University Daily Kansan / Thursday, November 2, 1989
Nation/World
Orders for defense keep production up
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Orders to U.S. factories for manufactured goods remained flat last month but would have fallen had it not been for the second-largest increase in defense orders in history, the government reported yesterday.
Analysts viewed the report as another sign of weakness in the manufacturing sector, which will produce in continued sluggishness in the overall economy in the months ahead.
The Department of Commerce sold orders for both durable and non-durable manufactured goods totaled a seasonally adjusted $236.7 billion in September. That included a 59.6 percent gain in defense orders to $12.7 billion, the largest advance in that category since a record 68.3 percent advance in June 1968.
Without the defense factor, orders actually declined 2.1 percent, the department said.
"It continues to show sluggishness in the manufacturing sector," economist David Berson of the Federal National Mortgage Association said of the report. "I think we'll see it pretty flat for a while."
Berson pointed to the second consecutive drop in non-defense capital goods as an indication of things to come.
Those orders, a barometer of busi
ness investment plans, were off 5.2 percent after dropping 10.4 percent in August.
The economy, particularly the manufacturing and housing sectors, has been hit hardest by high interest rates as the Federal Reserve tightened credit in its attempt to slow inflation.
Underlining that, the Department of Commerce also reported yesterday that construction spending was unchanged in September after a 1.5 percent spurt in August. But it, too, was propped up by a 4.3 percent increase in public construction.
Factory inventories posted their first decline since February 1987, but that was a fractional 0.1 percent fall to $371.2 billion. If inventories increase without a corresponding gain in new orders, it could have resulted in future as factories attempt to get rid of goods on shelves and backlots.
Shipments of manufactured goods fell 1.9 percent to $234.4 billion.
Orders for durable goods, big-ticket items expected to last more than three years, rose 0.2 percent to $127 billion, boosted by a 7.2 percent increase in electrical machinery to $20.8 billion.
Transportation equipment orders, on the other hand, fell 4.7 percent to $34.8 billion as declines in autos and non-military aircraft more than offset gains in military aircraft
ANTI-U.S. LAW: Iran yesterday approved a law giving it the power to arrest Americans anywhere and put them on trial, and one newspaper suggested that the first target be the former commander of the USS Vincennes.
The action came amid growing anti-U.S. passion being whipped up to mark the 10th anniversary of the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Protesters plan to burn 160 U.S. flags outside the compound, now a school, on Saturday.
World Briefs
a school, unanimous Republic News Agency said the Majils, or Parliament, unanimously approved a final version of the bill that earlier had been passed by the 12-member Council of Guardians, a constitutional watchdog body. The council acted after the 270-seat Majils approved a first draft of the measure on Tuesday.
The law will remain on the books "as long as the U.S. president is authorized to commit inhuman practices against the lives and interests of Iranian citizens," the agency reported in a dispatch monitored in Cyprus.
The Iranian move was in response to the Justice Department's authorization of the FBI to arrest suspected terrorists abroad and bring them to trial in the United States without the permission of the countries where they were located.
Flight 103 was blown up in December with 259 people aboard. The airline is trying to defend itself against more than $300 million in lawsuits filed by families of victims of the explosion, in which 11 people on the ground were also killed.
PAN AMSTERDAMS: Pan American World Airways is demanding documents and interviews at the CIA and other U.S. agencies seeking support for its contention that Israel and West Germany warned that Flight 105 had been targeted by terrorists days before it was blown from the sky over Scotland.
It was down to the airline also seeks "all documents" linking Flight 108 to a reported Syrian arm merchant whose name came up in the Iran-Contra affair.
the airline is demanding to interview personnel at U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies about "warnings from Mossad," an Israeli intelligence
agency, "within the 24-36 hours before Dec. 21, 1988," that Flight 103 was to be hit by terrorists, according to subpoenas and notices of depositions filed in federal court.
rne airline in addition is subpoenaing any documents "concerning the activities" of Monzer Al-Kassar.
Pan Am also wants information about any warnings from the BKA, West Germany's FBI, "within the 90 minutes before the scheduled departure from Frankfurt" of Flight 103 concerning "suspicious activities" that "appeared to be taking place" in the baggage loading area.
The congressional Iran-Contrasec committee found that the organization of Richard Secord had paid $1.5 million to Al-Kassar to buy weapons in 1985 and 1986. White House alder Oliver North had竖娶 Second as part of a secret operation to run arms to the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan Contra guerrillas.
MINIMUM WAGE HIKE: The House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to raise the hourly minimum wage from $3.55 to $4.25 by April 1991 and create a new, lower wage for teen-agers with less than six months work experience.
The 383-37 vote on the compromise struck between President Bush and congressional Democrats sends the measure to the Senate, where leaders have promised to pass it before Thanksgiving.
Bush's signature then would trigger the first increase in the minimum wage since January 1981 and end an eight-year political stalemate between the majority Democrats in Congress and two successive Republican administrations.
That stalemate has the minimum wage at $3.35 an hour since January 1981. The compromise provides a 45-cent increase to $3.80 next April 1 and another 45-cent lump a year later.
It also creates for the first time a subminimum "training wage" that would allow employers to pay workers from 16 to 19 years old 85 percent of the prevailing minimum wage for their three months in the work force.
Bush to announce nominee for surgeon general
WASHINGTON — President Bush yesterday said he would nominate Antonia Novello, a pediatrician and expert on AIDS in children, to be surgeon general.
Koop, who stepped down in Septem ber after seven years as the nation's chief public health officer.
Presidential press secretary Marlin Fitzwater said Novello supported Bush's anti-abortion views — a stance the spokesman said was necessary for her to get the job.
surgeon given confirmed by the Senate, she would be the first woman and the first Hispanic person to hold the post.
"We don't hire people that don't support our policies," Fitzwater said. "That is a hard and fast rule."
She is married to Dr. Joe Novello, a child psychiatrist who hosted a talk show on a Washington radio station for troubled adolescents. Her brother-in-law is Don Novello, the comedian better known as "Father Guido SardUCCI."
He amended that, however, to say the loyalty "rule" applied only to policy-making officials and did not apply to judicial nominees.
The Associated Press
She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico and in 1970 from the university's medical school in the top 5 percent of her class.
had charged.
The abortion issue has been a controversy in a number of administration health appointments. Fitzwater conceded that nominees for policy-making posts have been screened on this issue, but he denied that this constituted a "ittmus test," as critics
Novello has served on several government task forces studying AIDS and on committees that dealt with women's health issues. She also is a clinical professor of pediatrics.
"Anybody who comes into a policy-making position is asked if they can support our policy," Fitzwater said.
A native of Puerto Rico, Novello, 45, is deputy director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the National Institutes of Health. She is also coordinator for AIDS research.
Navy's luck worries brass
WASHINGTON — It's been a bad week for the Navy.
One civilian specialist on industrial hazards warned that cutbacks in Navy training could lead to more accidents
The Associated Press
Starting with the Sunday jet crash that claimed five lives on the USS Lexington and continuing through yesterday's fire aboard the oiler USS Monongahela, each day has brought another mishap at sea that has Navy brass shaking their heads, hoping it’s just a streak of bad luck.
Karlene Roberts, an industrial psychologist, said "Congress is always trying to cut training budgets. But if a pilot can't practice飞翔, those on the deck don't get trained either... It's a prescription for an accident." She said, however, that the Navy's
She said, however, that the Navy's safety record overall was excellent.
She would succeed C. Everett
In the latest incident, the Navy reported that nine sailors suffered smoke inhalation. Four of those were treated for burns following an early morning fire in a boiler aboard the USS Monongahela, some 500 miles west of Gibraltar.
Three sailors and a reported $4 million worth of non-nuclear missiles were swept by a wave from the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower near Cape Hatteras, N.C. on Tuesday, with one sailor still missing and presumed dead.
In other incidents:
A sailor aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson fell into the Pacific about 620 miles north of Wake Island late Monday and was presumed lost.
An F-A-18 pilot dropped a 500-pound bomb on the guided missile cruiser USS Reeves in the Indian Ocean also on Monday, causing minor injuries to five sailors and blowing a five-foot hole in the ship's bow.
In the week's most deadly event, a jet pilot making his first landing on an aircraft carrier crashed into the USS Lexington in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, killing him and four others on the deck of the huge ship.