October 30, 1990

Brushing aside Britain's objections, leaders of the European Community decided this weekend to set up a common central bank in early 1994, and thus greatly advance the hope of creating a single European currency. But many economists questioned whether unforeseen obstacles would prevent the bank's establishment so soon. The idea of a single European currency has long been a dream. And with a date on setting up a central bank fixed at the European Community's summit meeting in Rome over the weekend, some European officials say a single currency could become a reality by the end of this decade. The resounding support of 11 of the 12 community members -- with only Britain opposed -- to form a central bank in 1994 could bode well for a decision three years later on a single currency.

They are coming home. From this spot on the Saudi-Yemeni border, a caravan of cars, jeeps and trucks, laden with Yemenis and the possessions they have accumulated over years -- for some a lifetime -- of work in Saudia Arabia, winds its way through the port towns and villages and mountain outposts on the often unpaved roads of this stunningly beautiful, poor country. At least 500,000 Yemenis have crossed the border here, Saudi and Yemeni officials say, since mid-September, when the Saudi Government suspended a series of residency privileges for Yemenis working in Saudi Arabia in response to what the Saudis regard as Yemen's support of Iraq in the Persian Gulf crisis. 750,000 May Have Crossed Because the immigration authorities on both sides of the border count passports rather than people, the number of refugees, or returnees as Yemenis prefer to call its expelled nationals, could be as high as 750,000, the officials said. About 30,000 Yemenis have crossed at smaller checkpoints elsewhere on this ill-defined and much-contested border.

In a series of bold experiments, scientists have created laboratory mice with tiny samples of human organs growing in them: lungs, intestines, pancreases, lymph nodes, thymuses, and livers. The purpose is to study the viruses of human diseases in living human tissues. The mice provide a singular opportunity to gauge the effectiveness of various antiviral drugs. They have been successfully infected with the AIDS virus and with two cancer viruses that cause leukemia.

The seen-it-all habitues of the downtown Manhattan art scene had never seen this. Gathering to fete an avant-garde artist, they were ushered into the restaurant's Orchid Room by a white-gloved doorman. As a tuxedoed gentleman played a grand piano, the guests sipped cappuccino amid Italian marble tabletops and dark wood paneling. The Big Macs were swell, too. "An elegant McDonald's," said Kim Heirston, the director of the Stux Gallery, which organized the reception for Cary Leibowitz. "We liked the contradiction."

In a move aimed at easing one of the most formidable barriers to the Soviet market, Western business executives will be allowed to exchange their profits in rubles into foreign currency starting in January, bank officials said today. Officials at the main state bank, Gosbank, and the foreign trading bank, Vneshekombank, said that all companies, including Western concerns, would be able to take their ruble earnings to new currency exchanges and bid on foreign currencies offered for sale by Soviet businesses and the Government.