August 18, 1995

The wars of Yugoslavia's destruction have essentially involved violent shifts of population aimed at carving ethnically uniform swaths of territory from the ruins of a mixed society. Because that destructive process is now virtually complete, ended by the Serbian exodus this month from Croatia, the prospects for peace may be stronger now than at any time in the last four years. The grim fact of the wholesale movement of people, European officials say, constitutes a central impetus behind the new American approach that brought Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke to Belgrade today for talks with the Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic. There was agreement, Mr. Milosevic said, on the need to "achieve as soon as possible peace and stability in the Balkans."

In a further purge of top officials hired by the disbanded Newark School Board, state officials running the district ordered suspensions with pay for James Kokkalis, director of the division of design and construction, and Connie Caponegro, assistant director of the division of human resource services.

Gov. Christine Todd Whitman signed into law yesterday a measure that requires insurance companies that provide Medigap coverage for the elderly on Medicare to extend that coverage to disabled people age 50 and over, The Associated Press reported. Medicare, the Federal health insurance program, generally covers the retired elderly but also provides medical coverage to disabled people and to people who need regular treatments like kidney dialysis. Medigap is private insurance coverage, regulated by the state, that Medicare clients can buy to cover the costs that the Government program does not pay.

Comments at Fed Point To No Change in Rates The Federal Reserve's interest-rate policy committee appears likely to leave rates unchanged at its meeting next Tuesday. Senior Fed officials expressed satisfaction this week with the current economic outlook. Lawrence B. Lindsey and Edward W. Kelley Jr., Fed governors, said in interviews that they were pleased with the economy's direction. Mr. Lindsey added, "We're in a situation where we're going to have exactly what the doctor ordered, which is slow, moderate growth." Analysts said they did not expect the Fed to push rates up before the committee meets in September. [ Page D2. ] The yield on 30-year-Treasury bonds rose to 6.90 percent, from 6.88 percent on Wednesday, despite economic reports showing the economy growing at a moderate pace with inflation under control. [ D4. ] Dell Earnings Exceed Forecasts Continuing to cash in on a boom in personal computer sales, Dell Computer said that earnings more than doubled in the second quarter to $65.1 million, or $1.32 a share, surpassing analysts' expectations. Even more of a pleasant surprise were Dell's strong gross profit margins, which increased to 21.8 percent, compared with 21.4 percent in the first quarter of this year. [ D4. ] Russian Hacker Cited at Citibank A hacker in St. Petersburg, Russia, penetrated Citibank's computers and stole $2.8 million from corporate accounts in New York, United States officials told a British court. Valdimir Levin, 34, a mathematician, was said to have electronically transferred the money to bank accounts in California and Israel. [ D6. ] Net Up at Deere and Navistar Deere and Navistar International posted higher earnings, but Wall Street was unimpressed, focusing more on signs that the companies' markets were weakening. Deere said fiscal third-quarter earnings rose 14.2 percent to $180.1 million, or $2.07 a share. Navistar's earnings jumped nearly 95 percent to $39 million, or 43 cents a share. [ D4. ] Inquiry Into Psychiatric Centers Community Psychiatric Centers said it was the subject of a whistle-blower lawsuit that has led to a Federal investigation of its billing practices. Federal authorities plan to file an amended civil complaint by Sept. 29, and the F.B.I. seized records on Aug. 4. [ D2. ] Intervention Heartens Japan The intervention in the currency markets this week by the central banks of the United States, Japan and Germany, which has helped strengthen the dollar against the yen, could expand Japan's corporate profits and lead to a resumed economic recovery. [ D3. ] The dollar retreated to 97.25 yen and 1.4747 marks, weighed down by profit-taking and by a wider than expected United States trade deficit. [ D13. ] Stocks Mixed in Dull Trading Stocks were mixed in directionless trading as the Dow Jones industrials fell 8.45 points, to 4,630.63, while the technology-laden Nasdaq composite index reached a new high for the third time this week. It closed up 3.49 points, to 1,029.24. The S.& P. index fell. [ D6. ] Davis Polk Lands RJR, Again The law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell lost RJR Nabisco as a longtime client after the Kohlberg Kravis Roberts takeover, but in a highly unusual arrangement, one of the law firm's partners is now serving as RJR's general counsel. [ D20. ] Crazy Eddie Pitchman Is Back Jerry Carroll, the man who made those Crazy Eddie commercials so famous, is back doing ads for another consumer electronics company, but this time he's being a lot quieter. Mr. Carroll, 48, is appearing in a distinctly low-wattage spot for Willoughby's, his first for a consumer-electronics store since 1992. Advertising. [ D5. ] Microsoft to Use Stones' Song Microsoft has paid some $2 million for the rights to the Rolling Stones' song "Start Me Up" for use in an advertising campaign for its new Windows 95 software. [ D5. ]

Yes, $19 billion is an eye-popping sum, even if it is going to buy Capital Cities/ABC, with its popular television network and the nation's leading sports channel. And O.K., Michael Eisner's decision this week to hire Michael Ovitz, the restless talent agent, as his new president at the Walt Disney Company caught everybody by surprise. But when it comes to the real bets that are likely to determine the future of Disney's movie business and the company's efforts to dominate the entertainment world, people in Hollywood are looking deeper. What many film-industry insiders are scrutinizing are the smaller deals and the clear-eyed gambler who has made them, such as the decision to plop down $3 million for the film rights to an unpublished romance by a first-time novelist. In short, people are talking about Joe Roth.

Officials investigating the death of a couple whose bodies were discovered in their Teaneck home said yesterday that they had not determined if Leslie E. Ellisson, 76, and Catherine Nowak, 46, took their own lives. Traces of carbon monoxide were detected in the house and the ignition of their car was turned on, said Frank Puccio, first assistant prosecutor for Bergen County. But he could not say how long they had been dead or whether asphyxiation was definitely the cause. One of the couple's dogs was also found dead, but another survived.

Acknowledging that they faced an uphill battle in hostile territory, leaders of an Indian tribe from Oklahoma signed an agreement with this seaside community today to operate a gambling casino virtually in the shadow of Atlantic City. Whether they can win state and Federal approval to actually bring the project out of the planning stage is another matter.

BRADLEY CONSIDERS A PRESIDENTIAL RUN A day after announcing that he would not run for re-election, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, a Democrat, said he was considering entering the 1996 Presidential race as an independent. [ Page A1. ] FUND-RAISING OFFICIALS DRAW CRITICISM Two co-chairmen of a fund-raising event for Governor Pataki at Saratoga Race Course are government regulators who, actively or passively, are inviting contributions from the very people they regulate. Their involvement, though not expressly prohibited under state ethics laws, has drawn sharp criticism from Democratic lawmakers and others. [ A1. ] NEW YORK CITY MINIVANS MULLED FOR CAB USE If an experiment promoted by the chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission proves successful, the new vehicle of choice for the city's cabdrivers could be the same as one usually favored by families in the suburbs -- the minivan. [ B3. ] Testing the Taxi Rider's Bill of Rights. [ B3. ] After weeks of intense public debate, the City Council approved plans to build a large Pathmark supermarket in Queens, preserving a deal under which the company agreed to donate more than $400,000 to other merchants and to youth groups in the area. The deal was bitterly opposed by Mayor Giuliani, who said it set a bad precedent that could discourage future business development. [ B3. ] AN OFFICER IS CONVICTED OF PERJURY A 36-year-old police officer was convicted of two counts of perjury in Federal District Court in Manhattan, ending the only case to come out of a three-year investigation into police misconduct in Washington Heights. [ B3. ] STATEMENT ON POOR PATIENTS REQUESTED Responding to criticism from the Queens Borough President, Mayor Giuliani asked his panel recommending the dismantling of the city hospital system to prepare a supplement explaining how poor patients would be treated and who would pay for it. [ B3. ] A man raped two women in an upper Manhattan park but was captured after trying to attack a third, the authorities said. [ B2. ] The Consumer Affairs Department sprang a trap on 25 unlicensed contractors. [ B2. ] Steven Spielberg is exploring new territory -- the Manhattan charity-party circuit. [ B4. ] There was more high-humidity agony in the long, hot summer of 1995. [ B6. ] REGION NUDE DANCING IN LOCAL DELI Business at Bomb's Away Country Store, actually a deli in Wappinger, N.Y., is great. Customers who might once have stopped in for a coffee to go linger over a $6 burger. And now they come from all over. The owner gambled on a new idea: naked dancers. Our Towns by Evelyn Nieves. [ B5. ] 3 PEOPLE ARE ATTACKED WITH A BLOWGUN Someone with a blowgun has attacked three people near the Seaford-Massapequa border in Nassau County within the last six weeks, firing steel darts at two joggers and a teen-ager on a bicycle, the police said. [ B5. ] Chronicle B2

Based on troop movements and warnings from two Iraqi defectors that President Saddam Hussein had considered attacking Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon said today that it was sending ships carrying equipment and supplies to the Persian Gulf, and could ultimately deploy more than 22,000 ground troops. Although there is no indication that an Iraqi attack is imminent, two senior American military officials told reporters today that elite Iraqi troops around Baghdad have conducted "unusual training activities" in the last five weeks that caused concern among United States analysts.

The veil of brown smog that perpetually hangs over Mexico City, stinging the eyes and burning the throats of the nearly 20 million people who live here, is not caused primarily by automobile exhaust as officials have long believed, according to a study by an American scientist. Rather it is caused by leaks from millions of steel tanks containing bottled gas used for cooking and heating. The surprising findings, to be published in the United States on Friday in the journal Science, contradict a decade of Government environmental policy that has focused heavily on curtailing emissions from cars and factories while ignoring controls on the two million tons of liquefied petroleum gas used each year for cooking and heating in virtually every home in Mexico City.

Tishman Speyer Properties L.P., a large New York City real estate development company, offered yesterday to buy a large chunk of Rockefeller Center and the $1.3 billion mortgage on the trophy property, which is held by a real estate investment trust. The offer comes a day after an investor group led by the Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell made a play for control of the 12-building center in midtown Manhattan. It offered to pay $250 million for a 50 percent stake in a new company that would jointly own the mortgage along with the existing shareholders of the current mortgage holder, Rockefeller Center Properties Inc.

Two young brothers who were playing knee deep in the water off Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., drowned last night when waves crashed onto them and sucked them into the ocean, the authorities said. Waves breaking on the shore reached as high as 10 feet, the Coast Guard said. Hafiz Abdul-Majeed, 11, of Irvington, N.J, drowned, and his brother, Jaleel, 13, was missing and presumed dead. Article, page B6.