July 16, 1994

Aziz ul-Haq, one of the most powerful Muslim leaders in Bangladesh, smiled as he pondered the case of Taslima Nasrin, the feminist writer whose bold, often startling challenges to Islamic taboos on female sexuality and the role of women have shaken this country like a cyclone blowing in from the Bay of Bengal. "If she doesn't come back to the faith, the punishment is clear," the 75-year-old Muslim cleric said, as a crowd of bright-eyed boys pressed their noses against an iron grate in the wall separating them from their teacher's sanctuary at the Jamaya Rahmania Arabia madrassah, Dhaka's leading Muslim seminary. "She should be executed."

A nine-year effort to redevelop the New York Coliseum crumbled last night when the developer, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, failed to meet a deadline to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the Columbus Circle site. The chairman of the M.T.A., Peter E. Stangl, said that with Mr. Zuckerman out of the deal, the authority was now free to begin exploring options for the redevelopment of the site. This, he said, will most likely include some sort of interim use involving a modest upgrading of the exhibition hall and office building, rather than immediately seeking a new development project.

A sharp battle broke out yesterday over a television advertisement that accuses Pizza Hut of hypocrisy for opposing a proposed requirement that employers buy health insurance for their workers in this country while providing such insurance for its own workers overseas. The Health Care Reform Project, a coalition of groups that say employers should help pay for insurance, showed the commercial to reporters, along with a report criticizing Pizza Hut, a division of Pepsico, and McDonald's for lobbying against the employer mandate. But the commercial, which mentions only Pizza Hut, will not be shown outside the Congressional hearing room where the coalition's news conference was held because Pizza Hut persuaded four Washington television stations not to broadcast it.

The boom in popularity of cellular phones has created a demand by cellular companies for places to install more antennas, but villages and towns in the New York region and elsewhere are putting up stiff resistance to having the antennas in their backyards. The antennas are needed, the companies say, to reduce irritating blackouts as car and other mobile phones move about and to meet a growing craving for the phones. But in several communities, installation of the antennas has been blocked by residents who say they fear the electromagnetic fields may not be safe, a concern for which the phone companies and many scientists say there is no persuasive basis.

The cornfields of Dale Montgomery would probably have embarrassed a proud Midwestern farmer from an earlier generation. Instead of cleanly plowed black soil, the ground between his corn rows is covered with the withering stalks of last year's crop, traditionally called trash. "My grandfather would have snorted, 'How in the world can you grow corn like this?' " said Mr. Montgomery, 43, who raises soybeans and corn on 1,000 acres in the rich farm country of DeKalb County here.