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808365_0 | GHOST GRIZZLIES By David Petersen. John Macrae/Holt, $27.50. In 1979 a Colorado outdoorsman named Ed Wiseman was nearly killed by -- and eventually killed -- a grizzly bear in the state's San Juan Mountains. The attack was a surprise: although grizzlies once roamed in abundance, the Colorado Division of Wildlife had considered them extinct in the state since 1952. But rumors of grizzlies persist, and over the last four years, David Petersen has investigated them in a series of treks by foot and horseback. In "Ghost Grizzlies," a sometimes eloquent, occasionally dry account of his pursuit, he joins members of the San Juan Grizzly Project in search of the bears and accompanies people to scenes of the reported grizzly sightings. He argues that grizzlies have been victims of "methodical, relentless, ruthless shooting, trapping and poisoning." Mr. Petersen, a nature writer and the editor of "Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections From the Journals of Edward Abbey, 1951-1989," disdains hunters and ranchers and decries sheep for "tempting hungry predators with their insipid nonstop bleating." While the book could do with fewer verbatim reports of bear management and paw measurement, "Ghost Grizzlies" leaves one with a memorable image of the dish-faced, hump-backed and mostly vegetarian bear. And the tale told by Mr. Wiseman, who survived his mauling with a decided limp, is well worth the price of admission. CAROL PEACE ROBINS | BOOKS IN BRIEF: NONFICTION |
808643_0 | France's decision to resume nuclear testing may have brought a comprehensive test ban treaty closer, the man who won a Nobel Peace Prize last month for his anti-nuclear activities said at a conference on nuclear disarmament today. Joseph Rotblat, who was awarded the prize for his campaign for the abolition of nuclear weapons, said the protests over the French tests had brought unexpected positive spinoffs. One of them is that it is now almost certain there will be a comprehensive test ban treaty next year," he said, adding that President Jacques Chirac of France had not predicted "the avalanche of protest all over the world." France has exploded three nuclear tests in the South Pacific since September, which have led to worldwide condemnation. Mr. Rotblat, who worked on the atomic bomb during World War II before turning against nuclear weapons, said assurances by governments that nuclear weapons prevented wars were false. He called for a complete ban on nuclear weapons. WORLD NEWS BRIEFS | Nobel Winner Says Test Ban Seems Nearer |
808271_9 | scholar and traveler, remembered how it was in the 1920's: "In the clear air the city rises like a gigantic jewel glittering in its rugged Alpine setting. . . . From the boat, it looks like a fantastic city of the Genii, created by magic power." Today, alas, the Genii are out to lunch. This is no longer the harbor that once brought wealth beyond computing into the coffers of the city. The big ships that we see are the ferries that go to Corsica or Sicily, with an occasional cruise liner on a seven-hour visit. The ordered and spacious waterfront that looked so good from the sea is obscured by recent and hideous constructions. Among ports of entry, this one is now a bust. But that waterfront was something to see, despite bombing damage to the port facilities, as recently as the aftermath of World War II, when the United States Navy came on a visit. It was beautiful, too. As long ago as 1133, the city fathers had made up their minds that it should have style, distinction and extent. The Palazzata della Ripa -- a Gothic-arched, arcaded, weather-sheltered curve of tall houses that runs from the Piazza Darsena to Piazza Cavour -- still gives us an august impression of what a waterfront can be. Much of Genoa at sea level has to this day something of the overcrowded and conspiratorial aspect that it had had since the Middle Ages. This is in part because no one has ever known what else to do with it. In 1947, Dylan Thomas got the ancient tone of it just right when he wrote to his parents that "the dock-front of Genoa is just marvelous. Such heat and colors and noise and loud wicked alleys with all the washing of the world hanging from the high windows!" But today the bus and the taxi race past the Palazzata della Ripa as if the devil himself had taken up residence there. ("I beg you to take off that necklace," said the taxi driver when he agreed to drop my wife and myself off there at 10 in the morning.) Genoa has never given in to the formula of uptown, midtown and downtown. It prizes coexistence, and coexistence, in this context, means that the great houses of Genoa are almost within touching distance of a pullulating underworld. Even those who live on the | BAROQUE SPLENDOR IN AN OLD PORT |
808404_5 | matter how menial the task, three students -- Jeanine Spero of Farmingville, Jennifer Weidner of Stony Brook and Jennifer Kaleita of Selden -- said they wanted to return. "We're hoping to go back as alumni," Ms. Spero said. "I ran the souvenir cart in front of M-G-M studios," Miss Kaleita said. "I sold hats to people if it was hot and little lights to little kids." Majoring in travel and tourism, working for Disney "was the experience of a lifetime," she said. And she has a graduation cap to prove it. "It's mouse ears," she said, "with a tassel." Medicine on the Modem First there were house calls. Now the doctor is available on-line. "I hand patients my card, and it has my phone number and my Internet address," said Dr. Robert Schwartz, a family practitioner and chairman of the family practice department at the Stony Brook University Medical Center. Dr. Schwartz said he believed in contact with his patients, in whatever way is most convenient for them. As many of his patients are on the SUNY staff, "computers are very accessible to them," he said. So he has started answering their medical questions via E-mail. "I haven't started charging for it, yet," he said. For a doctor, the tools of the trade may soon be stethoscope, thermometer and laptop. "I've been an advocate of teaching computer literacy in medical school for a long time," Dr. Schwartz said. For teachers, as well as students. "Two years ago most of my faculty didn't know how to type and they didn't have computers," he said "Now they all do." Communicating with patients via computer, he said, seems a natural offshoot for practicing medicine in the 90's. "I come into my office, and there are 40 messages waiting on my computer," he said. There was the female patient who had chronic neck pain. "I had seen her in my office," Dr. Schwartz said. "She E-mailed me that she still had pain and described it to me. I wrote back that she needed an M.R.I. and I wound up getting an appointment for her through the Internet." In the future, Dr. Schwartz predicts, "you'll plug your finger into a receptacle attached to the computer, and we'll be able to take your blood pressure and heart rate." What about human contact? "Oh, I still make housecalls," he said. "Patients will always get the hand holding." | No Headline |
811144_0 | To the Editor: Your news article "Vatican Says the Ban on Women as Priests Is 'Infallible' Doctrine" (front page, Nov. 19) includes an astonishing assertion that you attribute to the Rev. Richard P. McBrien of the University of Notre Dame. Father McBrien is quoted as saying that "There are literally millions of Catholics in the U.S. alone who see no reason why women can't be ordained." Maybe so. But recent surveys have also concluded that large numbers of Roman Catholics "in the U.S. alone" do not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist -- a belief indisputably central to Catholic life, faith and practice. That being so, it is hard to understand why Father McBrien thinks it is so important that the Pope and the Vatican should be in step with contemporary American opinion. (Rev.) ALLAN HAWKINS Arlington, Tex., Nov. 20, 1995 | Who's Out of Step? |
806696_0 | THIS WEEK | Call of the Wild |
806788_3 | also with about 15 customers on board. Capacity is more than 80. "This is supposed to be the best fishing time of the year. Ten years ago, if we were catching this quantity of fish, we'd have a big crowd. Now it's a struggle for survival. The economy won't let you raise your fare, so you're trying to get more out of less." Captain Fagan has been running fishing boats off the Jersey coast since the day after he got out of high school 26 years ago. His co-captain, Chris Hueth, said he was amazed by the number of passengers who are also working the numbers now, fishing not for recreation but for food for the table. "You can spot them right off," he said. "No beer, no Coca-Cola. Supermarket-brand soda. They can't tip the mate much, maybe a dollar. Yesterday, a guy caught 25 sea bass, about two pounds each. You know how many meals that makes?" Usually, a boat makes enough money in the summer to cover the lean months after Christmas. This year was different. There were an astounding 14 drownings this summer off the North Jersey coast, a result of violent riptides swirling along badly eroded beaches. But the subtleties of coastal geology were lost on the hysterics of New York television news, who screamed alarms for six weeks about hurricane-churned seas and kept people away. In fact, Captain Fagan and others on the docks said, there were only two days the boats couldn't go out. "I'd get calls from people watching television asking: 'What is going on down there? It sounds like the end of the world!' " said Patty Fagan, his wife, who handles phone bookings for the fishing trips. Meanwhile, there is something else missing. As boats come in, you scan the faces and realize the geezers are gone, the retired guys who used to crowd the party boats -- the old fishermen who could arbitrate disputes about bait, demonstrate how to tie a sinker, correctly identify any fish hauled in. Captain Fagan shrugged and hooked a thumb that pointed down the coast. "They're all in Atlantic City," he said. "Those retired guys that fished during the week and off season? The casinos offer them a $10 bus ride and $20 in free quarters plus a meal voucher. How can we compete with that? Those guys are fishing the slot machines now." JERSEY | Bluefish Are Running, So What's Wrong? |
806907_1 | movement is taking hold as memories fade of the Rockies' bitter recession of a decade ago, a bust triggered by falling oil and gas prices. With Colorado's economy increasingly diversified, many economists believe that the state may be breaking a century-long boom-and-bust cycle. Today, only 1 percent of Coloradans work in the energy field. More now work in telecommunications than energy. Denver is the capital of nation's cable television industry. Further spurring job growth there are a new international airport and a mutual fund industry whose portfolio has grown tenfold, to $50 billion, in five years. In the first half of the 1990's, Colorado's annual population growth ran at triple the nation's rate of 1 percent a year, though it has tapered off to only double the national rate today. With quality of life increasingly important for white-collar workers, Denver now offers four major sports teams, a revitalized downtown and easy access to wilderness areas. In this environment, more and more Colorado communities feel they can give themselves the luxury of shutting the door. In Boulder, where job growth has run at three times population growth, turnout was light last week for a pro-growth rally billed as "a taste of unemployment." Stephen M. Pomerance, a City Council candidate who helped found a residents group called Slow Growth, said that unemployment was not a realistic fear for most residents. "In Boulder, we have 85,000 jobs for a city with 95,000 people," he said. On Tuesday, Boulder residents are to vote on an initiative to cut annual commercial construction in half over the next five years. Sensing a ground swell of support for curbs, Boulder's City Council voted in September to adopt a compromise measure, to cut commercial construction by 30 percent. Boulder has been so attractive to investors that during the first nine months of this year companies scrambled to win permits for one million square feet of commercial construction, double the annual average of previous years. To some, Boulder's ballot proposal represents the second shoe dropping. In 1976, Boulder became the first city in Colorado to put caps on housing construction, though it left commercial development untouched. "The result is that we now have 40,000 people commuting into Boulder every day," said Paul Danish, a Boulder county commissioner, who pushed for the residential curb 20 years ago. Predicting victory for the commercial curb on Tuesday, he said, "You spend your | A Booming Colorado Weighs Its Future |
807105_3 | asparagus mousse in a crepe with raspberry vinaigrette. An elegant dish of warm gratineed oysters with coriander on a bed of mashed potatoes would have been perfect with a little less salt. Red cabbage, found frequently on South African menus, reflecting the old Afrikaans influence, accompanied very tender and lean medallions of springbok, the richness of the sharp, sweet cabbage a pleasing contrast with the barely gamey flavor of the springbok. Cabbage appeared again on a plate of chocolate-colored ravioli stuffed with parsnips. The ravioli dough, made with cacao, provided the right hint of bitterness to contrast with the sweetness of the parsnips. The most popular local fish is kingklip, a mild, firm white fish, which is grilled and served here with sesame noodles. Desserts are special, particularly the ambrosial red wine sabayon ice cream, the phyllo with lemon mousse, and a ball of ice cream cleverly packaged in almond paste. The food at Bosman's reflects a sophisticated awareness of what is happening in the international culinary world. The service is exactly right for an elegant country-house hotel, and even the silver cloche drill, the simultaneous lifting of covers from everyone's dish, seemed appropriate in those surroundings. As you sit overlooking the Drakenstein mountains that rise beyond the hotel's vineyards, you might think you were in Provence. Buitenverwachting Before going to Buitenverwachting in the suburb of Constantia, about 20 minutes from Cape Town, you will have to learn how to pronounce it. It's worth the effort: bayten ver vachten (meaning "beyond expectations"). Past towering English oaks, horses grazing in the pasture, vineyards in full leaf, the long drive through the gates promises something special. Despite the presence of one male guest wearing a T-shirt and others without ties, Buitenverwachting is a fairly formal place. The spacious, wood-paneled dining room with its handsome chairs and banquettes is elegant and comfortable. The food is stunning but non-fussy. Those who know Munich may recognize the hand of Eckart Witzigmann, the talented chef formerly at Aubergine, which earned three stars in the Michelin when he was there. He trained the chef here, Thomas Sinn. To start there were savory oysters with spinach puree and superb crayfish on basmati rice with shrimp and black sesame seeds. The most remarkable first course was a silken duck liver parfait, made with a sweet, late harvest wine exploding with flavor. This up-to-date chef can make sublime classics. Perfectly | Cape Town's Inventive Chefs |
806945_1 | said the author of the report, Dowell Myers, a demography professor at the University of Southern California. "Everybody is moving up at different speeds, but faster than many thought." The nonpartisan study, paid for by a private foundation, comes at a time when many Californians are calling for stricter immigration laws and measures that would require the use of English in state business. Of Southern California's nearly 17 million residents, about 4.4 million are foreign born. Mr. Myers culled census data from about 850,000 Southern California residents. He shows a common thread of increasing economic prosperity among immigrants over time, at rates that vary with age, sex and ethnicity. For example, the average incomes of male European and Middle Eastern immigrants age 25 to 34 grew to $47,700 in 1990 from $23,200 in 1980. During the same period, the income of immigrant Asian men in the same age category doubled to $39,900 from $19,800. However, the earnings of Hispanic men rose only modestly in this 10-year span, to $18,900 from $14,900. "There is evidence that Latino-Americans are capturing some of the American dream," said Abel Valenzuela, a professor of urban planning and Chicano studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. "But the debate is whether they are rising fast enough." Nearly half of adult Hispanic immigrants have less than a ninth-grade education when they arrive, Mr. Myers said. The study found that many were not likely to be promoted at their jobs, and were less likely to learn English. In contrast, those who come to the United States at a young age go to school, generally learn English and have a lower poverty rate. Only 21 percent of Hispanic men who moved to Southern California between the ages of 25 and 34 became proficient in English after 10 years. By comparison, 53 percent of Asian women and almost 80 percent of European and Middle Eastern men in the same age range learned English. The rates of those obtaining citizenship after 10 years also varies: 67 percent for Asian men, 51 percent for European and Middle Eastern men and 21 percent of Hispanic men. Mr. Myers said that Mexicans and Canadians had a low rate of naturalization because of their proximity to their native countries. Immigrants out-paced native-born residents in the percentage of those who were self-employed. Mr. Myers called this a "positive" indicator of the region's economic future. | California Immigrants Make Fast Economic Gains, Study Finds |
806753_3 | group soon recognized that it had two species -- a striped sea robin (horizontal stripes, a straight tail fin) and a northern sea robin (no obvious stripes, a concave tail fin). "With the keys, you really have to be observant, pay attention to small details," said Nikki Gullickson, who teaches social studies in a Bacon Academy program that integrates several subjects. For four years, that's taken her to Project Oceanology. "It's great for the teachers," said Ms. Gullickson. "We're there with the kids, and sometimes we don't know all the answers. They see that we're learning, and that learning is an ongoing process. I'm not a biologist; I've learned more biology since I've been in this program than in high school and college put together -- and as a parent, I can take my kids out and turn a trip to the beach into a mini field trip." Last year, she recalled, her daughter, then 9, "keyed out a squid." Dr. Weiss, also the author of "Investigating the Marine Environment," three books detailing field studies and experiments, has guided guided Project Oceanology through major operations, notably rebuilding two boats (now Enviro-Lab I and Enviro-Lab II) into teaching and research vessels. "We started in 1972 with 14 schools; now we serve on the order of 50 school districts. We take about 25,000 students a year out on the water," said Dr. Weiss. The project, run by a nonprofit association of educational institutions, also has programs for elderly people and the general public. Topics include marine ecology and coastal management. Bacon Academy students took turns; while those in the stern identified creatures, those in the bow collected water samples for various tests. Mr. Hage pointed to a pharmaceutical plant onshore and ferries, fishing boats and a submarine in the water. "These all impact on Long Island Sound; we want to determine what that impact is," he reminded students. Mr. Hage was introduced to Project Oceanology in 1973, when he was a middle school student. "It's incomprehensible how many people Mickey has turned to marine science," he said, calling Dr. Weiss by the nickname that almost everybody uses. In recent years he helped check material for "Marine Animals." "I feel like a part of me is in that book," he said. Future work may get more Hage help. "I've got a 1-year-old, Luke," Mr. Hage said. "He's been down here; he's gotten Mickey's | The View From: Enviro-Lab II;All Things Wet, and Sometimes Slimy |
806753_4 | soon recognized that it had two species -- a striped sea robin (horizontal stripes, a straight tail fin) and a northern sea robin (no obvious stripes, a concave tail fin). "With the keys, you really have to be observant, pay attention to small details," said Nikki Gullickson, who teaches social studies in a Bacon Academy program that integrates several subjects. For four years, that's taken her to Project Oceanology. "It's great for the teachers," said Ms. Gullickson. "We're there with the kids, and sometimes we don't know all the answers. They see that we're learning, and that learning is an ongoing process. I'm not a biologist; I've learned more biology since I've been in this program than in high school and college put together -- and as a parent, I can take my kids out and turn a trip to the beach into a mini field trip." Last year, she recalled, her daughter, then 9, "keyed out a squid." Dr. Weiss, also the author of "Investigating the Marine Environment," three books detailing field studies and experiments, has guided guided Project Oceanology through major operations, notably rebuilding two boats (now Enviro-Lab I and Enviro-Lab II) into teaching and research vessels. "We started in 1972 with 14 schools; now we serve on the order of 50 school districts. We take about 25,000 students a year out on the water," said Dr. Weiss. The project, run by a nonprofit association of educational institutions, also has programs for elderly people and the general public. Topics include marine ecology and coastal management. Bacon Academy students took turns; while those in the stern identified creatures, those in the bow collected water samples for various tests. Mr. Hage pointed to a pharmaceutical plant onshore and ferries, fishing boats and a submarine in the water. "These all impact on Long Island Sound; we want to determine what that impact is," he reminded students. Mr. Hage was introduced to Project Oceanology in 1973, when he was a middle school student. "It's incomprehensible how many people Mickey has turned to marine science," he said, calling Dr. Weiss by the nickname that almost everybody uses. In recent years he helped check material for "Marine Animals." "I feel like a part of me is in that book," he said. Future work may get more Hage help. "I've got a 1-year-old, Luke," Mr. Hage said. "He's been down here; he's gotten Mickey's blessing." | The View From: Enviro-Lab II;All Things Wet, and Sometimes Slimy |
812358_0 | The agreement announced in London on Tuesday night by Prime Ministers John Bruton of Ireland and John Major of Britain provides a welcome nudge to the peace effort in Northern Ireland. That drive was dangerously stalled until President Clinton's visit to London and Belfast "concentrated the mind," as Mr. Major put it, and the British and Irish Governments tried to break the deadlock. They fell well short of a breakthrough, but the agreement should keep the parties engaged. In an atmosphere in which political rivalries have long been expressed through violence, the 15-month cease-fire in Northern Ireland has left nationalists and Unionists searching uneasily for a way to pursue their goals through a political process. The institutions for doing so were long ago destroyed. By setting up interim talks, and leaving the agenda completely open, the agreement sustains some momentum toward peace and reduces the temptation to resort again to violence. The main impediment to direct negotiation among all the parties remains unresolved, namely Britain's unreasonable insistence that the Irish Republican Army surrender some of its weapons before talks can begin. But the agreement does create a mechanism that may help untangle that issue. Mr. Major and Mr. Bruton agreed to establish a long-discussed international commission on disarmament of the paramilitary groups. The commission will be headed by former United States Senator George Mitchell, a man trusted by all sides, and two other members not yet chosen, one Canadian and the other from a Scandinavian country. While the recommendations of the commission will not be binding, Mr. Mitchell may be able to come up with a compromise approach that will satisfy the British while not humiliating the I.R.A. The prospects for peace will wither without some resolution of the arms issue. Perhaps the most encouraging development is that the British and Irish Governments are acting together again on Northern Ireland, after a dangerous rift. Progress toward peace so far has been propelled by joint efforts of the two Governments. The White House has acted constructively through the past two years, urging the parties to keep talking. While no substantive issue has yet been solved, Mr. Clinton can mark 15 months without war in Northern Ireland as he visits Belfast today. | A Break in the Irish Impasse |
807636_0 | Portugal's new Socialist Government stopped work today on a dam project whose waters threatened to flood caves containing Stone Age rock carvings that archeologists say are among the oldest in Europe. Prime Minister Antonio Guterres told Parliament that work on the Foz Coa dam project would be halted while experts were given time to confirm the date of the artwork. If their importance is confirmed, and I hope it is, the project will be definitively abandoned," Mr. Guterres said in a speech presenting his Government program. Archeologists say the scratched images of birds, horses and other animals on the rocky sides of the Coa River in northern Portugal constitute one of the world's largest open-air exhibitions of this type of paleolithic art. But experts brought in by the state electricity company building the dam say that the carvings are at most a few thousand years old. Work on the project has been slowed since the discovery of the carvings in 1994. | World News Briefs;Possibly Ancient Carving Delays Portuguese Dam |
807470_0 | Scientists working in Brazil have found the first proof that undisturbed tropical rain forests soak up huge amounts of the carbon dioxide that people produce by burning fuels. The measurements, published on Friday in the journal Science, show that each year, each hectare (2.47 acres) of the southwestern Amazon rain forest absorbs a ton of carbon dioxide. Virgin forest sequesters carbon from the atmosphere," wrote John Grace of the University of Edinburgh, who led a team of British, Australian and Brazilian ecologists. "The whole of tropical South America may act as a carbon sink." If the measurements are extended globally, the world's remaining tracts of tropical rain forests could be absorbing a billion tons of carbon dioxide every year, one-sixth of the amount produced by burning fuels, said Pieter Tans of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He added that "it's clear the forests are helping us" balance the so-called greenhouse effect. The carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere has been rising slowly for decades and today is 30 percent higher than at the turn of the century, Mr. Tans said. Much of this increase is attributed to burning fuels and slash-and-burn farming. Many scientists are convinced that increased carbon dioxide could cause a global temperature increase. The oceans are the largest absorber of carbon dioxide, and Mr. Tans discovered last summer that new forests in the Northern Hemisphere also act as large carbon sinks, where plants take in carbon dioxide and use the gas in photosynthesis. | Scientists Say Rain Forests Lower Levels of Global Carbon Dioxide |
806165_2 | only on the patio. Though it seems strange now, I never worried about her health. In her early 60's, she was trim and fit, working as a computer systems analyst at an aerospace company. She had regular chest X-rays. She cleaned her own house and, after my parents divorced, mowed her own lawn. As she approached retirement in 1990, she talked about building her dream house in California's high desert. I assumed that my mother would live into her 90's, like the other women in our family, and that she and I would grow old together. One spring night, I got a call from my grandmother, then 83, who was worried about Mom. "She's had a splitting headache all weekend and doesn't sound like herself," Grandma reported. When I called Mom, she said it was "only a migraine" but scared me because she couldn't remember her doctor's name or phone number. The doctor, after talking to her, declared her "disoriented" and sent an ambulance. I met the ambulance at the hospital, and within an hour, the problem was diagnosed: Mom had a brain tumor the size of a peach. It took a week of tests to determine she also had lung cancer, two tiny spots in one lobe. A neurosurgeon recommended radiation to reduce the tumor and make her more comfortable, but he held out little hope. "Take her home and love her," he said. "She's got a year, maybe 18 months." Mom was a conscientious patient. While she underwent radiation and chemotherapy, she quit smoking to give herself "an edge," she said, and because her sister Nadine, who drove Mom to her appointments, had insisted. The tumors shrank, the nausea stopped, and for a while, it looked like Mom might beat the odds. And then, a year after the diagnosis, I walked into Mom's house for Saturday night supper and smelled smoke. "She's back at it!" I whispered frantically to my husband. There were no ashtrays in evidence, but my nose led me to the kitchen trash can -- and a huge collection of cigarette butts. Behind some cereal boxes I found two cartons of cigarettes. "Leave her alone," my husband pleaded. "I see you've found my stash," Mom said when she returned to the kitchen. And then, a little defensively, she said: "I'm not going to last much longer whether I smoke or not. And so I am | A Cigarette, a Precious Relic |
810838_0 | President Clinton will make a televised address Monday night in an effort to build public and Congressional support for his plan to send 20,000 American troops to help NATO police the Bosnia peace agreement, the White House announced today. As a result, Mr. Clinton will delay until Tuesday his planned departure for England, Northern Ireland, Ireland and Spain. He now plans to add a stop Dec. 2 to visit American troops stationed in Germany, who would be among the first sent to Bosnia. BALKAN ACCORD | Clinton Plans TV Talk |
810901_0 | American exports unexpectedly continued to climb to new heights in September as the nation's trade deficit inched down to $8.35 billion, the lowest level of the year, Commerce Department figures showed today. At the same time, the American deficit with Japan narrowed for the sixth consecutive month to a level nearly one-third less than in the spring. And even the deficit with China, which has been swelling rapidly to rival Japan's, contracted. The gap narrowed with most trading partners in the Far East, and approached balance with Western Europe. The Clinton Administration was quick to boast of the latest results, which, among other things, indicated that the economy's growth rate during the third quarter was likely to be revised upward significantly. Exports jumped 1.6 percent, to $67.2 billion, after an even larger August surge that many specialists thought could not be maintained. Imports rose by about the same amount, to $75.6 billion. The decline in the trade deficit was small -- to $8,349,000,000 in September from August's $8,359,000,000, which had originally been reported at $8.8 billion. "The trade deficit appears to have peaked," said Ronald H. Brown, the Commerce Secretary. "President Clinton has pursued a trade policy that aggressively promotes exports and presses for open markets abroad." But today's report did not hold only good news for the Administration. The nation's trade deficit has been widening significantly with Mexico and Canada. Administration officials have already been bracing for Republican attacks over President Clinton's promotion of closer trade ties with Mexico through the North American Free Trade Agreement, and on the American bailout for Mexico after the peso crashed last December. And today's figures also showed that the United States experienced a small deficit in trade of advanced technology products, the first time this traditional source of large surpluses had been negative. The trade deficit, the amount by which a country's purchases of foreign goods and services exceed what it sells abroad, is widely watched as a gauge of the appeal of American wares in the global market. If they are seen as not being good value, foreign orders may go elsewhere and jobs could be lost here. One rule of thumb is that $1 billion of exports keeps nearly 20,000 Americans at work. Trade figures also reflect fundamental trends in how a nation uses its resources. Since the United States does not generate enough savings, it relies on borrowings from | GAINS IN EXPORTS CUT TRADE DEFICIT |
812115_4 | rancor-filled question of whether the West, led by the United States, is seeking to limit China's emergence as a great power. "Developed countries discharge more carbon dioxide than developing countries on a per capita basis and the United States discharges 10 times more than China on a per capita basis," Qin Zhongda, the vice chairman of the environmental protection committee of the National People's Congress, said last month during a news conference at the Great Hall of the People. For many Chinese, the question of whether the rest of the world will accommodate China's coal-burning juggernaut is a question of fundamental equity, and the country's political leaders have been thus far unwilling to enter serious negotiations about their future emissions. "China has not recognized that they are going to have increasing obligations for the future," said Timothy E. Wirth, the State Department's undersecretary for global affairs who visited China last year seeking to broaden cooperation on strategies to combat climate change. "We may have fouled the atmosphere in the past," he continued, "and that's our responsibility. But we both are fouling the atmosphere for the future and that is both of our responsibilities." China disagrees. "Two hundred years after the Industrial Revolution, the world economy has greatly advanced and the developed countries are the main beneficiary," said Lin Zongtang, a former head of China's Aero-Space Ministry and now vice chairman of the environmental protection committee of the National People's Congress. "About 80 percent of the world's pollution is caused by developed countries and they should be responsible for these problems." That means, Chinese officials say, that the developed countries should help pay for cleaner coal burning technologies in the third world, as well as helping to finance capital-intensive hydro-electric projects, nuclear power stations and alternative energy sources like wind and solar. Many Western and Chinese scientists say they believe that despite China's dependence on coal for the foreseeable future, China's emissions of carbon dioxide could be held to a doubling of output, instead of a tripling, during the next 30 years by increasing efficiency and investment in alternative energy sources. But that, in itself, would require a huge mobilization of capital, technology and political commitment. The Attitude So Many Burners, One Thing to Burn Here in China's coal capital, miners, mine bosses, engineers and power plant operators all seem to believe that China is resigned to a heavy dependence on | China's Inevitable Dilemma: Coal Equals Growth |
812145_3 | held that employers may not retaliate against union organizers or refuse to hire applicants they suspect may be interested in such organization. B11 AID FOR CHARITIES In a bipartisan agreement, the House passed a measure to exempt charities from the antitrust and securities that apply to businesses and the Senate is expected to follow suit. B13 I.R.S. BEATS A RETREAT After a report that the I.R.S. was considering treating frequent-flier miles that are given to employees by companies as taxable income for the individuals, the tax agency said it had no plans to do so. B14 Education D20 More and more, older students are now turning to home-schooling. Metro Digest B1 PLOTTING IN SQUALOR? In the last year, city officials have evacuated almost 200 people from dungeonlike cellars in Chinatown. But housing officials now suspect some of the emergencies were a hoax, and that the horrific living conditions were a ruse for immigrants to get city housing. A1 ON WELFARE, WORKING IN SCHOOLS Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani is pushing the use of welfare recipients to supervise students during lunchtime, at recess and in hallways when they change classes and before and after school, duties that teachers will no longer have to perform under a new contract worked out with City Hall. A1 Business Digest D1 Arts/Entertainment C13-18 Vermeer show in Washington. C13 The New-York Historical Society is still in financial difficulty. C13 Film: "When Billy Broke His Head . . . and Other Tales of Wonder." C17 Music: Mandy Patinkin. C14 Books: C. C. O'Brien's "On the Eve of the Millennium." C17 Television: "Rod Serling: Submitted for Your Approval." C13 Celebrity cameos. C18 Health Page C10 Personal Health: Air bags save lives, but not always. Psychotherapy or drugs for depression? New findings. When negative expectations make you sick. Obituaries D19 The Living Section C1-9 Sports B15-20 Baseball: Cone unsure on Yank future. B15 Isringhausen optimistic. B17 Basketball: Nelson's approach working. B15 Column: Araton on St. John's coach B15 Football: Lions could loom for Reeves. B15 Murrell delivers for Jets. B19 Hockey: Robitaille cools heels. B19 Tennis: Davis Cup final without Agassi. B17 Editorials/Op-Ed A22-23 Editorials What happened to Elisa? Just say no, Mr. Dole. For reconciliation in Algeria. Lincoln Center's festival. Letters Thomas L. Friedman: Why and how. Frank Rich: Hillary Clinton, R.I.P. Coreen Costello: Giving up my baby. Jeffrey D. Sachs: Why corruption rules Russia. Chronicle B9 Crossword C18 | NEWS SUMMARY |
812130_0 | The British and Irish Governments broke a logjam in the Northern Ireland peace effort tonight, forging an agreement that they said should lead to participation by political representatives of the Irish Republican Army in negotiations over the future of the embattled province. But in a clear sign of how difficult the path toward full-fledged negotiations remains, tonight's agreement deferred any immediate attempt to resolve the issue that has held up the start of talks for months: Prime Minister John Major's insistence that the I.R.A. give up some of the weapons it used in its long guerrilla campaign against Britain if it wants its political wing, Sinn Fein, to have a seat at the talks. The I.R.A. has refused to turn over any weapons. The agreement came just hours before President Clinton was to arrive here for the start of a four-day European trip that includes a visit to Northern Ireland on Thursday. Its main achievement was to set a target date of the end of February for the start of the first full-scale negotiations among the British and Irish Governments and political parties representing both the province's Protestant majority and its Catholic minority. The Governments said they would try to deal with the weapons issue by creating an independent three-member international commission, to be headed by former Senator George J. Mitchell of Maine, to study the question and make recommendations to the Governments by mid-January. The recommendations would be nonbinding and the British Government could still postpone the start of full negotiations if the I.R.A. proves unwilling to give up any guns or bombs or the two sides cannot reach a compromise. The deal also called for an immediate start to "preparatory" talks in which the parties will discuss with one another in various combinations how full-fledged negotiations would proceed. Mr. Major and Prime Minister John Bruton of Ireland said the combination of the independent commission and the preparatory talks would give the peace effort new momentum after months of stalemate. Leaders of unionist parties representing Protestants in Northern Ireland said the agreement was a "fudge" that provided no assurances that the I.R.A. would renounce violence completely. Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, said he had not seen the text of the agreement. "When Sinn Fein is briefed on the detail of tonight's agreement, we will explore this as positively as we have all other propositions to reestablish the | BRITISH AND IRISH BREAK ULSTER JAM |
808128_0 | With thousands of antinuclear protesters pouring into the streets and marching beneath banners that read "Major Disgrace," Prime Minister John Major of Britain had little reason to feel welcome today in a land that is traditionally a bastion of Anglophile good will. Mr. Major's refusal to condemn the resumption of French nuclear testing in the South Pacific has created a serious rift between Britain and most of the rest of the Commonwealth of Nations, the 52-member association that opened a summit meeting today here. Over Mr. Major's objections, the Commonwealth, which represents a quarter of the world's population and most of Britain's former colonies, issued a statement today condemning the French tests in Polynesia, which resumed last September. Mr. Major responded angrily, saying that "what they have got in their statement is factually inaccurate, intellectually inconsistent and unbalanced." He added, "I think the view that has been expressed by our Commonwealth colleagues is just plain wrong -- just plain wrong." Despite personal attacks, the British Prime Minister has stood firm. He said on his arrival in New Zealand: "We are not going to condemn France. I understand the way people feel about it. But that is a decision which is for France. There have been large antinuclear street demonstrations throughout the region, with an estimated 3,000 people joining today in Auckland. Many of the demonstrators wore rubber John Major face masks. Mr. Major is apparently pitted not only against most of his Commonwealth counterparts, but also against the British royal family. In a rare departure from protocol, Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth IIand an environmentalist, has made clear his displeasure with the French. He said "the rest of the family" strongly supported his call for independent scientific monitoring of the explosions. The Prince said of the nuclear tests: "There is a suspicion that it's doing damage. If you're concerned with conservation, you want to make sure it isn't." | Commonwealth Opposes Major on French A-Tests |
810564_4 | a deep pit. The mirror was turned by a pulley connected to an electric motor. By adjusting the motor's speed he could change the curvature of the mercury and bring an image of stars directly overhead to focus on a photographic plate mounted at the top of the pit. The system produced blurred images but worked well enough to photograph the barely separated components of a double star. But two main obstacles delayed the further development of liquid-mirror telescopes. One was that such telescopes cannot track their targets. They look straight up and can only photograph stars and other celestial objects as streaks, as the earth's rotation carries them through their vertical fields of view. A second formidable problem was that the early bearings and motors used by Dr. Wood and a few other experimenters were vulnerable to even the slightest vibrations, which tended to produce waves on the mercury surface and distort images. But in recent years, astronomers have realized that even fixed telescopes that can point only upward are useful. One of the most productive astronomical instruments in the world is the great radio telescope at Arecibo, P.R., 1,000 feet across. The telescope cannot be aimed, but it scans the sky overhead as the earth's rotation moves a strip of sky across the instrument's line of sight. Technology has enhanced the abilities of fixed optical telescopes, as well as radio telescopes. The invention of the charge-couple device, a chip somewhat similar to the image chip in a television camera, endows even a fixed telescope with limited tracking ability. As an image sweeps across the chip, a computer follows the image electronically and records it as a single point of light rather than a smeared streak. The stability of the latest mercury-mirror telescopes has been greatly improved by replacing conventional mechanical bearings with compressed-air bearings, which prevent the turning dish from coming into contact with any solid object that might cause vibrations. Another improvement has been in the quality of drive motors and power supplies, which can now maintain almost perfect constancy of rotation speed. The latest mercury mirrors start out as shells cast in approximately paraboloid shapes from strong, rigid epoxies and Kevlar. To create an accurate starting paraboloid, the finished shell is spun on a turntable at the required speed, and liquid polyurethane is poured in. The polyurethane quickly spreads out in the shape of a paraboloid, | Spun Mercury Is Eye of Telescope |
810597_0 | Two days after the Vatican strengthened its ban on the ordination of women as priests, Roman Catholic dissidents here raised a new challenge to Pope John Paul II today with a petition signed by more than a million German Catholics opposed to his views on a celibate, male-only priesthood and traditional sexual morality. The petition was immediately dismissed by Bishop Karl Lehmann of Mainz, chairman of the German Bishops Conference, as divisive. But, coming so soon after a similar display of restiveness among Catholics in Austria, the petition highlighted a growing rift between the Pope and Catholics in some of Europe's most affluent centers. The results, announced today, showed that 1.8 million people had signed the appeal, an estimated 1.5 million of them Catholics. | World News Briefs;German Petition Raises New Challenge to Pope |
810554_0 | The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first tablet combining estrogen and progestin for women taking hormone replacement medication during menopause. Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories said today that it had won clearance to market the combination tablets, which will be sold under the brand names Prempro and Premphase. Physicians prescribe hormone replacement therapy to help women avoid bone loss and to treat symptoms of menopause like hot flashes and night sweats. | F.D.A. Backs Combined Hormone Pill |
810568_0 | ALTHOUGH astronomy and upper-atmosphere research are the immediate beneficiaries of a new liquid-mirror telescope in Alaska, experiments using the telescope may eventually lead to new military techniques for signaling submarines and probing battlefields for secret tunnels and bunkers. As part of what is being called the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, the Office of Naval Research and the Phillips Laboratory at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts jointly sponsor the new liquid-mirror telescope in Alaska. Observers at the telescope will spend part of their time looking for faint flashes of light or infrared radiation stimulated in the ionosphere some 60 miles high by intense pulses of radio beams transmitted from the ground. Such emissions from the ionosphere may offer ways of peering deep into the ocean and the ground. Communicating with deeply submerged submarines by radio was once virtually impossible, but experiments in the 1950's demonstrated that a particular kind of radio signal could offer a communications link. Since then, the United States Navy has developed a system based on extremely low-frequency radio waves, known as ELF -- the only kind capable of penetrating the ocean to the great depths at which modern submarines cruise. A radio signal that oscillates at speeds of less than about 1,000 hertz (cycles per second) -- far below the speed of any conventional radio transmission -- is classified as ELF. A coded ELF message sent from land cannot be answered from the depths of the ocean, but a submarine responds to an ELF "bell ringer" by rising close enough to the surface that it can receive a conventional radio message. The system works. For nearly a decade, the Navy has transmitted ELF messages globally by simultaneously broadcasting from two enormous antenna systems -- one in Wisconsin, consisting of two perpendicular lines each 14 miles long, and one in Michigan with three lines, two of them 14 miles long and one 28 miles long. But these antennas aroused opposition among many local residents who believed ELF radio transmissions posed a hazard to people and wildlife. In 1984, a panel of experts appointed by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that ELF antennas were no more dangerous than ordinary power lines, which also produce ELF signals. In light of the scientific evidence, the Supreme Court ruled that the ELF system could be completed. Nevertheless, some public opposition persists, and the Navy continues to look for | Scope System Also Offers a Tool For Submarines and Soldiers |
810568_1 | oscillates at speeds of less than about 1,000 hertz (cycles per second) -- far below the speed of any conventional radio transmission -- is classified as ELF. A coded ELF message sent from land cannot be answered from the depths of the ocean, but a submarine responds to an ELF "bell ringer" by rising close enough to the surface that it can receive a conventional radio message. The system works. For nearly a decade, the Navy has transmitted ELF messages globally by simultaneously broadcasting from two enormous antenna systems -- one in Wisconsin, consisting of two perpendicular lines each 14 miles long, and one in Michigan with three lines, two of them 14 miles long and one 28 miles long. But these antennas aroused opposition among many local residents who believed ELF radio transmissions posed a hazard to people and wildlife. In 1984, a panel of experts appointed by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that ELF antennas were no more dangerous than ordinary power lines, which also produce ELF signals. In light of the scientific evidence, the Supreme Court ruled that the ELF system could be completed. Nevertheless, some public opposition persists, and the Navy continues to look for other methods of broadcasting its ELF signals. The experiments being conducted in Alaska may lead to such an alternative. Dr. Ralph Wuerker of the University of California at Los Angeles explained that the new system, which was suggested by experiments in the 1980's in Norway and the Soviet Union, would use the earth's ionosphere itself as an antenna for broadcasting ELF. Experiments showed that when a narrow beam of high-frequency radio waves is sent up into the ionosphere and turned on and off several hundred times a second, the ionosphere itself broadcasts an ELF signal that can be received in the deep ocean all over the world. Dr. Richard Brandt of the Office of Naval Research said that the discovery has never been exploited by any nation as a communication link, but further research may show whether the scheme is practical. At least to a certain extent, an array of antennas the auroral research program has under construction near Gakona, Alaska, some 300 miles from the liquid-mirror telescope, has already demonstrated that the system could work. "We've managed to send ELF signals from Alaska to Groton, Connecticut," Dr. Wuerker said. "It took special apparatus to detect the signal, but it | Scope System Also Offers a Tool For Submarines and Soldiers |
810436_0 | Wiretaps of a top Brazilian official that were leaked as the Senate prepares to vote on $1.4 billion in foreign loans for a controversial project to monitor the Amazon have led to the dismissal of two presidential appointees and thrown the future of the project into doubt. The project would use radar stations and satellites to monitor more than two million square miles of Amazon territory for security, control of drug trafficking and other purposes. The contract is the largest ever awarded to a foreign company. After heavy pressure from the United States, it went to the Raytheon Corporation. But the Brazilian Senate must approve the financing arrangements by Wednesday for the contract to go into effect. The wiretaps were ordered following anonymous accusations of drug trafficking against President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's chief of protocol, Julio Cesar Gomes dos Santos. Instead, they came up with conversations in which Mr. dos Santos suggested to a Raytheon representative that he try bribery to win over Gilberto Miranda, a Senator who opposes the contract on the ground that others could do the job for less. On Sunday, Brazil's Air Force Minister, Maura Jose Gandra, resigned after the wiretaps revealed that he had spent time at the home of Raytheon's representative in Brazil. In one conversation, according to transcripts obtained by the Brazilian news magazine Isto E, the Raytheon representative for marketing, Jose Afonso Assumpcao, says that the Senator opposing the project is "blocking everything." Mr. dos Santos asks whether he has tried bribery, and then promises to speak to the former President, now the leader of the Senate, Jose Sarney. "He is the one who sends Gilberto," Mr. dos Santos allegedly said. Elizabeth Allen, a spokeswoman for Raytheon, said the company would conduct an internal investigation and that if the company found improprieties, it would end its relationship with Mr. Assumpcao's firm. "Right now, there's no evidence of any wrongdoing, there's only innuendo," Ms. Allen said in a telephone interview from the company's headquarters in Lexington, Mass. She denied the company had paid any bribes to Brazilian officials. | Scandal Over Plan for U.S. Company to Monitor Brazil's Amazon |
808743_2 | From Bottles Designer handbags made out of discarded soda bottles? "They look sort of like a cross between an Armani and a Chanel," said Judy A. Samelson, a former psychotherapist who last week received a patent for a way to transform plastic bottles into purses. Ms. Samelson said she came up with the idea while taking a course at the Rhode Island School of Design. "I'm a devoted environmentalist, but I'm also very interested in design," she said. "A lot of items out there made of recycled material are quite homely." To make the purse, Ms. Samelson said, she cuts off the neck of a 2-liter bottle. She slits the bottle at its midsection, half way around. On the other side she makes a slit shaped like an upside-down U; its endpoints intersect with the endpoints of the first slit and it forms a flap. "You bend the flap down and attach it to the bottom half with a chic knob," said Ms. Samelson, who said that the purse's strap could be made of a variety of materials, but that she favored a black rubber cord. Ms. Samelson has formed a company in Boston, Recycle Design, whose mission is to produce accessories made of recycled materials. The products could be assembled by homeless or disabled workers. Ms. Samelson received patent 5,464,108. Holding Out a Hand To Solo Wrestlers Hsin-Hsin Lo, an inventor in Taiwan, has received an American patent for an "apparatus enabling one person to do arm-wrestling." The device clamps onto a table and features a replica of a human forearm and fist. The forearm stands perpendicular to the table and is reinforced inside with iron bars attached to springs. By adjusting the springs, one can control the amount of resistance put forth by the apparatus. Presumably, the ersatz arm will always lose: it moves in only one direction. Hsin-Hsin Lo received patent 5,458,554. Biotech Industry Loophole Closed With a little help from Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, the biotechnology industry has received a change in patent law that it sought for about a decade. The provision closes a loophole that allowed companies to manufacture patented biotech drugs overseas and import them into the United States, circumventing patents held by biotechnology companies. President Clinton signed the measure into law on Nov. 1. Patents are available by number for $3 from the Patent and Trademark Office, Washington, D.C. 20231. | Patents;Borland gets a patent for making graphs from spreadsheets; some experts don't get the picture. |
808783_2 | On many Web sites, job listings are free. And by using them, employers can reach an audience that is generally well educated and comfortable with technology. Electronic classifieds also have the advantage of offering graphics, audio and video clips, color photographs and other features that traditional newspaper listings do not include. On a service called Get Real On-Line Classifieds, consumers can see color photographs of automobiles, boats, real estate and other merchandise. And through Career Mosaic, they can fill out an on-line employment application with Hewlett-Packard and also learn about the company's "culture and values." "Without question, this is working and working well," said James C. Gonyea, the president of Gonyea & Associates of New Port Richey, Fla., who helped develop America Online's Career Center. "On-line classifieds are substantially cheaper, there's faster turnaround and it has global reach." Mr. Gonyea said, however, that electronic classifieds would not entirely displace such ads in newspapers. "On-line classifieds will continue to grow in size and take a part of their market, but we'll see them existing side by side," he said. Still, the newspaper industry is not taking any chances. A number of large papers have placed their own classifieds on the Web, seeking to protect an important source of revenue. Newspapers' classified advertising revenue totals about $12.5 billion a year, or about 35 percent of total ad revenue nationwide. The Chicago Tribune and The Chronicle of Higher Education have had on-line classifieds for months, and several weeks ago, six of the nation's largest newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Washington Post, banded together to form Careerpath.com, an on-line job listing service. "I think it's simple: he who has the biggest data base will make the marketplace," said Dan Donaghy, senior vice president for sales and marketing at The New York Times Electronic Media Company. "That was the primary reason for the papers coming together. We thought the best way for us to remain as the premier marketplace was to combine our data bases." Mr. Donaghy said it made sense for newspapers to capitalize on a business they traditionally had dominated to build a resume and job-matching data base. The group plans to add newspapers from other major markets to its service. He said that Careerpath.com had, on average, about 40,000 classified listings on the Internet and that 50,000 job seekers had already registered with the service. | Advertising;Classified ads are rapidly finding a new home on the Internet. |
808748_1 | to "megaphone" diplomacy. In his speech and again today, Mr. Bruton said in effect that Britain should agree with Ireland on submitting the issue of disarmament to an international panel while setting a target date for the start of full-fledged talks aimed at a political settlement of the disputes that have produced 25 years of guerrilla warfare in the predominantly Protestant North between British security forces and the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic I.R.A. Sinn Fein has argued that the I.R.A. cease-fire, now in its 15th month, is adequate proof of its peaceful intentions and that disarmament as a precondition to talks is impossible. With President Clinton scheduled to visit Northern Ireland and Ireland at the end of the month, Clinton Administration officials are reportedly disturbed at the apparent rift between Dublin and London and have signaled that Washington wants progress in the peace effort before Mr. Clinton arrives. "It is time to take the next step for peace," Mr. Bruton said on Saturday. He added today that he had talked by telephone with Mr. Major, who was in New Zealand for a gathering of Commonwealth nations, and that they had agreed on the importance of cooperation between the two nations. Mr. Major was quoted by the Irish national radio as saying he understood Mr. Bruton's frustration in trying to advance the peace effort. But Mr. Major gave no indication that British policy was about to change, saying, according to Reuters, that the impasse was caused by Sinn Fein's position on disarmament. Officials and analysts said it was unclear how Mr. Bruton's remarks would affect the peace effort. But they noted that Mr. Major, in responding today to questions about the speech by Mr. Bruton, did not criticize him or the call for compromise. Some analysts saw Mr. Bruton's remarks as an attempt to deflect criticism from Sinn Fein that he was not being impartial in the peace effort, favoring the Protestant Unionist and British positions. Yet officials of both Ireland and Britain acknowledged that anxiety over the stalled peace effort was heightened on Friday when the Irish police found two huge car bombs near the northern border, apparently being prepared for use in North Ireland by a group that split off from the I.R.A. nine years ago. The British said this development would make it more difficult for London to persuade northern Protestant political leaders to join talks with Sinn Fein. | Dublin Leader Urges London to Compromise With the I.R.A. |
808723_4 | the Senate version would have saved $65 billion. The legislation would cut projected spending on welfare, child care, food stamps, child nutrition and other programs by about 11 percent in seven years. But the cuts are bigger in the later years and would slice projected spending by nearly 15 percent in 2002. Republicans are still translating some of their conceptual agreements into legislative language, but the work should be finished in a day or two. Many of the welfare provisions will be included in a comprehensive budget bill, which Mr. Clinton opposes for other reasons, but the Republicans said they would also send him a complete freestanding welfare bill, containing all the agreements reached on Friday. Rahm I. Emanuel, a White House aide who coordinates welfare policy, explained the Administration's objections to the emerging bill this way: "The Republicans are paying for tax cuts for the rich by taking money from child nutrition, child care and child protection programs. They are trying to hit an arbitrary budget number. When they are ready to do genuine welfare reform, we stand ready to work with them." Given the Administration's wavering stance in the last year, it is conceivable that Mr. Clinton might some day sign a bill like the one spurned today by Mr. Panetta. But the Administration's showdown with Congress on the budget, the Federal debt ceiling and Medicare seems to have strengthened the President's resolve to fight the Republicans on welfare too. Under the compromise bill, children with severe disabilities would be entitled to cash assistance under the Supplemental Security Income program. The bill would provide full benefits for children with the most severe impairments. Those with slightly less severe impairments would get 75 percent of the amounts to which they would otherwise be entitled. Lawmakers are still haggling over the eligibility criteria. It is not clear whether children who need special supervision because of mental, emotional and behavioral problems will qualify for full benefits. Rhoda Schulzinger, a lawyer at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, said, "This two-tier system is splitting hairs between groups of children, all of whom have severe disabilities like autism, cerebral palsy and mental retardation." Republican lawmakers said the compromise bill would deny food stamps and Supplemental Security Income to legal immigrants who have not become citizens. The bill would let states decide whether to bar such immigrants from several other social welfare programs. | As Welfare Compromise Emerges, Clinton Aide Says Veto Is Certain |
810132_1 | foray in New York capped what has been an unusually active year for him on the international diplomatic stage, and the result has been a strengthening of Cuba's ties with the rest of the world, including some of America's closest allies. Since August alone, he has attended regional conferences of heads of state in Trinidad, Colombia and Argentina, and Cuba now has full diplomatic relations with almost every country in the hemisphere. Just last week, a European Union delegation arrived here to begin discussions on an economic cooperation agreement. That can only whet the appetite of American business executives, who showed during his trip that they are eager for a loosening of the longstanding embargo on trade with and travel to Cuba -- a principal goal of Mr. Castro's Government. Indeed, with the United Nations having condemned the embargo again -- by a 117-3 vote this year -- Mr. Castro has taken to suggesting that the Clinton Administration, by discouraging private investment, has impeded Cuba's transformation from a doggedly Stalinist command economy to a Chinese-style "socialist market" economy. At home, Mr. Castro has been bolstered by the recent performance of Cuba's economy, which had been in a virtual free fall since the Soviet bloc collapsed in 1989, contracting by more than one-third. Cuban officials now forecast 2.5 percent growth for 1995. But the turnaround of the Cuban economy has been due principally to the impact of reforms about which Mr. Castro still harbors deep reservations, such as the 212 joint-venture and other investment agreements his Government has signed with foreign companies, and the opening of farmers' markets. For that reason, the spurt of growth appears to have slowed, not encouraged, the Government's willingness to undertake further economic reforms. Measures to broaden the right of self employment and slim the size of the Government work force, which six months ago were said to be close to ratification, are now on hold, for example. "They seem to be drawing the wrong lessons from what has happened," said one frustrated Latin American diplomat here. "Instead of looking on the promising results they have obtained thus far as a signal to press on and open further, they appear to be telling themselves that they have now done all they need to get by." A Very Bare Minimum On the human rights front too, Mr. Castro appears still inclined to cede no more than the | A Little Hope Pumps Up An Attitude |
810139_0 | Worldwide opposition to France's nuclear tests in the Southwest Pacific put a damper on the annual welcoming of Beaujolais nouveau to foreign shores. In Japan, where the Consumers Union called for a nationwide ban, one shop in Akita invited customers to come in and smash as many bottles of the new wine as they wished. In Sweden, television commercials by anti-nuclear groups showed a woman swishing French wine around in her mouth, then spitting back into the glass. In this country, no organized protest were reported. By law, Beaujolais nouveau cannot be sold until 12:01 a.m. on the third Thursday of November. Then, nouveau-laden trucks are supposed to race into the night from the Beaujolais region to reach Paris by the time the shops open in the morning. By now it's widely known that most of the wine leaves Beaujolais a week early. And these days one of the only people in the "race" is Georges Duboeuf, a major Beaujolais producer. Mr. Duboeuf hosted a party at his winery at Romaneche-Thorins into the pre-dawn hours Thursday, then raced to Paris and caught the Concorde to New York. By lunchtime he was at the Tavern-on-the-Green hosting a Beaujolais nouveau lunch. Then he took an evening flight to Paris and was back at the winery on Friday. FRANK J. PRIAL NOVEMBER 12-18 | Bottle That Boycott |
810161_4 | one dating back to the summer of 1992, when he was involved in smuggling more than 200 illegal Chinese immigrants. Though bound for the United States, their ship, Najd II, became unseaworthy and put in at Mombasa, Kenya, where they were stranded for months. Mr. Lee, meantime, organized the purchase of the Golden Venture in Singapore in January 1993, and leased space to other smugglers -- commonly known as "snakeheads" -- for customers. The ship picked up 90 Chinese nationals off Thailand, traveled to Mombasa to take on 200 of the stranded immigrants, and headed for the United States. Conditions on board were wretched. The passengers were crammed into a 40-foot-by-20-foot hold and had a single ladder to the deck. There were no life boats or life jackets; privacy and sanitation were almost nonexistent. Water was severely rationed. Smaller boats were to have met the ship at a rendezvous point in the Atlantic and the passengers were to have been taken to shore, trial testimony indicated. But the boats failed to arrive, and the Indonesian captain, Amir H. Lumban Tobing, resolved to put in at the island of Madeira, off Spain, for supplies. A confederate of Mr. Lee's on board, Kin Sin Lee, objected to the idea, and he and 12 passengers staged a mutiny on May 17. The captain was handcuffed and taken below with the crew. The ship's first officer, named Lwin, accepted Mr. Kin's offer to assume command. Mr. Kin, who knew Mr. Lee only as "Charlie," contacted his boss by radio and was told the rendezvous boats were not coming, and to sail into New York Harbor. But First Officer Lwin objected, and the snakeheads on board eventually resolved to run the ship aground off Rockaway Beach, with the vague notion of having passengers who could swim jump into the surf and make it to shore on their own, with others to be picked up later by boats. Mr. Lee apparently approved the scheme by radio. He was on Rockaway Beach on June 4, checking out the tides for the freighter's arrival two days later. But things did not go as planned. In the moonlight before dawn on June 6, Mr. Kin ordered the First Officer to run the ship in, and he did so. But six-foot seas were pounding the coast, and as the ship struck a sand bar and heeled over, panic swept the | Suspect in Golden Venture Case Was Leading a Life of Luxury |
810095_0 | IN BRIEF | Getting Ahead in College (Before the First Class) |
809951_1 | appropriate curriculum for the emotionally fragile students who are in-patients, as well as day patients, at the New York Hospital-Westchester Division campus, the White Plains public school runs three separate programs, supplying teaching staff, textbooks and other materials. The program costs $145 a pupil a day, and the student's home district assumes that financial responsibility. Students come from throughout the county as well as Connecticut, New Jersey, upstate New York and New York City. At any time, there are up to 56 students enrolled, although during the course of a year, up to 250 may go through the program. The Bard House program is designed as a year-round, full-time academic experience for 25 day students. "School districts have the opportunity to tutor kids or select this option," said Dr. Brian Bassuk, director of educational programs at the New York Hospital-Westchester Division, which was originally begun in 1969. "Most school districts select our program." Beyond offering subjects like English, social studies, math, sciences and languages in the Educational School Annex, for example, which serves hospital in-patients who are between 13 and 21 in grades 7 through 12, teachers take part in discussions about each child's psychiatric care. "The key to our success is that the hospital works with the school and respects the school as part of the team," Dr. Bassuk said. A high staff-to-student ratio is the rule here. Besides the academic staff, social workers, psychologists, mental health aides, psychiatrists and nurses offer their services to the pupils and their families. Although the in-patient students receive therapy before or after their academic day, those in the Bard House program rotate between academic classes and individual, group, speech and language therapies. Since the goal for these young people, upon discharge from the hospital, is to resume as normal a life as possible, appropriate behavior in the classroom is considered critical. "It's a form of reality testing," said Dr. Adele Handlers, teacher-coordinator of the educational programs. "The doctors can find out if the youngsters can handle life on the outside. Teachers have to rate students not only on academic performance but on whether they are doing their task, if they follow directions and interact successfully with their peers and adults. Kids are used to going to school. Therapeutically, it is better for the kids to attend to a task. School needs to be part of their treatment." Providing the appropriate balance of | Hospital Is Classroom For Emotionally Fragile |
810160_0 | In a statement approved by Pope John Paul II, the Vatican announced yesterday that Roman Catholics must consider their church's doctrine that only men can be priests to be "infallibly" taught. Invoking the word "infallible," which in Catholic theology is reserved for teaching considered irreversible, free from error and requiring full assent from the faithful, indicates the Pope's desire to rule out unequivocally the possibility of ordaining women. But yesterday's statement, although carrying papal approval, came from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which oversees church teaching, and not directly from the Pope. And that is likely to spur a new round of disputes among theologians about the statement's degree of authority. Behind those disputes will be agonizing reappraisals by many Catholics who are deeply committed to the ordination of women. A New York Times survey in September showed that 61 percent of American Catholics favor the ordination of women to the priesthood, and among many nuns and women holding key posts in the church this question is viewed as a measuring stick of its attitudes toward women's equality. Bishop Anthony M. Pilla of Cleveland, who was elected Tuesday as president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, yesterday addressed a plea to Catholics who have questioned the church's teaching that only men can become priests. "I ask you now prayerfully to allow the Holy Spirit to fill you with the wisdom and understanding that will enable you to accept it," Bishop Pilla said of the teaching. He insisted, as has the Pope on many occasions, that the limitation of priesthood to men is not meant to diminish the equality or dignity of women. But several theologians and bishops said the new statement was as likely to lead to reappraisals of the teaching authority of the church and the Pope as to rejection of women's ordination. "There are literally millions of Catholics in the U.S. alone who see no reason why women can't be ordained, and they're not going to decide they're not Catholics," said the Rev. Richard P. McBrien, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame. "It is the Pope and the Vatican who will be seen as out of step." Yesterday's statement was an official response by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to a query concerning "Ordinatio Sacerdotalis," Pope John Paul's declaration in May 1994 that "the church has no | Vatican Says the Ban on Women As Priests Is 'Infallible' Doctrine |
809988_1 | coordinator of the Boces student-assistance service. "There is no one-shot curriculum that will cure the problem of violence in the schools," Mr. Rosen said. "In the field of prevention services, violence has become the latest problem that specialists are trying to tackle. We need to take a broader look at violence that includes all forms of aggressive behavior." At first some districts resisted taking part in the conference, Mr. Rosen said, because administrators did not want to talk about incidents that might reflect negatively on their districts. "But they realized that part of the problem of student violence is a lack of uniformity," he said. "Each district has a different and often inconsistent definition of violence, different rules, policies, procedures and consequences. Up to now the police have been viewed by school districts as adversaries. We must work as a team to bring the schools and police together and to develop a blueprint for educators so that they can better deal with violence." Punishments for violent behavior in the schools vary. The Longwood students were charged with felony arson and released to their parents' custody. Nobody was hurt when the bomb exploded, but a door and two classrooms at the school were damaged. A first-degree arson charge carries a penalty of up to 15 to 25 years in prison, although the prosecutor can choose to charge the teen-agers with a lesser crime or strike a plea bargain. At Patchogue-Medford the student who stabbed her classmate was suspended for the rest of the year. The girl who was attacked was suspended for five days for fighting. The 16-year-old from Westbury, who was charged with first-degree assault and criminal possession of a weapon, was released on $1,000 bail and suspended from school for five days. A Superintendent's hearing may determine further punishment. Some parents in Westbury have urged the district to install metal detectors in the high school. But Superintendent Robert D. Pinckney said that would not solve the problem. Manufacturers or students, Dr. Pinckney said, often encase the metal parts of knives in plastic, rendering detectors less effective. "If this were an environment with a frequency of antisocial behaviors that included weapons, then metal detectors would be appropriate," Dr. Pinckney said. "But this was the first incident of a physical altercation during school hours that involved a weapon. We tend to want to put a Band-Aid on things and say that | Panel to Examine Causes of School Violence |
807352_1 | literature and human thought influenced French intellectuals, died in Paris on Saturday. He was 70. Family members said he had jumped from his apartment window to end a worsening chronic respiratory illness for which he had recently undergone a tracheotomy. Mr. Deleuze taught at the university established in the Paris working-class suburb of Vincennes after the student uprising in 1968 and wrote the best-known of his 30 works, "The Anti-Oedipus," in 1972 with Felix Guattari. The book, an attack on conventional psychoanalysis, sold 53,000 copies in France. He and Mr. Guattari, who died of a heart attack in 1992, wrote four other books together, including "What Is Philosophy," a 1991 work that was published in English two years later. Other works explored the connections between art and action, and included studies of Spinoza, Leibniz, Proust, Kafka and Francis Bacon, the British painter. Born into a conservative family in Paris on Jan. 18, 1925, Mr. Deleuze was influenced by the radical atmosphere of the Left Bank after World War II. He studied at the Sorbonne after 1944 and became an assistant professor there in the history of philosophy in 1957, later moving to the University of Lyons. After the student uprising in 1968, Mr. Deleuze became a popular and influential lecturer at Vincennes, where students flocked to hear him speak. Revolution, he believed, is an inherently creative act against the repressiveness of the state, and he coined a word, "nomadism," to describe it. "Deterritorialization" was another word he coined to describe the phenomenon by which individual identity frees itself from external attempts at categorization. His speaking style was described as flowing and complex as the thought it expressed was intoxicating to his French listeners. "An exhausted man is much more than a weary man," he wrote in a postface to Beckett's "Quad" three years ago. "Does he exhaust the possible because he is himself exhausted, or is he exhausted because he has exhausted the possible? He exhausts himself by exhausting the possible, and inversely." Roger-Pol Droit wrote in an appreciation in Le Monde today: "No one knows what distant posterity will remember of a body of work that contemporaries probably understand only a little. Thought, with Deleuze, is the experience of life rather than reason." He retired from teaching in 1987, when his health began to deteriorate. He is survived by his wife, Fanny, a son, Julien, and a daughter, Emilie. | Gilles Deleuze, 70, French Professor and Author |
808996_8 | to the level they achieved on the previous day, Dr. Merzenich said. Processed speech is the grammar they can use to win points in the computer games, he said, and they play to win. Processed speech, played on a tape recorder, is also used in a variety of one-on-one exercises with the children. They learn to listen to speech, attend to grammar and follow directions. Finally, the children take home books on tape, like "Cat in the Hat," recorded in processed speech. Two summers ago, Dr. Tallal and Dr. Merzenich gave their experimental treatment to seven language-impaired children ranging in age from 5 to 9. The children were at least two years behind in language skills, Dr. Tallal said. Their speech was often garbled. Children visited a laboratory at Rutgers for three and a half hours a day, five days a week, for six weeks. Their language and reading comprehension were tested the first week. The therapy was given for four weeks. Then the children were re-tested on the sixth week. These children made two years of progress in just one month, Dr. Tallal said. After the therapy, they were performing at or a little above their age level in receptive grammar -- the ability to comprehend spoken words. Three months later the children were tested again. They had not slid backward. Evidently, natural speech served to reinforce the gains they had made in the laboratory, Dr. Merzenich said. Amazed by these results, Dr. Tallal and Dr. Merzenich held off from submitting a scientific article. Valid questions came up, Dr. Tallal said. "Maybe just the intense intervention, that warm and cuddling feeling, made the difference," she said. "When someone is constantly telling you you're good, doing a good job, you may do better. Maybe we just improved their memories." To control those variables, the researchers repeated their experiment this summer with 22 similar children. Half got all the computer games and one-on-one exercises with processed speech. The other half got the same treatment, including computer games, but without processed speech. Results were again striking. While all the children improved, those exposed to the processed speech outperformed the others -- achieving two years' improvement after one month of therapy. These gains should help the children with their reading, Dr. Tallal said. But long-term follow-up studies have yet to be done. "We really don't know how far we can drive these kids | Glasses for the Ears' Easing Children's Language Woes |
808915_0 | A group that has been struggling for 20 years to have women ordained as Roman Catholic priests spent the weekend debating whether it was still interested in the priesthood at all. "Ordination means subordination," said Dr. Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, a feminist scholar at Harvard Divinity School, as long as the Catholic Church remained what she called "an elite, male-dominated, sacred pyramidal order of domination," based on structures inherited from Roman imperialism. Dr. Schussler Fiorenza made one of the few major presentations here at the 20th anniversary meeting of the Women's Ordination Conference, where song leaders were as important as speakers and where hours were given over to music, chants, dance and feminist religious rituals. But many of the more than 1,000 women at the meeting were disturbed by the prospect that the organization, long the most visible group advocating that the Catholic priesthood be opened to women, might drop that objective in favor of a long-range goal of reconstructing the church. The meeting's planners presented an elaborate program proposing that the group's goal should now be a "discipleship of equals," a concept of a church without hierarchy, and without priests ordained for life and bestowed with special power to administer sacraments. This model of the church is associated more with New Testament times, with the radical wing of the Protestant Reformation and with movements like the Quakers rather than with Catholicism. But in the limited time available for open discussion, those objecting to changing the group's goal made their worries known. "If I were a bishop or a Vatican official and I heard that this group was eschewing the ordination of women," Sister Maureen Fiedler told the gathering, "I would say, 'Thank God, they're off our backs.' " "I am unwilling to hand the hierarchy of this church such a victory," she added, to strong applause. Sister Fiedler is co-director of the Quixote Center in Brentwood, Md., an organization dealing with social and political issues. Some women called on the organization not to abandon those who felt a personal calling to the priesthood. Others stressed the ordination of women as a means to change the church. "We need spokespersons outside the walls," Sister Fiedler said. "We also need people with chisels inside, chiseling away at that institution, or it's never going to come down." Sheila Briggs, a professor of religious and social ethics at the University of Southern California, said, | Women Wary About Aiming To Be Priests |
809005_1 | report ever to examine earth's biodiversity. This is the first time that a thousand scientists from more than 50 countries have gotten together to write a single document on the state of biological diversity," said Robert T. Watson, a member of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy who headed the Global Biodiversity Assessment project. Since genetic variation is the basis for evolution, diversity of genes and species "affects the ability of ecological communities to resist or recover from environmental change, including long-term climatic change," said a summary that accompanied the report. The document is being released today at the second Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which is being held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Some 1,000 governmental officials worldwide are attending the two-week conference, which will end on Friday. Although the United States Senate has not ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity, which was signed by some 160 countries at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, Dr. Watson and other representatives of the Clinton Administration are attending the meeting. "There's an educational issue here and the U.S. and other rich nations must lead by example," Dr. Watson said in a telephone interview. "We should not only conserve and protect our environment for moral, ethical and esthetic reasons, but also because there is more economic value in the protection of biodiversity than in its destruction." Just as scientific reports on ozone depletion and global climate change have helped nations agree on policies to address these issues, Dr. Watson said, the contributors hope the biodiversity assessment will help people, from policy makers to farmers and fishermen, reach the three main objectives of the biodiversity convention: "the conservation of biological biodiversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from utilization of genetic resources." Among its many findings, the report concludes that at least 4,000 plants and 5,400 animals are threatened with extinction; that species have recently become extinct at 50 to 100 times the average expected natural rate; that only some 1.75 million, or about 13 percent of the 13 million to 14 million species on earth, have been scientifically identified, and that economic markets continue to underestimate the role biodiversity plays in major areas like air and water quality, global climate and scientific efforts to produce higher yielding, pest-resistant crops. | Biodiversity Study Sees More Species in Danger |
811620_4 | business, in policy and in culture." He has gotten his wish, but probably it is not quite the way he pictured it. The new musicology has its origins in the writings of Theodor Adorno (1903-1969), a German Marxist philosopher (and a composer who studied with Alban Berg). Adorno showed how musical styles could be analyzed to reveal political meanings. From familiar scores, Adorno teased out knotty allusions to society and the composer's relationship to it; he heard alienation, advocacy and dissent where more innocent ears could identify only varieties of harmonic progressions. In the 1970's a wider historical perspective was incorporated. Maynard Solomon, in his now-classic psycho-biography, "Beethoven" (1977), demonstrated that changes in the composer's musical style were connected to various crises in his life. (Mr. Solomon recently accomplished something similar in a biography of Mozart.) And Charles Rosen's book "The Classical Style" showed how the music of Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn was part of a grand intellectual project, an exploration of thinking and feeling that has been of fundamental importance. (His most recent book, "The Romantic Generation," continues the chronological tale.) Younger scholars, though, have raised the stakes. They are grappling with a fear that classical music is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The concert hall repertory has been all but frozen, the financing for classical music is uncertain, the public is often indifferent. And pop culture has pushed classical music to the margins of contemporary life. Masterpiece Culture Some musicologists have welcomed the crisis, hailing the demise of "masterpiece" culture, rejecting all esthetic distinctions and treating music as little more than a coded tract about sexuality or politics. Others are seeking to rescue warhorses from blind worship by showing how much more there is to hear than has been traditionally heard. Mr. Taruskin's epic study of Stravinsky, which will be published in January, for example, will offer a dramatic reinterpretation of the composer's most familiar works. But the new approach has its price. Despite the differences between individual scholars, the wide range of subject matter and the need for new forms of interpretation, the same ideas keep reappearing: music is but an extension of contemporary notions of gender and politics. The new musicology insists that each work is inscribed with the interests and prejudices of its origins. This often holds true for the new musicology as well, which cherishes its own versions of dripping blood and heartsick lovers. THE NATION | Musicologists Roll Over Beethoven |
811771_0 | The Federal Aviation Administration's continuing assessment of the aviation safety standards of other countries has added five nations to its list of those that do not meet international requirements. The countries -- Ecuador, Israel, Jordan, Peru and Venezuela -- got "conditional" ratings in the F.A.A.'s study of countries with airlines that fly to the United States. This means that airlines from these countries may continue limited operations into the United States, under more intense F.A.A. surveillance, while efforts continue to improve safety standards. The aviation agency's most recent report, on Nov. 2, said that five other countries -- Australia, Hungary, New Zealand, Romania and Western Samoa -- met the international standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency. The F.A.A. judges on world standards, which are less stringent than the F.A.A.'s, which apply to United States airlines. In a project that began last year in response to consumer anxiety about foreign airlines' safety, the agency has so far examined the standards of 50 countries, studying not the airlines themselves but the nation's ability to oversee air safety. Three ratings are possible: Complies with international standards, complies conditionally or does not comply. Of the 50 countries, 11 have been found not to comply and may no longer send planes to the United States: Belize, the Dominican Republic, Gambia, Ghana, Haiti, Honduras, Kiribati, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay and Zaire. But an F.A.A. spokeswoman, Liz Neblett, said that it is possible for a flight and plane serving the United States to bear the name and symbols of an airline from a banned country. It means, she said, that the airline has leased plane and crew from an airline permitted to land. Eight countries were earlier put into the "conditional" category: Aruba, Bolivia, Guatemala, Jamaica, the Netherland Antilles, the Philippines, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela. Passengers in doubt about a particular country may call (800) 322-7873. BETSY WADE Correction: December 3, 1995, Sunday A report in the Travel Advisory column last week about the Federal Aviation Administration's assessment of other countries' surveillance of air safety included outdated references to Israel and the Netherlands Antilles. Both were declared in full compliance with international air safety standards on Nov. 9; the report was based on an F.A.A. announcement of Nov. 2, when both had only conditional status. | Travel Advisory;F.A.A. Limits Rights Of 5 Foreign Countries |
811577_12 | Board of New York, representing builders and landlords, which gave $30,000 to candidates, according to a study by the New York Public Interest Research Group. One of the more contentious issues for the Council has been rent control. In 1993, the Rent Stabilization Association, a landlord group, gave $21,000 to Council candidates. Last year, the Council passed a bill extending most of the city's rent control and rent stabilization rules, but it lifted controls from at least 1,500 apartments with relatively wealthy tenants. The second-largest campaign contributor was District Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the city's largest municipal workers union. The Council passed a bill -- over Mayor Giuliani's veto -- that allows it to hold public hearings on any mayoral effort to shift municipal services to private companies, a major victory for the union. Another major contributor is the Council Political Action Committee, or C-PAC, which over the years has raised money from developers, including Donald J. Trump, unions, and powerful government lobbyists and advisers like Howard Rubenstein. Mr. Vallone, who received the most lobbyist money in the Council in the last election, tightly controls how C-PAC's money is spent; it can protect incumbents who have been supportive of the Speaker. Martin J. McLaughlin, a prominent lobbyist, contributed $10,000 to candidates in 1993. Mr. McLaughlin, a longtime friend of the Speaker, has represented several clients before the Council, including the tobacco industry in its successful efforts to make the restrictions on smoking proposed by Mr. Vallone slightly less stringent. LAWMAKING: ONE BILL'S PATH The Council votes on only a small portion of bills introduced each year. Last year, it passed just 51 of 460 new bills. No two bills follow the same path, and each is subject to a wide array of political forces. Some are voted on quickly. Most are not. Consider the "living wage" bill introduced in February by Mr. Albanese, which would require any contractor doing business with the city to pay its employees wages and benefits amounting to $12.10 an hour. Mr. Albanese said the bill was intended to provide "a decent living for people who are just on the edge of poverty and who are without any health coverage." From the start, it had problems. The Mayor said it would drive up labor costs and make some contracts too expensive. Mr. Vallone voiced similar concerns, while saying | The Council And How It Really Works |
811677_0 | The sugar cane stood tall and strong as it rippled in the breeze, ready for cutting. At the September 21 Cooperative here, the mechanics were preparing for the harvest by replacing the old Soviet-made engines in their tractors and trucks with new Mercedes-Benz motors. As the workers know, the harvest is probably the most important since Fidel Castro came to power nearly 37 years ago. After five years of plunging production that have seen sugar output fall from 8.1 million tons to 3.3 million, the lowest in more than half a century, the Government has declared this a make-or-break year and is gambling heavily that it can halt the decline. For all of Cuba's efforts to develop tourism and foreign investment, "sugar simply remains the kingpin of the economy," accounting for more than half of all exports, said Andrew Zimbalist, an expert on the Cuban economy who teaches at Smith College. "This harvest has got to succeed, particularly when so many resources are being lavished on it." To guarantee an increase in production, Cuba has borrowed more than $100 million from European banks and commodity houses at interest rates of up to 14 percent, European diplomats here say. Most of that money has been invested in fertilizers, herbicides, fuel and spare parts for vehicles, all of which have been in short supply in recent years. Largely because Cuba has indebted itself so heavily, Vice President Carlos Lage, the chief of economic policy, has called this a "high-risk harvest." If Cuba cannot increase production enough to meet obligations, then its access to foreign financing will become more difficult and the chronic shortage of foreign exchange will worsen. In addition, Cuba will have to use some of this year's increased production to meet government-to-government contracts that it was unable to fulfill because of last year's disastrous harvest. As of October, for instance, it had supplied less than 150,000 tons of the 400,000 contracted for delivery to China this year. The most important of those agreements is with Russia, which as in the days of the Soviet Union supplies most of the oil Cuba needs. By March, or just before harvest's end, Cuba is supposed to supply one million tons of raw sugar in exchange for three million tons of Russian oil. "It's not only that they have to pay back their loans to the banks, but also that they have to honor | Cuba Gambles on Reversing Fall in Sugar Harvest |
811443_5 | of 1821 blew away a protective island land mass and sent shippers scurrying to safety in Bridgeport Harbor -- the second deepest in the state after New London. In 1836 Bridgeport incorporated as a city, and by 1870 it was a thriving industrial hub looking to annex Black Rock to develop it residentially for Bridgeport's industrial tycoons. Black Rock's landowners gladly accepted the annexation, sold off parcels at prime prices and got the city to build them some new roads. An aura of wealth and good times expanded when, in 1874, George Wells built the George Hotel, a 400-room waterfront resort on Grover Hill. The Bridgeport Yacht Club opened in 1895, and Black Rock Harbor blossomed as a boating center. "By the beginning of the 20th century Victorian hotels were going out of style," said Mr. Brilvitch, "and the George Hotel land was more valuable as house lots, so it was torn down in 1902. Redeveloped residentially through the 1920's, the area was typical of so-called high class developments -- there were restrictive covenants against Jews" -- which could explain why there are several denominations of churches in Black Rock reflecting waves of Swedish, Hungarian, Irish and Italian immigration, but no synagogues, although they exist elsewhere in the city. THE Black Rock Yacht Club, opened in 1926, took in 30 members this year, according to Dr. Arthur Samuelson, admissions chairman. Limited in number to 250, members pay initiation fees of $3,500 and annual dues of around $1,350. The club has two tennis courts, a pool, restaurant, and about 80 moorings. There are no slips, because "we are wide open to southwest seas and wind," said Dr. Samuelson. The Fayerweather Yacht Club, formed in 1919, has almost 1,000 members, 125 moorings, a restaurant, and only a two-month waiting list. Initiation costs $500 and dues are $175 a year. One of Connecticut's major seasonal tourist attractions, Captain's Cove Seaport, is on Black Rock Harbor. It offers full marina services, a 500-seat dining room, craft shops, entertainment, a fish market, and tours of the H.M.S. Rose, a replica of an 18th century British frigate. Bridgeport residents need only a $5 parking sticker to be admitted to several public recreation areas, including the beach at Seaside Park, tennis at Glenwood Park, and Beardsley Park, which was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and contains a zoo and carousel. The municipal 36-hole Fairchild-Wheeler Golf Course charges | If You're Thinking of Living In: Black Rock;A Bit of New England In a Troubled City |
811670_0 | A week after the Vatican declared Pope John Paul II's position that women cannot be ordained Roman Catholic priests to be "infallibly" taught, many Catholics in the United States are taking a wait-and-see attitude. Some who welcomed the statement from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said that they wanted to see if the bishops in the United States would back it up with sanctions against Catholics who continue to advocate the ordination of women. Among those favoring such ordination in the United States, reactions ranged from anger to indifference to heartache, but few people appeared convinced that the last word in the debate had been spoken. Many were waiting to see how theologians would explain exactly how authoritative the latest Vatican statement was. The statement came in the wake of petitions, signed by about 1 of 12 Austrian Catholics and 1 of 24 German Catholics, that called for opening the priesthood to women and married people. Issued last Saturday, the statement was approved by the Pope but, unlike "Ordinatio Sacerdotalis," John Paul's solemn declaration in May 1994 that the church had no authority to ordain women, the latest statement was not signed by him. In Roman Catholic theology, infallibility is a weighty concept rarely invoked. It is based on the belief that, although the church and Popes can make mistakes, God would not allow them to err in essential matters. When a serious question arises regarding whether a particular teaching falls in that category, it can be resolved, according to Catholic theology, by a church council, an exercise of papal infallibility or the agreement of bishops around the world. But in this case, the Vatican explained in a commentary accompanying its Nov. 18 statement, although the Pope is indicating that limiting the priesthood to males is infallible teaching, he is doing so through an act of his "ordinary" papal authority -- "in itself not infallible." While theologians may argue whether this constitutes the highest and most irrevocable and binding level of church teaching, no one doubts that the Pope wants it to at least come close. Indeed, on Friday he gave a talk insisting that Catholics should obey all church teachings and not just those strongly affirmed by the papacy. "Obviously they wanted to dispel any doubt about the authoritative nature of this teaching," said Helen Hull Hitchcock, the director of Women for Faith and Family, | Wariness Greets Vatican Doctrinal Claim |
811617_0 | POPE John Paul II didn't need a legalization of divorce by the voters of Ireland this weekend to find out that a large number of Catholics simply ignore a lot of what he has to say: Italy, a country where 84 percent of the population professes to be Catholic, has the lowest birth rate in Europe, a fact that suggests popular disdain for the church's unbending prohibition against artificial birth control. But last week, millions of Catholics across Europe -- in Germany, Poland and now in Ireland -- sent the Vatican a series of even more powerful messages, in each case showing a new readiness not just to ignore the church's teachings, but to defy them openly. And it was telling that the Pope -- whose dogmatic views many blame for the growing restlessness among the Catholic laity -- responded with a stern warning to those who dare to challenge the church's interpretation of the word of God. For Pope John Paul, the first Polish pope in history, the election last Sunday in Poland of an ex-Communist, despite the best efforts of church leaders who said he represented a "neo-pagan" system, must have come as a personal blow. And however the final vote count turned out, it was clear that the simple fact that so many Irish people had voted to legalize divorce was a sharp rebuke to the Irish church, a last holdout against the secularization that has swept the rest of Catholic Europe. But the strongest challenge to the Church's hierarchy last week was laid down not in a voting booth, but on a petition, signed by 1.5 million church-going German Catholics (out of total of 5 million practicing Catholics in Germany) who called for sweeping reforms of the church, including ordination of women priests. As it happened, the German petition campaign -- the second so-called "plebiscite" to take place within a national church in Europe -- ended just as the Vatican ruled that the church's ban against women entering the priesthood is not only definitive and unassailable but also "infallible." The coincidence of these two events -- perhaps not so coincidental, some say -- only pointed to the rising tensions between the Catholic laity and the church's hierarchy. "It is becoming more and more obvious that bishops of all countries are in increasing trouble with their own people," said Dr. Hans Kung, a dissident theologian who was | Catholics Defying An Infallible Church |
811658_3 | Forest is opening up new areas where trees can be thinned, and a Santa Fe environmental group called the Forest Guardians is working with the nearby Santa Fe National Forest to make more dead wood available. But Mr. Cordova said he was worried that there still would not be enough. "The Forest Service and the environmentalists both sat down trying to decide what we need," Mr. Cordova said. "They should have come and asked us. We're stuck right in the middle. We really feel this is our land they're talking about." He said if more wood was not made available soon, he and his neighbors would go out and cut it illegally. The controversy came to a head in August when the Forest Guardians and the Forest Conservation Council in Santa Fe and other plaintiffs won an injunction stopping all tree cutting in the Southwest Region until forestry officials worked with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a comprehensive plan for protecting spotted owl habitat. A compromise struck late last month between the Forest Service and the environmentalists allowed many projects to go ahead. But as part of the agreement, the Carson tightened its rather liberal policy on collecting "dead and down" firewood for personal use. Before the restrictions, families could get free permits to gather as many as 10 cords of dead and fallen wood anywhere in the forest except for wilderness areas. They also could cut dead standing trees, or "snags," except for Ponderosa pines. Now they must drive to specially designated areas for dead and down wood. And with few exceptions, snags must be left standing. Though the new restrictions on gathering dead wood were not put in place until late October, by which time people usually have gathered most of their firewood, there apparently was a misunderstanding in the Truchas area. Mr. Cordova said he and other officials of the land grant were under the impression that the forest was completely closed to wood-collecting as soon as the August injunction went into effect. A spokesman for the Carson National Forest, Gary Schiff, said officials had been lenient about wood-gathering because of the region's unique history. "For centuries people were using these common lands as a place to get traditional products," he said. "Our overriding mission on this forest is to do everything we can to allow those traditions and necessities to continue. We | In New Mexico, an Order on Elusive Owl Leaves Residents Angry, andCold |
811975_4 | recent years has become increasingly more aggressive. A perception that the United States is not paying attention to or is not worried about such long-term threats could in itself cause a major realignment in Asia. One cannot exclude even Japan, whose strong relationship with the United States has been severely tested of late, from this possibility. Those who aspire to the Presidency in 1996 should use the coming debate to articulate a world view that would demonstrate to the world, as well as to Americans, an understanding of the uses and limitations -- in a sense the human budgeting -- of our military assets. Richard Nixon was the last President to clearly define how and when the United States would commit forces overseas. In 1969, he declared that our military policy should follow three basic tenets: Honor all treaty commitments in responding to those who invade the lands of our allies. Provide a nuclear umbrella to the world against the threats of other nuclear powers. Finally, provide weapons and technical assistance to other countries where warranted, but do not commit American forces to local conflicts. These tenets, with some modification, are still the best foundation of our world leadership. They remove the United States from local conflicts and civil wars. The use of the American military to fulfill treaty obligations requires ratification by Congress, providing a hedge against the kind of Presidential discretion that might send forces into conflicts not in the national interest. Yet they provide clear authority for immediate action required to carry out policies that have been agreed upon by the Government as a whole. Given the changes in the world, an additional tenet would also be desirable: The United States should respond vigorously against nuclear proliferation and state-sponsored terrorism. These tenets would prevent the use of United States forces in commitments more appropriate to lesser powers while preserving our unique capabilities. Only the United States among the world's democracies can field large-scale maneuver forces, replete with strategic airlift, carrier battle groups and amphibious power projection. Our military has no equal in countering conventional attacks on extremely short notice wherever the national interest dictates. Our bases in Japan give American forces the ability to react almost anywhere in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, just as the continued presence in Europe allows American units to react in Europe and the Middle East. In proper form, this capability provides | Remember the Nixon Doctrine |
811983_1 | absentee landlords had ruined Europe's villages, here, too, we had allowed some people to make a good profit along the Hudson, and then go somewhere else to enjoy clear water." His anger sparked a new idea -- to use the boat to champion the cause of cleaning up the river. Many benefit concerts later, the Clearwater was launched in May 1969 in Bristol, Me. Since then the sloop has sailed the Hudson from April through November, bringing schoolchildren aboard to teach them about the river, its treasures, its fragility and its history. She sails with a captain, a crew of 12 -- 6 paid, 6 volunteer -- and 2 apprentices. Anyone can become a part-owner of the boat by paying a membership fee. Members can go on three-hour sails in spring and summer, and can sign up for a week as volunteer crew. On its last transit this year, from Poughkeepsie to its winter berth in Saugerties, I had the chance to sail on Clearwater. I had long wanted to see more of the river, so this opportunity was irresistible. On a bracing November morning I took the train to Poughkeepsie and walked down to the river. The huge mast, rising above the waterfront buildings, guided me to the dock. The deck was full of busy young crew members directed with calm authority by the captain, Cindy Smith. A young man stood at the mast holding the halyard and burst into a sea chantey. Different songs set different rhythms, depending on the task; to raise the sail, 20 people hauled on the halyard as the enormous expanse of sail crept upward. It took five people to operate the eight-foot tiller, as a brisk wind filled the sail. Old river hands pointed out Franklin Roosevelt's home at Hyde Park, the Vanderbilt mansion and a stretch of shoreline they have nicknamed Monastery Row, where various churches own huge tracts of land and where enormous Palladian buildings, now largely unused, stand incongruously among the trees. This late in the year there was little traffic. The shoreline looked, in places, much as it would have a century ago, only lonelier, many of the old commercial docks rotten, half-sunk skeletons along the shoreline. For mile after mile the bright woods met the water on each side. Tiny, quirky boathouses nestled at its edge. Earlier than planned -- thanks to the strong wind -- we reached | Editorial Notebook;A Sloop Named Clearwater |
812042_6 | hot. The Medea group said decades of ice data promised to be a major aid in pinning down the reality of global warming, in studying fluctuations in climate, in forecasting ice conditions and in calibrating civilian satellite sensors that pass over polar regions. *Marine bathymetry. For decades Navy ships crisscrossed the sea to map the inky darkness of its lower regions by bouncing sound waves off the bottom. Such seabed maps were used for everything from navigation to understanding current flow and sound propagation. In general, they are much sharper than the civilian ones recently made from gravity readings. The Medea group said the maps would greatly aid the understanding of seabed geology and evolution and would pinpoint such seabed features as undersea volcanoes. *Temperature and salinity fields. Since 1900, the Navy has carefully gathered global data on ocean temperatures and salinities, two measures that are closely intertwined. Among the Navy's uses for such data were understanding the propagation of sound through the sea, which aided the detecting of enemy submarines at great distances. The Medea report said the release of such data would greatly aid climate studies. *Ocean optics and bioluminescence. The Navy made global measurements to determine light transmissibility for such things as knowing the potential for the visual detection of underwater objects and for such studies as laser depth readings. The Medea group said the release of such data would aid the design of satellite sensors. Among its recommendations, the Medea report called for the creation of an "exploitation center" for the released data at the Stennis Space Center at Bay Saint Louis, Miss., which is also the headquarters of the Naval Oceanographic Office. Dr. Landry J. Bernard, technical director of the Naval Oceanographic Office, said in an interview that 10 to 20 percent of the data had been declassified and that much more was on the way. He said historical data on ocean temperature and salinity began to be released in the past four or five years, after the cold war. "That's when we really got active" in opening up the Navy's endless archives of oceanographic data, he said. As for the future, Dr. Bernard said: "We're taking a proactive role. It's, 'When in doubt, release.' If you can't make a good case for it being classified, then it's open, whereas before it was the other way around, to keeping it secret." Copies of the Medea | Navy Is Releasing Treasure of Secret Data on World's Oceans |
810711_0 | For millions of college students, Thanksgiving marks the start of the heaviest workload of the term, with final exams and papers due in a few weeks. But thousands of students will reduce the preparation time for a full-length research paper to just minutes -- or however long it takes to thumb through a catalogue, pick up a phone and read off their credit-card number. These students buy their papers, typically at a cost of about $50 for a standard eight-page paper already on file. A custom-written paper costs about $200. While there is no reliable estimate on how many students buy papers, educators say the number is increasing as technology improves -- thus making it easier for students both to obtain papers and to alter them to look like their own work. The largest supplier sells nearly 200 term papers a day at this time of year, and another company recently introduced a CD-ROM with abstracts of papers for sale -- a veritable electronic catalogue. Although nearly every state has laws against selling term papers, at least half a dozen companies place classified advertisements in magazines like Rolling Stone, Playboy and GQ that are popular with college students. The companies say they provide a convenient research service and do not break any laws, since they mark their product "for research purposes only." "We sell our research papers for exactly that: research," said Frank Boyd, the owner of Professional Research, based in Jersey City. "It's another tool people can use, like going to the library. "Let's say a student asks us for a research paper and turns it in as a term paper, say by re-typing it, that would be unethical." Yet that is exactly what students say they do. "You know that worried feeling, that lump in your throat when you'd have a 10-page paper on something like English castles due, and you haven't done anything for it," said a recent graduate of a university generally ranked in the top 20 nationwide. "I felt very comfortable knowing that I could call a company, give them my credit card and minutes later the paper would be faxed over to Kinko's." Gary Pavela, the immediate past president of the National Center for Academic Integrity, which represents 80 colleges that collaborate on ways to prevent cheating, said one way to keep students from buying papers was for teachers to require that papers have | A Brisk Market Develops in College Term Papers |
806334_1 | and the General Electric Company. Martin A. Kamarck, vice chairman and chief operating officer, will assume Mr. Brody's duties on an acting basis in January. The bank is scheduled to announce the moves formally on Friday. Mr. Brody, a 52-year-old Clinton appointee who took office in early 1993, said in an interview that he had no specific plans in returning to private life, but he did say that he did not expect to become significantly involved in the re-election effort of President Clinton. He headed Mr. Clinton's fund-raising effort in 1992 for the New York primary. "The President doesn't need me for fund-raising," Mr. Brody said. "He's in pretty good shape." He avoided direct comment on speculation that he would found an investment bank or otherwise return to the industry he left when he came to Washington. In a 20-year career with Goldman, Sachs, he was elevated to the firm's management committee in 1990. Mr. Brody counters the charge of helping larger companies, saying that the bank has sharply expanded its support for small business. That activity has climbed 60 percent since 1993, and the bank has delegated authority so banks can lend money to small businesses without needing to consult with the agency on a deal-by-deal basis. Charges to big exporters, meanwhile, were raised substantially. Other items on his list of accomplishments are creating a project finance group to facilitate American competition for infrastructure contracts in emerging markets and changing the Ex-Im Bank's culture to expedite responses to customers on applications. He said that when he arrived, he was astounded when an aide, told that it was difficult for the public to reach the agency on the telephone, replied that "those who need us know how to get us." Mr. Brody said today, "I went nuts" in response. Mr. Brody was also a chief architect of the Administration's export strategy, which included an aggressive policy of "tied aid" to counter what was viewed as unfair foreign competition. His departure was said to have no connection to a long-pending application to support the Three Gorges power project in China, the subject of various financial, legal and environmental questions that raised strong doubts elsewhere within the Administration. A Brody aide said that the Chinese project was "not a factor at all" in Mr. Brody's decision to leave, adding that a staff recommendation might be ready for his consideration before year's end. | Ex-Im Bank's President Is Stepping Down |
806275_0 | The General Assembly, for the fourth year in a row, called overwhelmingly today for an end to the three-decade United States embargo against Cuba, which has been increasingly toughened in recent years. The Cuban-sponsored resolution was endorsed by a 117 to 3 vote, with 38 abstentions. Only Israel and Uzbekistan joined the United States in opposing the draft. Last year's vote on an almost identical resolution was 101 to 2, with 48 abstentions, with only Israel backing the United States. In 1993 the tally was 88 to 4, with 57 abstentions, while in 1992 it was 59 to 3, with 71 abstentions. The latest vote came less than two weeks after President Fidel Castro of Cuba was widely applauded after addressing a special session of the General Assembly marking the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. Many of those countries that endorsed the resolution were motivated by opposition to the United States embargo, which, while aimed at spurring Cuba's transition to democracy, is widely seen as attempting to impose American laws on other countries. Of the 15 members of the European Union, only Britain, Germany and the Netherlands abstained; the other 12 voted for the resolution. So did Russia, China, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Mexico. Japan abstained. The Torricelli Act of 1992 made foreign subsidiaries of American companies liable to prosecution for trading with Havana and barred ships from United States ports for six months after calling at a Cuban port. The most recent United States legislation is the Cuban Liberty and Democracy Solidarity Act of 1995. It has not yet become law. Versions adopted by the Senate and House of Representatives both require the United States to oppose Cuba's admission to international financial institutions. A provision of the House bill would also allow Cuban-Americans and others to sue in United States courts any firms buying or leasing expropriated property they formerly owned in Cuba. | U.N. Urges U.S. to End Ban on Cuba |
807673_0 | In an attempt to challenge the flourishing black market for American dollars and to soak up surplus pesos that have been fueling inflation, the Cuban Government is permitting its citizens to buy and sell foreign currencies on the open market for the first time in more than 30 years. Until July 1993, it was illegal for Cubans even to possess dollars, much less exchange them. But since then American currency has come to play an increasingly important role in this Communist state, thanks to remittances from Cubans living abroad, the opening of special consumer good shops that accept payment only in hard currency and a boom in European and Canadian tourism, conducted largely in dollars. The new policy went into effect in mid-October and eight foreign exchange kiosks, all but one of them here in the capital, are operating. "The Government has bowed to economic reality and decided that if you can't beat the black market, you may as well join it and try to siphon off some of its profits," said one foreign economic analyst. As set by the National Bank of Cuba, the official exchange rate here between the dollar and the peso has been one to one. But the official money exchange kiosks, run by a nominally independent Cuban-owned company called Cadeca, are buying dollars for 25 pesos while selling them for 30 pesos, about the same rate offered by black market money changers. Consumer goods and necessities like cooking oil are still in short supply and can usually be found only in hard currency shops or on the black market, both of which demand payment in dollars. The sale of dollars through the exchange bureaus also appears intended to take excess pesos out of circulation. Too many pesos, whether in bank accounts or hoarded under mattresses, chasing too few consumer goods has helped to feed an inflationary spiral in recent years that worries the architects of the incipient free-market sector of the Cuban economy. Government officials hope that the foreign exchange kiosks, typically located in residential neighborhoods alongside food markets, will speed up a process set in motion by price increases for goods and services that once were free to the population. At the beginning of 1994, there were 12 billion pesos in circulation, according to official statistics, but that figure has been reduced by nearly a quarter, Jose Luis Rodriguez, Minister of the Economy and | Cuba Allowing Citizens to Buy and Sell Foreign Currencies |
806493_1 | very serious setback." He said no further meetings with the British were scheduled. Michael Ancram, the British Minister for Northern Ireland at the Belfast talks, said negotiations failed because Sinn Fein had introduced unacceptable new demands, including one stipulating that any disarmament commission would have to consider disarming Britain's 18,000 troops in Northern Ireland as well as the I.R.A. The creation of a disarmament commission has been seen as one way to deal with the British demand that the I.R.A. start to turn over its weapons before Sinn Fein is allowed a role in full-fledged peace talks. But Mr. Ancram said that "any constitutional government" would reject a proposal to disarm its army. Sinn Fein and British officials also failed to agree on setting a date for full-fledged negotiations, which Sinn Fein demands before I.R.A. disarmament can be discussed. Mr. Adams, who visited the White House two months ago, is expected to meet again with Anthony Lake, the President's national security adviser, and Nancy Soderberg, the White House expert on Ireland. The Sinn Fein leader said during an interview here today that he would put the I.R.A.'s case to these officials, and, he hoped, to Mr. Clinton. "One can only conclude that the British Government are not interested in negotiations at this time," Mr. Adams said. Asked why he thought Britain was impeding the peace effort, Mr. Adams said, "Would you consider perhaps that the Tory party wouldn't even want to give the President the benefit of the dividend that he actually helped to create?" He also criticized British negotiating efforts in recent months, saying: "It's peacemaking by thesaurus. They keep changing the words." Mr. Adams asserted that although Britain had acknowledged several years ago that there was a need for political change in the predominantly Protestant province, "for years the excuse was used that the conflict, particularly the I.R.A.," was a block to peace negotiations. Referring to the I.R.A. cease-fire, now in its 15th month, he said, "there has been an absence of I.R.A. operations for a year now, so the need for change becomes urgent to underpin the peace process, and the reason or excuse for not bringing the change is no longer present." Asked if the breakdown in talks today raised the possibility of renewed I.R.A. violence, he said, "as an individual I'm absolutely commmitted to insuring that no one else dies as a result of the | British-I.R.A. Talks Break Off, and Sinn Fein's Leader Looks toWashington |
809485_0 | The annual ballyhoo over Beaujolais nouveau this year was upstaged in many places by boycotts to protest French nuclear tests in the Pacific, dealers said today. In an annual marketing tactic that brings in about $100 million to producers of the fruity red wine, the first bottles from this year's Beaujolais harvest went on sale around the world at 12:01 A.M. Paris time. The Beaujolais nouveau madness has already peaked in many countries, but when France resumed nuclear tests in French Polynesia, the 25 million to 30 million bottles of Beaujolais nouveau that usually go to foreign markets became a target. The Consumers Union of Japan, where 2.5 million bottles were sold at the height of Beaujolais nouveau hype in 1990, called on customers to shun it, and in Akita a liquor store invited people to come in and smash as many bottles as they liked. It was unclear who picked up the tab. French wine professionals say that the market for the wine has all but collapsed in Japan, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, and disappeared in Australia and New Zealand, which make plenty of wine of their own. Indeed, Australian shiraz or New Zealand chardonnay sells in France for even less than Beaujolais nouveau, which went on sale briskly here today at prices ranging from $5 to $6 a bottle. "We sold a thousand bottles this morning," said a saleswoman at Gourmet Lafayette, an upscale food store in one of the biggest department stores in Paris. In Sweden, television commercials by anti-nuclear groups showed a woman swishing French red wine around in her mouth and then spitting into the glass -- symbolically, what France was doing to the environment, as the sponsors saw it. The Netherlands, which took 4.8 million bottles last year, will take 25 percent fewer this year, according to the Interprofessional Beaujolais Wine Union, which also expected some losses in Germany. But French-speaking Quebec ordered 144,000 bottles, almost half again as many as last year. Consumers in France are expected to drink another 30 million bottles or so before Beaujolais stops being "nouveau" and becomes just plain Beaujolais after December. | Nuclear Tests Cutting Sales Of Beaujolais |
809470_0 | International A3-14 WAR CRIMES CLOUD PEACE TALKS With Balkans peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, at a crucial stage, Bosnia and Serbia are said to be at loggerheads over the fate of the two Bosnian Serb leaders under indictment for war crimes. A3 U.S. PRESSURE ON BALKAN FOES Defense Secretary William J. Perry and the commander of NATO forces in Europe plan to go to the Dayton talks as the U.S. presses the warring parties toward peace. A3 JEWISH SETTLERS FEEL BETRAYED When Palestinians took charge of the city of Jenin last week, the unthinkable became reality for many of the Israelis who people the West Bank's 145 settlements. A6 Rabin's confessed assassin re-enacted his crime for the police. A6 ALGERIA HOLDS PRESIDENTIAL VOTE The Algerian authorities said the vast majority of the country's 16 million eligible voters had cast ballots in the presidential election, ignoring threats from Islamic militants. A6 FRENCH UNIONS CALL FOR STRIKE France's largest confederation of labor unions called for a general strike to protest a Government plan to eliminate the deficit in the social security system, the heart of the French welfare state. A11 France's nuclear tests hurt sales of Beaujolais nouveau. A10 ASIA TRADE ZONE GUIDELINES Despite misgivings, ministers from 18 nations in the Asia-Pacific region agreed on voluntary guidelines for a pan-Pacific free-trade zone. A9 SOUTH KOREA'S EX-LEADER IS JAILED Roh Tae Woo, a former general who presided over South Korea's transformation into a democratic nation, was arrested for accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes while he was President. A14 CHINA REBUKES NUCLEAR POWERS China sharply rebuked the West for continuing to develop "nuclear weapons and outer space weapons" while seeking to deny the peaceful use of nuclear technology to the developing world. A14 Germany's Social Democrats replace their leader. A8 Beijing Journal: Subways that make New York's seem big. A4 National A18-28, B11-14 BUDGET PLAN IS COMPLETED Republicans completed their balanced budget plan, but the legislation competed for attention with the continued dueling between G.O.P. leaders and President Clinton over the Federal shutdown. A1 AN UPROAR UPSTAGES THE BUDGET A day after Newt Gingrich said he had added conditions to spending legislation to spite President Clinton for a snub on Air Force One, Democrats fired back with zeal, and the capital was entranced. A1 HOUSE VOTES BAN ON GIFTS The House voted to prohibit members and their staffs from accepting gifts, | NEWS SUMMARY |
809483_0 | France's largest confederation of labor unions called today for a general strike and national demonstrations on Nov. 24 to protest a Government plan to eliminate the deficit in the social security system, the heart and soul of the French welfare state. The sweeping rescue plan that Prime Minister Alain Juppe announced to Parliament on Wednesday included a new tax of 0.5 percent on all salaries above the poverty level and an increase in the number of years public employees will have to work before they may collect pensions from 37 1/2 years to 40. In response, all the public-sector labor unions announced work stoppages and demonstrations next Friday, and the General Confederation of Labor today called on private-sector employees to join the protests. The social security system has run up a $50 billion deficit since 1992. Getting it back on an even keel by 1997 is important to the Government because overall deficit spending must be reduced to a predetermined level by then if France is to qualify to join a common European currency under the terms of the 1992 Treaty on European Union. Other cost-cutting measures would make nonresident foreigners who come here for surgery and childbirth pay hospital costs in advance, and limit Government reimbursements to doctors, hospitals and pharmacies in the comprehensive health insurance system. Mr. Juppe asked for and got a vote of confidence from his supporters in Parliament on Wednesday. The franc soared and short-term interest rates dropped as financial markets welcomed the plan. The moves were made possible by gains the franc has made against the German mark on the international currency markets since President Jacques Chirac announced that cutting Government deficits would be his main priority during the period preceding a common currency. Mr. Juppe, who formed his second Government in six months only a week ago, said today in the regional newspaper Sud-Ouest, "Everything depends on the next three months." He added, "If two million people take to the streets, my Government will not survive." The National Assembly approved a 1996 budget today after reducing the deficit by nearly $500 million, to $59.3 billion. | French Strike Called Over Social Security Plan |
811224_1 | is happening in poor Protestant communities, where loyalist paramilitary forces often dispense their own rough justice, although there has not been the sharp rise in the number of attacks seen in Catholic areas. Sometimes the attacks are against people believed by the terrorist groups to be criminals -- that is apparently what happened with Mr. Hegarty -- or police informers. Sometimes they are carried out to settle local disputes, or simply to silence someone judged by the groups not to respect and fear them. In addition to the increase in the number of attacks, one other thing about the so-called punishment attacks has changed since the I.R.A. called a cease-fire in its struggle against British rule on Sept. 1, 1994. Instead of using guns to inflict the traditional punishment of "kneecapping" -- putting a bullet or two through the legs of the victim -- the terrorist groups have turned to using baseball bats studded with nails, axes, hammers and other objects to inflict beatings, apparently being careful that no one misinterpret their actions as a violation of the cease-fire. With President Clinton scheduled to visit Northern Ireland on Nov. 30 in an effort to speed up the peace efforts, people here said the attacks illustrated just how deeply rooted violence has become in a society that has embraced the lull in terrorist bombings and shootings but still suffers from widespread poverty and long-term unemployment. "It's all about power and control," said Nancy Gracey, the founder of Families Against Intimidation and Terror, a Belfast-based group set up to help victims and their families. "The paramilitaries are starting to lose control of the ghettos and they want people to toe the line," she said. "The result is that you can't talk about peace here, because there's been such an upsurge in violence since the cease-fire." Since the I.R.A. cease-fire nearly 15 months ago, there have been 244 attacks, 158 by the I.R.A. and 86 by loyalist forces, according to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the province's police force. Four people have died as a result of the attacks. In the 14 months before the cease-fire, there were 63 attacks by the I.R.A. and 82 by loyalist forces, for a total of 145. Mr. Hegarty's abduction was typical. Mr. Hegarty, clearly rattled by his experience although recovering well physically, said he was reluctant to give many details, fearing retribution. But he appears to have | Ulster Foes Rule Ghettos With Fear |
775240_3 | we start painting the fence and the next thing you know there are a hundred people on each side painting the fence. Everything we do is coalition-building. The Municipal Art Society isn't strong enough to really do much by itself." Mr. Barwick said he felt that the society's largest contribution, at least locally, in recent years might have been its role in persuading the developer Donald J. Trump to remap a new Riverside South complex plan on the old Penn Central railyards on the West Side of Manhattan. "We went to Trump and said, 'We want you to forget your world's tallest building and seven other 750-foot baby buildings and a regional shopping center and Television City and build something much more in character with the West Side and also a 24-acre park directly along the water,' " he said. "While there are people who live nearby who still resent this, we think that this is exactly the sort of thing that the city should be doing." Though they may have differed with Mr. Barwick, developers praise his pragmatic approach. "I have found Kent Barwick to be a constructive problem solver, a valued quality in public interest groups such as the Municipal Art Society," said Mortimer B. Zuckerman, who owns The Daily News and is chairman of Boston Properties, which failed in its nine-year effort to build high-rise office and apartment buildings on the site of the New York Coliseum. Before Mr. Barwick's tenure as president of the Municipal Art Society, he served in the administration of Mayor Edward I. Koch as chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. "I didn't always agree with him, and when he returned to the private sector and became president of the Municipal Art Society, occasionally, in our respective roles, we would disagree," Mr. Koch said. "Even then, I never lost my complete respect for his fairness." Earlier, Mr. Barwick, a graduate of Syracuse University, was executive director of the New York State Council on the Arts. He lives in a renovated schoolhouse in the Little Italy section of Manhattan and has a farm of 200-plus acres upstate in Cherry Valley. HE said he had a few regrets or disappointments in his tenure in the Municipal Art Society. Perhaps his biggest, he said, was the failure to block or reduce what he considered to be huge tax abatements -- $1.5 billion to $4.2 billion in | Crusader for New York City Landmarks Moves On |
775063_0 | A decade ago, dozens of New Jersey's historic sites had become so dilapidated that they were shuttered and forgotten. While a few major attractions continued to thrive, smaller ones either struggled to remain open or closed indefinitely. In the cities, elaborately designed buildings that once evoked civic pride stood crumbling and vacant. By 1987, the State Legislature realized the extent of the decay and took action: it established the Historic Preservation Bond Program, New Jersey's first fund for preservation. Since then, voters have approved two bond acts allocating $50 million in state bonds to restore historic sites. Last week, the New Jersey Historic Trust, which oversees the program, awarded the latest installment of that money -- $10 million -- to 36 sites around the state. "New Jersey has always had to contend with a pressing menu of social and environmental issues," said Harriette C. Hawkins, executive director of the trust. "As a result, historic resources have not received a lot of attention." This year's grants range from $27,000, for repairs to the Bridget Smith House in Mine Hill, to $1.25 million, to restore the Essex Club building in Newark. For each round of grants (there have been four), the number of applicants grows -- this year's 36 winners were selected from a pool of 84. A panel of historians from around the country chose the winners, judging their historic value, their location, the extent of their damage and their accessibility. Only properties listed in the State Register of Historic Places were eligible for grants. Applicants were required to submit detailed restoration plans, which had to be faithful to the site's original design. "If a town wants to restore its city hall and its track record with public buildings is atrocious, it probably won't get a grant," said Tom Carroll, chairman of the trust. "But a preservation group that's already had successful projects has a good shot." The largest of this year's grants -- $1.25 million -- went to the Essex Club in Newark, a former businessmen's club built in 1926 that has not been used since 1992. After the renovation, the building will house the New Jersey Historical Society. Its brick-and-stone facade will be restored, and a library, museum, new offices and classrooms will be created inside. Five churches received grants, including St. Patrick's Pro-Cathedral in Newark and St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Trenton. A grant of $305,190 will help | Winning Reprieves for Historic New Jersey |
775178_1 | metals, and filled his throne room with gilded bronze automata in the form of songbirds and lions" -- inspiration, clearly, for Yeats's Byzantine poems.) Of gilded songbirds, or indeed the palaces that housed them, little is to be seen in Mr. Ash's journey through contemporary Turkey -- although, as the author reminds us, the paucity of Byzantine remains has less to do with the Ottoman conquest than with the infamous Fourth Crusade of 1204, whose Western European champions sacked and occupied Constantinople, reducing the Queen of Cities to pestiferous rubble. Mr. Ash, who is widely traveled in the former empire's Italian and Balkan provinces, confines himself in this book to Anatolia, Byzantium's and now Turkey's Asian heartland. After a few introductory days in Istanbul, he takes a bus south to Nicaea (now Iznik), Bursa, Konya, Karaman and Cappadocia, interleaving accounts of Turkish truck drivers and hotel owners with mini-histories of Byzantine empresses, generals and saints. Mr. Ash's itinerary may strike some readers as perverse; with the exception of Cappadocia, whose frescoed cave chapels have already been ably catalogued and celebrated by earlier writers and are now being eroded by mass tourism, most of his rather melancholy pit stops are richer in Seljuk and Ottoman than in Greek remains. But this is part of Mr. Ash's point; it is the interpenetration of cultures that interests him. Meeting a blond, blue-eyed Turkish child in a Cappadocian village, he recollects that when the Byzantine Greeks administered central Anatolia, the region was already inhabited by "a mixture of Phrygian, Hittite, Gallic, Iranian and Semitic peoples," later joined by imports of Slavs, Armenians, Syrians, Kurds, Arabs, Cumans and Jews. And from the 11th century on, Anatolia was ruled for the most part by the Seljuk Turks, who graced its steppes with a civic and religious architecture as humorously inventive as Romanesque cathedrals or Mughal palaces, as pure as Greek temples. MR. ASH'S favorite Byzantine emperors are the Comneni of the 11th and 12th centuries, shrewd diplomats who built "Persian" halls in their palaces and who preferred to marry, feast and trade with the Turks rather than to wage war with them. His favorite saint is the 13th-century Sufi poet Rumi, who extolled the joys of wine, befriended monks and dismissed "the terms Jew, Christian and Moslem as 'false distinctions.' " In a bid to make his guide to a vanished civilization topical, Mr. Ash, an | Medieval Metropolis |
777311_0 | To the Editor: Peter Innes, director of the British Information Service (letter, July 17), predictably ignores crucial points in relation to the Irish peace process and the British Government's refusal to treat Sinn Fein equally with the other parties. * No peace process based on inequality can work. Sinn Fein has a democratic mandate which the British Government must respect. * Sinn Fein wants to see all the weapons of war permanently removed from Irish politics. That is our clear goal. In any negotiations no issue of concern to any participant should be excluded. And all matters should be placed on the agenda with a view to resolution. * The issue of disarming was raised explicitly in the intensive exchanges between Sinn Fein and the Irish Government which preceded the Irish Republican Army cessation. Dublin's unambiguous position was that, in the context of a complete cessation of I.R.A. activity, no obstacle or precondition would be placed in the path of Sinn Fein's involvement in all-party talks. It was understood in the light of international experience that decommissioning could only be accomplished as part of an overall political settlement. * The British Government, for its part, never made an issue of decommissioning in the run-up to the I.R.A. cessation. Nowhere in public statements, nor in confidential exchanges, did the British make this an issue. On the contrary, the British Government repeatedly gave assurances that, in the context of an I.R.A. cessation, Sinn Fein would be free to engage in all-party peace talks. * The British Government is now asserting that the unionists have a veto over the commencement of negotiations. On this issue the Irish Government's view was that no party could have a veto over talks or over their outcome. This matter was also dealt with in the clarification the British provided to Sinn Fein on the Downing Street Declaration. They stated: "No group or organization has a veto over the policy of a democratically elected government." * The British Government is now reneging on the commitment to all-party talks it gave prior to the I.R.A. cessation last August. It is clearly acting in bad faith. * A peace process, to bring about a peace settlement, requires peace talks. This is the essential next step. This point was underlined in a joint statement by the Irish Prime Minister, John Bruton, his Deputy and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dick Spring, the | Now the British Want to Change the Rules on Irish Peace Talks |
777318_0 | Gerry Adams, the political leader of the Irish Republican Army, said today that he had a secret meeting last week with the chief British official in Northern Ireland, Sir Patrick Mayhew, to try to break the impasse in the Northern Ireland peace effort. Mr. Adams said the meeting, which was confirmed by British officials, "shows their sense of urgency" in trying to reach peace, but he declined to disclose specifics of the discussion. Both he and a senior British official, Michael Ancram, said there would probably be further top-level talks. The two-hour meeting was held on Tuesday in Londonderry. John Hume, the leader of the Social Democratic Labor Party, a predominantly Roman Catholic mainstream party, whose secret talks with Mr. Adams two years ago began the peace effort, said today that he knew of the meeting and was encouraged by it. Mr. Hume and other officials and diplomats were said to be convinced that the peace effort was now moving again, however cautiously, toward negotiations that would put Sinn Fein, the political wing of the I.R.A., at a table with all the parties in the North. That would bring together for the first time the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Sinn Fein, which wants a province united with the Irish Republic, and Protestant unionists who abhor that goal. Today, Mr. Adams, in an interview on Irish national radio, said his positions on issues blocking the talks had not changed, but without elaborating he added, "In terms of moving toward all-party talks, yes there is potential to do that. The fact that the British have been moved to discuss the issues -- and they've done so with us at a very, very senior level -- shows their sense of urgency." The effort toward a political settlement after 25 years of sectarian guerrilla warfare had been stuck for several months, since Mr. Adams and Sir Patrick, the Northern Ireland Secretary, met for the first time for a politically significant handshake on May 24 in Washington at a White House conference on Irish economic development. Since then, the effort stalled, first when Prime Minister John Major of Britain spent two weeks in a successful battle to retain his leadership of the Conservative Party. Then in the last month the effort was delayed by outbreaks of violence in Northern Ireland. On Saturday Sinn Fein held street demonstrations in Belfast that led to scuffles with the police | Sinn Fein Leader Says He Met In Secret With British Official |
773029_0 | To the Editor: Your article about the Chinese people's responses to the country's birth control laws (front page, June 25) presented examples of "coercion and evasion" in China's family-planning effort in Hunan and Anhui. Such problems are also the focus of concern in China itself. No question: There are pockets of poverty in our country improperly and inadequately served by family-planning workers. No question: Of the nearly 100 million migrants who have left the land to look for work in China, many do not have the educational and health services they need. But your depiction of a woman with seven children who have not been to school should move us to ask the real question: What can be done? In a nation of 1.2 billion, no social problem is small. Every solution requires an effort on a scale unknown in the rest of the world. The reforms since 1980 have boosted incomes faster than ever before in world history, but they have also brought their share of dislocations. China's family planning program, an integral part of our development, has evolved new strategies to meet new conditions. Has every problem been solved? In fairness, ask if America -- the richest country in the world, after a half-century of unparalleled prosperity -- is meeting the needs of its poorest women and children. Your article can only encourage those who seek to further isolate China's family-planning program. Congress has forbidden United States family planning funds to be spent in China. Yet United States support could go a long way toward strengthening China's efforts and eliminating such weaknesses as you describe. JIANG YIMAN Secretary General, China Family Planning Association Beijing, June 30, 1995 | China Knows Costs Of Birth Control |
773036_1 | tumor -- or some other hazard in the brain -- early enough for cure. It is important to remember that even when a growth is technically classified as benign it is not; although it may not be malignant, any growth in the brain is trapped in an unyielding skull and can press on and ultimately destroy vital brain tissue. Mysterious Rise In the mid-1980's, about 55,000 Americans were found to have brain tumors. Experts expect the number this year will exceed 100,000, including about 17,000 primary brain tumors (those that arise in the brain) and at least 80,000 metastatic cancers that have spread to the brain from elsewhere in the body. Tumors that originate in the brain are the second most common cancer in infants and young children, occurring about as often as acute lymphoblastic leukemia. In adults, primary brain tumors are as common as ovarian cancer. About half of primary brain tumors are benign; they grow very slowly, do not invade surrounding tissues and can usually be successfully treated. The rest are malignant: aggressive and invasive but often treatable, although usually incurable. To be sure, modern imaging techniques like computerized tomography, better known as a CT scan (a cross-sectional X-ray of the brain), or more often these days magnetic resonance imaging, better known as an M.R.I., have greatly improved diagnosis, but better detection does not appear to account for most of the rise in brain tumors. For metastatic brain tumors, an important factor is likely to be the growing success oncologists have had in controlling cancers elsewhere in the body, allowing patients to live long enough to experience a recurrence in the brain years later. Drugs that kill cancer cells often fail to cross the so-called blood-brain barrier, and cancer cells that have escaped to the brain may survive there and grow. In treating breast cancer, for example, chemotherapy given after surgery and radiation can often eradicate cancer cells everywhere in the body except the brain, and cancer cells that reached the brain before treatment could result in a relapse. Improper function of the immune system is believed to account for part of the rise in brain tumors. Among those affected are patients who have undergone organ transplants and require lifelong treatment with immunosuppressive drugs, those who years earlier underwent cancer treatments that suppress the immune system, people with AIDS, which causes immunological failure, and the growing numbers of | Personal Health |
773004_0 | There is ample time and good reason for France's new President, Jacques Chirac, to reconsider his reckless decision to resume nuclear tests under a coral atoll in the Pacific come September. Paris invokes the familiar explanation that it needs to conduct a limited number of low-yield underground tests to insure the reliability of its stockpile. But scientists do not agree that testing is necessary for these purposes and a majority of French public opinion opposes renewed tests. Given the initial reaction to Mr. Chirac's announcement, the tests appear more likely to damage French national interests than advance them. They are certain to damage global efforts to lessen the dangers of a nuclear-armed world. Just announcing the tests has poisoned French relations with Australia, New Zealand and nearby Southeast Asian countries. These countries rightly view testing at a site so far from France and near to them as a form of imperialist contempt. They also fear damage to fragile South Pacific environments. Mr. Chirac might consider whether France has a greater interest in maintaining good relations with the currently booming Asia-Pacific region or flaunting nuclear weapons for which it no longer has any obvious use. Of broader concern, France's move comes at a sensitive moment in negotiations for a global test ban agreement. Two months ago, the five official nuclear weapons states got the rest of the world to agree to extend their nuclear monopoly indefinitely. In turn, the nuclear five -- the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China -- committed themselves to sign a comprehensive test ban by next year. But with China never having suspended testing and France now ready to end its three-year halt, Russian, British and American generals are dusting off their own arguments for "safety and reliability" tests. If the drive for an early comprehensive test ban falters, the moral and political pressure on nuclear aspirants like Pakistan, Iran and North Korea to drop their efforts would be significantly reduced. Mr. Chirac is said to have been motivated by a desire to emulate his political idol, CharlesDeGaulle, who launched the idea of an independent French nuclear force. But that was in the 1960's, when France was seeking to reassert itself after the loss of its colonial empire. DeGaulle's idea was to establish an independent bargaining position for France in the cold war, standing between the Soviet Union and the United States. Whatever logic there was | Dangerous Nuclear Tests |
773097_0 | The street violence that raged into the early hours of Tuesday morning in Roman Catholic areas of Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland resumed Tuesday night, with the police reporting at least 50 incidents involving the hijacking and burning of cars and the hurling of firebombs at vehicles and police officers. A spokesman for the Royal Ulster Constabulary, or police, said at 12:45 A.M. that there was "general disorder" in Catholic areas in West and North Belfast. There were no immediate reports of injuries or arrests. The continuing violence is the first sustained public disorder since the Irish Republican Army began its cease-fire 10 months ago. The violence persisted after politicians and officials engaged in a dispute over who was responsible for the violence. British officials and politicians blamed Sinn Fein, the political wing of the I.R.A., for planning the violence. Sinn Fein denied this. Earlier on Tuesday, the streets had appeared relatively calm, and the police reported only a few incidents of violence. The violence had erupted in Catholic areas to protest the release on Monday morning of a British army soldier who had been serving a life term in prison for the killing, while on duty, of a Catholic girl riding in a stolen car that ran through an army checkpoint in 1990. In the 20 hours ending at 3 A.M. on Tuesday, 160 vehicles were hijacked by men, some armed and masked, who forced the drivers out then set the vehicles ablaze, the police said. In addition, 20 firebombs were hurled at policemen and vehicles. No serious injuries were reported. The police arrested 32 people, charging them with criminal assault, hijacking and riotous behavior. The police, in riot gear, did not try to intervene with force, apparently deciding to let the violence run its course. Nor was the army, which has 18,000 troops in Ulster, called in. The police restraint was the result, politicians and analysts said, of a careful strategy probably dictated by the Government of Prime Minister John Major in London. The early release of the soldier, Pvt. Lee Clegg, was criticized by Sinn Fein as an attempt to gain right-wing votes in Mr. Major's fight for the Conservative Party leadership, which he retained in voting in London today. The Roman Catholic Primate of Ireland, Cahal Cardinal Daly, criticized the release of the soldier as "a grave blunder." In an interview on the Irish | Violence Flares Again on Ulster Streets, Ending Brief Lull |
773035_2 | be repeated again and again. Free of surgical complications like infection, hemorrhage and leakage of spinal fluid, radiosurgery has proved very appealing to the candidates for brain surgery who have so far been given this option. Radiosurgery is also appealingly cost-effective, its proponents say. Although the procedure usually requires a team of specialists -- neurosurgeon, radiation oncologist and radiation physicist -- hospital stays are 70 percent to 90 percent shorter than with conventional surgery, there is no need for intensive postoperative care or long rehabilitation, and patients can get back to work in a few days. About 20,000 patients in the United States have undergone radiosurgery so far, and tens of thousands more have been treated in Europe and Asia. In addition to the surprisingly common defect Christine had, targets of stereotactic radiosurgery include small tumors like acoustic neuromas and meningiomas, as well as tumors in areas of the brain that are inaccessible to the surgeon's scalpel or so close to vital structures that surgery could irreparably harm normal brain tissue. It is also being used to control cancers that have spread to the brain from elsewhere in the body and, in combination with traditional surgery, it can stem the growth of malignant brain tumors that cannot be completely removed with a scalpel. "In the past, when cancer spread to the brain, it was considered the beginning of the end and there was little else to do," said Dr. Dade Lunsford. "Now tumors that metastasize to the brain can be controlled, and if they recur, radiosurgery can be repeated." Dr. Lunsford is a neurosurgeon at the University of Pittsburgh's Presbyterian Hospital, where he has performed radiosurgery on 1,650 patients since 1987. The Gamma Knife unit with which he"operates" was the first one installed in the United States. Dr. Lunsford said that in 50,000 to 60,000 patients each year, treated cancers spread to the brain, even when no trace of the disease remained elsewhere in the body. He predicted that stereotactic radiosurgery would replace other treatments, including traditional surgery, to control these brain metastases. And while the patients' cancers might not be cured, he said, radiosurgical destruction of metastases can give them years of quality life. In Dr. Lunsford's experience, success in controlling tumor growth ranges from 85 percent to 90 percent for brain metastases to more than 90 percent for benign tumors. The cure rate for arteriovenous malformations like Christine's | Device Transforms Brain Surgery |
778809_0 | TO the strains of his teacher's softly accented phrases like "I am standing tall" and "I am very glad and proud of you," Zachary Borodkin -- his face a mixture of pride and astonishment -- took a few steps and stood erect for a count of 10. Such a feat would be unremarkable in any other 6-year-old, but Zachary has cerebral palsy -- and these first steps toward independence represented a milestone for him and other children who are similarly afflicted. Cerebral palsy, which affects about 100,000 children in the United States, with 3,500 cases diagnosed each year, is caused by difficulties during pregnancy or at birth. Children with the disability can suffer impairments like difficulties with walking, standing or sitting erect, mental retardation, deafness, speech disorders and visual problems. Conventional treatment usually includes an array of physical, occupational and speech therapy sessions on a weekly or daily basis. And despite treatment, many children are relegated to a wheelchair and special schools. Even children who attend regular public schools may have to spend much of their day in special education classes. For Zachary and the seven other children age 5 through 9 from the county and the New York City region who are spending their summer at a donated community center here, a program known as conductive education offers an alternative to regular therapy -- and the possibility of discarding leg braces, walkers and wheelchairs. "In this country, they divide the child into parts that are seen by different specialists," said Ann Slavit Gordon, an artist whose 6-year-old daughter, Jenny, attends a special school on Long Island during the school year and is taking part in this summer program. "Conductive education deals with the whole person. This method is all-encompassing and organic. It encompasses all of Jenny's needs, and addresses her need to participate. The clear advantage is that it gives a functional way not only for my child to move but for me to move with her. The idea is that the kids have to use cognitive skills to make their bodies move. For each child, there are specific goals. The conductors want to help each child progress to more independence." Conductive education as a system of treating children with cerebral palsy and other neurological disorders was developed by an Hungarian doctor, Andras Peto, in 1945. It is based on the idea that children with physical impairments can increase | Alternative for Children With Cerebral Palsy |
779006_0 | EARLIER this month Henry A. Kissinger and a delegation of American business executives and academics paid a visit to Li Peng, China's Prime Minister. As would be expected at a moment when relations between the two countries has reached a low point -- on human rights, missile proliferation and Taiwan -- the opening minutes were spent with Mr. Li complaining about Taiwan's President visiting the United States, and with the Americans pressing the case of Harry Wu, the imprisoned human rights activist. What surprised the visitors, however, was how quickly Mr. Li dropped those issues and jumped right into business: Power projects that need foreign capital, China's plans for buying and building new passenger aircraft, the giant Three Gorges Dam project. "He made it very, very clear that he had no intention of letting these huge diplomatic disputes affect the economic relationship," said C. Fred Bergsten, a prominent economist and adviser to the Clinton Administration, who was along on the trip. "It was as if we were talking about two completely separate relationships." These days America's economic stake in China's future is far too large to leave to the vicissitudes of diplomatic relations, especially when Japanese and German competitors are hardly about to pull out of the country every time the Chinese jail another 100 dissidents. Yet "commercial diplomacy" -- a term once enthusiastically used by some in the Administration to describe engaging the Chinese in economic development, the arena they are most focused on -- has so far done nothing to modify China's political behavior. Just the opposite: Mr. Li is betting that the United States is not willing to lose deals with McDonnell Douglas and Ford in the name of protecting human rights. It is a taste of things to come, and one of the central dilemmas facing Secretary of State Warren Christopher next week as he tours Southeast Asia and ends up in Vietnam, the newest site of American efforts to use business as its main diplomatic vehicle. The Best Promotion At its most basic level, commercial diplomacy has clearly been a success for the Administration. For the first time in this century, the Government has regularly put the promotion of business interests at the top of its foreign policy agenda. Even the Republicans who want to eliminate the Commerce Department were congratulating Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown last week for his department's advocacy of those interests | The World; Trade's Bottom Line: Business Over Politics |
778725_0 | THOSE funny faces staring back at you in the Central Park Zoo's rain forest exhibit are the city's latest addition to its urban jungle: four black lion tamarin monkeys, among the world's rarest primates. The adult tamarins, two males and two females, were born in Brazilian zoos and arrived last week at the Central Park Wildlife Center/Zoo, which is the first North American zoological park to join international conservation efforts to save this species. But the zoo isn't taking all the credit. "It's more of a coup for the animals, in that there will be much more attention focused on their plight by North Americans, as well as South Americans," says Dr. Dan Wharton, the center's director. "I think of them as goodwill ambassadors for their own species." Black lion tamarins were thought to be extinct until they were rediscovered in the Atlantic Forest region of Brazil in 1970. They live in isolated pockets, and the largest estimate of the wild population is 450. The main threat to the monkeys is the loss of their treetop homes through the destruction of the rain forest in South America. Central Park Wildlife Center/Zoo, 64th Street and Fifth Avenue. Admission: $2.50; $1.25 for the elderly; children 3 to 12, 50 cents; children under 3, free. Monday through Friday, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.; Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. Last ticket is sold a half-hour before closing. Information: (212) 861-6030. PLAYING IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD: CENTRAL PARK | New Face in the Urban Jungle |
779072_0 | With France only weeks away from resuming nuclear tests in the Pacific, governments across Asia and the South Pacific are demanding that the French reconsider, and there are warnings of an economic boycott that could damage the French economy. The most potent threat may come from Japan, where the Government has bitterly criticized the decision by President Jacques Chirac to resume nuclear testing in French Polynesia this fall after a three-year moratorium. Mr. Chirac says his decision is irrevocable. Last week 47 Japanese lawmakers, many of them prominent members of parties in the coalition Government, called for a boycott of French luxury goods, a threat that carries weight given the affection of millions of Japanese consumers for brand-name French fashion, perfumes and liquor. The Japanese market accounts for as much as half of the profits for some French makers of luxury goods, and shares of several of those companies have been tumbling in the French stock markets as a result of the protests in Japan. "Nations that possess nuclear weapons must show their wisdom and set an example to countries that do not have nuclear weapons," the Japanese Science and Technology Minister, Makiko Tanaka, said in a letter to Mr. Chirac. Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama has accused France of "betraying" nonnuclear countries with the resumption of nuclear tests. Mr. Chirac announced in June, shortly after his election, that France would carry out eight underground explosions in two tiny Polynesian atolls -- Mururoa and Fangatauta -- from September through May. After that, he has promised, France will sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and end nuclear testing forever. The French Government has said it needs to carry out the tests to check the reliability and safety of its existing nuclear arsenal. But that has not satisfied foreign leaders and environmental campaigners who say computer simulations would offer much the same information. There is debate among scientists about the environmental impact of the tests, with French geologists insisting that none of the radiation from the test sites can leak from the hard basalt bedrock of the atolls. Scientists elsewhere are not so sure, concerned that radiation could reach the ocean through a porous layer of limestone. The decision to resume the tests has been criticized by the United States, Britain and Russia -- nuclear powers that have all halted testing. Last week, the lower house of the Russian Parliament condemned the | Asian Nations Putting Pressure on France Over Nuclear Tests |
778830_0 | THOSE funny faces staring back at you in the Central Park Zoo's rain forest exhibit are the city's latest addition to its urban jungle: four black lion tamarin monkeys, among the world's rarest primates. The adult tamarins, two males and two females, were born in Brazilian zoos and arrived last week at the Central Park Wildlife Center/Zoo, which is the first North American zoological park to join international conservation efforts to save this species. But the zoo isn't taking all the credit. "It's more of a coup for the animals, in that there will be much more attention focused on their plight by North Americans, as well as South Americans," says Dr. Dan Wharton, the center's director. "I think of them as goodwill ambassadors for their own species." Black lion tamarins were thought to be extinct until they were rediscovered in the Atlantic Forest region of Brazil in 1970. They live in isolated pockets, and the largest estimate of the wild population is 450. The main threat to the monkeys is the loss of their treetop homes through the destruction of the rain forest in South America. Central Park Wildlife Center/Zoo, 64th Street and Fifth Avenue. Admission: $2.50; $1.25 for the elderly; children 3 to 12, 50 cents; children under 3, free. Monday through Friday, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.; Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. Last ticket is sold a half-hour before closing. Information: (212) 861-6030. PLAYING IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD: CENTRAL PARK | New Face in the Urban Jungle |
779068_5 | intractable problems of unemployment, which he himself has said is the Government's first priority. He has taken steps to encourage employers to hire the long-term unemployed and entry-level workers. In Bosnia, he has repeatedly signaled that he will not be satisfied with the status quo, threatening to withdraw the French peacekeepers unless the United Nations is given the means to be more effective. When hundreds of peacekeepers in Bosnia were taken hostage by the Bosnian Serbs at the end of May in retaliation for NATO bombing raids on military installations in the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Pale, Mr. Chirac was reported to be furious -- at the peacekeepers, for submitting too meekly. Aides say that he upbraided Adm. Jacques Lanxade, the chief of the French military general staff, as if he had been personally responsible. Admiral Lanxade offered to resign, and last Tuesday French officials announced that he would be replaced by Gen. Christian Quesnot, an advocate of firmer military action in Bosnia. Mr. Chirac persuaded Britain to join France in sending 10,000 additional troops to back up the peacekeepers, and he also pressed for American logistical support to move them around in helicopters. What he finally got instead, after the Bosnian Serbs began overrunning Muslim enclaves in eastern Bosnia, was the promise of intensified American and NATO air strikes to deter further attacks. But the French diplomacy in NATO and the United Nations was acknowledged to have been shrewd. As one American military officer pointed out, it is a French general in Zagreb, Croatia -- Gen. Bernard Janvier, the commander of the United Nations Protection Force for the former Yugoslavia -- who now has the ultimate authority to begin the bombing. Mr. Chirac met with Prime Minister John Major of Britain today and got an agreement to try to restart the stalled peace talks for Bosnia. Mr. Chirac's reputation for decisive derring-do is now so firmly established that when loud detonations were heard near Pale on July 23, people around the world were prepared to believe, despite Mr. Chirac's fervent denials, that he had ordered a bold French bombing raid. At first, aides say, he was amused, but after the Paris commuter train bombing, he concluded that the Pale rumor might be seen as a provocation for terrorist actions. On Thursday, the French General Staff issued a formal denial that there had been a French bombing raid on Pale. | After Three Months on the Job, France's President Exudes Elan |
772423_0 | To the Editor: That the tone of your June 25 front-page article on birth control in China appears to condemn coercion by the Chinese Government to limit births greatly surprises me. Every society creates laws to limit individual actions that adversely affect the community. For a country bursting with people, am I to sympathize with the family that chooses six children? I do not choose to live in a world ravaged by overpopulation. The frontier is gone, the world is a bottle into which we all must fit. If anything, I deplore the coercion by our Government to thwart Chinese attempts to restrain rampant reproduction. CARL GUNTHER Washington, June 26, 1995 | China Has World's Best Reason to Limit Births |
772344_2 | bare with a wire brush and others flattened with a hot iron. For 300 years, restorers have used every imaginable fixative to try to arrest the painting's slow but inexorable disintegration. As a final insult, an Allied bomb fell on the refectory in August, 1943, demolishing the roof. Buttressed by protective scaffolding and sandbags, "The Last Supper" survived the blast. But the painting remained exposed to the elements for three years before a new roof was built, accumulating a large amount of dust and soot. Given the radical decay of the masterpiece, the Milan consultants opted for an equally radical solution: to remove centuries of additions, fixatives and repaintings in an attempt to arrive at what was left of Leonardo's original work. The decision would either reveal a dramatically different image than the one that had been seen for centuries or reduce "The Last Supper" to a few isolated streaks of fading color. "I was certain that there was enough beneath the additional materials to warrant this restoration," says Carlo Bertelli, the former Milan superintendent of art who originally authorized the project in the late 1970's. "Mrs. Brambilla and I had examined the surface with a microscope, and we were surprised to see how much of Leonardo's original work remained. There were also several cleaning trials, with extremely encouraging results." "The other well-publicized restorations were far more simple," Mrs. Brambilla says, during a pause in her work, "because they had an even, well-conserved surface. They weren't ruined, broken into scales and held together by glues and plasters like this one. Here I can clean an area one day and still not be finished, because when the solvent dries, it brings out more grime from beneath the surface. "I often have to clean the same piece a second time, or even a third or a fourth. The top section of the painting is impregnated with glue. The middle is filled with wax. There are six different kinds of plaster and several varnishes, lacquers and gums. What worked on the top section doesn't work in the middle. And what worked in the middle won't work on the bottom. It's enough to make a person want to shoot herself." At present, Mrs. Brambilla has inched her way across nearly 70 percent of the painting. And the results are notable. There is considerably less color on the wall, making the composition lighter and more | Monumental Toil to Restore the Magnificent |
772585_5 | and "humanizing" the war by opening human-rights offices, banning torture, and other measures. Offering rural Colombia a "social leap," Mr. Samper, a Social Democrat, is directing a mixed public and private plan to channel $10 billion into rural areas over the next three years to improve roads, telephones, schools and hospitals in an effort to slow migration to the cities and ease resentment against the Government. Mr. Samper is also using $15 million in United States aid to carry out Latin America's most ambitious drug crop eradication program. Since February, the National Police have eradicated about one-quarter of Colombia's illicit coca leaf and opium poppy. American officials, who supply airplane fuel, herbicide and Turbo Thrush spray planes to the effort, believe that Colombia can reach its goal of total eradication by the end of next year. The guerrillas, seeing their interests threatened, have responded with almost weekly attacks on fumigation planes. This year, they have damaged 15 aircraft and shot down 6 helicopters. In response, the authorities are bulletproofing vulnerable parts of the helicopters. In another strategy, President Samper seeks to reduce civilian casualties and to place the guerrillas on the defensive by "humanizing" the war. Last December, he signed the Second Geneva Protocol, an international convention that bans the torture of prisoners, the taking of hostages, the recruitment of children, and attacks on civilians. Instructing Colombia's army and police to comply with the convention, Mr. Samper has opened human rights offices in all major military and police garrisons. Turning to the guerrillas, he has asked that they release an estimated 500 soldiers under the age of 15 from their ranks and that they stop sowing land mines in areas frequented by peasants. The guerrillas show little interest in complying. In May, soldiers deactivated a five-mile-long perimeter of 2,000 land mines protecting a 40-acre guerrilla complex that included a coca bush plantation and an explosives factory and warehouse. After decades of directing criticism at the Government's counterinsurgency operations, human rights groups are now also focusing on abuse by Colombian guerrillas. After FARC guerrillas killed the two American missionaries, Stephen Welsh and Timothy Van Dyke, on June 19, Human Rights Watch/ Americas immediately criticized Mr. Marulanda's guerrillas. "These violations form part of a pattern of kidnappings and executions carried out by Colombian guerrillas, especially the FARC, that go against internationally accepted codes of behavior," the New York-based human rights group said | Colombia's Rebels Grow Rich From Banditry |
772372_1 | city's next big party -- its Grand Jubilee, which will take place during the year 2000. Thinking, perhaps, of the famous Villa Borghese art gallery, which has been mostly closed for the last 10 years or so, some skeptics say that with that kind of deadline, the steps project could easily drag on for more than eight months. But there is reason to hope that Rome's restorers are not allowed to dawdle as they used to: a restoration going on at the Palazzo Senatorio at the Campodoglio has a digital clock out front, clicking off the seconds until the deadline for the work's completion. The fact is that the steps were in bad shape, not from people sitting on them but from people drawing on them, writing on them, putting their cigarettes out on them, setting firecrackers off from them, even urinating on them. In recent years, the scene on the steps had become, as one Italian newspaper put it, a "bivouac, where one meets all types, some strange, some dirty, some clean, some spread out under the sun, half-nude." "This is a positive symbol of Rome," said Mayor Rutelli, "but it risks becoming a negative symbol. The steps are going to become an open-air salon once again." For now, the steps are empty, blocked off at the bottom by a glassed-in fence that still gives visitors a chance to get a glimpse of their butterfly-shaped slopes. In fact, they look better empty, more serene and dignified -- more as they did upon their completion in 1726, seven years after they were first commissioned by Pope Clement XI and designed by Francesco de Sanctis. The Spanish Steps have been through a lot since then, starting with the collapse of the left wall in 1728. Keats is said to have thrown spaghetti onto them in 1821, when he lived in the building next door, to prove to a trattoria that its food was inedible. In a recent eulogy to the Spanish Steps, the Italian magazine Gente traced their happier moments, when for instance, Grace Kelly declared them the most romantic place on earth, and Rita Hayworth, "laughing with joy, ran up the stairs like a young girl, her hair blowing in the wind, leaving a trail of perfume behind." On a warm morning last month, Jennifer Burks, a 20-year-old tourist from New Milford, Conn., sat a bit disconsolately on the pavement | Visitors to Spanish Steps Can Look but Not Sit |
772493_2 | rock and a hard place," Mr. Doyle said. "They have graduated, so they don't really qualify for Federal financial aid." That move closed the only door to dollars open to many graduates. Banks are likely to reject many of them for loans. Graduates with no job in hand cannot seek advances from employers. And many employers -- especially those in public-interest institutions and government agencies -- are unlikely to extend advances. Lisa Funk, a graduate of the New York University Law School, is among the latter group. To support herself until she starts her $31,000-a-year job as a law clerk for the Supreme Court of Texas, Ms. Funk, who is taking the New York and Massachusetts bar exams, added $5,000 to the $65,000 in student debt she an already amassed for a bar exam loan from the New England Education Loan Marketing Corporation. Generally, loan providers extend money to students who pay bills on time and have no significant blemishes on their credit reports, like foreclosures and bankruptcies. The two largest providers are the Access Group (800) 282-1550, based in Wilmington, Del., and Lawloans (800) 366-5626), which is based in Minneapolis and is run by the Hemar Corporation of America, a subsidiary of Sallie Mae. Depending on the provider, loan repayments begin six to nine months after graduation and continue for 15 to 20 years. The interest rates range from 3.45 to 4 percentage points above the rate on the three-month Treasury bill. That formula, which is usually computed quarterly, now yields a rate of slightly more than 9 percent, compared with a range of 5 to 8 percent for federally backed student loans and of 15 to 18 percent for loans from commercial banks. But while a bar exam loan can be a life preserver, James A. McGough, a financial aid director at the Fordham Law School, warned debt-laden students to view it as a last resort. "I sit them down and say, 'Where else can you get the money? Do you have parents who can lend you money? Will your firm make you an advance to help get though the summer?' " But many graduates still cannot raise the money -- and that can lead to gallows humor. "You have no other out, so you don't even think about it," Ms. Hernandez-Cancio said. "If you think, 'My net worth is negative $90,000,' you have to laugh." EARNING IT | Bridging the Income Gap After Law School |
773496_4 | countries have accords that allow investors to swap shares in Cuban state companies for trade debts. Cuba has run up large trade debts with Latin America: $1.3 billion to Argentina, $340 million to Mexico, $50 million to Colombia, and $30 million to Brazil. While Latin American multinational companies enter Cuba attracted by the lack of American competition, they are edgy about the threat of expanded United States sanctions. A bill pending in Congress would penalize foreign companies and their executives that do business in both Cuba and the United States. In a meeting in May, foreign ministers of 14 Latin America countries declared their opposition to the bill. Jorge Mas Canosa, the hard-line Cuban exile leader in Miami, recently sent letters to Latin American and European ambassadors in Washington, urging them to stop investing in Cuba. "You are taking a major risk and will incur major losses by doing business in Cuba during the tenure of the dictatorship of Fidel Castro," said Mr. Mas Canosa, chairman of the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation. "Any entrepreneurial, commercial or economic undertakings in Cuba are illegitimate activities, as illegitimate as the system that allows them." Despite these and other threats, dozens of investors and exporters turned out for conferences held last week in Brazil's four most important cities by Ernesto Melendez Bachs, Cuba's Minister of Foreign Investment and Cooperation. "We are going to paint the Havana Libre," said Mauro Saccomani Moreira, export manager for Brazil's largest paint company, Tintas Renner, S.A. In addition to sprucing up the newly privatized hotel, the company, which dominates Cuba's paint market, is competing against Spanish and Venezuelan companies for a contract to repaint much of Havana's historic center next year. To revive Cuba's flagging cigarette industry, Cuban officials have signed a deal to place most of local cigarette production in Brazilian hands. Under the deal, Souza Cruz, the Brazilian subsidiary of British American Tobacco, is to plant 1,730 acres of Virginia-type tobacco in Cuba and to ship to Havana machinery for a factory capable of producing 6 billion cigarettes, half of Cuba's annual consumption. "Our intention is to eventually export, first to Latin America and the Caribbean, and then later to the United States," Milton C. Cabral, the Souza Cruz financial director, said today at his officer here. "Diplomatically, we don't see any problems for our association because both countries, Brazil and Cuba, enjoy harmonious diplomatic relations." | Latin America Now Ignores U.S. Lead in Isolating Cuba |
773499_1 | was also a vindication of those who want to continue the Greenpeace strategy of confrontation. During much soul-searching last year, some Greenpeace leaders argued for a more conciliatory and pragmatic route, including working with business and government. For Greenpeace, the timing of its oil-platform victory could not have been more opportune, giving it an enormous lift as it prepares for its next challenge: to stop France from resuming nuclear tests in the Pacific this fall. The scope of the campaign against Shell, involving perilous cat-and-mouse games at sea and a successful consumer boycott, also reflects the financial strength of the group. In two months it spent more than $1 million on communications and equipment, including chartered boats and helicopters. Founded in 1971 by a dozen Canadians opposed to United States nuclear testing in Alaska, Greenpeace's grew to become the world's largest environmental group. With only 10,000 contributors 20 years ago, it had 3.1 million last year and a budget of $145 million. It has 43 offices in 30 countries, a full-time staff of 1,200, four vessels, a helicopter, hundreds of dinghies and the latest communications equipment. But its greatest strength, perhaps, is that it can draw on tens of thousand of volunteers. The group has had its ups and downs. In 1985, as it prepared to protest French nuclear testing, French secret agents blew up its ship, Rainbow Warrior, at a dock in New Zealand, killing a Greenpeace photographer. The attack brought a wave of public sympathy and Greenpeace kept growing, expanding in the last decade into Eastern Europe and Latin America. Last year the group, whose contributions had dropped, had to cut its budget by almost 10 percent and dismiss 50 staff members. But the victory over Shell has brought a new surge of support. As Greenpeace has grown, so have its opponents. Many industrialists, government officials and even some other environmentalists say Greenpeace campaigners are trespassers who do anything that makes for good television or adventurous tales in the press. Some indignant company officials say Greenpeace manipulates emotions with pseudo-science and scare tactics instead of relying on facts and law to make its case. "They are not peaceful; they commit illegal acts," said Dick Marshall, the public relations director of Britain's nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield. In April several hundred protesters invaded the Sellafield plant, and Mr. O'Cadhla was one of those who climbed onto the roof. | For Greenpeace Guerrillas, Environmentalism Is Again a Growth Industry |
773473_2 | stronger measures to revive the economy. [ 35. ] Mexican Stocks Rise Again The Mexican stock market has regained most of the ground it lost after the peso devaluation in December. Some big international funds are buying again, although stock values in dollar terms are still deflated. [ 34. ] I.B.M. Forms New Division I.B.M. said it would create a division responsible for expanding the company's offerings to consumers, bringing multimedia computers and desktop software under one roof. The company's shares traded above $100 for the first time in nearly three years, reaching $100.625 before closing at $99.50, up 62.5 cents. [ 34. ] Music Channel Plan Dropped A tentative plan to start a rival music cable channel to MTV has been dropped by five of the biggest music companies, including Time Warner, Sony, and Thorn EMI. The decision was attributed in part to the dismissal of Robert Morgado as chairman of Warner Music. He was seen as the chief mover behind the plan. [ 36. ] Coors Extends Benefits Coors Brewing will offer full benefits to the unmarried domestic partners of employees, whether gay or straight. The new policy allows employees to add unmarried, live-in partners to health and life insurance policies, pensions and other benefits. [ 34. ] Nextel Approves McCaw Stake Nextel shareholders approved a $1.1 billion investment by Craig McCaw of cellular fame and his family to buy wireless licenses from Motorola and a merger with Onecomm. [ 35. ] Greenpeace Shows Its Reach Greenpeace won a major victory when it got Royal Dutch/Shell to drop its plan to sink an old oil platform in the North Atlantic. The scope of the Shell campaign also reflects the financial strength of the group. In two months it spent more than $1 million on communications and equipment, including chartered boats and helicopters. [ 3. ] Latin America Tied to Cuba Latin America has increasingly ignored the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba. Mexico is Cuba's largest foreign investor, and the Americas supply half of Cuba's imports and a quarter of the island's foreign tourists. [ 1. ] Coffee Up on Export Limit Coffee prices rose on signs that Brazil was set to limit exports as part of an effort by Latin American producers to force prices higher. On the Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange, the contract for September delivery jumped 8.8 cents, to $1.2985 a pound. [ 43. ] | BUSINESS DIGEST |
773571_0 | The violence that erupted again in Belfast this week was contained and predictable. The Irish Republican Army seemed to encourage a frustrated community to let off steam after the British Government released Pvt. Lee Clegg, who was serving a life sentence for killing an Irish teen-ager. These events should not be allowed to deflect the peace process. All parties -- the British and Irish Governments and the loyalist and Republican paramilitary groups -- need to find ways to push forward. One issue stands in the way. The British Government insists that Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, commit itself to decommissioning the arms of the I.R.A. before all-party talks can begin. Decommissioning is essential to a peace settlement, but making it a precondition for all-party talks needlessly holds up the negotiating process. Hard-liners in the I.R.A. see decommissioning as surrender, and emphasize that they have not surrendered but voluntarily ceased hostilities in the hope of arriving at a political settlement for the Catholic community in the North. The I.R.A.'s membership must have some confidence that a political framework is in place to insure a fair outcome. The Irish Government, which has played a constructive role in nudging the peace process along, has encouraged the British Government to take a broader approach. Addressing the Irish Parliament on Tuesday, Prime Minister John Bruton appealed for the inclusion of other issues along with the decommissioning of arms, including release of political prisoners and reform of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, Northern Ireland's Protestant-dominated police force. At a meeting in Cannes last week, Mr. Bruton suggested to Prime Minister John Major of Britain that officials work together on a wider agenda, perhaps leading to a parallel set of talks to be convened in the fall, involving the two Governments and the two paramilitary organizations. It is a good suggestion. President Clinton's announcement that he will visit Ireland later this year also provides encouragement to all parties to keep the process going. That is the main challenge now. | The Next Step in Belfast |
777110_4 | Serbs attacked Gorazde. This might seem a way for the Americans to politely avoid any commitment to send helicopters and men soon, as the French had demanded, but the French pronounced themselves satisfied and took credit for putting backbone back into the international community over Bosnia. (How much backbone is another question, of course, as it always has been in Bosnia; right away, questions arose about whether the threat can be carried out.) Lip Service France's aspirations may not be so bold as to lead the NATO alliance, but France has always aspired to lead a united Europe. De Gaulle, who kicked NATO headquarters out of France in 1966 and withdrew French troops from its military chain of command, did so because he didn't want Europe's defenses to depend on Americans. Now Mr. Chirac is resuming nuclear testing because he doesn't want France's nuclear deterrent or French national security to depend on them, or anybody else. France has always given lip service to the idea of leading Europe through close partnership with Germany, but the Germans are miffed that the French President did not consult with them (or anybody else in Europe) about resuming the bomb tests. The French, of course, saw no reason to do so; Germany may be the most powerful country in Europe, but it is self-conscious and inhibited, and it is not a nuclear power. And as for European foreign policy, the first objective of the European Union when it proclaimed such a policy in 1991 was a united approach in the former Yugoslavia. "In Europe, it is difficult for a single state to do anything, because our old nation-states are of relatively equal weight," said Anne-Marie Le Gloannec, a political scientist, in The Figaro last week. "During the period of the cold war, America had to become in a way a European state. Today, the United States doesn't want to lead any more." That leaves the field, in the French view, to Mr. Chirac, who, having reasserted the French presence in the South Pacific by lifting the nuclear testing moratorium put in place by his predecessor, Francois Mitterrand, is now touring France's former domains in Africa. During a banquet in Morocco, Mr. Chirac's old friend King Hassan II offered this toast: "I ask you to stand up and honor our dear friend, the President of France, Jacques Mitterrand." As the French say, c'est la guerre. | The World; Chirac Dusts Off An 'Idea of France' |
776924_0 | To the Editor: In "French War Stories" (Op-Ed, July 19), Tony Judt goes so far in praising President Jacques Chirac for finally admitting French Government complicity in the deaths of 76,000 Jews during the Nazi occupation, and in attacking the French left, that he seriously distorts history. He writes that the left has been "curiously silent" on French responsibility for the deportation of Jews, naming intellectuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Lacouture and Jacques Derrida. To be sure, former President Francois Mitterrand, leader of the Socialist Party, said in a notorious 1992 statement that only the Nazis and not the French state were responsible. On June 15, 1992, a petition signed by more than 200 mainly leftist intellectuals, including Mr. Derrida, Regis Debray, Cornelius Castoriadis, Mr. Lacouture and Nathalie Sarraute, noted that the French occupation government in 1942 acted "on its own authority, and without being asked to do so by the German occupier." It called on Mr. Mitterrand to "recognize and proclaim that the French state of Vichy was reponsible for persecutions and crimes against the Jews of France." Mr. Judt might have noted that Mr. Chirac and his Government have enacted some of the most draconian anti-immigrant legislation in French history. He might also have mentioned Mr. Chirac's failure, on the eve of this year's Presidential elections, to condemn strongly and specifically the neo-fascist, Holocaust-denying, anti-immigrant National Front for the murder of an Arab immigrant on May 1 during a National Front march in Paris. KEVIN ANDERSON Associate Professor of Sociology Northern Illinois University Dekalb, Ill., July 20, 1995 | French Intellectuals Wanted Truth Told |
777032_1 | own way, whose instinct for snap decisions can border on the reckless. As one diplomat in Paris remarked to me: "Chirac is a bulldozer without a steering wheel, and when one of those is on the road everyone else should put on their seat belts." Consider his first two months: He dominated the G-7 summit in Halifax, arm-twisting the other leaders to issue a muscular declaration on Bosnia. He ordered a resumption of French nuclear testing in the Pacific, without consulting any of his European Union partners, and when they protested he sniffed that his decision was "irrevocable." Mr. Chirac startled his country by becoming the first President to acknowledge French responsibility for the deportation of thousands of Jews to Nazi death camps during Germany's occupation of France. And it was Mr. Chirac's sudden ultimatum to the allies -- either reinforce the safe havens against further Serbian attacks or France pulls its troops out of Bosnia -- that triggered a U.S. decision to threaten massive air strikes to deter the Serbs. How far can Mr. Chirac lead? That depends on two factors. First, Mr. Chirac needs to be able to lead the European Union before he can lead the West. He needs the E.U. power base as a multiplier of French power and right now many E.U. members -- particularly Britain and Germany -- are wary of Mr. Chirac's impulsiveness, and uncertain whether there is any real strategic vision behind it. Second, France has 12.5 percent unemployment, and it is that number, not Bosnia, that the French public is obsessed with. It is worth recalling that Charles de Gaulle, France's last President to really challenge Washington's leadership, was brought down not by foreign policy but by the 1968 student-worker strike in the streets of Paris. There is an opportunity here for the U.S., and a risk. At a time when Washington is tired of leading it has in France a President who wants to lead as much as de Gaulle, but is not, like de Gaulle, congenitally anti-American. Mr. Chirac speaks English and has warm feelings toward the U.S. from his summer working the soda fountain at Howard Johnson's. He is a rare breed: a Gaullist baseball fan. Who knows, maybe he could be to Bill Clinton what Margaret Thatcher was to Presidents Reagan and Bush -- an assertive European leader who encourages U.S. leadership, while acting as Washington's full | Foreign Afffairs; Enter Le Bulldozer |
777178_2 | year, the Drug Enforcement Administration seized 17.6 tons of cocaine in Puerto Rico and the eastern Caribbean, more than twice the catch in 1990. Law-enforcement officials say a crackdown on drugs entering South Florida in the mid-1980's shifted more trafficking to the Caribbean, where Colombian cocaine, and to a lesser degree marijuana and heroin, arrive in a variety of ways: by airdrops to waiting speedboats that bring it to shore, aboard wood-and-fiberglass "stealth" boats that can elude radar detection, inside cargo containers and carried by cruise ship passengers, among others. Puerto Rico, a United States commonwealth, offers two advantages as a transhipment point from South America and other Caribbean islands, Federal drug-enforcement officials say. First, it is geographically convenient to both South and North America, and, because of its commonwealth status, once a drug shipment is in Puerto Rico customs inspections are no longer a factor, either here or at a destination on the mainland of the United States. Of particular concern to commonwealth officials is that that 10 to 20 percent of the drug ends up in Puerto Rico for local consumption, creating a criminal industry that smuggles and stores drugs, launders money, operates retail "puntos" or points, as drug-selling spots are known, and uses violence to prevail over competitors, officials say. Last year, there were 980 homicides on the island, a record, and more than twice the 1989 death toll, according to police data. Law-enforcement officials say that more than 60 percent of the killings are related to drugs. The Puerto Rico government has increased the number of police officers, enacted harsher prison sentences, conducted arms and drug raids that have resulted in as many as 1,000 arrests at a time and deployed the National Guard in about 70 housing projects and communities to wipe out drug points. The police say the measures are working and that homicides islandwide were down 18 percent for the first six and a half months of 1995, compared with the same period last year. "Our goal is to raise the cost of doing business in Puerto Rico in a way that they'll have to go elsewhere," said the Secretary of Justice, Pedro R. Pierluisi, whose brother was killed by a carjacker last year. "We feel the trend is there. Homicides should go downward as well as all other violent crime." But even if crime is brought under control, the island already shows | Puerto Rico Reeling Under Scourge Of Drugs and Rising Gang Violence |
774164_0 | International A3-13 SERBS BATTLE PEACEKEEPERS Bosnian Serbs clashed with peacekeepers protecting a Bosnian enclave and ordered them and the civilians they were protecting to leave. NATO air protection was requested, but called off. A1 DOLE REBUFFS CLINTON ON BOSNIA Senator Bob Dole refused an invitation to meet with President Clinton, who is trying to maintain support for his Bosnia policy, and said he plans to seek legislation to lift the Bosnia arms embargo. A10 BURMESE DISSIDENT LEADER FREED Burmese officials released the Nobel Prize-winning opposition leader from house arrest after six years, apparently without their previous requirements that she leave the country for several years. A1 CHINA ALLOWS JAIL INTERVIEW China allowed an American envoy to interview the Chinese-American human rights advocate it had arrested three weeks ago, but little was revealed about charges against him or his prospects. A8 Despite posturing, Taiwan and China are expanding ties. A8 NUCLEAR TESTS TO PROCEED France brushed aside international concerns over its seizure of a ship that was protesting its plans for nuclear testing and said that it will proceed with the tests. A12 IN BOLIVIA, COCA QUANDARY Bolivia is under pressure from the United States to cut its coca production, but with many subsistence farmers there depending on the coca crop, there are many political and economic obstacles. A3 MEXICAN VIOLENCE RAISES FEARS A resurgence of violence in a Mexican state with a history of such problems has both shaken its residents and raised new questions about the country's stability. A3 Pope backs women's rights, but diverse roles. A11 Protestant marchers fought with police in Northern Ireland. A11 Managua Journal: A national hero on the pitcher's mound. A4 National A14-17 CLINTON ATTACKS TV VIOLENCE The President, on a visit to Tennessee, endorsed Congressional proposals to require television makers to install a computer chip that could screen out programs that broadcasters had coded as violent. A1 SIMPSON DEFENSE BEGINS O.J. Simpson's family gathered around him in court and his elder daughter described his demeanor when told of the killing of his former wife. A1 SUSAN SMITH IS CALLED COMPETENT As jury selection began in the trial of Susan Smith, a state expert said she was legally competent to stand trial on murder charges for drowning her two sons. A14 DISPUTE OVER 'WANTED' POSTER A Republican fund-raising letter features a "Wanted" poster that calls for unseating 28 liberal Democrats, 22 of whom are | NEWS SUMMARY |
774240_0 | In a special letter issued in Rome in advance of a United Nations international conference on women, Pope John Paul II said yesterday that after centuries of discrimination, equality for women was now a matter not only of justice, but also of necessity. The letter, addressed to women throughout the world, gave credit to the women's movement for its "substantially positive" achievements, and assumed responsibility for injustices against women committed in the name of the Roman Catholic Church. But he made clear that there would be no change in the church's position barring women from the priesthood. The Pope urged women to protect what he depicted as their special role in the family and in society, where, he said, the "feminine genius" can have a humanizing influence against the demands of "efficiency and productivity." "Womanhood expresses the 'human' as much as manhood but in a different and complementary way," the Pope wrote. "It is only through the duality of the 'masculine' and the 'feminine' that the 'human' finds full realization." The unusual papal message is a signal that the Vatican is girding itself for the United Nations conference on women, to be held in Beijing in September. Spokesmen for the Vatican have already criticized the conference's draft document, which they describe as having been overly influenced by Western feminist thought. The Vatican last year played a high-profile role at the United Nations population conference in Cairo, where it succeeded in its fight to keep the concept of an international right to abortion out of the final conference document. In Beijing, the battles promise to be less specific and more philosophical as the Vatican tries to exert its influence on the modern definition of a woman's role in society, and to counteract certain trends of feminist thought. The letter adds the Pope's personal authority to arguments that the Vatican delegation, which for the first time will be headed by a woman, is expected to pursue in Beijing. These arguments, in effect, will defend what the Vatican portrays as a woman's special role as mother, educator and mainstay of the family. In arguing for a "certain diversity of roles," the Pope once again ruled out the possibility of ordaining women as Roman Catholic priests, a service that he said Christ had exclusively entrusted to men but which "in no way detracts from the role of women." In his letter, the Pope hailed | Pope Calls for an End to Discrimination Against Women |
774157_4 | but a variety of ground squirrel -- live in a violent and unforgiving world. They are continually beset by predators of one kind or another. The defense strategy they have evolved lies at the heart of their ecological role. By organizing themselves in colonies and living underground, they have set up a cooperative detection-and-escape network against attack by surface and aerial predators. Any human visitor can easily see it in action, although tourists who stop at roadside pullouts on the edges of prairie-dog towns might well miss it. Prairie dogs living near the pullouts have become so habituated to humans that one can approach to within two or three feet. Biologists call these animals "Twinkie dogs," after the pastry confection to which they have sometimes presumably been treated. But move just a little farther into the colony, and things change. Soon one prairie dog issues a warning call, a high-pitched "chirk" that it repeats incessantly, head and little black-tipped tail jerking in what looks like indignation. Others take up the call, starting a chain reaction of noise that rises in pitch, volume and speed of repetition if the intruder walks faster. Soon there is bedlam. One by one, all the animals dive into their burrows as the intruder approaches. When the danger has passed, it is high time for the jump-yip display. The defense system is extremely efficient. "In 22 years, I have seen a mere 22" successful above-ground predations, said Dr. John L. Hoogland, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Maryland, who has studied prairie dogs extensively at Wind Cave National Park near here. He is the author of a new book, "The Black-Tailed Prairie Dog: Social Life of a Burrowing Mammal" (University of Chicago Press). But the system has its drawbacks. Predators like snakes and badgers find the burrows little or no hindrance, and lethal black-widow spiders often take up residence in burrow entrances. The black-footed ferret, a nocturnal predator about half the size of a prairie dog, slips easily into burrows and exacts an especially grisly toll: it locks its teeth on the throat of its prey, strangles the victim, and then eats it bones and all -- except for the feet. In some densely packed colonies, prairie dogs express a dark side of their own. In the spring, after babies are born, many mothers go on an orgy of infanticide, killing and often eating the | Prairie Dog Colonies Bolster Life in the Plains |
774139_0 | To The Editor: During the past few days Belfast and Londonderry have been the scene of street riots, which included firebombing of cars and trucks (front page, July 6). Most significant, the police have also been attacked. The next step will be the use of guns. If the rioting continues, the police will fire plastic bullets. In the past those bullets have killed and maimed. After that would come the I.R.A.'s use of guns against the police and the British Army, and the story comes full circle. For 14 years I covered riots in Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland. I watched the progression from civil rights protests to stone-throwing. Then came the firebombing and then gunfire and explosions. Does Prime Minister John Major really want to risk recreating the horror of warfare in Ireland? He has the power to keep that from happening by resisting his party's right wing, which includes Protestants in Northern Ireland. He should set a date for all-party talks and include Sinn Fein, the political wing of the I.R.A. Stalling those talks over the I.R.A. weapons "stockpile" issue is a red herring. The I.R.A. can make bombs from easily attainable products. The I.R.A. was the architect of the fertilizer bomb when Timothy McVeigh was still in knee pants. And even if the I.R.A. agreed to unilateral turnover of weapons, British security forces do not know how many weapons exist, and many weapons in I.R.A. hands are well concealed in dumps in the Irish Republic as well as in Northern Ireland. Perhaps the disturbances are being orchestrated by the I.R.A., as claimed by some Catholics. Not all Irish Catholics support the I.R.A. But Mr. Major should not be diverted by a petty argument about who started the unrest or who supports it. He should reflect on recent Irish history, and let it be his guide. Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, has taken the Republican movement down the political road at some considerable personal risk. He would acknowledge that the patience of his young constituents could run out. The rioting in Belfast and Londonderry may be a sign of that sort of trend. It's a signal Mr. Major should not misread. PETER MARTIN San Diego, July 6, 1995 | Only Peace Talks Can Save Northern Ireland |
774212_0 | France today brushed aside a wave of international protests against the boarding and seizure by French Navy commandos in the South Pacific of a ship carrying protesters against its plans to resume underground nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in September. "France will command respect for the measures it has decided to take by requiring respect for legality in its territorial waters," Prime Minister Alain Juppe said. Other French Government officials said newly elected President Jacques Chirac remained determined to carry out the series of eight underground nuclear weapons tests that he said would end by next May. Since the announcement last June, Mr. Chirac has been villifed as "Mr. Bomb" over much of the South Pacific. Australia and New Zealand have suspended military cooperation agreements with France, and Australia has temporarily withdrawn its ambassador to Paris in protest; French wine, restaurants, and cultural programs have been boycotted. French officials here complain that the real point of Mr. Chirac's decision has gone unnoticed. That, they say, is that France will join the United States, Britain, China, and Russia in signing a permanent test ban treaty by Sept. 30, 1996. China has conducted tests in the last year, but the other three nuclear powers are continuing to observe a moratorium. According to a high aide to Defense Minister Charles Millon, France wants a clause in the treaty that will permit small "experimental" nuclear explosions with a force below the equivalent of 100 to 200 tons of TNT even after the pact goes into effect. Such experiments, the aide said, would be needed to insure the continued reliability of the French nuclear deterrent. Mr. Chirac did not mention the possibility of continued smaller tests when he announced his decision last month to conduct eight more tests, part of a series that were abruptly suspended on the orders of his predecessor, Francois Mitterrand, in 1992. A group of 15 Pacific island nations asked Mr. Chirac to reconsider, but they were rebuffed. The President invited them to send experts to Mururoa to see for themselves that the tests would release no radioactivity into the environment, but he has repeatedly said his decision is "irreversible." Early Sunday morning in the Pacific, French Navy commandos, using tear gas, boarded the Rainbow Warrior II, a small ship owned by the international environmental organization Greenpeace, off Mururoa, in French Polynesia. French officials in Papeete, the capital of the French | Paris Defends Seizing Ship in Atom Test Zone |
774177_0 | To the Editor: The release of British Pvt. Lee Clegg from prison for the murder of an Irish teen-ager (news article, July 4) only adds to the growing belief that Britain is not serious about the peace process. In looking back on past events, Britain has only reacted to the situation and rarely, if ever, initiated a positive response. The Downing Street Declaration was a reaction to the Adams-Hume Initiative, which laid the groundwork for the peace process. Prime Minister John Major never accepted the I.R.A. cease-fire until British loyalists said so. He complained so much about Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein president, getting a United States visa that a New York Times editorial (Feb. 5, 1994) told him to stop whining. Add to this the ridiculous idea that the I.R.A. will give up all its guns while the British Army keeps its own, and British claims of wanting peace are something less than sincere. Regarding the weapons issue, there must be a universal, not unilateral, laying down of arms. In the past 25 years, only two British soldiers have ever seen the inside of a prison. Compare that with the thousands of Irish imprisoned. The British prisoners received the full legal process. Irish prisoners were convicted on coerced confessions or contrived evidence. The skeptics are justified in their lack of faith with British promises of peace. Indeed, they have seen little else. ALLAN BIENIEK Wyandotte, Mich., July 6, 1995 The writer is Midwest regional secretary for Irish Northern Aid. | Only Peace Talks Can Save Northern Ireland; Empty Promises |
774237_1 | the 1,000 members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the overwhelmingly Protestant security force in this British province, and the police responded by firing plastic bullets. Several injuries were reported as some of the demonstrators briefly broke through police lines in an attempt to reach the Catholic area. No clashes were reported between Protestant demonstrators and the Catholics who had blocked their way, with police support, on Sunday. At 11 P.M. officials said the police were in control of the situation, but the possibility of new clashes, particularly between Protestants and Catholic civilians, raised anxiety that it could lead to a break in the cease-fires declared last fall by Catholic and Protestant paramilitary groups. The violence came a week after rioting broke out in Catholic areas of the province, but tonight's violence was not comparable to last week's, when demonstrators threw hundreds of gasoline firebombs and set 200 trucks and cars ablaze. The Protestant demonstrators were apparently encouraged by a speech given at the scene of the confrontation by the Rev. Ian Paisley, the flamboyant leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. He told the crowd, estimated at 7,000, that "this is a night of great gravity," and urged them not to back off from the police. Earlier in the day, the Northern Ireland Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, said he would not intervene, that the two sides could work out a solution. The Protestant violence comes at the start of what is known as the Marching Season, when tens of thousands of Protestants in dozens of parades celebrate the Battle of the Boyne, in which the Protestant forces of William of Orange defeated the Catholic forces of King James II. The battle, in 1690, fixed Protestant domination of Northern Ireland. Ever since, the province has been the scene of repeated uprisings by Catholics. Most of the marches are by Protestants; the principal Catholic marches are in August. The main parades are on the date of the battle, July 12. But Sunday an Orange order group from Portadown marched to a church service, then tried to go back home through a predominantly Catholic area. The way was blocked by Catholics, and the police refused to let the Protestants force their way through. The police said they did this to prevent clashes between the two groups. Hundreds of Protestants also blocked several roads in and around Belfast today in sympathy with the Portadown protesters. | Protestants Fight Police In Ulster |
774893_2 | call for the rapid reaction force to open up a road out of Sarajevo to stop its strangulation by the Bosnian Serbs. As the Administration debated how to respond to the Balkan crisis, there were signs of divisions inside the Western alliance. President Clinton consulted by telephone with Prime Minister John Major of Britain. In a statement in London, Mr. Major conceded that time was short to find a solution. But he kept his distance from France's urgent call for military action, instead summoning to London senior officials of the so-called contact group -- the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Russia -- that has been seeking a peace settlement in the former Yugoslavia. Like the United States, Britain has asked Mr. Chirac to spell out how he proposes to defend Gorazde and the British peacekeepers there. During a 40-minute news conference in Elysee Palace for Bastille Day, Mr. Chirac unleashed withering criticism of the allies' performance in Bosnia. The Western democracies, he said, were behaving more or less as Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier did when faced with Hitler's threats against the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938. Without naming the United States, the French President reserved his harshest words for countries that he said had behaved "irresponsibly" in Bosnia, preaching democracy and human rights but being increasingly unwilling to put out money or soldiers to defend them. American officials said they saw some political maneuvering to make France seem relatively blameless in a debacle for which all NATO allies share responsibility. But Mr. Chirac, in office only two months, was shaken by the spectacle of French and other United Nations peacekeeping troops being shackled by the Bosnian Serbs after NATO's punitive air raids in May, and the French President seems determined to break the impasse. The French Defense Minister, Charles Millon, said Mr. Chirac would wait 48 hours to judge the reactions to his call on Thursday night for Britain and the United States to join France in taking a strong military stand against the Serbs. "If no one wants to make a commitment to retake Srebrenica, at least we should guarantee the safe area of Gorazde, where there are British blue helmets, but really defend ourselves," Mr. Chirac said. "If it's to be like in Srebrenica, that is, leaving as soon as the first Serbs show up, then it's useless to pretend to make an effort." The growing | U.S. Weighs a Response To French Call on Bosnia |
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