December 3, 1984

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CANADA/COVER

Lévesque’s bold gamble on survival

The grim faces emerging from caucus, the brusque refusals to comment, the jostling of waiting reporters and, ultimately, the empty seats on the government benches told the story: Premier René Lévesque’s government was in the throes of a bitter crisis.

CANADA/COVER

Secrets in the highest places

The first signals were seemingly trivial. After taking office on Sept. 17, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney did not hold a press conference for three weeks. Then, when he left for an October vacation in Florida, his office adamantly refused to say where exactly he was staying.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

A feud among the factions

The seeds of the financial upheaval were sown quietly in the United States. In the past decade major U.S. firms such as Chicago-based Sears Roebuck & Co. have begun spreading their corporate tentacles, giving birth to a new phenomenon in the business world: financial supermarkets for consumers that offer everything from banking and insurance to real estate services under one roof. By Ian Austen, Patricia Best6 min

WORLD

Calling the PLO to order in Amman

Her doctor warned Rukayya Houry that she would die if she made the trip. But the 76-year-old heart patient from Beirut came anyway, arriving in Jordan on a stretcher. "I'll die if I don’t go,” Houry said. “So I might as well die there.” The cause that rallied Houry—and hundreds of other Palestinians—was the 17th session of the Palestine National Council (PNC), a quasi-parliament-in-exile for the world’s best-known guerrilla organization, the Palestine Liberation Organization.

CONSUMERISM

Visions of GoBots dancing in heads

As the holiday season approaches, there are few dreams of sugarplums in the minds of children— but there are plenty of Autobots, otherwise known as GoBots or Dynabots. A flick of a small wrist can convert the robotic “transformers” from robots into cars, tractors and spaceships.

COLUMN

The season for plain truths

There are two sure ways to tell Christmas is approaching. The first: retail stores start putting up Christmas decorations. The second: forecasting groups make a special effort to polish their crystal balls and predict what will happen in the new year. By Dian Cohen5 min

MUSIC

A black star blazes in pop’s heavens

Seduction. It begins on a smoky stage, with a musical sermon preaching hedonism. It finishes two hours later in a shower of cascading guitar notes and mauve and crimson lights. Decked out in a ruffled shirt, skin-tight pants and lace gloves, the slim, sexually ambiguous figure of Prince delivers sensuous, provocative anthems about steamy sex and the Apocalypse. By Nicholas Jennings5 min

LETTERS

Indira’s India

Your excellent issue “India after Gandhi” (Cover, Nov. 12), with its coverage of the outraged Hindu backlash after the barbaric killing of Indira Gandhi, has stirred me to say that India is now plunged into deeper crisis. The integrity of India is now at stake.

FOLLOW-UP

A net for the fisheries

In early 1982 five of Atlantic Canada’s largest fishery companies were near bankruptcy. With 44,000 jobs in jeopardy in a chronically depressed region, the failure of the fish companies threatened not only the fragile economy but, for many fishermen, a traditional way of life. By MICHAEL CLUGSTON5 min

DATELINE: LEWISTON, N.Y.

An explosive nuclear legacy

Ten kilometres north of Niagara Falls, where visitors from Canada take a bridge over the gorge into New York state, sits the quiet, wooded town of Lewiston which the British burned down in the War of 1812. Just outside the town, a concrete tower filled with thousands of tons of radioactive waste looms over 190 acres of contaminated scrubland. By CY JAMISON4 min

BUSINESS WATCH

Advice of a beached acquisitor

"I want to give you a message,” Peter Thomas is saying with that born-yesterday sincerity that allowed him to spin half-a-dozen mediocre franchising ideas into two personal fortunes. “We were victims of the King Arthur disease,” the Victoriabased entrepreneur explains, referring to the high-flying Western Canadian acquisitors grounded by the recession but now timidly starting to fly again. By Peter C. Newman4 min

November 261984