March 20, 1993

A Federal advisory committee today recommended approval of a new drug to treat multiple sclerosis. The drug is the first shown to be effective against the neurological disease, although hundreds have been tried over the decades. In a 7-to-2 vote, the committee found that the drug, Betaseron, made by the Chiron Corporation and Berlex Labs, a subsidiary of Schering A.G. of Germany, was safe and effective in treating the disease. The drug is not a cure, but a new study presented to the committee indicated that it can slow the otherwise relentless course of the disease.

After a decade of fighting in one of the world's most violent ethnic wars, the Sri Lankan Army appears to be gaining the upper hand against Tamil insurgents here in the eastern part of the island while it confines the insurgency to the Tamil stronghold in the north. With its confidence buoyed by military success, as well as a recent spurt of rapid economic growth, the Sri Lanka Government is also on the verge of proposing a political settlement to the Tamils that will go some distance toward meeting their political demands for autonomy in Tamil areas.

Justice Byron R. White, the only sitting Supreme Court Justice appointed by a Democratic President, announced today that he would retire in early summer after 31 years on the court. The departure of the 75-year-old Justice, a reliable conservative on many issues ranging from abortion to the rights of criminal defendants, gives President Clinton an early opportunity to try to put his own stamp on the Supreme Court and begin to reverse the effects of the long string of Republican appointments.

Hirschfeld Gains in Post Bid Abraham Hirschfeld moved forward in his effort to buy The New York Post, then made a wary peace with the newspaper's on-again-off-again editor, Pete Hamill. Page 23. 2 Trade Clashes Averted Two trade confrontations were defused when the United States postponed sanctions against Europe and said Japan had met a target for imports of computer chips. Page 37. Perot Keeps Vow Anyway With a televised address and surveys, Ross Perot is staging a low-tech variation of the "electronic town meeting" he promised if elected. Page 6.

Thronged by what was described as thousands of cheering, weeping townspeople and refugees, a convoy of United Nations relief trucks entered a besieged Muslim town in eastern Bosnia today, heading off for the time being the threat that large numbers of Muslims would starve. The arrival of the relief column in Srebrenica, a town where some people had not eaten in days and others had survived by eating moss and vegetation pulled from beneath the snow in the surrounding forests, was a personal triumph for Lieut. Gen. Philippe Morillon, the United Nations commander in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He had made a personal crusade of the town's survival, camping in the local post office for nine days and vowing not to abandon the 60,000 residents to the besieging Serbian nationalist forces.