NASA seeking cooperation
of government and industry
— Page 3
This week's sports question:
Who's starting for the Aggies?
— Page 18
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The Battalion
Vol. 81 No. 8 CISPS 045360 20 pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, September 11,1985
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Two left dead
following riot
in Birmingham
Associated Press
BIRMINGHAM, England — An
angry crowd attacked Britain’s law
enforcement minister on Tuesday
when he visited the scene of over
night rioting and arson that left two
people dead in the country’s second-
largest city.
The violence started Monday
night in a confrontation between
blacks and a policeman and ended
with 50 shops gutted by fire.
It was the worst rioting to hit Brit
ain since 1981, when racial violence
raged for two days in parts of Lon
don, Liverpool and Manchester in
the greatest breakdown of law and
order in this century.
Home Secretary Douglas Hurd
visited the rundown district of
Handsworth on Tuesday afternoon
to view the destruction and quickly
drew a crowd, mostly of black
youths, who jeered him.
As Hurd said “I’m here to listen,”
bricks and bottles sailed out of the
crowd. Hurd was hurried into a po
lice van and driven away unhurt,
and the crowd pelted two police vans
in a service station with stones.
One van drove away, but the
crowd overturned the second and
set it ablaze, sending a new pall of
smoke over a neighborhood still
smoldering from fires in some 50
shopS.
Police said they found two bodies
in a burned-out post office on Loz-
ells Road in the rundowm Hand
sworth district. They did not imme
diately identify the victims, and they
said two other people were missing.
Police said they had arrested 25
blacks on charges of looting.
Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher said she was “absolutely
appalled” at the destruction and loss
of life, and urged police and com
munity leaders to work together to
prevent further trouble.
Police and most politicians said
there was no racial aspect to the fla-
reup, but blacks complained of po
lice harassment, saying they were the
targets of repeated drug raids.
The violence began Monday when
a crowd attacked a motorcycle police
officer who stopped a driver to
check whether the car was stolen,
police said. The officer, one of 25 in
jured Monday night, suffered a bro
ken nose.
Geoffrey Dear, the West Midland
chief constable, said those who ri
oted Tuesday were the same “looters
and rioters” who burned a large
stretch of Handsworth Monday
night.
5lt>f
cm
Many American firms pulling out of South Africa
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Many Ameri
can businesses and banks are grad
ually but steadily pulling out of
South Africa because, as one bank
spokesman put it, they no long find
tnat country “an attractive place to
do business.”
"The private market is sending a
much stronger message than official
sanctions have to the South African
government that their policies are
creating an economic climate that is
unconducive for conducting busi
ness,” says Jeffrey J. Schott, research
associate at the Institute for Interna
tional Economics.
The compromise sanctions com
ing out of Congress pale by compari
son to what the private sector is
doing,” Schott says.
Some of the changes that are un
der way:
• Engelhard Corp., a big New
Jersey manufacturer of chemical
and metallurgical products, this year
liquidated its wholly owned South
African affiliate.
“It was a pure business decision.
based on the present performance
of that business, the growth poten
tial and the overall economics in
volved,” said spokesman Frank Vi
tale.
• Phibro-Salomon Inc., an invest
ment banking firm, announced last
month a withdrawal from South Af
rican operations.
• Goca-Cola Co. announced sale
of majority interest in its group of
South African bottling plants to a
South African company, though it
will continue to hold a minority
stake.
• West Point-Pepperall, a
Georgia-based textile company, sold
its minority interest in a South Afri
can affiliate to local managers for
one rand — less than 40 cents.
“Really there was no relationship be
tween the social activity there,” said
spokesman Donald Downs. “It was a
purely business decision based on
the fact the operation wasn’t profita
ble.”
But while officials of most compa
nies withdrawing from South Africa
said the decisions were based on dol-
lars-and-cents business judgments,
several acknowledged that political
factors also came into play.
“While most of them cite eco
nomic reasons, and with good rea
son, ... I think it’s also just fact that
politics come into consideration at
some point,” says Cathy Bowers, an
analyst with the Investor Responsibi
lity Research Center Inc.
In some cases, the decision to end
business dealings with South Africa
was prompted by laws discouraging
ties with the apartheid regime.
Motorola Inc. dropped its sales of^
two-way radios to the South African
police forces this year in response to
a New York City ordinance barfing
purchases from firms dealing with
South Africa, spokesman George
Grimsrud said. The company had
no choice if it wanted to sell radios to
New York City.
Some companies say they are firm
in their intention to remain in South
Africa, however.
“There’s been no change; it’s just
business as usual,” said Cameron
Calder, vice president of interna
tional operations for American Cy-
anamide, the big chemical company.
Its South African affiliates have 700
employees and had 1983 sales of $50
million.
The latest jolt was a credit pinch-
off last week by U.S. banks on South
African companies. The banks are
expected to resume lending money
to South Africans after that country
ends a four-month moratorium on
repaying loans.
“Political and economic issues
have tended to merge in that coun
try,” said John Falb, head of the
multinational department of Repub-
licbank Corp. of Dallas.
“Most American banks that have
lent money to that country are in a
wait-and-hold, wait-and-see situa
tion,” he added. “We wouldn’t be ex
tending new loans until we find out
just what the South African govern
ment intends to do.”
Reogon sends Very important’ message
Associated Press
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
— The American ambassador re
turned to South Africa on Tuesday
with a “very important message”
from President Reagan, and the
country’s leading business newspa
per said the new U.S. economic sanc
tions ^show the white-minority re
gime has “pushed the world too far.”
President Reagan withdrew U.S.
Ambassador Herman Nickel nearly
three months ago.
Nickel said Reagan had given him
“a very important message” to de
liver to South African President
P.W. Botha, but he would not say
what it was.
Business Day, an influential finan
cial daily, said Reagan’s economic
sanctions were “more economically
inconvenient than terminal.” But it
added, “The most powerful leader
in the Western world is giving South
Africa a clear and unequivocal politi
cal message: reform must continue
at a pace acceptable to the Western
allies whether Pretoria likes it or
not.”
Anti-apartheid groups attacked
the sanctions as cosmetic and inade
quate.
Foreign Ministers from the 10 Eu
ropean Common Market countries,
meeting in Luxembourg, de
nounced apartheid and nine of the
10 member countries agreed to a
package of mildly punitive mea
sures.
President Botha told students at
the Rand Afrikaans University
Tuesday that South Africa was com
mitted to reform “within a frame
work of order, peace, safety and
progress,” based on Christian values.
“But nowhere does Christ teach
me to commit suicide for the sake of
my neighbor,” Botha said.
Last group of prisoners
released by Israelis
Associated Press
Israel on Tuesday released 119
Lebanese and Palestinians, the fi
nal group of more than 750 pris
oners in Israel whose freedom
was demanded by Shiite Moslem
gunmen who hijacked a TWA jet
liner in June.
The Israeli action opened the
way for the possible release of at
least some of the Westerners kid
napped in Beirut in the last 18
months.
Shiite Moslem officials in Bei
rut said two Frenchmen kidnap
ped in Beirut nearly four months
ago would be freed soon. But
there was no word on 10 other
missing Westerners, seven Amer
icans, two Frenchmen and a Bri
ton.
The hijackers of the American
jet in June held 39 Americans
hostage for 17 days. Although Is
rael and the United States re
fused to negotiate with the hijack
ers, Israel said it would release
the prisoners in several groups if
calm prevailed in south Lebanon.
The fourth and final group of
prisoners was welcomed as heroes
when they rode into the southern
Lebanese port of Tyre on buses.
Many of them chanted: “We will
fight Israel again.”
The men had been held in Is
rael’s Atlit prison near Haifa. An
International Red Cross official,
who declined to be identified by
name, said, “Atlit is now empty.”
When the prisoners, 83 Shiite
Moslems and 36 Palestinians, ar
rived in Lebanon they were
cheered by hundreds of men and
women lining the road to Tyre.
Most of the released prisoners
were rounded up as suspected
guerrillas by the Israelis in the
last months of their three-year oc
cupation of southern Lebanon.
Sophomores may get mandatory test
By CYNTHIA GAY
Staff Writer
Testing. One, two, three . . . test
ing.
The public university system may
be working, but a mandatory test for
all college sophomores before they
can gain junior status may be used
soon to fine tune higher education
in Texas.
The state’s colleges and universi
ties open their doors each year to
many students ill-equipped to han
dle a variety of courses, and Texas
educators are afraid those students
may slide their way to an overrated
college degree, said Dr. Joan Mat
thews, program officer of the Uni
versities and Research Division of
the Coordinating Board, Texas Col
lege and University System.
“Forty percent of entering college
students need remedial work,” Mat
thews said.
Thomas D. Erwin, associate direc
tor of Texas A&M’s Measurement
and Research Services, said if A&M
was to test its sophomore class, “our
students would do well.”
But state officials in Austin are
not as confident about all Texas col
lege students.
Armed with multiples of test re
sults from Florida, Georgia and New
Jersey, a 12-member committee has
been appointed by the Coordinating
Board to conduct a one-year study
on the merits of required testing for
college sophomores and graduating
junior college students.
Nine committee members are ad
ministrators or faculty members at
state colleges and universities.
A Texas school district superin
tendent, a representative from the
Texas Education Agency, and a stu
dent from Angelo State University
round out the committee. President
Robert Hardesty of Southwest Texas
State University is serving as chair
man.
“The work of this committee will
be extremely important for the
state,” Larry Temple, the chairman
of the Coordinating Board, said in a
press release.
“A uniform test — imperfect
though it inevitably would be — pro
vides a measure of both the quality
of teaching and the quality of lear
ning,” he said. “Surely, that would
be beneficial to all of public higher
education.”
If the committee recommends the
testing and the Board accepts it,
Matthews said, the Texas Legis
lature would decide the test question
during the 1987 spring session.
Students should feel the results in
the next three or four years, she
said.
“Traditionally, the (Florida,
Georgia and New Jersey) tests have
looked at reading, writing and math
ematics,” Matthews said, and this
skill selection is consistent with re
vived emphasis in Texas and across
America on a strong general educa
tion curriculum.
She added that this is a pulling
away from “airy-fairy, highly special
ized” approach to education in the
60s and 70s.
Testing results would influence
not only the required course load,
but also how the curriculum is
taught, Matthews said.
She said an engineering professor
might gear some of his classes more
toward developing reading and writ
ing skills.
Lindsey Dingmore, executive vice
president of A&M’s Student Gov
ernment, said although some stu
dents may appreciate administrative
efforts to broaden their education
based on testing results, “most stu
dents would probably rather have
their grades determine their desti
ny.”
What about the costs of this test
ing?
A&M Administrator Erwin said,
“Any program which would be im
plemented in all public colleges and
universities would be expensive.”
Proposed in this day of tight-
fisted budgeting, he said the fund
ing for these tests must undergo
close scrutiny.