THE WEEK

By JANICE M. HOROWITZ, MICHAEL QUINN, JEFFERY C. RUBIN, ALAIN L. SANDERS, SIDNEY URQUHART AND DEBORAH L. WELLS

NATION

WHO BLINKED?

Why, the other side, of course. That's the spin that both President Clinton and Republican leaders put on the compromise that formally reopened the Federal Government after a bitter six-day budgetary impasse. Republicans gloated that the deal commits the President to a seven-year time frame for a balanced budget. The President and his aides happily pointed out that the agreement requires Congress to respect White House priorities on such matters as Medicare, education, environmental protection and taxes.

WHAT'S NEXT

No matter who got the best of whom--polls continued to show that the President won the public debate over the shutdown--the deal only provides stopgap funding for the Federal Government until Dec. 15. By that time, the two branches will have to come to terms over permanent appropriations bills for the current fiscal year or else face another crisis. Serious budget negotiations are set to begin as soon as President Clinton vetoes the massive G.O.P. plan that finally cleared Congress on Monday.

THE CALL TO QUIT

The Senate's vanishing political middle shrank further when influential Kansas moderate Nancy Landon Kassebaum announced she would retire next year to pursue "the challenge of being a grandmother." She becomes the 10th Senator, and the second Republican, to leave office in 1996. In the House, Indiana Democrat Andrew Jacobs announced he would step down, the 18th Representative and 15th Democrat to do so.

SPECTER OF DEFEAT?

Out of money, and with little visible support among prospective G.O.P. primary voters, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter suspended his campaign for the presidency. Specter, who had hoped to present himself as the moderate alternative to the party's conservative field of candidates, becomes the second G.O.P. presidential dropout, after California Governor Pete Wilson.

QUESTIONABLE PROPOSITION

A Los Angeles federal judge struck down as unconstitutional key portions of California's Proposition 187, the state's tough voter-approved initiative that seeks to deny public services to illegal immigrants. Among the sections that were knocked down: one that would bar illegal-alien children from attending elementary and secondary public schools. The state said it would appeal the ruling, which many observers believe is headed for the Supreme Court.

GOTCHA!

Federal prosecutors obtained the racketeering conviction of a man they claim is Philadelphia's top Mob boss, John Stanfa. The guilty verdict, which could put Stanfa away for life, is the latest in a string of successful prosecutions that authorities say has severely weakened organized-crime families around the country.

LONELY DEATHS

Despite increasing public clamor, the right-to-die-with-dignity movement has yet to make a practical difference in the way Americans are dying. A major and disturbing study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reveals that the desires of terminally ill patients who want to forgo heroic life-prolonging treatment are being routinely frustrated because their wishes are misunderstood by doctors (at best) or ignored (at worst).

WORLD

BOSNIAN PEACE PACT INITIALED...

After three weeks of wildly seesawing talks in Dayton, Ohio, the Presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia initialed a peace agreement to end the nearly four-year war in Bosnia that has killed untold thousands; a formal signing ceremony is scheduled to take place in Paris in December. Bosnian Serb leaders, who at first vehemently opposed the accord, relented after arm twisting by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. The agreement, while preserving Bosnia as a single state, separates it into two entities: a Serb republic, controlling 49% of the land, and a federation of Muslims and Croats, controlling 51%. The federation will also administer most of the long-besieged capital, Sarajevo. In response to the accord, the U.N. Security Council voted to suspend trade sanctions, which have crippled the Serbian economy.

...BUT DON'T REJOICE JUST YET

Despite the agreement, most observers believe the hardest job--enforcing it--lies ahead. "On paper, we have peace," said U.S. mediator Richard Holbrooke. "To make it work is our next and greatest challenge." To that end, President Clinton pledged that American troops would make up a full third of the 60,000-strong NATO force that will separate the former enemies. In the U.S., many members of Congress have proclaimed determined opposition to deploying American troops in Bosnia; the House will hold hearings on the issue this week.

POLES OUST WALESA

Giving President Lech Walesa what he described as "a slap on the cheek," Polish voters elected his challenger, Alexander Kwasniewski, with 51.7% of the vote. A former communist, Kwasniewski, 41, campaigned as a pro-Western, reform-minded Social Democrat. Said he: "The divisions between those who are former communists and those who were with Solidarity are not so important outside the intellectual circles of Warsaw."

PERES NAMES CABINET

Signaling a generational shift in Israel's Labor Party, newly installed Prime Minister Shimon Peres, 72, named a group of younger politicians to his Cabinet while retaining the key Defense Ministry post as his own. Ehud Barak, 53, the former Interior Minister, was appointed Foreign Minister, the job held by Peres under slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Yossi Beilin, 47, was named Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, a new position that will enable him to administer the peace with the Palestinians.

IRELAND GETS A DIVORCE

By the slimmest of margins, traditionally Roman Catholic Ireland lifted its constitutional ban on divorce. The measure was fought by the Catholic Bishops' Conference; the Pope and Mother Teresa issued appeals. It gives 75,000 legally separated men and women the right to remarry.

CHINA CHARGES DISSIDENT

Reinforcing its image as a human-rights-challenged state, China charged prominent dissident Wei Jingsheng with attempting to overthrow the government. Wei, who has enjoyed just six months of freedom since being arrested in 1979 for his leadership of the Democracy Wall movement, was rearrested in April 1994 and held without charge. He now faces a long prison term or possibly even execution.

CHECHEN NUCLEAR TERRORISM

It was a chilling indication of just how far Chechen rebels may have gone in their fight for independence: in a huge Moscow park, members of a Russian television crew uncovered a cache of radioactive material right where Chechen leader Shamil Basayev reportedly had told them it would be. Russian authorities insisted the parcel posed no harm to the public. But four such packages have been smuggled into Russia, according to Basayev, who claimed that at least two of them also contain dynamite that could be detonated at will. "The war has become like a slow fuse," said Basayev, "but a small event can trigger a big explosion." Moscow authorities quickly activated a citywide radiation-monitoring system.

ROSEMARY'S BABIES

A gruesome serial-murder case that has transfixed the British public for nearly two years ended with the conviction of Rosemary West, a former prostitute accused of torturing and killing 10 young women and girls, including her own daughter and stepdaughter. West, 41, maintained her innocence throughout the seven-week trial, blaming the John Wayne Gacyd-style killings on her husband Frederick, who hanged himself in his prison cell last New Year's Day.

WHERE CHE LIES BURIED

A retired Bolivian general who witnessed the secret burial of Marxist revolutionary and '60s icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara revealed for the first time where the guerrilla leader is buried. General Mario Vargas Salinas told a journalist that Guevara's body was interred by bulldozer, along with those of five other executed guerrillas, under an airstrip at Vallegrande, a Bolivian mountain town 150 miles southwest of Santa Cruz, shortly after Guevara's summary execution by firing squad on Oct. 9, 1967. His final words, according to the general: "Shoot, coward! You are going to kill a man."

BUSINESS

HEADING TOWARD 6000?

A major hurdle was passed the day before Thanksgiving, when the Dow Jones industrial average surged past the 5000 mark. Final close for the week: 5048.84.

LEAKY RETIREMENT PLANS

The Labor Department announced it is investigating some 300 companies for having possibly misused their employees' 401(k) payroll retirement contributions. About 100 companies have already agreed to restore more than $2.6 million in diverted funds.

BARINGS BAD BOY CHARGED

Nick Leeson, the rogue trader whose freewheeling ways resulted in a $1.4 billion loss and brought down Britain's venerable Barings Bank, was extradited to Singapore, where his transactions occurred. Promptly arrested, he was charged with 11 counts of fraud and forgery. If convicted, he could face as much as 14 years in prison.

SCIENCE

ANCIENT CITY FOUND

After eight years of excavations, archaeologists believe they have uncovered the more than 4,000-year-old, long-lost city of Urkesh. Buried beneath a town in northeastern Syria, Urkesh was reputed to have been a thriving religious center for the ancient Hurrians, a civilization cited briefly in the Bible. Unearthed were clay tablets, metal tools, drawings and seals of the Queen.

EVE, GREET ADAM

By analyzing tiny fragments of the Y chromosome, scientists think they've found evidence that 188,000 years ago there was an ancestral "Adam," whose genetic material on the chromosome is common to every man now on earth. Eight years ago, scientists using a different method of genetic sleuthing discovered evidence of an ancestral "Eve," who probably lived some 200,000 years ago.

--By Janice M. Horowitz, Michael Quinn, Jeffery C. Rubin, Alain L. Sanders, Sidney Urquhart and Deborah L. Wells