Nation/World
University Daily Kansan / Thursday, January 17, 1991
7
Nation briefs Apastepeque, El Salvador
Combat kills soldiers and guerrillas
The bloodiest battle of the new year left 28 dead, the army said yesterday, and leftist rebels said that President Bush had made a "political mistake" in restoring $42.5 million in aid to the military.
The army said 14 soldiers and 14 guerrillas died Tuesday evening in combat outside Apasteque, 25 miles east of the capital, San Salvador. Six soldiers were wounded, a release said.
The leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, in its report on a clandestine shortwave radio station, said rebel's "annihilated" a company of 5th Army Brigade soldiers. It provided no casualty figures.
Bush on Tuesday decided to free the military aid for delivery in March because the rebels have shown intensionality in U.N. mediated peace talks, killed and wounded in the fighting, and the Nicaraguan-treated arms from allies in the Nicaraguan armed forces.
Congress last fall froze the aid, which represented half the military aid previously approved for fiscal year 1991.
Guerrilla spokesman Miguel Saenz said the restoration was a mistaken political decision.
Sakharov's widow protests Gorbachev
Andrei Sakharov's widow, protesting the Soviet crackdown in Lithuania, has asked the Nobel Committee to take back Sakharov's peace prize because she does not support that same row as that of President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Moscow
In a statement to Nobel Committee head Gidkeis Anderson, human rights activist Yelena Bonen said that she did not want her late husband's name to be listed along with Gorbachev as a peace prize laureate. The Soviet leader won the prize last year; Sakharov was awarded it in 1975.
Sakharov, who died in December 1989, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his human rights work.
Philadelphia
Hubble telescope finds massive star
Instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope have found what may be the most massive star ever measured precisely, a NASA astronomer said yesterday.
Sally Heap, the astronomer said the star was called *Virgo*, about 130 million years old. Earth's sun and shines about 8 million times brighter.
Every 100,000 years, she said, Melnick 42 boils away gas with a mass equal to the sun, creating a "stellar wind" that moves away at more than 6 million miles an hour.
Mellick 42 in a galaxy about 170,000 light years from Earth. A light year is about 5.8 trillion miles.
"We couldn't have made these measurements without the Hubble." He said.
After the launch in April, engineers found a flawed mirror, which gives a slightly out-of-focus view, but has little effect on a Hubble instrument called the high resolution spectrograph.
From The Associated Press
Gorbachev tries to restrict free press; Soviet legislature agrees to alternative
The Associated Press
MOSCOW — Stung by an article accusing him of leading a criminal regime. President Mikhail Gorbachev yesterday tried to stifle glassnost by putting the Soviet press under legislative control.
But after howls of protest from lawmakers who cited Gorbache's glasnost, or openness, as one of his greatest achievements, the Supreme Soviet Legislature agreed to a modified version of his proposal. They authorized a committee and legislative leaders to take unspecified measures to "ensure objectivity."
Gorbachev proposed suspending the Soviet Union's press freedom law, which curtailed state censorship and guaranteed independent newspapers and radio and television news from another country. Gorbachev to shift the nation to the right.
The press law, which took effect last year, has fostered the growth of independent newspapers of all political pointouts, although central radio and television remains under state control.
Lawmakers lambasted Leond Kravchenko, the new head of the state broadcasting authority, Gostelrad, for pulling the pig on a controversial television show last month. The governor and his government mouthpiece it was under Leond Breeznew.
The military assault in Lithuania has thrust the debate over objectivity in the media—especially television—into the open. Boris Yeltsin, the president of the Russian republic and Gorbachev's main political rival, said he had been told newspapers and television producers who had tried to make the honest coverage of the Baltics were being shut down.
Soviet television last night show a report by popular Leningrad broadcaster Alexander Nevrozov that told the story of the assault from the Soviet military's viewpoint. He quoted soldiers saying they reached the television tower that they stormed Saturday only after shooting had started. The account was at odds with witnesses' reports.
Gorbachev suggested that the Soviet Union's current political and economic crisis was threatened by radical newspapers, such as Moscow News, and required continued pressure from Western allies. Gorbachev demanded suspending the nation's press law for one month.
"We could decide to suspend the press law for one month and the Supreme Soviet could ensure full objectiv
Deputies, he suggested, could control all newspapers, from the Communist Party's official newspaper Pravda to new independent newspapers like Commersant, a radical economic and political weekly.
Gorbachev specifically objected to an article in yesterday's Moscow News, in which the front page was bordered in black, with the headline "Bloody Sunday" above a photograph of a man running from a tank.
A small shoulder that read, "The crime of the regime that does not want to leave the stage," and an editorial beneath it suggested that Gorbache, as head of the Party, justified or approved the tactics used in Lithuania.
Gorbachev has denied ordering the assault and said it happened without his knowledge.
Supreme Soviet Chairman Anatoly Lukyanov, a Gorbachev confidant, then hold up a copy of the article and asked,
But Gorbachev backed off his proposal to suspend the press law when deputies objected.
The legislature did not vote on whether to suspend the press law, but Lukyanov proposed an alternative, and the lawmakers approved it. They voted 275-32 with 30 abstentions to have its presidium, or leadership of the Supreme Soviet, and a legislative committee on glasnost work out measures to ensure objectivity in all Soviet media. Neither Lukeyanov nor Gorbachev outlined what form the legislative supervision might take.
1990 Price Index shows highest inflation in nine years
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Soaring gasoline and oil fuel prices helped push inflation to 6.1 percent in 1990, the highest rate since 1981, and the purchasing power of the average household rose by nine per cent over a nine-year period, government officials said yesterday.
The Labor Department's Consumer Price Index finished 1990 with moderate, seasonally adjusted increases of 0.3 percent in both December and November. But the earlier shock to oil prices in the wake of Iraq's Aug. 2 release made it make 1990 the worst inflation year since 1981, when the rate was 8.9 percent. Prices climbed 4.6 percent in 1990.
Gasoline prices were up nearly 37 percent and fuel-oil prices nearly 30 percent. The cost of medical, medical, airline travel, tuition and tobacco also rose steeply during the year, the department said.
Meanwhile, output at factories, mines and utilities fell in December for the third consecutive month, signaling the recession has not bottomed, according to analysts.
The Federal Reserve's gauge of industrial production fell 0.6 percent last month after declines of 1.8 percent in the US economy.
"Three months of declining industrial production show the recession has taken a firm grip on the American economy," said economist William K. MacKeynolds of the Bank of America. "The recovery will last longer than is generally believed."
The Commerce Department said business inventories grew 0.3 percent in November while sales fell 1.2 percent.
are a sign of economic weakness. They could foreshadow production cutbacks and layoffs at factories if sales do not pick up.
Adjusted for inflation, the average weekly paycheck rose 0.9 percent in December, but it slipped 1.6 percent over the year. It was the seventh consecutive year that the paycheck fell below $28,181 when the economy was sliding into the last recession.
A separate Labor Department report on weekly earnings of non-farm, non-supervisory workers indicates the economy will not be helped soon by a resurgence of consumer spending, economists said.
Economist Donald Ratajecak of Georgia State University said, "It's going to be difficult to improve consumers' confidence if they don't have any purchasing power in their pockets."
Analysis expect lower inflation this year because of the sluggish economy. They also expect falling oil prices and lower demand for goods.
Energy prices, which had risen sharply in the three months following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, fell 0.4 percent in December. For the year, energy was up 18.1 percent, the worst since 1979.
Gasoline prices were down 0.3 percent in December, despite a 5-cent-a-gallon excise tax that took effect Dec. 1. They were 36.8 percent higher than a year ago.
Fuel oil prices dropped 3.6 percent last month but were up 29.9 percent for the year. Electricity costs, however, rose a modest 1.4 percent, for the year and natural gas was up only 1.8 percent.
Food and beverage prices rose a scant 0.1 percent in December, held back by a 0.5 percent drop in fruit and vegetable costs. That category, however, is expected to sharply this month because of a California crop freeze.
For the year, food and beverage costs rose 5.3 percent, roughly in line with the advances during the previous two years. Pork prices rose 16.7 percent and beef was up 9.9 percent. However, egg prices were 4.6 percent lower than a year ago and dairy products rose only 3.1 percent, held in check by a 1.1 percent drop in December.
Prices excluding the volatile food and energy sectors, were up 0.4 percent in December and 5.2 percent in 1990, compared with 4.6 percent in 1989 and 4.7 percent in 1988. This "core" rate is considered a better gauge of underlying inflationary pressures in the economy.
- New car prices rose a seasonally adjusted 0.9 percent in December, the result of fewer discounts than in past years. But they were up only 1.4 percent over the year in the face of slow sales.
- Clothing costs rose 0.5 percent in December and 5 percent for the year, substantially more than the 0.7 percent in 1989, but in line with increases the previous two years.
Cable television costs rose 13.1 percent in 1990, busco was up 10.4 percent; tuition and other school fees were up 7.5 percent.
feature films
Spring Break in Panama City Beach, Florida March 9-16, sign-up begins February 1st at the SUA office, level 4. Kansas Union
"Total Recall" - January 25-27 "Ghost" - February 1-3 Friday & Saturday 7:00 & 9:30 p.m. Sunday 2:00 p.m. Pick up your new film calendars at the SUA office!
"The Godfather" - January 22, 23, 24, 26
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 7:00 p.m.
Saturday 4:00 p.m.
Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" -
January 25 & 26 Midnight
Call 864-SHOW for film updates!
spectrum films
forums
G. Gordon Liddy vs. Dr. Timothy Leary Tuesday, January 22, 8:00pm, Hoch Auditorium tickets on sale at the SUA office, $4
recreation
marketing & promotions Valentine's Day Union Open House February 14 Kansas & Burge Unions
Billiards & Bowling Tournaments - January 27
College Quiz Bowl Competition - February 2
For more information call SUA at 864-3477
special events
"Tunes at Noon" lunchtime entertainment series every friday at noon in the Kansas Union lobby
CALL 864-SHOW
for more information