July 14, 1999

Serbs living in Pancevo fear effects of toxic chemicals released from petrochemical and fertilizer factories that were bombed during NATO air campaign over Kosovo; photo; map; residents report blistering rashes from touching soil and stomach ailments from eating river fish and vegetables or drinking tap water; children, many of whom were sent to Slovakia by Red Cross to escape noxious gases, still suffer headaches and dizziness, and doctors report twice as many miscarriages as last year; authorities admit testing equipment is outdated; UN sets up investigation under Finnish environmental official Pakka Haavisto; he says biggest danger now is that ground water and Danube River are directly polluted; air strikes against industrial complex in April unleashed tons of chemicals as NATO tried to cut off Milosevic Government's resources; Pancevo has 130,000 residents, many of Hungarian and Croatian descent, and has been center of opposition to Slobodan Milosevic (M)

Women's National Basketball Association will hold its first All-Star Game at Madison Square Garden on July 14; photo (M)7

Florida authorities file murder and manslaughter charges against Sabretech, aviation maintenance company that improperly packed and labeled oxygen generators aboard Valujet plane that caught fire and crashed in Everglades in May 1996; all 100 people on board died; company vice president and two mechanics are indicted by Federal grand jury on criminal charges of carelessly handling deadly materials; case is first criminal filing ever involving US airline accident; State Atty Katherine Fernandez Rundle says crash was completely preventable, a crime and not an accident; three men charged with filing false statements face up to five years in jail and $250,000 fine; Sabretech faces fine of almost $6 million, but has ceased operations; defense attorney Kenneth P Quinn says mechanics Eugene Florence and Mauro Valenzuela and vice president Daniel Gonzalez will plead not guilty (M)

Motorola Inc beats Wall Street projections by reporting earnings of $273 million for second quarter, up from $6 million a year ago; company's turnaround is result of trimming work force and refocusing company's marketing of cellular telephones and semiconductors; in addition, demand has begun to revive in critical Asian market, which slumped in 1998; company plans to recast itself from manufacturer of technology hardware to software maker that is vowing to bring World Wide Web not only to cellular telphones and pagers but even to automobile, which could soon be wired to download video games for backseat passenger; Motorola's chief Christopher Galvin comments; graph; chart; photos (M)

City University of New York Chmn Herman Badillo says Hostos Community College pres Dolores Fernandez, who was recently promoted from acting president, has done great job straightening college out; Badillo in 1997 declared that Hostos was failing in its mission as bilingual school after he discovered that it was graduating students who had failed CUNY's writing test; most of praise for Fernandez has come for her early initiatives, rather than for significant improvements in academic results; South Bronx college still faces daunting problems; many students still have lowest passing rates within CUNY on mandatory writing test; Fernandez photo (M)