World Notes

ITALY Needed: A Quick Conviction

The prosecutors wanted a speedy trial, and they got it. In seven hours, a three-judge panel in Genoa tried and convicted five Palestinian terrorists last week for illegally possessing arms and explosives in connection with the Oct. 7 seajacking of the Achille Lauro. The trial was a pre-emptive move to ensure the defendants' continued custody while Italian magistrates prepare for the more serious battle ahead: the trial of the five young Palestinians and eleven others, including alleged Mastermind Mohammed Abul Abbas Zaidan, who are charged with kidnaping and the murder of Passenger Leon Klinghoffer.

The four men who commandeered the Italian liner received prison sentences that ranged from four to eight years. Two days after the proceeding, it was learned that the youngest was only 17 years old and would have to be retried in a juvenile court. A fifth defendant, Mohammed Issa Abbas, who was arrested in Genoa carrying false passports before the ship set sail, received a $1,700 fine and a nine-year sentence for smuggling Kalashnikov automatic rifles and hand grenades into Italy. Abbas, 24, told the court that he is a cousin of Abul Abbas. GREECE An Anniversary Gets Ugly

It was the worst domestic violence since the Socialist government of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou took power in 1981. The trouble began during the annual Nov. 17 march commemorating the 1973 student uprising that marked the beginning of the end of the country's seven-year military dictatorship. Thugs in the crowd ran amuck and attacked a police bus. One of the cops shot back, killing a 15-year-old schoolboy. The Athens government quickly charged the policeman with manslaughter. Papandreou, who has been under attack from organized labor for imposing austerity measures, condemned the shooting as a "horrible act of murder."

But the killing only spawned more violence. Hundreds of militant students raged through downtown streets, smashing windows and throwing Molotov cocktails. More than 1,000 protesters barricaded themselves in Athens Polytechnic University. After two days and nights of disturbances, peace returned, at a cost of one dead, more than 100 injured, and a political casualty, Government Spokesman Costas Laliotis, a left-winger who resigned in dismay at the handling of the crisis. NORTHERN IRELAND Extremists Unleash Their Fury

Nobody said it was going to be easy. The controversial Anglo-Irish accord, signed two weeks ago by Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and Garret FitzGerald, gave the Dublin government a limited voice in the affairs of the British province of Northern Ireland for the first time. Last week, though the agreement had received solid support in both the British and Irish parliaments, it was harshly attacked by extremists on both sides.

When British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Tom King arrived at Belfast city hall for a luncheon, he had to run a gauntlet of angry Protestants who pushed him, threw eggs and hurled insults. The Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the militantly Protestant Democratic Unionist Party, denounced King as "a white-livered cur" and "a yellow-bellied coward." On Saturday, tens of thousands of Protestants converged on the city hall, where they set aflame the Irish tricolor and an effigy of Thatcher.

On the other side of Ulster's bloody equation, the outlawed Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for the murders of a policeman, a militiaman and a businessman, which were carried out in the seven days since the signing of the accord. WEST GERMANY New Life in the Fast Lane

Unlike most other countries with modern, high-speed motorways, West Germany allows drivers to zip along as fast as they choose on more than 5,000 miles of autobahn. So when the Bonn government earlier this year suggested that a nationwide limit of 62 m.p.h. (100 k.p.h.) was a possibility, the outcry was long and loud. Now the danger appears to have passed. In the face of noisy protests, the Cabinet of Chancellor Helmut Kohl last week voted to keep the autobahn free and fast.

The move followed publication of an official study concluding that slower speeds would do little to cut fuel consumption or air pollution. The latter point was especially sensitive. More than half of West Germany's forests are diseased or dying, largely be cause of poisonous emissions from factories and motor vehicles. Still, there is some hope for the trees. Government officials are discussing an 81 m.p.h. (130 k.p.h.) limit as one that their speed-loving countrymen might accept. With good reason: the Brussels-based European Commission may soon propose a European Community-wide limit, which West Germany would be under considerable pressure from its neighbors to accept. The probable standard: 81 m.p.h. FRANCE Hats Off to the Kepi

For French policemen, the kepi was never the most practical of headgear. It had a tendency to fall off when the wearer chased a fleeing criminal, and it did not keep the rain off the neck. Still, an era ended earlier this month when the kepi began disappearing from the heads of police in Paris and elsewhere. The round, pillbox cap is being replaced by a flat-topped, short-beaked hat of the style worn by U.S. police.

Some French police officers last week began wearing a new uniform that, like the American-style hat, was created by Pierre Balmain, the Paris fashion house. Le new look, as the French press quickly dubbed the change, replaces the old tailored jacket with a loose-fitting, blouse-style top that leaves an officer's gun holster free and visible for the first time. "It's a younger silhouette," said Frank Adler, who designed the new uniform for Balmain. Noted one policeman: "It's more practical. But the most important change is that we can reach our gun much more quickly." Some older members of the force, however, lament the passing of a national symbol. "For most people, the image of the French policeman is the kepi," said the curator of the police museum at the Paris Prefecture. "Now all that has disappeared."