TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=94TT1183> <title> Sep. 05, 1994: Chronicles:The Week August 21 - 27 </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1994 Sep. 05, 1994 Ready to Talk Now?:Castro </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> CHRONICLES, Page 15 The Week: August 21 - 27 </hdr> <body> NATION The Cubans Keep Coming The largest Cuban migration to Florida since 1980 topped 20,000 as 13,000 more boat people were intercepted by Navy and Coast Guard ships and sent to the refugee camp at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station. At a cost of $100 million, the Pentagon is more than doubling the camp's 25,000 capacity. President Clinton agreed to discuss immigration issues with the Castro regime; the economic sanctions, he insisted, are non-negotiable. Crime Bill Passes Weeks of simmering partisanship in the Senate came to a boil with the passage of President Clinton's crime bill by a vote of 61 to 38. The $30 billion measure provided funding for 100,000 more cops--a centerpiece of Clinton's campaign. Most Republicans who voted against the bill opposed the ban on assault weapons and demanded a $5 billion cut in prevention programs, which they dismissed as pork. Senate majority leader George Mitchell prevailed by warning his colleagues that they risked going home in an election year without dealing with voters' No. 1 concern. Health Care on Hold Mitchell vowed to keep the Senate in session until it acted on health-care reform. But 11 months after Clinton promised to guarantee health coverage to all Americans, the Senate left him in limbo because there was no consensus on any bill. Whitewater Drips New independent counsel Kenneth Starr expects his investigation of the Whitewater affair to take at least a year, although he has not decided whether he will review parts of the probe concluded by his predecessor, Robert Fiske. Meanwhile, the Resolution Trust Corporation requested that a federal court enforce subpoenas for documents relating to Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker, a Democrat and heavy borrower from the misbegotten Madison Guaranty S&L for his political campaigns in the early 1980s. DNA on Trial O.J. Simpson's lawyers called for new DNA tests to determine whether the first ones, tying him to Nicole Brown Simpson's murder, were compromised by contaminated blood samples and improper handling. Judge Lance Ito ruled that the prosecutors would not have to share blood evidence with the defense, even though they had been "less than exemplary" in handling it. Chavis Still Out A judge refused to issue a temporary restraining order reinstating Benjamin Chavis, former executive director of the N.A.A.C.P. The civil rights group ousted him two weeks ago over allegations of financial mismanagement and personal misconduct. If Chavis fails to reach a satisfactory out-of-court settlement, he threatens, he will return to court "in a full-blown legal battle." Rampaging Elephant Tyke, a 21-year-old female African elephant, trampled her trainer to death and stomped her groom at a circus in Honolulu. She then barreled down a city street before police shot her repeatedly and a zoo worker administered a lethal injection. Circus officials had promised to retire Tyke after she went berserk at a Pennsylvania circus last year, according to the Humane Society. Heart to Heart For four years, Chester Szuber, 58, of Berkley, Michigan, waited in a long line for someone to provide a heart for the transplant he desperately needed to survive. He finally won a new lease on life last week, but from a singularly tragic source. His daughter Patti, 22, was fatally injured in a car crash, long after signing an organ-donor card, thus allowing surgeons to put her compatible heart in her father's body. Fatal Fire Mistakes A federal investigation into the blaze on a Colorado mountain in July that claimed the lives of 14 firefighters concluded that they and their supervisors committed crucial mistakes and ignored standard safety procedures. Among the errors in judgment cited were failures to plot an escape route and to guard against extremely dry vegetation and volatile winds. WORLD Ruling Party Wins in Mexico The Institutional Revolutionary Party (P.R.I.), led by economist Ernesto Zedillo, won the presidency of Mexico and an overwhelming legislative majority as well. With voter turnout at an impressive 77%, the election was generally regarded as clean, despite accusations of fraud from diehard rebels in the southern state of Chiapas. Rwandan Repatriation on Hold The U.N. temporarily suspended its Rwandan refugee repatriation effort in the camps surrounding Goma, Zaire. The move came after Hutu extremists assaulted a group of big-game trackers who had asked to be taken back to their homes in Rwanda's celebrated mountain gorilla reserve. The violence escalated when Zairian gangs looted aid supplies from an air base near Goma. "We seem to be operating in a virtual state of war," said a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Nigeria's Unions Struggle On Striking members of Nigeria's powerful oil unions, whose leaders have been in hiding after the country's ruler, General Sani Abacha, ordered their removal two weeks ago, stated in a newspaper advertisement that they would remain loyal to their union executives and continue the struggle for democracy. The declaration, carried in full-page newspaper ads in Lagos, came amid rumors that Washington is considering a trade embargo and a freeze of Nigeria's assets in the U.S. China: Unwilling Organ Donors A report released last week by the human-rights organization Asia Watch details the traffic in transplant organs taken from executed Chinese prisoners. Each year 2,000 to 3,000 organs are removed from inmates, and executions are often deliberately botched so that the condemned person remains alive while the organs are removed, according to the study. "That is vivisection," said an Asia Watch researcher. The report comes at a sensitive time--just as U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown is preparing to escort a group of top U.S. CEOS on a whirlwind tour of China. Hours before his arrival on Saturday, police detained prominent dissident Wang Dan, a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and an outspoken critic of Beijing's policies. Back to (Palestinian) School Israel took a step toward broadening Palestinian self-rule by handing over a large West Bank school system--Ramallah--to Palestinian control. All West Bank schools are to be in Palestinian hands by Sept. 1, the start of the school year. Morocco: Pilot Terror Investigators looking into the air crash that killed all 44 people aboard a Royal Air Maroc passenger flight concluded that the accident was intentionally caused by the pilot as he committed suicide. Transport Ministry officials said the pilot disconnected the automatic controls and pushed the aircraft into a dive while his female co-pilot screamed out Mayday signals over the radio. But the Moroccan Pilot's Union contested the suicide finding, saying that the pilot was a cheerful, well-balanced man and there was evidence of technical failure. BUSINESS More Drama at Disney Jeffrey Katzenberg, the enormously successful head of Disney's studio division, abruptly resigned after losing a bid for the company's No. 2 post. Hailed as the mastermind behind such blockbusters as Aladdin and The Lion King, the mercurial Katzenberg sought the post after the April death of Disney president Frank Wells. Katzenberg's exit augurs more uncertainty for Disney, which this year has already weathered Wells' death and chairman Michael Eisner's quadruple-bypass heart surgery. Stocks Soaring, for Now In a startling late-summer rally, the Dow Jones industrial average surged to its highest level since March 18, gaining 125.94 for the week. The rise was attributed largely to indications that the economy continues to grow moderately while inflation remains under control. Telecom Races Heat Up Merger mania continued in the telecommunications industry. Long-distance phone company LDDS Communications proffered $2.5 billion in cash for WilTel, the long-distance unit of Williams Cos. The deal bolsters LDDS's ambitions to challenge AT&T, MCI and Sprint. Meanwhile, AT&T received federal court approval for a $12.6 billion plan to buy McCaw Cellular Communications, the country's largest wireless-phone company. Derivative Devil Strikes Again A Minneapolis-based financial-services firm disclosed that its investments in the arcane derivatives market could saddle investors with more than $700 million in losses. The debacle at Piper Jaffray Cos. stemmed from investments made by a single portfolio manager. SCIENCE A Deadly Virus Is Let Loose A researcher at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, was quarantined and put under treatment for a potentially fatal infection he contracted after a lab mishap exposed him to a rare virus he was studying. To avert the spread of the microbe known as Sabia virus, health officials are keeping under observation at least two dozen people in Connecticut and Massachusetts with whom the unidentified researcher had contact after the accident. THE ARTS & MEDIA Pilfered Picasso Reclaimed Police in Brussels recovered Picasso's Woman with Dark Eyes, one of seven artworks stolen last November in a $75 million heist from Stockholm's Modern Art Museum. Three Swedes reportedly tried to sell the painting, worth an estimated $7 million, to undercover agents posing as prospective buyers. SPORTS At Least the Kids Are All Right Negotiations between striking baseball players and team owners broke off acrimoniously with no timetable for future talks, further dimming prospects for resumption of play. As the stalemate entered a third week, neither side showed flexibility on the most divisive issue, which is a proposed cap on players' salaries. As the grown-ups squabbled, kids could at least watch the Little League World Series final between Venezuela and the U.S. By Robertson Barrett, Leslie Dickstein, Christine Gorman, Steve Mitra, Romesh Ratnesar, Jeffery C. Rubin, David Seideman and Sidney Urquhart HEALTH REPORT Good News Staying healthy may be easier than you think: -- Moderate exercise like walking and gardening helps older people avoid bleeding in the stomach and intestines. -- Exercise alters body chemistry in such a way that people end up burning more fat than usual. So a light snack after a workout is less likely to show up on the bathroom scales. -- Even if they don't exercise regularly, people who manage to avoid overeating and thereby gaining weight in middle age are much less likely to develop heart disease and diabetes later in life. Bad News -- People who smoke have more trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, according to a survey of 3,500 adults. Women smokers complained of greater daytime drowsiness, while men reported that they were more susceptible to nightmares. -- Puberty appears to be so stressful that girls who start developing before age 12 are more apt than their peers to alleviate the symptoms with cigarettes and alcohol. -- The level of LDL, the "bad" cholesterol, rises an average of 10% for women going through menopause. The increase was not as great for women who were on hormone-replacement therapy. Sources: GOOD: Journal of the American Medical Association; Seventh International Conference on Obesity; Seventh International Conference on Obesity. BAD: Preventive Medicine; Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine; Seventh International Conference on Obesity. UNFLAPPABLE JURIST OF THE WEEK Judge Lance Ito ruled that O.J.'s prosecutors would not have to share blood samples but scolded them for sloppiness INSIDE LOS ANGELES Time for O.J. to Protect His Good Name As if O.J. Simpson didn't have enough lawyers working for him already, he hired the Los Angeles firm Spensley Horn Jubas & Lubitz to help fight bootleg T-shirt makers, trading-card manufacturers and other entrepreneurs using his name and likeness without permission. The new attorneys have filed applications to federally register the terms "O.J. Simpson," "O.J." and "The Juice" as trademarks. Meanwhile, a limited edition of 300 football cards, signed and dated by O.J. from his jail cell, went on sale for $850 each. WINNERS & LOSERS Winners JULIE KRONE--A year after nasty spill, history's best woman jockey scores big again. RUPERT MURDOCH--Fox network won the baseball strike when it nabbed N.F.L. rights. FRANK BALUN--"Cruelty" charges dropped against rat-killing N.J. homeowner. Losers BENJAMIN CHAVIS JR.--Judge denies fired N.A.A.C.P. chief's request to be reinstated. MIKE ESPY--USDA head took $849 "business" trip--to Super Bowl. CINCINNATI HOUSING AGENCY--City misses application deadline for $2 million grant by one hour. VOX POP QUESTION: Do you personally miss baseball? <table> <row><cell type=a>Yes<cell type=i>25% <row><cell>No<cell>75% </table> From a telephone poll of 1,000 adult Americans taken for TIME/CNN on Aug. 17-18 by Yankelovich Partners Inc. Sampling error is plus or minus 3%. Not Sures omitted. MADE IN THE SHADE It just seems as if everybody is away in August: Actually U.S. workers have reason to gripe... PAID VACATION DAYS IN 1994 <table> <row><cell type=a>Bombay<cell type=n>39.3 <row><cell>Madrid<cell>32.1 <row><cell>Frankfurt<cell>31.2 <row><cell>Sao Paulo<cell>30.7 <row><cell>Abu Dhabi<cell>28.9 <row><cell>Paris<cell>27.9 <row><cell>Milan<cell>24.8 <row><cell>Sydney<cell>22.2 <row><cell>London<cell>22.1 <row><cell>Tel Aviv<cell>17.5 <row><cell>Hong Kong<cell>12.0 <row><cell>New York<cell>11.0 <row><cell>Chicago<cell>8.8 <row><cell>Los Angeles<cell>8.6 </table> NO ONE EVER SAID HE WAS STAN GETZ "When the President has problems passing his bills in Congress, he should threaten them with one hour of his sax playing. Then he would have no problems with filibustering. What he lacks in skill, talent, imagination, technique and swing, he more than makes up for with desire and hustle." --Jazz great (and Democrat) Wynton Marsalis, commenting on the President's new CD, Bill Clinton Jam Session: The Pres Blows. WELL-WISHERS ON THE INTERNET Is cyberspace as cold and anonymous as it is reputed to be? Members of the WELL, a San Francisco-based computer bulletin board, recently found out. On June 29, Adele Framer, who calls herself tigereye, posted a message: "Kathleen Johns((t))on [kj] on the WELL, who's housebound in the final stages of cancer, could use a little help with light meals once or twice a week." The following are excerpts from the exchange that followed. KJ herself is noticeably absent. She was in no shape to take part in a message board. July 26: tigereye: I saw kj yesterday...She is still eating well and has little pain...She also enjoys getting e-mail...She wants to thank everyone for the food, etc. In a lot of ways she's having a good time, maybe the best possible time for a person who is dying, and WELLbeings are helping her do that. Aug. 1: selene: kj, I never had a chance to get to know you really...But I certainly noticed your presence in some of the conferences I visit, and I will miss you there! Aug. 4: booter: Dying is hard work, and it's best not to do the job alone. I am glad that tigereye is there for kj. We should all be so fortunate. Aug. 5: tigereye: I saw kj today. She was quite amused that her postings are being praised, while at the time she was making them, the atmosphere tended to be much more, um, contentious. She is unable to log in at all, so she has given me her password to pick up her e-mail. Aug. 9: lizabeth: Every damn time I read this topic, I cry. Aug. 10: mc2: I am learning a hugely valuable lesson from kj about letting go of unimportant stuff. Aug. 11: tigereye: kj has asked that her ashes be scattered over a field of sunflowers in the Central Valley, and has adopted sunflowers as her symbol right now. Aug. 11: tigereye: kj was darned impossible sometimes in her postings! Aug. 11: ralf: That's true. She could be incredibly perceptive or completely impossible to deal with (depending on whether I agreed or disagreed with her). Aug. 11: lizabeth: Oh, man, that "impossible" and "cantankerous" is what has me actually grieving over someone I never met f2f ((face-to-face)) who is 3,000 miles away. It's not whether we agreed or disagreed here, in the final analysis. It's that she was *there*. Aug. 12: paulbel: Orla Rose, my daughter, is sprouting sunflowers in our kitchen window. Aug. 14: kali: Sunflowers are all over the place lately. Aug. 17: fsquared: Everyone concerned has been quite remarkable, say I. I check this topic every day for a little boost to my faith in my fellow humans. Aug. 19: tigereye: kj was worse today, not able to speak at all and fading in and out of consciousness, eyes unfocused...She is going fast. Aug. 21: tigereye kj died tonight at about 10:30 p.m., peacefully and without pain. Aug. 22: lendie (Lena M. Diethelm): Kathleen was my friend. She wasn't a saint, she was a scientist...Watching her online sometimes was like watching a kid learning to ride a bike. She'd keep trying, she'd keep falling down, she'd scrape her virtual knees, brush them off and get right back on for the ride. Aug. 26: tigereye: kj was fully aware of the transitory nature of her virtual relationships, and quite skeptical at first of the interest shown in her, but she accepted it for what it was. Knowing that she would be remembered eventually became very meaningful to her, even as irony. NETWATCH: News, Culture, Controversy on the Internet $64 and a Chill The Wild West atmospherics of free speech on the Internet may subside a bit after an electronic defamation suit was settled this week. In March, Brock N. Meeks, whose nose-thumbing CyberWire Dispatch is read by thousands, posted a newsletter calling direct-mail cyber-entrepreneur Benjamin Suarez a "scam" artist. The Ohio-based Suarez Corp. fired back with the first high-profile libel suit in electronic journalism's short history. Before long, Meeks had shelled out more than $25,000 in legal fees. Suarez finally decided the strapped journalist was "uncollectible." So his firm made Meeks an offer: pay $64 in court costs and fax it questions about future Suarez stories 48 hours ahead of publishing--or pay a $10,000 fine. Meeks, who's admitted no errors but says he didn't want to spend years in litigation, grudgingly took the deal. "If people start to censor themselves," he says, "then we've lost the heart and soul of the Internet." Clipping Ted's Wings Even powerful politicians are finding that the Internet has speed bumps--and stop signs. Senator Kennedy (D-Mass.), facing a surprisingly tough re-election battle, had to stop posting to his Web site. Rules prohibit any Senator from doing mass snail-mailings and using recording studios 60 days before an election. The cyberspace implication: use of the Senate computer falls under the same restrictions. </body> </article> </text>