University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, May 3, 1989
Nation/World
7
Hungary cuts border barrier
The Associated Press
DEVEYESHALOM. Hungary — Hungary yesterday began cutting down the barbed-wire fence and alarm system that divides it from Austria, removing an increasingly liberal socialist country and the West.
A crowd in this border town watched as bulldozers removed one of the concrete pylons that supported the winding, 8-foot high fence. Rusted barbed wire lay in bundles nearby.
Hungary says it expects to have all the fencing, which has a built-in electronic alarm system that was used to detect people escaping to the West, by Dec. 1, 1990.
Hungary said last year it would remove the fence it built 40 years ago because of fewer travel restrictions, a desire for closer ties with Austria and the cost of maintaining a barrier that has been removed.
The event marks the "closing of an era" in
Hungary's relations with the West, said Andras Koegari of the Interior Ministry.
"Hungarian glassboard has many faces, and one of them is the world passport which has moved to New York."
Hungary last year instituted what were among Eastern Europe's most liberal travel laws, allowing its citizens to travel to the West as often as they could afford it.
Because Hungarians do not require visits to visa neutral Austria, millions have taken advantage of Hungary's lower visa requirements.
But the travel rules also have made Hungary a key escape point for refugees from other, less liberal East Bloc countries such as Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Romania.
Tibur Voidus, a Hungarian border official, said 97 percent of those who tried to flee across the Hungarian border to Austria were not Hungarians. Balzs Novoki, a senior border guard official,
estimated the cost of dismantling the system at between $500,000 to $660,000.
He said civilians living in the border region were being asked to help tear down the barriers.
The fence stands about a mile from the actual border. Between the two is a field that authorities used to keep plowed so fleeing refugees could be more easily spotted.
With the fence gone, Novoki and Vidus said the military would have a greater responsibility to watch for illegal crossings.
Once, during the 1950s, Hungarian authorities planted mines in the "no man's land" between border and fence. The electronic system was installed in 1972.
Hungary is among the most liberal of the Soviet bloc nations. The Communist Party leadership in February endorsed a multiparty system, but he remains split over the pace and scope of reforms.
Trident deployment delayed 3 months
WASHINGTON — The Navy has found the mechanical problem that caused a Trident 2 missile to explode last March, but corrective design changes will allow the three-megapixel delay in deployed a military official said yesterday.
The Associated Press
Dan Howard, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, said a Navy board of inquiry had blamed the failure on a mechanical linkage in the first-stage
"We now expect the first operational missiles to be at sea on the USS Tennessee in March of 1990," he said.
The mechanical linkage is responsible for moving the rocket nozzles back and forth during the early seconds after a launch.
The Pentagon had disclosed preliminary findings that were made final by the Navy board.
The Navy's investigation began March 21, shortly after a Trident 2 missile fired from the spacecraft seconds after launch. The missile popped to the top.
surface as planned and the first stage ignited properly, but then the missile began spinning like a burning pinwheel and exploded.
It was the first submarine launch of the Navy's newest and most powerful nuclear weapon.
Howard said yesterday that the delay in deployment was based on two other factors in addition to the design change.
"First, there has been a cessation of all propellant casting, including the second-stage motors because of
the explosion at the Hercules plant in Magna, Utah, on March 29," he explained.
"Second, there's an ongoing strike at the Kasser plant in San Leandro, Calif., which has resulted in stoppage of delivery of nozzles for both the second and third stage of the Trident rocket motors. We anticipate that the delivery of those will resume by June."
The Tennessee is the first of nine submarines slated to carry 24 of the missiles.
Bush approves trading with competitive prices
The Associated Press
U.S. will subsidize wheat for Soviets
WASHINGTON — President Bush, who has argued for eliminating trade subsidies, yesterday approved U.S. subsidies for the sale of 1.5 million tons of wheat to the Soviet Union in a major trade and foreign policy decision.
It was the first time Bush has made use of a 1985 law, the Export Enhancement Program, permitting export subsidies to companies in interational markets.
The White House announced the decision, which followed divided recommendations from Bush's own Cabinet, in a short statement:
The sale amounts to half the amount initially proposed by the Agriculture Department and backed by farm-state members of Congress. The subsidies apply to wheat for delivery this month and in June.
Bush's decision came after senior Republican leaders of the House and Senate urged him in a White House memo to move ahead with the export aid.
"The president concluded that the dual objectives of maintaining market share for our farm exports and advancing international negotiations warrant the use of the EEP in this case."
The subsidies had been suspended
while the Bush administration reviewed both the budget impact of the program and overall U.S. relations with the Soviet Union.
Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan, a staunch supporter of the program, said "strong pitches" had been made by GOP lawmakers for Bush to act on the long-pending matter, "the point being, if we're going to trade with the Soviet Union, which we are, then we have to be competitive, we have to meet world prices."
He praised Bush's decision, calling it "a strong signal America is playing to win in the international news for our farmers."
The export enhancement program involves subsidies to U.S. exporters in the form of surplus government-owned commodities. The exporters are able to sell grain to a foreign buyer at a reduced price and then collect government surpluses as compensation for subsidies to make up the difference.
The Bush administration has called for eventual elimination of all export subsidies. But Bush has said he would not "unilaterally disarm" and call for doing away with such supports for U.S. crops so long as other trading nations subsidize their exports.
FASHION GAL