The Week November 20-26

By KATHLEEN ADAMS, MICHAEL D. LEMONICK, MICHAEL QUINN, JEFFERY C. RUBIN, ALAIN L. SANDERS AND SIDNEY URQUHART

NATION

Let's Make a GATT Deal

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.

New Whitewater Indictments

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.

Helms Trips over His Tongue

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.

G.O.P. Govs: We're Here Too

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.

Friendly-Fire Decision

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.

Gays and the Military

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.

A Shoot-Out in Washington

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.

Ito: No Conflict

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.

Dr. Jack is Back

. 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.

WORLD

Serbs Press Bihac Advance

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.

Clinton Offers Golan Troops

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."

Palestinians Clash in Lebanon

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.

A Deadly Secret "Sapphire"

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.

A $200 Million Thank-You

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.

Italy Probe Reaches PM

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.

Stampede in India Kills 113

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.

BUSINESS

Wall Street Recovers, Sort Of

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.

The 27,000-Year Glitch

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."