TIME International

June 24, 1996 Volume 147, No. 26

MILESTONES

ORDINATION REJECTED. Of DARRYL MACDONALD, 32, the first openly gay pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Canada; by its 300-member general assembly; in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. A panel of ministers and lay elders declared that a gay minister would "act in discontinuity with deeply rooted understanding of the Scripture." Macdonald won backing for ordination from his local Montreal presbytery last year with the support of 90% of his congregation.

ARRESTED. EYAD SARRAJ, 52, leading Palestinian activist who has repeatedly criticized the human-rights record of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority; for the third time in three months; by Palestinian police, who charged him with possession of illegal substances; in Gaza City. In a note smuggled out of his latest jail cell, Sarraj pleaded, "I feel my life is in danger. Rescue me." In civil court two days later, the activist asserted that he was being tortured, and was ordered released on bail. A military court, however, kept him jailed for assaulting a policeman.

ASYLUM GRANTED. To FAUZIYA KASINGA, 19, Togolese woman who fled her West African home in 1994 to escape genital mutilation; by the highest U.S. immigration tribunal; in Washington. Forced into a polygamous marriage and facing the painful procedure to meet her husband's expectations, Kasinga fled to the U.S. and sought asylum two years ago; she was finally released from detention last April. The board's decision to recognize genital mutilation as a basis for asylum sets a binding precedent for the nation's 179 immigration judges.

FREED. JUAN CARLOS GAVIRIA, 37, architect and younger brother of former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria; after spending 72 days in a 30-cm by 85-cm underground cell; by his kidnappers, a leftist organization called Dignity for Colombia; in Bogota. The group demanded that current President Ernesto Samper step down and turn his office over to novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Cuban President Fidel Castro mediated the release, granting the kidnappers a refuge in Havana.

DIED. BRIGITTE HELM, 88, German ice queen of the silver screen whose cool-eyed beauty transfixed audiences, especially in Fritz Lang's silent classic Metropolis (1926); in Ascona, Switzerland. Helm's strait-laced Prussian upbringing was at odds with the film seductress who sent directors scurrying for her favor. Her transformation from the idealistic Maria into the robot vamp in Lang's futuristic nightmare left viewers in thrall. But Nazism and her disdain for Hollywood conspired to remove her from the public eye; she willingly quit film in 1935 to lead a reclusive life, mostly in Switzerland.

DIED. CHIYO UNO, 98, Japan's matriarch of letters, whose chronicles of her amorous pursuits scandalized her nation in the 1920s and '30s; in Tokyo. Twice divorced by her late 60s with countless entanglements, Uno mined her relationships for her lusty prose: one former lover was transformed into a painter who botches every romantic gesture, including suicide with his paramour, in the well-received Confessions of Love (1935).