Susanna Stromberg

There were the weeks spent in the neonatal intensive care unit with Anna hooked up to tubes and wires. Then the neurologist’s devastating report that 90 percent of Anna’s brain was irreparably destroyed due to a freak accident in the womb. Finally, the prognosis of severe cerebral palsy and an utter unawareness of her own existence. Our decision to let our terminally ill baby die. Her slow but peaceful death at home.

All of these memories flooded my brain and made small talk trivial, if not impossible. Surreptitiously I slipped another Xanax into my mouth.

A slender woman with frizzy black hair looked at me. Did I know her? Did she see me pop the pill? I smiled blankly as she walked in my direction. Then I recognized her. We developed photos at the same darkroom. I felt relieved. We had something in common to talk about.

We greeted each other. Then she asked a seemingly benign question: “Have you been doing photography long?”

I could have kept it simple and said, “No.” But that didn’t explain the reason I started or why I continue. Photography has been a lifesaver for me. In the darkroom I can slip into another reality — free of grief — as I watch images magically appear from blank paper. I feel like myself again, if only for a few hours.

I took a chance and said it: “My baby died …”

The woman’s face went pale. She stared at me as the words hung in the air between us. Then she mumbled something unintelligible under her breath, turned and walked to the other side of the room to join a group of people, none of whom, presumably, were talking about dead babies.

I was so surprised by her reaction that I almost started laughing. Shouldn’t I, not her, have been speechless and uncomprehending? For me, speaking about Anna is a release, a way to maintain her memory. To remain silent and pretend she never existed feels false and claustrophobic. While I did not expect this woman to relate, her rudeness and my new role as social pariah stunned me.

Since Anna’s death, I have discovered just how common this woman’s reaction is. As psychotherapist Sukie Miller explains in her book “Finding Hope When a Child Dies,” the inclination to deny the death of a child is rooted in our very language. “When your husband dies, you become a widow. When your wife dies, a widower,” she writes. “Children who lose their parents are called orphans. But we have no name for the parent who loses a child …”

This silencing, according to Miller, has grave consequences for the bereaved parent. “The fact that there is no name for the one who has lost a child is of enormous consequence: The nameless live in a kind of limbo. They still exist, but in a new stratosphere where their namelessness effectively isolates them from the rest of the world.”

Our culture’s need to erase or lessen the magnitude of painful events by trying to deny them is understandable. Caring for Anna as she died was by far the most difficult and isolating experience of my life. Ironically, it was also the richest and most life-affirming. Amid administering medicine rectally to control her seizures, soothing her as she choked on the smallest amount of water, and listening to her agonized breathing as her body began to break down, I got to hold our daughter, to kiss her and smell her. I got to feel, if only for a month, the purest form of love and heartbreak.

It has been more than a year since she died, and I continue to experience the long reach of grief in every part of my life; but the pain has lessened and I have positive memories of the short time I spent with my daughter. I have photographs of her father holding her, of our little family sitting together on the couch in the hospital, and I have the little blue hat that she wore.

For women whose babies are stillborn, the evidence of a real baby is not so tangible even as they grieve their absence. Having the opportunity to see and hold their stillborn babies is frightening and magical at once. Being provided with hand and footprints of the baby, and photographs, can be essential to their ability to come to terms with (not forget) their baby’s existence.

And yet, a recent study by psychiatrist Patricia Hughes at St. George’s Hospital Medical School in London, published in the Lancet medical journal, now potentially threatens a woman’s future right to see or hold her stillborn baby.

Using a group of just 65 women (some 26,000 babies are stillborn each year in the United States alone, or one in every 138 births, according to the National Center for Health Statistics), the study ostensibly sought to determine whether the now common practice of encouraging mothers of stillborn babies to hold their babies had any “beneficial effects on the psychological health of mother and next-born child.”

While Dr. Hughes and her colleagues conceded that their methods were flawed — how is it possible to predict the impact on a woman’s long-term mental health through short-term observation? — and that a follow-up study is necessary, they concluded that holding the babies had no beneficial effects on the mothers because the women in the study appeared to be upset, disoriented and shocked.

“Our overall impression was that most mothers were shocked, and had no clear plan of how to manage the situation: they simply went along with whatever was expected of them,” Dr. Hughes and her colleagues wrote in the Lancet. “[W]e speculate that sometimes, seeing and holding the dead infant further traumatises a woman who is already intensely distressed and physically exhausted.”

Numbers and methods aside, the most fundamental flaw of the study is the implication that exhibiting grief and anxiety when faced with a stillborn baby is somehow unnatural, that negative reactions to a baby’s death can and should be avoided, and that one way to avoid pain is to keep the baby out of sight, to prevent any memories from forming, and to not talk about the tragedy.

These findings directly contradict more than 30 years of well-established medical and psychological evidence indicating that seeing or holding her stillborn baby is integral to a mother’s ability to work through her grief.

“Just as in the usual bonding process, there is a transformation from one’s attachment to an unseen, ‘inside’ baby to a visible touchable ‘outside’ child,” wrote Irving Leon and Erna Furman in their 1990 book “When a Baby Dies: Psychotherapy for Pregnancy and Newborn Loss.”

“Parents are better able to accept the reality of their child’s death if they view the baby’s body,” they continued, citing numerous scientific studies that corroborate this. “The mother’s heightened attachment to her unborn child as he begins to move within her body may make the touching and holding of his lifeless body especially important in facilitating mourning.

“Viewing the dead baby provides a tangible form through which her love for her unborn child can be expressed or mourned,” they concluded. “It is not surprising, therefore, that virtually every researcher or clinician who has worked with victims of perinatal loss has recommended that the parents be given an opportunity for contact with the dead baby in order to facilitate the grieving process.”

In promoting the idea that it is bad for women to see and hold their stillborn babies, the Lancet study provides a credible excuse to medical personnel and clergy who would prefer to not face this difficult situation. As a result, it could have grave consequences for future bereaved mothers who give birth in hospitals that have eliminated the option.

Like it or not, the anxiety and grief that result from losing a baby don’t simply disappear because you try to suppress them. Nor should they. However painful it might be, the grief feels right because it is equal in magnitude to the loss of your baby. The only way to move forward and rebuild your life is to accept that your worst nightmare really did happen, and to find ways to honor your baby’s memory.

Anna was a beautiful, perfectly formed baby. Looking at the photographs of her, which we keep around the house, you can’t tell that anything was wrong. Neither her sweet smile nor her peaceful sleeping face betrays the gruesome fact that most of her brain was permanently destroyed. Just the other day, a new friend saw her photo and cheerfully said, “Whose baby is that?”

“Our baby,” I said, proudly.

As I prepare for the birth of my second baby, a boy, I am no longer gripped with the searing pain of her loss — I have accepted it. I find myself smiling at her photograph as I imagine telling my son about his older sister, a remarkable little baby who changed my life.

One of the most unbearable aspects of losing a baby is the fear that she will be forgotten — but forgetting is impossible. When the growing baby inside you is unexpectedly stillborn you don’t simply forget and move on. The memory of your baby takes shape inside you, filling the void of the physical baby who once inhabited your womb.

Being able to ground these memories in the acts of seeing and holding our babies, being able to talk about them, enables us to come to terms with the loss, work through our grief, move forward with our lives, and continue to honor our babies in a culture that prefers to defer pain and is ill-prepared to deal with death.

To not have this, to not have had the opportunity to touch or smell or hold that baby — even when it is born dead — would be yet another terrible loss.

“Now, I am going outside to smoke,” Professor Frankel said, rising from the table trailing his linen napkin, walking with the shuffle of an old man.

“He said that to me before,” Astrid said, nonchalantly. “I just looked at him like he’d told me it was raining. I like to make him squirm.”

To think: Only a year before, when I was senior in college, I was still seeking out Frankel’s time and attention. Now the thought of being alone with him made me shudder. But since he was my favorite teacher — a prominent, talented writer who bathed me in the strange, intimate flattery of being a favorite student — it was difficult to overestimate his impact on my life. Other than my parents, he was the only adult who had ever taken a strong interest in me. And I credited him with helping me get through college. But now with his words of “love” and “walking around inside my mind” he’d brought the unpleasant truth of our relationship crashing into my consciousness. Behind all our discussions about language and literature, we had always, quietly, been speaking about something more unruly — that precarious place where fact and fiction blur, where teacher and student meet and fall, somehow, in love.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
-

“This is a class about reporting the truth, Stromberg. You’ve given me lies,” Frankel bellowed from the back of the classroom in the first real class of my freshman year of college. The room was deadly silent; all my classmates stared at me. Moments earlier he had showered me with praise. “This is wonderful writing. Wonderful! Now, read it in your father’s voice.”

He’d jumped from his chair and raised his right arm, pointing at me like a
conductor poised for the finale of a movement.

“P-professor,” I stuttered.

“Just do it! You’ve heard your father speak a thousand times, just mimic him. Don’t be nervous. If you can write something this good, this evocative, then you can read it with equal fervor.”

I hadn’t actually considered the possibility that Professor Frankel might
believe my story, or that I’d have to read it in front of the class. I had become enraptured by his brilliant performance at the introductory class.
He’d talked about storytelling, writing about lives. He gave his potential
students an assignment: Write a story about our families in 24 hours.

My passion for getting into his class had greatly outweighed any inspiration I felt to write about my family. We were normal. We had no stories. Finally, desperately, I eked out a story about imaginary parents. Whether or not they were real seemed irrelevant to me.

Now, sitting in front of the class, I tried to imagine what my overall-clad,
balding, beer-drinking, trailer-park dwelling imaginary father would sound
like. But this depiction was so far from the truth that my mind went blank.

“This isn’t really about my father,” I stammered. “I made this up. I wasn’t trying to deceive you. I just wanted to get into this class.”

Professor Frankel’s eyes widened and his Einstein-like hair seemed to stand on end.

“This is the worst thing that any of you can ever do!” he yelled. “I should kick you out of my class for these lies.” His voice trailed off. The class waited for him to finish. “This is a class about reporting the truth,” he hissed, pounding the table. “The truth! Class dismissed.”

“Stromberg is obviously very talented but at what remains unseen.”

Three months later, at the end of the semester, Professor Frankel had indicted me again, this time by writing an evaluation that was part of my official school record. I reread the sentence in amazement, unsure if I’d been insulted or praised.

“Following her first deception this professor was never sure whether or not he could trust her.”

What was he trying to do to me? I’d persevered through his class despite our “misunderstanding,” telling myself I was doing the right thing by meeting his challenge. We worked intensively on my prose and by every indication I was excelling in his class. He even went so far as to encourage me when I didn’t deserve to be encouraged. But now Professor Frankel had gone too far. In retaliation, I wrote an evaluation of him to his file. At my small liberal arts college, students and professors were expected to evaluate each other. It was part of the deal.

“Professor Frankel has crossed the line between personal and professional by
trying to become too involved in his students’ lives.”

It was difficult to describe what I meant. His evaluation of me was
insensitive and mean-spirited, but it was hardly a crime. Yet there was
something else, something less tangible, insidious, like a peculiar smell in
a room. Professor Frankel cared too much about me. He seemed to
take my writing personally, though it had nothing to do with him. That he’d
taken the time to write the scathing evaluation of me was a clue.

And yet that interest in me was also the reason he’d paid any attention to my writing. And in some way the act of writing the letter was still about my admiration for this passionate, eccentric man. Though we’d butted heads, I respected him for standing his ground. And this was what I was trying to do.

I signed it and submitted it to his department. I felt relieved to have the
whole thing over with. I stopped writing and averted my eyes when we passed
on campus. The years passed and I delved into my other studies: religion, anthropology, legal theory. I became enraged when a class discussed sexual harassment. I vowed to become a lawyer.

Three years later I returned to Professor Frankel’s class.

I sat slouched in my chair at the back of the classroom hoping he wouldn’t
recognize me. He explained that it would be a class of literary journalism and we would be placing ourselves in “the thick of life.” The assignment was to write a story about an epiphany we’d had. As before, we had 24 hours.

For once I knew exactly what I would write about. The previous summer I’d
worked for a man named Joey Escovini at a shoe store. “Do whatever it takes to sell the shoe,” he’d say, winking his good eye and staring at my breasts. “Whatever it takes.” That summer had been torture, an exercise in tolerance and a firsthand lesson in sexual harassment. I had a lot to say.

I typed feverishly for several hours, then tiptoed up the stairs to Professor Frankel’s office and quietly slid my story under the door. When I returned to my dorm room 20 minutes later the phone rang.

“Stromberg. This is Professor Frankel. Can you come to my office? We need
to talk about our past.”

“Our past?” I thought sarcastically. The next thing you’ll be talking about is “our future.”

But a few minutes later I sat before Professor Frankel in his office. “Stromberg. I need to know why you wrote this letter to my file,” he said,
lifting a sheet of paper from his desk.

I had expected him to apologize to me for the evaluation he’d written, and
possibly to pummel me with the meaning of “truth” one more time. I’d all but forgotten about my letter. Besides, I didn’t think I should apologize for what I’d written. I wasn’t sorry. At the time, it had seemed like the right thing to do.

“I wrote that letter because I felt upset about how I’d been treated in your
class. I was mad at you for what you wrote in my evaluation. I was just
telling my version of things.”

Professor Frankel was silent. He looked more sad than indignant, a shabby
puddle of a man melting in his chair.

“Maybe my attempt to report the truth was misguided,” I said. “You know about my problems with truth.”

He gave no indication he found my joke amusing. Then, suddenly, a wave of
confidence splashed over me. “I came to your class this morning because I think that I can learn something from you regardless of our past. The story I submitted is true. I don’t know if it’s good enough to get me into your class, but it’s true.”

“The story is good enough,” Professor Frankel said, quickly. “You will find
your name on my class roster.”

Then, as abruptly as he would later excuse himself from the restaurant table
after pronouncing his love to his former students, he changed the subject.

“Have you thought about what you will be doing for your thesis?”

“Oh. Yes. I mean no. I mean I’ve thought about it but no, I have no idea
what I’m doing.” I bit my lip, willing myself not to break down in his office.
As the last few months of college rapidly approached I felt increasingly
anxious about what I was going to do. Just as willing as I had been to turn him in as a quasi-harasser, I was now eager for his words of wisdom about my future. Despite all my sense of growing maturity — I was still his student, hungry for his influence.

“I’d like you to consider writing your thesis in literary journalism. Write about whatever you’d like. Write about life. But don’t waste your talent on bullshit analytical papers that you don’t care about. The story you wrote for my class had so much power. Did you like writing it?”

“Like writing it?” I thought for a moment. “Like didn’t come into it. I had to write it.”

My answer was an epiphany. Suddenly, hundreds of stories filled my head.
Professor Frankel had just spoken about education in a way I’d never
considered. He wasn’t interested in what I thought I “should” do. He was
encouraging me to listen to my heart and trust my instincts.

“Stromberg, I’d like to head up your thesis committee. Think about it and get back to me.”

Then he turned to his desk and began shuffling papers, an indication that our meeting was over.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
-

“Shall we order another bottle of wine?” Frankel said. The conversation had
languished since he’d told us he’d fallen in love with us. “Why did you wreck everything?” I wanted to demand. But I remained quiet because there was a part of me that wanted to salvage our relationship, such as it was.

None of us wanted wine. Frankel became sullen. He pulled the silver credit
card from his wallet. “This one’s on your alma mater,” he said bitterly.

Quickly, Astrid and Esther said goodbye and left.

“Don’t be so nervous, Stromberg,” he said, leaning toward me. “I don’t bite.”

I took a deep breath wondering what he’d say next.

“I’d like to see your apartment.”

The real Frankel loomed in front of me, stripped of his professorial mystique.

“Take me to your apartment,” said the drunken man. “I’ve always wanted to see where you live.” I started to laugh. He didn’t have access
to my inner thoughts anymore. It was as if Frankel had taken my writings
personally — that by trusting him to read and comment on my inner thoughts,
I’d been communicating a deeper affection.

“What’s so funny, Stromberg,” he said, irritably.

“Don’t you get it, Frankel? You didn’t fall in love with me. You
fell in love with an idea. You’ve fallen for the romance of the proverbial
student-professor relationship. But it’s not like that for us. I’m not the
person you think you know from reading my writing. And you’re not coming
to my apartment.”

This is what I wish I’d said. But the truth was, I’d fallen in love with an
idea as well. I’d fallen for the idea of Frankel as a perfect being, the
ultimate professor: brilliant, inspiring, dedicated, harmless. But I’d
forgotten that Frankel was human — complicated as any person. And
stranger than most.

“No, you can’t come to my apartment,” I said, shaking my head. “But thank you for dinner, Frankel, really. The rack of lamb was delicious.”

Then we stood silently for an excruciating moment, taking each other in. But there was still a part of me that wanted to preserve the memory of the person I’d respected and revered. “I’m working on a story right now,” I said slowly. “Maybe when it’s finished I could send it to you and you could let me know what you think.”

“I’d like that, Stromberg,” he said quietly, looking away. “I really would.”

- – - – - – + From the South China Morning Post
The Berlin Wall was once a grim symbol of division, but to some it has now become a precious piece of history. A businessman named Erich Stanke is fighting with the city of Berlin to preserve the last remaining authentic section of the wall — a 960-meter stretch he owns, which stands at the Potsdamer Platz border crossing. The city wants to get rid of the wall so an access road can be built. “The wall must remain; this is my only aim,” Stanke said. “I’m broke, but it would be my greatest triumph.”

- – - – - – + From ABC News
In its annual roundup of airports with the most delays, the Federal Aviation Administration placed Newark, N.J., at the top of its list for the third year in a row. Last year, Newark had 31,924 delayed flights. A flight is defined as late when it is 15 minutes or more off schedule. San Francisco, with 29,409 delays, ranked second, followed by Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, Atlanta’s Hartsfield International and New York’s LaGuardia.

- – - – - – + From the International Herald Tribune
After Abdullah Ocalan, the commander of the Kurdish Workers Party, was arrested by Turkish authorities in Kenya Tuesday, Kurds stormed embassies throughout Europe in protest. Greek, Kenyan and Israeli embassies were the main targets, for what Kurds saw as their complicity in Ocalan’s arrest. In light of Europe’s volatility, the U.S. State Department put out a worldwide caution Tuesday to Americans living or traveling abroad.

- – - – - – + From the Globe and Mail
With tourism becoming an increasingly substantial part of Cuba’s economy, the country’s national assembly passed a new law that proposes tougher penalties against crimes such as murder, prostitution and drug smuggling that may affect the tourist trade. Another new law toughens Cuba’s stance against people who “collaborate” with the U.S. government.

- – - – - – + From theTrip.com
Following a decade of losses, Trans World Airlines announced Wednesday that it will be cutting 1,000 jobs. The airline, which lost $120.5 million last year — $42.6 million in the fourth quarter alone — will consider other measures to reduce its spending, including closing additional facilities. TWA blamed some of the losses on the closing of its Los Angeles reservation office, the retirement of old 727s and DC9s and the restructuring of some domestic and international operations.

- – - – - – + From ABC News
A labor dispute over American Airlines’ acquisition of Reno Air led hundreds of pilots to call in sick, grounding 2,500 flights and stranding about 200,000 people. On Wednesday, a federal judge intervened, ordering the pilots to go back to work or possibly be held in contempt of court. The dispute stems from the pay differential between the pilots from the two airlines; some American Airlines pilots make twice as much as those at Reno — a difference in pay the American pilots want corrected as soon as possible.

- – - – - – + From the Washington Post
Avalanches in the French Alps buried 17 mountain chalets Tuesday, leaving 10 dead and others still missing. Throughout the week search parties continued to look for a missing skier in Courchevel and at least two others in the mountains near Le Tour and Montroc-le-Planet. The snowfall, which trapped thousands in the province of Tyrol, Austria, and caused evacuations in Switzerland, Austria and Germany, is being called the heaviest to hit Europe in decades.

- – - – - – + From the London Times
In the future, flights to Asia from America and Europe may be rerouted over the North Pole. Russia is opening up its airspace, a move that could save up to one hour on flights from Britain to Japan and five from New York to Hong Kong. Russian officials expect to open the polar airspace to foreign planes by next year, and to earn money from it — $200 million in the next decade alone.

- – - – - – + From the Miami Herald
Semester at Sea, an educational program that takes U.S. students to destinations around the world, will sail into Cuba later this month with what is believed to be the largest group of U.S. citizens to travel to the embargoed country in 40 years. The U.S. Treasury Department and the Cuban government approved the trip, which will last three days and include lessons on Cuban education, health care and architecture.

- – - – - – + From CNN
Citing the recent kidnappings of foreign visitors, British Airways announced that it will delay its scheduled relaunch of flights to Yemen. The airline canceled its Yemen route in 1994 but had planned to recommence service this April. In light of the kidnappings, it will push back its planned two-flight-a-week service until November.

- – - – - – + From MSNBC
It may be Israel’s most interesting bridge to the past yet. On Monday, Israel’s National Parks Authority gave the go-ahead for the construction of a bridge on the spot where Jesus walked on water. The semi-floating bridge, which will be 13 feet wide and 28 feet long, will be two inches below the water at Capernaum, in the Sea of Galilee. This is just one of many projects Israel is developing for the millennium, when the country expects about 4 million visitors.

- – - – - – + From the Trip.com
With consumer complaints on the rise, Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and John McCain, R-Ariz., have written a bill that will take on the airline industry’s less than exemplary service record. If passed, the bill will allow passengers to cancel nonrefundable tickets 48 hours prior to departure and require airlines to explain why flights are delayed. “The real point is to make sure that the airlines bring some of their creativity and extraordinary entrepreneurial skill into making sure that the passengers who use their service get through without feeling like a dish rag,” said Wyden. But not everybody thinks the proposed legislation is a good idea, including the Air Travelers Association, whose president said it might upset the low fares currently being offered.

- – - – - – + From the New York Times
While the concept may seem antiquated — being attacked by armed raiders while sailing the high seas — the number of fatal pirate attacks increased substantially in 1998. The International Maritime Bureau announced Wednesday that 67 people were killed by marauding pirates in 1998, up 16 from the previous year. Most pirate attacks — and ship hijacks — occur in the waters off of the Philippines, India, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Somalia, Ecuador, Brazil and Indonesia.

- – - – - – + From CNN
Despite the $6.8 billion surplus in the aviation trust fund, a Federal Aviation Administration bill introduced Wednesday included a proposal to increase the cost of stopping at airports from $3 to $5 per ticket. The money generated from the tax would go toward airport improvements. While most of the cost is expected to affect the airlines, there could be a trickle-down affect for passengers.

- – - – - – + From the International Herald Tribune
In an effort to thwart future attacks on American embassies, the State Department is pouring resources into counterterrorism — including installing protective guards over windows in case bombs explode and send flying shards. The FAA is also buying CAT scan equipment for airports to use in searching luggage for explosives, and intelligence agencies are reportedly planning on spending part of their $350 million on eavesdropping and communications equipment. Last summer, bombs destroyed two embassies, one in Nairobi and the other in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

- – - – - – + From the London Times
When Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow this year, to many, it meant that spring would arrive early. But to others — namely the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — it signified another year of abusive treatment for the underground-dwelling furry creature. The group wants to have the Groundhog Day rite canceled, and has even tried without success to recruit Bill Murray, star of a film about the century-old event. “Someone’s got to speak up for the groundhogs,” said a spokesman for the group. “This poor creature is dragged into the daylight with people screaming at him. You only have to look into his eyes to see how bewildered he is.”

- – - – - – + From ABC News
In Peru, heavy rains have caused the suspension of train service from Cusco to Machu Picchu for at least 20 days. A landslide caused a river to flood the train tracks, and until they can be repaired, tourists are left with only one transportation option — helicopters. Although helicopters can accommodate up to 900 tourists a day, authorities say many visitors probably won’t want to travel this way since it can cost up to three times more than the train.

- – - – - – + From MSNBC
It’s a modest goal of half a degree, but if engineers are successful, the Leaning Tower of Pisa just might stand more erect. Excavation began Tuesday in an attempt to stabilize the Renaissance bell tower, which now leans 16 feet from vertical and has sunk 10 feet into the spongy soil. If the work goes well, the Pisa Commission chief says the monument could be reopened to the public later this year.

- – - – - – + From the Washington Post
An earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale hit in the coffee-growing region of Armenia, Colombia, Monday, leaving 878 confirmed dead, more than 3,410 injured and others still unaccounted for. It is being called the worst earthquake to devastate the country in the last century. On-site observers say Armenia is “on the verge of anarchy” due to looting and delays in medical care and the delivery of food, water, clothes and other necessities. The president of Colombia, Andres Pastrana, pledged an initial $12.6 million to help in the rebuilding of homes.

- – - – - – + From the International Herald Tribune
For the first time in 24 years, the Indonesian government said that it will consider freeing East Timor. The move is part of President B.J. Habibie’s plan to stabilize the Indonesian government by implementing political reforms and improving human rights. It also follows the United Nations’ recognition of Portugal — to which the island belonged until Indonesia invaded in 1975 — as the “legitimate administering authority.”

- – - – - – + From the Sydney Morning Herald
At Sydney’s airport, where there has been mounting criticism over the scarcity of cabs, passengers waited in lines of up to 500 people for a taxi Wednesday night. Cabbies blamed holiday traffic and a new split arrival-departures roadway system. The debate is especially cantankerous since the city is gearing up for the onslaught of Olympics-bound visitors in 2000.

- – - – - – + From CNN
There’s no doubt that, at 565 pounds, Konishiki is impressive to look at. But how alluring is he? Hawaiian tourism officials kicked off the beginning of a multimedia campaign in Japan this week, featuring the former sumo wrestler floating on an inner tube, singing “Blue Hawaii.” Officials hope he will entice visitors to the Aloha State, which is suffering a decline in tourism.