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592846_4 | The Art Market | the tax window," she said. Another aspect of Mr. Clinton's proposal would raise the tax rate on high incomes. Diana D. Brooks, the president of Sotheby's in America, said she believed a tax increase could weaken the auction market's middle tier by leaving less discretionary income for acquiring art. "But it's hard to know," she said. "My guess is that the $130,000-to-$500,000 income range will be affected." But Mrs. Hambrecht said, "At the very top level, people will always have money, so the increase probably won't have any effect on business at all." Dealers see the President's tax plan differently. "If the economy will be pushed into the doldrums by Clinton's tax plan, we will be in deep trouble," said Andre Emmerich, the Manhattan gallery owner. "The bottom line is the creation of new wealth. If there's a sense of buoyancy, people will feel like spending money." Mr. Emmerich added that if it became advantageous once again to donate artworks to museums, a scarcity of museum-quality works on the market could raise prices. Richard Feigen, another Manhattan dealer, said he didn't believe prices would rise. "At least not right away," he said. "In most areas, from classic 20th-century to Old Masters and antiquities, people aren't affected by the vagaries of the economy, except psychologically." Mr. Feigen added that he believed the market for contemporary art, which has always been subject to speculative buyers, would be the hardest hit. Looking to the future, he predicted, "The market will continue to rise because people will continue to think of art as a financial asset." "I'm not pleased by this," he concluded, saying art should be bought for art's sake and not for investment purposes. "But it's a condition with which we seem to have to live." A College's Loss The J. Paul Getty Museum's gain is an English college's loss, and the British are, understandably, sore losers. Grave disapproval has been art experts' reaction to the news that Holloway College, a branch of London University in Egham, was forced to sell an important seascape by J. M. W. Turner, "Van Tromp Going About to Please His Masters," from 1844. The college said it planned to use the $16 million it received from the Getty Museum in Malibu, Calif., to finance the upkeep of its magnificent Gothic building. But museum curators in London say this precedent may deter potential benefactors from making collections |
590349_0 | Topics of The Times; A Crime to Remember | Black citizens of Tampa, Fla., are angered by a city proposal to build a replica of a pirate ship in a new $70 million pirate museum. It appears that the Whydah, which sank in 1717 in New England waters, was used as a slave ship before pirates seized it. Tampa's blacks are right to protest lack of consultation. Their other grievance -- that a slave ship should not be a tourist attraction -- has less merit. The exhibit will expose Americans to a shameful chapter in their past. No human rights outrage has been less adequately documented than the commerce in human flesh. Millions of human beings were stowed in wretched vessels heading to American and West Indian plantations. But slavers kept few records or journals. Much of the rare documentation was gathered by abolitionists, including chilling pictures showing how slaves were tied on decks inches apart. In the sober words of a 1927 monograph by George Francis Dow: "The cruelty and horror of 'the middle passage' -- the voyage from the Guinea coast -- can never be told in all its gruesome details. It is enough to recall that the ships were always trailed by man-eating sharks." For Americans to be reminded of this sad history matters more than the understandable misgivings about the good taste of turning this horror to commercial purposes. The new museum could not only educate visitors about piracy and early navigation, but also expose the secrets of a dirty trade. |
590223_1 | The Ones That Got Away | and swaying with the waves, temporarily deafened by the loud drone of a 35-foot Bertram's large motors, as the captain sheepishly tried one thing after another, from clownish-looking rubber lures to fresh bait, all to no avail. Back at the boathouse, the traditional trophy photos of impossibly large catches hung upside down as they were weighed, and dwarfing the lucky fishermen alongside them, stood testament to the fact that exciting things do happen in these waters. The closest thing to any action we saw on that $300 day, however, was the gnarled heads of bait fish that remained on the hooks we gathered in, presumably after having been separated from their bodies by prowling barracuda. By midafternoon, I was busily polishing off a good novel. The expedition fees covered the cost of the boat and captain, of course, but also the baiting of hooks and, had there been any, the cleaning of the catch. For consolation there was a delicious hamburger and as many beers or soft drinks as one might care to consume. A choppy half day in the luminescent waters off Bimini, the sliver-thin sand-bar island where Hemingway is still remembered by a few craggy elders for his reputed penchant for machine-gunning sharks that menaced his catch, proved more frustrating still, as even the stealthy barracuda failed to play their role as spoilers. Most boat captains study everything from the light and sea currents to the effect of different colored plugs, or lures, on the fish they are after, claiming that this occult art is responsible for their catch, especially when there is one. A few more outings persuaded me, however, that luck, something that changes more unpredictably than the winds in this business, may have more to do with the results. On my next outing, in Grenada, a small, forested mountain of an island caressed in the palm of inviting blue seas, I hired a crew of youngsters in a modest and simply equipped Boston Whaler-type boat to see if my luck might change. Setting out early in the morning was the only trick these fishermen claimed, so we boarded up before 8 A.M., with the sun still low in the sky. A half hour later, with St. George's amber waterfront receding in the distance, the four of us began cruising a line about a mile off shore. We had hardly deployed our four lines from the |
590435_2 | A Balancing Act for TriBeCa Zoning | did their concern that the very qualities that attracted them to TriBeCa in the first place would be jeopardized by high-intensity development. But owners feared that preservation or rezoning would greatly limit their ability to exploit these trends, leaving them saddled with antiquated, decrepit structures. Two years ago, the Landmarks Preservation Commission created the first of four historic districts in TriBeCa. The remaining three were designated in December. A month later, the Planning Department recommended rules to reduce density and preserve the "street wall" formed by buildings in eastern TriBeCa. For the western blocks, planners recommended an increase in density and the removal of some restrictions on residential construction and commercial development. "What we tried to do was make zoning much more sensitive to the existing fabric of the community," Mr. Schaffer said. The Planning Commission underscored this aim Monday, when it endorsed the new historic districts, 11 to 1. In its report to the City Council, which can modify or even deny the designations, the Planning Commission concluded that each district "will help sustain the physical and economic revitalization already under way in the area" and is "consistent with plans for the area's future development and improvement." IF the fate of TriBeCa West is a reliable guide, the Council may remove some properties but otherwise leave the areas alone. The zoning recommendations are now being circulated for comment and are not likely to reach the Council until next year. The chairwoman of the TriBeCa-Washington Market committee of Community Board 1, Madelyn Wils, said, "The whole idea that the Planning Commission has accepted the fact that preservation makes for good economics is a very big step for the city." "I believe this is a precedent," she said, "to actually look at a community which is presently in the process of being landmarked and to look at zoning at the same time, and work hand in hand." City planners noted the 34-page "TriBeCa West Historic District Manual," by the landmarks commission, New York Landmarks Conservancy and Ehrenkrantz & Eckstut Architects, and urged that similar handbooks be prepared for the other districts. The manual describes building characteristics and materials -- sidewalks, entrances, walls, windows, fire escapes, cornices, parapets -- indicating the contribution made by each to the overall quality of the district. Metal awnings, for example, are noted as being "significant features in the TriBeCa West district" that "should be retained." The |
590473_0 | Streetscapes: The Cragswold; Deciding to Repair, Not Replace, the Casements | CHECK any building with steel casement windows in New York. If it's not controlled by landmark protection, chances are that its windows are either in a gradual state of decay or are being replaced one by one. To many apartment owners, repair problems with steel casements -- rust, balky mechanics, heat loss -- seem insuperable But the Cragswold, a 1928 co-op in Scarsdale, N.Y., has chosen a novel approach: It is repairing, not replacing, each of the windows in its Tudor-style apartment building. The Cragswold was built as a co-op by a group of New York investors who aimed at combining the convenience of an elevator apartment house with a suburban setting. Designed by Townsend, Steinle & Haskell, the six-story building has 44 apartments of 4 to 6 rooms in two cross-shaped wings, with cross ventilation and picturesque exposures. The facades are broad fields of irregular brick on a base course of local rubble-stone. The walls run up in a variety of bays, gables, diamond-patterned brick, half-timber and stucco, all topped by an irregular profile of crenellations, turrets and chimney tops. The casements, which have small panes and swing out to the side, add to the medieval effect. Wooden window frames can be maintained with casual carpentry skills, but steel requires more sophisticated repairs, which are thus often ignored. At the Cragswold, the slide-arm assemblies -- which govern the swing of the window -- had become choked with paint and gunk, freezing the sash closed or, sometimes, slightly open. Steel channels had filled with corrosion and paint, making a tight fit very difficult. Rust was spreading inside and out. There are plenty of companies eager to sell a co-op new windows, but few willing to repair old ones. Either as a cause or as a result, few buildings have sponsored comprehensive repairs of their steel windows. But the Cragswold -- which is not covered by landmark regulations -- is the exception and is now in the middle of a six-month rehabilitation of its casement windows. John Seekircher, of Ardsley, has been retained to clean and repair every one of its 600-plus window frames. The total project, including repainting the frames, will cost $120,000. Mr. Seekircher has stripped and refurbished many of the interior fittings -- exposing the original bright brass handles that few tenants knew were there. The restored window frames are now like some handsome piece of machinery oiled |
588606_2 | Meandering in Burgundy by Barge | cabins with twin beds (sheets and duvets provided) and washbasins. One of the two bathrooms had a shower (with hot water), while the kitchen in the narrow corridor came supplied with crockery, cutlery, stove and refrigerator. We took some food and drink, but stocked up often at little villages. Much of the day was spent lounging at the front of the barge in a comfortable sitting-cum-dining area with a sliding roof. Those wanting a full blast of sunshine went atop where our rented bicycles were stored. The reality, of course, is that we set off without much idea of what we were doing or where we were going. While it could hardly be called an adventurous holiday, it proved to be quite an adventure. For a start, none of us had ever "driven" a long narrow canal boat before. We were given basic instructions before departing, but surprises were nonetheless in store. For example, since the wheel is at the front and the rudder at the back, it was my fate as self-appointed captain to discover that tiny changes of direction at the front produce a lot of tail-wagging at the back. Now I know why oil tankers have the bridge aft. Further, we soon learned that the Saone also has locks: when the river seemed to lose its sense of direction, canals -- and even some tunnels -- were built in the 19th century to provide shortcuts. Where the stone locks were manned, a crew member scrambled ashore with ropes to keep the boat in position, essential if more than one boat was squeezed into the lock. With the automatic locks, the routine was set in motion by twisting a cable hanging over the river some distance away. In both cases, of course, the key was to learn how to guide the boat in a straight line. The plan was that we would take turns at the wheel: moving at a maximum permitted speed of 5 miles per hour, not much could go wrong, I presumed. But after one "pilot" almost sank four hardy Austrian oarsmen and another "pilot" scraped the bank while distracted by opening a bottle of wine, the captain -- me, that is -- ordered the youngest and clearly most skilled member of the crew to handle all tricky maneuvers. Cries of "Watch out!" eased off and the captain's siestas on the sunroof went undisturbed. We |
588516_6 | As Ethnic Wars Multiply, U.S. Strives for a Policy | said a senior State Department official involved in such operations. "To a large degree, we have to get away from the the idea of total respect for sovereignty that was once sacrosanct." This official said that Cambodia, Bosnia and Somalia were "states not capable of governing themselves," and that in each, the United States and other United Nations members had begun to "take government powers out of the hands of indigenous peoples." In all past situations, though, the United Nations or outside forces went in with the full consent of the parties in conflict. What is facing it now is whether to go into cases where it might forcefully have to disarm one side. An Old Idea Is Revived Others suggest that the United Nations should go even further and in effect run countries that have failed to control their disparate forces from within. Such a role would revive the concept of United Nations trusteeships, an instrument employed after World War II to administer former colonies until they were ready for independence. Some diplomats say that Bosnia and Somalia might be early candidates for United Nations trusteeships, but no move in that direction has begun. And many experts worry about the precedent of the United Nations or any other instrument of the international community intervening where it may not be wanted, turning the United Nations into the new world's colonial power. "We are at the point of claiming that the larger community has more rights of intervention," Senator Moynihan said. But he added: "I don't want a proposition that has the U.N. General Assembly deciding how we are handling our affairs in Elmira, N.Y." The modes of possible future cooperation between the United States and the United Nations are only in the earliest stages of discussion. For example, last summer, Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali proposed a separate and permanent United Nations military force to intervene on behalf of the international community, either to prevent or stop ethnic conflicts within member states. U.S. to Study 3 Options Mr. Boutros-Ghali's idea was quietly rebuffed by the Bush Administration, but the Clinton Administration may be more receptive. At his own confirmation hearings, Defense Secretary Les Aspin said the new Administration would be studying three possibilities of some new kind of force with the United Nations. In one option, he said there could be a permanent force assigned to the United Nations to intervene |
588759_0 | There Is Life in Those Old Cars Yet | Dear Sir, Your Jan. 17 column contained a letter from a gentleman who owns a 1974 Oldsmobile with dual air bags. "After almost 20 years," the letter said, "G.M. refuses responsibility as to whether they will actually deploy." While it doesn't surprise me that General Motors would refuse to commit itself, I do think they could have pointed out to the owner that such old cars have been tested and the air bags work fine. We at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety have crashed two 1973 Chevrolet Impalas with driver and passenger air bags. One of these barrier tests was conducted at 30 m.p.h. The car, which had been driven more than 100,000 miles and then stored for years in a shed, had to be towed to the test track. The only service it received involved replacing the battery. When crashed into the barrier, both bags deployed perfectly. In the other test, conducted just last month at the Institute's new Vehicle Research Center, an Impala manufactured in 1972 was crashed head-on into a barrier at 25 m.p.h. This car also had been driven more than 100,000 miles, and neither the clock nor the radio worked. But the air bags worked perfectly. General Motors has a long history of being on-again/off-again when it comes to air bags. It pioneered the bags in production cars during the 1970's. But it then fought them for the next 20 years. What's important to remember at this point is that the air bags G.M. put into those early cars worked fine -- and so do the bags in the cars of today. BRIAN O'NEILL Arlington, Va. Brian O'Neill is the president of the Institute for Highway Safety, a scientific and educational organization supported by the insurance industry. |
588558_0 | Crying Wolf Over Elephants | With great sadness I find I must write to tell you that the plight of Africa's wild elephants is far more desperate than I could have ever imagined." So began an "urgent memorandum" from the African Wildlife Foundation, a nonprofit conservation organization, to its members and potential donors on Feb. 10, 1988. Signed by Paul Schindler, the group's president, the appeal had been prepared by a California company skilled in direct-mail solicitation. It was designed to shock and raise money. It succeeded in both. "In Kenya, there were 165,000 elephants just 15 years ago," the memorandum said. "Today only 20,000 remain." Of the 30,000 elephants that had roamed Tsavo National Park in Kenya in the 1970's, "the remaining 5,000 will be dead in 17 months." In Tanzania, half the 50,000 elephants in the Selous Reserve had been killed in the last eight years. In Uganda, 90 percent "of these beautiful animals have been wiped out." This "slaughter" was caused by the "insatiable greed of the ivory hunters." The memorandum concluded by declaring 1988 the "Year of the Elephant." Three months later, at a Washington news conference at the National Zoo and in the yard of the zoo's African elephant, Nancy, Diana McMeekin, the organization's vice president, issued an appeal to American consumers: "Don't Buy Ivory." The mailing and news conference were the beginning of one of the most intense conservation campaigns ever. The crusade to ban ivory was marked by increasing hyperbole and gruesome pictures of mutilated elephants and by public emotion and politics. It was a campaign in which conservation organizations paid homage to fund raising and membership. Groups that endorsed a ban found that there was money in elephants -- big money -- and, conversely, that failing to join the crusade might cost them members. Only a few months before the news conference, McMeekin herself had been wearing ivory bracelets. The organization saw nothing wrong with it, and even now was proceeding with caution: it did not ask for a ban on ivory trading. Rather, the memo urged, "Don't buy ivory until the situation is brought under control!" The goal was to educate Americans that ivory products come from elephants. To have gone beyond that educational purpose, McMeekin said later, would have put the wildlife foundation on "the slippery slope to an extreme position." The extreme position was a total ban. "We felt that it would be arrogant |
588703_0 | Sigrid Armstrong, Ryan F. Keough | Sigrid Elisabeth Armstrong, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William H. Armstrong Jr. of Denver, was married there yesterday to Ryan Francis Keough, a son of Dr. and Mrs. John J. Keough of Smithtown, L.I. The Rev. Marcian T. O'Meara performed the Roman Catholic ceremony at the Church of the Good Shepherd. Mrs. Keough, 26, manages a Gap clothing store in Manhattan. She graduated from the University of Colorado. Her father, who is retired, was the information systems manager for the Denver public schools, for which her mother, Diane G. Armstrong, was a substitute teacher. Mr. Keough, 29, is a vice president of GCS Computers Inc. in New York, a computer equipment distributor, and a first lieutenant in the United States Army Reserves in Brooklyn. He graduated from Cornell University. His father, who is retired, was the Superintendent of Schools for the Smithtown (L.I.) Central School District. WEDDINGS |
588476_1 | The Executive Computer; Beware! The Computer Is Extending Its Reach | edition is expected to reach stores before summer at a suggested price of $149. To take full advantage, users will need a digital scanner and a PC-based facsimile card, as well as a fairly powerful personal computer with lots of storage memory and a high-resolution screen. The version on display here appeared to be an elegant and inexpensive way to integrate scanned documents and incoming facsimile images into regular Windows applications. A manager could append a scanned image of this newspaper article to an electronic mail message, for example, and send that message over the network to everyone in her division. The program enables the user to magnify the image, edit or annotate it, and otherwise work with pictures as well as electronic text. A Professional edition, better suited for use with a network of computers, is promised for later in the year at $395 plus about $100 for each user on the network. This system will work best if one powerful computer is designated as a server. It also wouldn't hurt to have an optical disk drive for storing large volumes of image data, because a two-page facsimile image saved as an uncompressed graphic file can occupy a thousand times the disk space of the text file to which it is attached. In other words, it will require a considerable investment to add pictures and images to word processors, data bases, spreadsheets and electronic mail documents, despite the reasonable cost of the Watermark software. Yet imagine the convenience: Mr. Beancounter of Tightwad Industries calls to complain that he didn't receive the 500 widgets he ordered two months ago. Instead of dispatching a secretary to the file cabinets to pull the Tightwad file and find various supporting documents, you call up the file in a data-base program and see a sequence of thumbnail images next to the account information. Double-clicking on each image magnifies it to reveal the electronic equivalent of photocopies of the packing order, the daily United Parcel Service shipping sheet, and -- aha! -- the receiving room receipt signed by Mr. Beancounter himself. "Would you like me to fax you a copy of the receipt with your signature?" you ask. But Watermark is not just for archiving images. Let's say you receive an electronic mail message from your factotum asking you to approve his latest expenses, and attached to the message are scanned images of airline receipts, |
588526_2 | So You Thought That Computer Note Was Private | Mr. Coffey replied, electronically, "The last time I saw my son, his hair was blond, and I think his ambitions are more socially acceptable." Mr. Coffey remembers the incident as funny and said, "The reporter is still employed here and does good work." Not every e-mail story has a happy ending. Consider the copy editor in a Detroit advertising company who sent an e-mail message to a colleague detailing her unhappy romance. It became an electronic buffet of office gossip when others figured out how to get into her directory. By the time all of her lamenting made its way through the office messaging system, she had quit in a huff and the entire agency had learned that her ex-boyfriend didn't pick up his socks. New Kind of Communication "We have established a whole new business convention here," said Paul Saffo, a research fellow at Institute for the Future, a California-based think tank. "E-mail is more formal than conversation, but less formal than a business letter. The hilarity comes in because no one knows who else is listening." Electronic mail began in the early 1970's as a way for scientists to share information long distance by computer. Now it has blossomed into a full communications system that no office is complete without. Nearly every Fortune 500 company uses it, as well as thousands of other offices throughout the world. E-mail has also been used as evidence in civil and criminal cases, including the Rodney King case in Los Angeles, in which racially charged computer messages between police officers were offered as evidence of intent. Computer Protocol And so it seems logical enough: employees ought not to type anything in e-mail that they would not say in front of their boss or mothers. People tend to use stronger language and sentiments in e-mail, experts say, partly because e-mail protocol does not yet exist. "We have yet to establish the conventions for e-mail," Mr. Saffo said. "We still have to work out what is appropriate and what isn't." When people don't realize that others could be electronically eavesdropping, they tend to say much more than they would in person. "No one would get on the phone, realize they have the wrong number, and stay on to spill their guts," Mr. Saffo observed. It will take time, but people are learning. "Lurking behind every electronic faux pas is a lesson," Mr. Saffo said. |
588424_0 | Close Calls: On the Road and on the Phone | FORGET for a moment that scientists know nearly nothing about whether cellular phones cause brain cancer. The question is complicated, but researchers might some day figure it out. There is a second, far more obvious kind of risk widely attributed to car phones: car crashes. But there is a paradox. While the symptoms may be as easy to spot as a tow truck, the link between phones and accidents may be even harder to verify, in a scientific way, than any link between phones and brain cancer. A decade into the era of cellular phones, nearly everyone has seen them used in frightening ways. "I marvel at people in stick-shift cars, one hand on the phone, one on the stick and steering with their knees," said Ken Hacker, who sees such juggling acts on his half-mile walk to the train station every morning. "They're doing 35 miles per hour in a 45-mile-per-hour zone, and other drivers are swinging around them, and they have absolutely no idea what they are doing." But in a statistical sense, Mr. Hacker has no idea of the risk, even though he is a spokesman for the American Insurance Association in Washington. "Everybody shares this gut feeling that it's a problem," said William R. Schroeder, who has a friend who was recently rear-ended by a driver talking on the phone. But Mr. Schroeder, a vice president of the American Insurers Highway Safety Alliance, of Schaumburg, Ill., also has no data to back up his gut. Nor does Brian O'Neill, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which collects crash data on all cars. "It's one of these questions I'm afraid we are never going to know definitively," Mr. O'Neill said. Why? Because no one keeps track of which cars have phones. The police, if they are called to an accident at all, do not bother to record whether either car had one. Insurance companies, which keep the other data needed to screen for accident rates -- age, sex, how many miles a driver logs each year and the like -- do not record whether their drivers have phones, because they don't insure the phones separately, since so few are stolen. Motor Mouths Traffic ticket statistics are no help, either. If officers think a phone helped cause the accident, said Ronald H. Sostkowski, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, they may ticket the |
588512_4 | Christianity Is Booming In China Despite Rifts | church. "We control the churches in the cities, but they control all the countryside. The official Catholic Church is becoming more independent, in part because of the pressure from the clandestine church. Thus a growing number of official Catholic churches hold Sunday school services, even though children are not supposed to go to church, and increasingly priests even include in the Mass a prayer for the Pope. Church Separation Blurs In any case, the dichotomy between the official and underground churches is to some extent a false one. Many official priests are quietly loyal to the Vatican, and underground priests sometimes say Mass in official churches. The Vatican provides some guidance, sending secret emissaries from time to time. When one such emissary visited Wenzhou last year, the official priests complained to him indignantly that the underground priests were unsophisticated and too aggressive. Perhaps the single greatest challenge for Roman Catholics in China today is adhering to the Vatican's ban on contraception and abortion. Chinese women are normally limited to one child, or sometimes two in the countryside, and after that the authorities put enormous pressure on them to be fitted with an I.U.D. or else to be sterilized. Couples who refuse to accept contraception, or who refuse an abortion if a pregnancy results, are subjected to large fines, confiscation of property and job dismissals. "Some of our parishioners refuse any family planning, and they run off into the hills when they get pregnant, or else they go to Xinjiang province or even to Mongolia," said the Catholic in the official church. The attraction of Christianity to many Chinese seems to be that it offers something to believe in at a time when faith in Communism and Maoism has collapsed. Society is changing rapidly, leisure time is increasing, and links with the West are growing. The More Gods, the Better Buddhism and traditional folk religion -- belief in the Kitchen God, the God of Wealth, and so on -- are also gaining adherents for the same reasons. Many Chinese are all-encompassing in their faith, figuring that the more gods they pray to, the better the odds that one or another will respond. So it is not unusual for a peasant to profess to be a Buddhist while also leaving offerings for the Kitchen God and expressing interest in Christianity. Buddhism and folk religion have many more believers than Christianity, but they |
589957_0 | The Military Has a Real Flair for Integration; What Plato Says | To the Editor: Plato had an opinion on gays in the military. In the "Symposium," Phaedrus is speaking: "Imagine a man in love being found out doing something humiliating, or letting someone else do something degrading to him, because he was too cowardly to stop it. It would embarrass him more to be found out by the boy he loved than by his father or his friends, or anyone. And you can see just the same thing happening with the boy. He is more worried about being caught behaving badly by his admirers than by anyone else. So if there were some way of arranging that a state, or an army, could be made up entirely of pairs of lovers, it is impossible to imagine a finer population. They would avoid all dishonour, and compete with one another for glory: in battle, this kind of army, though small, fighting side by side could conquer virtually the whole world. After all, a lover would sooner be seen by anyone deserting his post or throwing away his weapons, rather than by his boyfriend." (Translation by Tom Griffith, copyright 1986, published by University of California Press, 1989.) CATHERINE GLASS Portland, Ore., Feb. 2, 1993 |
590041_0 | Edward F. Conley, Correspondent, 60 | Edward F. Conley, a longtime correspondent and bureau chief for the Voice of America, died on Thursday in George Washington University Hospital in Washington. He was 60 and lived in Tokyo. The cause was a brain tumor, his family said. In his 32 years at the Voice of America, Mr. Conley was in charge of its European and Middle East bureau in London and of its East Asia and Pacific bureau in Hong Kong as well as Tokyo bureau chief, his last post. He also covered the White House, Congress, the State Department and the United Nations. He headed the Presidential campaign coverage in 1984 and was the host of the hourlong nightly World Report from 1986 to 1989. Mr. Conley was born in Springfield, Mass. After graduating from Boston University in 1954, he worked at WHEB radio in Portsmouth, N.H.; WDBJ television and radio in Roanoke, Va., and WWLP television in Springfield, Mass. His survivors include his wife of 26 years, the former Joyce Cooke; four daughters, Mary-Joyce Conley of Bethesda, Md., and Lucy, Dorcas and Gillian Conley, all of Tokyo. |
591326_1 | U.S. Trade Deficit Grew 29% in 1992 | energy of this country, we will continue to suffer trade deficits and leave Americans idle," Mr. Kantor said. Stephen L. Cooney Jr., the senior policy director for international investment and finance at the National Association of Manufacturers, said he expects the trade deficit to widen in 1993, as the American economy continues to pick up steam and foreign markets languish. After four years of trade surpluses with the European Community, the United States had trade deficits with the community in November and December, he pointed out. The seasonally adjusted trade deficit for December narrowed slightly to $6.95 billion from $7.35 billion in November, the Commerce Department also said today. Exports rose by 4 percent in December, to $39.73 billion, while imports increased by 2.5 percent, to $46.69 billion. Total merchandise trade exports last year were $448.16 billion, while imports totaled $532.50 billion, the Commerce Department said. Critics have suggested that the figures may be misleading because the exports tend to be underreported and because the merchandise trade figures do not include trade in services, like insurance. The United States consistently runs a small trade surplus in services. Overall trade figures, including services, will be published later this winter. As other industrialized economies remain mired in recession, American businesses have been shifting their sights to the developing world. Almost all of the nation's growth in exports last year came from sales to poor and middle-income countries, which rose 13.6 percent. Accounting for much of the increase, exports to Mexico rose to $40.60 billion, from $33.28 billion in 1991. Fewer Exports to Japan Exports to other developed countries rose only 1.7 percent last year, and exports to Japan dipped by three-quarters of a percentage point. The trade deficit with Japan widened to $5.09 billion in December, the largest monthly deficit since $5.21 billion in October 1988. Japan's Finance Ministry announced on Tuesday that the Japanese trade surplus with all countries, including the United States, widened in January to a seasonally adjusted figure of $9.82 billion from $9.48 billion in December. Most of the increase in the American trade deficit last year came in consumer goods other than automobiles. Imports of cotton apparel showed the biggest increase, surging by $3.09 billion, to $13.80 billion. Imports of toys, games and sporting goods rose to $11.35 billion, a $1.94 billion increase. By contrast, the nation's trade deficit in automobiles was virtually unchanged at $44.86 billion. |
591226_0 | U.S. and Allies Discuss Sanctions To Force Mobutu to Yield Power | In the aftermath of the rioting and looting this month that claimed hundreds of lives in Zaire, the United States, France and Belgium are considering political and economic sanctions against Zaire and its leader, Mobutu Sese Seko, Western diplomats said today. Such a move would put pressure on President Mobutu, who has ruled for 28 years, to hand over real power to an interim government. A State Department paper outlining possible steps describes Zaire's plight as extremely dire. Zaire, one of the world's poorest countries, is developing into "Somalia and Liberia rolled into one, with vast potential for immense refugee flows, regional destabilization and humanitarian disaster," the paper said. Clinton's Approval Expected The paper, dated Feb. 11, added that if the United States and its allies "allow Mobutu, one of Africa's strongest and longest dictators, to destroy the country in order to prevent the emergence of democracy, United States efforts to foster democracy in Africa may suffer a tremendous setback." The final form of the sanctions has not been decided, but officials said they would be debated and probably approved by President Clinton within the next few days. An official indicated that at the very least, the allies would seek to freeze Mr. Mobutu's personal bank accounts in the United States and Europe. African and Western diplomats say President Mobutu has used his position to make himself one of the world's richest men. Critics estimate his personal fortune at $4 billion. The State Department paper said seizing "personal assets (plane, yacht, and houses) would send a strong message to him, without affecting the Zairian economy or, for that matter, seriously disrupting United States or European business." But the paper cautioned, "It may be difficult to identify the personal bank accounts of Mobutu and his supporters: they may be under aliases." Other Options Other steps being discussed are the ouster of Zairian diplomats from various posts, the denial of visas to Zairians closely associated with Mr. Mobutu, suspension from the International Monetary Fund, an arms embargo and a ban on exports from Zaire, particularly copper and cobalt. The options were discussed in a meeting last week of senior officials, including Herman J. Cohen, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. The subject was also raised Wednesday in Washington in a meeting between Secretary of State Warren Christopher and the Foreign Minister Willy Claes of Belgium. Zaire was once the Belgian |
591330_0 | U.S. and Allies Discuss Sanctions To Force Mobutu to Yield Power | In the aftermath of the rioting and looting this month that claimed hundreds of lives in Zaire, the United States, France and Belgium are considering political and economic sanctions against Zaire and its leader, Mobutu Sese Seko, Western diplomats said today. Such a move would put pressure on President Mobutu, who has ruled for 28 years, to hand over real power to an interim government. A State Department paper outlining possible steps describes Zaire's plight as extremely dire. Zaire, one of the world's poorest countries, is developing into "Somalia and Liberia rolled into one, with vast potential for immense refugee flows, regional destabilization and humanitarian disaster," the paper said. Clinton's Approval Expected The paper, dated Feb. 11, added that if the United States and its allies "allow Mobutu, one of Africa's strongest and longest dictators, to destroy the country in order to prevent the emergence of democracy, United States efforts to foster democracy in Africa may suffer a tremendous setback." The final form of the sanctions has not been decided, but officials said they would be debated and probably approved by President Clinton within the next few days. An official indicated that at the very least, the allies would seek to freeze Mr. Mobutu's personal bank accounts in the United States and Europe. African and Western diplomats say President Mobutu has used his position to make himself one of the world's richest men. Critics estimate his personal fortune at $4 billion. The State Department paper said seizing "personal assets (plane, yacht, and houses) would send a strong message to him, without affecting the Zairian economy or, for that matter, seriously disrupting United States or European business." But the paper cautioned, "It may be difficult to identify the personal bank accounts of Mobutu and his supporters: they may be under aliases." Other Options Other steps being discussed are the ouster of Zairian diplomats from various posts, the denial of visas to Zairians closely associated with Mr. Mobutu, suspension from the International Monetary Fund, an arms embargo and a ban on exports from Zaire, particularly copper and cobalt. The options were discussed in a meeting last week of senior officials, including Herman J. Cohen, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. The subject was also raised Wednesday in Washington in a meeting between Secretary of State Warren Christopher and the Foreign Minister Willy Claes of Belgium. Zaire was once the Belgian |
591331_0 | U.S. and Allies Discuss Sanctions To Force Mobutu to Yield Power | In the aftermath of the rioting and looting this month that claimed hundreds of lives in Zaire, the United States, France and Belgium are considering political and economic sanctions against Zaire and its leader, Mobutu Sese Seko, Western diplomats said today. Such a move would put pressure on President Mobutu, who has ruled for 28 years, to hand over real power to an interim government. A State Department paper outlining possible steps describes Zaire's plight as extremely dire. Zaire, one of the world's poorest countries, is developing into "Somalia and Liberia rolled into one, with vast potential for immense refugee flows, regional destabilization and humanitarian disaster," the paper said. Clinton's Approval Expected The paper, dated Feb. 11, added that if the United States and its allies "allow Mobutu, one of Africa's strongest and longest dictators, to destroy the country in order to prevent the emergence of democracy, United States efforts to foster democracy in Africa may suffer a tremendous setback." The final form of the sanctions has not been decided, but officials said they would be debated and probably approved by President Clinton within the next few days. An official indicated that at the very least, the allies would seek to freeze Mr. Mobutu's personal bank accounts in the United States and Europe. African and Western diplomats say President Mobutu has used his position to make himself one of the world's richest men. Critics estimate his personal fortune at $4 billion. The State Department paper said seizing "personal assets (plane, yacht, and houses) would send a strong message to him, without affecting the Zairian economy or, for that matter, seriously disrupting United States or European business." But the paper cautioned, "It may be difficult to identify the personal bank accounts of Mobutu and his supporters: they may be under aliases." Other Options Other steps being discussed are the ouster of Zairian diplomats from various posts, the denial of visas to Zairians closely associated with Mr. Mobutu, suspension from the International Monetary Fund, an arms embargo and a ban on exports from Zaire, particularly copper and cobalt. The options were discussed in a meeting last week of senior officials, including Herman J. Cohen, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. The subject was also raised Wednesday in Washington in a meeting between Secretary of State Warren Christopher and the Foreign Minister Willy Claes of Belgium. Zaire was once the Belgian |
591208_2 | At Home Abroad; 'What Will Happen?' | claustrophobic. In the mountains of India and Nepal people desperate for fuel have denuded forests, so topsoil is being washed into rivers and out to sea. India has about 880 million people now. It is growing so fast that experts say it will pass China as the most populous country by the year 2035, and the growth may not end until there are two billion people in India. China, with about 1.165 billion now, is expected to reach 1.5 billion. Mexico is a telling example of population growth and its social and political consequences. It has made dramatic progress in reducing the birth rate recently. But the increase had been so great in previous years that the population is very young and will therefore continue to grow rapidly. With about 85 million people now, Mexico is expected to have 150 million in 2025. In Professor Kennedy's vision, that means a terrible strain on schools, health care, the environment. It means the crowding of more and more people into "mega-cities." Already 20 million Mexicans live in Mexico City, many under appalling conditions. Half the country's people live without sewers and a quarter without safe water. Can anyone be surprised that, despite the country's improving economic record, many Mexicans are desperate to get into the United States? Rational self-interest, not just humane concern, should make the rich countries do all they can to prevent overpopulation and the suffering and strife it brings. But rationality has not been the mainspring of American population policy lately. Presidents Reagan and Bush shaped their policy to please the anti-abortion movement and the Christian right. The Reagan Administration sabotaged the world population conference here in Mexico City in 1984 by taking the position that rapid growth was a "neutral" phenomenon. That was, ironically, the classic Marxist view of population growth. Since then the U.S. has drastically reduced aid to population-control efforts abroad, at a time when underdeveloped countries were recognizing the need for restraint. Michael S. Teitelbaum, writing about the policy in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, calls it "self-inflicted blindness." Here is one problem that President Clinton can address quickly, without great legislative complications. He has ended the Reagan-Bush distortions of domestic policy on birth-related matters. The need for change in foreign policy is even more urgent: the need to face a reality more menacing in the long run than just about any on earth. |
591852_0 | Clinics Try to Close the Gap in Health Care for the Disabled | FRUSTRATED with what they see as the failure of the medical establishment to provide adequate services for handicapped people, agencies for the disabled are developing new means of delivering the services. Academics, doctors and parents of the disabled estimate that 12,000 handicapped people on Long Island lack access to comprehensive medical care, and that number, the critics say, is growing. But so are efforts to improve services, especially for people with diagnoses of being developmentally disabled. In the last year private agencies using innovative financing have begun to deliver services, setting up specialized clinics near schools and group homes. Accessiblity and Attitudes Over the next 18 months nine clinics featuring soft music, cool colors, indestructible furniture and sympathetic staff members are planned to open in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Some of the clinics could become a model for how a state law entitling children with developmental delays to services operates when it starts in July. Although the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 is expected to improve accessibility to doctors' offices, critics contend that the more difficult problem for disabled people is improving doctors' attitudes. The critics say many disabled people, especially those with behavior disorders, are refused treatment by doctors and dentists who view them as disruptive. Many other handicapped people, the critics add, receive inferior treatment once they do reach the offices. "Although attitudes of doctors are variable," said Dr. Harold Yuker, a professor of psychology at Hofstra University and an expert on attitudes toward the disabled, "many tend to have somewhat negative attitudes toward treating disabled people." The chairman of the pediatrics department at Stony Brook University Hospital, Dr. Richard N. Fine, said many doctors shied away from treating disabled people. The doctors view such patients as time consuming and feel that "they tend to be disruptive." Many pediatricians are receptive to the disabled, he added, but "I don't see a particular thrust in other areas of the medical profession to reach out." A report on Medicaid and early intervention services issued in July by the Children's Defense Fund said, "Children with or at risk of developmental delays face huge hurdles in obtaining the health care services they require to correct or ameliorate their developmental problems." Because of technological improvements that are keeping disabled people alive and because of effects on addicts and their children from the increased use of crack and other drugs, |
591892_0 | Helping the Retarded Help Themselves | SUPPORT, not supervision, is the watchword of the Community Living Corporation in Mount Kisco, an agency that maintains 3 group homes and 20 apartments for 100 people with developmental disabilities. The concept that mentally retarded people can successfully live in the community if they receive some support was radical in 1966 when the first community-residence program was started, said John J. Signorelli, the executive director of the nonprofit agency. "In those days, families had no choice, no alternative," Mr. Signorelli said. "Either mentally retarded family members were kept at home or they were put into a state institution. It had been the practice for 50 years until Judith and Maurice Mezoff, a social worker and a psychologist, decided there was a better way." And so did many middle-class parents with mentally retarded children who joined forces with the Mezoffs, under the title Mezoff Associates, to establish the first supportive group home. A supportive environment is one in which people with developmental disabilities are given help only when needed and are not under constant supervision. Expansion Started in 1990 "There is a world of difference between support and supervision," Mr. Signorelli said. "In the days when the accepted professional wisdom was that the mentally retarded would always need supervision and would never be able or allowed to live on their own without it, the Mezoffs believed that people with developmental difficulties would be better off if they were allowed to do as much as they were capable of doing for themselves." In New York State, 150,000 people are classified as having developmental disabilities: cerebral palsy, autism and mental retardation, Mr. Signorelli said. "In terms of improving the quality of life for them, the Mezoff concept has proved so successful that today it has been replicated by many other agencies," he said. Day-to-Day Assistance In 1990 when illness forced the Mezoffs to retire, Mr. Signorelli, a clinical social worker and the former director of an agency for handicapped children and adults, was recruited to convert Mezoff Associates to the Community Living Corporation. "We also started an expansion program at that time," he said. "From one group home and a few apartments, we've grown to 3 group homes and 20 live-in apartments, with 1 to 4 people living in each apartment unit." The residents of the group homes and apartments are given the support they need in day-to-day living, Mr. Signorelli said, including |
591871_0 | Customs Agents Confront New Crowds at Newark | SOME 200 people, just arrived at Newark International Airport from Jamaica, were milling about the baggage carousel one recent evening when Edward Morera, a 34-year-old senior inspector, strolled over to talk to a young couple with a baby. "Hi," he greeted them. "Did you have good weather in Jamaica?" The woman nodded. "Yes, we had a very good time," she said. "But the baby is getting very tired now." After a few more questions, Mr. Morera pointed the couple toward a special exit near the six checkout counters. They breezed through with baby and luggage in tow, home free without having to wait in a line or have their baggage examined. Mr. Morera is one of the 15 customs agents at Newark who operate as "rovers" at the airport, part of a new approach the United States Customs Service has adopted to cope with a huge increase in international flights there in the last two years. In 1990, overseas flights there carried 1.7 million passengers; in 1992, the figure was 2.8 million. The number of international carriers arriving at the airport during the same period rose to 20 from 5. Along with the use of rovers, which began last fall, the Customs Service has beefed up its roster of agents to 65 from 55 to handle the increased traffic. Between 1990 and 1992, customs duty fines soared from $37,864 to $282,169, with jewelry and clothing representing the major items. The service has also started using four dogs, trained to sniff out drugs, that along with their handlers rove about among arriving passengers. Drug seizures have risen 20 percent in the last year. On the average, 5 to 10 percent of the passengers on a flight have their luggage examined by the customs inspectors. On the Jamaica flight, 10 of the 200 passengers were examined, including two New Jersey residents in their early 20's who were not home free. They were X-rayed in a room off the customs area, and agents said the two turned out to have bags of cocaine in their stomachs. "You develop a sixth sense on who is legitimate and who is trying to smuggle something in," Mr. Morera said. "It is very common these days for drug smugglers to swallow condoms containing the drugs to get them past Customs." Under the rover system, Mr. Morera and his colleagues mingle with passengers near the luggage carousel. Most |
591803_4 | Can Tourists Learn to Tread Lightly? | figures. Given the seeming inevitability of growth, what some people in the industry are trying to do is change the way tourists venture out. To a considerable degree, that has already happened with the astonishing growth of what is known as adventure travel. In general, the major tourism interests have shied away from such measures as outright restrictions on visitors or placing vulnerable areas off-limits. They call on tour groups to educate clients about abuse of the land and culture they visit, to promote environmental awareness and to contribute financially to causes that will keep the scenery intact. But there seems to be a general awareness in the industry that if the travel industry does not take steps to curb its potential for abuse, outsiders in government or elsewhere will do it for them. To cope with waves of visitors, the government of Ecuador imposed a limit of 10,000 visitors a year to the Galapagos Islands, a national park known for its odd creatures stuck in an evolutionary time warp. Adventure travel magazines are full of ads for visits "with a biologist" to the islands. But enforcement of the crowd limit has been weak, and more than 45,000 visitors a year have been allowed on the island, according to some Ecuadorean estimates. "Ecuador is faced with these two realities: so much to offer and so much to defend and protect," said Oswaldo Munoz, of the Ecuadorean Ecotourism Association, in a recent address in Canada. To many environmentalists, the steps the industry has considered taking are timid. "I don't think the mainstream travel industry people understand it yet," said Jerry Mallett, president of the Adventure Travel Society, which represents nature-based tourism operators. "Things may have to be regulated, worldwide, or we face a crisis. The national parks understand this. The guide operators understand this. But it may not be clear to everyone else yet." Mr. Mallet said the market for travel based on natural or cultural resources has increased dramatically in the last 10 years. There are nearly 9,000 adventure-travel outfitters in the country, according to the society, specializing in everything from wilderness horseback trips to bungee-jumping from dramatic cliffs. Whale-watching, swimming with dolphins, catch-and-release fishing, llama trekking, rain forest canoe trips -- all these activities are showing up in brochures, along with such mainstays as beach and skiing vacations. One of the biggest growth areas -- and a major challenge |
591738_3 | Manaus | the opening of Amazon ports to ships from throughout the world. In the back stands another 1900 neo-classical structure, the Palace of Justice. Taking a swim often comes to a visitor's mind while exploring a humid metropolis that swelters three degrees south of the Equator, 100 feet above sea level but 1,000 miles from the ocean. Fear not, Brazilian beach culture is alive and well in the center of South America. The Tropical Hotel offers a swimming pool with artificial waves. But for more local color, try nearby Ponta Negra beach, which becomes a festive social center during the dry season, June through November. Manaus's elite retreat to Dourada Beach, which is about 10 miles beyond the airport. Consult residents on swimming conditions. Piranhas and electric eels can ruin an Amazon dip. Sights Visitors to the Amazon forest sometimes return complaining "You can't see anything." Indeed, unlike the Kenya plains, the rain forest is closed and dense, with wildlife often lost in the cathedral canopy. The city zoo, at 750 Estrada de Ponta Negra, an old-fashioned cage and cement affair, is run by the Army's Jungle Warfare Training Center. About 300 Amazon animals, from snakes to black panthers, are on display. Open 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. daily. Admission is 50 cents. The Ecopark, built along more sensitive lines, offers a "monkey forest" and an open-air aviary, both stocked with fauna rescued from dam projects and seized from illegal wildlife markets. With six miles of trails leading through 4,500 acres of forest, the park offers nature hikes with trained guides. Accessible only by a half-hour boat ride to the Taruma Igarape from the Hotel Tropical, the Ecopark, 234-0939, offers half-day excursions for $25 and full-day excursions for $50, boat transportation included. Closer to town, the National Institute for Amazon Research (I.N.P.A.) opens to the public on Sunday its botanical garden, which includes 800 labeled species of plants and trees. The Army zoo has donated deer, herons, sloths, alligators and a jaguar. In the aquatic mammals department, visitors can watch Amazonian manatees swimming in large tanks. The institute is on Avenida Andre Araujo, also known as Estrada do Aleixo. Open from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. Admission is free. Two Manaus museums offer keys to understanding the Amazon's inhabitants. The 30-year-old Indian Museum (Museo do Indio), 234-1422, run by Salesian missionaries, displays masks, jewelry, weapons, tools and musical instruments developed by |
591603_1 | Start Worrying, Feel Better | that the deficit must be reduced by steps that will crimp our living for a while but in the long run help us all. Yet every member of the House of Representatives runs for re-election, not in the long run, but next year. These candidates shudder at the thought of facing an electorate denied what it wants at that very moment. So we combine agreement on what needs doing, and doubt that it can ever be done. That is the real gridlock in our system. Everyone knows that steps must be taken, and soon, and drastically, on problems like these: * The deficit is draining our economic strength, wasting our resources in interest payments, blocking more productive investment and preventing our reaction to other challenges (since we lack mobilizable cash to meet danger or seize opportunity). * Our education system is not equipping us to stay competitive with other commercial nations; it is disabling our work force, sending money to find jobs elsewhere, making ours a service economy when the high stakes of the future are in high technology. * Our energy consumption is inequitable in world terms, unbalancing in our own economy, hurtful to the environment, and it makes us vulnerable to the fate of our suppliers. * The basic undergirdings of our national stock are eroding -- roads, bridges, transit systems, inner cities -- in ways that inhibit business efficiency and communal satisfaction. * The perceived inequities of the economic structure have strained our internal accord, lessened civility and provoked despair in those left out. * Health care costs too much and does too little, and its growing expense places cruel burdens on families, the Government and the elderly. * America, though not in decline, has been slowed in areas where competitors most challenge our eminence. These are not difficulties that call for a chef. Ronald Reagan and George Bush said, in an inversion of the F.D.R. maxim, "The only thing we have to worry about is worry itself." Forget the doom-sayers, the misery merchants, the root-canal doctors. Have another pastry. The American people are basically good and if left alone by government they will automatically create good schools, new roads, clean air, revived cities, less intensive oil use. Even acknowledging the existence of problems was greeted as a return to McGovern or Carter pessimism. Politicians could not raise the T-word to constituents, or the E-word (for Entitlements), |
591701_9 | Where the Ecotours Are | has academic training in environmental management and ecotourism, and her husband, Jim. The Pattersons have developed each of their tours with a local organization. Newfoundland: Journey to the Land of Cain, July 25 to Aug. 2. The Quebec-Labrador Foundation and Wildlands and Oceans Limited, a Newfoundland company specializing in conservation, are the organizations that Tread Lightly works with on this trip. The program is a combination of wildlife viewing (animals include moose, caribou and puffins) along Newfoundland's rugged coast, visits to towns and museums, and hands-on participation aboard a whale research vessel. Group size: 12 to 15. Cost: $1,795. University Research Expeditions University of California, Berkeley, Calif. 94720, (510) 642-6586 Like Earthwatch, but on a much smaller scale, University Research Expeditions has, since 1976, been recruiting paying volunteers to work on University of Calfornia research expeditions. The list of about 20 projects includes the replanting of tropical forests in Costa Rica and the excavation of fossils in northern Russia. Last year this nonprofit organization recruited 300 volunteers. Donations are tax-deductible. Capirona: People of the Rain Forest (Napo Province, Ecuador), Aug. 9-21. On the banks of the Rio Puni, deep in the lowland forest of eastern Ecuador, Capirona is a two-hour walk from the nearest road. In an effort to preserve the rain forest that surrounds them, the 24 Quichua families in this Ecuadorean community have recently developed one of the first indigenous ecotourism projects in the world. The eight volunteers on this project will, in addition to other tasks, assist Jean Colvin, the director of University Research Expeditions, and Dr. Grady Webster in developing additional projects that will sustain the environment and culture of this community. Volunteers are housed in traditional cabanas Cost: $1,495. Wilderness Southeast 711-J Sandtown Road, Savannah, Ga. 31410, (912) 897-5108 Wilderness Southeast is a 20-year-old, nonprofit organization that specializes in what it calls "relaxed learning adventures" in the southeastern United States, Central America and the Amazon. The company donates to various causes, including the Belize Audubon Society and the Bahamian National Trust. Long before the word ecotourism came into play, Wilderness Southeast was preaching minimum-impact camping.More than 800 clients each year travel with guides who are highly-trained naturalists. Okefenokee Wilderness, several departures beginning in February. A five-day camping and canoe trip through Georgia's mysterious Okefenokee Swamp, more than 400,000 acres of swamps, glassy lakes, cypress forests and peat-covered prairies. Alligators, black bears and several species of |
591772_0 | Japan's Satellite to Peer at Far Corner of Universe | Japan launched a satellite today that is expected to peer with unprecedented acuity into the farthest reaches of the universe, giving scientists a new vision of stars formed in the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang, considered by many to have created the universe. The launching seems likely to be the latest success for Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, a little known agency that operates on a shoestring but, to the envy of some Americans, has managed to launch 15 scientific satellites in two decades. Developed in cooperation with the United States, the satellite contains equipment for detecting X-rays from celestial bodies. One task will be to look for invisible matter to help answer the question of whether the universe has enough mass in it to keep it from expanding indefinitely. "We have an opportunity to look back to where we are seeing the first generation of stars," said Dr. George R. Ricker, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who designed a key X-ray-sensing device on the satellite. Leaky Valve Caused Delay After an eight-day delay to fix a leaky valve, the satellite, known as Astro-D, was launched at 11 A.M. today from Kagoshima Space Center on Kyushu. After reaching orbit, the satellite was given a more evocative name, Asuka, meaning Flying Bird. Japan has two space agencies. The main one, the National Space Development Agency of Japan, develops big rockets and launches commercial satellites for communications and meteorology. The smaller one, known as I.S.A.S., is run by the Education Ministry and is descended from the space research group at the University of Tokyo that launched Japan's first rocket in 1955, a nine-inch long "pencil" that reached an altitude of 2,000 feet. When the Space Development Agency was established in 1969, I.S.A.S. was restricted to scientific missions and to using relatively small rockets so that it would not compete with the larger agency. The I.S.A.S. budget, $200 million a year, is only one-tenth of Japan's overall space budget and a tiny percentage of the amount the United States spends on military and civilian programs. Priority for Scientific Work But the restrictions on I.S.A.S. to some extent turned into a blessing because it gave scientific work top priority. In the United States some astronomers complain that science takes a back seat to military and commercial projects on the space shuttle. Asuka is the fourth |
591887_3 | The County Will Keep Its 3-Day-a-Year Waste Plan | charge, with a limit of two batteries a person a month. The Environmental Conservation Law requires gas stations and automobile repair shops generating 500 gallons or more of used oil yearly and retailers selling 1,000 gallons or more of motor oil each year to accept used oil from the public. Up to five gallons a person a day may be delivered to such establishments. County Executive Andrew P. O'Rourke said: "The future of recycling is not just in newspapers and tin cans. We see a lot of ingenuity in the areas of recycling motor oil and auto batteries, reusing tires or turning junk glass into paving material. By locating markets for recycling and re-use of these chemicals, we can reduce the cost of the current disposal system." Having a Site Handy County Legislator Richard A. Flynn, a Mount Kisco Republican and chairman of the Board of Legislators' Environment Committee, called the plan a "good road map for the future, but like any road map we might find better routes along the way." For example, he said, "we might decide that we need one or even two permanent collection sites." Mr. O'Rourke said that while the report, which was developed by Parametrix, a Washington-based environmental firm, in association with Camp Dresser & McKee of Woodbury, L.I., at a cost of $125,000, did not recommend a permanent collection site, the county would continue looking for one, a place where they could renovate a building or build a new one so that the county could move quickly if the need arises. Two years ago, the county reviewed five possible sites, selecting two for further study. Both are on the Grasslands campus in Valhalla, a central location in county terms. Construction costs were estimated at $717,000 for the renovation of an old incinerator building and construction of an adjacent structure to $779,000 for construction of a completely new building. Household hazardous waste collection programs on the local level are available in certain communities only, and are usually infrequent. Residents are encouraged to look through kitchens, basements, bedrooms, bathrooms, garages and work areas and deliver their paint cans, insect repellents, cosmetics, fragrances, shoe polish, waxes and upholstery and rug cleaners to the village or town pickup point, perhaps a few times a year. A Costly Process Westchester and Bergen Counties are said to produce substantial quantities of flammable liquids and pesticides, and these potentially dangerous |
591650_2 | New Caution, and Some Reassurance, on Vasectomy | or their partners can safely discontinue other forms of birth control. Vasectomies can be reversed through tedious, costly microsurgical techniques that take much longer than the original procedure. But even when the tubes can be reconnected, there is only about a 50 percent chance that the patient will become a new father. Thus men are warned to regard a vasectomy as permanent. The typical American man who chooses a vasectomy is most likely to be white, well educated and affluent, in his mid-to-late thirties, have at least one son, live in the West and strongly dislike other contraceptive methods, the Association for Voluntary Surgical Contraception in New York City says. And the man is likely to ponder the procedure for two to 10 years before actually having it. Throughout the world, more women than men choose surgical sterilization. In the United States, current estimates are that 500,000 vasectomies and 650,000 tubal ligations are performed each year. Although vasectomy is hardly used in most countries, at least 42 million couples around the world rely on it for family planning. It is a major family planning method in only six developed countries (Australia, Britain, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand and the United States), and in three developing countries (China, India and South Korea). More than 10 million vasectomies have been performed in China. Yet vasectomies can be performed in virtually all countries and at low cost, the World Health Organization, a United Nations agency in Geneva, says. The procedure was developed about 100 years ago, to address noncontraceptive concerns like curing urinary and prostate disease, treating impotence or, alternatively, lowering sex drive. But research has shown that it does nothing for those problems. In the United States, vasectomy's popularity as a true contraceptive grew in the 1960's and 1970s, as tubal ligation was also becoming popular. The number of vasectomies performed dropped in the late 1970's and early 1980's, after researchers from Oregon reported an increased risk of atherosclerosis in animals following vasectomy. But when further studies provided evidence that it did nothing to increase the risk of heart disease, it became popular again. Since 1986, at least 500 doctors have taken training courses in the United States to learn how to do a vasectomy without a scalpel. The technique was developed in China and relies on a puncture to seal the tubes. Proponents say it leaves an even smaller scar and results |
591575_0 | FEB. 14-20: Environmentalist's Killers; Escape From the Law In the Rain Forest | The convicted killers of the environmentalist Francisco (Chico) Mendes escaped from a remote Amazon jail last week, taking with them the wider world's hopes for an end to criminal impunity in Brazil's Amazon. In a region where the murders of hundreds of unionists, peasants and Indians went unprosecuted during the 1980's, the 1990 conviction of Darly Alves da Silva and his son, Darci Alves Pereira, seemed to send a signal that an new era of law and order would take hold in Brazil's wild west. But while Brazil's justice minister vowed to throw "as many police as necessary" into the manhunt last week, the ho-hum reaction of officials in Acre state sent signals that little had changed. Acre's conservative governor, Romildo Magalhaes, did not bother to cut short his summer vacation on a South Atlantic beach 2,300 miles east of Acre. His top security official conceded that almost anyone who wants to can escape from the state's decrepit jail. |
589480_1 | Books of The Times; Peering Into a Dismal 21st Century | English country curate Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) and his dire observation "that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man." Mr. Kennedy reflects that what allowed the British people to escape the fate Malthus predicted for them was first, emigration, second, the improvements in British farming that eventually constituted the Agricultural Revolution and third, the Industrial Revolution. Mr. Kennedy adds that a fourth solution had been suggested by earlier events in revolutionary France, "namely, internal unrest followed by external aggression." Mr. Kennedy then writes, "Those same interrelated issues -- overpopulation, pressure upon the land, migration and social instability, on the one hand, and technology's power both to increase productivity and to displace traditional occupations, on the other -- still confront us today, with greater force than ever." The difference is the increased intensity of the problems now compared with the late 18th century. Population is exploding, especially in the so-called developing regions of the world, Mr. Kennedy points out. According to the World Bank's calculations, there may be as many as 11 billion people on the earth by the second half of the 21st century. But the forces that saved humankind from a Malthusian fate, while still in effect, are likely to have more ambiguous consequences. The poorer people of the world can still migrate but are less likely to be welcome wherever conditions are more promising. Biotechnological innovation will doubtless revolutionize agricultural productivity, but it "could lead to further tensions over agricultural trade, as food exporting countries like Australia and the United States find that their produce, while needed by developing countries unable to pay for it, is not required by rich nations increasingly able to create their own biotech substitutes at home." Robotics and automation are on the verge of creating a new industrial revolution, Mr. Kennedy predicts. But while the resulting boost in productivity will benefit countries with a shortage of labor, like Japan, it will hurt countries with large pools of cheap, unskilled workers. To complicate matters further, he argues, the rise of multi-national corporations is blurring the meaning of nation-states. Employing mainly manipulators of information, or "symbolic analysts," as Robert Reich has called them, these extraterritorial companies are likely to widen the gap between the haves and have-nots. And on top of everything else, there is the environmental crisis to worry about: the pollution of |
589627_0 | Somalia's Population | To the Editor: According to the Johns Hopkins Population Report on Environment and Population Growth, Somali families have an average of 6.6 children, among the highest fertility rates in the world, at that rate doubling their population in 24 years. Somalia's cropland per capita in 1990 was about one-third acre, critically short and among the lowest anywhere. By the year 2000, a scant eight years away, it is estimated that Somalia's cropland will be able to feed only 34 percent of its people. Only one other African country, Kenya, was considered worse off in that regard. In addition, in 1988 studies found that 69 percent of Somalis were without safe drinking water, 89 percent without sanitation services. However optimistic the program to rehabilitate and revegetate dry lands, rapid population growth inevitably, often speedily, nullifies it. Any program of international aid to halt continued starvation, degradation, migration and anarchy must contain a population stabilization component. ALAN B. KUPER Cleveland Heights, Ohio, Jan. 27, 1993 The writer is a member of the Sierra Club Population Committee. |
588986_0 | World Economies | |
588874_1 | Patents | traffic monitoring systems are timely but often do not indicate whether the heavy traffic is eastbound or westbound. By contrast, police reports provide a much fuller picture, but they quickly become dated. To bring order to this chaos, Mr. Sumner invented a "data fusion" system that ranks data by its accuracy and timeliness, produces a bottom-line estimate of congestion on particular roads and then codes this assessment by geographic area so it reaches cars in areas where it is useful. The system's second basic component is a coding technology to make the data available to the cars that need it. Drivers heading east on Main Street, for example, do not need or want to know about cars that are westbound or in other parts of town. To deal with that, the new system divides a city into four "chess boards." Each square on a chess board represents a small piece of the city, and each chess board represents a different direction. Each estimate of congestion is coded for a particular square. As envisioned, the cars would know which square they were on through the use of existing radio-positioning technology, and the on-board computer would display only the data for its square and those immediately next to it. Farradyne received patent 5,182,555. Polar Solution To Satellite Clutter Hoping to reduce the clutter of satellites that hover over the equator, a California inventor won a patent this week for the "statite," a space vehicle powered by solar winds that would sit in one spot about 200,000 miles above the North or South Pole. The proposed spaceship was invented by Robert L. Forward, an aerospace engineer in Malibu, Calif., and is intended to ease the congestion of traditional "geosynchronous" satellites that orbit over the equator. Traditional satellites orbit at a height of 22,300 miles, at the same speed as the earth's rotation, and thus appear to hover over one spot at all times. Because they can do this only in orbits over the equator, however, there is only room for about 180 separate satellites; more would very likely cause interference in the communications signals. Another problem, according to the inventor, is that the earth's curvature makes it hard to use geosynchronous satellites at very high latitudes. Like the North Star The statite would not orbit at all. Instead, it would be shot up over one of the poles, where it would stay in |
588843_5 | G.M. Set To Fight On Pickups | gas tanks on their son's 1985 pickup made them vulnerable to puncture during a crash. G.M. said it was ordered by the court not to discuss publicly any matters relating to the case. G.M. has already filed a lawsuit against an Indianapolis consulting company, the Institute for Safety Analysis, that performed the crash tests that were used by NBC News in a Nov. 17 report on "Dateline." G.M. is seeking access to data compiled by the testing company. G.M.'s announcements today will pre-empt a news conference planned for Tuesday by the Center for Auto Safety, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group, which will announce the beginning of its effort to put pressure on the company with a grass-roots effort called "Campaign G.M. Firebombs" to have the pickups recalled. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating whether to order such a recall. Estimates of the cost of recalling the nearly five million G.M. pickups still in operation with the side-saddle gas-tank design range from $300 million to $1 billion. Safety History G.M.'s planned action will open anew a Pandora's box of issues surrounding the auto industry's record on safety matters. Those issues include the safety history of G.M., which through the years has fought against mandatory installation of seat belts and air bags and once employed a law firm that hired a detective to follow the activities of Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate. Companies have often found it easier to limit public relations damage by quietly acknowledging problems and moving on, a lesson learned by the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in the late 1970's. Firestone was forced to recall its Firestone 500 tires in 1978 by the Federal Government. But in 1981, a former chairman of the company, John J. Nevin, said that his company should have recalled the tires on its own, even though it maintained that the tires did not cause more accidents than other brands. Still, lengthy Government hearings on the issue tarnished the company's reputation, Mr. Nevin said. In contrast to that approach was the forthright response of Johnson & Johnson during the Tylenol tampering case of the 1980's. Upon first learning of the problem, the company moved quickly to pull Tylenol products from store shelves and keep the public informed of all developments. The company's response was considered a model of corporate crisis management, and the tampering incidents had no long-term effect on Tylenol sales. |
587424_2 | ANTI-WOMAN BIAS MAY BRING ASYLUM | Rights and Democratic Development in Montreal, called Canada's action "a clear move in the right direction," adding, "There is no turning back on the principle that our refugee policy must recognize the full equality of men and women." A year ago Canada broke ground with a similar action regarding homosexuals: A gay man fearing persecution in his homeland, Argentina, because of his sexual preference was granted asylum. United States law lays out categories under which people suffering well-founded fears of persecution may be admitted. But sex is not a category. The tendency has been to admit women on the traditional basis of persecution for their political views. European nations do not recognize sex-based persecution as grounds for asylum. In a case last year, for example, France rejected a petition from a woman from Mali who fled her family and country rather than undergo a clitoridectomy, the removal of the clitoris and inner labia, which is a widespread ritual. The Government finally gave her a residence permit but declined to recognize that she was being persecuted on the basis of her sex. Broadening the Term 'Refugee' In his statement, Mr. Valcourt noted that new guidelines, which are to be developed within a month, would represent "appropriate responses to the complex and interrelated issues of state-sanctioned abuse abroad, conjugal violence against women and assistance to female refugees in times of world crises." The Immigration and Refugee Board has reportedly produced a draft recommendation that the word "refugee" include women who can demonstrate that their countries do not provide adequate protection from sexual abuse, domestic violence, genital mutilation and other torture. But there is another way to proceed legally, Canadian officials said: to classify women protesting sex-based persecution as a "particular social group" under the United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951, which sets general rules for refugees. European and U.N. Guidelines If such new rules were accepted, women who transgress social customs, for example, by refusing arranged marriages, could claim they were part of a particular group that fears persecution. In 1984 the European Parliament determined that women fearing cruel or inhuman treatment as a result of violating social customs should be considered such a group. The next year Canada endorsed a similar resolution of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, which indentified "women asylum-seekers who face harsh or inhumane treatment due to their having transgressed the social mores of the society |
587372_2 | Cellular Phone Scare Discounted | had used their phones hours every day. Dr. David Perlmutter, a neurologist in Naples, Fla., who has cared for two of the patients, expressed alarm at the coincidence of the tumor sites. Effects of Microwave Radiation "I'm not blaming their brain tumors on cellular phones," he said. "I'm saying there's a possible danger here, and we need to open our eyes and demand proof of safety." Cellular telephones pick up and transmit signals through their own antennas, which may be attached to the handset itself or are mounted on a car, sometimes within inches of a passenger's head. They operate at a radio frequency of 840 to 880 megahertz, or millions of cycles per second, which is at the lowest end of the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Biologists have long known that microwave radiation at very high power can cause severe heat damage to the body and cataracts. But cellular phones are far too weak to heat up tissue; the power coursing through them is equal to about one-tenth the wattage of a dim light bulb. But when the antenna is near the head of a caller or a car passenger, it does not take much wattage to throw the radio frequencies into the brain, the body's most delicate tissue. What exactly happens to the molecules of brain tissue as they are bobbled and wiggled around 880 million times a second is unclear. And to be fair, even in the most avid user, phone radiation makes up only a small fraction of the brain's exposure to radio waves. Noting the dearth of relevant data, Dr. Elizabeth Jacobson, acting director for the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the Federal Food and Drug Administration, said that while the agency saw nothing to fear in cellular phones and no reason for people to stop using them, nonetheless "we can't give a blanket assertion the phones are safe." She said the findings were incomplete and often contradicted one another. Tests in Laboratories Of the studies that do exist, some have vindicated the safety of radio frequencies. In one experiment, Dr. W. Ross Adey of the J. L Pettis Memorial Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Loma Linda, Calif., found that when human cells growing in laboratory dishes were exposed to cellular phone frequencies, no abnormalities could be seen. Some epidemiological studies of servicemen who worked with microwave communications devices found no |
587372_5 | Cellular Phone Scare Discounted | American Journal of Epidemiology, Dr. Samuel Milham Jr. of the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services in Olympia, found that ham radio operators, whose microwave equipment works at about 100 watts, a level much more powerful than that of cellular phones, suffered from significantly elevated rates of acute myeloid leukemia. But detractors complained that the study did not look for other characteristics of ham operators that might make them more susceptible to cancer. Studying live rabbits as well as cells in dishes, scientists in Europe have detected other biological effects from radio waves, including changes in the blood-brain barrier that normally shields the brain from chemical fluxes elsewhere in the body, and shifts in the calcium molecules that coat cell membranes and allow cells to communicate with one another. But while such changes in the blood flow to the brain or the membranes of cells may seem at first glance to be ominous, some researchers suggested they might simply represent the brain's natural defenses or responses, honed over millions of years of evolution in a world of constant exposure to that unavoidable source of electromagnetic insults, the sun. Critics who worry about cellular phones do not argue that the devices can initiate cancer. Unlike high-energy ionizing radiation like X-rays and gamma rays, which rip apart genetic material and pave the path for cancer, nonionizing radiation like radio waves does not mutate DNA and therefore cannot start malignant growth. Instead, some suggest that microwave radiation can serve as a promoter of tiny tumors that already exist. In theory, the radio waves may either step up a tumor's efficiency at using ambient growth molecules, or it may inhibit the immune system, which is intended to keep malignancies at bay. Despite some suggestive evidence, the notion of electromagnetic radiation as a tumor promoter has by no means been proved. The cellular telephone scare has also intensified an already vehement debate over the possible dangers of another form of electromagnetic energy, the low-frequency fields thrown off by power lines and energy substations that some have linked to childhood leukemia and brain cancer. But the low-frequency radiation is much more penetrating than radio waves and should be considered another matter entirely. Indeed, scientists warned that it could be exceedingly difficult to separate any possible tiny risks of cellular phones from a vast and chattering sea of known or suspected health hazards, including food |
587482_0 | H. H. Beverage, 99, Research Scientist And Radio Engineer | Harold Henry Beverage, a radio engineer and RCA scientist whose research advanced communications technology, died on Wednesday at the John T. Mather Hospital in Port Jefferson, L.I. He was 99 and lived in Stony Brook. Mr. Beverage held more than 40 patents in his field. He was a co-inventor of the wave antenna and the diversity system for high-frequency reception. In awarding him its Lamme Gold Medal in 1957, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers cited him "for his pioneering and outstanding achievements in the conception and application of principles basic to progress in national and worldwide radio communications." In 1938, the Radio Institute of America presented him with its Armstrong Medal for his work in the development of aerial systems. The Beverage antenna, the citation said, was "the precursor of wave antennas of all types." In 1923, when he was just 30, he received a Morris Liebmann Memorial Prize for his contributions to the development of trans-oceanic radio. Mr. Beverage, who was born in North Haven, Me., graduated from the University of Maine in 1915 and went to work for General Electric Company the following year as a radio-laboratory assistant. In 1920, at the age of 27, he was placed in charge of developing receivers for trans-oceanic communications at the RCA Corporation. In 1929, the company named him chief research engineer of communications, a position he held until 1940, when he was promoted to vice president in charge of research and development at RCA Communications Inc., a subsidiary of the Radio Corporation of America. He retired in 1958 from that position and as director of radio research but continued to work in communications as a consultant. Mr. Beverage's wife, Patricia, predeceased him. He is survived by several nieces and nephews. |
588118_1 | France, After 50 Years, Plans Memorials to Jews Sent to Die | Vel d'Hiv, a cycling stadium where the first detainees were taken in Paris, as well as at one of the camps where Jews were concentrated and at a house in the Rhone valley where Jewish children were held before deportation. Further, commemorative plaques would be placed in every French department. A special committee headed by the Secretary of State for Veterans and including Jewish representatives will decide the text that will appear on each plaque in coordination with the local authorities. The decree was widely viewed as an attempt to appease Jewish and other groups that have accused the French leader of ambivalence toward the Vichy regime and its chief, Marshal Henri Philippe Petain. Although he worked briefly for Vichy as a young man, Mr. Mitterrand later emerged as an important Resistance figure. Urged by a committee of prominent intellectuals to apologize for the arrest and deportation of thousands of Jews, Mr. Mitterrand argued last year that neither the French nation nor the French Republic could accept blame for crimes carried out by a temporary and illegitimate government. Protest Over Petain Wreath As recently as Nov. 11, the President also provoked a storm of protests when he ordered that an Armistice Day wreath in his name be placed on Marshall Petain's tomb, the argument being that he was honoring the French military hero of World War I and not the political traitor of World War II. In contrast, when a French court last year decided that crimes against humanity could not be brought against a Vichy official, Paul Touvier, the Government successfully appealed the ruling. The case against Mr. Touvier, who is accused of ordering the execution of seven Jews, is scheduled to be heard in April. Jean Kahn, president of the Council of Jewish Institutions in France, said today that he considered the decision to create a national day of remembrance to represent a full condemnation of the Vichy crimes, "something we have long been waiting for." Mr. Kahn said he was particularly pleased by the decree because he understood it would also lead to the teaching in schools of both the "shameful" history of the period and of the need for tolerance, "all the more necessary given the recent outbursts of racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia in Europe." Mr. Klarsfeld said he hoped Mr. Mitterrand's action would put an end to "the misunderstanding" with the Jews in France. "It's |
588208_12 | The Shop as the Mirror Of a Museum's Soul | small, peaceful shop at the Studio Museum in Harlem avoids overstimulation, instead cultivating a clean, almost sparse look that makes everything easy to see. The books and crafts for sale are honed to the museum's mission, which is to document and analyze the art of Africa and the African diaspora. The children's books, for example, focus on biographies of famous black Americans, while other books and catalogues range through African, South American and black American art, both contemporary and not. Outstanding among the well-selected craft displays are several kinds of beaded necklaces and bracelets, sisal dolls and rattles from Kenya, musical instruments and, best of all, wood and terra-cotta figures made by the Senufo, Asante and Baule peoples and a trove of tiny, roughly carved lions, tigers, giraffes and other animals of the African veld. Asia Society The goal at Asia Society's homey but ambitious shop, which on first glance seems to contain nothing but books, is total immersion. In addition to books on the art of the major Asian cultures, and some of the minor ones, there are rather extensive selections of travel guides and works of fiction, as well as books on the performing arts, languages, history and current affairs and philosophy and religion. A smaller inside room displays numerous cookbooks and books on health and exercise, and beyond that there is a small, carefully chosen selection of crafts and some antiques, including small Nepalese and Indian statuary, boxes from India, Thailand and Indonesia, cashmere scarves from Nepal and an extraordinary foursome of elegant puppets made more than 50 years ago in Java. This store can make you want to change continents. Museum of Folk Art That anyone can be a folk artist, or at least a collector of folk art, is the primary message conveyed by the crowded, uneven store at the Museum of American Folk Art. Books abound on baskets, decoys, stenciling, pottery and especially quilts, and a number of them are of the how-to variety. Other shelves are chockablock with handmade items from quilt-covered pillows to handpainted boxes and a few contemporary folk paintings. Most impressive are the painted wood figures from Central America, reflecting the museum's current exhibition of Latin American folk art. Also good are poster-size reproductions of folk art paintings from both the museum's collection and others. Interest may lag toward the center of this small store, where inexpensive contemporary jewelry takes |
588119_0 | Underfunded Pension Plans Raise Benefits, G.A.O. Says | Some of America's largest corporations are expanding their pension benefits, even though their current plans are already underfunded, with the knowledge that if the plans fail the Federal Government will pay the bills, Congressional auditors said today. The General Accounting Office, an arm of Congress, found that 18 of 35 underfunded pension plans in the tire, automobile, airline and steel industries increased employee benefits by almost $2.2 billion in 1991. As a result of this change and continuing neglect of existing benefits, the companies' underfunding in the 35 pension plans more than doubled, from $5.1 billion to $10.7 billion. The companies include General Motors, the Chrysler Corporation, the Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Company and Bridgestone-Firestone, according to public documents and officials. Spokesmen for three of the four companies did not return phone calls soliciting a response to the G.A.O. audit or declined to comment. A G.M. spokesman attributed a significant part of the pension increases to negotiations with the labor unions. The companies' actions are legal, the auditors and other experts told a House panel, but only because of flaws in the Federal pension insurance program. Unless the program's structure and incentives are changed, the experts said, the practice threatens the financial health of the already-troubled Federal pension agency. "Clearly, Federal law has proven inadequate," said Representative J. J. Pickle, a Texas Democrat who is chairman of the oversight subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, which held the hearing today. "When you've dug yourself into a hole, what are you going to do about it," he said. "The first thing you do is stop digging." He has introduced legislation to hold underfunded companies more responsible by tightening funding requirements, like requiring them to post collateral before increasing benefits. At present, the Federal Government pays benefits for terminated plans out of the premiums paid by companies. But witnesses told the panel that the taxpayers might eventually have to pay if corrective action was not taken soon enough. Most corporate pension plans are adequately financed, and the pension agency has enough cash to meet its obligations for several years. In addition, some underfunded companies, like Chrysler, have recently taken steps to raise additional capital to help meet their pension obligations. But, as the pension's agency's recently departed executive director, James Lockart, told the panel, a relatively small number of underfunded plans in the steel, auto, tire and airline industries present a |
592445_0 | Personal Health | THE steady stream of well-publicized reports ascribing horrendous health risks to nearly every aspect of modern life, from electric blankets and cellular phones to post-menopausal hormones and now vasectomy, can fill otherwise rational people with feelings of panic and paranoia. Such reports can leave people longing for the "simple" life of bygone days, when -- keep in mind -- life ended decades earlier and polio, rheumatic fever and tuberculosis claimed more lives than cancer. Most people see or hear only the headline news when a purported new health threat looms, like last week's report of two large new studies linking vasectomy to an increased risk of developing cancer of the prostate or the report several weeks ago linking the use of cellular telephones to brain cancer. In years past, panic-button-pushing reports have included a link of hair dyes to cancer; coffee to heart disease, and menopausal hormones and alcohol consumption to breast cancer, among many others. In the weeks after such reports, there is typically a dip in sales or a change in habits, eventually succeeded by a return to normal when memory of the purported danger is obscured by practical considerations or personal preferences. Untrained in the scientific method, let alone statistics, the average person understandably has great difficulty interpreting these findings, assessing their validity, recognizing their potential flaws and determining whether a behavioral change is warranted by the evidence. Even the researchers themselves sometimes fail to see or mention caveats that may diminish the significance of their observations. Still, there are some guidelines that can help everyone better understand the significance of reported findings and avoid frenetic and pointless changes in habits. Association Isn't Cause A link between two phenomena does not imply cause and effect. Correlations and relative risks are merely clues to possible cause-and-effect relationships. For example, there is a well-known association between the number of television aerials in a region and death rates from heart attacks. This does not mean television causes heart attacks, but it might mean that people who watch a lot of television get little or no exercise and eat fattier foods, both of which can increase their coronary risk. And just because consumers of artificial sweeteners tend to be heavier than users of sugar does not mean low-calorie sweeteners cause obesity. More likely it means that overweight people try to trim calories wherever they can. A very large early study found |
590676_0 | Archeologists at Odds on Restoring Statues | IN its time, Tongariki was the glory of Easter Island and its cult of ancestor worship. Overlooking a gentle bay on the south side of the island, it was the largest religious site in Polynesia. On its giant ahu, or temple platform, stood 15 immense stone statues, called moai, some weighing up to 70 tons. Hundreds came here to worship. They lived near the site and carved elaborate petroglyphs, or stone etchings, of giant tuna, sea turtles and birdmen. But in the last 500 years, Tongariki has suffered two devastating events. Warring island tribes overran it in the late 16th century, toppling the giant statues and breaking off their heads. Then in 1960, a tidal wave shattered what remained, lifting the moai and scattering them as far as 300 feet from where they had stood. It is like a graveyard of stone giants. Most lie face down, in the shadow of the Rano Raraku volcano, from which all of the island's moai were carved. But if a Japanese crane company has its way, along with Chilean archeologists, Tongariki will re-emerge with much of its glory restored. True to the history of strife over the temple site, however, its future is clouded by a bitter dispute among archeologists over control of the project. Beginning last October, archeologists began the first phases of restoring the entire site, a plan that will eventually include rebuilding the ahu, repairing the moai and applying space-age preservative to keep the stone from deterioriating, setting the statues back in place and reconstructing much of the living quarters around Tongariki. The Tadano company of Tokyo, manufacturer of large cranes, donated a rig for the work, plus $700,000 in cash. Experts say it is perhaps the largest restoration project to date in Polynesia and will eventually require another $1.5 million in funds. "Tongariki is the most important monument in Polynesia," said Gonzalo Figueroa, one of Chile's most noted authorities on the island, who first sailed here with Thor Heyerdahl on the Kon-Tiki in 1955. "The restoration will not only dignify the Easter Island but all of Polynesia. This belongs to the patrimony of humanity. We should excavate and restore at the highest technical level possible." The dispute among archeologists centers on who should manage the restoration project. Mr. Figueroa, one of three main advisers to the Chilean Government on the project, has argued that the chief supervisor of the |
590676_5 | Archeologists at Odds on Restoring Statues | a halt, turning into a society ruled by warriors that eventually became known for its Birdman cult. Islanders toppled the moai and tore down the ahus throughout the island. Although there are 300 ahus on Easter Island, and several have been restored, Tongariki is by far the most important, archeologists say. Islanders and scientists did not quickly choose to restore the site. The prevailing opinion among scientists was against restoration, since it recreates history at one specific point, a snapshot, and in the process blocks out the rest of history. "We don't need massive restoration of statues," Mr. Cristino said. "If I restore a site, I am destroying 1,000 years of history." Idea to Restore Site The current restoration effort originated in a visit by a Japanese camera crew to film a documentary about the gradual erosion of the moai throughout the island. Scientists estimate that if the stones are not protected, erosion from the elements along with tourism and vandalism could push the moai beyond recognition within 200 years. Officials of Tadano, the Japanese company, donated a crane to place the statues upright in hope of delaying the deterioration. Tongariki was chosen for the restoration project because of its size and because it had been destroyed beyond recognition by the tsunami. But Tadano found that it was not just a question of lifting the stone giants, but of complete restoration. A Polish team of archeologists is working on ways to treat the stone giants to delay deterioration. Giuseppe Orefici, a noted Italian archeologist, has a team excavating nearby areas where islanders built their homes. Mr. Cristino is excavating trenches to develop a profile of the site, and will then start to rebuild the ahu. He says the site is really not just one temple, and that at least three temples and perhaps as many as six were built on top of each other over several centuries. The design includes a central altar, 330 feet long and rising five stories above the ground. On each side are wings to the platform running east and west for another 600 feet. Work on Project Recently the giant Tadano crane was lifting rocks and placing them into piles as workers and researchers studied what was buried underneath. Mr. Cristino employs a crew of about 10 islanders trained in island archeology. The same day, Professor Orefici was uncovering the more grisly side of Tongariki. |
590726_0 | U.S. Can Learn From Cuba's AIDS Program | To the Editor: Your "AIDS in Latin America" special report (front page, Jan. 25) grossly misrepresents the situation in the only country that has successfully held the virus in check. You dismiss the successes of Cuba's AIDS control and prevention program with the irrelevant comment that Cuba "is the region's only nation with a totalitarian government." You state that Cuba's accomplishment in limiting the virus to 862 known cases (in a population of more than 10 million) is a result of "mandatory testing and the quarantining of infected people." And you editorialize that the "apparent epidemiological success" of the Cuban program has been carried out "at the expense of individual liberties, a cost resisted by other societies in the Americas." As Cuban citizens infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, and activists in the Grupo Prevencion SIDA, or AIDS Prevention Group, we think it is unfortunate more people can't learn from and duplicate Cuba's successes. Cuba has the same population as New York City. Visiting and exchanging experiences with AIDS care providers in your city and around your country, we have learned that New York has had 42,737 reported cases of full-blown AIDS. Cuba has 159. Your Centers for Disease Control, which has no official figures of AIDS deaths, says that two-thirds of reported cases of AIDS can be assumed to have died. That means that since the beginning of the epidemic, at least 28,000 New Yorkers have died. In Cuba, where records are kept, the number who have died of AIDS is 84. No one knows how many New Yorkers are carrying the virus; the estimates vary from 5 to 10 times the number of full-blown AIDS cases. In Cuba, after massive routine (not mandatory) testing, fewer than 900 have tested positive (official estimates suggest 240 more may be infected, but not yet tested). Even more heartbreaking are the figures relating to children. New York City has 987 reported cases of pediatric AIDS; more babies are born with H.I.V. every day, and children are dying or left orphans at a frightening rate. In Cuba only one child has died of AIDS: three are carrying the virus. (All pregnant women get H.I.V. antibody tests as part of prenatal care, and if they test positive, they may, after counseling, choose a therapeutic abortion.) Lest you think this contrast applies only to New York City, we should note that Puerto |
590735_4 | For Children of Cocaine, Fresh Reasons for Hope | the University of California at San Diego, found brain damage in a third of the children, but signs of central nervous system disturbance in 80 percent of them. A few were seriously damaged, she said, but none were "bedridden or in a vegetative state." Some Degree of Disturbance "It's just not the case that these kids are so damaged that they can't be helped," Dr. Dixon said. "The big question is, how much recovery over how long? Some children may be left with difficulties when they enter school. But they will all benefit from early intervention, therapy and other special attention." In Chicago, in one of the longest-running research projects on cocaine-exposed children in the country, Dr. Chasnoff and a team of specialists found that 60 percent of the infants born to 300 cocaine users suffered some degree of central nervous system disturbance. But the specialists began working with mothers and infants immediately after birth, and within three years about half were developing normally. The Sheltering Arms Therapeutic Nursery in central Harlem, which cares for those with developmental problems, does not accept children until they are 2 years and 9 months old. But even then, special education teachers and therapists find that in a few months they are able to bring about striking change. Progress Is Seen One girl, just under 3 years old, arrived balky and whiny. Anything she came across on the floor -- a button, a coin, a crayon -- she jammed into her mouth. She wet her pants and refused to lie on a cot at nap time. Instead of trying to fit together a jigsaw puzzle, she would throw the pieces across the room and walk away. If she spoke at all, it would be to blurt out a single word: "car," perhaps, or "water" or "door." After four months in the nursery, in a classroom with 10 children and four special education teachers as well as regular sessions with a speech therapist and a psychologist, the girl still has difficulty focusing on a particular task. But she may work at a puzzle now for five minutes before giving up, and she is speaking in five-word sentences. "She can follow along with others in the group now," said Nichelle Timoll, one of the teachers, "and she understands when something ends and something else begins." 'Glare and Stare' A 4-year-old boy was very aggressive when he |
590687_1 | Protective Ice Flow in Antarctica Linked to Warmth of Volcanoes | radar altimeter, the scientists surveyed the ice sheet from the air to determine the contours of both the ice sheet and the rocky base underneath, along with the magnetic and gravity fields associated with the rock base. From the resulting data, collected in the Southern Hemisphere summer of 1991-92, they concluded that an active volcano underlies one part of the area where the ice streams form. Combining this with satellite data that suggest similar and more widespread geologic forms, they suggest that other volcanoes underlie the ice as well. The volcanoes, the investigators believe, indicate that the ground in that region produces warmth that melts just enough ice to produce a slippery layer of mud over which ice migrating toward the sea can move at a rapid pace of about half a mile a year. Each of the rivers formed this way is about 30 to 60 miles wide and flows for hundreds of miles before reaching the seashore. There it continues flowing out into the ocean to produce the Ross Ice Shelf, a huge offshore expanse of ice that forms the rampart of the barrier separating the ocean from the central ice reservoir. The ice streams could vanish, said one of the scientists, Dr. Donald D. Blankenship of the University of Texas at Austin, if climatic changes should cause the sea level to rise enough for the ocean shore to move inland. This could happen if sea water expanded and its level rose as a result of global warming, for example, or if any change in oceanic circulation patterns resulting from climatic change produced warmer ocean waters around Antarctica. If the shoreline moved inland beyond the area of volcanism where the ice streams form, said Dr. Blankenship, the ice streams would disappear and would no longer feed the Ross Ice Shelf. It would begin to shrink, setting off a retreat of the ice barrier that in time would allow the ocean to come into direct contact with the interior ice reservoir. The reservoir would begin to disintegrate on contact with the warmer water and ultimately the entire ice sheet would collapse. How long this would take is unknown, he said, since "that situation doesn't exist in nature right now. In addition to Dr. Blankenship, the authors of the paper are Dr. Robin E. Bell of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University; Dr. Steven M. Hodge, Dr. John C. |
591117_2 | Reality and Anxiety: Crime and the Fear of It | at risk. "One of the worst things affecting our feeling of safety was probably the development of the video camera," said Dr. James Fox, dean of the School of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University in Boston. Walking Near One's Home It is hard to quantify fear. For the last 30 years the only measure of national anxiety about crime has been a survey of whether people feared walking at night within a mile of their homes. Over the years the results of the survey, conducted by the Gallup Organization and the National Opinion Research Council, have been relatively constant: about 45 percent of those polled express such fears. But one researcher said the poll may fail to disclose changes in the way people are reacting. That researcher, Dr. Mark Warr, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas, said he had recently decided to ask 100 students in his class if any of them carried chemical repellents like Mace. He expected a few reponses. Instead, more than half the women in the class raised their hands. Laura Platt, a junior in Dr. Warr's class, said she and some of her friends were so worried that they now had cellular phones in their cars so that they can quickly dial 911. Many also carry Mace, or sprays like it, or devices that can emit an electronic shriek for help. Catching the National Mood Marketers of self-defense gadgets have caught the national mood. One increasingly popular gadget looks like a telephone beeper and emits a battery-operated banshee-like scream when the user pulls a pin to activate it. New marketing techniques have also appeared. Television advertisements for an anti-car theft device known as "The Club" now offer it in "designer colors for today's life style." And a few months ago, a Miami gun store mailed offers for a stun gun disguised as an umbrella to parents of freshmen at the University of Florida in Gainesville, the site of several slayings in 1990. A stun gun, pressed against the flesh of an attacker, ejects two small wires that deliver a high-voltage jolt. That stun-gun pitch received few takers, said a spokesman for the university. But there are thousands of new buyers for self-defense products. A sense of vulnerability is the common note sounded by those purchasers. Pepper Sprays and Beepers Adults are buying protective devices for themselves and their children. These gadgets |
591133_3 | Car Need Freon? Better Fill Up Soon | are less damaging to the ozone and whose production will be allowed far longer than the equipment will last. In contrast, a car air-conditioner is virtually guaranteed to leak every few years. It has a shaft that draws power from the engine to run the compressor. The seal around the shaft, subjected to wear, tear and temperatures not present in a kitchen, usually fails after a few years. Before concern arose about the effect of CFC's on the ozone layer, no one considered a broken seal a big problem, because the refrigerant was so cheap: a full charge cost less than a quart of motor oil. But now, mobile air-conditioners are a focus of Government efforts to reduce CFC use. To pay for their new recovery equipment, and for the additional R-12, which is now heavily taxed, some service shops charge $60 for a refill. Anthony Mash, who is in charge of marketing R-134a at ICI Americas in Wilmington, Del., a leading producer of the refrigerant, offered a prediction: "You will get people running around car junkyards and sucking out three-quarters of a pound." Car owners with a little mechanical skill used to buy R-12 at auto-supply stores and refill their systems themselves. But in June, a new Federal rule halted the retail sale of the familiar one-pound cans. Now, only licensed technicians can buy containers of less than 20 pounds. Most cars use two to three pounds. Only the production of R-12 is prohibited -- not its use -- so as with pre-Castro Havana cigars, some stocks of vintage R-12 may still be around after production ceases, with a price keyed to the eagerness of the buyer. To discourage hoarding, the Government has increased taxes each year not only on new production, but also on inventories held by repair shops. R-134a has only recently become the consensus choice of the auto industry, after a speed-up of testing for flammability, toxicity and durability. The industry says R-134a will work just as well as R-12, but because its chemistry is different, it eats away hoses, seals and lubricants designed for R-12. It also operates at different pressures, so it cannot be used in existing air-conditioners. Some R-12 air-conditioners are now being built with some components that are compatible with R-134a, so that if the car is converted later, fewer parts will have to be switched. Mr. Mash, of ICI Americas, said |
591156_1 | Books of The Times; An Imaginary Round Table on Social Concerns | and behavior that was considered criminal or scandalous. Whenever she ran across any of these, she cast them as precepts: "Respect contracts," "Be efficient," "Shun force." By subtracting what she calls "universal virtues" -- cooperation, courage, patience and so on -- she eventually ended up with a list of 30 precepts that roughly broke down into 15 conflicting pairs: "Be optimistic" versus "Be fatalistic," "Be honest" versus "Be loyal" and "Be thrifty" versus "Dispense largess." Yes, the precepts are quirky and seem to anticipate the arguments that are going to be derived from them, but Kate defends them ably and the reader goes along. Kate names the first list of 15 precepts "Moral Syndrome A" and the second one "Moral Syndrome B." She concludes that the A precepts all have to do with commercial behavior ("Come to voluntary agreements," "Invest for productive purposes" and so forth), while the B precepts are "all concerned with some aspect of territorial responsibilities" ("Respect hierarchy," "Be ostentatious," "Treasure honor"). At this point, Armbruster pulls a copy of the "Republic" off the shelf and points out that Plato identified the same two sets of behavior and defined the second one as made up of police, soldiers, government policy-makers and rulers, or the Guardians. Kate has been "reinventing the wheel." The group debates on, "didactic talking heads," as they later describe themselves. Kate's lists of precepts embrace all human ways of making a living, which, the group eventually agrees, boil down to a basic two, "taking" and "trading." Hunters and gatherers take. At some point in prehistory, two tribes met at the borders of their respective territories and began to trade, clamshells for antelope hides. Productive commerce was born. As history unscrolled, guardian societies like feudal Europe or medieval Japan developed, where B-type behavior worked best. Within their midst, islands of commerce grew up, the need for contracts, or for instance what a lawyer in the group calls "the whole contraption . . . known as the Custom of Merchants." As the discussion leaps from the meaning of the Protestant work ethic to the question of whether art flourishes best in a guardian or a commercial society, the group comes to see that all social problems arise out of a confusion of the two moral syndromes. "Monstrous hybrids" spring up, like the Mafia, which "practices commerce in accord with guardian precepts," or communism, which "put economic |
589718_0 | A Plan for Close-Up Images of Earth From Space | A small California company formed by a scientist who worked on the military's so-called Star Wars program has been licensed by the Government to launch a series of photo satellites that will make it possible for customers to directly dial up high-resolution images of earth and view them on their personal computers. The new system, even though capable of producing the highest-quality commercially available images from space, will not approach the close-up power of military spy satellites, which is why the Department of Defense agreed to permit the license for the relatively weaker system. Military satellites can discern objects as small as one foot in diameter, civilian experts say. The permit is the first granted under a law passed last year by Congress. Political and Economic Impact Readily and widely available high-resolution images of the earth could have a significant political and economic impact, according to business experts and Government officials. Besides making it harder for the world's military powers to launch surprise attacks, the pictures might be used for purposes like corporate espionage or news gathering. The Worldview Imaging Corporation, an Oakland, Calif., start-up venture with Silicon Valley financing, received approval for the project from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in January. The company was founded early last year by Walter Scott, a computer scientist who until the end of 1991 was the head of the controversial Lawrence Livermore Laboratories projects "Brilliant Pebbles" and "Brilliant Eyes," which are part of the Strategic Defense Initiative -- the formal name for the Star Wars program. His co-founder was Doug Gerull, an executive at the Intergraph Corporation, the leading company in the geographic information systems market. "If the imagines are cheap and available quickly, this will change a lot of things," said Mr. Gerull, Worldview's chief executive. "You could sit at your desk and get an image from anywhere on the earth." The resolution of the Worldview system is still nowhere near what the United States Government spy satellites can obtain. Those systems can take pictures that clearly show objects as small as footballs, while the Worldview system would show objects of "under three meters," according to several people familiar with the project. Still, that would be enough resolution to distinguish objects the size of cars and military vehicles. Moreover, it would be significantly more resolution than is currently possible from Government public systems like the United States Landsat satellites used |
589919_0 | Social Programs Give Retarded a Safe Outlet | To the Editor: As a professional dedicated to improving the social lives of those with mental retardation (and other developmental disabilities) and to supporting efforts by their families to raise them as active participants in our society, I read with great interest "Sex Adds to Fears of Parents of Retarded" (front page, Jan. 26), concerning fears sparked by the Glen Ridge, N.J., trial of four men accused of sexually assaulting a retarded young woman. It is important that all caretakers of people with mental retardation (parents, siblings, family-care and foster-care providers) be aware of social and recreation programs that provide qualified supervision and guidance to promote the development of healthy relationships and expand their social world. These programs, largely funded by New York State, provide relief for families by becoming an alternative source for the occupation of leisure time and social connections. I cannot speak for all such programs, but in the ones I oversee, any sign of romantic or sexual interest is addressed on an individual basis in consultation with the family. The emphasis for those who participate in my programs is on appropriate social behavior in group and public settings. Sexuality and the rights and abilities of people with mental retardation is a complicated subject; each situation is highly individual. However, since your article illuminates recognition by parents of the social needs for this population, coupled with significant concerns for safety, it is a public service to let as many people as possible know about the many recreation programs that have been developed in recent years throughout New York City and New York State. Interested parties are invited to get in touch with us for city and state referrals. LAURIE YANKOWITZ Director, Family Support Services HeartShare Human Services of N.Y. Brooklyn, Jan. 28, 1993 |
589742_1 | Post Suitor Has Completed Payment, Lawyer Says | partly because the S.E.C. had expressed concern that Mr. Hoffenberg might thwart the agency by buying The Post before the S.E.C. had the opportunity to argue its case that a freeze is necessary to protect Towers investors. The S.E.C. is essentially asserting that Mr. Hoffenberg is using The Post as a vehicle to shelter his assets and shield them from people he has defrauded of tens of millions of dollars. Yesterday, the judge rescheduled a hearing on the freeze request for Wednesday, two days before the earliest date it is believed that Mr. Hoffenberg could complete his purchase. Mr. Hoffenberg's lawyer, Ira Lee Sorkin, pledged in court yesterday that Mr. Hoffenberg will not transfer any additional money to The Post until after the hearing next week. But because Mr. Hoffenberg has already transferred $6 million to The Post's bank, Bankers Trust, it now appears unlikely that an asset freeze could block Mr. Hoffenberg from formally becoming The Post publisher. The contract between Mr. Kalikow and Mr. Hoffenberg provides that Mr. Hoffenberg is purchasing The Post essentially by assuming millions of dollars of liabilities and providing the newspaper with cash. The $6 million payment Mr. Hoffenberg made was to Bankers Trust, in effect substituting his money for the credit supplied by the bank. Financial and newspaper executives in New York began acknowledging privately yesterday that Mr. Hoffenberg appears virtually certain to become The Post's owner. Newspaper union officials agreed at a meeting yesterday to take no action to oppose Mr. Hoffenberg and to re-evaluate in a week. Potential Buyers Stymied Other potential buyers said financial executives who have talked with them, were immobilized by Mr. Hoffenberg's pact with Mr. Kalikow. A contract between Mr. Hoffenberg and Mr. Kalikow, filed in court yesterday, showed that Mr. Kalikow promised not to solicit other purchase offers and that any other buyer would have to pay Mr. Hoffenberg a $2 million fee. In private meetings in recent days, Mr. Hoffenberg has given the impression to people involved in efforts to stabilize The Post that even if his assets were frozen he could obtain financing for The Post's needs. Judge Knapp said that he was disposed to grant the freeze because the S.E.C. has demonstrated what lawyers call a "probability of success" in its case against Towers. The judge said he worried that to freeze Mr. Hoffenberg's assets "would in effect blow The Post purchase," jeopardizing |
587202_0 | World Economies | |
588336_2 | Hans Jonas, Influential Philosopher, Is Dead at 89 | ethics seriously back in the mid 1960's," Daniel Callahan, the director of the Hastings Center, a research organization in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. that is devoted to biomedical ethics, said yesterday. "He made important contributions on the question of the definition of death and on the moral problems of the use of human beings for medical research. He was thus one of the pioneers in the field of biomedical ethics." Tackled Hard Topics Dr. Leon R. Kass, the Harding Professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, said yesterday that Professor Jonas "was willing to tackle certain large philosophical topics that most professional philosophers stayed away from." Dr. Kass, a medical doctor who writes on philosophical and ethical topics involving the relationship between science and human affairs, said that Professor Jonas's book "The Phenomenon of Life" (Harper & Row, 1966) "insisted, in the face of the new discoveries of modern biology, on the importance of certain enduring questions about the mysterious character of living beings and showed us how one could continue to philosophize about them with clarity and with profit." Professor Jonas's interests evolved over the decades. He was a historian of religion before he became active as a philosopher with knowledge of biology. Later he turned to questions of ethics and emphasized that modern technology posed enormous problems for mankind. He wrote a dozen books, of which four, including "The Phenomenon of Life," were published in the United States. The other three were "The Gnostic Religion" (Beacon Press, 1958), "Philosophical Essays" (University of Chicago, 1974) and "The Imperative of Responsibility" (University of Chicago, 1984). Doctorate in 1928 Professor Jonas was born in Monchengladbach, Germany, the son of Gustav Jonas and the former Rosa Horowitz. He studied under Dr. Heidegger at the University of Freiburg and earned his doctorate, summa cum laude, from the University of Marburg in 1928. He fled Germany in 1933 when Hitler came to power, taught in Jerusalem, served in the British Army in World War II, taught in Jerusalem again, served in the Israeli military and taught in Canada before coming to the New School. Professor Jonas is survived by his wife, the former Eleanore Weiner, to whom he was married in 1943; a son, John F. of Washington; two daughters, Ayalah Sorkin of Wayne, Pa. and Gabrielle Jonas of Manhattan; two grandchildren, and a brother, Georg of Ramat Gan, Israel. |
592973_0 | 'Star Wars' Test in Hawaii Brings Demonstration | The Navy began a series of missile launchings today to test the "Star Wars" defense system, firing a modified Polaris missile from the Barking Sands range on the western island of Kauai. The missile traveled 2,200 miles west to a splashdown near the Kwajalein atoll in the Pacific Ocean. A small coalition of demonstrators tried to stop the launching, both on Wednesday, when it was originally scheduled, and today. Some were opponents of military testing who said the need for "Star Wars" had evaporated with the end of the cold war. Others were native Hawaiians who said such launchings desecrated the graves of ancestors buried on the missile site. In an attempt to halt the test, the two groups trespassed on the range and tried to hide on the pristine beaches that were part of a safety zone around the missile site. 'A Sovereignty Issue' Military officials say the missiles are being launched to test sensors designed to distinguish deadly warheads from harmless decoys. They say such tests are necessary to insure the success of the Strategic Defense Initiative, known as Star Wars. The native Hawaiians compared today's launching to holding target practice in a graveyard, and they accused the military of desecrating their ancestor's remains. The Rev. Kaleo Patterson, pastor of the Ko'Olau Hui'ia Church on Kauai, said: "Hawaiians today want to be able to govern their lands. It is a sovereignty issue." Mr. Patterson was one of 21 demonstrators arrested this week as they tried to block the launching by making their way into an area on the base that for safety reasons had to be cleared before the missile could be fired. |
590545_2 | Latin America's Regional Trade Boon | that Latin America was the world's fastest-growing market for American goods. In the first quarter of 1992, United States exports to Latin America and the Caribbean increased 32.5 percent from the corresponding quarter a year earlier. Meanwhile, American exports to the rest of the world grew only 4.4 percent. In 1991, American export growth figures were similar: an 18 percent jump for Latin America and the Caribbean and a 5.3 percent rise for the rest of the world. With United States sales to Latin America jumping an estimated 30 percent in 1992, Latin America was the only region where the United States had a trade surplus. Good for the United States "As these countries start to get their houses in order, and start to open up, the United States is going to be a major beneficiary," Mr. Field said, referring to a resumption of Latin economic growth after the stagnant years of the 1980's debt crisis. As an indication of how serious they are, Latin American nations have gone beyond lowering external tariffs to abolishing import licenses, exchange controls and import quotas. "Eighty percent of nontariff barriers have been thrown out," Adolfo Lopez Bustillo, a statistician at the Andean group's headquarters in Lima, Peru, said last month in an interview. Last year, Andean regional trade jumped 18 percent to $2.1 billion -- the largest increase since the group was formed in 1969. In Venezuela, the shift toward a free market is as clear as the changing scene at the land border with Colombia. Where Indian women used to slip across border trails with contraband produce hidden under their billowing skirts, large tractor-trailers now rumble through simplified border controls. Improvements at the Border "My trucks used to spend two days at the border; now they spend three hours," said Andres Duarte, the owner of a commodities trading company here. "Ford Venezuela and General Motors Venezuela are now exporting to Colombia." After a free trade agreement between Colombia and Ecuador took hold on Oct. 1, border merchants were so disoriented that they briefly blocked the Pan American Highway. But with under-the-table trade now history, official trade increased threefold in the last quarter of 1992. The timing of Latin America's regional agreements vary. With the recent creation of the Andean Free Trade Zone, tariffs immediately dropped to zero for trade between Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. In contrast, a 1991 Chile-Mexico free trade |
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598879_2 | 20,000 Rally in Dublin for Peace in North and Against I.R.A. Killing | the predominantly Catholic I.R.A. operating in the North, where 650,000 Catholics are a minority in the British province. The demonstrations coincide with increasing calls from public officials here and in the North for the governments of Ireland and Britain to end their refusal to talk to the I.R.A.'s political affiliate, Sinn Fein. They refuse to talk to Sinn Fein because it will not denounce the I.R.A. campaign of violence. Election results here in the Irish Republic and in the North show that Sinn Fein and the I.R.A. have little support on the island. In the general election here in November, Sinn Fein got 1.6 per cent of the vote. In the British general election in the North a year ago, Sinn Fein lost its only seat in the London Parliament and won only one-third of the Catholic vote. In a recent article, Foreign Minister Dick Spring wrote of the results here, "This figure would be typical for recent elections and demolishes, more succinctly that any argument could, the suggestion that proponents of violence have any political mandate here." But Tim Pat Coogan, a historian whose book "The IRA" is the standard reference work on the subject, said in an interview today that he doubted that the demonstrations would have much effect unless the movement directed its efforts toward political leaders here and in Britain. 'Means Zilch to I.R.A.' "I would hope that these people march to the minds and hearts of the politicians," he said. "To the I.R.A. it means zilch. The marchers are not the I.R.A. constituency. That constituency is the Catholics in the North, in Belfast. And they have just lost five or six of their own in the last week. The I.R.A. has never been better off, with arms, recruits." Mr. Coogan also advocated a change in the policy under which Ireland and Britain refuse to talk to Sinn Fein until it denounces the I.R.A. violence, and said he would welcome more American involvement in the effort for talks. President Clinton has said he will not immediately send a special envoy to the North. But analysts here and in the North say they hope that Washington will name as consul general in Belfast a strong official, experienced in the affairs of the province, to replace Douglas Archerd, a highly respected diplomat whose tour is ending. In recent weeks, calls for such talks have also come from Seamus |
597531_1 | A Mini-Hong Kong, From Scratch | really view Yangpu, they often switch to English in the middle of their Chinese conversations and call it the "free port" project. Yangpu has not yet been given permission to be a free port like Hong Kong, where almost all goods imported would be available duty-free to the population. But it has received a wide variety of privileges, including one of the country's most relaxed policies toward duties on industrial and consumer goods. And Hainan officials say that if Yangpu is successful they hope its privileges may be extended to the entire island. "This is an experiment," said Fan Yueqin, a senior manager at the Pearl River Enterprise Company, a real estate company in the island's provincial capital of Haikou. "If Yangpu is successful, Hainan can use Yangpu as a model. If we want to become a Hong Kong, then Yangpu is a trial." But for now, all this is still on paper. "My biggest worry now is that there's no special development zone yet -- it's just a piece of bare land," said Mr. Ding, a Chinese official who has spent the last three years on the project, as he rode in a car down the narrow two-lane road from the provincial capital to Yangpu. The scenery was of hills, eucalyptus trees and peasants with pointed straw hats -- a great contrast from his dream city. The project at Yangpu (YAHNG-poo) is a victory for Kumagai Gumi (H.K.) Ltd., which is partly owned by the Japanese construction company. Kumagai Gumi will have land-use rights on the property for 70 years and will then sell those rights to other companies that want to build factories or offices. In the three months since Kumagai began selling plots from its Hong Kong office, the company says it has sold about 8 percent of the zone's space. In a sign of the economic frenzy that pervades the nation, mainland Chinese companies have been the quickest to sign up, some apparently buying land simply in the hope of reselling at a profit. Holding Down Speculation "There's bound to be speculation in any project like this," said Frederick S. Ma, executive director at Kumagai Gumi (H.K.) Ltd. in Hong Kong. "The key is that we don't have so much speculation that the place becomes a ghost town." China began experimenting more than a decade ago with special economic zones, inspired by the booming achievements of |
593590_2 | CRISIS AT THE TWIN TOWERS: Repairs; Damage to the World Trade Center Is Called Limited | Robertson, whose Manhattan firm, Leslie E. Robertson Associates, did the design engineering for the Trade Center when it was built -- the F.B.I. will remove cars, plaster, concrete and other material that might yield clues. Then some of the bulk debris will be removed, and more columns will be braced, Mr. Robertson said. The work must proceed in phases because the floors, though heavily damaged, are helping hold the columns in place, he said. Praise for Design Mr. Fasullo, speaking of whoever planted the bomb, said, "this guy was completely unsuccessful in creating any real damage." It is possible to bring down a concrete-and-steel building with explosives, he said -- as demolition companies do. But, he added, "we really did a pretty good job" in the design of the building. Among the progress to report, the water in the basement, 18 inches deep on the center's B-6 level on Saturday, was down to an inch by yesterday, thanks to the creativity of engineers who converted the PATH tubes to drainage canals, among other methods. With the basement essentially dry, Port Authority officials said they would soon be able to reopen the two mains that provide steam from Con Edison to heat the building. Electric power throughout the Trade Center was restored over the weekend for lighting and elevators, although all the cooling systems have been knocked out, said John Castaldo, the chief of electrical maintenance. The building's air-conditioning system is usually turned on in the middle of this month, he said. Because of structural problems, Mr. Castaldo said, workers have been unable to determine how much damage had been done to the cooling equipment. Yesterday, workers were checking the fire-alarm system, circuit by circuit, to find how many circuits were damaged. Pumping out the basement took between 10 and 15 pumps, said Mr. O'Connor, the construction manager. Working before elevators were restored, workers carried pumps down six flights of stairs on their backs. Because most of the water had to be pumped up six floors, ordinary hoses were not strong enough. In many cases, workers installed three-inch pipes, bracing them to stairwell supports and railings, to dump the water into city streets; in other cases, they used high-pressure hoses. Some water was dumped into PATH tubes, from which it drained toward the Hudson River, where it was ejected by regular pumps intended to deal with rainwater. Water From Ruptured Pipes |
593622_3 | Grappling With Fear Of Magnetic Fields | in September. "I'm not going to let something like this force me to move out of this town." No one knows whether the magnetic fields created by electric currents cause or promote cancer. But studies are suggesting a link, if minimal, and so now the fears, at least, are undeniable. "What effect does this have on our children?" Ms. Einhorn asked. The parents are finally getting some response. An epidemiologist for the state, Diane Aye, is studying cancer statistics to see if New Canaan's are abnormally high. Mr. Carberry says his plans already minimize exposure from the high-voltage lines leading to and from the substation, but perhaps the utility will be persuaded to do more. "It's not like if we don't move Ledge Avenue tomorrow, the world's going to end," Mr. Carberry said. But once some fears are awakened, they are not easily stilled. A single transformer nearly as powerful as all three on Ledge Avenue has stood on the Lakeview site since 1975; half-screened by trees, it never attracted notice. "Until it affects your neighborhood," Ms. Einhorn began, "You don't do anything about it," Mrs. Cogswell finished. Substations do not create magnetic fields, Mr. Carberry reassures people, but the distribution lines that run from them do. And those lines are everywhere, along every street. "Electricity is electromagnetic fields," he said. "You don't have electricity without them." There is so much to worry about, but so much less that can be known. Scientists accept the uncertainty, but the public would rather not. Ms. Aye will visit New Canaan this week, in part to explain how unlikely she is to identify a cancer cluster. There are statistical obstacles, but the main problem is that cancer is pervasive. If she finds that cancer is striking one of four residents here, New Canaan will be merely average. So if the real fear is cancer, or mortality, or even the uncertainty of human existence, the Ledge Avenue substation with its ominous hum is at least a tangible symbol. It is an opportunity for people to do what they can to reassure themselves that everyone did whatever could be done. "We're not going to find much conclusive evidence," said Tamara Stehly, a paralegal who is helping the residents. "But in the meantime, C.L.&P. is bound to insure safety to the best of its ability. We want to make sure it's fulfilling that duty." OUR TOWNS |
594813_4 | THE TWIN TOWERS: The Structure; Aided by Computers, Repairs Are Charted | some spots this is like trying to make a grid out of spaghetti: the lines inevitably cross and twist. Bracing the columns that used to be held in place by the parking garage floors can be divided into two groups. The first seven columns are on the critical path, because they must be braced before workers can begin large-scale debris removal and repair of conduits, pipes and other links in the blast area. Another 30 columns have to be braced eventually but need not be completed to reopen the towers. "If you're not on the critical path, then it's no big deal," said Eugene Fasullo, the chief structural engineer. "We'll get to it in an efficient way." Every morning at 7:30, 15 to 20 senior staff experts meet to compare progress reports and try to establish where the critical path lies. A smaller group of engineers gathers in late morning and upper management meets again at 6 or 7 in the evening. The path changes as bottlenecks are broken, new problems surface or an inspection tour discloses that some piece of equipment is working, is easily fixed or is beyond repair. As of Friday, an important item on the critical path was the cooling system. Before the blast, the Port Authority had seven chillers with a capacity of 7,000 tons each. (One ton of capacity is the cooling that would be achieved by a ton of ice melting.) The huge devices for chilling water for the air-conditioning system were built especially for the building. If new ones have to be ordered, the building may be unusable until June and replacements may not arrive before next fall -- an unacceptable result. Marked in Red So marked in red on the logic precedence diagram were steps like "Order/Fabricate/Deliver Chiller Spare Parts" and "Repair Existing Chillers/Pumps/Piping." But some experts believe that the chillers, which are made of massive metal parts because they are designed to work at very high pressures, are most likely to be sitting under the rubble with nothing more than a few dents and scratches and will be fairly easy to get running. In that case, Mr. DiCiara said, the chillers could "fall off the critical path." Reopening the trade center as soon as possible would then depend on some other series of tasks. Unlike an ordinary construction project, the managers of this one have had to take into account |
594792_0 | BRAZIL IS EVICTING MINERS IN AMAZON | Determined to reverse a gold rush of 11,000 miners into the Amazon lands of the Yanomami Indians, the Brazilian police and military have evacuated 3,000 miners by air in the last 10 days, many of them forcibly. The operation, which continued today with helicopters and transport planes, is the second drive since 1990 to protect Brazil's Yanomami, often called the largest Stone Age tribe in the Americas. Long isolated from the outside world, the 20,000 Yanomami of Brazil and Venezuela are threatened by imported diseases and pollution that cripples their hunting and fishing. "After the last operation, malaria started to come back under control and the Indians started clearing their gardens and rebuilding their villages," said Claudia Andujar, coordinator of the Commission for the Creation of the Yanomami Park, a private group. "But since the Government didn't take any control measures, the invasion started all over again." In a $2 million airlift that is to continue through May, miners are being flown from jungle strips to Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima state, about 400 miles north of here. From there, they are encouraged to travel by bus to this city, the largest in the Amazon. Radar System Installed To deter the miners from streaming back into the region, Brazil's Air Force has closed the airspace over the Yanomami reserve to private planes and has installed a radar system in Boa Vista to monitor the area for violations. But on a visit to the reserve on Friday, Brazil's Justice Minister, Mauricio Correa warned that a long-term solution would involve finding alternative work for Roraima's unemployed miners. To promote farming and ranching on non-Indian lands, Mr. Correa proposed paving an existing road between here and Venezuela. A senator from Roraima state, Marluce Pinto, took a more skeptical view. "The gold miners are always going to end up returning to the Yanomami lands," he told reporters accompanying the Justice Minister. In the Amazon, miners and politicians have always opposed recognizing traditional rights of Brazil's 10,000 Yanomami to a mineral-rich area the size of Portugal. But fearing a wave of criticism at the international Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro last June, Brazil's central Government decreed that a Yanomami reserve would encompass a 37,000-mile area, straddling Amazonas and Roraima states. Rivers Are Poisoned Two weeks before the Earth Summit began, Government surveyors finished marking out the area. But as delegates from around the |
594789_0 | Rebuffing Premier, China Eases Growth Curbs | The Communist Party leadership today approved a revision of China's five-year plan, setting more ambitious growth targets and thereby snubbing Prime Minister Li Peng. It also endorsed a reshuffle of Government leaders. The Central Committee released a communique this evening, after the close of its three-day plenary session, but did not say who would be promoted or dismissed. Nor did it give any details of the plan that it also approved for "reforming the party and Government organs." The revision of the five-year plan, which covers the years 1991 through 1995, is far less important now than in earlier years, when the entire economy was governed by the planning bureaucracy. The Government has said that the central plan will cover just 6 percent of industrial production this year. Alters Earlier Plan Nevertheless, the revision is important in two respects. First it is a blow to Prime Minister Li and undermines his credibility because he was in charge of drafting the original plan and is closely associated with its relatively cautious targets. Second, today's announcement is sure to send a signal to local officials, factory managers and entrepreneurs around the nation that they can proceed more frenetically than ever with new investments and business plans. The revision lessens the risk of any imminent clampdown by Beijing on the overheating economy. The Central Committee plenum did not give details of its proposed revisions to the five-year plan, which had called for a 6 percent annual growth rate in gross national product. Deng Xiaoping, the senior leader, seems to favor a growth rate of 9 percent to 10 percent, even at the risk of spiraling inflation, and so the plenum presumably raised the target by several percentage points. "The readjusted targets can be met through the concerted efforts of the party members and the people of the whole country," the Central Committee said in its communique. "As conditions differ in localities, there should be no seeking of a 'unified' speed of development." Victory for Provinces That phrasing is a victory for provinces that have chafed at Mr. Li's calls for restrained, prudent growth. Such regions -- like Guangdong Province and other areas in the southeastern coast -- can now argue that their conditions differ from the national average and that they should not be constrained by the national target. In China, the problem with economic growth targets is not that they are difficult |
594791_1 | British Say I.R.A. Bombing Effort Is Set Back by Arrest of 5 Suspects | Taylor, who was also charged separately with assault for shooting at officers who stormed their north London home, led to a series of raids across the city that resulted in three more arrests and the seizure of a large quantity of plastic explosives, firearms and ammunition. A judge ordered that the men remain in custody without bail under Britain's anti-terrorist act. 'Significant Successes' "The last thing we want to do is boast, but there have been some very significant successes recently," a detective from the anti-terrorist squad of the Metropolitan Police of London, which is also known as Scotland Yard, told The Times of London this week. The raids in London were the latest in a series of blows against what are believed to be underground terror cells tied to the I.R.A., which has waged a 21-year campaign of killings and bombings aimed at forcing Britain to surrender its authority over the province of Northern Ireland. In the latest attack in Northern Ireland itself, the I.R.A. detonated a bomb today in the coastal town of Bangor, wounding four police officers. In the most recent attack in England, 10 people were injured a week ago when an explosive device hidden in a litter basket was detonated in a crowded street in Camden Town, a shopping district in north London. More Than 100 Deaths Terrorist attacks in Britain have killed more than 100 people since 1972 and resulted in widespread property damage. A bomb detonated last April in London's financial district killed three people and resulted in more than $1 billion worth of damage, causing buildings to collapse and blowing out thousands of windows over a one-square-mile area. Bomb threats have often disrupted public transportation. In the last few weeks, at least six other terrorist suspects have been seized, including three men who detectives say shot a policeman and blew up a natural gas storage tank in northern England on Feb. 26. Two of the men were captured by the police after a high-speed chase; the third fled on foot but was captured the next day. In the weeks before Christmas, the police also foiled two efforts by the I.R.A. to deliver powerful truck bombs into the center of London. One truck driver was captured after a shootout with police; a bomb hidden inside a second truck was removed after the vehicle, parked in central London, aroused suspicion among passing police officers. |
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599030_2 | Time May Be Ripe for Discovery of Elusive Gravity Waves | spacecraft to Earth, and by the solar wind, a blast of electrically charged particles streaming outward from the Sun. But scientists hope that after both are taken into account, there may be some small excess frequency shift attributable to a passing gravity wave. All the spacecraft are very distant from Earth, so they are well positioned to record a long-wavelength gravity wave. The European Space Agency's Ulysses, launched in 1990, will fly over the Sun's poles in 1994 and 1995; the spacecraft's current distance from Earth is almost four times the distance of Earth from the Sun. NASA's Mars Observer, launched last year, will reach Mars next August, and NASA's Galileo, launched in 1989, will arrive at Jupiter in 1995. Those two spacecraft are both about six-tenths as far from Earth as Earth is from the Sun. Scientists have begun keeping a continuous record, comparing the microwave frequency sent up from Earth with the frequency of the signal returning from the spacecraft, and after April 11, a computer analysis of the data will begin. Results are expected to take several months. This is not the first search using spacecraft to look for gravity waves. Last year a similar search was made using the Ulysses spacecraft alone. But this time three spacecraft are working instead of just one, and the Mars Observer is equipped with an X-band microwave system, which Dr. Estabrook says is better able to detect gravity waves than the S-band system used on the other spacecraft. Another and far more costly system to study gravity waves is under construction in the states of Washington and Louisiana. That system, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (or LIGO), which is expected to cost $230 million, is intended to detect and observe gravity waves much shorter than those that may be found by the spacecraft. LIGO observatories, including one being built by a consortium of European nations, will each consist of a pair of 2.5-mile tunnels at right angles to each other. The frequency of laser light passing through one tunnel will be continuously compared with that of the laser in the other tunnel, and the passing of a gravity wave would cause a mismatch in frequencies. Search for Ripple The system would search for the kind of short-wavelength gravitational ripple believed to be caused by supernova explosions. By contrast, the spacecraft project is hunting for much larger gravitational events that |
599041_0 | Brazilian Rain Forest Yields Most Diversity For Species of Trees | BOTANISTS studying a surviving patch of the dwindling Atlantic rain forest in Brazil have recorded the highest known tree diversity in the world. Packed into a two-and-one-half-acre plot, 450 different tree species were identified by an American-Brazilian team led Dr. W. Wayt Thomas, a researcher for the New York Botanical Garden. The discovery, announced last week, displaces a previous density record of 300 species for a similar plot set in 1986 by researchers studying the mountain flanks of the Andes in Peru that descend into the Amazon rain forest. By contrast, a similar plot in a New England forest generally contains only 10 species. "We were very, very surprised at the high diversity we encountered," Dr. Thomas said of the site, located 900 miles north of here, in Bahia State. By contrast, South America's better known rain forest, the Amazon, has an average density of tree species about half that recorded at the Atlantic forest. "The Atlantic forest is much more diverse than the Amazon forest," said Dr. Andre M. de Carvalho, a Brazilian botanist from Bahia who worked on the cataloguing project. The diversity and primitive nature of several species found in patches of Atlantic forest indicate that more than 500,000 years ago the Atlantic forest supplied many tree species to the Amazon, Dr. de Carvalho said. Among Most Threatened Forests While the Atlantic rain forest is one of the world's most biologically diverse ecosystems, it is also one of the most threatened. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the world's two most endangered tropical ecosystems are the Atlantic rain forest in Brazil and the rain forest of Madagascar, an island off the coast of East Africa. In recent decades, Brazilians' demand for farm and ranch land has radically slashed the Atlantic forest. Today about 9 percent remains from a forest that at the beginning of this century stretched 2,500 miles down the Atlantic Coast of Brazil, covering 425,000 square miles. In North American terms, a forest the size of Texas and California has dwindled to an area the size of Maine. Brazil's oldest area of European colonization, the coastal region once blanketed by the Atlantic rain forest is now home to 70 percent of Brazil's population of 155 million people. "Conservation of the Atlantic forest is fundamental," said Dr. de Carvalho, who is curator of a herbarium at the Cocoa Research Center in Itabuna, Bahia. "There is need |
596241_9 | New Finds Suggest Even Earlier Trade on Fabled Silk Road | and remote-sensing experimenters have been eager to apply the technology to identifying buried settlements on the Silk Road. The imaging radar system tested on space shuttle flights is capable of penetrating the desert to reveal everything from ancient river beds to city ruins. Parts of the Taklamakan were surveyed in this way in 1985 and will be investigated in greater detail by upgraded versions of the radar scheduled for shuttle flights in April and December next year, officials of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said. "Some day we really need to do a radar job on the entire Silk Road," said Dr. Ronald G. Blom, a specialist in remote sensing at the laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The last time Westerners showed a keen interest in the Silk Road was early this century. In a highly competitive race into the previously unknown, explorers and archeologists from all the major Western nations retraced the old trade route and uncovered lost cities with a wealth of art and ancient manuscripts, much of which wound up in European museums. In "Foreign Devils on the Silk Road," the British writer Peter Hopkirk described these adventures as the "great archeological raids of the Silk Road." Art Blending East and West The approach is different this time. In October, international art experts will be meeting in the Chinese desert, near the Mogao Grottoes, to develop a program to save the priceless Buddhist paintings and carvings there and at other Silk Road sites. The conference is being convened by the Chinese Government and the Getty Conservation Institute of Santa Monica, Calif. As earlier archeologists discovered, art on the Silk Road was, like the travelers, a blending of East and West. In his pre-World War I reconnaissance, the British archeologist Sir Aurel Stein came upon murals depicting followers of the Buddha with the long faces and aquiline noses of the West and a two-sided tablet showing on one side a figure in the Indian Buddhist yoga position and on the other side figures with Chinese and Persian features. It was the face and story of the Silk Road, now being explored anew as one of the great avenues of adventure, commerce and human communication. Correction: March 23, 1993, Tuesday A map in Science Times last Tuesday depicting the ancient Silk Road gave an incorrect date for graves containing silk found in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. They were from the seventh century B.C. |
596227_1 | Magnetic Resonance Gives Better Images Of Nerves in the Body | in a report in the current issue of The Lancet, an international medical journal published in England, the researchers said they were able to picture nerves by filtering out the image signals of various other tissues until only the signals of nerve tissue were left. By changing signal sequences to block emissions from non-neural tissue and improving the processing of the resulting data, the researchers said, they were able to make nerve fibers the brightest structures in the image. They said they were able to view images of separate nerve bundles with standard equipment by modifying the computer programs that control the scanner and using portable signal-enhancing devices to bring out the weak electromagnetic modification pattern produced by nerve tissue. Dr. Filler said he expected the cost of computer-program changes and other needed equipment to be minimal. Other experts in magnetic resonance imaging said the research looked promising, but added that more work would be needed to prove that it was a useful tool for diagnosis. "This is an exciting development and I hope it holds up after further work," said Dr. Thomas J. Brady, director of magnetic resonance imaging research at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "Historically, we could see nerves, but they were surrounded by fat and vessels that obscured the image. The technical capability of magnetic resonance is expanding and we're pushing back the bounds of what it can do." Magnetic resonance imaging, which in the last decade has revolutionized how doctors look at the soft tissues and organs of the body, produces its images by detecting radio signals from hydrogen atoms in the water molecules inside tissue. The spinning nuclei of hydrogen atoms are exposed to a strong magnetic field and then dislodged from the field by a pulse of radio waves. To return to their normal position in the magnetic field, the hydrogen nuclei give off their own radio signals at a distinct frequency that the scanner picks up and uses to construct an image. Dr. Filler developed the new technique while working in England with Dr. Franklyn Howe, a physicist at the University of London. The researchers used an advanced custom-built magnetic resonance imaging system in a laboratory supported by Britain's Cancer Research Campaign. When Dr. Filler returned to the University of Washington last year, he teamed up with Dr. Jay Tsuruda, Dr. Cecil Hayes, Dr. Michel Kliot and Dr. Richard Winn to develop |
596242_0 | Women's Bones Appear to Have Become Weaker | A STUDY of old human bones, unearthed after two centuries in a church crypt, offers a possible clue to the mystery of why so many elderly women today suffer hip fractures associated with osteoporosis. Millions of people develop osteoporosis, a condition in which bones lose calcium and become thinner and more susceptible to fractures in the spine, hip and wrist. It primarily affects women after menopause when their estrogen levels decline. Previous studies have shown that osteoporotic hip fractures are much more common today than would be expected, even with increased life expectancy. In Britain, the incidence of hip fractures in women and men has doubled in the last 30 years. Fractures have increased in the United States and Canada as well. One possible explanation is that modern women's bones are weaker than those of their ancestors. During restoration of Christ Church Spitalfields in the East End of London, scientists from the Wynn Institute for Metabolic Research, Britain's Natural History Museum and University College London, examined the thigh bones of 87 women buried in the crypt from 1729 to 1852. After comparing their findings with bone-density measurements of 294 present-day women, the scientists found that the older bones were indeed stronger than contemporary ones. The findings are reported in the current issue of Lancet, an international medical journal published in Britain. The scientists could not directly compare dead bones with living ones, since muscle tissue and fat play a part. Instead they looked at the bone density of postmenopausal women, considered to be those women older than 45, compared with premenopausal women in both groups. They found that the rate of bone loss was significantly greater in postmenopausal women today than in women of the same age group who lived two centuries ago. Even young women now show some bone loss, in striking contrast to their older counterparts. "We don't know why this is," said Belinda Lees, a scientist who specializes in metabolic bone disease at the Wynn Institute in London. "But one factor may be the lower degree of physical activity in present-day women." Value of Physical Activity Church records and diaries document that many of the women in the Spitalfields sample worked 14-hour days as silk weavers and walked a great deal. In contrast, the women in the present-day sample lead more sedentary lives, the scientists said. Studies have shown that weight-bearing exercise not only builds bone, but |
596279_0 | Equator's Breadbasket of the Sea | FROM 15 million to 4.4 million years ago, periodic "blooms" of microscopic ocean life erupted in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean on a scale undocumented anywhere in more modern times, scientists say. This prodigious production of marine life, described in the current issue of Nature, ended at about the time that Central America rose from the sea, separating the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and altering the circulation of the world's oceans. Such circulation had presumably produced an upwelling of water along the Equator in the Pacific Ocean that was exceptionally rich in nutrients. The Equator has long been unusually productive in marine life, though not on a scale comparable with that now reported. Heat-driven circulation carries deep, nutritious waters from north and south to rise along the Equator. The authors of the study estimate that even today, half of world production of diatoms and other tiny sea creatures occurs in that area. Diatoms are one of the most common forms of algae in sea and fresh water and one of the most basic food sources of the sea. Under a microscope their shells show a variety of beautifully geometric patterns. On the sea floor they form deep deposits of diatomaceous earth, which is mined for abrasives and filters. Where most abundant at sea, their shells rain to the bottom, forming deposits as much as three miles thick. As a result, the sea floor along the Equator is sometimes called a "chalk line." As the deposits became buried under sediment, they were carried by the slow motion of the Pacific floor northwest toward Japan, where they have been identified by deep-sea drilling. Authors of the report were Dr. Alan E. S. Kemp of the University of Southampton in England and Dr. Jack G. Baldauf of Texas A & M University. They were among 31 scientists from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Spain and the United States aboard the drill ship Joides Resolution on a 1991 trip into the Pacific. Their conclusions were based on a re-examination of cores extracted from the sea floor at eight sites and those obtained earlier from three sites by the Glomar Challenger. At whatever site drilling through the sediment reached the chalk layer, reconstruction of the sea floor motion over millions of years showed it had been laid down close to the Equator. SCIENCE WATCH |
595453_1 | Review/Art; Ancient Greeks at the Met: Matter Over Mind | a jingoistic promotional title meant to perpetuate cliches about art and its meaning that recent art history has been trying to dislodge. To be sure, the brochure is gorgeous and the eye is captivated from the start. The first images to greet the visitor are the Metropolitan's own rose-tinged marble statue of a standing nude youth, or kouros, from the late seventh century B.C., and a few steps behind him is a sixth-century kouros from the National Archeological Museum in Athens. These two figures are the single inspired pairing of objects in the show. The contrast between the stiff, schematically rendered anatomy of the earlier figure and the supple form of the latter, his arms slightly bent as if anticipating an embrace, his face lifted in an unself-conscious smile, epitomizes in a stroke the development toward the "classical" style of the fifth century B.C. One of the most celebrated pieces in the show is the "Kritios Boy," the first surviving sculpture in Greek art to break away from the frontal rigidity of the archaic kouros to introduce a realistic depiction of the body's shifting weight and torsion. His white marble figure is a marvel of abstracted naturalism, though his lantern-jawed face has the thick, self-satisfied demeanor of a teen-age athlete just beginning to run to fat. And one of the most dazzling pieces is the Nike, or Victory, from the Acropolis Museum in Athens, bending to untie her sandal, the intricate, looping folds of her drapery creating a linear pattern that reveals rather than hides the swelling contours of her torso. Her sensuality stands in dramatic contrast to a stele from the Metropolitan's own collection, in which a mournful looking little girl holds two pet doves, one of which gently touches her mouth with its beak. In addition to a handful of exquisite bronzes from the Louvre and from the Staatliche Museen in Berlin -- and a small horse from Olympia whose vital, springy carriage brings the equestrian sculptures of Degas to mind -- the show also offers a superb group of funerary sculptures, some of which may have been carved by artists who worked on the Parthenon. Here the figures are neither gods nor heroes but human beings engaged in the intimate activities of their lives. On one memorial, a husband and wife gaze confidingly at each other; on another, the well-known "Grave Stele of Hegeso," a wealthy woman |
595438_0 | Greeks At the Met: Matter Over Mind (C20) | |
596554_0 | Clinton Delays Taking a Role in Ulster Talks | President Clinton, who promised during the Presidential campaign to help solve the civil unrest in Northern Ireland, indicated today that he would not send a special envoy there anytime soon. Mr. Clinton did announce his nomination of Jean Kennedy Smith as Ambassador to Ireland, and said he would consult with her before deciding what participation by Washington would be needed in the British province. Mrs. Smith is the founder of the Very Special Arts program and the sister of Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. At a White House ceremony commemorating St. Patrick's Day, Mr. Clinton, wearing a bright green tie, received the traditional crystal bowl of shamrocks from Prime Minister Albert Reynolds of Ireland. "I am very hopeful that the British and the Irish Governments will get back together and begin a serious dialogue soon," Mr. Clinton said later. "I think that is a precondition, as I said, for the other talks proceeding." While campaigning in New York last year, Mr. Clinton and Jerry Brown, at the time his last remaining Democratic opponent, both promised to help foster peace in Northern Ireland and denounced what they described as human rights abuses there. Mr. Clinton said today that the possibility of naming a special envoy remained, but that Washington should stay out of the talks for now. A White House spokesman said Mr. Clinton, who met with Prime Minister John Major last month, would not necessarily describe the condition in Northern Ireland as an abuse of human rights. "I think it is inappropriate now for me to do more than just to say that I think the Government should, in earnest, embrace the opportunities that are before them, and I will be as supportive as I can," Mr. Clinton said as Mr. Reynolds stood at his side. "And whenever there seems to be something else I can do by taking further action, then I will do it. I don't want to do anything to undermine the peace process." Bush, Too, Was Cautious Mr. Clinton's remarks sounded remarkably similar to the cautious stance President Bush adopted toward Northern Ireland. "We simply are not in a position to dictate a solution, to be in any way the sole arbiter of this difficult situation," Mr. Bush said at last year's St. Patrick's Day ceremony at the White House. Mr. Reynolds said he welcomed the interest, if not the immediate and active participation, of |
593523_3 | CRISIS AT THE TWIN TOWERS: The Garage; Panel Warned in 1985 of Vulnerability of Center's Parking to Bombing | that her husband was not at home and could not be reached for comment. Mr. O'Sullivan said an independent engineering firm from Virginia hired by the Port Authority had agreed with their recommendations. But, he said, only about one-third of the proposed changes were adopted, including additional security patrols and more locks. The others, some of which were deemed unnecessary or too expensive, were rejected, he said. . For example, recommendations included moving the complex's emergency generators above ground and developing an alternative power supply in case the eight primary power lines failed. "They said no," Mr. O'Sullivan said. "Expense." At the news conference yesterday, Mr. Brezenoff said that only five of the complex's eight power lines had been disabled by Friday's blast and that the remaining three lines had supported some lighting and communications capabilities. But the explosion had also smashed water pipes, spewing 1.8 million gallons of water into the underground levels, overwhelming the emergency generators. And the remaining three primary lines had to be turned offso firefighters could battle the blaze. In a later interview, Mr. Brezenoff said: "One of the lessons for me is if they had been higher up, I can't guarantee they wouldn't be flooded, but the chances are better that they wouldn't have been." Other recommendations Mr. O'Sullivan said were rejected included: *Moving the back-up command center above the underground levels. *Bringing in an alternative source of power from New Jersey, separate from the Con Edison generators in case those generators were disabled. *Reinforcing the glass in the building by coating it with Mylar. *Setting up new ways to vent smoke in case of fire. *Repairing and improving emergency exit stairs. *Checking packages and bags of those entering the buildings. *Using bomb-sniffing dogs. Mr. O'Sullivan said, however, that the report also noted that at the time the center was deemed by intelligence authorities to be "at low risk of a terrorist attack." Mr. Brezenoff said yesterday that in addition to the 1985 report, he had asked in 1991, during the Persian Gulf war, for another security update for the Trade Center. That report, he said, recommended increases in security patrols and checks on abandoned cars and packages, but it had not suggested restricting public parking. "There is this balance in a free and open society. And I'm sorry to say that maybe the balance is going to be tilting the other way now." |
593530_0 | CRISIS AT THE TWIN TOWERS: The Building; Repair Crews Struggling To Revive Vital Systems | As they gained a clearer sense of the obstacles they face, from the lack of heat to the 1.8 million gallons of water in the basement, officials of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said yesterday that it would be more than a week before they fully revive what amount to the heart, lungs and nervous system of the World Trade Center. Last night, the heating, ventilation, communication and fire alarm systems of the massive complex were still dead. The Vista Hotel, perched on slender columns above the blast area, was still unsecured -- although engineers said they had assembled all the materials and plans they needed to begin the job by yesterday morning. As the 35-foot steel tubes they planned to use to support the columns sat in a pile near the Vista Hotel, engineers waited for a go-ahead from investigators, who had cordoned off the area of the explosion as a crime scene. Yesterday evening, Eugene Fasullo, the Port Authority's chief engineer, said he had not yet received permission to begin the job, which could take two days, although he expected it at any time. In most of the complex, communications, ventilation, air-conditioning, heating and fire and smoke alarm systems themselves were not damaged, but their "nerve center" was destroyed, said Robert DiChiara, assistant director of the World Trade Department of the Port Authority. The emergency communications systems and fire alarms feed through the Operations Control Center, one floor above the site of the blast. It was wrecked. And the control that governs the ventilation system throughout the complex was destroyed. Can't Just Flip a Switch Restoring those systems is not a simple matter of rebuilding the nerve centers and flipping a switch, Mr. DiChiara said. "We flip a switch," he said, "and then we're in a position to start testing." That testing, he said, will be a lengthy process in which every link to every call box station throughout the complex will be carefully checked. Charles Maikish, director of the World Trade Department, predicted that it would take engineers -- some of them running on only a few hours' sleep and wearing the same clothes they were in on Friday -- three to five days to restore all critical systems. He said it would take crews another two to three days to scrub away the black film of soot coating surfaces on the lower |
598243_0 | Preservation Panel Slams Two Deviant Windows Shut | FOR ROBERT Bernstein the boiling point came when he stood before the Landmarks Preservation Commission last month and heard there was nothing to discuss or negotiate, that he simply had to remove and replace the nonconforming windows in his kitchen. That is when Mr. Bernstein, the 70-year-old former chairman of Random House and the founder of Human Rights Watch, got good and mad and decided he was not going to take it anymore. Mr. Bernstein is a graceful man who has led a life of social concern, civic responsibility and business success. He is rich and privileged, the sort of person who always seems to find a cab in the rain. Unwanted menus are not pushed under his door. No homeless people sleep on his street. But as his struggle over windows shows, no amount of money, position or contacts can fully insulate a New Yorker from indignity. Mr. Bernstein has the wit and conscience to know that this principle of inescapable humiliation ultimately serves to strengthen democracy and binds us together. But right now that realization offers scant solace. Seated in the kitchen of his eight-room apartment at 775 Park Avenue, looking eastward through the two windows under dispute, Mr. Bernstein explained that he first learned of his problem last October, when the superintendent came up to ask when was the best time to have the windows changed. It turned out that the windows, undivided by panes, were installed seven years ago by the man who had sold the apartment to the man who sold the apartment to Mr. Bernstein. The Landmarks Preservation Commission had notified the co-op's board that they violated standards of uniformity. Without informing Mr. Bernstein, the board agreed to replace them, assessing each apartment about $200 to cover the $7,000 expense. Though he was surprised by the news, Mr. Bernstein was not enraged. "I had always favored landmark preservation," he said. "I felt sure we'd be able to work something out." He studied the case and learned that his unorthodox windows would have been fine had they been installed before the Upper East Side Historical District was created in 1981. Those put in later needed the commission's approval. He read a 17-page booklet put out by the commission titled "Rules Relating to the Repair and Replacement of Windows in Landmark and Historic District Buildings." He walked through the district from Fifth Avenue to Lexington and |
598221_1 | Clinton, Planning Forest Conference, Hopes to Free Logjam in Northwest | under consideration by the White House, and favored by some Congressional leaders, is to put thousands of people to work restoring the land hit hardest by logging. The intent is to repair watersheds and streams that nurture salmon, one of the forests' most valuable species. The timber industry wants trees, not new jobs in the woods, and is pressing for some relief from environmental restrictions that have virtually shut down logging in national forests west of the Cascade Range. But many people in the industry believe the battle has already been lost. What started nearly a decade ago as an effort to save the spotted owl, a species facing extinction in the ancient, heavily logged forests of coastal Washington, Oregon and Northern California, has grown into a national campaign to save the forests for their own sake. Laws intended to protect fish and wildlife have been used, with great success, to curb the Government's timber program in the Northwest. For nearly two years, as various government agencies fought among themselves, the courts have essentially been in charge of the forests. They have banned logging on millions of acres until the Federal Government provides a plan to assure that its timber sales are not violating the law. Different Legal Positions This gridlock in the forests makes Congressional paralysis seem like sweet harmony by comparison. "One of the problems has been that the United States itself has taken different positions," the President said at a White House news conference on Tuesday. "So the first thing I hope to do is to be able to at least adopt a uniform legal position." Last week a scientific panel put together by the Forest Service in response to a court order said that "there is simply no free lunch" in the Government's effort to save old-growth forests. More than 600 plant and animal species -- everything from salmon and spotted owls to a cancer-fighting drug that comes from the bark of yew trees -- are dependent on the health of America's temperate rain forest. Logging is causing the ecosystem to unravel, the scientists said. But more than 30,000 workers who make their living cutting those trees stand to lose their jobs if the restrictions continue, according to the Government's projections. The large timber companies that own their own land are having profitable years, while small sawmills that depend on Federal timber are running out of |
596077_0 | If Clothes Make a Man, Esquire May Make a Hit | Men may indeed be deeply en sconced in the Nesting Nineties, the Daddy Decade and family fun. But here's a little secret: the Nineties Man is absolutely hooked on fashion. At least, that's what Esquire, which considers itself expert when it comes to men, is betting its hat on. Next week, it will introduce Esquire Gentleman, a full-fledged fashion magazine for men. The new publication will include more than 100 pages of ads, and its features will range broadly -- from psychedelic grunge to the perfect suit for the board room. (Black, of course.) It is an ambitious effort, other magazine professionals say. "Esquire has a very formidable task ahead of them since they are doing something that has never truly been done before," said Mitchell Fox, publisher of Details, a men's magazine that devotes about a third of its editorial space to men's fashion. "Certainly they are pushing the envelope with this single editorial subject." Risky Business Over the years, publishers have been wary of starting magazines devoted solely to men's fashion. In 1957 Hearst started Gentleman's Quarterly as a men's fashion magazine and two decades later sold it to Conde Nast, which turned it into a life style magazine with about 30 pages of fashion an issue. And for a while in the 80's, Fairchild Publications put out M, a men's alternative to W, its highly successful women's fashion magazine. Later, M merged with Manhattan,inc. and eventually folded. Over at Esquire, though, they are ebullient. "If you were taking an anthropological view of fashion today, it's all happening in men's fashion," said Woody Hochswender, a senior editor at Esquire and before that a fashion reporter for The New York Times, who is the editor of Esquire Gentleman. Boundaries Are Alien "Take a walk on any street in New York," Mr. Hochswender said, "and look at the hair, the pants tucked in the work boots, the jewelry, the tattoos. You have two currents -- the hippie and the dandy. You have your deconstructed Salvation Army grunge and your neo-Edwardian, Beau Brummel, brocade vest, foulard tie and pocket square. It's all very interesting, very fin de siecle." Esquire Gentleman will include it all. Mr. Hochswender said the new publication would be avant-garde, classic, straight, gay, neo-hippie, even historical. The first issue, for instance, has a feature by Bill Blass on Gary Cooper as fashion icon. Arthur Cooper, editor in chief |
596149_0 | World Economies | |
597855_1 | South Africa Says It Built 6 Atom Bombs | an atomic weapons program -- Mr. de Klerk said South Africa never tested the bombs, and never intended to use them. Instead, its strategy was that if South Africa came under attack, it would detonate a test device to demonstrate its ability, and threaten to use the weapon unless the United States came to its aid. Mr. de Klerk withheld a related piece of news: under heavy pressure from the United States, the South African Cabinet agreed today to scrap its plans to build a long-range, solid-fuel rocket, according to a diplomat who was informed of the decision. Foreign Help Denied The United States argued that the missile, ostensibly intended only for launching satellites, might have been put to military use or sold to other countries that could use it to deliver warheads. Mr. de Klerk insisted that South Africa devised and built its bombs without help from other countries, contradicting the strongly held suspicion of many experts and diplomats that Israel collaborated in the development of South Africa's nuclear program, particularly in the effort to enrich uranium. In this view, Israel did so in exchange for supplies of South African uranium. "I wish to emphasize that at no time did South Africa acquire nuclear weapons technology or materials from another country, nor has it provided any to any other country, or cooperated with another country in this regard," Mr. de Klerk said. South Africa's nuclear program has long been a subject of intrigue and speculation. South Africa signed the treaty against the spread of nuclear weapons in July 1991, and has opened its nuclear sites since then to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But the treaty does not require a country to reveal what it may have done in the past, and South Africa had not done so until today. Threat to Technology Sales Mr. de Klerk said he decided to disclose details of the weapons program to dispel suspicions that South Africa was withholding information. Such suspicions might have threatened South Africa's commercial sales of medical isotopes and non-military nuclear technology. Although the international agency has not publicly challenged South Africa's veracity, some United States officials and international inspectors have voiced doubts about whether South Africa has fully accounted for its bomb-grade uranium. Mr. de Klerk said today that the international agency would be given access to all sites and documents pertaining to the program, including |
597937_1 | F.D.A. Ends Ban on Women in Drug Testing | assure that women would be included in nearly all tests and that their numbers would be sufficient to tell differences in how men's and women's bodies reacted to a drug. The chief effect of not having such data has been that drug doses for women were sometimes wrong, to the point that they made the drugs useless or worse, F.D.A. officials say. For example, it was not known until recently that oral contraceptives could sometimes block the effects of other drugs or that other drugs could prevent contraceptives from being effective. Many drugs act very differently in women's bodies. For example antidepressants and tranquilizers are absorbed at a different rate by women than by men, meaning the doses for women should be different. In one case it was found that an antidepressant drug caused more far more seizures in women because of different absorption patterns and that lower doses could be effective without causing seizures. Question of Proportions Dr. Kessler said that if researchers and companies did not include enough women, "we reserve the right not to approve their applications." He added that "it should never come to that," because including women was relatively easy and would not necessarily increase the number of people needed for tests, but rather the proportion of them that were women. That means drug companies' costs for the tests would not be significantly increased. The Food and Drug Administration now receives more than 2.000 applications a year from companies or researchers who want to study drugs or have them approved for market. Since the issue of excluding women from studies began to be raised as a political issue in Washington three years ago, the agency says the proportion of studies it receives that include women has risen to about 60 percent. They will now ask for data on women for all drugs except those like prostate cancer treatments, which would probably be given only to men. To assure that precautions are still taken to protect fetuses, the agency will require companies to include in the informed consent documents signed by patients participating in tests a statement for women that they are taking contraceptives or for some other reason are certain of not becoming pregnant during the test. Women were excluded by custom from many studies until 1977, when the agency issued rules stating that women who have "childbearing potential" should not be included in most |
596446_3 | Mental Disorders Common, but Few Get Treatment, Study Finds | close to 14 million people having the problem in a given year. And many people have more than one disorder at the same time; for example, six million Americans have a substance abuse disorder along with one or more other mental disorders, the study found. The totals reported in the study may be a slight undercount of those with mental illness, since only people who met all the official psychiatric diagnostic criteria for a disorder were counted. Thus someone who suffered from panic attacks three times in a month, rather than four times as specified in the criteria, would not have been included among those suffering from panic disorder. Another factor in undercounting was that the interviewers asked people about symptoms of only eight of the most common mental disorders: drug and alcohol abuse, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety problems, "antisocial" personality, severe cognitive impairment and chronic complaints of multiple physical symptoms with no medical cause. The study was not concerned with what are often called "problems in living," like marital difficulties, which are not counted among major mental disorders, but which still bring people to psychotherapists in large numbers. Had they asked about other major psychiatric problems, like narcissism and sexual dysfunction, Dr. Regier said, "it might have added a few percentage points, but not many." "We chose to look for the most common disorders, as well as those that are most impairing and readily identifiable," he explained. Puzzle of the Study The strict criteria used to diagnose those in the study may explain one of the puzzles of the data, the finding that about 45 percent of those who reported seeking help for mental disorders were not found to have one when interviewed for the study. Dr. Regier said: "About a third of these people who did not qualify for a diagnosis had a previous disorder, though they are not experiencing symptoms at present, while another third had a severe disorder but were on the borderline for a full diagnosis -- instead of having four symptoms for the diagnosis of major depression, say, they had only three. But most of these people still had some serious impairment, despite the lack of diagnosis, or were getting treatment to keep from having more severe symptoms." Most care for those with mental disorders comes from doctors rather than mental health specialists; 43 percent of those seeking help consulted doctors other than psychiatrists. About |
594981_1 | Into the Abyss: New Robots Probe the Deep | were enormous. "The abyss is the last frontier on this planet," he said. "We know almost nothing about it. These remote tools have the potential to synoptically explore, study and characterize its properties, whether biologic, geologic or chemical. We're on the threshold of a new era." Robots are seen as crucial for such jobs as finding the millions of undiscovered life forms thought to inhabit the deep ocean, learning how the planet's waters affect the climate, studying the eruption of undersea vents and volcanoes and surveying thousands of miles of coastlines and coral reefs. They could also police toxic sites. For instance, robots could sound an alarm if radiation started to leak from abandoned nuclear warheads and submarine reactors, some 75 of which are now on the ocean floor. This week two robotic tests going on thousands miles apart illustrate the field's progress and promise for the future. Explorers from Woods Hole are sending a seven-foot-long robot named Jason more than a mile down to the bottom of the Gulf of California, between the Mexican mainland and Baja California, to study hot vents in the ocean floor and associated life forms. Jason works on a long tether tied to a surface ship. Almost instantly, by way of satellite and the computer network known as Internet, its data are flashed around the globe to marine scientists at more than a dozen universities and research institutes. "This is the most complicated thing I've ever done," Dr. Robert D. Ballard, the expedition's leader and the discoverer of the wreck of the Titanic, last week told more than a half million school children learning about the two-week study in a satellite television broadcast. Some 3,000 miles eastward, off Bermuda in the Atlantic, another Woods Hole team this week is inaugurating a new robot known as ABE, for Autonomous Benthic Explorer. Unlike Jason, it has no tether. An advanced computer inside the six-foot vehicle guides it through preprogrammed paces. The device is designed to travel to depths of nearly four miles and to stay there, examining a particular site or region for up to a year. It can be called back to the surface by an acoustic signal from a ship. Among its possible jobs would be scrutinizing nuclear relics of the cold war. "Let's say you've got a sunken reactor and can't afford to recover it unless it's leaking," Dr. Albert M. Bradley, one |
593835_1 | The Cleanup; Repair and Investigation: Dual Tasks in Conflict | than a month. Officials say that 2 World Trade Center, which has less smoke damage and less damage to elevators, is likely to reopen first. But the big problem is safety systems common to both buildings, like smoke detection and communications systems. Some problems will require individual efforts by the hundreds of workers going floor to floor. For example, even after the wiring that connects smoke detectors to a central alarm system is repaired, someone will have to clean each smoke detector. Mr. Brezenoff and his staff are facing other major problems. The explosion knocked out both the primary electrical system and the backup system, which were supposed to be immune to common disaster. A study commissioned by the Port Authority recommended, in 1986, moving the generators to a higher level, so they would not be flooded in case of pipe break, which is what happened last Friday. At the moment, the engineers are considering installing emergency generators outside the building, at least temporarily, and also building permanent generators higher up. Modernization Under Way Before the blast, the Port Authority was in the early stages of a $500 million modernization of the 16-acre complex, which was to involve improvements like installing fiber-optic links to control some building systems from a new building control center, with "satellite panels" that would have allowed operation from remote locations. One question, so far unanswered, is whether the blast, which destroyed some of those systems, will accelerate the modernization or retard it. The Port Authority's 16-member board did not take up that issue when it met yesterday. Instead, in a two-hour session that was 15 minutes of meeting and an hour and three quarters of briefing to the press, it voted to increase the amount of money that Mr. Brezenoff can spend without its authorization, to establish a memorial, not yet designed, in commemoration of the four Port Authority employees killed in the blast, and to authorize $2.5 million for emergency loans to small-business tenants, which will be in addition to a similar amount provided by New York City, Groping for ways to sidestep the biggest problems, engineers are considering using the fountain between the buildings as a cooling tower, to chill water used to cool computers. They are also considering installing FM-radio emergency communications systems to replace the system disabled by the bomb. Access to the Crater The most important task is to get |
593849_1 | Cellular Telephone Industry Counts 11 Million Customers | 11,500 a day in the second half of the year. But the industry's latest figures, for the six months ended December 1992, were for a period before a widespread health scare in January. The panic followed a lawsuit by a Florida man who said that his wife's fatal brain cancer was a result of persistent use of her cellular phone. That claim, while unsubstantiated, temporarily battered the stock price of cellular carriers like McCaw Cellular Communications and had an unknown effect on the rapid growth in the number of subscribers. Figures for sales and subscribers after January will not be available until after the June 30 survey is compiled and then released in the fall, said Michael Houghton, a spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, the trade group that commissioned the survey. "Informally, our members haven't seen a decline," he said. The trade group said the 1992 second-half level of cellular customers was up 24 percent from 8.9 million in the first half. For the full year, the 1992 level was more than 45 percent higher than the 1991 level of 7.56 million subscribers. The wireless telephone industry's full-year 1992 revenue was up more than 54 percent from $5.71 billion in 1991. The 1992 results include $973 million in what are known as "roaming revenues," or extra fees charged by carriers when customers use the phones outside their home territories. The 1991 results included $703 million in such fees. The average monthly bill for cellular subscribers last year continued to decline. It totaled $68.68 a month, down about 6 percent from $72.74 the previous year. Price of Service Still High The drop in the average bill was seen as an indication of a growing number of residential customers, who tend to use their phones less than corporate customers. It did not mean that cellular prices, which can exceed 40 cents a minute, were starting to drop. Analysts say that cellular prices remain high partly because of continuing expansion costs and the fact that large companies are becoming even larger through expensive acquisitions. But the price of the cellular telephones themselves has dropped markedly. Car phones, which sold for as much as $600 only two years ago, now sell for $200 or less; pocket phones, which sold for $2,000 or more two years ago, now sell for as low as $200 when combined with certain contracts for service. COMPANY NEWS |
593831_3 | Dublin Journal; On the Kingmaker's Agenda, Ulster Looms Large | be brought to an end." "There's no such thing as an acceptable level of killing," he said, despite the inability of the Dublin and London Governments to negotiate a peaceful settlement. He praised the "determination" of the British Secretary for Northern Ireland, Sir Patrick Mayhew, to persuade the Catholic and Protestant politicians in the north to resume talks that stalled last year and are not expected to resume until after local elections in the north in May. And he agreed with the firmly held positions of both Irish and British Governments that Sinn Fein, the political affiliate of the Irish Republican Army, should not be allowed to the talks until they renounce the I.R.A.'s campaign of killing. "Sinn Fein have to get off the track of violence," he said. Peaceful Resolution Urged He acknowledged that there was considerable support among Irish-Americans for the I.R.A. campaign of violence, adding: "I personally say to them they're misguided. It's crucial that politicians in the States would understand that we've got to show tolerance on this island for different traditions and that, ultimately, means compromise. You can't have winners and losers." He added, "It's a lot more complicated than Brits Out" or "Up the Rebels," the slogans on banners in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York. "That attitude doesn't represent the attitude of modern Ireland. It's got to be a peaceful resolution by consent of the people of the island, north and south." He said he approved of the idea of a special American envoy for Northern Ireland, which President Clinton suggested in his election campaign and is still considering. This was the first public statement on the issue by an Irish Government official, and seemed likely to be hailed by Irish-American politicians. But Britain has been cool, if not hostile, to the idea of an envoy to intervene in efforts to make peace talks work, as was made clear by Prime Minister John Major when he met with Mr. Clinton in Washington last week. Mr. Spring said, "I personally welcome what the President has said" about sending a special envoy. He said Mr. Clinton and Prime Minister Reynolds were to discuss the merits of such an appointment when they meet in Washington on St. Patrick's Day. And he quoted a remark attributed to Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." |
599193_1 | India Cancels Dam Loan From World Bank | than good. But Indian officials emphasize that they intend to complete the project on their own, adhering to the bank's environmental and resettlement requirements. World Bank officials said privately that India preferred to complete the project without interference from multinational lending institutions. The Indian Government has viewed the criticism by environmentalists as an affront to its sovereignty, and an example of Westerners telling a developing nation how to run its affairs. The enormous project includes the 535-foot-high Sardar Sarovar dam and more than 3,000 others, 47,000 miles of canals and a plan to provide 1,450 megawatts of power -- enough energy to provide electricity to 1.4 million American homes for a year -- irrigation for 4.4 million acres of land and drinking water to 40 million people. The project is sponsored by three Indian states: Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The World Bank chose to finance a portion of the Narmada River Valley project in 1985, without the benefit of a full environmental impact study. Concerns raised by environmental groups forced the bank to undertake its first independent review of a bank-financed development project. The review, done in 1991 by Bradford Morse, an American who was the former head of the United Nations Development Program and Thomas Berger, a Canadian Supreme Court justice, cited a number of environmental and resettlement problems and called for the bank to "step back from the project and consider it afresh." Despite the report, the bank board kept funding for the project alive in October, over the objections of American and Japanese representatives. At the same time, the board gave India until March 31 to meet a series of standards, called "benchmarks," covering environmental concerns and how to resettle the more than 140,000 villagers who would be forced off their land by the rising waters. Unable to meet the standards, the Indian Government decided today to forgo World Bank funding rather than try to plead for more time to comply. "They knew as well as anyone else that getting an agreement for relief of the benchmarks would have been a very contentious and politically charged task," a World Bank official said. The remaining part of the World Bank loan represents a small fraction of the total cost of the project, and work is far along on major portions. Still, whether the Indian Government can complete the project without World Bank financing is an open question. |
599054_0 | Detecting Disastrous Air Leaks in Orbit | Air leaking from a tire or basketball can be troublesome. But that could be disastrous for a space vehicle, particularly the proposed space station Freedom, which is to remain in orbit for years after it is launched later this decade. So researchers at the Battelle Company's Pacific Northwest Laboratory are developing a system intended to help astronauts quickly detect leaks, which could then be plugged before much precious air is lost to the vacuum of space. Two likely sources of leaks are deteriorating seals and the tiny holes pierced in the hull of the station by speeding micrometeoroids. The different problems call for different solutions. If a particle strikes the station hard enough to possibly cause a hole, a noise detectable by acoustic sensors will be produced. Sensors can be distributed throughout the inside of the vehicle and a computer can triangulate the reports from several sensors to quickly locate any possible penetration. Slow leaks in the seals around windows and hatches are not as likely to give off easily detected sounds, so the researchers are planning to put pressure sensors between the layers of the three-pane windows and around hatches. A drop in pressure would signal that a seal is leaking. Wayne Lechelt, an engineer on the project, said an engineering test version of the system was expected to be ready this fall to ship to the Boeing Company, the prospective builder of the station. Since it costs about $5,000 a pound to send material into space, the developers are working hard on miniaturization. The system is expected to weigh only 10 to 20 pounds. Even if it works as planned, though, Battelle's own prototype system will never fly. "If it proves out, Boeing will contract with someone else for flight-qualified hardware," Mr. Lechelt said. BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY |
599171_1 | Irish Debate How to End Strife in the North | the north. "But if at the end of the day," he said, "all the parties still don't come to the table, then those proposals should be put to the people in the north and south by referendum over their heads." Peace talks stalled last summer and some hard-line Protestant leaders, including the Rev. Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party, are refusing to return to the negotiating table unless Dublin makes major concessions in advance. The British Secretary for Northern Ireland, Sir Patrick Mayhew, did not reject Mr. Hume's proposal outright, but said he still preferred a settlement at talks between the two Governments and the political parties of the north. A spokesman for Prime Minister Albert Reynolds of Ireland said today that Dublin also backed the talks. The fitful diplomatic movement came after a rally Sunday of about 20,000 people in Dublin to denounce the killing of two children in Warrington, England, by I.R.A. bombs set off 10 days ago. The subsequent killing of six Roman Catholics in the north was also condemned by the organizer of the rally, Susan McHugh. But even the rally raised some tempers. A group of Catholic women from Belfast complained later that they were refused an opportunity to speak at the rally for their slain husbands and sons. A small group of hecklers carried placards attacking the British. Politician on the Fence Gerry Adams, president of the I.R.A.'s political wing, Sinn Fein, which gets one-third of the Catholic vote in the north, praised the rally but said many northern Catholics resented that it did not focus on the killing of Catholics. He said the I.R.A. killing of the boys in England was "unacceptable" but he refused to denounce the I.R.A. policy that justifies the killing of civilians in the fight against British control in Northern Ireland. Peter Robinson, a member of the British Parliament from the Democratic Unionist Party, which insists that the province remain part of Britain, said that Mr. Hume had "wrecked" the round of peace talks that stalled last summer, and that talks among the political parties was preferable to a referendum. "I will not be carried along on an emotional wave of proper condemnation to believe that the demonstrations in the Republic over the deaths of two young boys in Warrington will translate into a change in the aggressive attitude held by their Government toward Northern Ireland," he said. |
595209_1 | The Pop Life; Two Cities That Want Grammys | added that other considerations included each city's ability to organize businesses, the government and the entertainment industry to make the event exciting and to "create a lasting presence after the Grammys have gone, in terms of human-service and education initiatives, like our Grammys in the Schools program." New York City officials estimated that the 1992 Grammys brought more than $40 million into the city. In an effort to woo the ceremonies back, Jonathan Tisch, who was the chairman of the New York City Host Committee for the Awards last year, recently met with Mr. Greene and Pierre Cossette, who produces the show. "While we haven't been given any indication of how they're leaning," Mr. Tisch said, "we're hopeful that based on the city's reputation for making the Grammys such an exciting and successful event, we'll be able to win them back again next year." To a lot of performers, of course, where the Grammys are held is less important than who wins them. Judging from the Billboard charts this week, winning an award can have an enormous influence on sales. Powered by its six awards, Eric Clapton's "Unplugged" moved this week from No. 5 to No. 1 on Billboard's top albums chart, ending the "Bodyguard" soundtrack's 13-week dominance. Mr. Clapton's album has been in the Top 10 since its debut last September and had made it as far as No. 2 five times. Notes From Dr. Dre When the rap artist Dr. Dre is in a creative mood, he listens to the rhythm-and-blues funk of George Clinton and Bootsy Collins. "It pumps me up and I mess with the beat," he said. "And I come up with a concept and see what happens. Most of the time it works but sometimes it doesn't." It worked for his hit debut solo album, "The Chronic," the first release on the rapper's own Death Row label. Crackling with Funkadelic beats, it peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard album chart and is No. 8 this week. The current single from the album, "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang," has climbed to No. 3 on the top singles chart. Dr. Dre's hits represent the latest solo success for rappers who have been in the group N.W.A. Ice Cube and M. C. Ren, both charter members, released popular records last year. "Being part of N.W.A. helped a little bit, but the solo successes are because we |
597463_0 | World Economies | |
598689_0 | Taking Skybus | To the Editor: Over the Christmas holiday my wife and I had several experiences with Skybus, assessed in your Practical Traveler column (Nov. 22), that might interest your readers. We were scheduled to fly out of Newark at 8 P.M. on Dec. 24. We arrived at the airport at 6:45 P.M. and had to wait in a line of over 100 people to check in our luggage. We did not finish this until 8:15. Our flight took off at midnight. On board, they ran out of food to sell two rows behind us, and over two-thirds of those on board were not able to purchase food. We arrived in Fort Lauderdale at 2:30 A.M. -- unfortunately, the same cannot be said of our luggage. We were told that it would be on the next flight, scheduled to arrive at 5:30 A.M. When I tried to call the airline later to find out the status of the incoming flight, I got a recording saying the office was open from 7:30 A.M. through 10 P.M. This means that anyone waiting to meet a passenger on a Skybus flight that takes off after 10 cannot possibly find out the status of that flight. I drove back to New York ahead of my wife and arranged to pick her up at Newark on Jan. 2. Her flight was scheduled to take off at 8 A.M. At 8:30 I called Skybus and was told that there were two planes scheduled to take off at 8: one had left on time and the other had mechanical difficulties and would leave at 11 P.M. I asked if my wife was on the flight that had taken off and was told the only way to find out was to go to the airport. She was there but only because she had arrived at the airport well before time. The $99 fare was no bargain in the long run. MARTIN JACOBSON New City, N.Y. James N. Dent, chairman of Skybus, responds: As of Feb. 9, we have not been able to find out what problems resulted in the Jacobsons' delays. In the meantime, let me say that Skybus carried over 75,000 passengers in its first three months with a complaint ratio of less than one passenger per thousand. Unfortunate circumstances like this do occur but as we grow, we strive for perfection. |
598356_0 | Out in the Hinterlands, Moscow's Din Is Muted | When people in Moscow raise the specter of the breakup of Russia, they talk about places like Bashkortostan, an oil-rich region in the southern Ural Mountains where contempt for the once-heavy hand of the Kremlin is open and withering. Ask political leaders here whether the feud between President Boris N. Yeltsin and his rivals in the Congress of People's Deputies has thrown the power of the "center" into gridlock, and they ask, with only a hint of disingenuousness: What central authority? From his office in the former Communist Party headquarters, Yuri Dyomin, Deputy Chairman of the republic's Parliament, has cheered the attempts by the Congress to curb Mr. Yeltsin's powers. Out of the Loop "I think they made him understand that he can no longer run the country by dictate," Mr. Dyomin said. But asked which of Mr. Yeltsin's many decrees had interfered with the republic's handling of its own affairs, Mr. Dyomin shrugged. "None of them ever really reached us anyway," he said. Like the other 19 ethnic republics of the Russian Federation, Bashkortostan has taken advantage of an amorphous political situation to carve out its own sovereign island where the wishes of Moscow, more than 700 miles away, have become increasingly irrelevant. To some extent, this trend is a result of ongoing decentralization, a process blessed by Mr. Yeltsin. A year ago, a new federal treaty that grants greater rights and responsibilities to regional governments went into effect, signed by all but two of the 88 regions, provinces and independent cities in the federation. Bashkortostan, which owes its autonomous status to the indigenous Bashkirs, a Muslim Turkic people who make up only 22 percent of the population of 4 million, signed the treaty. But in recent months, decentralization in Russia has come to resemble a free fall, as the local authorities assume the power that has been dispersed by the feud between Mr. Yeltsin and his parliamentary opponents. Congress Has Its Uses "It is not a question of the Congress undercutting Yeltsin's authority, or Yeltsin undercutting the Congress's authority," said Rafis F. Kadyrov, 37, chairman of the Vostok Bank and a charismatic figure in the republic's politics. "What is happening is that together they are wrecking the authority of the Kremlin." At the top of the Bashkortostan Parliament, sympathy in the current struggle lies mostly with the Congress, where the republic has 26 deputies. Before the Congress's last |
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