NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, October 9, 1992
7
BRIEFS
threat worries U.S.
WASHINGTON — The United States will keep 37,000 troops in south Korea until the hard-line communist government in Pyongyang,
North Korea, proves it is not attempting to build a nuclear weapon. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said yesterday.
Cheney accused Pyongyang of fostering a program to develop nuclear weapons. Until it is halted, he added, Washington is not prepared to move forward with any adjustment in its troop level on the Korean peninsula. The secretary had been meeting with South Korean Defense Minister Choi Sae Chang.
West Indian poet wins Nobel Prize
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Derek Walcott, whose poems celebrate the rich cultural diversity of his native West Indies but also evoke the darkness of colonialism, slavery and exile, won the 1992 Nobel Prize for literature yesterday. "In him, West Indian culture has found its great poet," said the Swedish academy in awarding the $1,2 million prize to Walcott, 62. A native of the former British colony of St. Lucia, Walcott teaches writing and literature at Boston University. When he got the early morning call from the academy, he was working on a poem.
USAir ground workers may return to jobs soon
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — After a marathon 24-hour negotiation, USAir reached a tentative agreement with its striking ground workers day on a package of temporary wage cuts to help the airline deal with swiftly mounting losses.
"We are recommending a yes vote," said union negotiator Bill Scheri, who said the tentative contract protects the jobs of 8,300 USAir ground employees who are members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
The strike, which began early Monday, caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights around the country. The airline and the union said that if the new agreement was ratified quickly, the strikers could return to work as early as Sunday.
Seth Schofield, USAir's chief executive officer,
described the tentative agreement as fair and equitable.
And Scheri said the company bargained in good faith.
"We achieved our goal of reducing costs for both the near and long term," Schofield said, referring to USAir plan to deal with mounting losses by asking most employees to accept 15 months of wage and benefit reductions.
"USAir will be at full pre-strike service levels at all of the
124 airports on our domestic and international route network on Monday morning," he said.
Moving to lure passengers scared away by the strike, USAir announced a one-time "Welcome Back Bonus" of 6,000 miles to members of its frequent-fliers program.
The bonus will be available between Oct. 8 and Oct. 16 to passengers on USair flights anywhere in North America or on the USair Shuttle between Washington, New York and Boston. Flights on USair Express do not qualify.
The airline said the bonus would enable passengers to earn half of the 12,000 miles needed for a free round-trip ticket by taking just one flight.
USAir lost $305.3 million in 1991 and reported $147.9 million in red ink for the first six months of this year.
Trying to control those losses, USAir asked its employees late last year to accept a package of wage and benefit reductions that it said could save $400 million in 1992. Airline officials said that once the company became profitable again, it would help employees through profit-sharing and stock-option plans.
Although Scheri said he could not disclose complete details, the all-night bargaining resulted in a situation in which the mediators softened the company's position a little bit.
Study finds new use for abortion pill
It's an effective contraceptive journal says
The Associated Press
BOSTON — The discovery that the French abortion pill is also a highly effective morning-after contraceptive is unlikely to bring the treatment any closer to availability in the United States, experts said yesterday.
A study in yesterday's New England Journal of Medicine found the pill RU-486 completely effective in preventing pregnancy when women took it within three days of having unprotected intercourse.
This represents an entirely new use for the pill, which until now has been approved in a few countries to induce abortions early in pregnancy. However, physicians, stock analysts and others interested in the pill said they doubted that its maker would seek
approval for it in the United States any time soon.
Anti-abortion groups said that they considered RU-486 to be an abortive agent if used immediately after intercourse to prevent the development of a fertilized egg.
"Basically, pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to conduct research on abortion and to market these products in this country," said Irving Spitz, a physician on the Population Council. "There are issues of liability, a lack of financial incentive and opposition from highly conservative organizations."
RU-486 is made by Roussel-Uctaf, a French subsidiary of the German drug firm Hochst AG. It has not asked permission from the Food and Drug Administration to sell the drug in the United States.
However, company officials had said repeatedly the company would not sell the medicine in any country with wide hostility to abortion.
approved for other medical conditions is another concern. Gary Fendler, an FDA representative, said the agency had approved 19 requests for experimental use of the drug against a variety of diseases. He said Roussel-Uclaf is cooperating with these studies by supplying the drug.
Whether RU-486 might someday be
However, some said they believed the company would be reluctant to try to get approval to sell the drug even for conditions that have nothing to do with pregnancy.
"I don't think they'll come close to asking for any indication," or use, of the drug in the United States, said Samuel Isaly, an analyst at Mehta & Islay in New York. "And if they do, they will be repelled by those who do not believe abortion is right. They will chain themselves to the gates of the FDA and everything else."
However, Richard Glasow of the National Right to Life Committee said he knew of no groups that would oppose testing UR-486 for conditions other than abortion.
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