime Minister
Bettino Craxi resigns, political sources said.
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    BAHIA BLANCA, Argentina - Pope John Paul began a swing
through Argentina's rich agricultural interior with a strong
defence of the rights of rural workers, saying they had been
neglected too long.
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    ANKARA - A Turkish military court jailed former deputy
prime minister Alpaslan Turkes for 11 years on charges of
forming an armed gang and sentenced five supporters to death
for murder, Anatolian Agency reported.
 REUTER
