The Week November 14-20

By Melissa August, Sophfronia Scott Gregory, Eugene Linden, Michael Quinn, Jeffery C. Rubin, Alain L. Sanders and Sidney Urquhart

NATION

The Comeback Kid, Part 29

The North American Free Trade Agreement passed the House by a larger than expected tally of 234 to 200. Reflecting the odd alliance that the vote on the pact engendered, 75% of Republicans voted with the President, while only 40% of Democrats did so. The fate of the agreement had been in grave doubt, and Clinton virtually staked the future of his presidency on its passage, so the victory was substantial. Critics charged that Clinton used too many special deals to sway legislators, while supporters claimed that Clinton's horse trading demonstrated his savvy.

Next: The Pacific

* The day after the NAFTA vote, Clinton flew to Seattle, where his victory strengthened his hand considerably at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Council meeting. The four-day gathering marks the first time the 17 Pacific Rim leaders have ever met as a group as well as the first time an American President has met with a Chinese leader since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. The President hoped to use the conference to encourage the opening of new markets.

Gay Ban Unconstitutional

A federal appeals court ruled that the armed forces cannot expel anyone on account of his or her sexual orientation. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Joseph Steffan was wrongfully dismissed from the Naval Academy in 1987 and ordered him to be graduated immediately and given a commission. The effect that the decision will have on the military is unclear. The lawsuit was a challenge to the old policy on gays, but the reasoning appears also to apply to the new "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.

No 51st State

Citizens of Puerto Rico voted 48% to 46% in favor of remaining a commonwealth of the U.S. instead of pursuing statehood status. As a result, Puerto Ricans will still enjoy nearly all the rights of U.S. citizenship along with special tax breaks. And the island can continue to field its own Olympic teams.

Rollins Testifies

Ten days after telling reporters about spending $500,000 to suppress black- voter turnout during the New Jersey gubernatorial race, Republican strategist Edward Rollins gave a deposition to the New Jersey State Democratic Committee, which has filed a civil suit against the campaign of Governor-elect Christine Todd Whitman. Rollins said Friday his original story was a lie, concocted as a "head game" with rival political consultant James Carville.

Justice Department Fraud

According to a federal appeals court, the Justice Department committed fraud and "acted with reckless disregard for the truth" when it withheld evidence that could have prevented the 1986 deportation of Cleveland autoworker John Demjanjuk. The evidence would have shown that someone else may have been Ivan the Terrible, the Nazi death-camp guard Demjanjuk was accused of being.

Football

So much for the luck of the Irish. So much too, it seems, for Notre Dame's chances to win the mythical national football championship. The week Notre Dame had ascended to the top of the polls, gritty Boston College knocked off the Irish in a 41-39 thriller. Undefeated Nebraska now becomes top dog. At least for the time being.

WORLD

Sweeping Away Apartheid

South Africa's white minority government and black political leaders approved a new constitution that ends apartheid. The 142-page document, two years in the writing, guarantees freedom of speech, movement and political activity for all citizens. The charter also provides for transitional quasi-legislative bodies to oversee national elections next April 27, the first in which blacks, who constitute 75% of the population, will be permitted to vote.

Out of Hiding

Shortly after the U.N. called a halt to its unsuccessful search for Mohammed Farrah Aidid, the Somali warlord emerged from hiding to celebrate with thousands of shouting and dancing supporters. In addition to dropping its $25,000 reward for Aidid's capture, the U.N. announced the release of eight of his aides. The gestures are intended to encourage Aidid to join in negotiations that Washington now hopes will end the country's clan warfare. U.S. special envoy to Somalia Robert Oakley met with Aidid after he came out of hiding. Said Oakley: "The U.S. realized we made a mistake getting involved" in the hunt for Aidid.

Israel and P.L.O. Keep Talking

Meeting at a secret location in Cairo, Palestinian and Israeli negotiators said they were confident that by their deadline, three weeks from now, they will reach an accord on the details of limited Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho. Israel has agreed to restrict the presence of its troops to Jewish settlements, a long-standing Palestinian demand.

Yeltsin Bends

Russian President Boris Yeltsin said the presidential election he promised for June 12 is still on despite his "personal views" that it should be postponed. Yeltsin also announced a broad new approach to combatting Russia's runaway crime problem. The measures include expanded police powers to search passengers and cargo.

Iraq Moves on Shi'ites

Government forces in Iraq have accelerated their campaign to clear opposition Shi'ite Muslims from a vast marshland in the southern part of the country. Engineers have diverted water from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to drain large areas of the swamps, home to an estimated 200,000 people, and Iraqi soldiers have burned villages and carried out summary executions. Some witnesses have described attacks using chemical weapons.

Cleaning Up Japanese Politics

Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa won a powerful victory when the lower house of Japan's parliament passed his four-bill reform package. The country's notoriously corrupt political system will undergo a major overhaul if the bills are passed by the parliament's upper house, as expected. Among the changes are a switch to single-member constituencies and a ban on corporate campaign donations to individual politicians.

War-Crimes Inquiry

The first international war-crimes tribunal since the Nuremberg trials following World War II opened in the Hague, but the 11-judge panel investigating atrocities in the former Yugoslavia has none of the alleged perpetrators in custody and is not empowered to try defendants in absentia.

Crackdown in Nigeria

Defense Minister General Sani Abacha ousted Nigeria's interim President Ernest Shonekan and announced that he was abolishing virtually all democratic institutions in the country. Abacha helped install Shonekan in the first place last August and is believed to have aided in the ouster of Nigeria's previous leader.

Korean Noses to Be Buried

The remains of 20,000 noses cut from the faces of slain Koreans by invading Japanese samurai in 1597 will be buried this week in Puan, 135 miles south of Seoul. The noses were discovered in Japan by a Korean historian in 1983 and were kept at a temporary site until a permanent tomb could be found.

BUSINESS

Airline Strike

American Airlines, the nation's largest domestic air carrier, was struck by its 21,000 flight attendants, who are seeking, among other things, better pay and work-rule changes. The dispute caused flight cancellations, passenger confusion and the prospect of nightmarish travel problems before and after Thanksgiving.

Signs of Better Times

Government figures for October indicate that the economy is steadily improving. Rising for the third month in a row, housing starts surged 2.7% to their highest level in more than 3 1/2 years. And increasing for the fifth month in a row, industrial production jumped 0.8% to register the biggest gain in almost a year. However, the Labor Department said that in a test run the new employment-survey method it plans to introduce in January showed a higher jobless rate for the year ending in August: 7.6%, vs. the reported 7.1%. The main reason was the use of questions that eliminate bias against women.

GM's Pension-Gap Solution

Scrambling to put its underfinanced pension plan on a sounder footing, General Motors announced that it would seek to reduce the plan's $24 billion shortfall -- the largest such deficiency for any U.S. corporation -- by contributing $5.7 billion worth of one class of its common stock to the plan. The proposal will need approval from the Federal Government. The company also announced an unprecedented agreement with Toyota under which it will build GM cars in the U.S. that will be sold in Japan as Toyotas.

High-Tech Patent

"Outrageous!" "Incredible!" "Stunning!" Such were the reactions of software developers when they learned that California-based Compton's NewMedia, a leading developer and distributor of computer multimedia products, had obtained a patent on the multimedia technology that is used by virtually every company producing CD-ROMS. The technology was thought to be in the public domain.

SCIENCE

Lucy's Big Brothers

The petite, 3 1/2 ft.-tall chimplike creature nicknamed Lucy who walked upright through Ethiopian valleys more than 3 million years ago lived amid humanlike animals as much as a foot taller. But were those more imposing bipeds a different animal or simply large males of Lucy's species? A team of scientists headed by Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley, uncovered new evidence that those males were the same species as Lucy.

THE ARTS & MEDIA

Le Grand Louvre

Paris' Louvre Museum celebrated its 200th birthday with the inauguration of the Richelieu wing. This second phase of the museum's spectacular $1 billion renovation -- the dream of President Francois Mitterrand and the work of Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei -- nearly doubles the museum's exhibition space.