July 10, 1998 All Things Considered (entire program) Requires the RealAudio Player

An index of the day's stories:

Abiola Autopsy -- Nigerians have been waiting for three days for foreign experts to carry out an autopsy on the body of opposition leader Moshood Abiola, who died on Tuesday during meetings with an American undersecretary of state. Police have used tear gas to disperse crowds and officials are hoping to stave off large-scale riots. The BBC's Hillary Anderson reports. (1:30)

International Criminal Court -- Delegates from more than 150 countries are attending a United Nations-sponsored month-long conference in Rome to discuss the creation of an international criminal court. Under discussion are the possible jurisdiction and authorities of the court, which could include the prosecution of genocide and war crimes. The United States is opposed to an independent tribunal with broad powers to investigate war crimes suspects across the globe and has said it could agree to the creation of the court only if its automatic jurisdiction were limited to genocide charges. More than 50 countries, including some of the strongest allies of the U.S., oppose Washington's position.

Changing German Orthography -- NPR's Edward Lifson reports from Berlin on moves to simplify written German. This summer the country will officially adopt a a new system of spelling and punctuation rules, so that Germans will have an easier time writing their language correctly. Some linguistic purists are protesting this dumbing down of the language of Goethe and Schiller. (4:00)

Doozer's Oyster -- Jeffrey Tayler visited a bookstore in Athens and found himself face to face with American college students and their amazing nylon and Goretex attire. The students are typically obnoxious, and it makes Tayler think about naivete of the young travelers with their silly outfits. But there is something sweet about them, too, in their belief that the world is their oyster. (3:30)

Reporters and Producers -- Two CNN producers responsible for a major investigative story lost their jobs after the network retracted the story last week. On the other hand, correspondent Peter Arnett saved his job by claiming to have had almost no input into the story. Collaboration between reporters and producers is a broadcast news tradition...dating back to the days of the great television documentaries like "Harvest of Shame." But today, a high-pressured mix of budget cutting within the news divisions and the proliferation of the newsmagazine format is causing some reporters to complain they are shut out of their own stories. NPR's Brooke Gladstone reports. (6:00)

Smashing Your Television -- The Taliban Islamic Movement of Afghanistan has given citizens 15 days to rid themselves of their televisions. They deem TVs "the cause of corruption in this society." TV repairman Jerry Levey of Falls Church, Virginia, offers advice on how to dispose of a tv set safely. (1:30)

'Pi' and 'Whatever' -- Movie critic Bob Mondello has reviews of two new independent films: "Pi," a thriller involving a math genius, and "Whatever," which is about a teenager in trouble. Mondello says that "Whatever" is a gritty and vivid picture that will probably scare the heck out of the parents of teenagers nationwide -- but its story is a little unfocused. "Pi," on the other hand, is an extremely well-written movie with equal parts Kafkaesque paranoia and Hitchcockian suspense. Though neither film is likely to challenge any of the summer blockbusters at the box office, Mondello says that both movies are worth a look. (5:00)

Friday Sports Talk -- Robert talks with Stephan Fatsis, who covers sports and sports business for the Wall Street Journal. They talk about Sunday's finals in the World Cup soccer tournament, which will pit Brazil against France. (4:00)

French Soccer Craze -- Jennifer Ludden reports from Paris that although the French have traditionally refrained from the soccer madness of Italians, Brazilians or Englishmen, things have changed with this year's World Cup. As host of the championship, France has thrown itself into the sport with wild abandon. While the French players have gone from victory to victory into the finals, their compatriots have shown growing appreciation for the many non-native Frenchmen on the team. (4:00)

GM Strike Update -- NPR's Don Gonyea reports from Flint, Michigan, that General Motors is pushing hard for a settlement this weekend to strikes by the United Auto Workers union at two GM parts plants. The auto maker is eager to re-start production on Monday, when GM's traditional two-week summer shutdown would have normally ended. UAW officials say there's been some progress in daily talks between the two sides in Flint, but they don't think a resolution to the strikes is imminent. The strikes have paralyzed most of GM's North American plants at a loss of millions of dollars a week. (3:45)

UPS and the Teamsters -- Joshua Levs of member station WABE in Atlanta reports United Parcel Service has informed the Teamsters Union that a key part of the agreement that ended last summer's bitter strike is now "null and void." UPS says a commitment to create 2,000 additional full-time jobs was dependent upon the volume of business returning to pre-strike levels. The company says that hasn't happened and so it won't be adding jobs any time soon. Union officials accused UPS of deliberately misinterpreting the contract. (3:45)

Church Sex Abuse -- A final settlement was reached today in a sexual abuse case involving a former Catholic clergyman in Dallas, Texas -- bringing to an end one of the largest and costliest clergy-abuse cases in the U.S. The Catholic Diocese of Dallas today agreed to pay 23.4 million dollars to a group of plaintiffs who claimed they were abused by former priest Rudolph Kos. Last year, 11 victims, most of them former altar boys, who claimed they were molested by Kos received $119.6 million in a civil suit, the largest judgment ever levied against a diocese. NPR's Wade Goodwyn reports. (3:30)

Coppola Settlement -- NPR's Mandalit delBarco reports that a jury has awarded film director Francis Ford Coppola 80 million dollars in damages in a dispute between the filmmaker and the Warner Brothers studio. Coppola accused the studio of souring a deal with a competitor over a film he wished to make. It is the largest award in a civil verdict against a Hollywood studio. (3:30)

The Scorcher -- Noah talks with Wes Williams, owner of the Crested Butte Bicycle company in Colorado. The bicycles Williams builds are called Scorchers, but neither the Scorcher name nor its design were his idea. Scorcher bicycles were popular in the 1890s when bicycles were the fastest wheeled vehicles on sidewalks and streets. The Scorcher bicycles Williams makes are similar in design to their late nineteenth century predecessors. They have only one gear and since they have no free wheel, they do not coast. Williams thinks this is cycling the way it was meant to be. (STATIONS: The Crested Butte Bicycle Company.

Mars Drill -- Space travel is full of images of romance and all-American heroes. Even when men and women aren't rocketing into orbit, the exploration of the solar system has captured the public's imagination, as in the case of the recent Mars explorer mission. But the nuts and bolts of getting robots on Mars is anything but glamorous. Reporter Marianne McCune reports on a rag-tag team of engineers working out of a Manhattan loft that's trying to build a key piece of equipment for the next Mars mission, while trying to keep its NASA bosses happy. (7:15)

First Fire -- Noah talks with Rick Potts, an anthropologist at the National Museum of Natural History. They discuss new evidence that suggests humans learned how to control and use fire at least 100,000 years later than previously believed. The study shows that a cave to the southwest of Beijing -- where "Peking Man," a type of Homo erectus which died out 100,000 years ago was discovered -- lacks chemical evidence that the fire used there was man-made, rather than occurring naturally. (4:30)

'The Shadow' -- Book reviewer Alan Cheuse says that the short novel "The Shadow" by Americo Paredes is a fitting choice to inaugurate a new series of books called "Pioneers of Modern U.S. Hispanic Literature." It's steeped in Mexican history and folklore, and touches on issues of class and ownership.

Shipp Family Singers -- In the spring of 1939, folklorist Herbert Halpert and his assistant, Abbott Ferris, set out in an old army ambulance refitted with a disc cutter to record the sounds of Mississippi. One of the groups they recorded was the Shipp family from Byhalia. The Shipps learned all of their songs by ear and Isaac, the only one from that 1939 recording session still alive, still remembers songs and tunes he learned in Mississippi as well as those he learned after he signed on to a freighter that took him to Africa in 1935. Folklorist Steven Wade says the sounds of words are often the key to the oral tradition -- and the sounds Isaac Shipp learned to mimic remain with him like the entries in a diary. This item is unavailable due to copyright issues.