<p> The GATT world-trade pact got a big boost when Republican Senate
leader Bob Dole and the White House came to terms on changes
to the treaty. To garner Dole's support and assuage his concerns
about American sovereignty under the pact, the Administration
agreed to create a review panel that would monitor the fairness
of trade-dispute decisions, which will be adjudicated by a newly
created body called the World Trade Organization. If the American
review panel feels the U.S. is regularly getting a raw deal,
it could formally recommend withdrawal from the treaty. The
efforts of Dole and some Republican strategists to link approval
of GATT to a cut in the capital-gains tax--a perennial on
the G.O.P.'s wish list--came to naught. Legislation putting
GATT into effect will be voted on this week at a special lame-duck
session of Congress.
</p>
<p> New Whitewater Indictments
</p>
<p> The Los Angeles Times reported that Whitewater independent counsel
Kenneth Starr will bring indictments before the end of December.
Among the most likely targets, said the Times: James McDougal
and his wife Susan, who were the Clintons' partners in the ill-fated
Whitewater Development Corp.; former Associate Attorney General
Webster Hubbell; and Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker.
</p>
<p> Helms Trips over His Tongue
</p>
<p> Never one to mince words, Senator Jesse Helms, the ultra-conservative
Republican slated to head the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
expanded on his Nov. 18 remark that President Clinton is not
up to the job of Commander in Chief. The North Carolinian followed
up by telling a Raleigh newspaper that Clinton was so unpopular
with the military that he had "better watch out" and "have a
bodyguard" if he visits Helms' state. Though the Senator later
conceded his remark was a "mistake," the incendiary statement
provoked anger from congressional Democrats, solemn disapproval
from the President and verbal minuets from Republican leaders
seeking to distance themselves--but not too far--from Helms.
</p>
<p> G.O.P. Govs: We're Here Too
</p>
<p> Their ranks swelling to 30 come January, the nation's Republican
Governors proclaimed their political independence at their annual
convention in Williamsburg, Virginia. The Governors made plain
their advice to the new Republican Congress: stick to the economy,
stay away from social issues like school prayer, and don't cut
the federal budget at the states' expense.
</p>
<p> Friendly-Fire Decision
</p>
<p> An Air Force investigator probing the April mishap in which
two U.S. Army helicopters were downed by friendly fire over
Iraq recommended that no charges be brought against the only
pilot facing judicial action (two F-15s were responsible for
the shooting). If senior commanders accept the recommendation,
only one person--the senior officer on board the AWACS plane
monitoring the area's air traffic--could face a court-martial
for the accident in which 26 people perished.
</p>
<p> Gays and the Military
</p>
<p> Breaking with other federal courts that have ruled for gays
in similar cases, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia upheld the dismissal from the Naval Academy of a
top-ranked, openly gay midshipman. The U.S. Supreme Court is
expected at some point to settle the constitutionality of dismissing
military personnel who don't hide their homosexuality.
</p>
<p> A Shoot-Out in Washington
</p>
<p> A man armed with an assault weapon walked into Washington's
lightly secured police headquarters, went to the third floor
and shot up an office, killing a city detective and two FBI
agents. The gunman, Bennie Lee Lawson, also died in the melee,
but police were unable to say whether he killed himself or was
shot by law officers.
</p>
<p> Ito: No Conflict
</p>
<p> L.A. police captain Margaret York, who happens to be married
to Lance Ito, the judge presiding over the O.J. Simpson murder
trial, said she does not remember any disagreements with detective
Mark Fuhrman. Simpson defense lawyers are hoping to portray
Fuhrman, who discovered important evidence against Simpson,
as a racist and a woman hater; the attorneys were also hoping
to catch Judge Ito in a conflict of interest because of his
wife.
</p>
<p> Dr. Jack is Back
</p>
<p> After more than a year out of the spotlight, Dr. Jack Kervorkian
attended the suicide on Saturday of Margaret Garrish, 72, in
a Detroit suburb. Garrish was suffering from rheumatoid arthritis
and osteoporosis, among other ailments. It was unclear whether
a Michigan law banning assisted suicide expired the day before
her death. Authorities ruled the case a homicide.
</p>
<p>WORLD
</p>
<p> Serbs Press Bihac Advance
</p>
<p> Shrugging off three separate nato air strikes--including the
largest air raid in Europe since World War II--Bosnian Serbs
continued their advance on the Bihac area of northwestern Bosnia.
The besieged region, home to 180,000 people, was designated
a United Nations "safe area" last year, and is strategically
critical. Its capture would enable Serbs to link the territory
to a Serb-controlled area of Croatia and the Yugoslav border,
forming a part of what they envision as a "Greater Serbia."
NATO and its member governments continued to debate an appropriate
response, even as Serb forces swept forward, ready to seize
Bihac. Meanwhile, four U.S. Navy ships, with some 4,000 Marines
and sailors aboard, began heading for the Adriatic Sea.
</p>
<p> Clinton Offers Golan Troops
</p>
<p> Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in Washington on a two-day
visit, got some good news from President Clinton, who said he
would seek to include U.S. troops in any peacekeeping force
in the Golan Heights. The chairman-presumptive of the Senate
Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican Jesse Helms, had earlier
raised questions about the wisdom of such a U.S. mission and
called the Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations a "fraud."
</p>
<p> Palestinians Clash in Lebanon
</p>
<p> Raising fears of a Palestinian civil war, fighters from the
P.L.O. battled Muslim fundamentalists in Lebanon's largest refugee
camp. At least 10 people were killed and 25 more were wounded
in the daylong clash. Loyalists of P.L.O. leader Yasser Arafat
captured much of the camp Friday morning. But after a midday
cease-fire for Sabbath prayers, the fundamentalists emerged
from mosques fingering the triggers of AK-47s and shouldering
rocket-propelled grenade launchers; they soon recaptured all
their lost territory.
</p>
<p> A Deadly Secret "Sapphire"
</p>
<p> The U.S. announced that it had moved a cache of more than half
a ton of uranium--enough to make three dozen nuclear bombs--from Kazakhstan to the U.S. in a top-secret operation code-named
Sapphire. Kazakhstan had previously agreed to relinquish the
nuclear arsenal it inherited from the former Soviet Union, but
it had also taken charge of several nuclear stockpiles. U.S.
officials were concerned that the cash-starved former Soviet
republic would be unable to safeguard the dangerous material.
The nuclear stockpile will be stored at the Department of Energy's
Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
</p>
<p> A $200 Million Thank-You
</p>
<p> President Clinton offered $200 million in new aid to Ukraine,
rewarding the country both for its progress toward a free market
and for its politically difficult decision to sign the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. Clinton announced a $100 million,
no-strings-attached emergency grant for importing food and fuel
and a $100 million grant for student exchanges and business
assistance. The new money, if approved by the incoming Congress,
raises Ukraine's total U.S. assistance for 1994-95 to $900 million
and would make the country the U.S.'s fourth largest aid recipient.
</p>
<p> Italy Probe Reaches PM
</p>
<p> Italian magistrates told Silvio Berlusconi he is under investigation
for corruption charges, even as the Prime Minister was host
to an international conference in Naples on organized crime.
Berlusconi allegedly authorized the payment of bribes to tax
officials by officers of Fininvest, a $7 billion media-and-retail
conglomerate he formerly headed and still owns. The Prime Minister
denied the charges and said he would continue his six-month-old
administration, but he also offered to sell part of Fininvest,
something he had previously refused to do.
</p>
<p> Stampede in India Kills 113
</p>
<p> When cane-wielding police in the central Indian city of Nagpur
charged a crowd of protesters, 113 people were trampled to death
in the ensuing stampede; an additional 500 people were injured.
The protesters were poor members of the Gowari tribe who were
demanding official recognition as an underprivileged group to
get better education and employment benefits from the government.
</p>
<p>BUSINESS
</p>
<p> Wall Street Recovers, Sort Of
</p>
<p> The stock market took a steep dive early last Tuesday, plunging
91.52 points--the biggest one-day loss in 10 months. Investors,
worried about the effect of the Fed's latest interest-rate hike
on corporate earnings and on the economy in general, shifted
money to the bond market. At week's end, however, the Dow had
gained back 30 points and closed at 3708.
</p>
<p> The 27,000-Year Glitch
</p>
<p> The controversy over a defect in Intel Corp.'s popular Pentium
microchip heated up as scientists and engineers accused the
company of being too casual in its response to the problem.
According to a Nov. 7 article in the Electrical Engineering
Times, the flaw in the chip can cause computers to reach incorrect
answers in complex division problems approximately once in every
37 billion calculations. Intel discovered the defect last summer,
and has since corrected it, but it is offering free replacement
chips only to customers with provably esoteric needs. "The chip
is fine," said a company spokesman. "Statistically, the average
person might see this problem once in every 27,000 years."
</p>
<p>By Kathleen Adams, Michael D. Lemonick, Michael Quinn, Jeffery
C. Rubin, Alain L. Sanders and Sidney Urquhart
</p>
<p>HEALTH REPORT
</p>
<p> The Good News
</p>
<p>-- Researchers have found a faulty gene that may be a cause of
most prostate cancer. The defect prevents cells from making
an enzyme that fights off carcinogenic chemicals. The discovery
could lead to better blood tests and even a drug treatment for
the disease.
</p>
<p>-- A molecule in bakers' yeast appears to be highly effective--in the test tube only, so far--at keeping cold viruses from
multiplying.
</p>
<p>-- Implants of cow adrenal-gland cells have been shown to reduce
chronic pain in humans. The cells produce natural pain-killing
chemicals.
</p>
<p> The Bad News
</p>
<p>-- For years experts have reassured couch potatoes that moderate
exercise is all the heart needs. Now comes a study that says
that isn't the whole story. Yes, moderate exercise is better
than none at all. But running maniacally is better still. A
survey of almost 7,000 men found that 10% of those who run up
to 10 miles a week had dangerously low levels of so-called good
cholesterol. But virtually no one who topped 40 miles a week
had that problem.
</p>
<p>-- Doctors believe the elderly may lose some of their natural ability
to regulate body weight. This would explain why older people
are often unusually fat or unusually thin.
</p>
<p> Sources--GOOD: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences;
Virology; Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. BAD: Meeting
of the American Heart Association; Journal of the American Medical
Association
</p>
<p>FUN GUY OF THE WEEK
</p>
<p> Warming the crowd with a few opening remarks, Jesse Helms, future
chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is ready to
cut up on the world stage.
</p>
<p>INSIDE WASHINGTON
</p>
<p> A Ghost of Christmas Past (and Crass) at HUD
</p>
<p> Three whole years after the Hill-Thomas hearings, Washington
has learned how to handle sexual-harassment cases, right? Maybe,
maybe not. A high-level supervisor at the Department of Housing
and Urban Development who handed out edible candy panties and
chocolate penises to his female employees at a HUD Christmas
party last year has been quietly transferred to a different
department and allowed to keep his $69,000-to-$90,000 GS-15
salary. "I guess they thought that was adequate punishment,"
a HUD spokesman explains.
</p>
<p>WINNERS & LOSERS
</p>
<p> Winners
</p>
<p> CHARLES DICKENS--Vogue for orphanages, poorhouses may spur interest in his work.
</p>
<p> THE REPUBLIC OF UKRAINE--No-nukes stance may make it fourth largest U.S. foreign-aid donee.
</p>
<p> JEWISH FAMILIES--Hanukkah's unusually early arrival helps avoid the Xmas rush.
</p>
<p> Losers
</p>
<p> HAAGEN-DAZS FROZEN YOGURT--Not so low-fat product knocked by Feds for egregious labeling.
</p>
<p> AL GORE--Thanks, Dad: Al Sr. embarrasses Al Jr. with '60s-era letters.
</p>
<p> THE ROLLING STONES--An awkward visit to 90210 (who's the old skinny guy with Tori?).
</p>
<p>AWESTRUCK
</p>
<p> "Just look at him at a summit meeting; he is the colossus."
</p>
<p>-- Political Consultant Paul Begala, commenting on President
Clinton's foreign policy prowess.
</p>
<p>208 DAYS AND COUNTING
</p>
<p> Italy's relentless investigations into corruption are now focusing
on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, himself elected in reaction
to the shadiness of his predecessors. If scandal brings down
his government any time soon, Berlusconi's will take its place
among a long series of famously short-lived postwar governments
in Italy, where the citizenry certainly take to heart Thomas
Jefferson's dictum "that government governs best which governs
least."
<table>
<tblhdr><cell>Prime minister<cell>Length of term<cell>Reason for government's collapse
<row><cell type=a>Guilio Andreotti (Christian Democrat)<cell type=a>9 days (February 1972)<cell type=a>The government loses a vote of confidence
<row><cell>Andreotti, again<cell>10 days (March 1979)<cell>The government loses a vote of confidence
<row><cell>Amintore Fanfani (Christian Democrat)<cell>11 days (January 1954)<cell>The government loses a vote of confidence
<row><cell>Alcide De Gasperi (Christian Democrat)<cell>12 days (July 1953)<cell>Democratic Socialists refuse to support the government in foreign policy dispute
<row><cell>De Gasperi, again<cell>120 days (February-May 1947)<cell>Ruling coalition fractures over economic policy
<row><cell>Fernando Tambroni (Christian Democrat)<cell>123 days (March-July 1960)<cell>Controversy surrounds the government's support from neo-Fascists
<row><cell>Mariano Rumor (Christian Democrat)<cell>130 days (March-August 1970)<cell>Strife erupts inside the governing coalition amid the specter of a national 24-hour strike
<row><cell>Fanfani, again<cell>132 days (Dec. 82-Apr. 83)<cell>The Italian Socialist withdraws from the ruling coalition
<row><cell>Guiseppe Pella (Christian Democrat)<cell>140 days (Aug. 53-Jan. 54)<cell>Coalition breaks down over right-wing bent of proposed Minister of Agriculture
<row><cell>Ferruccio Parri (Action Party)<cell>156 days (June-Nov. 1945)<cell>The Liberal Party withdraws from the governing coalition
<row><cell>Giovanni Leone (Christian Democrat)<cell>166 days (June-Nov. 1963)<cell>The Christian Democrats form a new coalition with the Socialists
</table>
</p>
<p>THE ALDRICH AMES HOLIDAY SHOPPING GUIDE
</p>
<p> Finally! You have settled on the perfect gift for that certain
hard-to-buy-for someone on your Christmas shopping list: a solid-gold
man's bracelet previously owned by a Soviet mole. But alas--your local mall can't help you. What to do?
</p>
<p> Look no further. The personal effects of luxury-loving confessed
spy Aldrich (Rick) Ames will be auctioned off this week at the
upscale Galleria Centre near Atlanta. The sale will be conducted
by Manheim Auctions, a nationwide firm that is contracted to
dispose of all goods confiscated by federal agencies like the
FBI, which earlier this year laid claim to the property amassed
by Ames and his wife Rosario while the former CIA analyst was
supplementing his $69,000 salary with appreciative bonuses from
the KGB.
</p>
<p> Why Atlanta? Auctioneers say the Southern capital and home of
Ted Turner is the nation's premier market for the kind of flashy
goods--diamond-studded Rolexes, collectible autos and the
like--the U.S. appropriates from superspies and, far more
frequently, drug dealers. TIME was given an exclusive preview
of a small portion of the Ames collection. Highlights included:
</p>
<p>-- A collection of mostly Swiss-made watches: a $2,850 Rolex, a
$3,000 Cartier, a Raymond Weil, a Gucci still in its box, and
a Soviet-made Raketa. None of the watches was inscribed.
</p>
<p>-- Women's jewelry, including a pearl necklace appraised at $4,800
and a platinum-topaz earring and necklace set worth $5,800.
Rosario was particularly fond of pre-Colombian designs from
her native Colombia. One butterfly-like motif appears on three
different necklaces as well as on a paperweight; the design
was taken from a solid-gold nose ring originally crafted by
the Tairona Indians of the Andes.
</p>
<p>-- A rectangular silver box of Mexican origin stuffed with domestic
detritus including a 10,000-lira note, several spare buttons
and a number of "DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW" tags such
as would normally be found attached to mattresses in law-abiding
homes.
</p>
<p>-- Another silver box, this one made by Tiffany's, includes two
scraps of paper with names and phone numbers written on them.
(When the box was first examined, appraisers discovered a couple
of items the FBI had missed: under the box lining was a safe-deposit
key and a piece of paper with a Swiss bank account number; these
items were returned to the FBI.)
</p>
<p>-- A gold- and silver-plated cigarette case with the following
inscription: "Para mi Hijo Mayor Rick, con todo el amor de Mami
Roma, Dic. 87." (For my oldest son Rick, with all mother's love.
