ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Monday, March 25, 1996                 TAG: 9603250131
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 

IN THE WORLD

MEXICO CITY - The Cuban Communist Party's powerful central committee on Sunday ended a rare full session called to discuss the country's economic, social and political situation.

The Cuban news agency Prensa Latina, monitored in Mexico City, said the meeting, begun Saturday, marked the fifth time the full session has met officially and the first time since October 1992.

State television said President Fidel Castro led the discussions, but gave no further details. Castro is first secretary of the committee as well as president and chief of the Cuban armed forces. - Associated Press Panel votes to scrap Hong Kong assembly

BEIJING - China's Hong Kong Preparatory Committee voted Sunday by a margin of 148-1 to scrap the British colony's elected legislature and install an appointed body to run the territory when it reverts to Chinese sovereignty July 1, 1997.

The lone voice of dissent did not go unnoticed - or unpunished. Hong Kong radio quoted China's top official on Hong Kong, Lu Ping, as saying that the one dissenting delegate should be disqualified from the transitional bodies planning Hong Kong's post-1997 government and from any governing role after the British withdraw.

The nearly unanimous vote stood in contrast to the elections that took place the day before in Taiwan, where voters cast ballots for the first time to select their president. - The Washington Post Briefly ...

Despite strong opposition on Okinawa to the U.S. military presence there, a superior court ruled today that Okinawa's governor must renew land leases for U.S. bases on the island. The ruling caps an unprecedented showdown between the central government and Gov. Masahide Ota, who had refused to act as a middleman for the U.S. military and Okinawan landowners, who refuse to sign the leases themselves.

Former President Bush received a medal Sunday from Sheik Isa bin Salman al Khalifa, the emir of Bahrain, in appreciation of Bush's role in preserving stability in the Gulf region and his backing of the Middle East peace process. In Kuwait on Saturday, Bush inaugurated a new $40 million American Embassy, built by the Kuwaiti government in gratitude for the defeat of Saddam Hussein.

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