The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, May 04, 1990, Image 15

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    Friday, May 4,1990
& NATION
Bush: ‘A new era in history’
:President calls for NATO summit
ted
1 WASHINGTON (AP) —Presi
dent Bush scrapped plans Thursday
for newer and more powerful battle
field nuclear weapons in Europe and
apjled for a NATO summit to re-
Hrite political and military strategy
for “a new era in history.”
■ “As democracy comes to Eastern
Europe and Soviet troops return
i Borne, there is less need for nuclear
systems of the shortest range,” Bush
lid.
His decision, canceling modern-
ijtation of the Lance missile,
nounted to a recognition of politi-
realities both in Europe and in
|ongress.
■ West Germany, where most of the
pew weapons would be based, had
fiercely opposed the deployment
Hnce the warheads would be tar-
geted on their countrymen in East
Germany.
B Congress, doubting that the new
lissiles would ever be installed, had
liked at Bush’s request for $112
lillion for modernization.
Bush made his announcement at a
wide-ranging news conference dur-
Big which he also said “1 sometimes
do worry” that military hardliners in
the Soviet Union might oust Presi
dent Mikhail S. Gorbachev and try to
reverse democratic reforms in East
ern Europe.
It was Bush’s most direct
statement ever about Gorbachev’s
grip on power.
Bush said Gorbachev is under
“extraordinary pressure” at home
from Barbara Bush” anyway.
Bush welcomed statements from
Lithuanian President Vytautis Land-
sbergis indicating a willingness to
compromise with the Soviets. “I
think that is very, very positive and-
let’s hope it goes forward,” Bush
said.
Later, he met with Lithuanian
it
As democracy comes to Eastern Europe and Soviet
troops return home, there is less need for nuclear
systems of the shortest range,”
—President Bush
because of unrest over Lithuania’s
drive for independence and the ail
ing Soviet economy.
In a lighter moment. Bush de
fended his wife Barbara against
complaints by Wellesley College stu
dents who oppose her as their grad
uation speaker.
He said the students may be right
in saying her recognition comes
from his success, but declared “these
young women can have a lot to learn
Prime Minister Kazimiera Pru-
nskiene at the White House.
On other subjects:
— Responding to questions about
the freeing of two American hos
tages in Lebanon, Bush said the
United States could not claim credit
for their release.
“There were no behind-the-
scenes negotiations that will come
out that show that we pulled this
off,” said Bush, who previously has
applauded Syria and Iran for their
roles.
The president said he would be
willing to make any gesture of ap
preciation to Iran that would not be
viewed as negotiating for the release
of hostages.
— Bush announced he had in
vited top congressional leaders to a
meeting Sunday in an effort to
“move forward” the budget process.
The full House and the Senate Bud
get Committee have passed Demo
cratic budget versions that cut de
fense spending far more than Bush
sought.
“I’m not going to sit here and do
nothing,” Bush said. But he added,
“We’re not into a negotiation. We’re
talking process.”
— He said he was not trying to
oust the man who oversees the na
tion’s beleaguered savings and loan
industry, L. William Seidman, chief
of the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corp.
Bush also said he was canceling
further modernization of U.S. nu
clear artillery shells in Europe.
Leader praises students
BEIJING (AP) — Communist
Party chief Jiang Zemin gave a
qualified vote of confidence
Thursday to the loyalty of China’s
students at a rally commemorat
ing the country’s first student
protests in 1919.
“Young intellectuals as a whole
are good and can be trusted,” he
told 3,000 youths invited to hear
him in the Great Hall of the Peo
ple.
But much of his speech, in
tended to honor the student pro
testers of May 4, 1919, con
demned students who protested
last year with the same demands
for democracy.
“They bound themselves with
foreign hostile forces and con
ducted activities harmful to the
motherland,” the official Xinhua
News Agency quoted Jiang as say
ing. “They lost all sense of na
tional dignity and personal dig
nity. What qualifications do they
have to talk about patriotism, de
mocracy and human rights?”
The May 4, 1919 protest by a
few thousand college students at
Tiananmen Gate in Beijing is one
of the major events in modern
Chinese history. The protesters’
demands for democracy and
modernization sparked an intel
lectual movement that helped
produce the Communist revolu
tion.
The movement also inspired
later generations of students to
political activism, including last
year’s protesters. “May 4th!” was
a rallying cry of the tens of thou
sands of students who marched
through Beijing streets last April
and May to the same spot as in
1919 — Tiananmen.
Jiang praised the 1919
movement as a “great anti-impe
rialism and anti-feudalism
movement as well as a mind
opening and new cultural
movement in pursuit of democ
racy and science.”
But he said patriotism in the
1990s should be expressed
through “devotion to building
and safeguarding the cause of so
cialist modernization.”
-J
let
Oilman warns of Japanese practices House issues technology study
mraafe commission will investigate price-fixing
—J WASHINGTON (AP) — A collusive business prac-
m Ice has kept U.S. businesses out of Japan for years and
Bay hurt even more as Japanese firms grow in the
■nited States, oilman investor T. Boone Pickens told a
Bouse panel Thursday.
Pic kens, the largest shareholder in the Japanese auto
arts manufacturer Koito Corp., said alliances between
lajor manufacturers and their suppliers in Japan keep
mpetitors out and raise consumer prices.
“American auto suppliers are ^at a disadvantage,”
ickens told the subcommittee on economic and com-
percial law of the House Judiciary Committee.
“The Japanese utilize a system which was long ago
smantled in the United States,” Pickens said, likening
le practice to the trusts of the robber barons nearly a
ce ntury ago.
I The Federal Trade Commission plans to investigate
file potential impact of such alliances as more Japanese
firms expand to the United States, FTC chairman Janet
Steiger told the panel.
Each company in the alliance, known as keiretsu,
owns a piece of the other member companies, and
places the interests of the principal member first.
Pickens warned keiretsus have the potential to violate
U.S. antitrust regulations prohibiting group boycotts
and predatory pricing.
He cited Koito’s relationship as Toyota’s primary
supplier of auto lights as a perfect example of the sys
tem.
“Toyota, as the keiretsu parent, virtually dictates the
pricing policies of Koito,” said Pickens, who owns 26
percent of Koito but has been repeatedly denied a seat
on its board of directors.
A Koito spokesman in the United States called Pick
ens’ allegations “baseless.”
“His testimony was just another part of his cynical ef
fort to ensnare the U.S. government in the greenmail
scheme he is conducting against Koito,” the spokesman
said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
United States could lose its lead
ership role in superconductivity re
search because U.S. companies are
investing less in the technology than
those in other countries, according
to a congressional study issued
Thursday.
The Office of Technology Assess
ment used high-temperature super
conductivity, discovered in the
United States in 1986, as a test of the
nation’s ability to sustain a long-term
research and development effort,
said study director Gregory Eyring.
“We have had a large government
investment,” Eyring said of super
conductivity research. “But if you
look at the industry side, the situa
tion isn’t as encouraging.
“The primary interest is whether
we’re ahead of the Japanese,” he
said.
Physicist Paul Chu, who discov
ered high-temperature supercon
ductivity, said he agreed to a certain
extent with the study’s conclusions.
“U.S. industry’s involvement is
certainly not as great as that in Ja
pan,” Chu said. “We’d like to see
more.”
The U.S. government spent $130
million on superconductivity re
search in 1989 while Japan spent less
than $70 million, the study said. But
Japanese companies in late 1988 and
early 1989 invested about $107 mil-
liion in such research compared to
about $73 million by U.S. firms, it
said.
Cooperative research programs
among European countries are also
expected to challenge U.S. domi
nance in the field, the study said.
“The OTA report confirms my
old fear that, despite our break
through discoveries ... U.S. compa
nies may not be doing enough to re
main competitive in this new
technology,” said Sen. Lloyd Bent-
sen, D-Texas, a member of one of
the four congressional committees
that asked for the study.
Rep. Bob Torricelli, D-N.J., said
high-temperature superconductivity
could join videotape recorders and
other electronic innovations that
were developed first in the United
States but capitalized on by Japan.
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