The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 84

D4 THE BOSTON SUNDAY 6L0BE OCTOBER 13, 1996 Focus on: 105-1012 IRA hits British; Nobel rewards East Timor activists; Simpson, Delahunt Center on the block World TRUCE EXPLODES tory for Simpson, said former Detective Mark Fuhr-man's no-contest plea to perjury last week persuaded him to allow the same line of defense that proved so powerful at Simpson's criminal trial. The judge also gave the defense a boost by letting Simpson's lawyers argue that a pair of bloody socks in his bedroom might be part of a frame-up. Similarly, Fujisaki said the defense could argue that blood belatedly collected from a back gate at Nicole Brown Simpson's condominium was planted. a similar neurological disorder. PEACE PRIZE IN EAST TIMOR A Roman Catholic bishop and an exiled activist won the Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their work to end the conflict in East a former Portuguese colony an- nexed by Indonesia in 1976.

Indonesia expressed "re-' gret" at the decision to honor Bishop Carlos Filipe Xi-menes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta, accusing Ramos-Horta of being "clearly involved in inciting and manipulating the people of East Timor." The Nobel committee, for its part, accused Indonesia of persecuting the people of East Timor and said the prize was given in hopes it would "spur efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict." would boost the neighborhood's economy. But the building was closed last year because Registry workers were getting sick from the materials used in fireproofing. The building will be auctioned Nov. 7. MINORITY CONTRACTS SHRINK The goal of having minority-owned companies get 80 percent of contracts to renovate 10 rundown Boston housing developments has been reduced to 30 percent by state officials afraid of anti-affirmative action suits, it was learned last week.

The original goal was said to be the most ambitious affirmative action plan of its kind in the nation. However, it was questioned in May by federal officials who cited US Supreme Court cases against affirmative action, and President Clinton's desire to moderate race-based politics. The housing developments to be renovated are in Boston's Roxbury and Dorchester sections. Irish Republican Army guerrillas bombed Britain's army headquarters in Northern Ireland Monday, injuring 11 civilians and 20 soldiers, one of whom died later in the week. Authorities said a 500-pound car bomb exploded in a parking lot inside Britain's Northern Ireland army nerve center, while a second appeared to have Metro DELAHUNT WINS FINALLY i Nation AP PHOTO To the rescue in Ulster i I Health The state Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday de- clared William Delahunt the winner of the disputed 10th Congressional District primary.

The court upheld a Idwer judge's finding that many ballots originally declared blanks by Weymouth officials were, in fact, Votes for Delahunt That gave Delahunt 175 votes more contender Philip Johnston, who had been declared the win lJ a GLOBE PHOTO J. WIGGS Delighted to have won i been placed to hit people being evacuated to an army medical center for treatment. It was believed to be the biggest attack involving British military personnel in Northern Ireland in several years. The blast shattered efforts by Britain and the Irish Republic to get pro-Irish and pro-British guerrilla groups to the negotiating table to forge a political settlement. POPE RECOVERING Pope John Paul II had his appendix removed Tues-day and doctors said the operation showed he was not suffering from another tumor.

Vatican-watchers had been skeptical of a Vatican statement last month that three bouts of fever John Paul, 76, had suffered since Christmas were caused by recurrent inflammation of the appendix. Some doctors had speculated that the Polish-born leader of the Roman Catholic Church, who in 1992 had a tumor removed, might have another. But last week doctors gave him a clean bill of health on that front. Still, questions remained about why the pope's left hand trembles violently. The Vatican has not denied reports that it could be a sign of Parkinson's disease or INVESTIGATORY BLUFF US intelligence agents tried bluffing in unsuccessful attempts to find out if extremist groups blew up TWA Flight 800, and if so, which was responsible, according to information made available by sources last week.

Two bluffs were attempted in the Middle East by.the CIA and other agencies. The first ploy involved telling religious and extremist groups that other groups were quietly taking responsibility for blowing up the 747 jetliner over the Atlantic Ocean. The hope was that those actually responsible would get angry and indicate they had done it. When that failed, the agents reportedly indicated to groups that they were being accused by other organizations of causing the explosion: But as one source put it, "It was all met with deafening silence." The plane exploded about 10 miles off Long Island on July 17, killing all 230 on board. THE BLOODY GLOVE IS BACK O.

J. Simpson can claim a frame-up at his civil trial, too, and argue that police planted the bloody glove and socks at his estate, a judge ruled Friday. Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki, in a ruling seen as a vic BREAST CANCER-ABORTION LINK? A study released Friday concludes that a woman who has an abortion raises her risk of breast cancer by 30 percent. But the study which appears in a peer-reviewed journal of the British Medical Association and is co-authored by a researcher known to write for anti-abortion newsletters was quickly labeled invalid by other experts in the field. Researchers agree that a burst of hormones at the start of a pregnancy causes breasts to grow.

When a pregnancy goes to term, it is believed, another round of hormones turns the primitive cells into milk-producing cells. That protects mothers from breast cancer. It is generally believed that women who have abortions lose that benefit What experts don't agree on is whether an abortion adds risk. The theory behind the controversial study is that when a pregnancy is interrupted, the excess cells remain undeveloped and are more likely to become cancerous. ner in the original vote tally on Sept 17.

The ruling ended what was one of the longest electoral cliff-hangers in Massachusetts political history. DO I HEAR $26 MILLION? BankBoston is foreclosing on the Ruggles Center building that housed the Registry of Motor Vehicles until hundreds of workers got sick there because of the. quality of air, it was learned last week. Metropolitan Structures-Columbia Plaza Ventures had borrowed $26 million to build the nine-story building in the city's Rox-bury section. State and city officials had hoped the building would be the anchor for other buildings that DAVID NYHAN Gun lobbies loaded for bear in Maine race "BUSHMASTER BUILDS A BETTER M16." "FORCE rooted in JUSTICE backed by MORAL COURAGE -that's what America is about!" "Pat Buchanan during the Republican Na Letter from the trail a Center for Family Business, which chose Collins to head it.

State records for 1994 show people associated with Bushmaster contributed $13,500 to Collins' race for governor. She ran third, behind Gov. Angus King, an independent, and Brennan. For her Senate race, Collins received $4,950 from the National Rifle Association's Victory Fund, as well as $7,000 'rom executives and employees (and their relatives) of Bushmaster and an associated company, Quality Parts Co. There may be even more gun money in the pipeline for Collins.

From what's reported to date, there's no apparent illegality here. But that's not to say there is no connection between the money flowing from an assault weapons manufacturer and Collins' positions. She would vote to repeal the assault weapons ban. And she joins with the NRA in opposing the addition of chemical tracers to explosives used by terrorists, which I I. I jf I lie- prises" in store for Clinton, raising the possibility that he will go after the president on the so-called character questions.

So far, Dole's style has been to raise questions indirectly, saying that he won't discuss the Whitewater affair and thus reminding viewers about it. Dole sought to find a middle ground by aggressively seeking interviews on an array of media outlets. But while he quickly appeared on the evening television news programs and on Rush Lim-. baugh's and Imus' radio shows, he was hot successful in his effort to appear on Oprah Winfrey's show. Dole wanted to try to close the gender gap by appearing on the show that has 15 million to 20 million viewers, but Winfrey said, "I QUOTE OF THE WEEK "Bozo's on his way out." BOB DOLE Referring to President Clinton after a supporter called Clinton a bozo.

There were two Republican campaigns at work last week. First, there was the campaign that could be seen in the presidential and vice presidential debates polite, even deferential at times. Bob Dole ly raised questions about President Clinton's character, while Jack Kemp said it would be "beneath" Dole to attack Clinton personally. But the second campaign could 1994 AP RLE PHOTO JOSEPH BRENNAN tional Convention talked about a situation during the LA Riots when two National Guardsmen with 'Ml6s at the ready' repelled a mob bent on looting and burning an elderly convalescent "Dear Friends: The LA riots opened the eyes and hopefully the minds of many concerning home defense and personal PORTLAND, Maine These passages come from an ad in Soldier of Fortune Magazine Fighting Firearms Annual, 1992, for Bushmaster, an assault weapons manufacturer based in Maine. One of the principals of the company, Dick Dyke, is also co-chairman of the US Senate campaign of Susan Collins, the Republican nominee.

With the enthusiastic backing of the National Rifle Association and Maine groups that oppose gun control, Collins, 43, is in a close race with former Maine Gov. Joseph Brennan, 61, for the seat being vacated by retiring GOP Sen. William Cohen. A Channel 6 poll this week handi-. capped the race as: Brennan 47 percent; Collins 44; John Rensenbrink of the Green Party, and Bill Clarke of the Taxpayers Party, 3.

Dyke is an enthusiastic Collins backer. After Collins lost her governor's race, Dyke made a $265,000 donation to his alma mater, Husson College, to establish would make their capture easier for authorities. Brennan is pushing the issue. Because Joe Brennan goes back a long way with guns. For starters, he thinks he knows who it was that shot up his house back in the days when he was the city's prosecutor.

Brennan was Cumberland County Attorney in 1971 (with an eager young Maine lawyer named George Mitchell as his assistant). Brennan has reason to believe that the shooter was a local hood who resented being brought up on criminal charges, and who eventually came to a bad end. It happened at noon on a Sunday, right after church. Brennan was in the neighborhood don't do politicians." Clinton, meanwhile, continued to use the powers of the presidency to reach out to key voting blocs. On" Thursday, appealing especially to younger voters, Clinton announced a $100 million program to upgrade the capabilities of the hardly have been more different.

Dole, who for weeks declined many interview requests, did an. about-face by appearing on every network television and radio show he could. On almost every occasion, he talked about the White House's handling of FBI files, drug use Hirrrrnririmmmlin m'" AP PHOTO Is that "Send in the Clowns" I hear? arms exercise of choice. "I don't want agents like my son facing AK47s," is Brennan's position, and I find it eminently understandable. I don't think any American civilian should have to face the business end of an AK-47, or a Streetsweeper, or any other of the exoti-cally titled man-killer weapons flogged by gun merchants.

Nobody wants to eat deer meat garnished with assault weapon ammo; it's very tough on the dental work. Well, maybe not "nobody." Before the Maine Women's Lobby, Brennan argued: "We've got to get serious on crime. We" can't kowtow to the gun lobby day in and day out. You don't need AK-47s and Uzis to hunt in the Maine woods." Collins disagreed, calling for repeal of the assault weapon ban. "This law is a sham," she said, "By Joe's logic, we ought to ban handguns." That suggestion brought a round of applause from the Women's Lobby members, according to an account the next day in the Bangor News.

The National Organization of Women has endorsed Brother Brennan over Sister Collins, in part because of her pro-gun speeches. The NRA's lobbying clout is considerable because of the gun lobby's free-spending ways. Gun enthusiasts put up $440,000 for the short-lived presidential campaign of Texas Sen. Phil Gramm. Common Cause counted $3.6 million from the NRA political action committee contributed to congressmen who voted to repeal the federal ban on assault weapons.

"You can see in case after case a clear correlation between the money from special interests and the votes taken by people who receive the money," said Don Simon of Common Cause. David Nyhan is a Globe columnist i 'l' i i I I I A nearby; his wife and two kids were inside when the gunman let fly. Police came too late to catch the brazen gunman, but dug out three spent bullets from the walls of infant daughter Tara's bedroom, one of them 2 feet from where she lay in her crib. In subsequent elections that made him governor and congressman, Brennan came to amicable terms with Maine's large and energetic sportsmen's and hunters' lobbies. "I'm not for taking away hunters' guns." But assault weapons are another story.

Brennan's son J. 26, is a Secret Service agent whose line of work sometimes requires him to serve warrants and make arrests in some of the most dicey precincts of the metropolitan New York region. His father knows it's dangerous work, made even more dangerous by the proliferation of assault weapons in high-crime neighborhoods where deer-hunting and potting ducks is not the fire- I i at the White House and Whitewater. To top it off, when Dole was urged by a supporter to "get Bozo out of the White House," Dole jauntily replied, "Bozo's on his way out!" All of this led to stories that Dole was changing his strategy, going on the attack against Clinton and willingly raising the character issue. But Dole clearly had second thoughts.

Appearing on Don Imus' radio show, Dole said that his campaign surveys have found that every time he attacks Clinton, it is a "turnoff for women voters. Women voters, of course, are the key to the election. While Dole is about even with Clinton among men, he is about 30 points behind the president among women. All of this has sent mixed signals and heightened the importance of the second and final presidential debate, to be held Wednesday night in San Diego. Dole now says he may have some "sur- Internet.

The bottom line is that the race last week seemed to remain exactly where it has been for weeks. Clinton has a strong double-digit lead in the polls as he reminds voters of his accomplishments, while Dole and Jack Kemp continue to try to popularize their 15 percent tax cut proposal with a skeptical electorate. So the question hanging in the air this week is which Dole will show up Wednesday: the polite ex-senator who wants to debate issues, or the hard-charging candidate who will present a detailed brief against the president's character? Dole's effort to be this year's "comeback kid" could hang in the balance. MICHAEL KRANISH For extensive information on Campaign '96, see Globe Online at Boston.com, which can be found at http:wwiv.boston.com. Use tlie keyword: campaign.

1996 AP FILE PHOTO SUSAN COLLINS.