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Discusses the Olof Palme case, and the fact that three years and seven months after the Prime Minister was killed in central Stockholm and two months after a man was convicted of the crime, it continues to generate scandal, revelation and uncertainty about conspiracy. Speculations and irregularities.

Discusses Rupert Murdoch's latest venture, Sky Television, a four-channel satellite service that has lost $120 million in its first five months. Murdoch defends Sky Television at the Edinburgh cultural festival; Potential competition from British Satellite broadcasting; Growth estimates for Sky; Sky's programming.

Reports that a London party became a disaster when a pleasure cruiser was sunk by a barge on the Thames. Casualties; Events as they occurred; Arrests.

Discusses the fact that President Gorbachev's push for a more market-oriented economy has been frustrated by the old Centralized Soviet system that holds to the rule that the producer, not the consumer, is always right. Economic structural changes; Concerns and resistance.

Discusses the new breed of Soviet freelance executives as a byproduct of perestroika. New concepts of joint ventures with foreign companies, risk and economic accountability; New need for accountants; Importance of training.

Explains how Mikhail Gorbachev's attack on alcoholism has led the Kristall vodka distillery's manager, Vladimir A. Yamnikov, 49, to use a Western-style strategy to keep the plant profitable.

Reports that the rash of oil tanker mishaps has strengthened the case of critics arguing that international ship owners have too often undermined maritime safety in the pursuit of cost-cutting shortcuts. Issue of the current blend of market forces and regulatory oversight; Spill statistics; Use of double-hull tankers; Flags of convenience.

Reports that a Norwegian rescue ship, the Senja, rescued nearly 1,000 people from the Soviet cruise vessel, Maxim Gorky, that had run into an iceberg in the Greenland Sea, ripping two large holes in the side of the 630-foot ship. Details of rescue; Reasons for accident probed; Background of ship; History of Soviet cruise ship accidents.

Reports that Lisbet Palme, the widow of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, was certain that the man accused of killing her husband in 1986 was the same man that she saw just after the shooting. Mrs. Palme's testimony discussed.

Discusses the effect of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's term in office on the British economy. Resurgent inflation; Labor unrest; Economic outlook.

Addresses the rise of advertising used by the British government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Promotion of entrepreneurs, small businesses, public service programs, and policy fields via the market forces; Percentage of advertising dollars represented by the government; Ties to the Thatcher Government's belief in self-help and the power of the marketplace.

Reports that free enterprise for British pubs is a new aim of the Thatcher government, which says the system under which big brewing companies own most of the nation's pubs, amounts to a cartel. Findings of two-and-a-half year investigation; Proposals for change; Reactions.

Reports on the economic impact of a series of troubles experienced in Britain's North Sea oilfields. Specific accidents; Lack of adherence to procedures seen as major cause.

Reports on the announced merger between the SmithKline Beckman Corporation and the Beecham Group P.L.C. to form SmithKline Beecham P.L.C. that will be the second largest drug company in the world. Analysis of deal.

Reports that the old craft of thatching a roof has had a resurgence in Britain.

Reports that commercial television is vastly expanding in Europe, giving rise to speculation about what cultural changes will be brought by the increased exposure to the powers of television.

Report that some participants in the British book industry plan to break the longstanding agreement in Britain under which a new book must be sold at the price set by the publisher.

Afghan guerrilla leaders declared Afghanistan to be a free Muslim state which they hope to be in control of within a month. Sibgatullah Mojadedi was elected president of interim government.

Salman Rushdie, author of the novel `The Satanic Verses' issued a statement expressing regret that his book had distressed Muslims. Iranian president had suggested that Rushdie apologize. Official Iranian reaction to apology unclear.

Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has announced her intention to launch drastic changes in the nation's health care system. While her plan calls for the application of free-market ideas to a state-financed system in hopes of improving the quality of medical service, opponents are attacking the reforms as the first step toward the `privatization' of health care, which they claim will ultimately lead to high-cost, inequitable care.

Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has proposed a sweeping revision of the British legal system, provoking a tremendous outcry among the country's legal professionals. Under the proposed system, the traditional division of labor between the barristers and the solicitors would be eliminated, and a new fee system would be set-up, moves which would move the British legal system a few steps closer to the American system.

Finland has long been the Western nation with the most extensive trading contact with the Soviet Union, and the new Soviet restructuring program known as perestroika is having an early effect on the Finn-Soviet trading environment. As decision-making power in the USSR has been decentralized, Finnish companies have had difficulty searching out Soviet managers with effective authority. While business has slowed, interest is running high, and analysts predict more trade in the future.

Concerned with the implications of large, international corporate takeovers, the British government and the European Commission have halted one of Europe's biggest and most significant hostile takeover battles. Britain's General Electric Company and West Germany's Siemens are attempting to acquisition the Plessy firm in an electronics industry showdown. Two giant US electronics firms, General Electric (not related to Britain's General Electric) and AT&T, are also involved.

A British Midland Boeing 737 crashed near Kegworth, England while trying to make an emergency landing. The pilot, who was among the estimated 90 survivors, had reported engine trouble but had maintained control of the jet until immediately before the crash. At least 32 of the 126 people on the flight died.

The British Petroleum Company has announced plans to sell off its mining operations to the RTZ Corporation for $4.3 billion. In a corollary move, BP will also buy back 790 million shares of the Kuwaiti government's 21.6 percent stake in the company. With the Kuwaiti stake reduced to 9.9 percent and its spectacularly unsuccessful mining ventures unloaded, BP will have closed two major deals that will help firm up its future.

Comments on the long-running battle for control of Harrods department store in London. For years, Roland W. (Tiny) Rowland, a maverick British businessman, has tried to wrest the celebrated retailer from the Fayed brothers of Egypt. Now it is reported that the government investigated the Fayeds' $1.05 billion 1985 purchase of House of Fraser PLC which owns Harrods.

Police officials investigating the December 21, 1988 bombing of a Pan Am 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland have discovered the luggage container in which the bomb was hidden. There is considerable suspicion that the bomb may have been originally loaded on to a Pan Am 727 in Frankfurt, West Germany before being transferred to the larger plane departing from London, England.

States that Volvo AB reached agreement with the Swedish government over the auto maker's links with Procordia AB, saying it would increase its stake in Procordia but would not merge with the food and drugs company. The pact appears to end a 3-month standoff between Volvo and the Swedish government, which began on January 25 when Volvo and Procordia announced plans to merge. Terms of the compromise.

Discusses the Jetro program, established by the Japanese government in 1958 to aid Japan's postwar export drive. It is now helping smaller American companies sell to Japan. Gives the example of CLI Systems Inc. in Clearwater, Fla.; Takashi Tanji, a 49-year-old senior trade adviser stationed in Tampa.

Reports that the haphazard spectacle of what is called the world economy seems to operate like some Rube Goldberg contraption, with lags and lurches, ups and downs, in which an economic surge or slump in one country yields an effect in another, often unforeseen and unintended. The machine's engines is sputtering; US economy; Germany's un-Germanic budget deficit; Japan has lost its vigor; International Monetary Fund's projections; Tokyo's easy-money policy; More.

Reports that more and more US corporations are changing their corporate heads to stimulate better leadership policies and more profit as opposed to allowing older corporate members of the old clubhouse to continue to stay on. Robert C. Stempel, the chairman and chief executive officer of General Motors was asked to step down; Chrysler Corp. Chairman Lee Iacocca; John F. Akers, chairman of the International Business Machines Corporation; More.

Comments on the shake-up at General Motors Corporation. John G. Smale, 64-year-old former chairman of the Procter & Gamble Company, is replacing Robert C. Stempel, who remains chairman and chief executive. Stempel also lost his president and his chief financial officer, who were both demoted.

Presents the results of a `New York Times'/`CBS News' Poll on free trade. The 490 executives surveyed, representing a cross section of American industry from multibillion-dollar corporations to small family companies, are much more emphatic in their support for keeping the nation's markets comparatively open than is the public in general. Details and examples.

Presents an obituary of Bernard J. Lasker, a former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange and fund-raiser for prominent Republicans like former President Richard M. Nixon and former Mayor John V. Lindsay of New York City. He died of heart failure yesterday at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan after an illness of several weeks. He was 81 years old and lived in Manhattan and in Greenwich, Conn.

Reports that many American business executives are starting to see signs that the nation's sluggish economy is at last turning the corner. Surge in retail sales; Economic outlook; Results of a `New York Times'/`CBS News Poll.' (Related article on page D1: U.S. retail sales jump in month, by R.D. Hershey Jr.)

Says that the new Russian government has hired Goldman, Sachs & Company, London, to contact blue-chip corporations and to expedite Western investments in Russia. The challenge; A successful deal.

Profiles Ed Pankau, 46, one of the new breed of financial sleuths who track down the assets hidden by white-collar crooks. Thanks to the savings and loan debacle, bank failures, corporate bankruptcies and financial scandals, it is a booming field.

Tells about a written memo from Joseph Vaez, an examiner for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, warning that the Luxembourg-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was loaded with bad loans and used front men to disguisehighly questionable transactions. However, the memo disappeared, and both Senate and House committees have begun an investigation into its disappearance.

Discusses executive pay in the US. Says that it has suddenly become a national issue. The multimillion-dollar paychecks of executives are a powerful symbol to the ailing economy--and a symptom of deeper problems. Justification for high executive pay; How much some executives make.

Traces the success of Aflac Inc. of Columbus Ga., which until very recently was named the American Family Corporation. Its unusual achievement in Japan; How it illustrates the system that American executives have long complained makes Japan a closed market.

Says that it is blue-collar workers who have been hardest hit by the current economic slump, losing more jobs and enduring far higher rates of unemployment. Though the economy will no doubt come back, their lost jobs are probably gone for good, given the relentless advance of automation and international competition. Examples; Training for new occupations.

States that the liquidators of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International have tentatively agreed to place more than $100 million in a fund to assist two American banks that had been secretly owned by BCCI. The assistance for the two banks--First American Bankshares and the Independence Bank--is part of a broader settlement in which the liquidators will plead guilty on behalf of BCCI to state and federal charges of conducting a multibillion-dollar fraud.

Says that executives expect that the thousands of jobs being trimmed from the nation's work force are never coming back. Blue-collar workers hit harder than white-collar; More pressure on white-collar workers; Examples of International Business Machines Corporation, Eastman Kodak Company, Xerox Corporation and others.

Says that a federal under-cover agent who played a central role in building a money-laundering case against the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) told a Senate subcommittee of his frustration that the investigation did not go further. He said that `hundreds of leads' were ignored.

Tells of the efforts to keep the Independence Bank of Encino, Calif., and First American Bankshares Inc. of Washington, both of whom were secretly owned by the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), from failing. Bank regulators regard the possible collapse of either bank as `political dynamite.

States that Abdur Sakhia, former executive of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) told Congress that he found it `impossible to believe' that Robert A. Altman did not know that First American Bankshares was secretly owned by BCCIwhile he was president of the American bank.

States that Independence Bank in Encino, Calif., is reeling from losses after years of heedless growth, reportedly under the stewardship of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). Allegations of fraud and self-dealing are still being examined. Details.

States that the machine tool industry is once again at the center of a debate that touches on the larger issues of trade policy and national security. The Bush Administration must soon decide whether to push to extend a 5-year-old program of restraints on imported machine tools. It promises to be a tough choice because of the growing complexity of global trade patterns and the recent changes in the geopolitics of national security.