Ethics Newsline®

Special to Newsline from London Correspondent E.B. Mills

LONDON
Two of Britain’s prominent political figures — Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Mandelson, and Paymaster General Geoffrey Robinson — resigned last week after revelations of a questionable financial deal between the two officials sparked widespread criticism and concern over a possible breach of ethics.

The double-resignation — the latest in a series of scandals to plague Prime Minister Tony Blair’s cabinet — follows a report in The Guardian that detailed Mandelson’s acceptance of a large low-interest loan from Robinson to buy a posh home in west London.

In 1996, when the loan was made, neither Mandelson nor his benefactor Geoffrey Robinson was yet a minister. Mandelson was a member of parliament earning a little over $66,000 but somehow managed to purchase a $784,000 home in fashionable Notting Hill, leaving friends, colleagues, and the media guessing at how he did it.

The key, as it turns out, was a $615,000 low-interest loan from Mr. Robinson, a businessman of considerable means who is now Tony Blair’s paymaster general.

Neither Mandelson nor Robinson disclosed the loan when they joined the cabinet. Nor did Mandelson disclose the loan when the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) began investigating Geoffrey Robinson’s tax and business dealings, although he did remove himself from the investigation.

However, an independent inspector’s report on a separate DTI investigation into the Maxwell media empire, to which Mr. Robinson was linked, has yet to be released, and Mr. Mandelson will have to decide whether or not to publish it.

Banks queried by The Guardian said it was highly unlikely that a person with Mr. Mandelson’s income would have qualified for such a large loan. And if he had, the interest rate would have been significantly higher than the rate set by Mr. Robinson for his friend.

According to The Guardian, Mr. Mandelson has saved over $16,500 so far on interest payments.

The ministerial code doesn’t specifically mention loans, but it forbids a minister from accepting gifts, hospitality, or services that might cause, or appear to cause, a conflict of interest.

NEW YORK
A consultant to two U.S. aerospace companies attempted to win lucrative contracts by bribing Chinese officials, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported last week.

The alleged bribery attempt by a consultant for Hughes Space & Communication (a subsidiary of General Motors) and Loral Space & Communications was revealed in a 1996 CIA communication unearthed earlier this year during a Congressional investigation into high technology transfers between the U.S. and China, the newspapers claim.

That investigation was launched after the Clinton administration’s approval of high-tech aerospace exports to China sparked concerns over national security, the Reuters news agency reported.

The consultant and the companies involved deny any wrongdoing.

LONDON
The U.K.’s Institute of Personnel and Development (IPD) last week issued a sobering report detailing the growing abuse of alcohol and other drugs at the workplace, warning that companies must more effectively address growing workplace abuse or suffer financial consequences.

Earlier this year, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) reported that drug and alcohol problems cost U.K. businesses and taxpayers roughly $5 billion per year, a figure that the IPD says will continue to grow until employers develop programs to curb and help drug-using employees.

Also, the International Labor Organization last week warned that up to 25 percent of workers worldwide may have a drinking problem, the BBC reported.

SAN FRANCISCO
Six women last week launched a class action lawsuit against the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), charging the lab’s operators, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the University of California, with persistently discriminating against women in pay and promotions.

The lawsuit was spearheaded by Mary Singleton, a 22-year veteran of the LLNL, who says that female scientists routinely make $12,000 to $24,000 less per year than male counterparts. The lawsuit seeks to retroactively compensate LLNL’s 3,000 female scientists at a potential cost of as much as $500 million, Wired news service reported.

NEW YORK
Cable-TV business news network CNBC last week published a formal code of conduct requiring the network’s guest investment analysts, many of whom are working Wall Street professionals, to disclose their trading activities in any stock they discuss.

The requirement is designed to keep analysts from touting a stock on-air and then profiting from the resulting run up in price if the stock is heavily traded.

The new code of conduct — which CNBC says merely formalizes its unspoken ethics code — is part of the network’s efforts to quiet the controversy that began two weeks ago when conflict-of-interest questions arose regarding the on-air comments made by one of CNBC’s guest analysts.

Critics contend that while CNBC’s newly formalized code is a good first step towards transparency, there needs to be industry-wide vigilance to protect the public from possible profiteering by on-air analysts, the Associated Press reported.

BOSTON
Casual drinkers have a more debilitating effect on workplace productivity than alcoholics, dropping profits and productivity by as much as 21 percent, according to a new study published last week.

An in-depth study of seven Fortune 500 companies revealed that social drinkers — those who occasionally drink too much on a worknight or have a drink during their lunch break — greatly affect productivity at the workplace, forcing many employees to redo work and cover for drinking co-workers.

The report warns that “a critical shift in workplace substance abuse policy” is needed, supplementing traditional efforts to identify and treat employee alcoholism with more broad-based awareness programs and behavior guidelines.

The study, “Alcohol and Work,” was co-authored by the Harvard and Boston University Schools of Public Health and the JSI Research and Training Institute, and published in the 1998 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Anthology.

NEW YORK
Chase Manhattan Bank and J.P. Morgan last week became the first U.S. institutions to be charged with misappropriating the assets of Nazi-era Holocaust victims, according to allegations leveled in a class-action civil lawsuit announced last week.

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, relies heavily on a 1945 U.S. Treasury Department investigation of the firms’ Paris offices. The report includes references to Chase’s “uncalled-for responsiveness to the desires of the Germans,” the Associated Press reported.

Chase called the lawsuit “unnecessary” in light of its current cooperation with investigators and its plans to reimburse, with interest, the approximately 100 customers or their heirs whose assets were allegedly seized.

J.P. Morgan issued a statement saying that officials “understand the seriousness of this issue” and plan to investigate.

SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia
Cambodian officials last week denounced what they believe is a second incident of waste dumping by a foreign company — a 650-ton pile of imported scraps of film from Taiwan, which Cambodian officials fear may be toxic.

Last week’s discovery of the dumpsite has increased Cambodian irritation with foreign companies that it believes are importing toxic waste, according to a report from the BBC.

Earlier this month, 3,000 tons of suspected toxic waste from a Taiwanese company sparked a massive evacuation and expensive cleanup effort, and prompted warnings from the Cambodian government that such dumpings would result in lawsuits.

NEW YORK
Northern Brands, an R.J. Reynolds tobacco affiliate, pleaded guilty last week to assisting in a cigarette smuggling scheme that slipped cigarettes into Canada to avoid paying more than $2.5 million in U.S. excise taxes.

U.S. Attorney Thomas Maroney last week said that Northern Brands was established by RJR as a cover operation for smuggling cigarettes. “This company knew what it was doing and knew where its products were going,” Maroney told the Associated Press.

Northern Brands was slapped with a $5 million fine and ordered to pay $10 million in forfeiture.

SEOUL, South Korea
Korean workers, long-steeped in a tradition of formal, reserved behavior, are going back to school on the company tab to learn a few new tricks of the trade: smiling, proper greetings, posture, and informality — vital components to competing in the global marketplace.

The market for training in “international manners” is booming in Korea, with a growing number of firms piggybacking on the etiquette program begun by Korea Air in 1992.

That program — the Korean Air Service Academy — pulls in nearly $1 million annually, while dispensing etiquette education intended to make Korean firms seem more friendly in the international marketplace.

Companies are realizing that presentation is as important as product, academy general manger Y.D. Lee told the Associated Press. The difference now “is service — the way of delivery, way of speaking, way of negotiating.”

“Now I would like to read a list of crimes. In most states, persons who have been convicted of these crimes can legally purchase handguns. In each case, tell me if you think the convicted person should or should not be able to purchase a handgun?”

	Should Not	Should
Domestic violence	89%	9%
Assault & battery	85%	14%
Disorderly conduct	84%	15%
Carrying a concealed weapon without a permit	83%	15%
Drunk driving	71%	29%

Don’t Know/Refused excluded; totals may not equal 100%. Source: National Opinion Research Center/Johns Hopkins/Joyce Foundation, reported in Public Agenda. Survey taken January 1998.

Ethical issues involving potential conflicts of interest are among the more difficult dilemmas in business because even if the conflicts do not affect performance they can give that appearance. And when confidence is an issue, appearance of a conflict can be as damaging as the real thing.

That’s the dilemma recounted in this week’s lead story in Business Ethics Newsline, your weekly summary of the top stories in ethics. Cable TV network CNBC has issued a set of guidelines for on-air investment analysts, the intent of which is to ensure that the analysts are not discussing investments from which they profit.

In other news from the world of ethics, we capsulize and link you to various reports about the effects of alcohol in the workplace, including a surprising finding about casual alcohol use.

Three stories this week include information and links relating to court cases: a class-action suit on behalf of Holocaust-era victims filed against two U.S. banks; a sex discrimination case brought against Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; and a fine for smuggling levied against a tobacco company.

Two stories this week revolve around ethical issues relating to Asia: charges that a consultant for a U.S. aerospace firm attempted to bribe Chinese officials, and a complaint by Cambodia that their nation is being used as a toxic-waste dumping ground.

Our regular feature Ethics in the Workplace looks at a Korean school where the subject is manners. Our weekly follow-up on past news stories updates Wal-Mart’s suit against Amazon.com for allegedly stealing trade secrets, and we bring you the story of a Cuban newspaper’s reaction to the reintroduction of Christmas as a legitimate holiday on the island.

And London Correspondent E.B. Mills files a report on a low-interest loan that is stirring high anxiety among members of the British cabinet.

By Vernon Stone, Missouri School of Journalism, excerpted from his Web site at the University of Missouri. For the full report, click here.

Changes in the Code of the Radio-Television News Directors Association reflect changes in broadcast journalism across half a century, from its adoption in 1946 to its use in the modern late-’90s newsroom.

Evolution of the code:

• 1946-47: Newsroom autonomy
• 1950: Basic professional standards
• 1966: Journalistic practices
• 1973: Social consciousness added
• 1987: Corporate consciousness?

As radio network news came into its own during World War II, so did local news just after the war. Stations that had made do with news editors who worked under program directors were now getting news departments headed by news directors.

1946’s NARND Resolutions were the genesis of the RTNDA code. Adopted at the founding convention of the National Association of Radio News Directors (NARND), they called for autonomous news departments. Locally originated news was to be prepared by trained newspeople, not by the staff announcers who ripped and read from the news wire in the old days.

1947’s Code of Standards called for still more upgrades. Examples:

One trained newsperson per station should be the minimum.

Commercials should be clearly separated from news content, preferably not read by the newscaster. A forerunner of Paul Harvey, Mutual’s Gabriel Heatter read his own — going directly from “good news tonight” about the Allied troops fighting Hitler’s forces, to the merits of Kreml hair tonic.

1950’s Code of Standards was a concise, coherent prescription for professionalism. It fit the bill well enough to serve for 16 years. New items included:

Newscasters (later called anchors) shouldn’t be reading stories they didn’t understand.

Commentary, as against news, should be clearly identified as such, as was done by Edward R. Murrow on his 6:45 p.m. (central time) CBS newscast.

News was to be objective, as we practiced it in the 1950s and early ’60s, before David Brinkley and others started preaching that we had been fooling ourselves all along, and there really was no such thing as objectivity.

Sensationalizing was unacceptable.

So was the overuse of bulletins and “flashes.” Stop crying wolf, stations were told. Reserve bulletins for news of “transcendent interest.”

The 1950 code came from the old radio association (NARND, which became RTNDA in 1952), but it served television, as well. Basics tend to apply across media.

1966’s RTNDA Code of Ethics used “ethics” rather than “standards” in the title, though some articles within the document called themselves “standards.” OK, it was written by the RTNDA Ethics and Standards Committee.

It was a lofty code, replete with such terms as “human integrity and devotion” and “solemn intent to honor.”

It was also hard-hitting. “Newsmen shall,” with no in-betweens. Examples:

• “Newsmen shall govern their personal lives” to avoid conflicts of interest.
  
• “…shall make constant efforts to open doors” closed to the reporting of public proceedings using cameras and recorders.
  
• “…shall actively censure” violators of RTNDA’s standards, whether violators were RTNDA members or not. Also:
  
• Resist “interested” efforts to influence news selection or presentation.
  
• Respect everyone’s right to a fair trial.
  
• Treat persons in the news with humane respect. And good manners.

1973’s RTNDA Code of Ethics revision added “shall not misrepresent the source of any broadcast news material,” in part aimed at stations that used video or audio news handouts without identifying their source.

But 1973’s main change was to eliminate the document’s language sex bias. Then attending board meetings as RTNDA research director, I brought the matter up and suggested the new wording–mainly changing “newsman” to “journalist” throughout. I first suggested “newsperson,” but “person” was seen as too radical, as it was several years later when RTNDA’s highest elected officer changed from president to the person who chaired the board of directors. “Chair” was the term used. “Chairperson” sounded too strange. How strange, said the chair to the table.

1987’s RTNDA Code of Broadcast News Ethics, the one in effect at this writing in 1997, came from an Ethics and Standards Committee headed by Jeff Marks, then news director of WCHS-TV, Portland, Maine. Legal counsel had advised that the policing (actively censuring) provision of the 1966/1973 code would invite lawsuits if practiced. Besides, RTNDA leaders found the code was cumbersome with specifics that did not accommodate the growing diversity of types of news programming and approaches to them. The 1987 code dropped some concerns and added some.

Jeff Marks summarized the changes and the rationale for them, and put down the wording of earlier codes, in an RTNDA Communicator article. The new code was well received in RTNDA. But some said the old code had been watered down.

Prof. John Kittross of Temple University, for one, preferred the harder hitting approach and wording of the 1966/73 code. The former longtime editor of the Journal of Broadcasting told why in a letter to the Communicator. . . .

1987 RTNDA Code of Broadcast News Ethics

(adopted August 31, 1987)

The responsibility of radio and television journalists is to gather and report information of importance and interest to the public accurately, honestly and impartially. The members of the Radio-Television News Directors Association accept these standards and will:

1. Strive to present the source or nature of broadcast news material in a way that is balanced, accurate and fair.

A. They will evaluate information solely on its merits as news, rejecting sensationalism or misleading emphasis in any form.
B. They will guard against using audio or video material in a way that deceives the audience.
C. They will not mislead the public by presenting as spontaneous news any material which is staged or rehearsed.
D. They will identify people by race, creed, nationality or prior status only when it is relevant.
E. They will clearly label opinion and commentary.
F. They will promptly acknowledge and correct errors.

2. Strive to conduct themselves in a manner that protects them from conflicts of interest, real or perceived. They will decline gifts or favors which could influence or appear to influence their judgments.

3. Respect the dignity, privacy and well-being of people with whom they deal.

4. Recognize the need to protect confidential sources. They will promise confidentiality only with the intention of keeping that promise.

5. Respect everyone’s right to a fair trial.

6. Broadcast the private transmissions of other broadcasters only with permission.

7. Actively encourage observance of this Code by all journalists, whether members of the Radio-Television News Directors Association or not.

BENTONVILLE, Arkansas
Wal-Mart’s lawsuit against Internet bookseller Amazon.com was slowed down last week after the case’s judge stepped down, recusing himself after disclosing that he owned 6,000 shares of Wal-Mart stock.

Retail giant Wal-Mart sued Amazon.com earlier this year, charging the Internet company with hiring ten ex-Wal-Mart employees in an attempt to gather information about Wal-Mart’s data-warehouse system and other proprietary technology, the Reuters news agency reported.

Amazon.com has denied the charge, which has caught the attention of many technology companies concerned about whether ex-employees inevitably carry trade secrets to their new workplaces.

HAVANA
The Cuban government’s reinstatement of the Christmas holiday was given a Grinch-style reception by one of the country’s leading newspapers, which blasted the traditional icons of Christmas — Santa Claus, Christmas trees, and artificial snow — as rampant “consumerism,” “cultural hegemony,” and “mental colonization.”

The weekly newspaper Trabajadores admonished readers and businesses to eschew the traditional trappings of northern Christmas — which contaminate Cuban identity with the “hagiography of U.S. mercantilism” — in favor of more appropriate, tropical, and socialist symbols and celebrations, Reuters reported.

“The more virtuous any man is, the less easily does he suspect othersto be vicious.”

–Cicero (106-43 B.C.E.)

by Rushworth M. Kidder

Think about five categories of today’s leaders: Hollywood film stars, religious leaders, business leaders, sports stars, and top political leaders. Now rank-order them, from those with the highest moral standards to those with the lowest.

If you put Hollywood at the bottom, you’re in agreement with the results of a survey published earlier this month by The Christian Science Monitor. Conducted in October by Technometrics Institute of Policy and Politics, the telephonic poll of 800 adults found that only 20 percent of the participants thought film-star morality was "excellent" or "good."

Topping the rankings: religious leaders, with a 58 percent "excellent" or "good" rating.

So far, that’s not news; nothing surprising here. But look further, especially at business leaders. With 36 percent of the public giving them an "excellent" or "good" rating of moral standards, they outrank both sports stars (28 percent) and top political leaders (24 percent). Given the way the national pendulum is clanging from outrage to anguish about President Clinton, it’s no wonder that the "political leaders" category barely squeaks in ahead of film stars. More engaging is the higher ranking given to business leaders.

Why engaging? Because the stereotype in many quarters is still of devious, slick executives cutting deals that savage the workforce, evade the law, and line their own pockets. There’s more work to do in dispelling that stereotype: After all, 57 percent of the public thinks the moral standards of business leaders are "poor" or "only fair." But that’s a good measure ahead of the 74 percent who hold the same unflattering view of our top political leaders. One likes to think that, a decade after the real surge began toward corporate codes of ethics, two things have happened: Business ethics has ratcheted upward, and the message about ethical business practices has increasingly reached the public.

Suppose you want the trend to continue. What can business do to help address a moral climate that the public feels, by a two-to-one margin, is worse than it was in the 1950s? The Monitor survey sheds some useful light in three areas:

• MEDIA. Asked what factors lower morality to a great extent, only 18 percent said "magazines" and 20 percent "newspapers." Topping the list: "soap operas on TV" (42 percent) and "television shows" (40 percent). What do these four categories have in common? They’re the main avenues for business advertising. Advertise in print, and 80 percent of the public won’t think you’re contributing to the nation’s moral decline. Advertise on TV, and you’re bucking a stiff headwind that may see you as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. This is a wake-up call, reminding corporations that the trend is moving toward greater accountability. If TV lowers the moral tone, and if you care about the ethical reputation of your business, you need to consider how to be increasingly selective in your TV advertising. You also need to consider whether your very presence on TV could eventually offend two-fifths of your customers.

• FAMILY. Asked how much influence "family" has in maintaining high moral standards, 71 percent said "great influence" — much higher than the 53 percent who said the same for "religion." Here, too, the keepers of corporate ethics need to take notice. Numerous corporations have created programs for childcare, job sharing, and other family-support structures. Many of them reap benefits in stronger employee loyalty, lowered absenteeism, and greater morale. If this survey is any indication, these benefits also can extend to corporate reputation. The public, it seems, will smile on corporations whose policies help hold families together and strengthen their ability to sustain the moral core of our culture.

• SCHOOLS. Asked about the role of the schools in teaching or maintaining high moral and ethical standards, the public makes a sharp distinction between what is and what ought to be. Education should have a "great influence" in improving ethical standards, said 68 percent of the public — a sharp repudiation of the values-neutral view of prior decades, when schools kept themselves aloof from the teaching of values. But there’s still a long way to go: Only 14 percent say that education does have a great influence in this area.

Corporations wanting to support a stronger moral climate in society can read this survey as an open invitation to be wary of the media, jump on family-support programs, and show strong support for character education programs in the schools. And with corporate leaders held in significantly higher repute than political leaders, this is a fine time for business to build on that goodwill, dissolve the stereotypes, and support the raising of moral standards in the media, the family, and the schools.

For more information, see: Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 16.

Comments and questions? E-mail Rushworth Kidder: rkidder@globalethics.org.

	CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies	Number among Top Corporate Officers	Median Salary for Corporate Officers
Women	2	83	$518,596
Men	498	2,184	$765,000

Source: Catalyst 1998 census of women corporate officers, reported in Fast Company.

by Rushworth M. Kidder

To watch official Washington this past week was to see an uncanny parallelism unfolding before our eyes.

On one hand was the impeachment debate. On the other was the bombing of Iraq. For three days, while the two shared space in the headlines, the principal link between them was seen to be the timing.

Did President Clinton in fact use cruise missiles to divert attention from his domestic problems and slow the impeachment process? In the United States, polls suggested that only about one in three Americans thought he did. Overseas, however, large swaths of the media hammered home the connection. That perception was unfortunately reinforced by the cessation of the bombing within hours after Congress voted for impeachment–giving impetus to those who saw the entire foray as a military spigot opened for domestic political advantage and closed when it had no further purpose to serve.

But let’s be generous. Let’s assume the timing really was coincidental, that no president sends U.S. troops into foreign action solely to save his own position, that Clinton was acting on sound military advice. Even with this issue off the table, however, there’s still a curious harmony between these two stories. Had a novelist woven them together, the literary symmetry would have been almost too rich to digest. Consider that each story is about:

• Concealing the truth. In the world’s eyes, Saddam Hussein is widely thought guilty of duplicity, prevarication, and concealment in protecting his weapons programs. Repeatedly he has agreed to comply with inspectors, only to back away from compliance when inspections threatened to uncover serious wrongdoing. Those same charges are leveled against President Clinton, who was impeached for “perjurious, false, and misleading testimony” and for attempting to “delay, impede, cover up, and conceal the existence of evidence.”

• Proportional punishment. Most of the world thinks Saddam is guilty and wants him punished. But the spectacle of missiles falling on Iraqi citizens has caused great consternation, even in countries sometimes allied with the United States. The military strikes appear to many as excessive punishment. But that’s precisely the argument used by the White House in its unsuccessful attempts to persuade Congress to censure rather than impeach the president. The historic and divisive discussion in the House last week did not revolve around guilt. That was already admitted: The Democrat’s own censure motion, in fact, noted that Clinton had “egregiously failed” to “conduct himself in a manner that fosters respect for the truth.” Instead, the rancor was about whether impeachment was the appropriate penalty–the domestic equivalent of whether to rebuke or bomb an offending regime.

• Disruption of comfort. It’s obvious that nobody really wants to deal with Saddam. The coalition of nations that fought the Gulf War in 1991 has dissipated, leaving the United States and Britain to hold Saddam to account. Small wonder: With oil plentiful, a world economic crisis still threatening, no immediate threat of Iraqi military action, and any military action costing into the billions, the tendency is to choose convenient accommodation over firm response. So it is with impeachment. The U.S. economy is moving ahead well: Recent polls indicate that most people expect to do even better next year. What’s more, Clinton has strong popular backing. Why rock the boat?

The irony in all three areas, of course, is that the president found himself using the same arguments against Saddam as were used against him. Accused of evading the truth and stonewalling the independent counsel, he in turn accused Saddam of hiding his real intentions and stonewalling the UNSCOM inspectors. Urging Congress to find a punishment short of removal from office, he reiterated his desire to remove Saddam from office. And even while charging that the entire impeachment process was based on partisan animosities rather than principled commitment, he found his own claims to moral authority undermined by those who saw in the Iraqi contretemps a partisan pro-Israeli/anti-Arab sentiment.

History will indelibly record one side of this parallelism: It will remember December 19 as Impeachment Day. It may forget the three-day bombing of Iraq. Let’s hope so. Let’s hope the parallelism ends now, without history also recording that this bombing ultimately dissolved the diplomacy that could have kept Saddam from building his weapons of mass destruction.

Comments and questions? E-mail Rushworth Kidder: rkidder@globalethics.org.

British historian William Camden devoted his life to the study of medievalinfluences, but he is best known for a quote that succinctly summarizes auniversal truth that applies to any era.

“Agree,” he wrote in the early 17th century, “for the law is costly.”

Our lead story in this week’s edition of Business Ethics Newslineillustrates the durability of Camden’s observation. A quarter-centuryafter it stopped selling asbestos, Owens-Corning has put up a $1.2-billionsettlement to resolve most of its present and future product liabilityclaims. The settlement adds a measure of predictability to the firm’sfuture liability and partially closes the door to unexpected massive damageclaims.

Other stories in our wrap of the week’s top news in ethics deal withbusiness liability of various sorts: an indictment filed in Nebraskacharging that employees of Hudson Foods lied to government inspectorsduring a 1997 hamburger-contamination probe, and a settlement in aninvestigation of hotels that allegedly did not provide adequateaccommodations for the disabled that went beyond compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Several other reports this week deal with international aspects of businessethics, including a call by U.S. lawmakers to resume grain sales to Iran, areport claiming the ghost of apartheid still haunts the South Africanmedical system, a claim that the process of selecting international Olympicsites has been marred by corruption, and a strike by Australian coal miners.

Two medical stories conclude our wrap of the week’s news: a series oflawsuits filed in Texas claiming that HMOs compromise patient care, and adispute over mail-order pharmaceutical sales.

London correspondent E.B. Mills files two analyses this week, about thecontinuing turmoil surrounding former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet,and charges that the British government mishandled the probe into mad cowdisease.