February 10, 1994

Protected by high tariff walls as steep as its mountainous terrain, and inward-looking in its leadership, Colombia was once described by a former Colombian president as "the American Tibet." But since 1990, like so much of Latin America, free-market policies and a lowering of trade barriers have produced solid growth, surging imports and swelling foreign investment. Today, business people predict that Colombia in the mid-1990's will increasingly look like the Southeast Asian "tigers" of Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.

Buried in the $140 billion economic stimulus program Japan announced Tuesday was a little-noticed initiative for whittling down the mountain of bad loans under which Japanese banks have been struggling. It is a tax write-off that could also lift some bank stocks and make the country's strong banks stronger and its weak banks weaker. The heart of Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa's plan was a jolt of one-time income-tax reductions combined with big increases in public works spending. But the Finance Ministry, which had hammered out the details, inserted the bad debt program at the end. It will have a negligible short-term impact on the recession, but in the long-term it could provide sizable benefits.

Tonya Harding's lawyers went to court today seeking to delay a hearing scheduled by the United States Olympic Committee for next Tuesday in Norway to review her eligibility for the Winter Olympics. Robert C. Weaver Jr., who is representing Miss Harding in the investigation of the assault on Nancy Kerrigan, asked for a temporary restraining order from a circuit court in Clackamas County. He said the delay was needed to give the 23-year-old figure skater more time to prepare her defense.

IT'S 6 P.M., and Alexandra Levite and her sister, Danielle, are preparing for their daily commute home. Leaving behind their piano, puppet theater, bicycles and cardboard playhouse, and already in their Little Mermaid nightgowns, the sisters, ages 6 and 3, board the 6:05 local for their elevator journey from their 14th-floor playroom to the 9th floor for supper and bed. Six years after moving into a post-World War II building on the Upper East Side, Dr. Howard Levite, a cardiologist, and Juliana Mocher Levite, a stockbroker, had become frustrated by their lack of space and decided to buy a one-bedroom apartment in the same building for their daughters and for use as a guest suite.

A week after proposing budget cuts for the arts in New York City, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani announced an agreement yesterday in which the city would restore the cuts and provide even more money -- but only after the city's cultural institutions raised matching contributions from private sources. The goals of the new plan, announced by the Mayor and leaders of some of the city's most prestigious arts institutions, are to increase overall financing for the arts, which Mr. Giuliani hopes will help the city's economy, and to encourage arts groups to raise more private money and become less dependent on city subsidies.

The Clinton Administration will propose a broad, 10-year plan on Thursday to force the Pentagon and other Federal agencies to cede control of a big block of the nation's airwaves and make them available for new commercial technologies. If adopted, the plan could ultimately force a wide range of military activities, from some long-range air defense radar systems to ground-based communication links, to move to different radio-frequency bands. Civilian programs like atmospheric monitoring would also be affected.

YOU know the tragic story about the right person, wrong time. But how about the one with the happy ending, when the long-ago lovers meet and marry much later in life? This Valentine's Day, many such couples will have special reason to celebrate. Take, for instance, Jenny Koebel and Mike Millan, who first met in 1971, when she was a high school senior in Montclair, N.J., and he was finishing his degree at Princeton University. They started dating and eventually lived together for a year in Washington. They were the first great loves in each other's lives, but they drifted apart.

Yasir Arafat and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres of Israel initialed an agreement tonight that removed many of the obstacles that have delayed putting into effect the accord to give the Palestinians limited self-rule. Mr. Peres said the agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which crowned weeks of intensive negotiations between the two sides, covered the main issues between them. The two sides have been trying for months to work out the details of an agreement reached last September that provides for Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.

The Clinton Administration is about to order all Federal agencies to insure that their programs do not unfairly inflict environmental harm on the poor and members of minorities, officials said today. An executive order to be signed within days by President Clinton would require every agency to come up with a comprehensive strategy to redress and prevent such inequities, which until recently were rarely considered in setting Federal policies.

Moving to end the siege of Sarajevo, NATO today set a 10-day deadline for Bosnian Serb forces to withdraw the heavy weaponry and mortars they have used to encircle the Bosnian capital for the past 22 months, or face air strikes. A strongly worded statement issued after a sometimes contentious 14-hour meeting at NATO headquarters here said the Serbs must withdraw their artillery and mortars to a distance of 20 kilometers, or about 12.4 miles, from the center of the Bosnian capital by 1 A.M. local time on Feb. 21.

U.S. Seeks Military Airwaves The White House will propose a broad plan to force the Pentagon and other Federal agencies to cede control of a big block of the airwaves, making them available for new commercial technologies. Page D1. Arrest in Bowling-Ball Death A teen-ager enrolled in a program for people with emotional problems was charged with dropping from an overpass a 16-pound bowling ball that crashed through the windshield of a car, killing a baby girl. Page B1. 'Schindler' Leads "Schindler's List," Steven Spielberg's Holocaust drama, received 12 nominations for Academy Awards. "The Piano," by Jane Campion, and James Ivory's "Remains of the Day" each received eight. Page C13. Upper East Side Zoning Shift The City Council passed a sweeping zoning change for the Upper East Side of Manhattan, prohibiting construction of the tall needle-shaped apartment towers in open plazas that have vexed local groups. Page B3.

In his final State of the State message, Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. proposed a plan today to phase out the widely disliked local tax on motor vehicles and business equipment, including computers, known as the personal property tax. Connecticut is one of 25 states with such a tax, and Mr. Weicker's budget office said its elimination during the next 10 years would eventually save businesses and individuals more than $700 million a year.