November 17, 1993

The Government of Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa won a key vote today on a package of bills that would reshape the corruption-tainted electoral system, setting Japan squarely on course for its most sweeping political change in decades. The 21-to-19 vote by a committee of Parliament to redraw the parliamentary districts, reapportion seats and limit corporate political donations was a major coup for the reform-minded Mr. Hosokawa and, political experts said, a sign that Japan is finally casting off its old political order. It also broke a five-year deadlock during which the political system sank deeper and deeper into a series of corruption scandals.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly for a Federal law that would prohibit bombings, arson and blockades at abortion clinics, and shootings and threats of violence against those who perform abortions. The vote was 69 to 30. Twenty-eight senators who voted against Federal financing of abortions six weeks ago supported the measure, portraying it as a law-and-order matter.

SHOULD I sleep with my boyfriend? A 10-year-old girl needed to know. A 13-year-old boy also had a pressing question: How do you ask a girl out? A 14-year-old girl was pregnant, and her boyfriend had just dumped her. Another 14-year-old wrote: "I have a problem and to me it's the biggest problem I have and every day I have to face it; it's my nose." How much does plastic surgery cost, anyway? Another teen-ager wrote, "I'm afraid to tell anyone, but my father sexually abuses me." Elizabeth C. Winship has heard it all. Her friends and family know her as Liebe. But to her legions of correspondents she is Beth, of "Ask Beth," her column in The Boston Globe that is syndicated in 80 newspapers across the country through the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. For 30 years, three times a week, Mrs. Winship, as Beth, has been doling out frank advice to confused, anxious, self-conscious, sad and lonely young people.

The Government has been substantially underestimating unemployment for at least a decade or more, particularly among women, the Labor Department reported today. As part of the biggest revamping in the 53-year history of the Government survey that determines the nation's official jobless rate, researchers at the Labor Department have discovered a bias in the survey under which many women who were seeking jobs were erroneously described as homemakers, and therefore not counted as being in the work force.

Stocks surged late yesterday after the White House said it had lined up nearly enough votes to win approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement in today's vote in the House of Representatives. News of the growing support for the trade pact also helped push up the dollar against most major currencies yesterday.