University Daily Kansan, April 9. 1985
Page 12
NATION AND WORLD
Soviet officials begin economy drive
By United Press International
MOSCOW — Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began a drive yesterday to modernize and perhaps decentralize the communist nation's ailing economy.
The drive was announced by the official news agency Tass in a report on a meeting between Gorbachev, six Central Committee secretaries and a wide range of exporters, workers, and laborers involved in economic production.
Gorbachev and the other officials cited poor organization, irresponsibility and outdated equipment as main culprits in the country's poor
economic performance and advocated modernization and some decentralization.
Western diplomats said the meeting provided more evidence of Gorbachev's straightforward style of communication and more real solutions to economic problems.
Tass said Gorbachev, an economics specialist who had been in charge of agriculture from 1978 until recently, opened the meeting at the Central Committee and acknowledged the country's poor economic performance for the first quarter of 1985. So statistics have been released.
THE RESULTS OF the first quarter were to no small degree
affected by poor organization, sometimes complacency and somewhere irresponsibility," Tass quoted Gorbachev.
Tass said the meeting called for workers and individual units in the economy to become more self-confident, which would more responsible for their work.
It appeared to be a call for a wider use of the brigade method of work, which Gorbache helped introduce, that provided of workers contract out to the state.
This method was de-emphasized under the late President Konstantin Kustanov and his son, Alexander, 10 but since Gorbachev succeeded several articles have appeared in
Soviet newspapers praising the method.
Western diplomats, however, warned against expecting too much loosening of central control.
They also called for better management training and for raising the quality of goods.
Tass said participants stressed the need to spend less on new construction and more on modernizing factories and enterprises.
Tass said the new drive was particularly important as the Communist Party prepared for its 27th Congress later this year, during which a new Five-Year Plan will be unveiled.
Nicaragua rejects Reagan's peace proposal
By United Press International
MANAGUA, Nicaragua — President Daniel Ortega has rejected President Reagan's peace plan for Nicaragua, but said he is always ready to talk with the United States, an official statement said yesterday.
It was Ortega's first announced comment on the plan, which Reagan announced April 3. The plan called for a 60-day ceasefire and Catholic Church-sponsored talks between the government and all opposition groups, including rebels backed by the United States.
A statement from the Nicaraguan presidential office said Ortega's rejection came during a trip he and Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto made to Cuba last Saturday to meet with President Fidel Castro.
In Washington, a State Department official said, "We have had no official response from the Nicaraguan government the proposal and we still
hope that full and careful consideration will be given to it in the interests of reaching peace in the area."
ORTEGA'S TALKS with Castro were "in particular on the crisis which prevails in the Central American region," the Nicaraguan statement said. Ortega also met for two hours in Havana with Colombian president Juan Manuel García Ocampo, who also was in Cuba on a previously unannounced trip.
Colombia is one of the members of the Contrabanda Group, which for more than two years has been trying to come up with a peace plan for Central America. Venezuela, Mexico and Panama are the other members.
During the meeting, Ortega told Ocampo "with absolute clarity" that Nicaragua "does not accept the ultimatum presented by" Reagan, "in which among other things, the American president demands a dialogue with the mercenaries who have been organized, financed and
directed by the CIA," the statement said.
"PRESIDENT DANIEL Ortega also was clear in expressing that ... the Nicaraguan government always has been ready to talk with the government of the United States, that it is them that unjustly and illegally makes the dirty war on the Nicaraguan people," the statement said.
Washington has given rebel groups at least $75 million over the last few years to fight the Managua government. Reagan is currently urging
the state to spend $14 million in funds to the rebels.
Earlier yesterday, the Nicaraguan Defense Ministry reported that government troops killed 128 rebels and wounded 22 others in fighting during the last week of March across the country's northern provinces.
"The mercenary forces have tried at all cost to lay a beachhead in the north," a spokesman for the Nicaraguan Defense Ministry said.
Monday- Alternative Conversations
with SUA
Tuesday- The Executive Slacks
"You Can't Hum When You're Dead"
Wednesday- Fleetwood Mac
"Humpage at Shadows," "Be"
Dinner Hour Album Playbacks
r Hour Album Playbacks
(weekdays at 6 p.m.)
Thursday - Blasters
"Hard Line"
Friday - Beasts of Bourbon
"The Axeman's jazz"
Jazz Playback, Wednesday 10 a.m.
Tony Scott
"African Bird"
The Sound Alternative 864-4747
Organizational Meeting
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7 p.m. Kansas Union
"KU on Wheels"
ROUTE HEARINGS
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Offer good thru 3-24-85
2—10" Pizzas with 2 Toppings & 2 Pepsis
INTRODUCING
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*NEW ROUTES
You are invited to attend a route hearing at 7:30 p.m. in the Wheat Room of the Kansas Union on April 11th. Please stop by the Student Senate Office to fill out a suggestion form before then.
The University of Kansas and the Department of Physics and Astronomy present
Carlo Rubbia,1984 Nobel Laureate in Physics
Wednesday, April 10.1985
Woodruff Auditorium, Kansas Union
Physics and Astronomy Technical Colloquium 4:30 p.m.
Wednesday, April 10, 1985
2014 Mall Hall
CAR STEREO