Kuwait

Because of an editing error, an article in yesterday's Sun incorrectly reported that Maryland businesses would get $100 billion worth of contracts to assist in the reconstruction of Kuwait. In fact, there were early projections that reconstruction of Kuwait would cost a total of $100 billion, of which Maryland businesses might get a share; those overall projections have been lowered to $25 billion.The Sun regrets the errors.Ten weeks ago, Maryland officials were celebrating more than the return of U.S. troops from the Persian Gulf war zone.

KUWAIT CITY -- Kuwait's emir, Sheik Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah, announced yesterday that elections will be held in October 1992, to the dismay of opposition leaders who had hoped for speedier democratization."

ANNAPOLIS -- As Gov. William Donald Schaefer and the Kuwaiti ambassador put their signatures on an agreement yesterday giving Maryland companies preferential treatment in supplying goods and services for the reconstruction of war-torn Kuwait, businesses around the state were already negotiating to cash in on the accord.One of them is McNamara Fabricators Inc., a Baltimore plate and structural steel company. Charles W. Thomas Jr., McNamara's president, said that the company is bidding on a $30 million order that would be its largest contract in 10 or 15 years.

The trickle of Americans evacuated from the Persian Gulf reached Baltimore-Washington International Airport yesterday as a jetliner carrying 140 hostages, including 90 children, arrived after an exhausting two-day journey from war-ravaged Kuwait.As an airport bus carried the former hostages from their jumbo jet to a dingy old hangar, transformed by flowers and red-white-and-blue bunting into a festive reception area, children pressed their noses to the bus windows and waved to waiting reporters.

"The exhibit has become symbolic," said Sheika Hussah. "These things are in exile as we all are. And they are a product of Islamic civilization as we are."Sheika Hussah Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah, co-owner with her husband of the al-Sabah collection from which selections are now on view at the Walters Art Gallery, is a member of Kuwait's ruling family who has been living in exile since the Iraqi invasion in August. In mid-October, she came to the United States to announce that the American tour of the exhibit would proceed as scheduled, and while in Baltimore spoke of the collection and the exhibit.

Given the experience of Grenada and Panama after their liberation by American armed forces, Kuwait has no reason to expect that democracy and a better social system will spring forth like a well-watered rose garden. But unlike poor Grenada and Panama, which have never received the full measure of U.S. largess they expected, the emirate on the Persian Gulf is rich in oil resources once the fires ignited by Saddam Hussein's marauders are put out. Its ruling family has the wallet to make things better all by itself (to paraphrase President Bush)

MOSCOW -- After a month of diplomatic pressure on Iraq, Russia indicated that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is ready to accept a U.N. demand to give formal and legal recognition to Kuwait.Word of the possible breakthrough came after a two-hour meeting here, arranged at Iraq's request, between Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi deputy prime minister, and Russian Foreign Minister Andrei D. Kozyrev.If confirmed by Iraq, the step could lead to a lifting of U.N. trade sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 and would ease the tensions caused by sudden Iraqi troop movements toward Kuwait last month.

KUWAIT CITY -- Opposition candidates, many of them tied to conservative Islamic groups and all of whom have called for increased democratic rights, won a substantial majority in Kuwait's first parliamentary elections in six years.The opposition walked away with an unexpected 31 of the 50 National Assembly posts, according to vote figures released by the Interior Ministry yesterday.Islamic candidates took 19 seats, more than doubling the nine seats they won in the 1985 parliamentary elections, but infighting between the religious groups makes it doubtful that they will function as a unified bloc.

WASHINGTON -- The United States ordered 4,000 combat troops and two anti-missile batteries to the Persian Gulf yesterday in response to thousands of elite Iraqi soldiers massed on the Kuwaiti border, threatening the oil-rich emirate.The Pentagon reported that Iraq had moved 14,000 Republican Guard troops, its best-equipped and best-led forces, to within 12 miles of the Kuwaiti border, bringing the total number of Iraqi troops deployed there to as many as 54,000.Other Republican Guard units were no more than a day or two away from the border.

KUWAIT CITY -- Electric service began to slowly flicker on in neighborhoods of Kuwait City yesterday, and a weak but steady stream of water dribbled from faucets in some areas.By late last night, large sections of Kuwait City had shed their dark cloak and reassumed the twinkling appearance of a modern city.Streetlights lit up avenues that had been dark and foreboding for about six weeks, since Iraqis sabotaged the power stations before retreating.Some traffic lights blinked on, bringing order to intersections that had become increasingly risky to cross.