2
Nation/World
University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, Sept. 17, 1985
News Briefs French asked to hear New Zealand claims
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Prime Minister David Lange said yesterday that he asked French President Francois Mitterrand to meet with him to discuss New Zealand's grievances over the sinking of an environmental protest ship and French nuclear weapons tests.
Lange told a news conference that France postponed a scheduled Oct. 3 meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer to discuss the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, the flagship of the environmental and anti-nuclear Greenspace organization.
Jury selection begins
NEW ORLEANS — The federal racketeteaching and fraud trial of Gov. Edwin Edwards and seven co-defendants, including a brother and a nephew, begins today with the first round of jury selection from a pool of 100 potential jurors. U.S. District Judge Marcel Livaudau Jr. said it could take two or more weeks to find a jury for the trial, whose central figure was returned to office for a third term with the largest vote of any chief executive in the history of the
PHILADELPHAH — A strike left the nation's fifth largest city without a major daily newspaper for the 10th day yesterday, while a new publication for news-starved Philadelphia hits the streets.
News strike persists
Talks were arranged between the teamsters Union and Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., publisher of the Inquirer and Daily News.
Rose picked as symbol
WASHINGTON — The rose, "symbol of fragrance, loveliness and romance," was picked by the Senate yesterday as the national flower.
There were kind words for all flowers with special paeans for the camellia, the dogwool, the marigold and the syringa.
gold but the syrup
But the rose was chosen, without
formal challenge.
From Kansan wire reports.
U.S. shows net trade deficit
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The nation's broadest measure of foreign trade soared to a near-record $13.8 billion deficit from April through June, pushing the United States into the status of a net debtor for the first time in 71 years, the government said yesterday.
Simply put, that means Americans now owe more to foreigners than foreigners owe to Americans, a position the country has not been in since 1914.
The Commerce Department report said the $31.8 billion deficit in the current account during the second quarter was 4.9 percent higher than the $30.3 billion current account deficit incurred during the first three months of the year.
The current account measures trade not only in merchandise but also in services, mainly investments flowing between the United States and other countries.
The report showed that foreign assets in the United States grew by $39.5 billion during the first six months of the year while U.S. investment abroad was growing by only $3.2 billion.
That would mean a deterioration in the country's investment position of $36.3 billion during the first six months of the year — enough to wipe out the $28.2 billion investment surplus held by the United States when the year began.
By the end of 1865, economists predict, the country could be in debt to foreigners by as much as $100 billion, making the United States the world's largest debtor country, substantially ahead of the previous leaders. Brazil and Mexico.
However, economists are split on how serious a threat this situation poses for the United States.
Some economists say there is no parallel with debt-plagued developing countries because the American debt represents a smaller
But other economists warn that, now that the United States has slipped into the status of net debtor, the debt is likely to grow at astronomical levels in the coming years, hitting by one estimate $1 trillion by 1990.
percentage of the overall U.S. economy, the biggest in the world.
This imbalance, some economists predicted, will result in belt-tightening by Americans as the country tries to cope with the foreign debt.
The problem is that the United States for many years was able to rely on overseas investment earnings to cover its perennial merchandise trade deficits. Now, however, the country will be running a trade deficit and an investment deficit as dollars flow abroad to pay interest and dividends to foreigners.
In another report, the government said output at the country's factories, mines and utilities rose slightly to 80.5 percent in August.
U.S. to reap gains of Saudi oil policy
United Press International
NICOSIA, Cyprus — Saudi Arabia, in a warning to fellow OPEC members to end rampant cheating on oil pricing and production, has cut prices and threatened to raise output in a move that could ignite a global price war, reports said yesterday.
Saudi Arabia's decision to abandon its role as the long-time defender of OPEC oil prices could reduce U.S. pump prices by as much as seven cents a gallon and lessen inflation in the industrialized world, analysts said.
William Randol, oil analyst at First Boston Corp. in New York, said, "It's the end of an era. The price of oil is coming down, but it is unclear just how far it will go."
Saudi Arabian Oil Minister
Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani told a high-level energy conference in Oxford, England, over the weekend that world oil prices could drop from the current level of $28 a barrel to $18 by spring unless other OPEC states adhere to the cartel's guidelines.
Saudi Arabia, which has borne the brunt of chiseling by the rest of OPEC, "is ready for a price war," said the authoritative Middle East Economic Survey, which has close ties to the kingdom.
The Saudi already have agreed to discount their crude by $2.50 to $3 a barrel under special sales arrangements with several U.S. oil companies and may raise production by at least 1 million barrels a day in October, reports from the Oxford meeting said.
Britain's spy wars expels more Soviets
LONDON — Britain yesterday expelled six more Soviets, including two diplomats, in the London-Moscow "spy war." A defecting KGB masterysm named the diplomats as intelligence agents.
A Foreign Office spokesman said acting Soviet ambassador Lev Parshin had been summoned to a half-hour meeting and told of the expulsions, which diplomats have warned could cause the biggest rift in Anglo-Soviet relations in many years.
The spokesman said Parshin was told that a Soviet expulsion order Saturday against 25 Britons was totally unjustified. The move came in response to Britain's expulsion Thursday of 25 Soviets named as spies by defecting KGB official Oleg Gordienski.
Parshin was informed that six more Soviet citizens must leave the country by October 7, the spokesman said.
The spokesman said the British government had told Parshin that London "could only see the Soviet action as an unwarranted victimization of innocent people which the present British government was not prepared to accept."17
The six include four Soviet Embassy staffers - two with diplomatic status - a member of the Soviet trade mission and a Soviet journalist.
The spokesman said the Foreign Office's political director, Derek Thomas, had told Parsin the "British government had worked hard to improve UK-Soviet political and commercial relations and would continue to do so."
He said the Soviet expulsion had been unjustified because the 25 Britons were innocent of spying whereas the expelled Soviets "had been actively engaged in intelligence activities designed to undermine the national security of the United Kingdom."
The latest six Soviets to be expelled include a first secretary at the Soviet Embassy, an assistant air attache, two clerks, the director of a Soviet shipping concern and a correspondent for the Soviet publication Novosty.
Nixon advises president
Reagan plans for Soviet talks
From Kansan wires
WASHINGTON — President Reagan said yesterday that the reason it had taken so long to arrange a U.S.-Soviet summit was because in his first term his counterparts in the Kremlin kept dying.
Reagan also said he had spoken frequently to former President Richard Nixon in preparing for his November summit meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Nixon's assessment that the United States wanted peace and the Soviet Union needed it.
Reagan said he agreed with
Warming up for a prime-time news conference scheduled for today — his first formal session with reporters since his cancer surgery — Reagan also delivered a new blast at Nicaragua, charging it had preyed upon neighboring El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Guatemala.
"The Sandinista government is a totalitarian, communist government here on the mainland of the
Americas," he said, "and we feel that all of us have a stake in seeing that they're not allowed to export that revolution to other Latin America countries."
While vowing to do what he could to prevent Nicaragua from supporting subversion in Central America, Reagan added that he had no plans for U.S. military action.
"In fact, it isn't wanted by our friends down there," he said.
Tourists hurt in Rome explosion
United Press International
ROME — Terrorists hurled two hand grenades yesterday at a crowded sidewalk cafe frequented by American tourists. One of the devices exploded, wounding about 40 people, some seriously, police and witnesses said.
One of the two Soviet-made hand grenades exploded at the Cafe de Paris, a sidewalk cafe on Rome's
posh Via Veneto. A second hand grenade that failed to explode was found at the cafe entrance, police said.
Witnesses said unidentified assailants tossed the two grenades from a moving car and sped off. Explosives experts identified the unexploded grenade as a Type F Soviet-made hand grenade.
The explosion ripped through a group of outdoor tables at the Cafe de
Paris bar, a well-known Roman nightspot about two blocks from the U.S. Embassy.
A waiter at the bar said most of the patrons sitting outside the bar were American tourists.
"I heard a loud explosion and people screaming," the waiter said. "I went out and helped three or four tourists into ambulances."
10c DRAWS 25c DRINKS AND MIKE SACONE
This fine comedian from Philadelphia will be the headline act following a comedian by the name of David Markswell of St. Louis. Come out and see what everyone is talking about. A wonderful change of pace guaranteed to crack you up. And, of course following these fantastic comedians we will be going into the high energy dance format that we are famous for.
Show starts at 10 p.m.
23rd & Ousdahl
Southern Hills Mall
INTERNATIONAL CLUB INVITES NEW AND SOON-TO-GRADUATE FOREIGN STUDENTS
TO
The Chancellor's Reception
MUSIC
FOOD
DANCING
BEVERAGES
Kansas Union Ballroom 4:30-6:00, Tuesday, Sept. 17th
Sponsored by: The International Club, University Administration and the Lawrence Business Community
Paid for by Student Activities Services
DESIGNED BY: MISSY and JAN