TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93TT1995> <title> July 05, 1993: The Week:June 20-26, 1993 </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993 July 05, 1993 Hitting Back At Terrorists </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> THE WEEK, Page 13 NEWS DIGEST </hdr> <body> JUNE 20-26 NATION Air-raid sirens in Baghdad woke residents early Sunday morning as a flight of 23 Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from two U.S. warships converged in an attack on the headquarters of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. The raid was in response to an attempt in April to assassinate former President George Bush in Kuwait. President Bill Clinton said he approved the retaliation after receiving "compelling evidence" that Iraq had been responsible for planning the foiled assassination attempt. Federal agents in the New York City area arrested eight Muslim extremists, including two who may have had a hand in the World Trade Center bombing, on charges that they planned to blow up the United Nations, two highway tunnels under the Hudson River and a federal building in Manhattan in which the FBI has offices. The group also planned to assassinate New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The President's budget bill--or at least the vaguely recognizable version of it customized by Senate Finance Committee Democrats--managed a 50-to-49 victory in the full Senate. Earlier a G.O.P. alternative budget was defeated after a debate in which both sides pulled out Perot-style charts and pointers. The bill now goes to a House-Senate conference committee that will negotiate a hybrid version. A federal appeals court ruled that Hillary Rodham Clinton was a de facto full-time government official. As such, the court decided, it was permissible for her to hold closed-door meetings of her government task force on health care, which disbanded last month. In an 8-to-1 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld a controversial practice of both the Bush and Clinton administrations--picking up Haitian refugees in international waters and returning them home. Only Harry Blackmun dissented from the court's reasoning that the pertinent U.S. laws and treaties, which require a hearing at which refugees can argue that they are fleeing political persecution, apply only to refugees who set foot on U.S. shores--not those stopped at sea. Military facilities around the country took some direct hits. The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, which weighs Pentagon recommendations, voted to shut down about 20 facilities, including four in the San Francisco Bay area and two in Charleston, South Carolina--a decision that, if approved by the President, will cost that city 21,300 jobs. The President's family tree may include Henry Leon Ritzenthaler, 55, the retired owner of a janitorial-supply company in Paradise, California. He says he is the son of Clinton's father, W.J. Blythe, and Blythe's first wife, who married when they were both 18. On Friday the White House said the two men had a "warm conversation," their first, by phone, and agreed to meet in the future. With a view to saving jobs, the House by a one-vote margin saved NASA's beleaguered space-station project--which is now $1 billion over Reagan-era cost projections. But the House voted against more money for another big-science project, the $11.8 billion superconducting supercollider, to be built in Texas. The Senate could still restore funding, but supporters are pessimistic. President Clinton has chosen his AIDS czar. Kristine Gebbie, a former Washington State secretary of health and a member of Ronald Reagan's presidential commission on AIDS, will coordinate the Federal Government's response to the epidemic. A geneticist at the University of California in San Francisco and a computer scientist at Yale were critically injured by mail bombs. Federal officials suspect a shadowy person or group, sometimes known as FC, which mailed explosive devices to campuses, airlines and high-tech companies in the late 1970s and '80s, killing one person and injuring 21. Can this marriage be saved? Claiming that her husband had raped her, a woman in Prince William County, Virginia, cut off his penis while he slept, then drove off with the severed organ and tossed it out her car window. After police found it on the roadside, surgeons reattached the penis in a rare 9 1/2-hour operation. Doctors were optimistic that the man would regain most functions. The Chicago Bulls won their third straight N.B.A. championship. In what now seems a pattern after end-of-season professional sports triumphs, celebrations in Chicago turned violent, leaving three dead. WORLD Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, a Muslim, would have none of it, but seven other members of his country's collective leadership met with negotiators in Geneva to discuss a geographically simple three-way partition of Bosnia along ethnic lines. At a summit in Copenhagen, the European Community urged the Bosnians to accept the plan, which would give half the country to the Serbs and a third to the Croats. The U.N. resumed limited food distribution in southern Mogadishu after two weeks of fighting between its forces and those of Somali General Mohammed Farrah Aidid. It also issued wanted posters for the fugitive warlord, and put up a reward for his capture. Aidid, meanwhile, taunted his pursuers in a broadcast carried by NBC and the Voice of America. "You know," he said, "I am here in the city of Mogadishu and I am protected by God and my people." After 37 years in power, Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party is disintegrating in the wake of a no-confidence vote in the parliament's powerful lower house: 44 of the party's current 512 legislators defected to form a party that could ally with opposition groups to form a new government when elections are held July 18. Under pressure from a worldwide oil-and-arms embargo, the Haitian military junta agreed to meet with Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the elected President they ousted in 1991. Kurdish separatists took hostages and attacked Turkish businesses and government offices in Britain, Germany, Switzerland, France, Sweden and Denmark, protesting Turkey's persecution of its Kurdish population. One Kurd was killed when protesters tried to storm the Turkish embassy in Bern, Switzerland. Two bombs exploded in Madrid during the morning rush hour Monday, killing seven people and injuring 25. The blasts were blamed, as ever, on the Basque separatist group known as E.T.A. BUSINESS In a week when the Los Angeles city council voted to ban all smoking in restaurants, the tobacco industry asked a federal court in North Carolina to rule invalid a study released in January by the Environmental Protection Agency that blamed secondhand smoke for about 3,000 cancer deaths each year among nonsmokers. The suit claims that the epa's conclusion, which became the basis for smoking bans around the country, was based on a flawed method for reviewing scientific studies. In a ruling that was a deep disappointment to business, the Supreme Court decided 6 to 3 to uphold a West Virginia court's award of $10 million in punitive damages against an oil-and-gas exploration company--526 times as great as the monetary damages involved. Sluggish-economy-news-of-the-week: the Federal Reserve's latest survey of business conditions found that expectations of higher taxes and health-care costs are limiting economic growth to a "slow to moderate pace." Partly as a result of Washington's new toughness on trade, a Tokyo meeting of trade ministers from the U.S., Canada, Japan and the European Community failed to reach agreement on measures to reduce tariffs on a variety of goods. In a separate move, the U.S. Commerce Department, responding to complaints by American firms that foreign governments subsidize steel exports, imposed high tariffs on steel from Japan, Canada and 17 other countries. By Sidney Urquhart, Richard Lacayo, Michael D. Lemonick, Ginia Bellafante, Tom Curry, Alexandra Lange, Erik Meers, Michael Quinn, Deborah L. Wells Informed Sources Cold War Treachery Revealed BONN--The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service has handed over a list of about 2,000 names, mostly coded, of western Germans who once served as spies for East Germany's secret police, the infamous Stasi. Experts say some are likely to be prominent figures in politics and industry. "There will be some big scandals. Some names are well known," says a Bundestag source. Chancellor Helmut Kohl, in power since well before unification, may have something to worry about: 19 years ago, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt was forced to resign after just one spy was discovered in his chancellery. Choosing the AIDS Czar, Clinton-Style WASHINGTON--Bill Clinton dallied for months before selecting an AIDS czar, Kristine Gebbie, last Friday. The previous day, members of the National Commission on AIDS visited HHS Secretary Donna Shalala and criticized the Administration bitterly. According to those present, chairman David Rogers said, "I'm incredulous that you could have screwed up so much." Seemingly disconcerted, Shalala periodically left the room. Re-entering for the last time, she said, "Done." An AIDS czar had been chosen. A Fresh Target for the G.O.P. WASHINGTON--Republicans are girding to attack another Clinton nominee on ideological grounds. Morton Halperin is a former American Civil Liberties Union official who, the White House announced, will be nominated for Assistant Secretary of Defense for Democracy and Human Rights. In 1977, Halperin testified on behalf of Philip Agee, a left-wing former CIA officer who faced deportation from Britain. Senators opposed to Halperin include Republicans Trent Lott of Mississippi and Lauch Faircloth of North Carolina. While Halperin is said to be performing outstandingly in his interim Pentagon job, his Democratic support is weak, and sources say Clinton is backing away from him. Health Report THE GOOD NEWS British scientists have managed to deactivate cancer cells in mice. They moved a gene from a bacterium into the tumor cells; once inside, the gene forced the cells to produce a toxic protein that then shut off the tumor cells' ability to reproduce and spread. Israeli researchers have found a brain chemical called anandamide that is chemically similar to THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, and binds to the same receptors on nerve cells. They hope it can lead to drugs that have pot's medically valuable qualities--it controls pain, stimulates appetite and reduces nausea--without getting patients high. A Scottish study says drinkers of coffee--especially instant--have less chance of heart disease than nondrinkers. THE BAD NEWS Women who nurse their babies for nine months can temporarily lose up to 5% of their bone mass even if they eat properly. The loss can be even greater for undernourished women or for teenage mothers who are still growing. A form of strep bacteria usually found in newborns and pregnant women is pushing further into the general population; in Atlanta, for example, the incidence of so-called Group B strep has doubled in six years. It usually strikes people already suffering from other illnesses, and it can be deadly. A survey of 22 published studies argues that heavy coffee drinkers face a 40% greater risk of heart attack than moderate or nondrinkers. Sources: American Journal of Diseases of Children; Journal of Experimental Medicine; Journal of the American Medical Association; Epidemiology; New England Journal of Medicine Love, Honor and Obey "When we were together she was so kind and sweet and understanding. If I said to her, `Go shoot that guy!' she'd shoot him without even thinking whether it was right or wrong. We were that tight."--IKE TURNER REMINISCING ABOUT HIS MARRIAGE TO TINA TURNER, WHO HAS ACCUSED HIM OF BEATING HER Sneezy, Grumpy, Dopey, Doc, Happy, Sleepy--and Carlo In normal times, if a U.S. President were to attend the annual meeting of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations while his approval rating was around 37%, he would appear hopelessly weak. At the meeting taking place next week, however, Bill Clinton will seem almost Rooseveltian compared with some of his fellow G-7 leaders, only one of whom, the Italian Prime Minister, newly elected in the wake of historic scandals, has an approval rating to write home about. G-7 Leader Approval Rating Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (Italy) 60% Francois Mitterrand (France) 41 Bill Clinton (U.S.) 37 Kim Campbell (Canada) 37 Helmut Kohl (Germany) 26 John Major (Britain) 16 Kiichi Miyazawa (Japan) 9 Sources: Britain--MORI, Canada--Angus Reid Group, France--FOP-JDD, Germany--Forsa, Italy--DOXA, Japan--TBS, U.S.--Gallup WINNERS & LOSERS WINNERS HILLARY CLINTON Judicial sanction for her role as "de facto" federal official TINA TURNER Comeback No. 2--biopic and single climb the charts ANDREW WILES Proves math's "Fermat's last theorem," a 350-year quest LOSERS ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER Megazillion Last Action Hero flops at box office RAHM EMANUEL Arrogant Clinton-campaign wunderkind kicked upstairs HAITIAN REFUGEES Supreme Court okays their forced repatriation Debts Medicare Cuts Won't Cure Even as they debate the ways to reduce federal borrowing, certain Congressmen have liabilities of their own to worry about, as indicated on their just released financial-disclosure forms. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D., Fla.) More than $1.5 million Unpaid legal fees (impeachment from the federal bench in 1989) Sen. Dave Durenberger (D., Minn.) $250,000 to $600,000 Unpaid legal fees (1990 ethics violations, a divorce and paternity suit) Sen. Mark Hatfield (R., Ore.) $100,001 to $250,000 Unpaid legal fees (1991 ethics probe) Rep. Edward Royce (R., Calif.) $100,001 to $250,000 Loan for investment in Gloria Jean's coffee-bean franchise Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (D., Colo.) $10,001 to $15,000 Credit-union loan to purchase a new Harley-Davidson motorcycle The World's Greatest Deliberative Body "Now is the time to kill the `Taxasaurus' monster! Kill the dinosaur, kill him now! If you don't, he's going to eat more jobs. So take this lead pencil and give him lead poisoning. Kill him!" SENATOR ALFONSE D'AMATO (R., N.Y.), STABBING "TAXASAURUS" DRAWING WITH OVERSIZE PENCIL DURING BUDGET DEBATE </body> </article> </text>