February 27, 1995

Piracy Accord With China China and the United States signed an agreement on intellectual property rights that narrowly avoided the imposition of trade sanctions on more than $1 billion of Chinese goods. But the pact's success depends upon its enforcement in China. [ Page A1. ]

Faced with losing more than 25 percent of its budget, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation is moving as fast as it can to transform itself from a loosely organized collection of somewhat frayed charity hospitals to a tightly run business able to hold its own in the newly competitive New York health care market. Even as Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani announced last week his plan to sell 3 of the 11 public hospitals, H.H.C. members were trimming budgets and eliminating departments and jobs in ways that would have been unthinkable two years ago. Then, such cuts were seen as politically impractical and contrary to a corporate culture that treated these hospitals as much as symbols of neighborhood pride as sites for health care. Last year, the Health and Hospitals Corporation cut 300 beds and 3,500 of its almost 50,000 jobs.

HOSPITAL AGENCY STRIVES TO SURVIVE Faced with losing more than 25 percent of its budget, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation is moving as fast as it can to transform itself from a loosely organized collection of somewhat frayed charity hospitals to a tightly run business able to hold its own in the competitive New York health care market.

The deal struck at the last minute yesterday between China and the United States may well turn out to be a major victory for both the Clinton Administration and American business, proof that the right mix of bluster and economic incentives can convince China's leaders that their only choice is to operate by the world's trade rules, rather than their own. But just beneath the surface, the argument over China's piracy of Whitney Houston's songs and Microsoft's MS-DOS was just the first big skirmish in a struggle that will probably last for years. It is a fight to make sure that the United States does not make the same mistakes with China that it made for decades with Japan.

Domestic violence is getting more attention in Bergen County Family Court (an average of 20 minutes per case in 1993, up from less than 6 the year before), and judges awarded more comprehensive protective orders in 1993 than in 1992, a group of volunteer observers says.