May 10, 1994

Yemen's rival armies, locked in a deadly struggle that threatens the disintegration of the Arab world's poorest nation, battled for control of the strategic southern port city of Aden today as hundreds more foreigners fled. Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded during five days of fighting between army units from the formerly Marxist Southern Yemen and the conservative north. Electricity, water and telephone services have been cut in much of the country. Gasoline and diesel fuel are in short supply. Schools and businesses are closed and many Yemenis have fled to remote villages.

As Congress moves toward a vote on health care, the great majority of the nation's top executives are lining up against President Clinton's plan -- particularly his insistence that companies insure all their workers and pay most of the cost, a New York Times/CBS News Poll shows. Business opposition to the Clinton plan, with its mandatory coverage, appears to have increased in recent months, some executives suggested in interviews after the poll. Some say they oppose the plan even though it might reduce their health insurance costs, because they are philosophically opposed to giving the Government a greater role in health care, as the President would do.

The Florida Legislature has voted to increase the size of the state's prison system by nearly one third and to try juvenile criminals, regardless of their age, as adults when they commit three felonies. Texas has approved "no bail" provisions for sex offenders and other violent criminals, and proposals known as "three strikes and you're out" and "truth in sentencing" are finding support in state legislatures from coast to coast. While much of the nation's attention has been focused on the Federal anticrime package to be negotiated by the House and the Senate, state legislatures have been moving even more quickly and aggressively to address the issue. Responding to what they describe as a state of alarm among their constitutents, lawmakers are writing tough new bills and supporting ballot initiatives intended to punish criminals more severely while they are in prison and make it more difficult for them to get out.

After almost a year of jawboning and negotiating, the Clinton Administration has little to show for its trade policy toward Japan, and some Administration officials and analysts are beginning to wonder aloud whether it is time for the United States to rethink its strategy. The combination of the weak new coalition Government in Tokyo and the turmoil in world currency markets has seriously weakened the Clinton Administration's ability to get Japan to open certain of its closed markets and reduce its huge trade surplus with the rest of the world.

Joel Rifkin, the unemployed landscaper who led a secret life of killing prostitutes and keeping their corpses for days, was found to be legally sane today by a jury that took only two hours to convict him of murder. Mr. Rifkin, 34, who stood expressionless as the jury read its verdict, had admitted killing 17 women, so the facts of the case were never at issue in the two-week trial.

After heavy lobbying by top officials of the Clinton Administration, Saudi Arabia selected the AT&T Corporation today to modernize its entire telecommunications system -- a deal the company said would be worth $4 billion over the next six years. The decision marks another major example of the Administration's determination to campaign for American companies in winning big contracts from foreign governments.

Boris Y. Nemtsov, the Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region 250 miles east of here, introduced a novel program recently: selling, for up to $450, a certificate that promises purchasers they will get telephones installed in their homes within six months instead of the years they would normally wait. Officials said residents were snapping up the certificates. The money raised will be spent improving the region's decrepit telephone system. By paying interest at 1 percent a day for any delay beyond six months, the plan provides considerable incentive for the local telephone company to speed its work. Though the method may be unorthodox and the scale relatively small, the plan indicates the huge demand for improved communications in a country where getting a dial tone can be a triumph of will, and of the lengths Russia is going to in addressing the problem.

The New York City Medical Examiner's office said yesterday that a Staten Island man who died in the custody of police officers 10 days ago suffocated because of pressure on his chest and neck while he lay in a prone position with his hands handcuffed behind his back. The Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, called the death a homicide because, he said, it was caused at least in part by the action of the officers, who were members of an anti-narcotics squad who had gone to a low-income housing complex on northern Staten Island to make drug arrests.

The Economy Most American business executives oppose President Clinton's health care plan, especially its requirement that companies insure all their workers and pay most of the costs, a New York Times/CBS News Poll shows. [ Page D1. ]

They came more for prime rib than for state politics, but the 250 people at the annual Otsego County Republican dinner here seemed pleased enough to meet George E. Pataki. And it would be fair to say Mr. Pataki, chewing on his ambition to become the next Governor, seemed positively thrilled to meet them -- each and every one of them. "Nice to see you -- don't get up!" he beamed beside a full table in the stately Otesaga Hotel ballroom. "I've got a complaint here. Not one of you has eaten your potato skins. It's the healthiest part!"

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said yesterday that his administration planned to sell the license for WNYC-FM, the New York City-owned classical-music station, to help close the budget deficit for the next fiscal year. But Mr. Giuliani said the city would strive to keep the station -- one of only two that still broadcasts classical music -- on the air by buying a less expensive license from a nonprofit station.

The power that had belonged to whites since they first settled on this cape 342 years ago passed today to a Parliament as diverse as any in the world, a cast of proud survivors who began their work by electing Nelson Mandela to be the first black president of South Africa. Unopposed, Mr. Mandela was proclaimed president without a word of dissent or even a show of hands, then sat, strangely grim-faced, while his giddy followers whooped in unparliamentary delight.