Zayed Ibn Sultan Al Nuhayan

Oil prices resumed their slide Monday, and OPEC announced it was dispatching the cartel's new secretary general to talk with leaders of the United Arab Emirates about turning down their oil spigot. Crude prices tumbled 68 cents a barrel to the lowest close since late 1986, hurt by a selloff that traders blamed on too much supply and renewed skepticism about OPEC's ability to restrain production. The decline to $14.

President Bush demanded today that Iraq release all foreigners detained in Iraq and Kuwait, saying "whatever these innocent people are called, they are in fact hostages." He said a regime that uses civilians as pawns will face the scorn and condemnation of the entire civilized world.

The Federal Reserve Board may move soon to name a trustee to find a buyer for an Encino bank allegedly controlled in secret by the scandal-plagued Bank of Credit and Commerce International, banking sources said Tuesday. The Fed on May 7 ordered BCCI to sell its alleged interest in Independence Bank, the San Fernando Valley's largest bank. The Fed gave BCCI 60 days to come up with a plan to sell its purported interest.

Philippine officials and lawyers vowed Saturday to save the life of a 16-year-old Philippine maid convicted by an Islamic court in the United Arab Emirates of murdering her Arab employer. A court in Al Ayn sentenced Sarah Balabagan to death Saturday for the premeditated murder of her employer, Almas Mohammed Baloushi. It rejected her testimony that she stabbed him 34 times in self-defense after he raped her.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III and King Fahd agreed Thursday on the outlines of a multibillion-dollar Saudi payment for U.S. military operations in the Persian Gulf and to cushion the impact of the crisis on poor front-line countries such as Egypt and Turkey. U.S.

French warships approached Lebanon on Wednesday in the face of a growing storm of Muslim threats. The National Front, an alliance of anti-Christian militias, declared that it would "deal with any French presence off our shore as a military target." And Nabih Berri, whose Shiite Muslim militia Amal is armed with artillery, declared, "We will open fire. . . ."

Seeking to calm Arab fears of a crack in the international alliance against Iraq, French President Francois Mitterrand flew to Saudi Arabia on Thursday and assured King Fahd and French military commanders that Paris remains committed to the international embargo against Iraq "no matter how long it takes." The French president's visit, the first by a Western leader to the troubled Persian Gulf since the Aug.

Iran said Monday that it is sending delegations throughout the Muslim world in an apparent effort to stem a wave of anti-Iranian sentiment in the wake of violent clashes at Islam's holiest shrines in Mecca. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran's revolutionary leader, blamed the United States for the Iranian deaths and vowed revenge. "We hold America responsible for these crimes," the 87-year-old patriarch said in a message to leaders of Iranian pilgrims at the holy city in Saudi Arabia.

France said Friday it will send three sophisticated mine-hunting ships to the Persian Gulf region, one more than previously announced. The three ships and a support vessel will leave Toulon, a Mediterranean port, on Monday afternoon on a voyage expected to take about two weeks, a Defense Ministry spokesman said in Paris. Meanwhile, Iran said it was starting "minesweeping maneuvers" in international waters of the Persian Gulf on Friday using divers and helicopters.

A court will place the Luxembourg-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International SA in the hands of appointed liquidators today to unravel the affairs of the scandal-hit financial institution. The Court of Justice's move, called "controled administration," is the latest in an unprecedented wave of legal action to freeze the bank's estimated $20 billion in assets in almost 70 countries amid allegations of fraud.