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654262_0 | Reporter Disciplined for Reading His Co-workers' Electronic Mail | In a stunning example of growing concern over technology and privacy in the workplace, The Los Angeles Times has recalled a foreign correspondent from its Moscow bureau for snooping into the electronic mail of his colleagues. The correspondent, Michael Hiltzik, a well-regarded journalist who joined The Times's Moscow bureau in August, is being reassigned to an undetermined position in Los Angeles as a disciplinary action, editors and reporters at the newspaper said. Although computer experts have warned that the proliferation of electronic mail throughout corporate America poses a threat to employees' privacy, Mr. Hiltzik's reassignment is one of the few times that such a high-ranking employee has been disciplined for reading his co-workers' electronic mail. Lack of Adequate Safeguards Electronic mail systems, known as e-mail, allow employees to send electronic messages, either personal or work-related, to each other via computers. A few companies have taken great steps to protect the privacy of such messages, which typically require a password to retrieve. At some companies, reading another person's electronic mail is a violation of corporate ethics and may result in dismissal. Nancy Nielsen, a spokeswoman for The New York Times, said that all new employees were warned not to read the electronic mail of their co-workers and that doing so "would result in receiving the appropriate disciplinary action." Privacy experts say, however, that many companies do not have adequate safeguards to prevent employees from determining the passwords of co-workers and gaining access to their electronic mail. And some companies reserve the right to monitor electronic messages to keep tabs on their employees. Asked about the snooping incident last week, editors of The Los Angeles Times declined to comment. In addition to Mr. Hiltzik, The Times lists three other Moscow correspondents on the masthead of its World Report section: Richard Boudreaux, Sonni Efron, and Carey Goldberg. A Los Angeles Times senior editor with knowledge of the incident but who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the decision to recall Mr. Hiltzik came after he was caught reading the electronic mail of another Moscow correspondent in a sting operation set up by the paper. Mr. Hiltzik could not be reached for comment. Reporters Became Suspicious Correspondents in The Times Moscow bureau became suspicious when they discovered that their passwords had been entered into the computer system at times when they had not been using the computer, journalists close to the bureau said. |
654226_0 | SUCCESSFUL WORK ON HUBBLE BRINGS NASA SOME RELIEF | In the first two of five planned space walks, the shuttle astronauts today and on Sunday ministered to the impaired Hubble Space Telescope with skill and effective -- if sometimes brute -- force, much to the relief of watchful mission officials and the astronauts themselves. After a productive day of work on Sunday, when two astronauts replaced four of the telescope's gyroscopes, two others early today began the more demanding task of giving the telescope a new set of solar-power panels. The early success encouraged officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to think that the difficult mission to repair the orbiting telescope just may do the job, giving astronomers a much clearer view deep into the universe. Prelude to Other Repairs The seven-member crew of Endeavour has set itself a complex task of restoring full operational health and clear-sightedness to the $1.6 billion Hubble telescope, whose failures have been a profound embarrassment to the American space program, and so far the astronauts have encountered no insurmountable problems. On Sunday, two space-walking astronauts installed the gyroscopes and made other repairs in their first excursion out into Endeavour's open cargo bay despite some trouble closing and latching doors to the telescope. The 43-foot-long telescope is anchored there, standing upright, for much-needed refurbishment after three and a half years in orbit looking out at the universe with blurry vision. Without the new gyroscopes, one more failure by one of these guidance devices -- which could have come at any time -- would have left the telescope unable to point precisely at celestial targets. Replacing four of six gyroscopes was thus a crucial prelude to all other repairs, including the installation of new camera and corrective mirrors to improve Hubble's vision, scheduled on space walks early Tuesday and Wednesday. "It was 100 percent successful," Milt Heflin, the chief flight director at Mission Control here, said after the first repair mission. Looking back on the work and the new challenge ahead, Col. Richard O. Covey of the Air Force, the shuttle commander, said early Sunday: "We feel very good about the way the day went. Tomorrow at this time, Hubble's going to have two fine new solar arrays on." The solar arrays convert sunlight into electricity. The two astronauts who made the first excursion, Dr. Story Musgrave and Dr. Jeffrey A. Hoffman, logged 7 hours and 54 minutes outside the shuttle, making it |
654205_0 | World Economies | |
656096_1 | THE WORLD TRADE AGREEMENT: THE FRENCH STRATEGY Months of Risk, Moments of Isolation, Now Boasts of Triumph | with the 12-member European Community in November 1992, France said it had achieved a slower reduction in subsidies for farm exports. That was its main purpose in pushing the United States and the community to restructure those provisions of the accord, softening the impact on France's million farmers. The Truculent French Farmer Mr. Balladur may have more difficulty persuading the powerful domestic farmers' lobby to accept the agreement. Today, farmers in a number of cities demonstrated against the renegotiated deal. About 30 of them occupied the area around the Arc de Triomphe here this afternoon. "Europe laid down and France capitulated," a rightist legislator, Philippe de Villiers, told another meeting of farmers near Les Invalides. "The Government of Mr. Mitterrand and Mr. Balladur has purely and simply betrayed the interests of France." France was almost alone in opposing the original farm deal, but in the end, its repeated threat to veto the entire GATT package won it concessions. On the question of opening European markets to more American films, TV programs and music recordings, -- which France said threatened its entertainment industries -- the European Community stood behind Paris and against Washington. Tonight, France also claimed success in its campaign to have a new trade organization replace the Geneva-based General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The proposal had the backing of most of the 117 GATT members, but the United States has said it will add needless bureaucracy. Success was hardly assured for the French. At several points over the last year, they became dangerously isolated within the European Community, with even its strong German ally growing impatient with its stubbornness. Some French politicians were alarmed that France would be blamed for yet another failure to conclude the global trade talks, which had dragged on for seven years. Help From the Left But crucially, the Socialist President, Francois Mitterrand, continued to back his conservative Prime Minister as he steadily raised the stakes, forcing other Europeans to choose between standing up to the United States and provoking a potentially disastrous split within the community. It was here that Mr. Balladur proved to be a cool poker player. With community nations badly bruised by economic recession, by a failure to end the Bosnian war, by currency crises and by new doubts about its plan for a single currency, he sensed that the region was in no mood for a bitter fight over |
656085_2 | Personal Health | anyone else who had a son with this condition. The reports she gleaned from medical textbooks painted a grim picture of abnormal social misfits. In desperation, she sent a letter to Ann Landers, and after its publication she was flooded with more than 1,000 responses from parents of XXY sons and from XXY men all over the United States, Canada and abroad. Through these contacts, Melissa established a support group and information network for XXY males and their families. She learned that most XXY boys seem normal from outward appearances. "Looking at them, my son included, you cannot distinguish them from normal boys," she said. "K.S.," as she calls the condition, "is highly variable, and most boys with it are just like other boys." A vast majority never even find out they have this extra chromosome until and unless they undergo tests for infertility, when their wives fail to get pregnant. The only symptoms found invariably in XXY men are small, underdeveloped testes and sparsity of sperm. Dr. Robinson, now nearly 80 and still active professionally, has been following scores of XXY boys identified at birth and he corroborates what Melissa has found. "They are perfectly normal-looking newborns," he said in an interview. "They are not part female; they look like boys and act like boys, and when they grow up they have sex and get married." Treatable Problems Still, many young boys with XXY have problems that can impair their academic and social development, problems like learning disabilities that can be overcome or compensated for if they receive appropriate therapy. The problems are not unique to XXY boys. As Dr. Robinson said: "Most of the symptoms associated with XXY can occur in perfectly normal XY males. Even the degree of breast enlargement at puberty, which affects a third of XXY boys, is not too much greater than occurs in overweight adolescent boys." The important thing, he and other experts emphasize, is not necessarily to know from the moment of birth that a boy is XXY but to recognize language difficulties and get them treated early, before speech and reading problems impair school performance and damage self-esteem. Melissa's son had suffered from seemingly inexplicable learning and emotional problems. She recalled: "He had speech and language delays, learning disabilities and a host of behavioral problems -- mood swings, intense anger and suicidal notions at age 7. He'd been in six schools |
656127_3 | A Realignment Made Reluctantly | extraordinary European outcry, rooted in but not confined to France. The target was Hollywood, portrayed as a marauder as mindless as the dinosaurs of "Jurassic Park," intent on devouring the vestiges of European culture. It was "Dallas" versus Depardieu, culture as commerce versus culture as art -- and the result was an impasse hailed by Jack Lang, the former Culture Minister of France, as "a victory for art and artists over the commercialization of culture." Presidential Reaction In Washington, President Clinton told reporters that he was disappointed that the audio-visual portions of the agreement remained unresolved, but that no one "thought it was worth bringing the whole thing down over." But, at a deeper level, it was Europe against the most visible symbol of the spread of American culture and economic influence in a world that is no longer bipolar. And for several French intellectuals and writers, the conflict assumed global dimensions. Did the world, by endorsing the free-trade principles of GATT, really want to demolish national identities in favor of a blanket American-dominated culture and so encourage the emergence, in angry reaction, of the likes of the Russian nationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky? "Should we really convert the planet into a supermarket in order to leave people with a choice between Coca-Cola and the local ayatollah?" the French philosopher and writer Regis Debray asked. Baseball Caps and Dinosaurs That may sound like an extreme point of view -- and there has been much relentless caricaturing of the United States in Europe in recent weeks. But it has become clear that GATT does raise the delicate political question of how far national traditions and policies are prepared to cede to the economic globalization symbolized by universal baseball caps and universal screen dinosaurs. For example, in opening its market to imported rice for the first time, Japan was taking more than a small trade step. Rice cultivation is central to Japan's religion, culture and folklore and the bar on imports symbolized its sacredness. Each spring, the Emperor plants the first seedling on the grounds of the Imperial Palace. But in the end, the Japanese Government decided that access to markets outweighed these considerations. Europe, however, balked, preserving its quotas and subsidies that penalize American films and limit the prospects in Europe of fast-expanding American services like pay-per-view and cable television channels. As a result, the GATT accord emerged as a two-headed beast. |
658645_6 | U.S. COMPANIES USE AFFILIATES ABROAD TO SKIRT SANCTIONS | operations. Cargill's lawyers have not denied the roles of Mr. Vigil and other executives. But in hundreds of pages of legal arguments presented to prosecutors, they have contended that the subsidiary in Geneva dominated the transaction, and that Mr. Vigil and other United States executives had no contact with Cuba. The Inquiry Tales from Atlanta To Iraq and Back The inquiry into Cargill, a fiercely private international trading company run by the same two families for more than 125 years, began with a case unrelated to Cuba or sugar, but with international repercussions of its own. In the fall of 1989, investigators from several Government agencies interrogated Christopher P. Drogoul, the outgoing banker who ran Banca Lavoro's Atlanta office. Surrounded by a dozen investigators, who were struck by his openness as much as his story, Mr. Drogoul said he made $5 billion in loans to Iraq. Mr. Drogoul would attract headlines with his claim, never proved, that the loans were made with the approval of the United States Government, which at the time was engaged in a doomed courtship of Mr. Hussein. Among other statements, Mr. Drogoul recounted what he said were illegal activities by some of the bank's clients, interview transcripts show. Most intriguing to the Government was the tale of Cargill's role in selling Cuban sugar to Venezuela. By Mr. Drogoul's account, Fritz Baehler, an executive at Cargill's Swiss subsidiary, came to him in 1988 with a crisis. Ships loaded with sugar owned by Cargill, worth $26 million, were ready to sail to Venezuela. But Cargill had to arrange a way for Venezuela to pay for it. A Request for Help In such transactions to foreign buyers, suppliers like Cargill typically get paid in advance by an American bank, usually in American dollars. The bank then collects from the foreign buyer. But Mr. Drogoul quoted Mr. Baehler as saying that banks were rejecting Cargill. Mr. Drogoul said he turned Cargill down upon learning the source of the trouble: Some sugar was from Cuba. Since the Cuban embargo was put in place in 1963, it had been illegal to do most kinds of business with Cuba. In November 1988, Mr. Drogoul cabled Mr. Baehler, telling him that the company could not get financing from an American bank "given the origin of the merchandise." Not wanting to upset a valued customer, however, Mr. Drogoul, now serving a 37-month jail sentence |
658639_0 | Preventing 'Inferior' People in China | China's announcement last week of a new draft law to "avoid new births of inferior quality" explicitly refers to "more than 10 million disabled persons who could have been prevented through better controls." The language seems calculated to outrage Americans already upset over the forced abortions, prematurely induced labor and other cruelties associated with China's strict one-child-per-family policy. But of course it is not. The proposed legislation, which now only needs approval from the usually rubber-stamp National People's Congress, simply expresses, in extreme form, the Chinese Communist Government's philosophy on the issue: that population management is essential to China's economic development, and individual liberties must be subordinated to the goals of those in power. That view reflects Chinese tradition, Leninist arrogance and some overly zealous thinking about legitimate public health concerns. Yet Americans and others outside China should not hesitate to express their horror. Even this late in the Chinese legislative process, constructive criticisms might yet have some positive influence. The draft bill is entitled "On Eugenics and Health Protection," and some of the health protection goals are justifiable -- for example, discouraging women carrying the hepatitis virus from becoming pregnant before treatment. But others are scientifically absurd, like sterilizing those with conditions unlikely to be passed on to their offspring. And the compulsory tactics envisioned by the draft are absolutely repugnant. Reports of coercive abortion in the 1980's helped provoke a cutoff of U.S. financial support for Chinese family-planning programs. Regrettably, that cutoff did little to change Beijing's policies. Still, Americans are right to refuse to let themselves be associated with some practices. Coercive abortion is one, and eugenics is clearly another. And perhaps, in today's diplomatic climate, U.S. protests might have more effect. For months, the Clinton Administration has been trying to get the venom out of the U.S.-China relationship. Beijing has at least been willing to listen to suggestions about what it can do to help. The Clinton Administration now needs to spell out to China its concerns about the offensive elements of the draft law. It needs to make clear the explosive impact it could have on American public and political opinion. If the Administration is to win public support for its reconciliation efforts, it needs to make clear to China that Americans think its scheme for preventing "inferior" people is wrong. |
658621_0 | World Economies | |
658655_5 | Job-Training Program Is Seen as U.S. Model | was hired immediately by a hospital groundskeeping crew. He said he had an edge in his job because he knew how to use landscaping tools and to calculate how much grass seed and shrubbery were needed. He was recently promoted. "I started at $6 an hour," he said, "and I just got raised to $10.35." The business leaders who oversee the academies meet with teachers and managers in planning courses. They provide materials and invite the students in for mock job interviews, as well as contribute the money that covers the additional $370-per-student cost of the academies' services. Some businesses provide part-time jobs. "It's great if they learn about environmental technology," said Robert Fox, a lawyer who is chairman of the environmental academy. "If they want to use it in their work, that's fine. But the great effect, the real benefit, is in giving students a focal point. It gets them turned on to education." Saudia Cunningham, who graduated from the environmental academy in the spring, would agree. For her, getting to the academy was an hourlong grind, and the work seemed beyond her. While in school, she lived on welfare with her mother and sister. "I had family troubles," Ms. Cunningham said. "My father died when I was a baby. In the beginning, I was trying to get out of it. But they got tutors for me, and when I came back for my sophomore year, I was determined to do better." She entered science fairs and started winning prizes. One summer, she found a clerical job with the regional Environmental Protection Agency office. She is a now a freshman on a full scholarship at Florida A & M University. "If I wasn't in the academy, I wouldn't have found where my heart really is," she said. Factory Jobs Disappear In Philadelphia, as in much of the country, stable and reasonably well-paying jobs have been disappearing with the contraction of the manufacturing companies. But Gretchen Betz, a staffing manager at Rohn & Hass, a large chemical company here, said that she still hired a few office academy graduates and that they had an edge on other students. "It's their work attitude and to some extent their skills," she said. "They're basically familiar with business, with office practices, office machines, business math," she said. But she said that the skills of entry-level jobs were constantly rising, and that the new |
658901_0 | Ireland Sees Nothing Heroic About the I.R.A. | To the Editor: In "Why Should We Believe Britain on Irish Peace?" (letter, Dec. 17), Martin Galvin claims that peace in Northern Ireland has been jeopardized because of British intransigence. He implies that the Irish Republican Army is on a quest for peace and has been rebuffed by a self-interested government in London, which is to be held accountable for further violence. This is outrageous. The I.R.A. and only the I.R.A. is responsible for the death and trouble it perpetrates in Northern Ireland. I am constantly amazed by the ignorance of Irish-Americans regarding the situation in my homeland. I remember well Mr. Galvin's flying visits to Northern Ireland in the 1980's, how he sought only to reinforce his own Republican perspectives and not at all to gain insight into the Unionist position. Sentimentalists like Mr. Galvin are dangerous, because they see the picture purely in black and white. In the real Northern Ireland, while the I.R.A. was talking peace, they left a no-warning bomb in Warrington, England, that killed two children. In the world of Realpolitik, while John Hume and Gerry Adams bartered, the I.R.A. exploded a bomb in a fish shop in the Shankill Road, Belfast, that left 10 dead. The murdered included a young married couple, a grandfather and a decapitated child. In the real Northern Ireland, those in the I.R.A. are not seen as heroes, as patriots, but rather as unbalanced psychopaths. Yet Mr. Galvin has been so thoroughly captured by the Republican ideology he does not see this. Mr. Galvin's organization, Irish Northern Aid, perpetuates enmity and distrust in Northern Ireland. He himself is an inflammatory voice. Ireland's political landscape is far from simple. It cannot be stressed enough that Northern Ireland's Protestant community is not just a tool of the British, out to exercise a minority veto over the Roman Catholics. The community is legitimate and has a culture and a voice that is seldom heard in America. Protestants have been in Ireland for 400 years, and Ulster has had links with Scotland and the mainland for more than 1,000 years. A united Ireland would be anathema to most Protestants. It would be analogous to asking the Muslims of Bosnia, a majority in their own country, to become part of a greater Croatia or Serbia. The Northern Unionists do not wish to become part of a country that remained neutral in the war against Hitler, |
658933_3 | With a View of One Hemisphere, Latin America Is Freeing Its Own Trade | end of Spanish and Portuguese colonial rule in the early 1800's, are integrating major geographic areas: Central America, the Caribbean, the Andean nations and the Southern Cone, which includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Idea Already a Success Thus unfettered, intra-Latin commerce has surged. Trade among Latin America's 11 largest economies jumped 28 percent in 1992, reaching $19.4 billion. In the same year, Latin American exports to the rest of the world stagnated. "The free-trade agreements have developed beyond all expectations," said Noemi Sanin, Foreign Minister of Colombia, a nation that is negotiating trade accords with 22 other Latin American countries. "Before the end of the century, we aspire to achieve the planet's most important trading bloc -- the American bloc." This is no casual forecast. Timetables for tariff reduction indicate that most trade within Latin America will be tariff-free by the end of the 1990's, according to a study released in October by the Latin American Economic System, an inter-government organization based here. Again and again, Latin America has proved that cutting tariffs and red tape results in surging trade. In 1993, trade between Colombia and Venezuela reached $2 billion -- four times the level of 1991, the year before a duty-free customs union was established. Rules on product origin have been adopted to prevent the duty-free trans-shipment of Colombian and Venezuelan goods into the United States by way of Mexico. After Colombia signed another customs union pact in 1992, its trade with Ecuador jumped by 50 percent in 1993, reaching $350 million. Within the Andean region, trade increased 20 percent in 1992 -- the year Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia cut almost all regional tariffs to zero. In 1993, Andean trade surged 30 percent more, to $3 billion. In the Southern Cone Common Market -- which has become known as Mercosur, shorthand for Southern Common Market -- regional trade grew more than 25 percent in 1993, reaching $9 billion. Trade was one-third that level in 1990, the year before Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay signed their agreement. "Isolated countries have no destiny, no future," President Carlos Saul Menem of Argentina told a regional financial group this month. With regional tariffs scheduled to vanish in a year, Mercosur has proved so successful that Argentina is now Brazil's second-largest trading partner, after the United States. The share of Brazilian exports to other bloc countries rose from 4 percent in 1990 |
658934_0 | Birth to 59-Year-Old Briton Raises Ethical Storm | Three days after a 59-year-old woman gave birth to twins in a London hospital, doctors and politicians have become snarled in a thickening ethical debate: should governments and doctors limit the age at which a woman may become pregnant through fertility treatments? The London woman, who has not been identified but is described as wealthy, gave birth after eggs donated by a younger woman and fertilized by the older woman's husband were implanted in her at a private fertility clinic in Rome. Doctors in London had earlier refused to perform the procedure because they believed she was too old to face the emotional stress. Coupled with news from Italy today that a 61-year-old woman treated at the same clinic may soon become one of the oldest women ever to give birth, startled physicians and health officials see the possibility of more such "retirement pregnancies," as post-menopausal women seek out clinics to take advantage of advances in fertility technology. It has been technically possible for a post-menopausal woman to become pregnant with donor eggs since 1990, but the number of such pregnancies is still small. Most in-vitro fertilization clinics in the United States will not accept women who are older than their early 40's because of the low success rate for pregnancies. While such pregnancies are now rare, Dr. Stuart Horner, the chairman of the British Medical Association's ethics committee, said the problem might grow over the next decade as the procedure becomes more common. The Times of London reported this morning that at least 13 women between 50 and 52 have undergone similar treatment in the last year at clinics in Britain. At least two have given birth, the newspaper said. A similar situation took place in the United States when a 53-year-old woman, whose daughter was infertile, gave birth to her own grandchild earlier this year. The ethical issues were muted, however, by her altruism. "Women do not have the right to have a child," Virginia Bottomley, the British Secretary of Health, told the BBC. "The child has a right to a suitable home." Most of the objections are ethical ones, based on the strong belief that it is best for a child to have active, able parents. In addition, critics have argued on medical grounds that such late pregnancies pose grave medical risks to the mother. And because donor eggs are in such short supply, some physicians say |
657828_2 | On Surprise Visit to Ulster, Major Calls for Peace | Wilson, a former councillor from the Rev. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, turned a protest poster into a paper dart and hurled it at Mr. Major, shouting: "You will live to regret this but the people of Northern Ireland will die regretting it! Shame on you!" He was ignored. The Prime Minister's visit was intended to bring further pressure on Sinn Fein and its leader, Gerry Adams, to accept the declaration of principles announced last week by Mr. Major and Prime Minister Albert Reynolds of Ireland. Called "the Downing Street declaration," the overture is a set of general propositions that in theory all sides might accept as a framework for getting peace talks going. To soothe the fears of the Unionists, who come from the ranks of the Protestant majority, they include repeated pledges that there can be no change in Northern Ireland without the consent of most of its people. To hold out hopes for the Republicans, both among the Catholic minority in the north and in the Republic of Ireland, the document recognizes that a united Ireland can come about, provided that both the north and the south want it. As a condition for joining in the talks, the two Governments insist that the I.R.A. renounce violence for good. Behind the scenes, officials hope that the I.R.A.'s customary four-day Christmas cease-fire will simply go on. As a stick to go along with the carrot, both Dublin and London have threatened to crack down on the I.R.A. if the appeal is rejected. The I.R.A. is studying the declaration. A key question is whether the concessions to the principle of Irish unity and the prospects of being treated as a negotiating partner are enough of an inducement for its more radical fighters to lay down arms. One possible sign of opposition came on Sunday and Monday when bombs were set in Londonderry and Belfast, slightly wounding a soldier and a civilian. But trying to put an optimistic gloss on things, Government officials call this a "low level" of activity. In recent days Mr. Adams, the Sinn Fein leader who speaks on behalf of the I.R.A., has been trying to up the ante, demanding the release of all "political prisoners" and calling for unconditional talks with London and Dublin on the future of Ulster. His demands have been rejected out of hand, presenting him and the I.R.A. with a take-it-or-leave-it choice. |
657821_0 | Daughter of Castro Leaves Cuba And Is Given Asylum in the U.S. | Fidel Castro's daughter has fled Cuba and has been granted political asylum in the United States, State Department officials said today. The woman, Alina Fernandez Revuelta, arrived in Atlanta on Tuesday on a flight from Spain after her asylum request was granted by the United States Embassy in Madrid, said David Johnson, a State Department spokesman. Mrs. Fernandez, who is 37, is personally and politically estranged from her father, who conceived her out of wedlock when he was a young revolutionary. She has sought to leave Cuba for years, denouncing her father as "a tyrant" and describing Cuban Communism as "a dead-end street." She fled alone, leaving her 15-year-old daughter in Havana. Her flight is a small but significant political statement against Mr. Castro and his increasingly bedraggled 35-year-old Government. Economy in Steep Decline Since the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, Cuba's economy, which relied heavily on subsidies from the Soviet Union, has been in a steep decline, contracting by more than 40 percent. This year's sugar harvest was the smallest in 30 years. Annual export revenues have fallen from more than $5 billion to $1.6 billion. The Central Intelligence Agency reported this summer that "the impact of the economic crisis on the populace has been devastating." Food shortages have caused malnutrition and disease, public transportation has collapsed and half the labor force is looking for work, the agency reported. Political resistance to Mr. Castro is becoming louder and freer. On Friday, witnesses said, thousands of demonstrators shouting "Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!" marched 12 miles from Havana to a shrine devoted to Lazarus, the biblical figure who rose from the dead. "This is not just an economic crisis," said Jose Cardenas, a spokesman for the Cuban American National Foundation, a Washington research group opposed to Mr. Castro. "It's something more profound. There is a political, spiritual, social crisis on the island. And that is why Alina Fernandez is important. She needed something more and that was freedom." Mr. Castro has neither acknowledged nor denied fathering Mrs. Fernandez, who never took his surname or had a real relationship with him, according to biographers of the Cuban leader. A Clandestine Courier Her mother, Natalia Revuelta, a wealthy, socially prominent and well-educated woman still living in Cuba, met Mr. Castro in November 1952, according to Tad Szulc's biography, "Fidel: A Critical Portrait" (William Morrow and Company, 1986). Though married to a |
655252_0 | British and Irish Premiers Hold Talks on Ulster Future | British and Irish leaders today discussed the text of a proposed joint statement to encourage peace in Northern Ireland but said they needed to meet again before Christmas to try to finish it. Prime Minister John Major of Britain and his Irish counterpart, Albert Reynolds, met for an hour at a European Union summit meeting here and agreed that lower-level officials had made progress since the last time the two leaders talked on Dec. 3. Irish officials gave no details. |
655267_1 | Security Is Easy to Breach At Airports, Inquiry Finds | and other restricted areas in 15 of 20 attempts at the 4 airports. "Once we gained access, we wandered around aircraft parking areas, baggage processing centers, maintenance areas and ramp administrative offices," the report said. David R. Hinson, who heads the Federal Aviation Administration, minimized the security threat posed by terrorists in his formal response to the report. But Transportation Secretary Federico F. Pena was "extremely concerned" by the laxness revealed by the report and has ordered an extensive review of airport security procedures, Richard Mintz, a spokesman, said today. Reflecting that concern, the report said: "The Federal Aviation Administration stated the problem probably exists throughout the domestic airport system, and our ability to enter secured airport areas by circumventing access controls, and the failure of airport and airline employees to challenge thereafter, represents a serious problem which it will address." A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said he did not know if any of its three airports were among the four. But last month, in response to reports of unauthorized entries into restricted areas, the agency initiated a "Bogus Bob" program for employees at LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark airports. The program awards $25 to anyone challenging an unauthorized person in a restricted area. The inspector general's report was issued almost five years after the terrorist bombing on Dec. 21, 1988, of a Pan American World Airways jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which270 people were killed. A British inquiry found that the airline had not followed international baggage-identification procedures that could have prevented the disaster. In last summer's operation, the investigators said airport personnel had failed to detect a deactivated hand grenade that was carried through a metal detector. "The object was not detected because the 'hand wand' screening was poorly conducted," the report said. Nonetheless, Mr. Hinson said: "The vulnerabilities identified by the Office of the Inspector General need to be placed in the context of the current threat to civil aviation in the United States, and the current record of civil aviation security. Otherwise, they lead to overly alarming conclusions." "The assessed threat to domestic civil aviation at this time is low, and there is little evidence that it will not remain so," he said, noting that there had been only 29 terrorist attacks in this country since 1988, and none involved civil aviation. The aviation agency has expressed concern to |
655219_0 | Virtuosos in Space | It has been a near-flawless performance by the Endeavour astronauts in the most complex repair job yet attempted in orbit. Late at night, while most of us were sleeping, they installed new gyroscopes on the ailing Hubble Space Telescope, replaced wobbly solar panels, inserted a new camera and installed an array of lenses to correct blurry images -- all without a major problem. The few glitches that did arise, such as latching a balky door and removing a bent solar panel that refused to roll up properly, were readily resolved. How sweet a success after a string of embarrassing failures, including the loss of a $1 billion Mars Observer satellite in August. If all goes well through the scheduled landing on Monday, the mission will have shown that astronauts can perform maintenance work in orbit, a prerequisite to more grandiose space missions ahead. And, if follow-up tests show Hubble's blurry vision has really cleared up, astronomers might be able to reap a significant harvest of new observations. This was billed as a do-or-die mission for NASA, and in one sense it was. The manned space program would almost certainly have been put on hold had an accident disabled the shuttle, the space telescope or both. Instead, the clear demonstration that the astronauts can perform extended work in orbit (five demanding space walks in five days) increases hope that they will be able to carry out the far more complex and arduous job of assembling a space station. The astronomy payoff remains uncertain. Tests over the next two months will show whether the repair has improved Hubble's vision, left it blurred or inadvertently made it worse. Even a wholly successful repair would not restore its capabilities to original specifications; the corrective lenses will cut the amount of light reaching some instruments by about 20 percent. Even so, NASA scientists believe they will be able to carry out more than 90 percent of the tasks originally planned for Hubble. The telescope, perched above the distorting blanket of the atmosphere, should provide a clearer glimpse of many heavenly objects than even the most powerful ground-based telescopes. Whether that glimpse will be worth the cost ($1.6 billion to build Hubble, $700 million for this repair mission alone) cannot yet be answered. Only when the scientific results are in will the nation know if Hubble has ushered in a revolution in astronomy -- or provided |
659120_0 | PARENT & CHILD | WHEN she was growing up, Chriss Garlick was jealous of the extra attention that her twin brother, Bill, got from their parents. She was angry that she would be punished for misbehavior he could get away with. But she felt she couldn't express those feelings directly to her parents. She was healthy; Bill was mentally retarded and had cerebral palsy and other neurological problems. "How could I pick on and argue with my brother like everyone else does with their brothers when he couldn't respond as they could?" said Ms. Garlick, who is now 22 and a student at the University of Wisconsin-Stout at Menomonie. For the past few years, her brother has lived in a group home for disabled adults in Minnesota. Only recently have health-care and child-development professionals looked closely at what it's like to be the sibling of a child who is emotionally, mentally or physically disabled. They have found that the relationship is far more complex than they had anticipated but that a few simple things can help both the children and their parents make the most of the situation. "We used to think that having a child with a disability in the home was damaging to other members of the family," said Dr. Stanley D. Klein, a psychologist who is the editor in chief of Exceptional Parent magazine and a co-editor of "It Isn't Fair! Siblings of Children With Disabilities" (Bergin & Garvey, 1993). "We now know that it adds stress but that it doesn't necessarily lead to damage," Dr. Klein said. "It can lead to creative problem solving and personal growth." Siblings gain "a greater appreciation of the value of different kinds of people," he added, "and are more understanding of human differences." To handle the stress successfully, children need increasing amounts of information about their disabled siblings and other family issues. This information has to be presented in ways that match their own developmental needs and abilities. Preschoolers, for example, may require reassurance that they didn't cause a sibling's problems, especially if the disabled child is younger. They also need to know that they can't catch a disability the way they can catch a cold from a brother or a sister. School-age children often have to explain their sibling's disability to friends and classmates. They need to practice and master the social skills that will allow them to answer children's and adults' questions, |
659099_0 | Re-Use the Trimmings | NOT long ago, the success of the holidays was measured by the size of the trash piles at curbsides on Dec. 26. Christmas refuse was a status symbol. Recycling, except for the school newspaper drive, was rare. Guilt was nonexistent. By law and personal choice, consumers are becoming more environmentally savvy, discarding the remains of Christmas 1993 selectively. For those who don't want to use up precious landfill space, there are other ways to dispose of holiday waste. TREE RECYCLING In New York City, the Department of Sanitation will recycle all Christmas trees collected curbside between Monday and Jan. 15. That's a major improvement from last year, when curbside tree pickup was available only on Staten Island. "People are advised to place their trees at the curb after stands, lights, tinsel and ornaments have been removed," said Robert Lange, the deputy director of the department's Bureau of Waste Prevention, Re-use and Recycling. "We also ask that they not be stuffed in plastic bags or have any other covering." Once collected, the trees will be shredded and turned into compost for parks in Manhattan and for landscaping other public areas. As an alternative, on Staten Island trees can be dropped off Jan. 8 and 9 at the Willowbrook Park parking lot, where they will be used to help restore salt marsh grasses that were damaged by recent oil spills and storms. Outside the city, other local sanitation or parks departments offer similar programs. In places that do not, trees can often be taken to nurseries with composting capabilities. People outside the city may want to save their pine needles to use as mulch. SACHETS Pine needles can also be used to freshen closets or drawers. To create a pine-balsam pillow (a staple of every environmental-awareness boutique), simply place a sheet or a large piece of cloth around the tree to catch falling needles, or use either wire strippers or a gloved hand to strip short needles off the tree. Put needles into draw-string muslin bags, and use them as an alternative to aerosol air-fresheners. WARNING Don't try to burn trees and wreaths in a fireplace. You could set your chimney and mantel ablaze. Besides, burning Christmas trees is illegal in New York City. Faux trees made from plastic and metal can't be recycled, but the authors of "The New Green Christmas" (Halo Books, 1991), published by the Evergreen Alliance, suggest donating |
653337_0 | NEWS SUMMARY | International A3-17 U.S. WEIGHS KOREA OPTIONS As President Clinton weighs a decision on sanctions against North Korea, the Pentagon is considering strengthening American and South Korean defenses if tensions increase on the peninsula. A1 BUILDING UKRAINE'S ARMY Among the shards into which the Soviet Union splintered, Ukraine more than any other country has tried to build its army from what was left behind. But that has created a force dominated by Russians, making the task more daunting. A1 The Baltic nations also struggle to rebuild their forces. A16 SETBACK FOR INDIA PARTY The leading fundamentalist Hindu party in India has suffered a devastating setback in its attempt to harness anti-Muslim sentiment and take control of the Government. A1 THE LID GOES BACK ON IN GAZA News Analysis: Israel and the P.L.O. are not about to let sudden violence unnerve them in their peace talks. A12 Palestinians kill an Israeli north of Jerusalem. A12 NIGERIA'S MILITARY ELITE In Nigeria, as in much of Africa, security forces have evolved into a privileged elite. Soldiers and police officers are often accountable to no one -- not to politicians, not to the press, not to the public. A3 Somalia leaders agree to hold reconciliation talks. A3 DEBATING WAYS TO END WARS With 9 of 52 member states involved in shooting wars and a 10th, the rump Yugoslavia, suspended for starting one, foreign ministers of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe debated ways of ending conflicts. A6 U.S. and Britain step up pressure on Serbian President. A5 U.S.-GERMAN DISPUTE OVER IRAN The U.S. is locked in a bitter dispute over Bonn's determination to increase its economic and political ties with Iran. A13 France and the U.S. seek concessions on world trade. D1 BRITISH AND IRISH LEADERS TO MEET In a move to generate momentum for peace in Northern Ireland, the Prime Ministers of Britain and Ireland are to meet in Dublin on Friday to try to iron out differences on how to end 25 years of conflict. A10 Haiti's Prime Minister to resign, a blow to political talks. A8 Gore hails new era in U.S.-Latin American relations. A9 Anshan Journal: Putting the market system to work in China. A4 National A18-25, B10-11 CLINTON DEFENDS RECORD ON AIDS As a finger-pointing protester shouted that President Clinton had failed to meet campaign promises to fight AIDS, Mr. Clinton defended his Administration's effort to fight the |
654617_2 | One Ireland: In Reach Yet? | Irish would put the constitutional claim to a referendum only as part of an overall solution, but on Sunday he indicated he would put such a guarantee in writing. The political predicaments of the two Prime Ministers also have some bearing. While Mr. Reynolds, with a 37-vote majority in Parliament, has more freedom to negotiate, Mr. Major has a slim majority in his Parliament and must be careful not to estrange the nine Ulster Unionist Party members. If the talks between the two Prime Ministers succeed, officials say, there could be an end of violence before Christmas. If the peace lasted two or three months, it could lead to an invitation to Sinn Fein to join peace talks. Most years, the I.R.A. has voluntarily enacted a cease-fire for several days around Christmas. An interim solution has been suggested by John Hume, a Social Democratic and Labor Party Member of Parliament and the most influential Roman Catholic leader in Ulster: a new relationship, possibly a federation between north and south, encouraged by the movement in the European Community toward political union. Benefits of a Settlement For Britain, a peaceful settlement of the struggle that has killed more than 3,000 people since 1969 would be a relief, with troops leaving and an end to the threat of I.R.A. bombs in Britain. For London, relinquishing power in the province of Ulster, even gradually, is a matter of cutting losses, of extricating Britain in a way that might enhance John Major's stature in British history. Nor is there any certainty about how many Irish really want drastic change in the political relationship between north and south. In the south, which is 95 percent Catholic, most people try to push the northern violence out of their minds. Some fear that a united Ireland would mean trying to absorb nearly a million Protestants, and the possibility of a new civil war without benefit of the 17,000 British soldiers. A recent survey published in The Irish Times surprised many officials and analysts with the news that only 32 percent of Northern Ireland's 650,000 Catholics favored a united Ireland as their first-choice political solution. Slightly more respondents favored joint authority by Britain and Ireland. Population Shifts Assessed There is also the prospect that the Catholic minority in the north might grow to become a majority that could vote to join Ireland. But if that should happen, it won't |
654575_0 | NEWS SUMMARY | International A3-17 HOLLYWOOD'S TRADE ISSUE A conflict over France's effort to protect its film industry from Hollywood is becoming a central issue in the GATT world trade talks. A1 JAPAN TO OPEN RICE MARKET Japan plans to open its rice market to imports, removing a major stumbling block to a world trade pact by the deadline. D1 DELAY LIKELY FOR ISRAELI PACT Although they are making progress, both sides in the talks to bring about Palestinian self-rule in the Israeli-occupied territories agree that they probably cannot be finished in time for the Dec. 13 deadline. A16 SYRIA AGREES TO TALKS Syria told Secretary of State Christopher that it would resume face-to-face talks with Israel, broken off in September, in an effort to attain peace. A17 Continuing violence threatens the Israeli peace talks. A16 A LANDMARK IN SOUTH AFRICA South Africa's black majority got its first real taste of governing with the beginning of work by a council that will oversee the country until elections are held in the spring. A14 ANGER MARKS RUSSIA'S ELECTION Anger over the economy is causing bitter attacks on President Yeltsin in the Russian countryside, not just among the Communists but even among those who have supported reform in the past. A3 U.S. SETS DEFENSIVE STRATEGY The United States began a new effort to protect troops from nuclear, chemical and and biological weapons, reflecting fears that efforts to halt the spread of these weapons may fall short. A15 DEEP DIVISIONS ON ULSTER News Analysis: Although hopes remain for negotiations over peace for Northern Ireland, the two sides remain deeply divided over whether there can ever be a united Ireland free of British rule. A9 A report says Croatia has killed or forced out thousands. A7 Despite a promise, Serbs blocked Bosnia aid convoys. A6 The Austrian police said they had clues about letter bombs. A11 In a Czech town, a bad economy hits the Roma the hardest. A8 Americans estimate the toll in Somalia fighting. A14 Haiti's Prime Minister will seek Vatican help to end a stalemate. A5 An anticorruption party is involved in Italy's scandals. A10 Rimac Journal: In Peru, the bullfight echoes life. A4 National A18-23, B6 NUCLEAR FUEL POSES THREAT A top Energy Department official said millions of pounds of radioactive fuel had been sitting in storage pools for so long that it was rusting and spreading radioactivity. A1 ATOMIC TESTS DISCLOSED The |
654741_4 | Personal Health; Deciding how, or whether, to treat menopause. | of postmenopausal women than is breast cancer, and hormone replacement appears to cut the risk of a fatal heart attack in half. So even if the hormone therapy slightly increases the risk of breast cancer, there would still be a substantial overall benefit. In weighing the various options, a woman and her doctor should consider her personal and family medical history. If heart disease or osteoporosis is common in a woman's family or if she herself has a high risk of either, hormone replacement might be more strongly recommended than for a woman without such risks. On the other hand, for a woman with a family or personal history of breast cancer, doctors are reluctant to prescribe estrogen and may instead emphasize the importance of healthful living habits like a low-fat diet and regular exercise. Dr. Speroff said a treatment alternative for such women might be tamoxifen, a estrogen-like drug that has favorable effects on cholesterol levels and prevents bone loss at the same time that it protects the breasts against cancer. But tamoxifen does increase the risk of uterine cancer, and women taking it would be wise to undergo periodic examinations to check for uterine changes that could herald this cancer, which is highly curable when detected early. Properly designed studies are now under way to answer the various questions about the long-term risks and benefits of hormone replacement, but results will not be available for about 10 years, by which time another 20 million women of the baby-boom generation will have entered menopause and grappled with a decision about whether and how to treat it. The best approach, experts agree, is for the woman and her doctor to review her risk factors, concerns and therapeutic options and together come to an informed decision. Further Information A comprehensive and up-to-date reference for those seeking detailed information on menopause and hormone replacement therapy is the newly revised edition of "Menopause: A Guide for Women and Those Who Love Them" by Dr. Winnifred B. Cutler and Celso-Ramon Garcia (in paperback by W. W. Norton, $12.95). Another helpful book is "Estrogen Replacement Therapy: the Johns Hopkins Guide to Making an Informed Decision," by Dr. Howard Zacur and Dr. Roger Blumenthal (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993). To order the book, a check payable to Johns Hopkins University for $4.95, which includes postage and handling, should be sent to Johns Hopkins University Women's Health |
654525_2 | Editorial Notebook; China and Global Warming | not done an exemplary job of controlling its energy appetite despite furious economic expansion. The Chinese have made astonishing gains in industrial efficiency over the past decade, thereby holding energy growth to half the rate of economic growth. But most analysts think the easy part has been accomplished and that further gains will be much harder. Chinese officials, though not fully convinced of the global warming threat, recognize the need to head it off. Qu Geping, the Government's top environmental official, said in an interview that even before global warming is fully proved all countries should take steps to control carbon dioxide emissions. In a wide-ranging effort to boost its economy and clean its environment, China is already taking steps that will have the beneficial side effect of reducing carbon emissions. Such programs include a big hydroelectric project in the Three Gorges area of the Yangtze River that will produce power without emitting carbon dioxide; a tree-planting program that has increased forest coverage for the first time in years; the building of large generating plants for greater efficiency, and experiments with cleaner approaches to home heating. Zha Keming, Vice Minister of Electric Power, believes that nuclear power, which emits no carbon dioxide, could become the chief energy source 50 years from now. Global warming, if it occurs, could harm China itself, an added reason for curbing emissions. But China's leaders do not appear to give the threat high priority. They point out, correctly, that industrialized nations emit far more carbon dioxide per capita than China and have done so for a very long time. Those nations, they imply, should bear the brunt of cleaning up the mess. And when Chinese officials are asked what environmental problems are most acute, they invariably cite urban air pollution, population growth, clean water or soil erosion. No one cites the distant prospect of global warming. There is no doubt that the nations of the world will need to enlist China if they ever unite to head off global warming. That could pose some very hard questions for the West, such as whether to subsidize China's conversion to cleaner fuels and more efficient factories, or whether to allow Western companies to meet emissions goals through investments in China. But without forceful action, whatever progress is made elsewhere in curbing carbon emissions could be undercut by an enormous increase in emissions from China. PHILIP M. BOFFEY |
654667_0 | Terminal Data Corp. (NMS) reports earnings for Qtr to Sept 30 | *3*** COMPANY REPORTS ** *3*Terminal Data Corp. (NMS) Qtr to Sept 30 1993 1992 Sales 5,222,000 5,095,000 Net loss b2,400,000 c177,000 Share earns - .03 Shares outst 4,848,000 5,040,000 Yr sales 20,129,000 20,781,000 Net loss b3,270,000 532,000 Shares outst 4,753,000 4,622,000 b-Included a $ 1,282,000 charge in the quarter and year. c-Net income |
653828_0 | Airline Luggage | To the Editor: I am writing in response to your article "Baggage Check: Weighing Risks" (Practical Traveler, Oct. 31) The last paragraph advising against packing valuables in checked luggage should have been the first paragraph. As a frequent traveler I am amazed how often people forget the simple precautions. I also believe people should be encouraged to check luggage, not discouraged. Carry-on luggage has become a serious safety hazard. Passengers try to bring golf clubs, 100-pound bags, etc., onto planes. I believe that at security check points in every airport there should be two containers that represent the maximum size for carry-on luggage. If the luggage fits in the container it can be carried on, otherwise it must be checked. Delays would occur as the system was implemented but it would work out. WILLIAM J. KANE Princeton, N.J. |
653882_1 | NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: Mott Haven; After Arrests, a Security Push | security and stability to the 1,200-apartment complex, which is scattered between East 138th and 143d Streets and St. Ann's and Jackson Avenues. They and local community leaders say violent, small-time drug dealers remain in and around the 38-building complex. "There are incredibly hard-working people who tried to raise families there under incredible circumstances," Donald Hill, an assistant district attorney in the Bronx, said of residents of the neighborhood. The tenants' efforts come after years of welling frustration. Already, their group, called Tenants United for Better Living, has drawn scores of tenants to meetings to discuss problems at the complex, including what they describe as inadequate maintenance and deteriorating apartments. "My position used to be that I don't like people who are nosy, so I would mind my own business," said Tawanna Kendricks, a tenant organizer and a telephone operator. "Now, all of a sudden, I'm involved in all these lives." The group has sought help from Los Unidos, the managers of the complex, but complain that management has been slow in the past to respond to the individual complaints of residents, from faulty plumbing and crumbling ceilings to inadequate security. They say they have even talked about a rent strike. But they add that such action would be hasty and potentially disruptive at this early stage. And some even wonder how long the enthusiasm of the tenants will last. "It's too early to tell right now because the movement's just starting," said Ronald Phillip, who is taking lessons in tenant organizing with the assistance of the Mott Haven Restoration Project, a community group that promotes self-help efforts. "But I'm optimistic that people are going to get together sooner or later here. It's just going to take some time." Robert G. Najarian, the president of Wingate Management, a partner in the group that owns the complex and the parent company of Unidos, acknowledged that the repairs have not always been done as quickly as residents would like. But he said management officials have worked hard at resolving those and other complaints. "Our degree of success is another matter," he said, noting that problems like drug dealing loom throughout the neighborhood, not just the complex. "We share the frustration of residents." Mr. Najarian said his organization welcomes the budding effort by residents, describing them as the community's eyes and ears who could help management identify and address problems more efficiently. RAYMOND HERNANDEZ |
653977_0 | NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: Upper West Side; Efforts on Town House Fail | Community groups opposing additional social-service centers on the Upper West Side lost another round recently when they failed to find developers for a town house at 11 West 103d Street. Control of the building is now likely to fall to the Bridge, a nonprofit organization that treats the mentally ill. The Bridge, which is developing a residential treatment center at the building next door, plans to turn the town house into apartments for people who have completed its programs and are ready to live on their own. But some nearby residents say the Bridge's plans for the two buildings are another example of Community Board 7's willingness to give city-owned vacant buildings to programs that bring troubled people -- with problems ranging from mental illness to drug abuse -- into the neighborhood, particularly above 96th Street. "We do not have anything against the Bridge," said Miki Fiegel, a member of the West 90's/West 100's Neighborhood Coalition, a community group. "They do provide a good service, but we feel that this just adds two more facilities for dysfunctional people to our community, which is oversaturated already." As part of an attempt to involve community groups in neighborhood development, the community board notified groups about a year ago that the building, which is owned by the city, would be available. The Northwest Central Park Multiblock Association and an artists group stepped forward to try to develop the building, which has remained vacant for years on a block with increasing drug problems. But the block association reported last month that it could not raise enough money to rehabilitate the building for housing. And the community board's land-use committee rejected the proposal by Neighborhood Artists, which wanted to build housing for people with AIDS. That left the Bridge, which asked to place 14 people in 10 apartments, with a case manager and back-up care in the event that a resident needs emergency treatment. They obtained a Federal grant conditional on their obtaining control of the site. "These people deserve to live in the community," said Carol Gordon, the director of development for the Bridge. "They are truly recovered." In October the land-use committee tabled its decision on the building to allow coalition members to look for another developer. They contacted day-care providers, groups for the elderly, and organizations that offer afterschool programs, all of which provide services the coalition says the community lacks. But |
653952_2 | Indian Point 3 Rekindles Energy Debate | allowed to restart until his agency is satisfied that the problems leading to the shutdown have been remedied. John H. Garrity, resident manager of Indian Point 3 since April, said that despite the negative performance reviews, there has never been "a degradation of safety" at the plant. "From an equipment point of view, the plant is in good shape," said Mr. Garrity, a former Tennessee Valley Authority project manager brought in to replace John C. Brons, who was reassigned as a consultant after the continuing problems at the plant, said Richard N. Flynn, chairman of the New York Power Authority. Mr. Garrity said there was a backlog of "minor maintenance problems that sometimes took too long to get fixed because of the bureaucratic structure" but no threat to the public's well-being. "We're not talking about a Chernobyl kind of situation," he added, explaining that all reactors in the United States are designed to contain accidents and slow down operations in emergencies. Nevertheless, all of the problems that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission identified are still not solved, and since the voluntary shutdown in February, new problems have surfaced at Indian Point 3, Mr. Cowgill said. He said that since the shutdown, a valve misalignment caused a 1,000-gallon spill from a boric acid storage tank onto a floor in the plant. Also, workers discharged mildly radioactive water from the wrong tank into the Hudson River. The water was within regulatory standards, as was the water that should have been discharged, but both incidents indicated that operations were not being properly controlled, Mr. Cowgill said. On Tuesday, the N.R.C. informed the power authority that there were yet more violations at Indian Point 3 but did not impose new fines, saying the utility was working to resolve the problems. The latest notice of violation cited, among other things, the authority's failure to inspect and maintain emergency diesel generators, and it said that only two of five containment-fan units were operable from May 30, 1992, to March 7 this year. Indian Point 3, one of 109 operating plants in the country that are licensed by the N.R.C., is considered an average-size installation compared with newer plants like Palo Verde near Phoenix, which produces about 1,300 megawatts. One of the country's oldest plants, the Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Rowe, Mass., produced 175 megawatts, but was shut down in 1991, after operating for 30 years, when |
653929_4 | With Holidays Coming, It's Time to Save | and when the rubber becomes brittle enough, engine vibration will cause it to crack. Softening also occurs, caused by accumulations of oil, power-steering fluid or grease. If in doubt, replacement is the way to go. The windshield-wiper blade is another component that yields to variations in temperature. A hard or deformed blade that smears the glass and limits visibility can be dangerous as well as annoying. Chuck the rascal out. It goes without saying that antifreeze and other fluids should be checked as well. And this might be a good time to put winter equipment into the trunk. Include a sturdy ice scraper, and a can of de-icer for the locks. You also might want jumper cables and flares. And buy a shovel. No, come to think of it, don't buy a shovel. Add it to your gift list and see if you can guess which one it is. PITTING TECHNOLOGY AGAINST THE SNOW Tire technology is one of those things that creeps along unnoticed. But the compounds and tread patterns keep getting better, and now Bridgestone says it has a breakthrough that will make studded snow tires obsolete. In fact, the metal studs and the damage they do to roads have made the tires pretty much nonexistent anyway. Right now, there are bans on them in 10 states, and 32 other states have seasonal limitations. The new tire from Bridgestone -- the Tokyo manufacturer that bought Firestone in 1988 -- is called Blizzak, and its secret is a rubber compound containing microscopic pores. As the tire wears and the pores are exposed, they become tiny pits with thousands of biting edges to grip the road. The pits also absorb the film of water that develops on ice. The result, according to the company, is better traction and braking on slick surfaces. The new compound actually is a fairly shallow cap on a traditional tire, whose stiffer rubber is needed to prevent undue "squirm" on the road. When the compound wears away, the owner is left with a serviceable all-season tire. The Blizzak has been used in Japan for three years and was introduced in Canada last year. It is available in 17 sizes -- only in blackwall -- and prices are competitive with regular snow tires, according to the company. Cost ranges from $65 to $120 per tire. The Blizzak is sold by Bridgestone and Firestone dealers. ABOUT CARS |
654044_3 | Gambling, Pariah No More, Is Booming Across America | in annual profits. Eighty more court-protected sovereign tribes have gambling plans in a dozen other states. They were inspired by the industry's phenomenon, the Foxwoods casino in Ledyard, Conn. Since being opened 21 months ago by the Mashantucket Pequot tribe, which was once nearly extinct amid urban poverty, it has become the most profitable casino in the world, according to industry estimates. It has greatly increased nervousness in the Atlantic City casino industry as well as pressure in neighboring states to guarantee their own flow of gambling revenue. Even with the tribes' total profits doubling annually, they control only about 5 percent of the market. In another boom factor as the recession-wounded states scrambled for revenue, Iowa started riverboat gambling only two years ago with two modest operations. Now there are more than two dozen casino boats working the waters and betting handles, and 40 more authorized in six states along the Gulf Coast and Mississippi River. High-stakes gambling goes on round-the-clock in cut-throat regional competition, lately aboard land-locked "riverboats." Boating to the Elevators Fun more than fortune is the promised payoff in gambling's modern market approach through theme-park casinos designed by specialists like Douglas Trumbull, the special-effects master who fantasized time travel for such movies as "Bladerunner" and "Back to the Future." Here within the recently opened Luxor pyramid, there is an indoor Nile for boating from the registration desk to the elevators and a huge atrium that easily includes a mall of food, entertainment and merchandizing. The resort contains 2,526 large, low-priced rooms and traditionally steep house-odds that rise against the cinnamon hue of the desert mountains in 30 stories of black-matte glass and fake Egyptian mystery. There are three theaters for past, present and future virtual-reality rides that Aldous Huxley only dreamt of, plus an arcade of prototype Sega games for third-dimension pinball buffs, all designed to be profit-making, not come-ons for the casino games. "I mean, it's like being inside, not just at, the movies," said Mr. Czarniecki, pleased with his bit of loser's bonus in getting to jounce and duck and zoom through a big-screen, Indiana Jones-type of a tumble in a wired seat set before an electronic Egyptian fantasy. He is a fairly typical modern American gambler, according to industry statistics: one of the 50 percent of adults who have been inside a casino to spend their entertainment dollars, a percentage that has been |
654160_0 | FORBIDDEN SUN, AND SIN, COMMUNIST STYLE | Your author comments on Ernest Hemingway's prodigious consumption of daiquiris in Old Havana's Floridita bar, and wonders "how anyone, even a Nobel Prize-winning boozer, could down that much sugar in a sitting." Hemingway himself provided the answer, in the Cuba chapter of "Islands in the Stream," much of which takes place in the Floridita. "Sin azucar," says Thomas Hudson, the author's alter ego, "I love it. . . . Drinking these double frozens without sugar." FRANCIS A. WOOD Montclair, N.J. |
654006_2 | The Municipal Navy | also deals with "jumpers" and "floaters," in police vernacular. Jumpers are people who leap off bridges and ferries. Floaters are dead bodies. Officer Church remembers answering one radio call about a man who was about to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge. The officer was waiting near the bridge when the man hit the water flat on his back. But instead of sinking, he bounced high in the air. Fighting the strong current, Officer Church managed to steer his boat close enough to catch the man "on the first bounce." He survived. The police officer also likes to tell "floater" stories right out of "The Godfather." He has retrieved bodies that were tied with chains or stuffed into plastic bags. "It's the worst part of the job." The Harbor Unit is no place for fair-weather sailors. It is on duty 24 hours a day, every day of the year. There have been times in winter when thick ice covered the cockpit window, and Officer Church had to pick through it to gain a few inches of visibility. He has patrolled in storms with waves so high they tore the radar off the top of the boat. But fog is the worst. "In thick fog, something in you goes like this," Officer Church said, grabbing his stomach. The Harbor Unit was founded in 1858 with a fleet of 12 rowboats to combat piracy aboard merchant ships anchored in the harbor and crime on the docks. By the turn of the century, steamers had replaced the rowboats. Today the unit monitors 146 square miles of water and 576 miles of waterfront. "Most of the city's shoreline is accessible only from the water," explained Capt. Vincent Abbene, the commanding officer of the unit. "There are very few roadways." The Harbor Unit primarily enforces city and state regulations, while the Coast Guard deals with the Federal level, though there's some overlap, especially on rescue missions and drug raids. For such situations, the police officers are equipped with Ruger Mini-14 semiautomatic rifles and 12-gauge shotguns as well as emergency medical equipment. Officers must also have the skills of a boat mechanic. Everyone pitches in for engine repairs and weekly oil changes. "No one is afraid of getting their hands dirty," Captain Abbene said, "and everybody wants to be here." Before joining the Police Department 21 years ago, Officer Church operated a charter fishing boat in Brooklyn, |
653974_0 | Airline Luggage | To the Editor: While visiting in Atlanta recently, we read an article (Travel Advisory, Oct. 17) telling of a 43 percent increase in baggage thefts at Kennedy Airport and of the improved means of security being planned and some plans that have already been implemented. On Oct. 19, we flew back to La Guardia Airport from Atlanta on T.W.A. We retrieved our luggage and walked out the terminal exit, as did the other passengers from our plane, with no one to stop us. We looked around the east area, thinking that possibly the security person had walked away for a few minutes, but there were nosecurity personnel as far as we could see. Is invisible security one of the creative ideas being used by the airport to decrease the percentage of luggage thefts? Who assumes the responsibility for stolen luggage, the airline or the airport? The bottom line is that the passenger suffers. SYLVIA AND JOE SHEINMAN Lynbrook, L.I. John Kampfe of the Port Authority responds: Security in the airport areas leased by the individual airlines is the responsibility of the airline. The leased areas include the space around the luggage carousels inside the barriers. While the Port Authority recommends a positive match between the bag and the check when people leave the area, it cannot require it. La Guardia has not shown the rise in baggage thefts that the Port Authority has recorded at Kennedy and Newark Airports. Don Fleming of T.W.A. responds: While the positive bag match does prevent inadvertent removal of the wrong bag, we have found it less worthwhile in thwarting professional thieves. Our security measures have been effective, particularly at La Guardia; but we will not disclose our methods lest we compromise them. For 1993, our rate of mishandled-bag complaints is the third-best, as listed by the Department of Transportation, behind only Southwest and America West. |
653887_1 | Art | along briskly, with never a word wasted. The nearly 400 plates are as attentive to findings of recent date, whether they are now in Beirut or in Malibu, as they are to the celebrated equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. In every case, moreover, the plates are keyed by number to what is, in effect, a concise and authoritative catalogue entry. Text and picture nestle under our hand. Narrative gridlock is unknown. The "Oxford History" goes straight to the point and sticks to it all the way from pre-classical Greece to the porphyry Tetrarchs who huddle together on the outside of St. Mark's in Venice and may have been made in Egypt around A.D. 300. It has a lesson, too, and one now much neglected even in Oxford itself. And what is it? That, alike in art and in language, the classical world still matters. GIOTTO: THE ARENA CHAPEL FRESCOES. By Giuseppe Basile. (Thames and Hudson, $100.) All has not been well in this century with one of the supreme monuments of western European art: Giotto's frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua. In 1936 there was earthquake damage. The chapel narrowly escaped destruction during World War II. Moreover, the colors were slowly but steadily deteriorating. Despite careful restoration and cleaning in 1961-64, manifold dangers persisted. Among them were damp, dust, chemical pollution, the state of the building itself and, not least, the human presence in overlarge numbers. Between 1988 and 1991, a meticulous examination and photographic recording was carried out under the direction of Giuseppe Basile, an expert in restoration who teaches at the University of Rome and who has supervised the Giotto conservation project and another involving the frescoes of Piero della Francesca in Arezzo. In this book, Mr. Basile details what has been done to preserve the frescoes and what will still need to be done when the interior atmosphere has been stabilized. The 239 color plates survey the frescoes detail by detail, with a poignant immediacy that the visitor would not normally experience. FLEMISH PAINTINGS IN AMERICA: A Survey of Early Netherlandish and Flemish Paintings in the Public Collections of North America. Selected by Guy C. Bauman and Walter A. Liedtke. (Fonds Mercator/ Abrams, $145.) The dates covered in this majestic survey of Flemish paintings in North American museums are roughly from 1400 to 1700. The works reproduced and discussed number |
654090_0 | Peace Is Topic, but Doubts Are the Issue in Ulster | In Dublin and London, the talk these days is about peace, and the best hope yet for a settlement to end the years of bloodshed in Northern Ireland. But down at Brown's appliance store, on the Protestant side of Dungannon's business district, Ralph Brown stood alongside the blinking displays of Christmas lights Friday and shook his head in a gesture of utter disbelief. Like a lot of Protestants in the province, Mr. Brown does not see peace coming. Only the day before, less than 20 miles south of Dungannon, an I.R.A. sniper shot to death a British soldier on the streets of Keady. Outside the windows of shops here, even as Mr. Brown spoke, a team of police officers, wearing flak vests and carrying rifles, could be seen threading a nervous patrol among the early Christmas shoppers. "What I don't understand is how the British Government can talk with the very people who are still sticking their fingers up to society," said Mr. Brown, who has himself suffered from what is known locally as "the troubles." Since the early 1970's, Mr. Brown's shop has been damaged 39 times by I.R.A. bombs detonated in Dungannon. "What's happening now is like our worst fears being realized, because I don't know if I can still trust the British," Mr. Brown said. "Sure we want peace, but we don't want to be sold out either." Apprehension and Anger In the week since news broke that London had opened a channel of communications with the I.R.A., and the British and Irish Governments were pushing ahead toward negotiations on a possible peace, Northern Ireland's Protestant majority, which dominates the province's politics and business, has been swept by a alternating waves of apprehension and anger. "I'll tell you how people feel," said the Rev. Andrew Rodgers, the rector of Dungannon's Presbyterian Chruch and currently the titular head of all of Northern Ireland's 390,000 Presbyterians. "There is a world of apprehension and dismay and bewilderment out there. I know professional people, business people, who until now never gave much thought to politics who are now saying, 'Hang on, what is London doing?' " There is a kind of surreal feel to Dungannon, as there is to much of Northern Ireland, where the commonplace exists side-by-side with the unbelievable. Here is a lovely town of stone walls, rolling hills and soaring church spires, set in a green, pastoral countryside |
654024_0 | Trying to Breach the Walls of Hatred | AT the Vietnam peace talks, the first argument was over the shape of the table. If "talks about talks" ever get under way on Northern Ireland, there will probably be fights not just about the shape of the table but about what it's made of, whether it's level, where it should be and of course who should sit at it. In the 25 years of sectarian warfare in the six provinces of Ulster there has not been such a push for peace as now. Everything seems to conspire in favor of it: a new pragmatism on the part of the Irish Republican Army, a vague despair from the Protestant Unionists, and an all-around war weariness from the British soldiers and politicians who do the policing and the governing. What's more, the global winds are propitious for settling long-time conflicts, from the Middle East to South Africa. Yet for all the hopeful signs, realism demands a tempering skepticism. Rarely has there been a conflict so convoluted, with so many parties pulling in so many directions. Rarely has there been a situation in which there is a broad consensus that the time has come for some serious talking -- and yet so many obstacles to bargaining in good faith. To an outsider, the war is baffling. Several months ago a South African journalist visited Northern Ireland and wrote: "It's as grim a war as any . . . and extremely perplexing to white South Africans. We say, what's the problem? They're all white, they all speak English, they're all Christians of some kind or another, and yet there they are, locked in a cycle of violence that rivals Bosnia or the West Bank or even our own Boers-vs-blacks shindig in terms of sheer bloody-mindedness and absolute intractability." Northern Ireland proves the adages that similarities repel and that civil wars are the most vicious of all. The foot soldiers are poor Catholics and poor Protestants, sometimes from adjacent neighborhoods in Belfast's slums. The Catholics, a minority, feel persecuted by the Protestants. The Protestants bleed for continued union with Britain because if Northern Ireland combined with Ireland they would instantly become the minority. Britain has vowed never to betray the Unionists' wishes. Ireland has a territorial claim on the North, written into its Constitution. It is an irrational solar system of planets and satellites whirling in colliding orbits. Lost in the brouhaha that accompanied |
656284_1 | More Joining Quest for Cleaner Cars | Advanced Battery Consortium. The consortium, comprising General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, has $262 million to spend, half of it from the Department of Energy. The deal for the battery, a two-year effort to develop a lithium-polymer battery big enough for a car, is the biggest contract it has awarded so far. Hybrid Technology Grumman and Lilco will finish their work first; they plan to convert six of Grumman's aluminum-bodied Route Mate vans by the summer. Hybrids have a disadvantage because they carry two propulsion systems, and extra weight means reduced range. But Jerry Kirsch, head of the project for Grumman, said that the system could still be efficient. Grumman will use a one- or two-cylinder internal-combustion motor, powered by natural gas and roughly the size of a lawn mower, to run a generator charging the batteries when they are low. Complete with a cylinder of compressed natural gas, the package weighs less than 400 pounds, Mr. Kirsch said, but would allow the use of a battery pack that is 1,300 pounds lighter than what would otherwise be required in an electric car. The vehicle will not qualify as electric under the air-pollution rules that are set to take effect in California, New York and Massachusetts, but will fit into the cleanest category of internal-combustion engines, Mr. Kirsch said. A Plastic Battery The battery project is an attempt to replace lead or other dense materials with plastic, which is lighter and easier to work with. Argonne will provide engineering and testing services to the battery effort, according to the consortium. As in a conventional lead-acid battery, electricity would be stored or released with chemical reactions. But the plastic battery uses chemical salts too reactive to use in some kinds of liquids, Dr. Michel Gauthier, a senior scientist at Hydro-Quebec, said. Instead, they are stored in the polymer, which is a solid plastic. Hydro-Quebec's lab has 40 patents on the technology, which it has been developing for a decade. It has already produced small lithium batteries, Dr. Gauthier said. But Hydro-Quebec, a utility owned by the Province of Quebec, said it needed to work with a manufacturing company like 3M to produce the polymers, which must be mass-produced to precise specifications. According to Alain Brosseau, the utility's vice president for technology, the first use of lithium polymer batteries is likely to be in electronic devices like portable telephones and computers. COMPANY NEWS |
656402_0 | BRITISH-IRISH PLAN GIVES I.R.A. ALLIES TERMS FOR TALKS | Britain and Ireland produced a set of principles today to encourage peace negotiations on Northern Ireland, and Britain pledged to start talks with political representatives of the Irish Republican Army within three months if the I.R.A. renounced violence in the province. The declaration of principles, signed by Prime Minister John Major of Britain and Prime Minister Albert Reynolds of Ireland, came after two years of diplomacy and weeks of intensive negotiations aimed at ending 25 years of sectarian violence that has taken more than 3,100 lives. A Familiar Ring The document repeated long-held principles, including a commitment that Northern Ireland could remain a province of Britain for as long as most of its people want to. This is a variation of a principle already embraced by Dublin but stated more forcefully than in the past. [ Excerpts from the document, page A9. ] In its broadest outlines, the agreement is intended in the long run to let the Irish and British governments stand aside and to grant the residents of Northern Ireland the final say in how they will be governed. Specifically, the Irish Government agreed to press for change in two articles of its Constitution that claim dominion over Ulster, though only as part of an overall settlement. At the same time, the British Government accepted that a peace agreement "may, as of right, take the form of agreed structures for the island as a whole, including a united Ireland." 'Our Common View' After the signing, Mr. Reynolds declared: "This is an historic opportunity for peace. We hope that everyone will grasp it." The same theme was sounded by Mr. Major, who said the declaration "embodies our common view that it is now possible to end violence for good in Northern Ireland." Speaking of the I.R.A., he said: "The door is open to them. They won't have a better opportunity and they don't have a better option." In an unusual five-minute address to the nation, Mr. Major spoke later of the declaration as something that would let all sides "put the poison of history behind us." "There is no excuse, no justification and no future for the use of violence in Northern Ireland," he added. Speaking of negotiations he said, "I do know this -- it must be right to try and the door is open." Momentum for peace in Northern Ireland has gathered in recent months, partly as |
656405_0 | NEWS SUMMARY | International A3-15 PEACE PLAN FOR NORTHERN IRELAND Britain and Ireland produced a set of principles to encourage peace negotiations on Northern Ireland, and Britain pledged to start talks with the I.R.A. within three months if it renounces violence. A1 RUSSIAN ANXIETY ABATES Anxiety over Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky's strong showing in Sunday's elections abated as tallies of district voting reportedly showed that reformers would form the largest bloc in the new Parliament. A1 CLINTON PLAYS DOWN RUSSIAN VOTE President Clinton played down the importance of the strong showing of nationalists in Russian elections and said there was no need to change U.S. policy toward Russia. A11 Vladimir Zhirinovsky's anti-Semitic reputation may be overstated. A10 ISRAELI-P.L.O. DIFFERENCES The language of the Israeli-P.L.O. accord on limited Palestinian autonomy in Jericho and the Gaza strip is so ambiguous that it allows vastly different interpretations. As a result, the talks are stalemated. A3 ARAFAT SEEMS HOPEFUL ON PEACE Basking in the warmth of his first official visit to Britain, Yasir Arafat gave few hints that he is troubled by the growing problems facing the Israeli-P.L.O. accord. A3 TRADE ACCORD COMPLETED The long-contested world trade agreement among 117 nations was completed, providing a basis for global economic growth into the 21st century and ending seven years of negotiation on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. D1 U.S. ASKS BAN ON EXPORT OF MINES The U.S. has asked over 40 countries that are significant manufacturers of anti-personnel mines to impose a three-to-five-year ban on foreign sales. A14 CZECHS TO STOP NUCLEAR EXPORT Responding to U.S. pressure, the Czech Republic has promised to stop a Czech company from exporting nuclear technology to Iran. A15 Britain approved the start-up of a nuclear-fuel plant. A12 U.S. WON'T ALTER HAITIAN POLICY Rebuking its top human rights official, the Clinton Administration said it had no intention of changing its policy of returning Haitian boat people without granting them a chance to seek political asylum. A6 ANTI-FOREIGN VIOLENCE IN ALGERIA Twelve technicians from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were slain at a construction site in Algeria, raising to 23 the number of foreigners killed since they became a target of Islamic militants. A7 Osaka Journal: Is the world's most costly airport worth it? A4 National A18-25, B12-16 DEFENSE SECRETARY RESIGNS Defense Secretary Les Aspin resigned after concluding that President Clinton had lost confidence in his leadership, associates of Mr. Aspin said. Administration |
656225_0 | The Call For Peace In Ulster | Following are excerpts from a declaration of principles intended to bring about peace talks on Northern Ireland, issued today by John Major, the Prime Minister of Britain, and Albert Reynolds, the Prime Minister, or Taoiseach (pronounced THEE-shakh), of Ireland: The Taoiseach, Mr. Albert Reynolds T.D., and the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. John Major M.P., acknowledge that the most urgent and important issue facing the people of Ireland, North and South, and the British and Irish Governments together, is to remove the causes of conflict, to overcome the legacy of history and to heal the divisions which have resulted, recognizing that the absence of a lasting and satisfactory settlement of relationships between the peoples of both islands has contributed to continuing tragedy and suffering. They believe that the development of an agreed framework for peace, which has been discussed between them since early last year, and which is based on a number of key principles articulated by the two Governments over the past 20 years, together with the adaptation of other widely accepted principles, provides the starting point of a peace process designed to culminate in a political settlement. . . . The British Position The Prime Minister, on behalf of the British Government, reaffirms that they will uphold the democratic wish of a greater number of the people of Northern Ireland on the issue of whether they prefer to support the Union or a sovereign united Ireland. On this basis, he reiterates, on behalf of the British Government, that they have no selfish strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland. Their primary interest is to see peace, stability and reconciliation established by agreement among all the people who inhabit the island, and they will work together with the Irish Government to achieve such an agreement, which will embrace the totality of relationships. The role of the British Government will be to encourage, facilitate and enable the achievement of such agreement over a period through a process of dialogue and co-operation based on full respect for the rights and identities of both traditions in Ireland. They accept that such agreement may, as of right, take the form of agreed structures for the island as a whole, including a united Ireland achieved by peaceful means on the following basis. The British Government agree that it is for the people of the island of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts |
657911_2 | CLINTON TO YIELD ALL OF HIS FILES ON LAND DEALINGS | authorities at the Department of Justice with all documents relating to the Whitewater Development Corporation, including those in the files of Vincent Foster which were turned over to their personal attorney after Mr. Foster's death." White House officials said that Mr. Gearan's statement was meant to apply to any document related to the Whitewater matter. Request Was Anticipated In his statement, Mr. Gearan noted, "There has never been any suggestion by any law-enforcement official of any impropriety regarding the Clinton investment in Whitewater." In an interview, Mr. Gearan said that the files were being turned over voluntarily and thatthere had never been any request for the papers from law-enforcement authorities. Nevertheless, senior officials had said earlier this week that they would soon seek the documents, and White House officials had anticipated an eventual request, Justice Department officials said. The decision by the Clintons to yield the papers to Federal investigators followed several days of intense discussions within the White House about how to deal with the issue. In an interview with reporters on Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton said she saw no reason to make the Whitewater files public since she believed she and her husband had fully answered questions about the issue. Political Liability Seen At the same time, White House officials, anticipating that prosecutors would request or subpoena the files, had discussed the possibility of refusing to yield them by citing lawyer-client privilege between Mr. Clinton and Mr. Foster. But White House officials quickly concluded that invoking the concept of lawyer-client privilege would prove a huge political liability. One official said such an approach would be "politically untenable" likening it to a public official pleading the Fifth Amendment to avoid possible self-incrimination, an occurrence that inevitably magnifies public suspicion of wrongdoing even though it is entirely legal. Justice Department officials said the Whitewater files could be relevant not only to the criminal investigation of Mr. McDougal's savings and loan but also to a related inquiry into Mr. Foster's suicide. Note Sparked Investigation Mr. Foster took his life by shooting himself once in the head with an antique pistol in a Federal park in Virginia on July 20. After his death, a White House official discovered a note about his anguish over matters that included an unspecific statement that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had lied about some incident. Because of the assertion about the F.B.I., the Justice Department began an |
657959_1 | In Battling for Biotech, Monsanto Is the Leader | erosion by killing weeds with chemicals. In addition to other herbicides and its Ortho line of products, Monsanto also makes high-quality polyesters, specialty plastics used widely in the automotive, appliance and medical products industries, Nutrasweet sweeteners, and, through its G. D.Searle subsidiary, a range of drugs. It earned $436 million on sales of $6.02 billion in the first nine months of this year. Analysts said they believed the eventual worldwide demand for BST products could be $1 billion a year. But prying the new market open will be tough because biotechnology opponents are intent on stopping it. "BST's the flagship product of agricultural biotechnology, but it has no socially redeeming value," said Andrew Kimbrell, staff counsel for the Foundation on Economic Trends, a Washington-based group that has opposed most biotechnology commercialization efforts. He said that his group planned to file lawsuits in January aimed at blocking Monsanto from beginning sales of Posilac. Unlike most other products of gene-splicing that have reached the market, BST is not a medicine intended to improve human or animal health. Nor is it a substitute for an established product that would otherwise be extracted from animals at a much higher cost and risk of impurity, like the renin used in cheese making. The F.D.A. in 1990 approved an application by Pfizer Inc. to make that enzyme in genetically altered bacteria instead of recovering it from the stomachs of calves. What BST injections can do is increase the output from the average herd by about 10 percent. Output for individual cows could rise as much as 20 percent. That should benefit the most efficient farmers, but in a segment of farming already swamped by surpluses, many agricultural experts believe it will hasten the long-term decline in the number of dairy farms. And no one expects consumers to see any lower dairy product prices. Monsanto's moment in the biotech spotlight is hardly a surprise. It has been one of the heaviest investors in the field, having spent more than $1 billion on BST since 1982 and hundreds of millions more on other biotech research, including drug-related research at Searle. Close behind BST in Monsanto's pipeline are a pork hormone that could produce leaner pigs and a variety of genetically altered plants with improved herbicide tolerance and insect resistance. Still, the outcome of the BST battle may have more impact on the stock prices of small biotech companies |
658279_0 | Stakes Reach Beyond Boat Race | Stuart Hayim says his championship powerboat Recovery, "is energized by a lot of horsepower, but a lot more emotion." Hayim, who has crested the highest wave of powerboat racing over the past 15 years while battling cancer, could use those very words to describe his own existence on a daily basis. "No one goes across the bridge of life without paying a toll," said the 46-year-old Hayim, who lives with his wife, Lorna, and their three children in Great Neck, L.I. "I have a form of cancer that affects my immune system called lymphoma. I can't run from this disease. But I can use whatever success I've gained to help people like me fight it the way I have." Hayim's racing team won the Superboat racing world championship in November 1992, and this year became the first team in the 90-year history of powerboating to capture three championships in the same season. He has dedicated his racing efforts to bringing greater awareness of cancer research and recovery, which is how he came up with the name of his 40-foot catamaran. "In 1979, I was lying in a hospital bed in Long Island, wondering if I was going to die," said Hayim, whose father, Alvin, died of the same disease nearly two years ago. "One day, a guy named Robert Flug, who I went to grammar school with but hadn't seen in a while, showed up for a visit. He told me that he was diagnosed with cancer six years earlier, but he looked great. In fact, he said that he had just completed a 10-kilometer race that very day. He told me that if I kept up my spirits and tried hard enough, that I could overcome it the way he had." "That one visit turned my whole life around," Hayim added. "I was determined to get better and somehow do for others what Robert had done for me." Hayim, who grew up sailing with his family on Long Island Sound, always dreamed of competing professionally with his own powerboat racing team. "Water is the last legal frontier for outlaw lunatics like us," he said. Although he remains president of Hayim and Company, a family business that specializes in hand-made home furnishings from India, Hayim is living his dream in what he calls his "second life." After winning the American Power Boat Association Open Class National championship, the A.P.B.A. World |
658267_5 | Labs Conjure Up Fragrances And Flavors to Add Allure | nature alone." Presenting a Concept The flavor and fragrance industry garners its clients by presenting a concept or by specific requests from a company to create, improve or fortify a product. Both approaches recently took place at Ungerer & Company, a 100-year-old fragrance and flavor concern in Lincoln Park. Gary Voorhees, the fourth generation in his family to run the company, had been contacted by Immuno Genetics Inc. in Buena, Atlantic County, one of the largest producers of chicken vaccines and the holders of a patent on a vaccine that released an antigen that slowly allows the buildup of an immunity to a disease. Using the same liposome technology that worked for the vaccine, Immuno and Ungerer were successful in creating a microscopic particle that would allow a controlled-release-time flavor in a product that not only made it taste better but also extended its shelf life. Heading the project were Philip Capasso, flavor vice president at Ungerer, and Steve Hoch, Immuno's vice president of marketing. The product found favor with a major food company, and it has recently appeared on the shelf, labeled an "improved fat-free salad dressing." Its contents have a longer residual flavor, with the added fillip that it has a much sought-after fatty mouth feel, Mr. Capasso said. As for safety of the new technology, Mr. Capasso said: "As an industry we move slowly, taking tiny baby steps. Everything we do is observed by the Food and Drug Administration. We are used to working with the Government." Problem of 'Artificial' It was a consumer group in the 70's, however, that Mr. Capasso said sent an arrow through the flavor industry's back. The flak came with the introduction on labels of the word "artificial" for synthesized flavors. Mr. Capasso translates "artificial" in the same manner as Europeans refer to a molecule created by a human being that does not exist in nature. "Everything in existence is from a chemical," he said. "If you can break down the molecular makeup of a strawberry and synthesize it, that is duplicating nature." Dr. Stone agrees that the industry is beleaguered by a prejudice it has failed to overcome. "The suspicion about flavorings arises from belief that chemicals are bad," he said. "A strawberry has a chemical makeup. But chemicals have been equated with poisons and pesticides." The industry does make a flavor or a fragrance using natural ingredients; the essence of |
654404_0 | Ancient 'Starting Pistol' Turns Out to Be 2 Cords | AT the Panhellenic Games of ancient Greece, as early as the fourth century B.C., runners would crouch and lean forward at the ready, their naked bodies glistening with oil. They were restrained against a premature start by two cords stretched tight across the starting line. One cord held them at their waist and another at the knees. At the cry of "apite," for "take off," the cords fell forward and the runners broke, sprinting down the track to the cheers of spectators in the stadium. This was the way the highly competitive foot races of Greece began at least as early as 340 B.C., long before there were starting pistols. Archeologists have learned of this new facet of the ancient Greek passion for athletics from drawings on a vase found in Athens and excavations at Nemea, a site southwest of Corinth where some of the games were held every summer. Dr. Stephen G. Miller, a classics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, described the findings last week in a lecture at the campus and in an interview. The discovery of this innovative starting mechanism, Dr. Miller said, "shows very emphatically the frame of mind of Greeks of that period, the evolution of sport and the society that produces it." A certain professionalism had come to athletics. The status and livelihood of the athletes depended on winning, and the Greeks, he said, were "doing everything they could to assure the fairness and objectivity of the races." The importance of sport in Greek society had already been revealed in previous excavations at Nemea. Beginning in 1974, Dr. Miller and a team of archeologists uncovered remains of the large stadium and went on to discover the track, a temple to Zeus, an outdoor altar, a sacred grove of cypress trees, temporary quarters for athletes and a bath house. A site of Greek games, the archeologists concluded from this and written sources, was like a festival grounds and the events were accompanied by religious rites. Attendance at the games required an animal sacrifice to Zeus. Oldest Remaining Locker Room Further excavations revealed a graffiti-decorated tunnel through which the athletes entered the stadium and, more recently, what Dr. Miller concluded was the oldest remaining athletic locker room. This was evidence, he said, of the increasing segregation of athletes from the fans and the rest of society. At the suggestion of any parallels with |
657401_0 | Far Under Icecap and Ocean, Teams Seek Sign From Stars | HOPING to capture ghost-like neutrino particles that reveal hidden features of black holes, galactic cores and other cosmic enigmas, astrophysicists have begun installing a pair of peculiar "telescopes" -- one at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and the other under a half-mile of ice at the South Pole. Unlike conventional telescopes that gather and analyze visible light or radio waves, the new telescopes will look for neutrino particles, tiny packets of energy with neither electric charge nor measurable mass, which, although ubiquitous, are so elusive that they remained undetected until 40 years ago. Neutrino astronomy has developed rapidly in recent years, and has developed powerful neutrino detectors for exploring the workings of supernova stellar explosions and other cosmic phenomena. But unlike earlier neutrino detectors, the new telescopes will look for ultra-high-energy neutrinos of a type that may shed light on the mysterious power sources of galaxies. Both scientific groups, which are running a friendly race to begin making discoveries, overcame staggering obstacles to achieve the progress they have made in recent days. Last week, after some 20 years of design, engineering, planning and setbacks, a research coalition called Dumand, an acronym for Deep Underwater Muon and Neutrino Detector, lowered the first "string" of sensors in its neutrino telescope to the Pacific Ocean floor 15,750 feet deep, 18 miles west of Keahole Point on the Island of Hawaii. Using a research ship on loan from the University of Washington, the Dumand group not only anchored the lower end of its 1,431-foot-long sensor string to the ocean floor but laid a fragile and enormously complex communications and power cable from the instrument's base to the group's shore station. At the same time, another research coalition, called Amanda, for Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array, has begun squirting boiling water into the South Polar ice sheet (which is nearly three miles thick) to melt a deep hole to accommodate the first detector string in its own telescope. Although it is midsummer at the South Pole, the air temperature is usually below zero, and the cold has caused endless technical problems for the Amanda crew, which is based in a primitive canvas hut some distance from the permanent United States South Pole Station. In building conventional telescopes, scientists seek sites as high in or above the earth's obstructing atmosphere as possible -- on mountaintops, or even in space. But the requirement of a |
657344_1 | Child-Killer Diseases on Decline, Unicef Reports | against the biggest killers of small children in the world. Its annual report, titled "The State of the World's Children," says that the press tends to dwell on bad news from the third world rather than the good. The report notes that infant deaths from pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, tetanus and whooping cough are all in retreat and that severe malnutrition is being reduced despite a 20 percent rise in the number of children under 5 in the last decade. "Though the lens of history rather than of news, what is now happening in the developing world may come to be seen as the beginning of a final offensive against some of the oldest and most common enemies of the world's children," it says. The report will be presented to President Clinton at the White House on Tuesday by Unicef's executive director, James P. Grant. These advances are being made, the report says, because more and more developing countries are striving to meet the child health goals set by the World Summit for Children held here in 1990. By last July, 90 percent of the world's children were living in countries that had adopted or drafted national programs intended to meet the goals. These include cutting child mortality by a third by the end of the century, achieving 90 percent immunization coverage and insuring primary education for at least 80 percent of children. Between 1983 and 1992 deaths from measles among children under 5 dropped from over 2.5 million a year to just over one million a year. In the last 10 years deaths from neonatal tetanus have been cut from just over a million a year to half that figure. At the same time deaths from dehydration caused by diarrheal disease have fallen from over four million a year to just under three million. Since 1980 new cases of paralysis caused by polio declined from about half a million a year to an estimated 140,000 in 1992. The central development problem facing the post-cold-war world, Unicef says, is what it calls the "P.P.E. spiral" created in many developing countries by the interaction between poverty, rapid population growth and environmental degradation. Poverty leads to high rates of infant mortality, which encourages overpopulation. This in turn leads to unsustainable human pressure on land and other natural resources, bringing even greater poverty. Reversing that spiral must be the world's top priority, Unicef says. |
657318_3 | North Korea's Nuclear Program Provokes No Panic in the South | pouring into Seoul. "Does anybody in here want to risk that?" he asked, looking around. "South Koreans feel that the only bad guys are Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il," he said, referring to the North Korean leader and his son and heir apparent. "To the South Koreans, everyone else in the North is fine." So far the biggest threat to South Korea's strategy seems to be Washington. In the last month the two capitals seem to have been out of step with each other in their public assessments of the North Korean threat. When Pentagon officials have said that North Korean troops had concentrated enormous forces on the border, South Korean officials quickly responded that the situation along the Demilitarized Zone had barely changed. Fearing that the invective was going too far, the Clinton Administration adopted a similar line -- prompting fear in Seoul that the United States might be perceived by the North as going soft at a critical moment. Upset by American's Remark Today, officials here were upset again, this time because the White House chief of staff, Thomas McLarty, said on a Sunday television program that if North Korea did not allow international inspectors into its nuclear sites, the United States would consider an oil embargo. Officials here have gone to extraordinary lengths not to discuss specific sanctions, for fear of inciting the North. So when students took to the streets last week in anti-American protests against the opening of the South Korean market to imported rice -- even defacing the statue of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, regarded here as a hero for retaking Seoul after the North invaded in 1950 -- Government officials seemed secretly relieved. "To a large extent the nuclear issue has been relegated to the back pages for a while, and we really don't mind that," one of President Kim Young Sam's top advisers said the other day. The equanimity in Seoul about the North's nuclear weapons project is also partly a reflection of a new sense of security in South Korean society. Under President Kim, the security forces have been humbled and personal freedom is rapidly expanding. -------------------- U.S. and North Korea Meet WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 (AP) -- United States and North Korean officials met today to discuss "simultaneous steps" the two sides could take to end an impasse over North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons program, a North Korean official said. |
657346_0 | Science Group Asks Delay on Gene-Altered Foods | With the first two genetically engineered crops a few months away from American food stores, a scientific policy organization called on the Government yesterday to delay commercial approval until the United States better understands the potential risks the plants may pose to the environment. In a study intended to provoke the Clinton Administration into reconsidering policies that were instituted in the Reagan and Bush years, the organization, the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that the new plant technologies were not being adequately controlled by the Government. Responding to the study, Greg Simon, the Administration's top biotechnology policy coordinator, said most of the issues it raised had been debated extensively within the Government and among scientists. "The Department of Agriculture has done a very good job with the review of genetically engineered plants and on the environmental assessments of those plants," said Mr. Simon, the chief domestic policy adviser for Vice President Al Gore. Roger Salquist, the chief executive officer of Calgene Inc., a plant biotechnology company in Davis, Calif., said that since 1986, when the Government instituted new procedures for testing genetically engineered plants outdoors, not a single experiment had indicated that the crops were an environmental threat. "If there had been even the slightest problems, they would have appeared in one of those tests," said Mr. Salquist, whose company developed a new tomato that is awaiting approval by the Food and Drug Administration so it can be marketed. An F.D.A. spokesman said yesterday that the agency was expected to complete its review some time in the next two weeks, and the new tomato could be in food stores in a few months. A variety of squash is also near final approval. The study, "Perils Amidst the Promise," is part of a new project at the Union of Concerned Scientists to identify technologies and develop policies to help make modern agriculture less destructive of the environment. In a preface, the chairman of the group, Henry W. Kendall, said he hoped the report would provoke "serious public discussion of whether transgenic crops are likely to advance or retard progress towards a more sustainable agriculture." In the study, Dr. Margaret G. Mellon, a molecular virologist, and Dr. Jane Rissler, a plant pathologist, indicated that they had doubts that biotechnology would be as safe as the Government and the industry have said. Both scientists recently moved to the Union of Concerned Scientists from |
656873_0 | Professional Pay Disparity | To the Editor: It is Derek Bok who is naive to suggest that professional compensation is not the result of market forces. No one is guaranteed anything regardless of personal goals, drive and abilities. No politicians, film stars, athletes, doctors or business people are assured success. The field for which they trained might even be modified, re-engineered or eliminated in mid-stream! The United States is built by people who are not merely driven by financial rewards but by the enjoyment of what they do. The clergy, civil servants and teachers are attracted to their work by personal fulfillment, not by wealth. To suggest any reallocation by other than market forces over time is to risk the diminution of values this country was built upon: hard work and sacrifice. To suggest that the reduction of the compensation of corporate executives, doctors and other professionals (why not add professional athletes and performers?) could "bolster the quality of public education and government" as well as strengthen social morale is a vaporous vision not of this universe. BOB ALSPAUGH Tiburon, Calif., Dec. 9 The writer is a managing partner with KPMG Peat Marwick in San Francisco. |
656887_0 | Dec. 12-18: Squaring a Circle; Britain and Ireland Set Forth Hopeful, if Rather Vague, Principles for Peace Process | By the week's end, a dramatic peace initiative by Britain and Ireland to break the 25-year-long logjam and bring about peace talks in Northern Ireland won plaudits and accolades from just about everyone -- except those on both sides who are doing the actual fighting. The peace "process" -- it is too amorphous to be called a plan -- is a declaration of fundamental principles in the hopes that gunmen and terrorists for the Catholic minority and the Protestant majority in Ulster can agree upon them and thus be drawn into negotiations. Basically, the document tries to "square the circle" -- that is, to say that Britain will not stand in the way of a united Ireland if both North and South can agree to that, and that Ireland recognizes that such a solution cannot come about unless the majority in the North freely consents (which is highly unlikely). These positions have been stated before, but they are brought together in a single document and stated a little more forcefully this time -- indeed, too forcefully for some. Unionists, who favor union with Britain, feel the language actually seems to encourage a united Ireland. On the other hand, Nationalists argue that the Republic of Ireland seems to give up its constitutional claim to the North without getting a commitment to the "legitimacy" or "validity" of their aspiration for the island to be one. But optimists noted that neither side rejected it outright. Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army's political wing, warned "there are no quick fixes," a hint that the I.R.A. was deeply divided. And the Protestant paramilitaries likewise refused to call a halt to violence though they appeared to leave the door open to a ceasefire. ? <>?<JOHN DARNTON |
655759_1 | Clinton Seeks to Narrow a Growing Wage Gap | on lifting the skills of the non-college-educated, is desirable not only because it is good politics, but also because it will reduce income inequality and help make the nation's work force -- and its economy -- more competitive with those in Japan and Europe. But many economists say the effort will be able to offset in only a minuscule way the effect of powerful global economic forces. New technological developments, like robots and automated teller machines, are cutting demand for assembly-line workers, bank tellers and other unskilled workers, helping hold down their wages. At the same time, the growing demand for highly educated workers, like management consultants and software designers, is pushing up wages for college graduates. As a result, workers with college degrees, who in 1979 earned 38 percent more an hour than high school graduates, now earn 57 percent more, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based research group. Viewed in another way, the average hourly wage for high school graduates fell 12 percent from 1979 to 1991, after factoring in inflation, remained flat for workers with college degrees and rose by 8 percent for Americans with at least two years of graduate school. "A very, very large gap between the well-educated and everybody else," said Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich in an interview, "makes for an unstable society." The average American wage has stagnated in the last two decades because of the slowdown in productivity growth, with wages for those without college degrees squeezed especially hard by automation and the globalization of the world economy. "Global integration," Mr. Reich said, means the relatively unskilled are "competing with millions of people willing to work at a fraction" of their wage. A Gnawing Anxiety Clinton aides say American voters feel a gnawing economic anxiety not only because of a pervasive fear of layoffs but also because wages are on a downward escalator for a broad swath of workers. Mr. Reich, the principal architect of the Clinton strategy, plans to announce in January a much larger retraining program, aimed especially at workers in declining industries and hard-pressed regions. He has also pushed for more Job Corps money to train urban high school dropouts and for a new plan to set up apprenticeships for the non-college-bound -- people who often flounder before finding their first jobs. President Clinton's college loan program aims to enable more youths from moderate-income families to |
655827_0 | World Economies | |
656447_2 | In Belfast, Life Returns to Tension and Suspicion | disappointment." Still, many analysts and officials said they thought that Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, would try to persuade the I.R.A. that the proposals provided an honorable way for them to agree to end their attacks and start full-scale negotiations. Outside the Falls Road post office, waiting for a bus, Mickey Browne, 23 and a recent graduate of Queens University in Belfast, said, "I don't know if there's enough for Sinn Fein. I think Gerry's strong enough to bring the I.R.A. with him. He wouldn't have gone this far if he hadn't gotten an O.K. from the I.R.A., and I think there's enough in the statement to please Unionist moderates." Some Fears of Attacks "Major surprised me," he said of the British Prime Minister. "I think it would be quite an achievement, a good epitaph for him." A peace agreement, he said, "would be quite a coup, quite a response to his critics." He acknowledged fear among many Catholics that the statement would provoke violent attacks on Catholics by Protestant militants who saw it as a British sell-out of Protestants in Ulster. But he said such fears were overblown. "I don't believe they need an excuse," he said of the Protestant militants. "Their killing will continue as before, one or two at a time." Summing up the Prime Ministers' proposals, he added, referring to Protestants, "It's bad news for the loyalists." Pausing at Bomb Site Nearby, Joseph Davidson, a 52-year-old unemployed joiner, said, "I don't think the nationalist people got much out of it. But Sinn Fein should talk with the I.R.A." About a quarter of a mile away on the Shankill Road, in the heart of Protestant West Belfast, shoppers paused at the boarded-up site of the latest big I.R.A. bomb attack, a blast that killed nine Protestants in a fish shop on Oct. 23. Across from the site, in the Coffee Pot Restaurant, a dozen women drank coffee, ate doughnuts and reluctantly, then with animation, discussed the Prime Ministers' statement and Protestant-Catholic relations. A 65-year-old woman noted with emphasis that her name was Mary, "not Siobhan," a common Irish Catholic name. "I am not Irish, I am British," said another woman. Paisley Is Defended Mary continued: "John Major and Albert Reynolds have lost their minds. They've done a deal with the I.R.A. Paisley, he's the only man who's ever spoken the truth. The British? Traitors. They don't |
656585_0 | Why Should We Believe Britain on Irish Peace? | To the Editor: The ballyhooed Dec. 15 British-Irish declaration (front page, Dec. 16) is not a step toward peace but a disappointing recipe for more bloodshed in Ireland. The British seem to be hyping the same time-worn policies that have cost so many Irish lives, in the hopes of escaping blame. Irish victims of British rule had hoped for a great deal more, particularly after the Gerry Adams-John Hume initiative provided a realistic basis for a just peace. Last month, Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, disclosed that contacts between Irish Republicans and the British had been taking place over a long period. Immediately, John Major, the British Prime Minister, and his Secretary for the North of Ireland, Patrick Mayhew, denied such contact. After more disclosures, the British conceded that such contacts had taken place. The reality is that the British initiated the contacts. The British proposed face-to-face negotiations and requested a short suspension of Irish Republican Army operations to facilitate talks. Sinn Fein received an undertaking from the I.R.A. and accepted the proposal last May. Republicans then waited. It soon became obvious that the British were turning to a strategy of undermining the Adams-Hume initiative. The Dec. 15 peace declaration seems no more than another British ploy to deflect blame for refusal to make a legitimate settlement. Americans must see the real significance of these events. The British Government turned away from negotiations about peace because Prime Minister Major opted for official Unionist Party votes at Westminister to protect his own political position. Americans should ask how many Irish lives and how much Irish blood will be the price for those votes. When the British pontificate about consent, they mean they are giving a minority loyal to Britain religious ascendancy and a veto power over Irish national self-determination. Irish Republicans have proved in these discussions a desire for a just peace and willingness to negotiate. When the British Government repeatedly stated it had never negotiated with Irish Republicans, and would not do so without an end to the armed struggle, the British were lying. Americans should ask why we should believe anything the British Government says about the Irish struggle. The Adams-Hume initiative can still be the basis of a just peace in Ireland, if only the British would respond positively. Americans should push the Clinton Administration to urge the British to take the necessary steps. If this opportunity |
658089_4 | London Journal; For the Troubled Anglicans, Peace Is Still Elusive | Britain since the times of Henry VIII, when he severed the nation's ties to Rome over his marriage to Anne Boleyn, it has found itself serving an increasingly secular nation. Much of the current tension within the church revolves around what some describe as a question of marketing. "If I am going to serve my own parish, I must work on the basis that I am going to provide what the customers want," said the Rev. David Rhodes, the rector at St. Giles Cripplegate. "There is no point in doing otherwise, because they won't come." An Old Parish St. Giles Cripplegate is one of London's oldest parishes; John Milton is buried beneath the worn stone floor of the altar. It is also one of the most prosperous. Mr. Rhodes's congregation is drawn mostly from elderly and upper-middle class residents who live in or near the Barbican, a complex of sleek apartments, theaters and shops built in the 1970's in the City of London. At St. Giles, that means, among other things, offering a more contemporary liturgy and embracing the contributions of women. Mr. Rhodes is assisted by two women deacons, one of whom expects to be ordained as a priest. "I have always suspected that much of the opposition to women as priests comes from churches where the only role women play is cleaning the brass or arranging the flowers," he said. Until the first ordinations take place next spring, as now planned, the church's 1,350 women deacons remained barred from celebrating the Holy Eucharist, the most sacred moment of the Anglican service, although they are permitted to perform marriages, baptisms and funerals. Nearly half of the 28 self-governing provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion already ordain women, including the United States. Dr. Graham Leonard, the former Anglican Bishop of London, is among as many as 160 of the church's 10,200 full-time priests who have already made formal inquiries about joining the Roman Catholic Church in protest over the ordination of women, which they regard as a violation of both Scripture and 2,000 years of Catholic-Anglican tradition. Hundreds more are believed to be considering resignation. The number of priests who might join the Catholic church will depend on whether the Vatican will allow married Anglican priests to take charge of Roman Catholic congregations, a question the church is still studying, according to Kieran Conry, a Roman Catholic spokesman in London. |
653747_0 | ULSTER TALKS FAIL TO MAP PEACE DEAL | After seven hours of apparently heated discussions, the Prime Ministers of Britain and Ireland failed today to reach agreement on a new formula that could lead to an end to violence in Northern Ireland and pave the way for formal peace talks involving the Irish Republican Army. But both John Major of Britain and Albert Reynolds of Ireland said they would meet again next week in Brussels, and there is also expected to be a third meeting, probably in London, before Christmas. Mr. Major and Mr. Reynolds made it clear that their discussions had included sharp exchanges, particularly on recent disclosures that Britain, without telling Mr. Reynolds, had extensive contacts with the I.R.A. and its political arm, Sinn Fein. Mr. Reynolds was reportedly angered because Britain was in touch with Sinn Fein while Mr. Major was publicly rejecting a peace initiative favored by Ireland because one of its authors was Sinn Fein's president, Gerry Adams, adding that the prospect of negotiating with Mr. Adams would make his stomach turn. Caused a Political Uproar The disclosures caused a political uproar here, in the North and in Britain, and the Irish Government felt it was left embarassingly out in the cold. One disclosure, by Sinn Fein, asserted that Britain was briefing Sinn Fein on its talks with the Irish Government. Britain has denied some of the details of the disclosures, but admitted that there were many contacts with the organization it regularly characterizes as terrorist in public. Irish officials do not object to the contacts as such, which they consider necessary in the twisted business of trying to negotiate a peace, but they feel London made Dublin look foolish. The talks today occurred at Dublin Castle, a 17th-century bastion that was the seat of British colonial power in Ireland until 1922, when Ireland gained independence and the six northern counties remained part of Britain. That partition, and the violence it produced, are the subject of the new initiative to end 25 years of the sectarian guerrilla war involving British security forces and paramilitaries of the Roman Catholic Minority and the Protestant majority. The contacts with the I.R.A. have complicated, but not killed, the accelerated peace initiative. The Prime Ministers agreed tonight that they had "cleared the air," on this issue, and that it would not block cooperation toward a new framework for peace. But they failed to work out the wording of |
653755_3 | U.S. Seeks to Bring France Into Trade Pact's Fold | of France, Mr. Legras was particularly well placed to coax the French Government toward a compromise, a process reflected in increasingly conciliatory statements about the GATT standoff by Mr. Balladur over the last two weeks. Both Mr. Balladur and Mr. de Silguy are also graduates of the same school. The essence of the trade-off between the United States and the European Community that would lead to the outline accord reached yesterday quickly became clear: greatly improved access in Europe for United States agricultural and industrial goods in exchange for a more gradual reduction in farm export subsidies and, in turn a less dramatic effect on the income of French farmers. "Legras was prepared to take a hell of a lot of political heat on giving us greater market access if we'd take some heat on changing Blair House," Mr. O'Mara said, as he looked over a document outlining the farm accord called, "Peace Agreement between the United States and the European Community." Mr. Legras's secretary said he could not be reached for comment. A Possible Breakthrough After the first negotiating session on Nov. 19, the two men met again this week, on Tuesday in Geneva, a day before Mr. Kantor's arrival in Brussels. By then they had drafted the main elements of a possible breakthrough -- an agreement described by Mr. Eizenstat, the Ambassador, as involving "giant cross-sectoral trade-offs." The United States has secured what Mr. O'Mara called a "market access package significantly better than what we hoped for." It includes a provision that insures the valuable American corn exports to Spain, which had been threatened by community trade barriers, will remain at a level of up 2.3 million tons a year indefinitely. Moreover, big tariff cuts on products including fruits, vegetables, nuts, processed turkey, almonds and pork should be worth several hundred million dollars in increased American exports, American officials estimated. Community grain tariffs would be kept at a level that should eventually allow American grain to enter Europe and still be priced competitively. Aid to Trade Seen Further tariff cuts in areas including paper, wood, electronics, and nonferrous metals should also provide the United States with a significant lift to trade in Europe. In return, however, Mr. Kantor has had to go further than he said he would. For whatever spin is ultimately put on it by the Clinton Administration -- words like clarification and elaboration are flying |
659236_0 | I.R.A. Sniper Kills British Soldier, Raising Doubts on Peace Initiative | An I.R.A. sniper shot and killed a British soldier on patrol in Northern Ireland today, raising doubts over prospects for a British-Irish initiative aimed at bringing peace to the province. The killing, for which the I.R.A. took responsibility, was the first in Northern Ireland since Britain and Ireland started their peace bid on Dec. 15, challenging the I.R.A. to halt its violence in exchange for a seat for Sinn Fein, its political arm, at talks on the future of the province. The sniper attack also came a day after the I.R.A. issued a New Year's message signalling it wanted peace but was not yet prepared to give up its armed campaign to drive the British out of the province and unite Ireland. But in their statement on Wednesday, the I.R.A. did not reject the peace initiative outright, suggesting instead that Britain would have to give more if it wanted to bring an end to violence in Northern Ireland. 5th Attack Since Christmas The soldier was killed by a single sniper's bullet while on foot patrol in the village of Crossmaglen, along the border with the Irish Republic. It was the fifth attack on British soldiers and security personnel in the province since the I.R.A. ended its annual 72-hour Christmas cease-fire on Monday. On Wednesday night, a soldier was slightly wounded when a mortar was fired on a British patrol in Belfast. [ Police officials said that unknown assailants threw a bomb in a coffee can at a patrol of security force jeeps in north Belfast late Thursday but that there were no casualties, Reuters reported. ] Coming just after the Christmas truce, during a period described by British and Irish leaders alike as a window of opportunity for peace, the killing of the soldier provoked varying expressions of outrage and despair. "To murder when peace is being explored is cynical and offensive to everyone, and can only add to speculation that consideration of peace is not being taken seriously by the I.R.A.," said Seamus Mallon, the deputy leader of the mainstream Social Democratic and Labor Party, which claims the largest following among the mostly Roman Catholic republican community in Northern Ireland. But while Sir John Wheeler, the top British official in Northern Ireland, called the killing a "wicked crime," he held out hope the I.R.A. might still come around. A Year of Peace? "In these last days of 1993, after |
659276_2 | Paris Journal; Frenchwomen Say It's Time to Be 'a Bit Utopian' | and 15.7 percent of the lower house of the Spanish Parliament. But women have a higher political profile in northern Europe. In their countries' main legislative assemblies, women hold 21.6 percent of the seats in Germany, 27.3 percent in the Netherlands, 32.6 percent in Sweden, 33.5 percent in Denmark and 38 percent in Norway. As far back as 1979, a women's group within the French Socialist Party backed the idea of sexual parity in Parliament, though it was never adopted. In the 1980's the Green Party in both Germany and France also began picking equal numbers of men and women as candidates. In the United States, a small group called "50/50 by 2000" has been active since 1988, promoting the idea of parity in Congress, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court by the end of the century. Its slogan has now been adopted by the National Association for Female Executives. 'Liberty, Equality, Parity' The new push in France dates back 18 months, to the publication of a book, "To Power, Women Citizens! Liberty, Equality, Parity," written by Mrs. Servan-Schreiber, Francoise Gaspard, a former Socialist legislator, and Anne Le Gall, a French lawyer. "Exclusion of women has been part of France's political philosophy since the Revolution," said Mrs. Servan-Schreiber, who also publishes a newsletter called Parite-Infos. "Women of my generation -- I am 55 -- didn't have to fight for the vote. But nothing has happened here since universal suffrage." France was late in taking even this step. Women have voted in Russia since 1917, in Germany since 1919, in the United States since 1920, in Britain since 1928 and in Spain since 1931. But in France, they won this right only in 1944. Until then, it seemed, France's avowedly secular political system feared that the Roman Catholic Church could wield excessive influence through women who voted. No Increase in Representation What most startled Mrs. Servan-Schreiber, though, was the discovery that even though more women then men now vote, women hold the same proportion of parliamentary seats -- 6 percent -- that they did in the assembly elected in 1945. And, in the interim, the share has never been higher and at times has fallen as low as 3 percent. After the elections in March, women of the parity movement demonstrated against the male stranglehold over Parliament. A few women have gained prominence in French politics. In 1991, Edith Cresson, a |
659251_2 | Indian Pt. 3 Poses Threat, N.R.C. Warns | 10 worst in the nation. Peter W. Eselgroth, the N.R.C. official in charge of regulating Indian Point 3, said recent problems "raise the question as to whether performance has really bottomed out." The commission made its report to plant officials in a meeting on Dec. 10 that was supposed to be about re-starting the reactor but turned into a discussion of more pressing problems. The next issue of the plant newsletter, "Inside IP3," summarized the situation like this: "The N.R.C.'s view is that we are a risk to ourselves and to those around us." In the newsletter, dated Dec. 13 and distributed at the plant, Mr. Garrity said: "What we've been doing up to this point has not been working. That's what we told the N.R.C. and that's what the facts illustrate pretty clearly." Among the problems was an incident this fall in which workers examined liquid wastes in one of twin holding tanks and determined that the material was safe to release to the Hudson River; they then released the contents of the other tank instead. Plant personnel later determined that the material released was not dangerously radioactive, but the episode illustrates the danger, Mr. Eselgroth said. The most recent problem was an attempt to restart a compressed-air system that is used to power valves that control the flow of cooling water in the plant. Plant personnel pumped up the air pressure to a level higher than the valves are rated to handle. The newsletter said that according to the plant's manager, the episode was a "fiasco" and if there were one more error of that magnitude, "there won't be a starting schedule." In addition, he said: "There are people on this site who cannot be trusted to do what has to be done in the way it has to be done. So people are going to be watching." The plant needs N.R.C. permission before it can restart. Plant officials had hoped to be ready to invite the commission back in February 1994 to demonstrate that they were ready to resume operations, with a goal of actually starting up a few weeks later. They have now dropped that idea, and do not know when they will be ready even to make a case for resuming operations. So far this year the authority has dismissed its president, John Brons, because of the nuclear problems. (The authority's other reactor, the James |
654793_2 | International Report Card Shows U.S. Schools Work | the 24 nations surveyed. Describing the report as "full of pluses and minuses," Education Secretary Richard W. Riley said yesterday that the study "illustrates why the American habit of being comfortable with just being average comes up short in the new global economic environment." Mr. Riley said the report "confirms why there is an urgent need to press ahead in our continuing efforts to give every American child a world-class education." The United States' proportion of science graduates in the labor force -- 653 per 100,000 -- is slightly higher than the proportion in other nations. While lagging behind Britain and Japan, it is about the same as Germany. Although only 15.3 percent of all college degrees awarded in 1991 in the United States were in the sciences -- math, computer science, engineering or natural science -- more people attended college, producing more science graduates for the work force. In Germany, 32 percent of all degrees are in the sciences, but the percentage of people attending college is less than half that of the United States. In Japan, 25.7 percent of degrees are in the sciences, but the percentage of people attending college is only two-thirds the rate in the United States. Competing Pressures On the whole, American colleges and universities continue to outstrip competing systems, not only in the total number of graduates but in dollars spent for education. The United States spends $13,639 on each college and university student. The vast majority of other countries spend between $6,000 to $7,000 per student, the study indicated. Not surprisingly, the study indicated, the more educated a worker is, the better his or her financial rewards. This is especially true in free-market systems. Among the educational strengths and weaknesses cited in the report, France and Finland had the highest literacy rates, Belgium had the lowest student-teacher ratio, and Portugal, which recently expanded its public education, ranked lowest in math achievement, behind the United States and Spain. The report is a systematic comparison of education in the industrialized world by what is essentially an international research center specializing in the economies of its member nations. The first such study by the 33-year-old organization, which includes the European Community and the G-7 nations, was done last year. This year's study is more encompassing, taking into account different structures in educational systems. While the report calls for increased attention to linking educational systems with |
653539_4 | Reporter's Notebook; For Cuba, Mixed Scores In Games and in Politics | other fans chanting "Fidel No! Cuba Si!" but the flashy Cubans seemed far more at home than the earnest contingent of big-league scouts dutifully charting pitches and scouting prospects. In the end, the fans got both a good show and a good game, which the Senators won 4 to 3 when Mr. Ajete gave up a two-run, ninth-inning home run by the catcher, Javier Lopez. That ended the Cubans' 100-game winning streak, but it allowed the Cuban manager, Jorge Fuentes, to show he can spout post-game platitudes about closely matched squads and crucial hits like a major leaguer. Less-Exalted Refugees Of course, worrying about whether or not to accept million-dollar contracts from fat-cat Yanqui baseball owners is not the biggest issue facing most Cubans. More typical was a boatload of 67 less-exalted Cuban refugees, which arrived on Tuesday from the Dominican Republic. The group managed to illegally charter a 35-foot long, aluminum, twin-engined boat to make the roughly 100-mile trip across the treacherous Mona Channel between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. After a harrowing 25-hour trip, in which the boat almost capsized, the tired, waterlogged group arrived in Puerto Rico Tuesday. On Wednesday, they lounged in the sun at the Casa Cuba social club, a Cuban community gathering place along the coast in San Juan's pricey Isla Verde section, sampling Medalla and Malta India beers, eating lunches of rice and black beans and steamed chicken, and preparing to join relatives in Miami. One refugee was Leodil Lazaro Majias MacWilliam, who was wearing a Coca-Cola shirt and blue jeans, and whose name reflects his ancestor's Scottish roots. "Life in Cuba has become a struggle for daily survival, finding cooking oil or a piece of meat to eat," he said. "No one listens to the propaganda anymore. Many people talk about trying to leave. But most of them are too busy, tired and exhausted trying to survive to do anything about it." He said that shortages of food had become chronic over the last year and that most Cubans now eat one meal a day, made up of vegetables like plantains, rice, potatoes and yams, augmented by drinks of sugared water. Mr. MacWilliam, who is 28 and divorced, leaves behind his mother, father and a son, and comes with no illusions that he's in the same demand that Mr. Linares is. "I'll do anything," he said. "I just had to leave." |
653483_2 | What's What In The World Trade Talks | products made more efficiently elsewhere. The Basics TARIFFS These are taxes that Governments collect on imports from other countries. The overall goal of the Uruguay Round is to reduce average tariffs by at least one-third. Previous GATT negotiations have cut average tariffs on manufactured goods to 5 percent from 40 percent in the late 1940's. While other nations' tariffs can be quite high, the average American tariff on manufactured imports is 4 percent. Japan, Canada, the United States and the European Community agreed in Tokyo in July to eliminate tariffs entirely on pharmaceuticals, construction equipment, medical equipment, some furniture, and whisky and beer. In addition, it is proposed that agricultural tariffs be reduced by 36 percent in industrial nations and 24 percent in developing nations. Agricultural tariffs vary widely because they are often charged by the penny per kilogram or liter, rather than as a percentage of the product's value. QUOTAS These are limits on the quantity of imports, like American limits on the number of tons of imported peanuts. Previous talks have eliminated most manufacturing quotas except for textiles and finished apparel. The Uruguay Round would eliminate this exception and also require countries to replace their extensive quotas or bans on farm imports with tariffs that provide comparable protection. Quotas are pervasive in international farm trade, and the United States imposes them on dairy products, peanuts and sugar. Some of the new tariffs could start as high as several hundred percent, and would be gradually reduced. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY The agreement, as it now stands, requires that all countries protect patents, copyrights, trade secrets and trademarks, including developing countries, where pirated computer programs, record albums, videocassettes and prescription drugs have been commonly available for years. But Western pharmaceutical manufacturers are angry that the proposed protections will come too slowly to benefit many companies doing business now. Indeed, some drugs will not receive full patent protection in developing countries for 20 years. A NEW TRADE ORGANIZATION The current text would create an institution in Geneva to enforce GATT's free trade rules. The new institution would be much more powerful than the GATT Secretariat is now, having the power to assess trade penalties against countries by a vote of two-thirds or three-quarters of the nations, whereas the Secretariat can act only when the members unanimously vote to do so -- something that is rare. The Clinton Administration and many Rust Belt industries |
657523_0 | I.R.A. Leader Calls for Dialogue; Britain Balks at 'Unconditional' | The leader of the Irish Republican Army's political arm made his first substantive response today to the overtures by Britain and Ireland last week for peace in Northern Ireland, calling for unconditional talks with London and Dublin. But the Northern Ireland Office of the British Government rejected the proposal. In the start of what is likely to be a long process of public posturing and political give-and-take, the leader, Gerry Adams, did not directly address the demand by Britain and Ireland that the I.R.A. renounce violence before its Sinn Fein political arm can be included in any negotiations. British officials said neither the British nor the Irish Government would change its position that talks could be held only after the I.R.A. stops its violent campaign to end British rule in the province. Mr. Adams's statement, in fact, came less than a day after the I.R.A set off a bomb on Monday night in Belfast, slightly wounding a British soldier and a civilian. In London, four small firebombs, apparently set by the I.R.A., went off on Monday night without wounding anyone, and a bomb threat early today closed many rail and underground stations around London during the morning rush hour. "There is a need for direct and unconditional dialogue if we are to move forward on these points," Mr. Adams said, referring to what he said were a range of ambiguities in the British-Irish proposal and in public statements made by leaders of both nations on issues like freeing imprisoned members of the I.R.A. 'Beginning of the End' Commenting on the British-Irish proposal, Mr. Adams said: "It certainly isn't the end. Some politicians may want to make it the end of the beginning. We want to make it the beginning of the end." The peace negotiations, he said, would be "difficult, dangerous and protracted." His remarks came at a news conference in Belfast, his first since Prime Minister John Major of Britain and Prime Minister Albert Reynolds of Ireland signed a declaration of principles last Wednesday intended to provide common ground for peace negotiations between the two nations and the opposing factions in Northern Ireland -- the Protestant majority, which largely favors continuing the union with Britain, and the Roman Catholic minority, which supports reunification with Ireland. The declaration recognizes the right of the majority in Northern Ireland to determine whether to remain a part of Britain or to be reunited |
657487_0 | Chinese Seek a Halt To 'Abnormal' Births | A Chinese official has proposed giving the Government the authority to use sterilization and abortion to prevent the birth of children who might be considered "abnormal." The official's report cited the existence of "more than 10 million disabled persons who could have been prevented through better controls." The move is certain to outrage groups who have been watching China's human rights record. Article, page A8. |
657514_5 | As Free Trade Draws Nations Together, Campus Becomes 'Mexico Think Tank' | the San Diego campus invited him to establish the center. While he was teaching at M.I.T., Professor Cornelius had a particularly bright graduate student from Harvard who took advantage of cross-registration privileges between the two institutions. His name was Carlos Salinas de Gortari. "At that point I couldn't tell how high he could rise," Professor Cornelius said. "He clearly stood out among the foreign students who took classes at M.I.T. during that period as someone with extraordinary drive and intelligence." The two have remained close. In 1991 the center organized a luncheon with President Salinas in which it raised $87,500 for its endowment. Professor Cornelius is a regular visitor to Los Pinos, the Mexican White House. Some critics say that the center is too close to the Salinas Administration. A case in point, they say, came this year, when Raul Salinas, the President's brother, was appointed a guest scholar in residence. Described as an engineer and agronomist, he researched land ownership reforms undertaken during his brother's term in office. Professor Cornelius said that Mr. Salinas came with a legitimate research project and his own financial support. "We have never turned away a qualified researcher with a serious piece of Mexico-related research as long as he had his own financial support," he said. But he conceded the difficulty of maintaining an image of impartiality, particularly with the increased attention on Mexico. "We're always walking a tightrope," he said. "Namely, are we going to be perceived as advocates or agents of Mexico in the U.S., or as agents for some interests of the United States in Mexico." Reams of Research The output of the center's research can be seen in 91 dissertations and more than 115 books, reports and other publications that are used in 120 colleges and universities. Graduates now hold positions in universities all over the continent, as well as in many branches of the Mexican Government. Reaching agreement on a free trade agreement was only the beginning of a long process of integration for the two nations, Professor Cornelius said. "I view this as a period of both great potential opportunity and great potential conflict," he said. "To the extent that the costs of this trade agreement are going to be spread over the short term, and the benefits realized only over a much longer period of time, there's a potential for recrimination and tension that didn't exist before." |
657503_0 | China Weighs Using Sterilization and Abortions to Stop 'Abnormal' Births | China's Minister of Public Health has proposed national legislation to halt the birth of "abnormal" children, using Government-ordered sterilizations and abortions if necessary. The Minister, Chen Minzhang, has presented draft legislation on "eugenics and health protection" to the National People's Congress and said China is in "urgent need of adopting such a law to put a stop to the prevalence of abnormal births," the official New China News Agency reported. In an appearance before congress leaders, he cited statistics showing that China "now has more than 10 million disabled persons who could have been prevented through better controls," the agency reported. The minister said the program would be administered under strict conditions and training. Intervention would be approved "by the authorities at the county level and above," the report said. Review Panel Planned Pregnant women diagnosed as carrying infectious diseases or abnormal fetuses would be "advised" to terminate the pregnancy, the report said. A spokeswoman for the Public Health Ministry's policy and law office said today that if the Chinese congress passes the legislation this spring, a panel of experts would be named to decide and define what birth defects and infectious diseases would be considered and the rules under which state intervention would be warranted. The proposed legislation is likely to lead to an outcry from human rights groups and other international organizations that fear the Chinese authorities will start down a road of increasing reliance on sterilization and abortion. China's one-family-one-child population policy has been under sustained assault for its use of coerced abortions to end second or third pregnancies. The legislation could also complicate the Clinton Administration's decision on whether to certify that China is making progress on human rights. An earlier alarm over eugenics legislation in China arose five years ago when authorities in northwestern Gansu Province said a high proportion of babies born with mental defects had compelled them to pass regional legislation prohibiting the mentally retarded from having children. Any mentally retarded woman found to be pregnant was subject to mandatory abortion and the provincial authorities were said to be seeking to sterilize as many as 260,000 women. One Western official said his organization approached central authorities in Beijing at the time and inquired about the Gansu measures. "We were told that there would not be national legislation," the official said. Today, the spokeswoman for the Health Ministry said that the "serious situation" in |
657567_2 | The Presents Food Experts Cook Up | trip to Tunisia, where she was researching a book, Ms. Wolfert gave each local woman who shared cooking secrets one of her favorite kitchen gadgets: the rolling mincer, a $5 item that looks like a little plastic snail and is sold by Signatures in Perris, Calif. Ms. Wolfert, who suffers from arthritis, uses it to chop things like olives, walnuts and spinach. "Sometimes if it's cold in the winter, I can't hold the knife," she said. If cost and weight were no object, she would have taken each woman a granite mortar the size of a bowling ball, and a pestle, which she uses for turning spices and nuts into pastes. Maury Rubin Owner, City Bakery, Manhattan "I give dessert wine from Bonny Doon Vineyard in Santa Cruz, Calif. It's $16 or $17. I love to get an almond croissant from Patisserie Millet in Paris. By the time it gets back here it's a buttery, sugary, rummy mess." Jeremy Rifkin Author and an opponent of bioengineered foods He has been campaigning against genetically engineered foods, so what would be more apt than giving milk that is certified to be free of bovine somatotropin, or BST, a growth hormone for cows? The hormone has been approved for use starting Feb. 3, and some dairies are starting to label their products as hormone-free. "That's the in, chic, politically correct gift," he said. Lisa Ekus Cookbook publicity agent She sends either sliced salmon or caviar from Boyajian, in Newton, Mass. "That's my gift of choice," she said. Michael Stern Author and cookbook writer "My favorite thing to give was Herman, this wonderful sourdough starter. It's like a chain letter. It's a nightmare. It's like giving the blob." It worked like this: someone gave him and his wife, Jane, part of Herman. They nurtured it, kept some for themselves, and passed some on to others. For some of his gift recipients, the responsibility of keeping it alive was too much. "People still remind me of it," he said. Jean Carper Author of books on food and health She would put together a gift basket of foods that she believes benefit health. "In it I would put: a bottle of extra-virgin olive oil, for the heart; sardines in water, which are high in omega-3 fatty acids; green tea, which lessens clogged arteries and has anti-cancer compounds; some citrus marmalade, because there is evidence that eating |
658777_3 | New York's Puerto Ricans Split in Economic Success | children live below the poverty level. One in three Puerto Rican households relied primarily on public assistance in 1989, reporting no earnings. All three of the city's 59 community districts in which real income declined during the 1980's, all of them in the South Bronx, have large Puerto Rican populations. The analysis found that many children are growing up in what are termed subfamilies, in which neither parent heads the household. While that situation is not a Puerto Rican phenomenon, the report said, "its impact is felt more on the Puerto Rican population" because of the large number of children, the high proportion (though declining number) of female-headed families and the "poorer socioeconomic status of the population." While twice as many Puerto Ricans reported income below the poverty level than New Yorkers over all, the analysis found a substantial rise in real income during the 1980's. Nonetheless, the Puerto Rican families still made only 56 cents for every dollar earned by all families in the city. Predictably, married couples fared best. Their income increased by 41 percent during the last decade, raising it to about 75 percent of the average income for all New York families. Puerto Rican women who are college graduates earned 83 cents for every dollar earned by all women in professional specialty jobs. But real income for all Puerto Rican families headed by a woman was outpaced by income gains for all female-headed families. Real income, adjusted for inflation, declined for Puerto Rican female-headed families with their own children. Some Other Findings The Planning Department's analysis was presented at Manhattan Community College to representatives of civic groups and social service organizations by the department's director, Richard L. Schaffer. These are among the other findings: *Puerto Ricans accounted for about 51,000 of the more than 800,000 people who moved into the city since 1985 and 138,000 of the more than one million New Yorkers who left town. Among the Puerto Ricans who moved from New York City, 4 in 10 went to Puerto Rico. *The Puerto Rican population is maturing, but is still younger than the city's general population. A growing segment is made up of the 25-to-44-year-old sons and daughters of migrants from Puerto Rico. *The proportion of Puerto Ricans age 25 and over who are high school graduates lagged behind the total population, but rose from 35 percent in 1980 to 46 percent in 1990. |
658764_2 | DEADLY FLOTSAM ON FRENCH SHORES | specify what rules he had in mind, nor did he explain how these would have affected the spill of pesticides from the Sherbro. Environmentalists have also renewed their warnings that while the virtues of international free trade are widely sung, too little attention is paid to the dark side of such trade, notably the rising cost in damage to the environment. At sea, environmentalists note, shipping routes are becoming increasingly crowded, while the merchant fleet is aging and replete with substandard crews or ships. The Toll of Disasters Although shipping companies argue that supertankers and container ships have made marine transport safer, government officials have joined environmentalists in warning that the volume of oil, chemicals and other dangerous substances moving around the world is rising dramatically without adequate controls. And in the tug of war between governments and shipping companies, the governments are being pressed by public opinion to take stronger action after an uncommon spate of serious disasters over the past year. The worst came last January, when a tanker spilled more than 85,000 tons of oil off the Shetland Islands. There were other tanker disasters off Spain and in the Aegean Sea near Greece. In the North Sea, a Danish tanker ran aground, a Japanese tanker caught fire and a chemical freighter leaked lethal lead concentrates into the water. France had a terrible fright in August when a nuclear submarine and a supertanker, both French, collided along the Mediterranean coast, in the end leaving only an oil slick and no nuclear waste. Governments' Responsibility Eight nations bordering on the North Sea met early this month to discuss pollution. At the meeting, specialists reported that in addition to the dangers posed by ships, there is an apparently unending flow of waste pouring into the sea from other sources, including oil- and gas-drilling platforms and coastal industries. They complained that some nations, including France, Britain and Norway, still allow cities to discharge untreated sewage into the sea. Denmark demanded that Britain stop pouring radioactive waste from the Sellafield nuclear plant into the sea. Many countries, the specialists said, shared responsibility for the 1.7 million tons of harmful chemicals that flush into the sea every year, more than half of it from agriculture. But most participants said they would not be able to keep their pledge to cut that effluent in half by 1995. Today, as naval crews in helicopters and |
655108_1 | British and Irish Prime Ministers To Confer Again on Ulster Today | least one more meeting between Mr. Major and Mr. Reynolds is likely to be necessary, probably in London, if a deal is to be reached before Christmas, a senior official at Downing Street said this week. The two sides are searching for language in a joint statement that would reassure both the I.R.A. and the Ulster Unionists that the peace efforts under contemplation by London and Dublin would respect their quite separate visions of Northern Ireland's future and at the same time would persuade the I.R.A. to forswear its 25-year-old campaign of violence. The Season of Peace Officials say they believe that the time is ripe for some kind of agreement, despite a history of failed overtures, and are eager to take advantage of the extra momentum for peace they believe the Christmas period will afford. The talks between the British and Irish leaders have come after disclosures that the British Government had extensive secret contacts with the I.R.A. and Sinn Fein, its political arm. Those disclosures caused a political uproar in Dublin, London and Belfast. But even if London and Dublin do settle on language for such an agreement, as diplomats believe likely, Irish and British officials were careful this week to play down expectations that those words alone would be enough to bring all sides together. In Northern Ireland, there is deep anxiety among Protestant Unionist groups, and hard-liners like the Rev. Ian Paisley have warned of hardened resistance if the fear grows that the province's ties to Britain are being threatened. At the same time, nationalists, including the I.R.A., argue publicly that they will settle for nothing less than an agreement that envisions a united Ireland, joining the six counties of Northern Ireland to the republic. A Declaration of Principles The idea of the accord now being studied, a senior British official said, is a declaration of broad principles that will hopefully "unite and bring both sides together, as an expression of the view of the two Governments." The next critical step, he said, would be for the I.R.A. and, it is hoped, loyalist paramilitaries in the north to declare a cease-fire, and sustain it for at least two and half months, as a confidence-building measure. This, in turn, would enable the various constitutional parties, including Sinn Fein, to begin talking about how to convene a formal conference to decide on the future governing of the province. |
652104_12 | F.B.I. Shaken by Inquiry Into Idaho Siege | man rushed through the cabin's opened door. "I decided to neutralize that male and his rifle," Mr. Horiuchi later recalled. The Weaver's teen-age daughter screamed, but the agents said they did not know whether the shot had hit its target. In fact, the second shot crashed through a door window through the skull of Mrs. Weaver, who was standing behind it holding her young daughter. The bullet killed Mrs. Weaver instantly, its fragments wounding Mr. Harris. The Bureau Strong Criticism By the Judge Last month, the judge in Federal District Court in Boise who presided over the case rebuked the F.B.I. for misconduct during the trial. The judge, Edward J. Lodge, strongly suggested that the F.B.I. had covered up misconduct, saying in an extraordinary sanction order that said the bureau's behavior "served to obstruct the administration of justice." People involved in the case said the order brought into the open a savage backstage battle that raged throughout the trial between Federal prosecutors and F.B.I. officials, who favored a narrow case focused exclusively on the shooting of Mr. Degan. But prosecutors in the United States Attorney's office in Boise went ahead with a broad indictment that accused the Weavers and Mr. Harris of conspiring to cause a violent confrontation with authorities. The Government's strategy meant that the F.B.I. was forced to account in court for its actions, including the shooting of Mrs. Weaver and Sammy. This played into the hands of Mr. Weaver's defense team, led by Gerry Spence, who accused the agency of using tactics that amounted to murder. The prosecutors have told investigators that the F.B.I. refused to cooperate in the case and closed ranks to block any effort to determine what had occurred on Ruby Ridge and that bureau officials dragged their feet in response to requests for evidence for the trial. When the judge ordered the Government to turn over documents related to the shooting, the bureau sent a file by fourth-class mail that arrived in Idaho after he had finished testifying. The relevancy of the documents prompted Judge Lodge to recall the agent for more testimony. In his order, Judge Lodge wrote that the F.B.I. caused "delays and countless arguments" and he came close to accusing the agency of concealing evidence, saying: "The actions of the Government, acting through the F.B.I., evidence a callous disregard for the rights of the defendants and the interests of justice." |
650539_4 | Personal Health | with BST. The hormone itself is not the cause; rather, mastitis is more common in cows that are high milk producers, and the frequency of this infection in BST-treated cows is about the same as in naturally high producers. The problem, however, is not the infection itself but the antibiotics that are used to treat it, which could result in a slight increase in antibiotic residues in milk. The Food and Drug Administration limits allowable drug residues to minute quantities, and monitoring by the agency has recently been shored up to assure compliance with the regulations. Future Promise The safety and desirability of BST have been endorsed by the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health (which held a two-day meeting of experts to assess BST's effects), the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Dietetic Association. It is highly unlikely that all these overseers and advocates for a healthy America could have been hoodwinked into approving an undesirable treatment. Still, if this first instance of biotechnology in agriculture should end up a financial disaster for the companies (primarily Monsanto) that have invested millions of dollars in developing and testing it, the willingness of manufacturers to try to market other notable achievements of biotechnology will be seriously threatened. For example, porcine somatotropin, which is waiting in the wings, could reduce the fat content of pork by more than half. Another feat of genetic engineering would increase the shelf life and the flavor of tomatoes. The potential of genetic engineering for improving agricultural products by increasing yields and enhancing nutritional value is almost limitless. Possibilities include increasing the protein value of corn and grains, inducing tolerance to frost and drought, building in resistance to pests, speeding maturation of plants and animals, introducing cancer-blocking agents, reducing the need for fertilizer, increasing vitamin and mineral content and modifying the amount and types of fats in foods. But whether such improvements will ever reach the marketplace will depend largely on how well consumers accept BST. Correction: November 24, 1993, Wednesday The Personal Health column last Wednesday about a genetically engineered hormone, bovine somatotropin, or BST, that increases milk production in cows misstated the view of the American Academy of Pediatrics on its safety and desirability. An editorial in Pediatrics, the organization's journal, endorsed the use of the hormone, but the academy has not taken a position. |
650604_2 | THE FREE TRADE ACCORD: A Hard-Won Vote; Voting Yes on Trade Accord Is Folly in Rust Belt. Or Is It? | than any vote I've ever cast." Pain and Opportunity "He wins the award for most tortured," said one White House official who watched as Mr. Clinton wooed Mr. Sawyer in two White House meetings and at least four telephone calls. That official described Mr. Sawyer as looking "awfully pale" after the final session. The agony is easy to understand. Mr. Sawyer describes his decision as a vote for the new Akron that is emerging from the industrial collapse of the 1970's and 1980's. The rebuilding of the city has peppered it with hundreds of speciality manufacturers that conduct thriving export businesses. "The kind of visceral response in opposition is understandable," he said. But outweighing it, he said, is the fact that Akron "is so well positioned on the other hand to take advantage of the opportunity before us." In political terms, it is hard to see Mr. Sawyer's decision as anything other than a departure from the traditional Democratic alliance with organized labor, with its demands to be insulated from foreign competition in industries like steel and autos, and a step toward a new and broader constituency. Change of Mentality As recently as 1989, Mr. Sawyer drew a 100 rating, the best possible, from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Last year his rating was 83, his lowest ever. Today, one senior Administration official who would speak only on the condition of not being named said Mr. Sawyer's "real dilemma was between being a person from the past and a new Democrat." "This whole turn from protectionism toward international markets is tough," the official said. "Breaking that old Rust Belt mentality is a hard thing to do." That is true not just of Mr. Sawyer, but of Akron and other Middle American cities as well. Those who rode the booms of the two coasts during the last 30 years have little notion of the devastation wreaked in Midwestern cities during that same time or the scars it has left. Akron made its name in rubber. At one time it was home to four of the world's largest tire companies. But the city closed its last automobile tire plant in the 1970's, and the last truck and aircraft tire plant in 1984. Today only one company in the tire industry still counts the city as its world headquarters, as foreign ownership has severed the industry's ties. 'They Left in Droves' The departure of the tire |
650463_0 | Panel Seeks Stronger Role in Future of Ellis Island | Ellis Island was designated a historic district yesterday by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The designation comes at a time when the island is the center of two unrelated disputes between New York and New Jersey over which state has jurisdiction over the island, and whether a $15 million bridge, authorized by Congress to connect it to Liberty Park in New Jersey, should be built. Officials of the National Park Service, which operates the island as a national landmark, said the city's designation was largely honorific and that its Federal designation was enough to preserve it. But Laurie Beckelman, the commission's chairman, contended that the designation was significant, giving the city an important advisory role in the preservation of the island. At a hearing conducted by the service last night in Jersey City, New Jersey supporters overwhelmingly supported the construction of the bridge. Their support was in sharp contrast to the opposition, led by Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which was expressed Monday night at an identical hearing in Manhattan. A Federal appeals court in Manhattan ruled in 1992 that while Ellis Island is clearly owned by the Federal Government, New York State exercised its civil jurisdiction over the island. An 1864 compact also gave New York jurisdiction. New Jersey Contests Ruling But that ruling is being contested by New Jersey, which argues that it should have jurisdiction over that portion of the island that has since been added by landfill and which extends into New Jersey waters in New York Harbor. The United States Supreme Court is awaiting an opinion by the United States Department of Justice before deciding whether to hear New Jersey's suit. Two years ago an official from the National Park Service supported a plan to raze 12 buildings on the 27.5-acre island to make way for a $145 million conference center. But public opposition killed the plan. Ms. Beckelman said yesterday that the city's landmark designation would give the city more influence in the future to oppose similar proposals. The commission also designated an estate overlooking the Hudson River in Riverdale, the Bronx, as a historic landmark. The Italianate villa is known as the Anthony Campagna Estate, after the man who built it in 1922. The property was recently purchased by the Yeshiva of Telshe Alumni for use as a private school. The designation applies only to the estate's |
647230_1 | Drug Flow Through Haiti Cut Sharply by Embargo | military or its supporters that have been hurt by the embargo. Only oil and arms are currently on the list of items barred by the embargo, but as oil dries up manufacturing and transportation are collapsing, cutting incomes across the board. Representative John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan, who ordered a General Accounting Office investigation of drug trafficking in Haiti last summer, said that "as trade is slowed, so is the quantity of drugs which flows through." Altogether, the Caribbean islands account for about half of the estimated 300 to 400 metric tons of cocaine that reach the streets of America annually, with the balance coming across the Mexican border. Mr. Cash estimated that as recently as a few months ago cocaine was coming through Haiti at a rate of about nine metric tons of cocaine a year, no more than a fifth of the amount moved through Puerto Rico. According to officials at the drug agency and the State Department, Haiti ranks fifth among Caribbean transshipment points, after Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. With Haiti in turmoil, the traffickers are shipping more of their illicit cargo through the other islands, and the flow of cocaine for the American market is undiminished. Mr. Cash estimated the annual value of the cocaine passing through Haiti at $50 million to $75 million, in contrast to estimates by other experts that have ranged between $250 million and $500 million. In any case, Mr. Cash said that the Colombian drug traffickers usually pay the Haitians only a small percentage of the cocaine's value for their work in handling it locally and permitting the country to be used as a transfer point. No one knows just how much the Haitian military rulers and their civilian allies collect from drug trafficking, but Mr. Cash said he doubted that drugs accounted for the bulk of their income. State Department officials and others familiar with Haiti concur. "To say they are all mired down in drugs down there is a little bit overblown, I think," Mr. Cash said. Nevertheless, cocaine has been an important commodity in Haiti since at least the early 1980's when Jean Claude Duvalier, often referred to as Baby Doc, became the ruler after the death of his father, Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier. After the young Duvalier fled the country in 1986, the United States authorities accused his wife, Michele, and |
647214_0 | Ecuadorean Indians Suing Texaco | Maria Sanchez, who lives in the rain forest of Ecuador, said she cannot bathe in the river and lagoons near her house. She and her son are reluctant to walk on the road because oil stains her feet and clothing, she said tearfully at a news conference yesterday in New York, and she is also allergic to the gasoline used to clean off the oil. She was among a group of Indians, some in traditional garb, who came to what they called the "house of Texaco"-- New York -- to have their Philadelphia law firm file suit in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York accusing Texaco of having dumped about 3,000 gallons of oil a day into the lagoons. They seek more than $1 billion in damages. Ricardo Veiga, a lawyer with Texaco's Latin America and West African division, denied in an interview yesterday that the company had disposed of oil in lagoons or rivers. He said, however, that Texaco had spread oil from settling basins next to the wells on roads in the oilfields of Ecuador -- a common industry practice in many countries -- and that people walking on the road could have gotten oil on their skin. "We have studies that oil on the skin does not cause disease as claimed by the lawyers," he said. Mr. Veiga suggested that the suit should have been brought in Ecuador, where the state oil company, Petroecuador, played the leading role and now runs the fields. Texaco, which disposed of its 37.5 percent share last year, has not operated the fields since 1990, when its contract with the Ecuadorean Government ran out. No Retainer Needed The Indians' lawyers, from the firm of Kohn, Nast & Graf of Philadelphia, conceded yesterday that they faced an uphill battle, but said they believed they had a chance of getting the case heard. A principal, Joseph C. Kohn, said the suit was being handled on a contingency basis. Environmental groups have made Ecuador an example of the conflict in preserving the Amazon region while developing its rich resources, notably oil. Judith Kimerling, an environmental lawyer and author of "Amazon Crude," charges that oil wells are generating millions of gallons of toxic waste every day. The suit, an outgrowth of Ecuador's growing environmental movement, charges that drinking water has become contaminated; rivers and lagoons where local residents fished, bathed and |
647262_1 | Administration Sweetens Trade Agreement Terms | there," the President told reporters. "We've had a real movement in the last 10 days or so, and I think you'll see more and more progress in the next few days." The trade accord would gradually abolish all tariffs and other trade barriers between the United States, Canada and Mexico, creating a free-trade zone in North America larger than the Europe Community. Negotiated mainly by the Bush Administration, the pact can go into effect only if a majority in the House and Senate vote to approve legislation without amendment. Politically, the votes are the most important facing President Clinton and Congress the rest of the year. On Capitol Hill, opponents of the trade measure rallied over a brown bag lunch. To enthusiastic applause, Representative David E. Bonior, the Michigan Democrat who is leading the charge against the accord, said, "This Nafta is nothing but a job-stealing, tax-raising, community-destroying agreement, and we're going to do everything we can, humanly possible, to defeat it." 'Porking It Down' Asked about the new concessions the Administration had won, Mr. Bonior replied: "I know there are a lot of deals being made by the White House. They're porking it down and loading it up. They may pick up a couple of votes." The latest vote counts show about 200 representatives against the measure, about 140 definitely for it and the rest officially uncommitted. There are 434 members of the House, with one vacancy. That means 218 votes are needed for the measure to pass. Both sides agree that a large majority of the uncommitted legislators can be expected to vote with the President if their votes mean the difference between victory and defeat. On the other hand, the opponents do not need many converts to prevail. An Administration official said the sugar and citrus concessions might win 18 to 20 votes, mostly from the Florida delegation. The sugar agreement worked out this week would count corn syrup as sugar in determining whether Mexico was a net exporter of sugar. Under the trade accord, Mexican sugar would be subject to United States tariffs unless Mexico became such a net exporter. American sugar producers, who now enjoy tariff protection, feared that Mexicans would use corn syrup as a sweetener at home, especially for soft drinks, and export more sugar to become a net exporter. The citrus arrangement would automatically impose tariffs on frozen concentrated orange juice imported |
647247_3 | Dublin Journal; Nemesis of I.R.A., and No Friend to Protestants | from jail, where he was interned as an I.R.A. commander, and flew him to London for talks that failed. Mr. Hume believes that Mr. Adams is the only political leader who might persuade the I.R.A. to lay down its arms. The most Mr. Hume has said publicly about the Hume-Adams proposals is that they "can lead to a dialogue including all parties, including Sinn Fein in a situation in which there is no violence." To claims by Protestant leaders that his talks with Mr. Adams encourage I.R.A. violence, Mr. Hume said in a recent interview: "There is no way that I have ever endorsed violence. My home has been attacked on numerous occasions by supporters of the I.R.A. In fact in the last attack my wife and daughter were lucky to emerge alive." "Given that the British Government has stated it cannot defeat the I.R.A. and that the I.R.A. has stated it cannot defeat the British Government, my simple Irish mind tells me the logic of that is that the only thing that'll solve the problem is dialogue," he said in a recent interview on Ulster Televison in Belfast. Mr. Hume began his agitation 25 years ago as a moderate, nonviolent Catholic marching in the civil rights demonstration in Londonderry. The Protestant-dominated police attacked the marchers and the current period of murderous sectarian violence began. Became an I.R.A. Enemy Mr. Hume quickly became the chief northern Irish enemy of the I.R.A., traveling frequently to Washington to persuade Irish-American politicians, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy, to oppose Irish-American groups who were raising money for the I.R.A. His efforts, the Irish Government has acknowledged, did much to dry up these funds. The I.R.A. had to turn to Libya to restock its supplies of explosives, mortars and guns. Mr. Hume's hope for Ireland is that after the violence ends, the British forces will gradually depart and the two Irelands will eventually merge, encouraged by tendencies toward economic and political unity in the European Community. Ireland, he says, is in a "post-nationalism" age, where "independence must be replaced by interdependence." "If you dismiss the I.R.A. as gangsters -- I wish they were -- they'd be gone in a fornight," Mr. Hume said on Ulster Television. "It's because they're a handed-down version of Irish patriotism and the reasons that they give me are historic reasons and I'm arguing with them that they're out of date." |
648651_2 | Arabs Accusing Israel On Handling of Protests | spokesman said. "The army can't be everywhere, and in many cases the settlers dispersed on their own." One official said that while the Government was determined to insure law and order, it was up to the army to decide how to best restore calm and prevent an increase in violence. 'No Change in Policy' Oded Ben-Ami, a spokesman for Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in his capacity as Defense Minister, rejected suggestions that the army had been instructed to avoid confrontation and to let the settlers vent their anger. "There has been no change in policy," he said. Speaking today in Parliament, Mr. Rabin said the security forces had been ordered "to use everything at their disposal within the law to prevent terrorism but also to uphold law and order on the part of the Jewish residents." He called on the settlers to "stop the avenging rioters and disturbers of the peace, in order to prevent deterioration and disorder that will harm us." But Mr. Husseini asserted that soldiers had stood by during the Jewish protests, and that they had made only half-hearted attempts to stop the violence and arrest rioters. "This does not show good will by the Israeli Government," Mr. Husseini said at a news conference. "If what we are witnessing now is a picture of the future, it means we are not entering a new era as a result of the peace agreement." Israel and the P.L.O. signed an accord in September on an Israeli pullback and Palestinian self-rule in the occupied territories. Complaints at Cairo Talks Mr. Husseini said Palestinian delegates complained about the violence in talks today with Israeli officials in Cairo on carrying out the agreement. He added that if the settlers were not curbed, Palestinians would demand a dismantling of settlements along with the pullout of Israeli troops. For their part, leaders of the settlers said they felt abandoned by the Government, which they said had scaled back the army's presence in the territories since the accord was signed with the P.L.O. One leader, Benny Katzover, said today's blockade was a "natural outlet" for the settlers' mounting frustration, and he warned that more serious violence could lie ahead. "If Jews cannot move about freely and are being murdered, Arabs cannot be allowed to move freely," Mr. Katzover said. "Our security is being neglected. This abandonment of Jewish lives could lead to unrestrained, irrational acts." |
648488_0 | Books of The Times; With Flux Everywhere And Meaning in All of It | The Protean Self Human Resilience in an Age of Fragmentation By Robert Jay Lifton 262 pages. Basic Books. $25. As events like the fall of the Berlin wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the splintering of Yugoslavia and the recent signing of a peace accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization so dramatically attest, change has been accelerating around the world. A sense of flux, the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton argues in his latest book, is further heightened by the growing spread of communication -- television, fax machines and telephones -- and it is underscored in the United States by the breakdown of communities and families and the constant movement of people from job to job, town to town. As a result, Mr. Lifton contends: "We are becoming fluid and many-sided. Without quite realizing it, we have been evolving a sense of self appropriate to the restlessness and flux of our time. This mode of being differs radically from that of the past and enables us to engage in continuous exploration and personal experiment. I have named it the 'protean self' after Proteus, the Greek sea god of many forms." Although "The Protean Self" draws on psychiatric concepts laid out by Mr. Lifton in such earlier books as "The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide" and "Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima," this volume is decidedly less focused and more oracular than those previous studies. Padded with interviews with anonymous individuals, "The Protean Self" is highly discursive in method, and wildly ambitious in design. Indeed Mr. Lifton's aim, no less, is both to chart the trends toward flux and change that can be discerned in individual psyches and in the world at large, and to analyze the social and emotional consequence of those trends. One of the problems with this hopelessly broad approach is that Mr. Lifton tends to see change everywhere and to read equal significance into everything he sees. He cites the recent changes in Eastern Europe as a manifestation of accelerating flux, and he also cites Americans' cultivation of many hobbies as an example of this same phenomenon. He points to the "proteanism" inherent in the idea of the American Dream; he also discerns proteanism in the phenomenon of multiple personality disorder. Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who went from being a Communist Party bureaucrat to being the inventor of perestroika, is held up |
648447_3 | Scientists Propose Novel Explanation For Alzheimer's | that one reason for the widespread deaths of nerve cells is the gradual accumulation in brain tissue of a tough, fibrous protein called beta-amyloid. Dr. Roses believes that beta-amyloid buildup is a side effect of the disorder, rather than the key to the disease. Instead, he and his colleagues at Duke postulate that another protein inside neurons, called tau, is the real perpetrator of the disease. They hypothesize that Apo-E3 and Apo-E2 cling to the tau protein and prevent it from disrupting the microtubules and hence the integrity of brain cells. By comparison, Apo-E4 fails to clasp onto tau and keep it benign. In test-tube experiments, the Duke scientists demonstrated that Apo-E3 will couple with tau so avidly that the union is practically indissoluble. Some neuroscientists dismissed the new scheme as highly improbable. "It doesn't make biological sense to me," said Dr. Sangram Sisodia, an assistant professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. "You can do whatever you want in the test tube, but it's a big leap from there to what's happening in neurons. If E3 is the good guy, how does it get inside neurons and actually bind to tau? I can't see how this mechanism would work." But Rudy Tanzi, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who has consistently been a doubting Thomas of the field, said after Dr. Strittmatter's presentation, "I want to compliment you on a neat hypothesis." Whatever researchers think of the theory, they almost universally concur that Apo-E4 is a powerful risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. Since the initial report, about 20 studies have confirmed the connection in many different populations here and abroad. Several researchers compared the strength of Apo-E4 as a risk factor for Alzheimer's to that of smoking for lung cancer, or high blood pressure for stroke. Yet all the scientists emphasized that it was only one risk factor among many, and that other genetic and environmental events almost surely contribute to the onset of Alzheimer's. They pointed out that many old people carrying the Apo-E4 gene had no symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, while some bearers of the supposedly protective Apo-E3 or E-2 genes still ended up with the illness. And they chimed in, in near-perfect unison, that at this point work on apolipoprotein-E4 was far too preliminary for people to rush to their doctors and demand to be tested for the gene. |
648593_0 | Motorola Radio Deal For Nextel | In a move that could hasten new nationwide competition for cellular telephone service, Motorola Inc. has agreed to sell its vast patchwork of "specialized mobile" radio services to Nextel Communications for an estimated $1.8 billion. People familiar with the plan said last night that Motorola would announce the sale today. The acquisition would be the latest in a string by Nextel, which envisions a national mobile telephone network using radio frequencies once reserved for taxi and truck dispatch services. Nextel plans to upgrade the radio systems with digital technology that makes their sound quality almost indistinguishable from cellular phone networks. The goal is to enable customers to use their mobile phones to make and receive calls when they travel to virtually any big city. Buying Spree Nextel, based in Rutherford, N.J., spent more than $1 billion in the last few weeks buying dispatch services around the country. And it holds licenses covering the 10 largest metropolitan areas in the country, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. Motorola had long been the largest holder of radio licenses for this kind of service. Nextel's goal is to upgrade all of these local systems with technology developed by Motorola itself. Motorola had been a willing supplier of the technology and equipment, but it had not made any move to convert its own specialized-radio networks into services that would compete with cellular. On the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, Motorola shares lost 25 cents, to $98.75, and Nextel shares rose 75 cents, to $46. A year ago, Nextel was trading at $11 a share. 'Seamless Nationwide Network' Nextel officials have made it clear they want to develop a "seamless" nationwide network by forging technical alliances with the handful of other big owners of fleet-dispatch services. Several weeks ago, amid a blizzard of buying and selling licenses, Nextel reached a technical accord with the second- and third-largest dispatch companies in the country, Cencall Communications of Denver and Dialpage Inc. of Greenville, S.C. Under that contract, Cencall and Dialpage will adopt the same Motorola technology as Nextel and develop fully interconnected networks. Nextel now has licenses covering metropolitan areas with 115 million people, almost twice the coverage of McCaw Cellular Communications, the nation's biggest cellular carrier. Unlike the cellular industry, which is split between rival transmission technologies, Nextel can offer clients use of the same system in all the cities it serves. But |
648542_0 | Repairing New York's Schools | It took a crisis over asbestos to call widespread attention to the appalling physical deterioration of New York City schools. Now it is inescapably clear that the school system must find ways to repair and maintain its physical plant before the deterioration becomes terminal. Schools Chancellor Ramon Cortines has proposed a reasonable plan to overcome the two chief problems causing the maintenance crisis -- a shortage of funds, and poor management. A key problem has been the constant deferral of maintenance, from fixing broken window sashes to major roof repairs, in a desperate effort to channel scarce school dollars into operations. Such savings are especially shortsighted in New York City, where half of the system's 1,000 school buildings are at least 50 years old -- among the oldest in the state. Yet, for years funding for maintenance has lagged behind the need. A 1990 study found that New York City spent $2.62 per square foot on maintenance. By comparison, Los Angeles spent $3.02 and Dade County, Fla., spent $7.27. The Board of Education's Division of School Facilities has a backlog of nearly 50,000 work orders at an estimated cost of $1 billion. In addition to lack of funds, the method of addressing maintenance needs is fragmented. It's difficult to coordinate the 25 different categories of skilled workers employed by the Division of School Facilities. Over time, four separate data bases have been developed to identify and track repairs. School custodians, who are closest to the buildings and often identify problems, have only limited responsibility for making repairs. Recently the City Council issued a report that blamed the system's maintenance failures more on mismanagement than lack of funds. The report cited the board's excessive bureaucracy as the chief culprit. But, in truth, both inefficiency and insufficient funds have contributed to the present state of school disrepair. Mr. Cortines proposes to reorganize the system and to overhaul schools. He suggests a five-year capital plan of $7.5 billion for renovations and new construction. He would use the bulk of the money, nearly $5 billion, to overhaul 150 old schools. The rest would be used to build new schools. None of the money would cover the repair backlog of 50,000 work orders. Given the city's continuing budget woes, Mr. Cortines might do better pressing for at least $1 billion in maintenance funds before new construction funds. On the management side, Mr. Cortines would give |
648689_3 | At Haiti-Dominican Border: Barrier or Loophole? | trucks pass through in the 15 minutes soldiers allowed him to linger. One of the trucks appeared to be carrying oil, though the nature of its cargo could not be confirmed. Steady Flow of Trucks During a five-hour drive on the main highway from Santo Domingo to Jimani recently, only one truck with Haitian license plates was observed. The truck, which was loaded with metal drums of the type used to transport oil, sped away, seemingly when its driver sensed that he was being trailed. Dominican officials acknowledge there is a steady flow of truck traffic through Jimani into Haiti. But they maintain that all of the goods being exported there or sold openly to Haitians at markets in towns like Banica, often at prices that are triple those of just a few weeks ago, consist of food, medicine and other items specifically exempted from the embargo. "It is not true that the Dominican Republic does not support the blockade," Deputy Foreign Minister Fabio Herrera Cabral told reporters. "The list of articles being sent is limited to humanitarian articles." Among the goods crossing from the Dominican Republic into Haiti, Mr. Herrera acknowledged, are rice, sugar, cooking oil and "items for personal cooking," like propane gas. "We are only sending what is permitted, and within that is propane gas, which is for cooking food," he said. The United Nations has threatened to widen the embargo to cover all goods except vital food and medicine if the Haitian military does not back down. But Western governments are still somewhat reluctant to stiffen the sanctions at this point. Already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is suffering more each week because the fuel cutoff has slowed delivery of supplies. All Oil Is Imported The Dominican Republic produces no oil itself, importing it from Venezuela and Mexico under an agreement negotiated in the 1980's. Latin American diplomats in Santo Domingo said Venezuela, one of four countries underwriting the July agreement intended to restore Father Aristide to power, was determined not to let the Dominican Republic flout the embargo. "A sudden surge in oil imports would not go unnoticed here or in Caracas," one said. "That has not happened yet, but if there are signs of an increase in oil purchases, I am sure that question will be promptly addressed." The commander of Haiti's armed forces, Lieut. Gen. Raoul Cedras, and the Port-au-Prince |
648788_4 | Personal Health | why women are relatively protected against heart disease before menopause, with their risk rising sharply when their bodies stop producing estrogen. Estrogen helps to keep HDL levels high, and available evidence strongly indicates that women who take estrogen replacement hormones after menopause see a 50 percent reduction in their risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke. Estrogen also seems to help maintain flexibility in artery walls, which otherwise become more rigid with age. Most women who now take estrogen after menopause also take progesterone to protect the uterine lining from cancer. It is not yet known for sure whether the benefits of estrogen to the heart persist when this second hormone is taken. Of course, women who have undergone hysterectomies have no need for progesterone. Other ways to raise HDL levels include exercising regularly and vigorously, the equivalent of a brisk one-hour walk five or six times a week and drinking moderate amounts of alcohol; for a woman, "moderate" means one drink a day. In both women and men, complete abstinence and excessive drinking are associated with an increase in coronary risk compared with moderate drinkers. Then there is the matter of overall diet. Diets with very little fat (only 10 to 15 percent of a day's calories from fat) are associated with very low coronary disease rates. Although both men and women consume less fat than they used to, women still derive on average 36 percent of their daily calories from fat, more than twice the recommended amount. And far too much of that fat is artery-damaging saturated fat, prominent in foods from land animals. Those who rely mainly on fish and vegetable foods for protein tend to have much healthier hearts. And women who eat lots of fruits and vegetables rich in antioxidants like beta-carotene and vitamin C can reduce their risk of heart attack by one-third. Reducing dietary fat and exercising regularly also help control still another heart hazard, excess weight around the abdomen, which can raise coronary risk as much as threefold in women as well as in men. For Information A pamphlet, "Silent Epidemic: The Truth About Women and Heart Disease" is available from local chapters of the American Heart Association or by telephoning (800) AHA-USA1 (242-8721). Risk reduction guidelines, including a diet and exercise program, are offered in "The Woman's Heart Book" by Dr. Frederic J. Pashkow and Charlotte Libov (Dutton, $22). |
648736_0 | Studies Suggest Estrogen Lowers Alzheimer's Risk | Women who take estrogen after menopause appear to reduce their risk of getting Alzheimer's disease and, if they do get it, to have milder symptoms, scientists reported today. The findings were among several results on aging and the brain presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience here. In another report, scientists said that for the first time they had found a link between chronic stress and poorer mental performance. McGill University scientists said they could predict, according to stress hormones in the blood, who would perform relatively poorly on tests of attention and memory. They said it might be possible to reverse the mental problems by reducing stress hormones. On the estrogen study, Dr. Bruce McEwen of Rockefeller University, a neurological expert, said the results were important enough to start immediately on large studies of whether women should take estrogen to combat Alzheimer's or to protect against its onset. But he said the findings were not yet certain enough to warrant a recommendation that women should consider the therapy now. The estrogen work was done at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. The researchers, who studied 253 women over several years, found that 18 percent of those who had not had estrogen therapy were diagnosed with Alzheimer's, compared with 7 percent of those who had the therapy after menopause. Dr. Victor Henderson, leader of the research group, said the researchers also found that women who were on estrogen therapy but still got Alzheimer's disease performed better on average on cognitive tests than other women with Alzheimer's. In another study, the researchers looked at information on estrogen therapy and other medical information for 8,879 women living in Leisure World retirement communities in Southern California. The scientists then reviewed the death certificates for the 2,418 women who died from 1981 to 1992 to find out which had Alzheimer's. "We found that women who had used estrogen replacement therapy were 40 percent less likely to have Alzheimer's and related dementias compared to women who had not used estrogen," Dr. Henderson said. Estrogen replacement therapy is often prescribed for women who have hot flashes or other symptoms of menopause, or who wish to reduce their risk of osteoporosis. Alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia in older people, affecting about four million Americans. Its symptoms include severe loss of memory followed by impaired speech, understanding and other mental |
651697_0 | Trying Again in Ireland | If Israel and the P.L.O. can talk directly, then why can't Britain do the same with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the outlawed Irish Republican Army? The I.R.A. seemed to give its answer in October when it bombed a fish shop in a Protestant area of Belfast, killing 10 people. When Protestant gunmen retaliated by killing Catholics, there were a half-dozen more funerals; it was the worst carnage in years in British-ruled Northern Ireland. On its face, this reciprocal violence appeared to doom a new peace initiative aimed at drawing Sinn Fein and its leader, Gerry Adams, into talks. But the Belfast bombing deceptively obscured deep divisions and a pervasive battle-weariness even within the I.R.A. There is sufficient evidence of this to prompt last week's carefully worded appeal to Mr. Adams by Prime Minister John Major to renounce terror "and join the dialogue on the way ahead." When Mr. Major says "some cherished positions will have to be modified" in the quest for peace, he is signaling British flexibility and recognizing the political reality that a silent majority on both sides yearns for peace. This follows soundings by John Hume, who speaks for the nonviolent majority of the province's 650,000 Catholics. Earlier this year, Mr. Hume met privately with Mr. Adams to discuss on what terms Sinn Fein would use its influence to end the terror campaign. The North's Protestant hard-liners assailed Mr. Hume for meeting with Sinn Fein, and after the Belfast bombing, objectors argued that in any case Mr. Adams could not control his armed comrades. But the reality is more complicated. Undeniably, Sinn Fein speaks for the deeply alienated third of the Catholic electorate in Northern Ireland. Mr. Adams's constituents are the jobless poor living in barricaded slums who have no trust in a system they believe is loaded against them. Without their sympathy, the I.R.A. would be out of business. Yet despite the grievances of this alienated community, enough was achieved in the Hume-Adams talks to generate encouraging statements from the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Irish Republic, both weary of an interminable, destructive conflict. For I.R.A. fundamentalists, there is only one goal -- a united Ireland -- which one million Protestants in the North overwhelmingly reject. Two Unionist parties are committed to preserving the province's ties to Britain, and Mr. Major's Government relies on the parliamentary votes of these loyalists. Doubtless that |
652710_1 | A Broader Base for Corporate Hiring | in the Corporate World "Our goal is to prepare talented minority youths for careers in corporate America by training them through internships in area companies during their college years," Mr. Holmes said. "It's a two-fold program: at the same time we are helping young people, we are also helping corporations find high-caliber employees who will increase their minority representation. Many interns who are offered jobs in corporations after college become very valuable permanent employees." Eduardo F. Correia is one of them. Mr. Correia, who is of Puerto Rican descent, became a Kraft General Foods intern during his undergraduate years at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry. Mr. Correia, now 25, is employed in sales at Kraft and is in charge of supplying grocery products to supermarket chains in the New York area, customers that represent 7 percent of the region's total volume of grocery products. "I got a lot of support from Inroads," Mr. Correia recalled. "Among other things we have training sessions on how to conduct ourselves in the corporate world, so that when I started my internship, I felt comfortable." Mr. Correia, who was brought up in Dobbs Ferry in a single-parent household, describes himself as a self-starter who has always worked, yet, he added, the experience he got as an intern was quite different from the many jobs he had had previously. "Most of my job experience is in the retail field," he said. "Without Inroads, I probably would have stayed in retailing, and I think I would have had a successful career because I set high goals for myself, but I know it would have taken me longer to achieve them." Inroads/Westchester-Fairfield started in 1985 with 23 college interns and 11 corporate sponsors. It is now working with 164 interns and 53 companies. Mr. Holmes said: "It's a win-win partnership. Inroads demonstrates how the business and minority communities can successfully cooperate to achieve a common beneficial goal." Companies that participate in the program pay a fee to Inroads, which is used to offset training costs and salaries for personnel, Mr. Holmes said. "Even in these tough times, companies tell us Inroads has been one of the best investments they can make because it gives them access to a national network of talent to draw from -- our 40 affiliates in cities across the country. Inroads was founded 23 years ago in Chicago and has spread nationwide since |
652722_4 | The Ancient Road to Hypertext | of guaranteed global interchangeability may well be restrictive market domination and technical stagnation, neither conducive to democratic development. Nor will increasingly user-friendly access to on-line networking modify the dominant model of separate individuals logging in to a curiously abstract fellowship of special-interest groupings. Classical rhetoric, by contrast, was a form of public appeal that challenged the rhetorician to shape a diversity of multifaceted individual listeners into a single engaged and focused audience. A computer bulletin board is no equivalent, though perhaps the BBC once was. Mr. Lanham's case doesn't recognize that what preceded both Plato and the Sophists was that extraordinary form of political training and apprentice citizenship, the Athenian theater festivals, in which a collective assembly voted on the merits of competing representations of kings and tyrants (those dramatic anachronisms) making crucial policy errors through inappropriate personal involvements and emotions (anger, pity, fear). The young Athenian was obliged to attend and learn how not to make such tragic mistakes, before he could qualify for jury service or assembly voting. The Athenian theater was a spectacularly public form of democratic pedagogy, endangered as much by the privatized tuition sold by the Sophists as by the privileged instruction offered to the chosen few in Plato's academy. Mr. Lanham is entirely right to argue for a new kind of curriculum that will enable a generation un attuned to book learning to use fully the multimedia possibilities opening up. He is also right to insist on a version of an ancient question, posed by the Roman philologist Quintilian, about whether book learning ever made better citizens anyway. Yet the relations between the electronic word and democracy remain looser and more problematic than his optimism allows. A proliferation of personalized multimedia productions may be no more socially enlightening than the provision of endless vacation videos has been. That children can now actively sample and make their own compositions from Bach and Disney may highlight a liberating overlapping of cultural moments, technologies and practices, but doesn't itself constitute an appropriately public domain on which to construct an electronic democracy. A BARBAROUS JARGON A modern university student is like a visiting anthropologist who changes countries as she changes classes, every 50 minutes. We departmentalized teachers are the "natives" in this scenario. . . . In other department-countries the inhabitants speak a barbarous jargon. . . . We ourselves speak the natural language of God. . . |
652469_2 | A COLOMBIA REGION FIRST IN VIOLENCE | popular commandos. Their former E.P.L. rebel colleagues have since accused them of acting in concert with rightist paramilitary groups. After a particularly brutal period of violence early this year, President Cesar Gaviria made a highly publicized visit to Apartado in March, pledging $162 million in public works projects and security for Uraba. But so far, life has changed little for people here. An average of 15 people die in Uraba every weekend, the Defense Ministry says, making it the most violent area in the country. When interviewed, residents often refuse to give their names and use the word "paranoid" to describe themselves. "Many of Uraba's people are recent immigrants with no sense of identity," said Alejandro Valencia, director of a local office that receives complaints of abuses. "The Government presence is sparse, and this generates abuses." [ On Nov. 22, 14 peasants who were members of Hope, Peace and Liberty were killed in three separate incidents. The group and the police blamed a rebel group called Coordinadora Guerrillera Simon Bolivar. ] Easily Drawn to Rebels People are drawn to Uraba by the hope of work on the big banana plantations. But the pay is low and the plantation owners are generally absent, and discontented workers fall easily under rebel influence. Nationally the Colombian Government has signed peace treaties with four guerrilla groups since 1990, but hundreds of demobilized rebels have been slain. Former guerrilla members complain that fighters who laid down their arms have little Government support. E.P.L. members who disarmed were each given about $2,000 to begin a new life. But business loans and education programs were slow in coming, and while rebel leaders earned congressional seats in the nation's capital, their fighters were left unprotected to face acts of revenge. Some of the demobilized rebels make up the 40,000 newcomers to Uraba. With little to call their own, some make a living though extortion and robbery. Rightist paramilitary groups, which arose as an armed response to left-wing rebels, have reappeared as vigilantes who commit similar crimes to support themselves. And the fighters who still officially belong to guerrilla groups often resort to similar tactics. As a result, acts of violence in Uraba are increasingly unpredictable. "There are many mysteries here," said an arts performer who said he had received death threats but did not know where they come from. "One doesn't know who one is talking to anymore." |
652337_0 | New Churchill Papers, but No Pearl Harbor News | The Government has begun releasing documents from Winston Churchill's secret wartime intelligence archive, but so far they do not shed light on one of the war's greatest mysteries -- whether Churchill knew in advance of the impending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. One document, dated Dec. 4 -- three days before the attack -- is a record of a message that had been sent on Dec. 2 from the Japanese Foreign Minister in Tokyo to the Japanese Ambassador in Washington ordering him to destroy secret documents, ciphers and related materials. Such a step presumably would be taken just before the outbreak of war. It is clear that the message was intercepted, but a spokesman for the Foreign Office said there was no indication whether the document was shared with United States officials. Historians have written extensively about intelligence sharing among allies after the breaking of Japan's code. A statement drawn up by the Public Record Office to accompany the first trickle of documents said: "None of the intercepts obviously indicate that British sources were aware in advance of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, although it was clear that Japan was about to enter the war." But it added, "It is possible that historians making a detailed examination of all the relevant material might draw a different conclusion." A spokesman for the records office said this simply meant that the archivists had not yet reviewed all 1,273 files representing the daily intelligence reports given to Churchill in 1941 and 1942, which become public information on Friday. He said it did not suggest that anyone had unearthed a piece of paper that was ambiguous or that suggested that Churchill knew and did not tell President Roosevelt about the plan for the attack. The attack on Pearl Harbor killed and wounded 4,575 Americans. Nineteen ships and 120 aircraft were lost. In the third volume of his war memoirs, "The Second World War," Churchill writes that at dinner on Dec. 7 at Chequers, the Prime Minister's country home, with John Winant, the United States Ambassador, and Averell Harriman, Roosevelt's special envoy, they turned on the news and heard "some few sentences" regarding "an attack by the Japanese on American shipping at Hawaii. Churchill called Roosevelt, who, he said, replied: "It's quite true. They have attacked us at Pearl Harbor. We are all in the same boat now." The Prime Minister |
652353_3 | Body of Man Is Recovered From Tunnel | killed since the overall project began. Closed Pending Inquiries After the recovery of his body, the site was closed pending the start of inquiries today by the city's Department of Environmental Protection and the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. A spokesman for OSHA could not be reached yesterday. But Alfred F. Appleton, the Commissioner of Environmental Protection, said in an interview that investigators, who might take several weeks, would begin today by trying to recover the winch, which would be returned to its platform at the surface. There, he said, investigators would study the winch and its fittings, see if its anchoring bolts are sheared or missing, examine how it was coordinated with two other winches and generally analyze what happened by trying to recreate the factors and events of the accident. Mr. Appleton said a preliminary review of the contractor in charge of the project, Skanska Tunneling, showed it had a good safety record. He also said the accident was not expected to substantially delay or affect the costs of the $5 billion project, or to fundamentally change the way it is carried out. Several Possible Failures The Commissioner said it was too early to discuss possible findings, but construction experts noted various possibilities: the failure of bolts that anchored the winch to its platform, an imbalance in the way that three winches were working together, or some other human or mechanical failure. The three winches, they said, were around the top of the shaft and operated simultaneously to lower 30-foot steel molds, into which concrete was poured to form the shaft's lining. At the time of the accident, they said, the cables of all three winches were hooked up to a mold that was about to be repositioned. But the lifting had not yet begun and the operator was only taking up slack in the cables when the winch tumbled in. That suggested a failure based not on excessive weight but on the coordination of the three winches. But it was also possible that bolts anchoring the winch failed for some other reason. While some workers told of hearing a deafening noise like a blast and others said they saw sparks, officials said there was no evidence of an explosion. The sound, amplified by the shaft's acoustics, may have been the whip-crack of a cable, and the falling winch striking the shaft walls may have ignited sparks. |
652290_2 | Calvin and Hobbes and John Paul | as right or wrong -- whatever their intentions and whether or not they help or harm others. In mathematics, we begin with assumptions and deduce conclusions; in ethics, as Aristotle pointed out, we begin with the conclusions -- specific moral sentiments and rules -- and infer general principles. Those principles, Aristotle felt, showed that all men sought some good, which he called happiness. But not what we mean by happiness; certainly Aristotle did not mean that we seek mere sensory pleasure. True happiness means a life lived according to virtue. Almost everyone agrees what such a life is like, at least in general terms. We value self-control over self-indulgence, fair play over foul, reasonable fellow-feeling over relentless selfishness. In the Catholic Catechism, these are stated as the virtues of temperance, justice and solidarity. These virtues are not wholly defined by our own culture: all people tend to speak of cultures that have or have not progressed, and they measure that progress by a standard that transcends their own culture. The standard is derived from mankind's possessing a common human nature -- what the Founding Fathers meant when they said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident." This may seem like common sense or irrelevant philosophical hair-splitting. It is neither. Americans are used to defining their relationships with each other in terms of freedom and rights, and our philosophers tend to base morality (to the extent they can think of any grounds for it at all) on a mutual respect for rights. But a morality based on rights is one that judges only harms and then judges them only in proportion to the degree of harm. A rights-only morality may criticize cheating or stealing, but it has little to say about pornography, drug use or consensual sex. These are private matters. The Pope, like other natural law philosophers, argues that though these may be private behaviors, that does not mean they are beyond the reach of moral judgment. The encyclical does not devote much space to judging these specific acts, or any acts. It repeats the church's well-known opposition to abortion, homosexuality, suicide and euthanasia but does not make clearer the relationship between natural law (or human nature, properly understood) and these actions other than to say that they are "hostile to life itself." Moreover, the Pope restates the Bible's injunction that it is never right to do evil in order |
652359_0 | Tomato Gene That Resists Disease Is Cloned | Using a technology developed for the Human Genome Project, scientists at Cornell University have for the first time isolated and cloned a gene responsible for disease resistance in a major crop: tomatoes. Transferring the gene into susceptible tomato plants through genetic engineering gave them the same protection possessed by naturally resistant plants. The discovery, which is being reported today in the journal Science, points the way to the identification of genetic bases for many desirable agricultural characteristics, including yield, nutritional value, flavor and insect resistance. "Yield is the Holy Grail," said Dr. Steven Tanksley, the professor of plant breeding and biometry at Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences who headed the research. "Right now, we have no yield genes in hand, but in the next five to 10 years we might have genes which would have a tremendous impact on agriculture." While a commercial payoff may be years away, other scientists said the Cornell report was valuable for its validation of a technique for finding genes through maps of DNA, the material that transmits hereditary patterns. The advantage of this approach is that one need not know anything about the molecular biology of the gene or the protein it encodes. Most biotechnology works the other way, sequencing the genes responsible for expression of known proteins. Known as map-based cloning, this technique for isolating and identifying genes lies at the heart of the Human Genome Project, the quest to identify every gene on every human chromosome. The gene project is being jointly financed by the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health, and the United States Plant Genome Research Program, a project financed by the Department of Agriculture. "It's the first example, that I know of, of a significant discovery using map-based cloning," said Dr. Roger Beachy, director of plant biology at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego. The gene cloned at Cornell gives plants resistance to the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae, which causes a disease, speck, that results in leaves dropping off and reduced yield and can lead to the death of the tomato plant. The Cornell researchers identified the gene by locating it on chromosome 5 of the tomato, using a combination of readily available automated gene sequencing machines and their own technology for sequencing very long chains of DNA, which could act as markers pointing to the gene of interest. The target gene was present |
649626_1 | Gowanus Deadline Spurs Alternative Plan | with residents in communities that would be affected by the $500 million reconstruction project, scheduled to begin in 1997, said Phyllis Hirschberg, a spokeswoman for the State Transportation Department. So far, the meetings have not shifted the department's plan. "The alternatives are by no means our favorite," Ms. Hirschberg said. "We think the road should be rehabilitated and remain where it is." For two years, the state has been preparing residents for the most extensive work on the roadway, which has four lanes in either direction north of the Prospect Expressway and three to the south, since it was developed by Robert Moses in the 1940's. But as the starting date for the proposed overhaul looms, residents and elected officials are anxiously looking for alternatives as they think about 10 years of traffic snarls from Bay Ridge to Brooklyn Heights. Because of vocal resistance to the project, the alternatives, particularly a street-level highway, have drawn more interest. The state's concession that a street-level highway is a viable alternative is considered a major step forward by some residents and leaders of organizations from Brooklyn Heights to Sunset Park, who have been lobbying for years, said Tony Giordano, executive director of the Sunset Park Restoration Corporation, a grass-roots lobbying group. "They told us flat out 'No,' saying it was something they had looked at and concluded that it was impossible," said Mr. Giordano, whose proposal calls for three lanes of traffic in each direction and two-lane service roads in each direction. "But now that they are willing to consider it, we are willing to work with them." The Gowanus situation is complicated, said Victor Teglasi, the regional Gowanus project manager, and Theodore St. Germain, regional state engineer. "The Gowanus is a major interstate route that feeds the Verrazano-Narrows toll Bridge, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and other roads," Mr. Teglasi said. "In the portion of the city where the Gowanus is located, there are no alternative routes." While the study is incomplete and there are no hard figures on the cost of constructing a surface-level highway, Mr. St. Germain and Mr. Teglasi are not convinced that the venture would be successful. They predict that the entire project would take up to five years and handle only 4,000 of the 7,000 vehicles now on the Gowanus during peak rush hours, diverting 3,000 cars onto local streets. LYNETTE HOLLOWAY NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: SUNSET PARK |
649723_3 | M.B.A. Programs Fight for Shrinking Pool of Students Interested in Business | career has already shown up in the number of people taking the Graduate Management Admissions Test, which most graduate business schools require applicants to take. In the last two years the number of applicants taking the test has dropped nearly 18 percent. This year, the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University has seen a 20 percent decrease in applications. The Wharton School's highly selective joint degree program with the Joseph H. Lauder Institute, its international cousin at the University of Pennsylvania campus, received only 310 applications for its 55 spots this year, down from 325 the previous year. Elsewhere, the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College received 2,077 applications this year, as against 2,663 in 1990. Even the Kellogg School, which has ranked No. 1 the last three times in Business Week's biannual business school survey, has seen its applications drop to 4,328 in 1993 from 5,016 in 1991. New Emphasis on Teaching As many business schools focus on overhauling and broadening their curriculums, many have begun to pay attention to professors' teaching skills, a radical change for academia, where published research is often the only route to tenure and promotion. "At Iowa, we turned down a would-be professor with excellent research credentials because we heard his teaching abilities were not great," said George Daly, former dean of the College of Business Administration at the University of Iowa. In August, Mr. Daly took over as dean of the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University, which is now emphasizing teaching skills as much as research in its tenure decisions. Perhaps most unusual is that business schools are now marketing their new offerings as aggressively as Campbell markets soup. The schools are putting together brochures that tout their resources, placement records and new curriculums. The schools are also easing the application process, allowing students to pay fees by credit card and to apply electronically via computer modem. They are holding receptions for foreign applicants in Tokyo, Frankfurt, London and other foreign cities. And, increasingly, deans themselves are being sent to woo potential students. Holding the Line In addition to Harvard, business schools that have not seen decreases include Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., and the business schools at Columbia University and the University of Illinois. But these schools are working doubly hard to make sure their enrollment figures remain solid. Babson, for example, has hired |
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