July 6, 1987

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COVER

The Superstar

He was a scrawny kid, with a face scarred by acne and a shock of hair the color of mouldy hay. He had a high school education and no experience in the music business. But one summer night in 1976, after hearing a local rock band perform in Surrey, B.C., Bryan Guy Adams, 16, strode boldly up to the group’s producer and announced that he could sing better than its vocalist. By NICHOLAS JENNINGS10 min

Canada at 120: future hocks

The 20 years since Canada celebrated its centennial in 1967 in some ways have been similar to the first two decades of Confederation. On Canada Day 1987, as on Dominion Day in 1887, the country bears the marks of 20 tumultuous years which, at times, have threatened its very survival but also have demonstrated its resilience. By MARK NICHOLS9 min

Q&A:

Chernobyl’s high cost

Hospital No. 6 in downtown Moscow has become world-famous in the past 14 months. The massive state institution is where Dr. Robert Gale and his team of American specialists have been treating Soviet radiation victims since the April 26, 1986, nuclear accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant. By ROBERT GALE6 min

WORLD

The battle of Seoul

Once again the streets of Seoul reverberated with the deafening blare of horns and the crack of tear-gas canisters. After five days of relative calm—during which President Chun Doo-hwan held inconclusive talks with opposition leader Kim Young-sam on the crucial issue of constitutional reform—South Koreans in the tens of thousands reignited their protests on June 26.

BUSINESS

Private plans for Air Canada

A Maple Leaf is emblazoned on each of Air Canada’s 109 white jets, symbolizing not only a national identity but also a government transportation policy. The state-owned airline has linked the country’s major cities and smaller centres since its establishment 50 years ago as Trans-Canada Airlines. By ANN SHORTELL6 min

COVER

Seeking Pop’s Promised Land

Bob Rock and Paul Hyde know all too well the importance of a name. As leaders of the Payola$, the popular Vancouver punk band, they discovered that the music business found their group’s name—with its reference to the industry’s bribery scandals of the 1950s and 1960s—too inflammatory. By RUTH ATHERLEY6 min

AN AMERICAN VIEW

Blossoms of American springtime

When the Donna Rice affair detonated Gary Hart’s presidential hopes, there must have been jubilation in the opposing camp. No matter who the Republicans nominated in 1988, Hart would have been a formidable opponent, and there he was, all of a sudden, wounded, humiliated, out of the running, gone, goodbye, dead to the world, poof! Just like that, American history twitched.

COLUMN

Sometimes they shoot heroes

So the Alouettes have folded. There is little hope for humanity when these guys muck around with my memories. Some things are inviolate. An old jock’s sensibilities are one of those things. Toy with my memories and you’re touching on valuable territory. By Allan Fotheringham4 min

CANADA

Violence on the lines

As the long day of picketing neared its end, Daniel Ernewein voiced a sense of relief. He and his fellow letter carriers had put up their picket lines outside a mail-sorting plant and two postal stations in Prince George, B.C., at 5:45 a.m. Linking arms to form a human chain, the picketers had managed to prevent outside workers and mail trucks hired by Canada Post from entering the postal facilities.

FOLLOW-UP

Shadows from the past

On the wall of a deserted hotel in the area of central Uganda known as the Luwero Triangle, the graffiti scrawled by soldiers of deposed president Milton Abote are still legible: “A good Muganda is a dead Muganda.” The Mugandas are part of the Baganda tribe, whose land the Luwero Triangle is.

BUSINESS WATCH

A threat to the public interest

Seldom has there been as clear a division between public and private interest as in the case of Dome Petroleum Ltd., which is on the brink of either going into bankruptcy, finally resolving its troubled finances, or being taken over by an American energy giant. By Peter C. Newman4 min

June 291987