January 9, 1998

World's leading banks have tentatively agreed to extend payment on as much as $28 billion in short-term loans to South Korea that come due on March 31, crucial precursor to easing country's financial crisis; all banks have committed to one-month extension, or rollovers (L)

Theodore J Kaczynski throws Unabom case into chaos after he apparently tries to kill himself on eve of his trial and then asks to be allowed to represent himself; request, latest rebellion against his lawyers' plan to cast him as mentally ill, leads Judge Garland E Burrell Jr to order examination into whether he is competent to stand trial; Judy Clarke, Kaczynski's lawyer, says he cannot endure hearing his court-appointed lawyers tell world he is mentally ill; photo (M)

Analysis of health care plan for children announced by Gov George E Pataki in his State of the State address; says it is less a plan than a concept, and one that does not go far enough, according to critics; they say program should cover many more children whose families would not qualify for insurance now, and that benefits should be broadened to include services like dental care, vision and hearing; they want health program to look more like Medicaid; such a move might earn Pataki praise in New York City in his re-election run, but it would be difficult for him to explain to conservative voters; Pataki came into office four years ago promising to cut pricey Government entitlements like Medicaid (M)

Judith Hope, chairwoman of New York Democratic Party, says Pres Clinton's fund-raising trips to state are undermining her efforts to prepare party for critical election year; asks national Democrats to either share fruits of Clinton's trips or stay out of New York this year; voices her complaints as Clinton makes his second fund-raising visit to New York in less than month, raising close to $1 million for Democratic National Committee (M)

Raheem Dawkins, 16, was shot by police officer he was trying to protect from attacker, then described in police report as 'possible suspect'; incident occurred in Manhattan subway station on New Year's morning; Dawkins, seriously wounded, lay in hospital for week before police spokesman, answering reporter's query, acknowledged that Dawkins was in fact trying to aid officer when he was shot; Deputy Inspector Michael Collins says police failed to inform news organizations about incident, apparently because of procedural error; but before department's acknowledgment that Dawkins was hero, not villain, some investigators expressed dismay over handling of case; say police are embarrassed that good Samaritan got shot; photo (M)

Goldman, Sachs & Co same-store sales index reports retail sales were up 4.4 percent in December, compared with 2.9 percent gain in December 1996 and well above 3 percent gains most retail experts were forecasting; strong sales showings were due almost entirely to 48 hours before Christmas and the week after Christmas; graph; chart (L)

Fear of Chaos in Indonesia Gives Asia Markets a Jolt Indonesia's stock market and currency suffered their worst one-day losses ever in a panicky selloff that unnerved investors elsewhere in Asia and reverberated beyond. The selling resulted from fear of economic collapse and political turmoil in the world's fourth-largest country following warnings from Washington that International Monetary Fund aid may be cut off.

Interview with Charles Hamlen, executive director of Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS, nonprofit organization that draws upon donated talents of performers, mostly classical musicians, to raise money for AIDS services; photo (M)

Luggage belonging to Chinese swimmer Yuan Yuan is seized by Australian custom officials who say it contained substance labeled as human growth hormome; if label is correct, incidence will reinforce widely held belief that China's female swimmers have been using banned bodybuilding drugs; Yuan Yuan is part of 29-person Chinse group flying from Beijing to Sydney to Perth for world championships (L)

Detention of Art Protested The Austrian government protested the detention in New York of two Egon Schiele paintings said to have been seized by the Nazis. Page B2. Planet Sets Record High Working with a global warming trend, the waters of El Nino lifted the planet's average surface temperature to a record level. Page A12.

Astronomers examining distant light from stars that exploded before Sun was born have determined that universe has apparently been expanding at slow, steady rate since beginning and is destined to expand forever; research would indicate that universe can be as much as 15 billion years old, resolving paradox posed by earlier findings that suggest age for universe that was younger than many of its constituent stars; findings are announced by astronomers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics at meeting of American Astronomical Society (M)

A lawyer for minority police organizations charged that a black narcotics officer was beaten during an undercover operation by a white member of his team whom he had known for six months. The lawyer said that the attack was deliberate and reflected a culture of bias in the Police Department. Police officials said the white officer had merely mistaken his colleague for a suspect.