NO SWEET DEAL.

A major Russian oil exporter is at loggerheads with Havana over what the exporter claims is Cuba’s failure to honor a 1995 oil-for-sugar deal between the two countries. Alfa-Eko won a tender to supply to Havana 1.5 million tons of Russian crude oil in exchange for 500,000 tons of Cuban sugar. But the company charges that Havana has delayed sugar shipments and has attempted to raise prices beyond those stipulated after having already received some 600,000 tons of oil. (PIA-Interfax, April 26)

Yeltsin Message to Hussein?