April 27, 1992

Since its inception nearly a decade ago, passenger telephone service on airplanes has been sold exclusively by Airfone Inc., a subsidiary of the GTE Corporation. But that is about to change, possibly as early as next week. And the competition will come from no other than Airfone's founder, John D. Goeken. Mr. Goeken, who also started the MCI Communications Corporation in the 1960's, conceived of air-telephone service and obtained a huge headstart for Airfone by obtaining the first radio license for airplane phone service from the Federal Communications Commission in 1980.

"I don't like funerals," said Mack Chapman, an 18-year-old high school student whose violent neighborhood has made death at an early age a haunting fact of life for him. "It's a hard thing to think they are putting a friend of yours six feet under the ground." But in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, Mr. Chapman dutifully pays his respects to the growing numbers of friends who died before they had a chance to really live.

For more than two years the United States Government has had evidence that Iraq, in the months before it invaded Kuwait in August 1990, diverted food purchased under a $5 billion American aid program and exchanged it for money and arms in the Soviet bloc and in other countries. Iraq may have used some of the money, one high-level American Government official wrote in an Oct. 13, 1989, confidential document, to acquire "sensitive nuclear technologies."

The chairmanship of Porsche A.G. may be the hottest seat in corporate Germany. Since 1980, four men have tried to placate the company's quarrelsome family owners while keeping the world's last independent sports car maker on track despite a dwindling market and soaring prices. Three of the executives were ousted after disputes with the Porsche family. Arno Bohn, the current chairman, has already survived one nasty bout with the owners, winning a new contract two months ago after issuing a "fire me or extend my contract" ultimatum. But fulfilling his three-year pact may prove almost as difficult because of his controversial plan for reviving Porsche.

From the mall here, it is difficult for a visitor to find the old Main Street. But it is here, over a rise and past a few lights. And five years after the Danbury Fair Mall came to town with what some promised were new opportunities for this old city, one of every seven stores on Main Street is empty.