March 30, 1992

The executive in charge of day-to-day operations at the Wordperfect Corporation, which makes the nation's best-selling word processing software, has been forced to resign. Some industry analysts suggest that W. E. (Pete) Peterson, who had been Wordperfect's executive vice president, is the first victim of the company's bruising battle to fend off an increasingly popular word processing package from the Microsoft Corporation.

Many of the largest banks in North America, Europe and Asia lent billions of dollars to Olympia & York Developments Ltd., the world's largest private real estate company, even though it refused to disclose all its financial obligations and would not let the banks review its books. Now the company, owned by the Reichmann family of Toronto, is being pummeled by $18.5 billion in debt, depressed property markets and a series of disastrous investments, and the banks are nervously lining up to see what their losses are likely to be.

Companies Many of the world's largest banks lent billions of dollars to Olympia & York, even though the real estate developer refused to disclose all of its financial obligations and would not let the banks review its books. Now it is being pummeled by $18.5 billion of debt, depressed property values and disastrous investments. Its banks are nervously lining up to see what their losses may be. [ Page A1. ] An emergency loan will enable work to continue on the Canary Wharf development in London only for the next month or so. [ D4. ]

Southeastern Turkey, swept by some of the worst fighting between Turkish troops and Kurdish guerrillas since the rebels' insurgency began in 1984, seems to be on the edge of full-scale rebellion. Neither side appears willing to yield. After clashes in recent days that reportedly left scores of people dead and wounded, the Turkish Government, despite censure from powerful benefactors like Germany, has imposed curfews in half a dozen towns, shipped in elite counterinsurgency battalions, arrested several hundred people and moved aggressively to track down Kurdish rebel positions.

Before there were nerds, before there was a Silicon Valley, there were Heathkits, which let tens of thousands of ambitious amateurs and aspiring engineers build their own radios, televisions and other electronic equipment. But this month, after 45 years in the business, the Heath Company is closing out the last of its kits to concentrate on faster-selling home-improvement products and educational materials. Heath's kit sales have steadily declined since 1981, victims of reduced leisure time, declining prices that make it cheaper to buy fancy radios and electronic equipment than to build them, and the seduction of technically oriented consumers by personal computers.