NEWS DIGEST OCTOBER 10-16
By Eugene Linden, Erik Meers, Michael Quinn, Jeffery Rubin, Alain Sanders, Sophfronia Scott Gregory
NATION
U.S. Isoventionism, Part I A ship carrying lightly armed U.S. and Canadian troops, sent as part of an agreement between the United Nations and the Haitian military that aims to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power, was unable to dock in Haiti last week because a violent mob of army-backed civilians threatened the troops' safety. The U.N. Security Council later voted to reactivate an oil- and-arms embargo on Haiti, which will take effect this week if the Haitian military does not abide by the accord. President Clinton has ordered six Navy vessels into the area to enforce the embargo and has put troops on standby alert in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
U.S. Isoventionism, Part II After two days of intense talks between Robert Oakley, President Clinton's new envoy in Somalia, and aides to General Mohammed Farrah Aidid, forces loyal to Aidid released Michael Durant, the American helicopter pilot they had held for 11 days, as well as a Nigerian peacekeeper held captive since last month. President Clinton and Aidid both claimed that no deal had been made for the prisoners' release, although the move coincided with a new willingness on the part of Oakley and Clinton to include Aidid's faction in efforts toward a political solution to Somalia's problems. At week's end the Senate voted to keep U.S. troops in Somalia until March 31, Clinton's announced withdrawal date.
Meanwhile, Back Home ... Although its attention was focused on crises abroad, the Administration did not forget about its notion of overhauling the U.S. healthcare system. The White House said it would propose that the government pay 20% or 30% of the medical benefits of early retirees; the figure had been 80% in earlier proposals. The Administration also indicated that its plan would produce fewer savings than had been hoped, reducing the deficit $70 billion to $80 billion by the year 2000, not $91 billion. Officials expect to deliver the legislation by the end of the month.
Jobs Program a Dud According to a Labor Department report, retraining workers who lose manufacturing jobs is not so easy as originally thought. An evaluation of the government job-training program for workers hurt by foreign trade found that only 1 in 5 retrained workers landed jobs paying at least 80% as much as their former jobs.
Cutting Further in the Budget As promised during the budget battle, the Administration plans to cut an additional $15 billion from the spending plan passed last August. The savings are expected to come from trimming waste in the Federal Government.
Partial Verdict The embattled jury in the Reginald Denny trial told Judge John Ouderkirk they had decided on nine counts against two black defendants but were deadlocked on seven others. Ouderkirk will tell the panel this week whether to continue deliberations.
More Police for Los Angeles New Republican Mayor Richard Riordan of Los Angeles announced plans last week to hire nearly 2,500 officers over the next five years and increase the number of officers on street beats 70%.
Changes at the FBI Keeping a promise to increase the diversity in the fbi's upper ranks, Director Louis Freeh promoted a woman, a Hispanic man and an African-American man to assistant directorships at the agency.
Searching for Polly The pain of a small California town has attracted nationwide attention after the brazen kidnapping of 12-year-old Polly Klaas. The girl was taken from her Petaluma home during a slumber party on Oct. 1 by a man who walked into the house and abducted her.
WORLD Quake Toll Lowered Although initial reports put the death toll for last month's earthquake in southwestern India at 28,000, the count has been lowered to around 10,000. Critics say authorities are deliberately undercounting to reduce the amount of compensation to victims.
Russia Muzzles Press The Russian government banned a television show and 15 opposition newspapers and ordered two others -- including Pravda -- to fire their editors and change their names if they wanted to remain open. The Press Ministry said the news organizations had ''promoted destabilization'' during the revolt earlier this month.
Yeltsin Visits Japan President Boris Yeltsin made an uneventful visit to Tokyo for two days and met with Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa. By leaving Russia just one week after he suppressed the coup by retrograde parliamentarians, he flaunted his confidence that he was in control.
Nobel For South Africans Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk won the Nobel Peace Prize for working ''to peacefully end apartheid'' in South Africa.
Maastricht Passes Final Test Germany's highest court ruled that the Maastricht treaty on European unification is constitutional, clearing the way for the formal filing of ratification documents. Germany was the final European Community member to ratify, which means that the treaty will take effect Nov. 1.
Middle East Nuts and Bolts Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in the Egyptian resort town of Taba to begin discussing details of the transition to Palestinian self-rule, beginning in the Gaza Strip and Jericho. Among the issues: security arrangements, the size of the Palestinian-controlled zone around Jericho, the fate of thousands of Palestinians imprisoned or deported by Israel and control of water sources.
Papandreou's Back Greek voters returned Socialist Andreas Papandreou to power as Prime Minister four years after scandal drove the 74-year-old politician from the same office. He immediately reversed plans made by his conservative predecessor, Constantine Mitsotakis, to privatize large swaths of the Greek economy. Papandreou appointed his wife Dimitra to a top advisory position.
Chaos in Georgia With ethnic war threatening to fracture the former Soviet republic of Georgia into several smaller units, ousted President Zviad Gamsakhurdia seized the western province of Mingrelia. ''This can be compared to the French Resistance,'' said Gamsakhurdia. Meanwhile, separatists who captured Abkhazia, the westernmost region of Georgia, continued ''ethnic cleansing''-style expulsions.
South Korea Ferry Disaster Divers worked to recover bodies from a ferry that capsized in the Yellow Sea 140 miles southwest of Seoul; at week's end 139 people had been confirmed dead in the accident; 69 survived.
Satanic Verses Victim The Norwegian publisher of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses was shot in the back at his home outside Oslo by an unidentified gunman. William Nygaard, 50, was expected to recover fully from the attack. He is the third person to be injured or killed as the result of an association with the book.
BUSINESS Betting on the 21st Century In a merger with potentially historic implications for the communications and entertainment industries, Bell Atlantic Corp. announced it would acquire Tele- Communications Inc., the nation's largest cable-TV operator, and its cable- programming affiliate, Liberty Media. The resulting company could dominate the ''information superhighway'' of the future. The complicated stock transaction is valued at $21.4 billion.
Deadly Devices C.R. Bard Inc., one of the world's largest medical devicemakers, pleaded guilty last week to federal charges of selling untested heart catheters. The firm will pay $61 million in criminal fines and federal civil damages. The devices killed at least one person and caused 22 others to have emergency surgery.
A Slap for Wal-Mart An Arkansas judge found a Wal-Mart in Conway, Arkansas, guilty of predatory pricing on pharmacy products and ordered the store to raise its prices. (Ironically, health-care czarina Hillary Rodham Clinton served on Wal- Mart's board until she became First Lady.)
More Cuts for Woolworth A prime victim of Wal-Mart's success has been the Woolworth chain, which announced its second major reduction in size in two years. It plans to close 970 stores and cut 13,000 jobs. Some 400 of the shops to close will be the cheap general stores that made the Woolworth name famous (others will include Kinney shoe stores). After the closings, only 400 or so of the Woolworth five- and-tens will remain.
Sculley Out at Apple In a not so unexpected move, John Sculley stepped down as chairman of Apple Computer after 10 years with the company.
SCIENCE Better Minds Through Music Listening to Mozart makes students smarter -- but only for 10 to 15 minutes. So argues a team of psychologists from the University of California at Irvine that published its preliminary findings in the British scientific journal Nature. Listening to relaxation tapes or sitting in silence had no effect, but the college students scored between eight and nine points higher on an IQ test after hearing a Mozart sonata. In the future the team plans, a bit tendentiously, to study whether repetitive music lacking in complexity (translation: rock) lowers test scores.
Science Nobelists The Nobel Committee favored gene research this year, awarding the prize in Medicine to Briton Richard Roberts, 50, and M.I.T.'s Phillip Sharp, 49, whose studies of the structure of genes led to new theories about how creatures evolve and why genes go awry. Half the Chemistry award was won by Kary B. Mullis, 48, who created the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) as a means of copying fragments of DNA. The other half went to Michael Smith for related discoveries.