The world’s top industrial countries wrapped up the economic portion of their annual summit on Saturday by rebuffing a new US trade proposal but vowing renewed efforts to attack record global unemployment. A draft of the final communique said that the summit countries supported continued efforts to tear down global trade barriers. However, that language fell far short of a US proposal to launch a new round of global trade talks aimed at attacking specific barriers in such key sectors as telecommunications and financial services. The reading of the final communique was delayed by last-minute haggling over how the leaders should address the ticklish problem of the dollar’s plunge on global currency markets.

Kim Il-Sung dead

The North Korean President, Mr. Kim Il- Sung, 82, the world’s last hard-line Stalinist leader, died on Friday, North Korean broadcasts announced on Saturday. Radio Pyongyang said a state funeral would be held on July 17. but added that no foreigners would be invited. It gave the cause of Mr. Kim’s death as a heart attack. Mr. Kim was to have held a-first-ever summit with the South Korean President, Mr. Kim Young-Sam on July 25-27 in Pyongyang.

Punjab Governor killed in air crash

The Punjab Governor, Mr. Surendra Nath, and 12 others on board, including nine members of his family, were killed on Saturday when a State Government plane crashed in a mountainous region of Himachal Pradesh, minutes after taking off from Chandigarh. The crash, which occurred around 9 a.m., took the lives of three generations of the 68-year-old Governor’s family.

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