DIED. ELIAS FREIJ, 81, long-time Bethlehem mayor and minister of tourism for the Palestinian Authority; in Amman, Jordan. A Christian in a land scarred by sectarian violence between Muslims and Jews, Freij was one of few Palestinians who called for dialogue with the Israelis. His moderation earned him enemies on both sides: Palestinian extremists demolished his car in 1991, and Israeli officials condemned his support of a Palestinian state.

DIED. BELLA ABZUG, 77, feisty American feminist who captured a congressional seat by arguing that this woman's place was in the house-the House of Representatives; in New York. Known for her trademark chapeau and raspy-voiced exhortations, Abzug kept House debate lively by introducing a gay-rights bill, calling for Richard Nixon's impeachment and helping force him to open the secret Pentagon Papers on the conduct of the Vietnam war.

DEATH CONFIRMED. OF KONIS SANTANA, secretive commander of the East Timorese rebels; on March 11, after he fell into a ravine on the way to a guerrilla hideout in the disputed Southeast Asian territory. Santana spent more than two decades hiding under the jungle cover, ever since he joined the armed resistance to Indonesia's annexation of East Timor in 1976-an action not recognized by the United Nations.

ELECTED. ROBERT KOCHARYAN, 43, hardline ex-leader of contested enclave Nagorno-Karabakh, as President of Armenia; in the capital city of Yerevan. Despite scattered allegations of ballot fraud, international observers deemed the vote clean, as Kocharyan triumphed over former Communist Party boss Karen Demirchyan. Outgoing President Levon Ter-Petrosyan resigned amid criticism that he was too soft on neighboring Azerbaijan, which claims Nagorno-Karabakh as its own.

NAMED. RADU VASILE, 55, secretary general of the Christian Democrat National Peasant Party, as Romania's Prime Minister; in Bucharest. Unlike outgoing premier Victor Ciorbea, Vasile is thought to have the political clout to push desperately needed economic stimuli through a fractious parliament. An early critic of Ciorbea's often paralyzed leadership, Vasile brings credentials as an economics professor and an eight-year veteran of post-communist politics to his new post.

CONVICTED. JEAN-MARIE LE PEN, 69, strident French rightist, of "violence and insults at a public meeting" for his assault on a Socialist politician during parliamentary campaigning last May; in Versailles. Le Pen's virulent anti-immigrant stand carried his National Front party to success in recent regional French polling. But the conviction means Le Pen-who repeatedly called the Nazi gas chambers "a detail of history"-will be stripped of certain political rights for two years, forcing him to resign from his two elected posts.

RESIGNED. FLOYD PATTERSON, 63, ailing former heavyweight champion, from his $76,000-a-year post as New York state athletic commissioner, after a three-and-a-half-hour deposition in which he could remember neither the names of the two other members of the commission nor, more poignantly, the name of the boxer he beat to claim the heavyweight title. Patterson suffers from the memory loss, muscular tremors and slurred speech that have afflicted other ex-prizefighters, including Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson.

By Hannah Beech

TIME CAPSULE
Efforts to keepRolls-Royce in British hands seemed to be faltering last week as a pair of German suitors, BMW and Volkswagen, stepped up their respective bids to purchase the prestigious maker of luxury autos. "Richard Perry [is] the chief executive who has just overseen production of [Rolls-Royce's] 100,000th car... Says Perry of the historic achievement: 'Eighty-one years is a long time to produce 100,000 cars, but that fact speaks volumes for itself.' Indeed, the speed of the assembly line at Crewe would give Henry Ford ulcers: one Silver Spirit is finished in three months. There is the matter of 11 full hides from Scandinavian steers 'kept virtually free from pests and barbed wire' ... for the hand-sewn upholstery ... Or the famed flying-lady hood ornament, officially 'the Spirit of Ecstasy,' made by a 4,000-year-old Chinese casting method that produces a faithful replica."
Time, Sept. 2, 1985