THE WEEK

By BY KATHLEEN ADAMS, LINA LOFARO, BELINDA LUSCOMBE, MICHAEL QUINN, JEFFERY C. RUBIN, ALAIN L. SANDERS AND SIDNEY URQUHART

NATION

PLEASE, DO SOMETHING

Facing growing and angry pressure from furloughed federal workers, shut-out national park tourists, idled federal contractors and frustrated citizens, President Clinton and top congressional leaders met at week's end to try yet again to bridge the balanced-budget impasse. The debacle has shut down huge portions of the Federal Government for an unprecedented two weeks. Both sides expressed optimism that a compromise could be worked out, but negotiations dragged on into the New Year's weekend.

IF NOT BUDGET, THEN DEBT

House Ways and Means chairman Bill Archer sent off a stern letter to Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin warning him of a "constitutional and legal crisis" between the branches if Rubin continues to jigger the federal books without congressional approval. So far, the Treasury Secretary has foiled the G.O.P., which has refused to raise the federal debt limit until it gets a budget deal, by making a series of deft accounting moves that have kept the debt just under the authorized ceiling of $4.9 trillion.

A DEFENSE VETO

President Clinton vetoed a $265 billion defense authorization bill that would have mandated policies he opposes. Among them: the deployment of a Star Wars-like anti-missile system, a ban on most abortions at overseas military hospitals and the discharge of service personnel who test hiv positive. But the military will continue to operate because the $243 billion defense appropriations bill that funds the Defense Department has already been signed by the President.

TRYING TO SHUT THE DOORS

With immigration looming as a major 1996 campaign issue, the Clinton Administration revealed that as a result of increased enforcement, the U.S. deported a record number of illegal aliens in 1995: 51,600, a 15% rise over 1994. The figure still seems minuscule, however, compared with the estimated influx of 300,000 illegals yearly.

NO TIME TO PARTY

An attempt by eight influential politicians to form an alternative centrist agenda to the standard Democratic and G.O.P. fare has fizzled. One faction of the group, led by former Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas, produced a fiscally conservative, socially liberal manifesto but recoiled at the idea of backing an independent candidate. Retiring New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley declined to endorse the program, and former Connecticut Governor Lowell Weicker rebelled at the idea of abandoning a third party. Some think Weicker may now try to hook up with Ross Perot's new party. But the chemistry between the two men is bad, and the most likely outcome is a second run by Perot.

HARRIMANS MAKE UP

U.S. ambassador to France Pamela Harriman has settled a lawsuit brought against her by the heirs of her late husband W. Averell Harriman, former Governor of New York. The heirs had accused Harriman of squandering $30 million of the estate. Terms were not disclosed, but as part of the deal, Harriman will join in the heirs' claims against former advisers Clark Clifford and Paul Warnke.

WORLD

WET BEACHHEAD IN BOSNIA

A U.S. military policeman, Martin John Begosh of Rockville, Md., became the first American injured in the Bosnia peace mission when he drove over a land mine. But the mission is being delayed by a more powerful adversary than mines: Mother Nature. Efforts to build a pontoon bridge across the Sava River, so that the bulk of the U.S. deployment could proceed from Croatia into Bosnia, were swamped by the swollen river's floodwaters, which rose more than 5 ft. in 24 hours, sweeping away materiel, stranding trucks and soaking G.I.s.

TALK ABOUT BUILDING PEACE

Moving swiftly to establish authority, Major General William Nash, commander of the American forces in Bosnia, gathered leaders of the region's three warring factions to talk peace. The general met with a Bosnian Serb, a Bosnian Croat and a Bosnian army leader, of whom he said, "All of them focused on peace and pledged their determination to succeed with respect to the peace accord." Bosnian Serbs in Sarajevo, meanwhile, were rebuffed by Admiral Leighton Smith, overall commander of the nato-led force, when they sought to delay the reunification of the Bosnian capital; the peace treaty demands that areas controlled by Bosnian Serbs be turned over to the Bosnian government.

U.S. DROPS SERBIA SANCTIONS

President Clinton suspended the sanctions imposed three years ago against Serbia and Montenegro, declaring they had done their job in forcing the Bosnian Serbs to the negotiating table. Clinton also said he had directed Secretary of State Warren Christopher to end the arms embargo against all three of Bosnia's warring parties.

ISLAMISTS SPARK CRISIS

Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller resigned, and the country's two secular, pro-Western center-right parties scrambled to form an unlikely coalition, after the Islamic-oriented Welfare Party won Turkey's parliamentary elections with 21% of the vote. Although Ciller's True Path Party and the Motherland Party have long been bitter foes, the victory by the Islamists was enough to spur the former enemies to try to cooperate in forming a government. All other major parties have rejected the idea of creating a coalition with Welfare.

POPE MISSES CHRISTMAS MASS

Nausea and fever from an apparent flu forced Pope John Paul II to miss the Christmas Day Mass at St. Peter's Basilica and cut short the traditional Urbi et Orbi Christmas message. Working on just three hours' sleep after his Christmas Eve midnight Mass, the 75-year-old Pontiff told the crowd in St. Peter's Square, "Even the Pope has his weaknesses. Yet I try to resist."

NORTH KOREA FAMINE FEARED

The United Nations warned that a severe food shortage in North Korea this winter endangers more than 10% of the country's 23 million people, based on firsthand observations made by U.N. workers in December. Pyongyang's strict system of food rationing has been further tightened to cope with an expected shortfall of more than 3.5 million tons of grain.

YELTSIN ENDS "SOJOURN"

Russian President Boris Yeltsin ended what his presidential news service called a "sojourn in a sanatorium" and returned to the Kremlin after two months of treatment and rest for acute coronary ischemia (restricted blood flow to the heart). Prior to his public appearance in the Kremlin, Yeltsin quickly met with Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to map out potential strategies to deal with the strong showing of the Communist Party in the Dec. 17 parliamentary elections.

SOLAR TEMPLE MASSACRE II

Two members of the Order of the Solar Temple methodically shot 14 fellow cultists lying sedated and arranged in the shape of a star on the forest floor, then ignited the bodies before turning their revolvers on themselves. The charred corpses were discovered on Dec. 23 outside the village of St.-Pierre-de-Cherennes in southeastern France. The killings were a grisly replay of the murder-suicides that claimed the lives of 53 Solar Temple members in Switzerland and Quebec last year.

FIGHTING IN CHECHNYA

Russia recaptured Chechnya's second largest city, Gudermes, from secessionist rebels who had moved into the city to disrupt elections for a local president and for the Russian parliament. Moscow's 10-day assault on Gudermes left nearly 600 people dead, half of them civilians, according to the Russian military commander, and destroyed a third of the city's buildings.

ISRAEL AND SYRIA REOPEN TALKS

Meeting at a quiet conference center on Maryland's Eastern Shore, negotiators for Israel and Syria held informal discussions with U.S. State Department officials in an attempt to restart the peace dialogue. The talks had collapsed six months ago.

THE LADY VANQUISHES

The great French storyteller Honore de Balzac could have written this tale of a Faustian bargain gone terribly wrong. In 1965 lawyer Andre-Francois Raffray agreed to "purchase" the house of an elderly client with $500-a-month installments, then a steep price--on condition that he would inherit the property outright the moment she died. Last week, 30 years older and $180,000 poorer, Raffray, 77, expired on Christmas Day. His client, Jeanne Calment, celebrated the holiday with a sumptuous hotel banquet in her hometown of Arles. "We all make bad deals in life," she joked to Raffray when she turned 120 early last year. She is now officially the oldest person in the world.

BUSINESS

IS THERE A ZEV IN YOUR FUTURE?

California, home to 26 million registered automobiles, backed away from passing legislation that would require 2% of all cars sold in the state to be electrically powered within two years. Instead, the state's Air Resources Board proposed giving car manufacturers more time to come up with a marketable "zero emission vehicle" (ZEV). Under the new schedule, 10% of all cars sold in California will be electrically powered by 2003.

A FINANCIAL HOUSECLEANING

Rocked by a string of financial debacles and scandals, Japan's Ministry of Finance announced that its top bureaucrat, Kyosuke Shinozawa, would resign. Earlier in the week, the ministry disclosed stringent new banking regulations. Some of the measures are intended to improve communication with regulatory authorities in other countries and would prevent the sort of fraudulent dealings that caused the collapse of the New York City branch of Daiwa Bank. Daiwa's former New York manager, Masahiro Tsuda, was indicted on federal charges that he helped conceal a $1.1 billion trading loss.

NEIN TO ONLINE SMUT

After complaints by prosecutors in Munich, CompuServe, the world's second largest online service, shut down more than 200 computer discussion groups and visuals--many of which are sexually explicit. "Right now, Germany is dictating what Americans...are going to be able to see," said Shari Steele, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. CompuServe says the shutdown is only temporary.