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TIME International
June 24, 1996 Volume 147, No. 26
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NOTEBOOK
BY JANICE M. HOROWITZ, NADYA LABI AND MEGAN RUTHERFORD
VERBATIM
"In this cage, there is no law, there is no lawyer, there is no doctor, there is no telephone, and there is no time limit." --Bao Tong, Chinese dissident in a letter released by his family, denouncing his continued house arrest despite completion of his seven-year prison sentence in May
"Bill Clinton is the first politician in American history who has perfected the ability to cry out of just one eye, always the eye closest to the camera." --Haley Barbour, chairman of the U.S. Republican National Committee, speaking to USA Today, on the President's ability to appear as national healer
"[Ostrich] tastes like chicken, but it's not really as good-- and it costs a hell of a lot more." --Richard Ehrlich, food editor of the British entertainment-weekly Time Out, on British Airways' decision to offer the bird on its first-class menu
"Obviously we don't want it to smell like sweat." --Bijan Fragrances spokesperson for the Michael Jordan perfume due in November
FROM THE WORLD'S HEADLINES
News of CHINA'S LATEST NUCLEAR TEST triggered counterblasts of angry condemnation and concern from commentators around the world
WASHINGTON POST, U.S.: "[China] is making trouble by brazenly continuing underground tests even now and raising obstacles to future on-site inspections. Its readiness to blunt the vital enforcement edge of nonproliferation can only stir doubts about its purposes."
MANNHEIMER MORGEN, GERMANY: "China is once again demonstrating that it belongs to the highly armed nuclear-weapons club and that it doesn't give a damn about protests."
LIBERATION ARMY DAILY, CHINA: "The United States and other countries...plan by shifting China's nuclear tests into the international eye to cover up their plot to maintain a nuclear threat and to monopolize nuclear superiority."
HONGKONG STANDARD, HONG KONG: "Yes, China will hold one more test. But it will then sign the moratorium. And that should make the rest of the world happy."
IMAGES
CRASH AND RECRIMINATIONS: When a Garuda Indonesian Airways DC-10 crashed and burned last week during takeoff at Japan's Fukuoka Airport, it seemed remarkable that only three of the 275 on board died. Later, survivors' descriptions of the chaotic circumstances of the evacuation made the low death toll appear even more amazing. Few of the mostly Japanese passengers who struggled to escape the smoke-filled cabin could comprehend the crew's instructions, which were issued in English and Indonesian. Survivors reported that some members of the crew fled without first assisting passengers. The crash's cause--and its aftermath--are under investigation.
TALK OF THE STREETS
HYDERABAD: Lingering Odor
As Narasimha Rao moved out of the Prime Minister's residence in New Delhi last week, he surely must have been glad to leave one thing behind: the persistent whiff of scandal that hovered over his family and government during his five-year term. But before Rao could shut the door, yet another unpleasant odor attached itself, this one from a suspected multimillion-dollar fertilizer scam. India's Central Bureau of Investigation is probing allegations that Rao's son Prabhakar Rao and another close relative were paid $4 million in kickbacks in return for securing a $38 million contract for a Turkish firm to sell urea to India's state-owned National Fertilizers Ltd. In addition, Prakash Yadav, the son of a senior member of Rao's outgoing Cabinet, is alleged to have been paid $200,000 for the deal. Worse, NFL was persuaded to buy all 200,000 tons of urea in advance, and has not seen a single shipment. Efforts are under way to track down executives in Turkey and recover the $38 million, which was paid into a Swiss bank account. Rao's son and Yadav have denied the kickback allegations, but even if they are exonerated, many Indians hold Rao's government responsible for the smelly deal. Says P.K.S. Madhavan, head of the rural-development agency AWARE in Hyderabad, where Prabhakar Rao and the others live: "The country has been looted, and the administration failed completely to control it."
OSASCO: Lovers Tragedy
A deadly blast last week transformed a Brazilian festival of love into a day of mourning. The Plaza Shopping Center in this Sao Paulo suburb was jammed on June 11 with lunch-hour shoppers buying gifts to present to sweethearts on Lovers Day, a June 12 celebratory custom. Suddenly, an explosion ripped through the floor near the fast-food area. People were hurled into the air, then crushed by collapsing walls and ceilings. At least 39 were killed and 472 injured. Building inspectors quickly identified a gas leak as the cause of the blast. Many of the victims' families threatened to sue, but others saw no consolation in financial compensation. Reginaldo da Silva's wife Vanda dos Santos was killed, and his son Tales suffered head injuries and broken legs. Says Da Silva: "Nothing will remedy the damage that has been done to my life."
TOULON: Satanic Desecration
The crime was horrifying, but what really shocked residents of this southern French port were the beliefs that apparently lay behind it. The body of a 77-year-old woman who died 20 years ago was pulled from a crypt in the city's main cemetery last week, impaled through the heart with a crucifix and slammed over the head with a religious plaque. A witness identified four black-clothed youths--two male and two female--who readily confessed to the desecration. Two of the vandals explained their actions as an attempt to make a favorable impression on Satan before the end of the world, which they believe to be imminent. "We are not humans. We are succubi," announced Emilie Devillers, 19, who proclaimed the quartet's hatred of Christians, Jews and Muslims, calling them "cattle to be slaughtered." All four are scheduled to undergo psychiatric tests. "It is impossible to understand that kind of hatred or imagine the mind of someone capable of doing something like this," says Jean-Christophe Bailly, a 21-year-old accounting student.
MEXICO CITY: Bringing in the Big Guns
Military infiltration of a civilian police force in Latin America is usually viewed as a bleak omen for democracy. But the appointment last week of General Enrique Tomas Salgado Cordero as Mexico City's chief of police sparked intense debate that revealed a flicker of hope as well as the predictable concern. During the year-and-a-half reign of Salgado's civilian predecessor, David Garay Maldonado, crime soared, and the image of the police force as corrupt and inefficient was further strengthened. Garay was fired last month after 40 protesting teachers were injured in a clash with police. Thus many Mexicans welcomed Salgado's promises to cut crime and enforce rigorous standards of police conduct by appointing military officers to key posts. Says contractor Faustino Garcia: "The military is disciplined and can make a change."
HEALTH REPORT
THE GOOD NEWS
Fish oil may be effective for treating CROHN'S DISEASE, a chronic inflammatory-bowel condition. More than half of patients in remission from the disease were spared a relapse by taking fish-oil capsules. They used a new slow-release form that lessens the oil's typical side effects, such as fishy body odor.
While HANGOVERS no doubt feel lousy, they do not appear to affect work performance, finds a small study of U.S. company managers--even if the work requires complex decision making.
Diabetics have low chromium levels. Now reports from China suggest that high-dose chromium supplements may help normalize glucose and insulin levels in patients with Type 2 DIABETES, the most common form of the illness.
THE BAD NEWS
The worst worry for teenage girls may be worry itself. Anxious girls seem to grow up to be as much as two inches shorter than nonanxious ones, a study suggests. ANXIETY may somehow inhibit the body's production of growth hormone.
Nearly 600,000 women worldwide die each year in pregnancy and childbirth, one-fifth more than previously estimated, finds the first comprehensive study in a decade. For each woman who dies, 30 others suffer serious pregnancy-related illnesses.
Being too fat--or too thin--can put one at risk for ARTHRITIS. Obese men raise their chances of developing arthritis by 70%, underweight men by 40%. Very thin women face no higher than normal risk, but heavy ones appear 50% more likely to develop it.
Sources--GOOD NEWS: New England Journal of Medicine; Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research; American Diabetes Association. BAD NEWS: Pediatrics; UNICEF; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
24 YEARS AGO IN TIME
Witch Saint?
Faith healing has always provided a radical alternative to modern medicine, but some of its practitioners have been hastily dismissed as occult kooks: "The art of spiritual healing is a gift frequently mentioned in the New Testament...any a saint has since established his credentials with healing miracles, and many an evangelical preacher--and occultist--still tries. One such is the Rev. Bonnie Gehman...Her information, in true spiritualist tradition, comes from 'spirit guides,' friendly sources on the 'spirit side' who offer secret information to the 'earth plane.' On Sundays, standing in a pink chiffon dress in her pulpit, Bonnie will call out, 'I want to talk to the lady in the pretty white dress. Those on the spirit side tell me to pass on to you a message not to worry about your lower back.'" --June 19, 1972