• U.S.

The Week November 13-19

8 minute read
Kathleen Adams, Melissa August, Robertson Barrett, Hannah Bloch, Steve Mitra, Michael Quinn, Jeffery C. Rubin, Alain L. Sanders and Sidney Urquhart

NATION

The G.O.P. Transition

Speaker-to-be Newt Gingrich began laying plans for the Republican takeover of the House. Gingrich said at least three committees would be abolished, others reconfigured and staff reduced all around. The new leader — who some political analysts believe could become a dominating Speaker of a sort not seen since the turn of the century — ignored seniority, grudges and ideology in recommending choices to head key committees. Among them: Louisiana’s Bob Livingston for Appropriations, New York’s Gerald Solomon for Rules, Illinois’s Henry Hyde for Judiciary and New York’s Benjamin Gilman for Foreign Affairs. Gingrich also said a balanced-budget constitutional amendment would be the first order of business come January.

Clinton: Feeling His Way

Though halfway around the globe at an Asian economic summit in Indonesia, President Clinton wasn’t neglecting domestic politics. In the wake of sweeping Republican victories in this month’s elections, the President again let it be known that he hoped to cooperate with the G.O.P. bipartisan measures like welfare reform, the line-item veto and tax and spending cuts. Amid signs of Republican chafing in the Senate, he once more called on Hill leaders to approve the gatt treaty at the post-Thanksgiving lame-duck session of Congress.

A School-Prayer Surprise

The President dropped a bombshell on his left-flank supporters by announcing that he would be willing to consider a Republican-sponsored constitutional amendment allowing prayers in public schools — depending on the “details.” While civil-liberties groups characterized the President’s statement as a “cave-in,” White House aides scrambled to clarify Clinton’s position, explaining that he only meant to express an interest in neutral legislation for a “moment of silence.” Democratic allies in Congress were left grumbling about what they saw as yet another presidential waffle.

Military Readiness at Issue

The fight over the Pentagon’s fiscal 1996 budget began early, when Defense Secretary William Perry acknowledged that three of the Army’s 12 divisions were below peak readiness levels, principally due to the cost of missions to Haiti, Rwanda and elsewhere. Republicans claimed the revelation proved the wisdom of their campaign pledge to pump more money into the military.

A San Francisco Shootout

A lone gunman armed to the teeth with a small arsenal of weapons went on a terrifying 25-min. semiautomatic shooting spree on a San Francisco street before being shot to death by police. One police officer was killed and three people were wounded by the gunman.

Desegregation Settlement

Ending a 20-year battle over desegregating Louisiana’s higher education system, a federal judge approved a $117 million plan to beef up college facilities and programs aimed at encouraging more whites to enroll at the state’s historically black universities and more blacks to enroll at the state’s historically white universities. The Louisiana chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. criticized the plan, saying it merely preserved the status quo.

On Tap: Safer Skies

Though stressing that commuter airlines are safe, the National Transportation Safety Board nonetheless recommended that safety rules for such airlines be upgraded to the tougher standards currently imposed on major carriers. The Federal Aviation Administration said it agreed and would work to revise the rules, which now permit commuter pilots to fly more hours and undergo less rigorous training than those of the majors.

A Deadly Tropical Storm

Having wreaked havoc in the Caribbean — especially in Haiti, where its torrential rains, flooding and mud slides caused more than 500 deaths — Tropical Storm Gordon swept across Florida, devastating some of the state’s prime winter farmland and killing six people, before heading out into the Atlantic, where, intensifying into Hurricane Gordon, it pounded the North Carolina coast.

WORLD

APEC to Form Free-Trade Zone

Leaders of the 18 nations of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, including President Clinton, met in Indonesia and agreed to work to create a gigantic free-trade zone by 2020. The accord, without any specific details, aims to spur growth in the region, which already accounts for half the world economy.

Arafat’s Forces Open Fire

Palestinian security forces opened fire on Islamic militants at a Gaza City mosque, setting off violent street fighting that shook Yasser Arafat’s fragile government. The clashes, in which 15 people were killed and some 200 were wounded, broke out after police and soldiers turned up in force at the mosque in an attempt to prevent members of the fundamentalist group Hamas and Islamic Jihad from marching to protest the arrest of some 200 fellow activists detained after a suicide bomber had killed three Israeli soldiers earlier this month.

Serbs Attack Bihac Pocket

Rolling back most of the gains made by the Bosnian army in recent weeks, Bosnian Serbs pressed into the northwestern enclave of Bihac. The Serbs launched assaults from the north, east and west, prompting Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic to appeal to the United Nations and NATO for help. Key to the assault were Serbian jets from Croatia that bombed Bihac itself and another town, Cazin.

Ukraine Joins Nuke Treaty

The world’s third largest nuclear power, Ukraine, agreed to accede to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, clearing a roadblock that had held up two , other international disarmament accords. The Ukrainian parliament voted 301 to 8 to pass the resolution, which follows a commitment made in January to eliminate the country’s 1,800 warheads. Until Ukraine agreed to go nuclear free, Russia had said it would not put into effect an agreement to cut its long-range nuclear weapons and also would not take up ratification of another arms-control accord.

Kohl Squeaks Through

Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany for 12 years, was elected to a fourth term — but just barely. Kohl received 338 parliamentary votes, just one more vote than the absolute majority he required. Two legislators from Kohl’s Christian Democratic Party were roused from sickbeds, and another rushed into the Parliament chambers just two minutes before the voting closed, apparently having overslept.

Irish PM Resigns

The coalition government of Ireland’s Prime Minister Albert Reynolds collapsed over the extradition of a child-molesting priest, leading Reynolds to resign and leaving the country’s political parties to try and forge another ruling coalition. The crisis was precipitated when the Labour Party, which governed jointly with Reynolds’ Fianna Fail Party, withdrew over the appointment of a former attorney general, Harry Whelehan, as president of Ireland’s High Court. Labour was unhappy that Whelehan had failed to act on extradition warrants from Northern Ireland for a Roman Catholic priest accused of child molestation. The priest eventually surrendered, was convicted and is now serving a prison sentence in Northern Ireland; Whelehan resigned hours after Reynolds. On Saturday Finance Minister Bertie Ahern was elected to replace Reynolds as Fianna Fail Party leader, paving the way for a new coalition government.

Pontiff Urges Church to Atone

Pope John Paul II urged the Roman Catholic Church to mark the beginning of its third millennium by atoning for historical errors, including “acquiescence” in the violation of human rights by totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. In a letter written to prepare for the “Great Jubilee,” the Pope said the church has “an obligation to express profound regret for the weakness of so many of her sons and daughters who sullied her face.” He also suggested that he hopes to mark the celebration in 2000 with a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

BUSINESS

The Fed Ups the Ante — Again

The Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates by a whopping three- quarters of a point. The hike was the sixth for 1994 and the steepest since 1981. Wall Street reaction to the move was generally favorable, but manufacturers and labor leaders groused that the rise would lead to job cutbacks and weakened sales.

Reversal of Fortune

The Sony Corporation announced it was taking a staggering $2.7 billion write- off on Columbia and Tri-Star, the Hollywood studios it acquired for $5 billion just five years ago. The move was necessitated by a string of costly executive buyouts and a series of box-office duds that included Last Action Hero, Geronimo and, most recently, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and The Road to Wellville.

SCIENCE

Cosmic Mystery, Continued

Scientists have long speculated that small, faint “red dwarf” stars make up a major part of the invisible cosmic stuff, called “dark matter,” that is believed to account for 90% of the universe’s mass. But astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope ruled out this idea when they discovered that red dwarfs are much scarcer than they originally thought. Now attempts to square long-standing predictions about the universe’s mass with the observable data will have to focus on exotica such as the existence of unknown elementary particles.

More Protections for Tigers

Asian countries attending the ninth Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species took unprecedented and unexpected action when they proposed stronger safeguards for tigers, whose numbers in the wild have declined to about 5,000. A ban on trade in elephant parts was also upheld.

THE ARTS & MEDIA

A New Head for MOMA

After an embarrassingly long search, New York City’s Museum of Modern Art named Glenn Lowry its new director. Lowry, 40, is a somewhat surprising choice to head the world’s pre-eminent collection of 20th century art; an Islamic art expert, he has curated the Near Eastern treasures of the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries. “He doesn’t want to be a curator; he wants to be an administrator,” explained MOMA board chairman Agnes Gund. “At the same time, he understands what a curator does.”

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