The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, November 20, 1990, Image 1

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

    ovember
Iraq
sphere of peace."
iged to make such a ;
the way for some sot
ery elder statesmanv
m issions — from fort
dward Heath to ex-Ci
-andt — told officials;
be the proper step.
ireigners may be an;
vision by the U.S.adit;
r the next few month
n. and from there we*
'aul at 693-7549forwi
.m. in the All Faiths Ch
ide show of North Aim-
Read. Call James at W'
i Taco Cabana. Call Ann
! at 7 p.m. in the Studs-
IS: general meeting in®
30 p.m. in the Baptists
nutritionist from Scott an
i position. Everyone wt
for more infomation.
grape boycott and $te'
tatue, in front of the Act
irmation.
aba I economy at 7p.m,'r
with guest performancei
. in the Flagroom. CallEri.
ig of semester at7p.in,r|
ional at 7 a.m. andmers
odist Student Center. Ca|
will order pizza and dec-
ttalion, 216 Reed McDv
1 run dale. We publish fa ';
s to do so. What's Up is r
Submissions are run Oil
entry will run. If you han
Photo by Tim Bf
men's Independ?
The Battalion
Trippin’ The Live
Fantastic
Beatles live through
McCartney’s new album
See Page 4
Vol. 90 No. 57 USPS 045560 6 Pages
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, November 20, 1990
Gray haze days
MIKE C. MULVEY/The Battalion
Students waded through dense fog on campus Monday morning. The high today will be in the upper 80s with partly cloudy skies.
Leaders toast to
end of Cold War
PARIS (AP) — Leaders of 34 na
tions on Tuesday toasted the end of
Cold War rivalries in a celebration
tarnished by advancing tensions in
the Middle East. President Bush said
the treaties and testimonials of Eu
rope cannot endure “if the rule of
law is shamelessly disregarded else
where.”
Bush and Soviet President Mik
hail Gorbachev renewed appeals for
Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, but
Gorbachev counseled for patience as
he and Bush sat down to a dinner
conversation on the volatile Gulf cri
sis.
Behind the scenes, Bush sought
support for a U.N. resolution autho
rizing military force to drive Iraq
from Kuwait. Gorbachev was em
phasizing his hopes for a peaceful
solution.
“I think we all need patience but
that does not mean that we are going
to weaken or retreat” from earlier
U.N. resolutions calling for an un
conditional Iraqi withdrawal, Gorba
chev said at a picture-taking session
before the private dinner with Bush.
Bush sought to deflect questions
over differences with Gorbachev,
saying, “I’m very pleased with the
way the Soviet Union and the United
States can work together in the
United Nations. There continues to
be very open-minded communica
tions and I have no reason to be any
thing other than very satisfied.”
White House spokesman Marlin
Fitzwater said an after-dinner news
conference by Bush and Gorbachev
had been cancelled. He insisted the
cancellation did not reflect a new
snag, but said that it was late in the
day and both leaders decided against
it.
In the ornate French presidential
residence, the Elysee Palace, leaders
of 16 NATO members and the re
maining six Warsaw Pact nations put
their signatures on two treaties —
one making sweeping cuts in non
nuclear arms throughout Europe
and the other pledging non-aggres
sion toward one another.
Then, the 22 representatives of
the two military alliances joined
leaders of neutral and unaligned
countries to begin an unprecedented
34-nation summit on the future of
Europe.
“What a long way the world has
come,” Gorbachev declared.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State
James A. Baker reportedly was con
sidering a trip later this week to Ye
men and possibly another nation.
Yemen is the only Arab nation on
the U.N. Security Council and has in
the past shown sympathy for Iraq. It
will assume the council’s rotating
presidency in December.
Baker already was scheduled to go
next weekend to Colombia with an
other council member, to confer
with President Cesar Gaviria.
The 34-nation Conference on Secu
rity and Cooperation in Europe was
formally opened by French Presi
dent Francois Mitterrand. “Our
meeting today marks the end of an
epoch and thereby a beginning,” he
declared.
Professor of Mideast politics
predicts Arab border changes
By BILL HETHCOCK
Of The Battalion Staff
Cooperation among Arabs is on the rise and may
lead to more border changes in countries such as Leb
anon and Kuwait, a professor of Arab politics from the
University of Texas said Monday.
Speaking to 50 students, Kurt Mendenhall of the
University of Texas Center for Middle Eastern Studies
said eliminating weak, divided Arab states would help
unify the Arab world and allow for increased concen
tration of power.
“Kuwait and Lebanon are part and parcel of the
same type of major global changes and Pan-Arab ideo
logy,” Mendenhall said. “The transformation we see in
the Gulf is significant in the area of Pan-Arab national
ism.”
Leaders in the Arab world are using Pan-Arabism to
gain control of Arab states and change boundaries, he
said.
“They say we need to have fewer Arab states, not mo
re,” Mendenhall said. “We have too many lines on the
map and too many countries—one being Kuwait and an
other being Lebanon.”
Mendenhall, who spoke on the topic of turmoil in the
Middle East, said the focus on Arabism is changing Leb
anon’s identity. Conflict between Christians, Muslims
and the Palestinian Liberation Organization is causing
this change.
He said the political balance is swinging toward the
Muslims. Syria, Lebanon’s neighbor to the east, has
used its forces to diminish Christian political power in
Lebanon, he said.
“The Maronites (Christians) are losing identity,”
Mendenhall said. “The Maronites have been the tradi
tionally dominant power, but I would argue that they
are no longer the dominant power.”
Maronite Christians are losing power because of in
ternal and external struggles, Mendenhall said.
“There is as much conflict and tension between the
clans of Maronites as between the Maronites and other
factions,” he said.
Lebanon also has been affected by PLO raids on Is
rael from bases in southern Lebanon. Israelis retaliated
by attacking PLO forces in Lebanon and seeking to
drive them out of the country.
The Israeli retaliation struck out at Shiite Muslims
who allied with the PLO.
“The PLO in 1970 began a series of raids which begat
Israeli reactions,” Mendenhall said. “But the major re
cipients of these reactions was not the PLO, but the
Shiite.”
Mendenhall said he expects more fighting to break
out near PLO camps in Lebanon. He also predicted in
ter-Palestinian fighting.
He criticized the United States for not having a con
sistent foreign policy for dealing with conflict in Leb
anon or the Middle East.
“We haven’t had a cohesive policy for that area in at
least ten years,” he said. “U.S. foreign policy has been a
series of ad hoc decisions, not a legitimate policy.”
Commissioners
hear voter woes
The Brazos County Commission
ers Court wanted precinct judges to
tell them what went wrong election
day, and they got an earful Monday
night.
“We’re here to make the election a
little simpler and a little easier, not to
find out what was legal and what
wasn’t,” County Judge R.J. “Dick”
Holmgreen. “We are not here to
make a decision.”
Student Body President Ty Cle
venger complained that students
told him they did not receive their
cards until the day before the elec
tion or after.
After hearing a complaint from
an A&M student who said some can
didates were electioneering too close
to the polling site, Holmgreen said
there were few places on the
crowded A&M campus that could
accommodate a polling site with 100
feet of neutral space.
Candidates are prohibited by law
from passing out literature within
100 feet of the polling booths.
Precinct judges said they had
problems calling the Registrar’s Of
fice Nov. 6 because the lines were
constantly busy, and the polling sites
were inadequate to meet the needs
of voters and satisfy the law.
Arabs abandon quest
to oust Israel from UN
UNITED NATIONS (AP) —
Arab nations on Monday aban
doned their eight-year drive to
oust Israel from the United Na
tions, but they said they do not
recognize Israeli sovereignty over
Jerusalem or the occupied terri
tories.
The decision followed a
change of tactics by the Palestine
Liberation Organization, which
wants to attach special conditions
on a vote expected later this
month on Israel’s credentials.
Arab U.N. members began the
drive to kick out Israel in 1982
but have suffered increasingly
wide defeats in annual votes.
Arab nations have repeatedly
challenged Israel’s right to sit in
the General Assembly among
other “peace-loving states” when
the credentials committee pre
sented its report.
The chairman of the Arab
group for the month, Lebanese
Ambassador Khalil Makkawi, said
the Arabs would move that Is
rael’s credentials be accepted so
long as the Jewish state does not
represent “Arab-occupied territo
ries.”
Those areas, according to the
proposed amendment, are “Jeru
salem, Gaza, the West Bank and
Golan Heights.”
Most countries reject Israel’s
annexation of Jerusalem, pre
ferring to push for a 1948 Gen
eral Assembly plan that would
have made Israel an international
city, and created two countries —
Israel and Palestine.
Israel recognizes the West
Bank and Gaza Strip as occupied,
and has expressed willingness to
negotiate over some of that land
in bilateral talks with its neigh
bors.
Normally, acceptance of cre
dentials is an automatic, technical
affair; if a country’s foreign min
ister signs a diplomat’s creden
tials, the delegate is accepted.
Israel’s U.N. Mission said it re
jected any approach to Israel's
credentials that singles out the
Jewish state with any special con
ditions.
The United States, Britain and
other European nations oppose
the Arab approach to the Israel
situation.
Architect students build
projects for civic center
By LIBBY KURTZ
Of The Battalion Staff
Upshur County residents re
ceived an early Christmas gift
Monday from 16 Texas A&M ar
chitecture students.
The architecture students pre
sented eight different designs for
a multi-purpose civic center to
the Upshur County Civic Im
provement Foundation Board.
Earlier this semester, Steve
Williams, the foundation’s vice
president and a former A&M stu
dent, contacted A&M’s architec
ture department and told them
about the county’s dilemma.
Upshur County is in dire need
of a civic center capable of accom
modating many large-scale
events.
A&M professor George Mann
volunteered a group of his ar
chitecture students to help with
the project.
“They should all be congratu
lated,” he says. “They’ve worked
really hard on their final designs.
The students have shown a lot of
maturity and responsibility.”
Jim Kinder, a senior from Pal
estine, says he liked the fact the
project was for a real community
rather than a fictional group.
“The reality of the project was
an added incentive,” he says. “We
were working with an actual cli
ent. We had to work with the
board and adjust our plans
accordingly.”
The students traveled to
Gilmer — where the civic center
will be built — two times before
making their final trip Monday.
“We tried to stay in contact
with them as much as possible,”
Kinder says. “It helps being able
to work one-on-one.”
Four Gilmer board representa
tives visited A&M last month.
The students presented to the
group their preliminary plans
and promised to have the final
plans completed before Thanks
giving break.
Senior Greg Hirsch of Victoria
says the competition among stu
dents working on the project also
was an incentive to make them
work harder.
“Everyone wants their project
to be the best,” he says. “We all
put a lot of time into the final de
signs.”
The students’ designs will be
on public display in Gilmer this
week.
The board later will decide
which design best suits Upshur
County’s needs.
However, Mann says, the
board might decide to incorpo
rate a couple of the designs to
gether to find a well-liked plan.
Before the civic center can be
built, residents must raise ap
proximately $2 million to cover
estimated costs.
Senior architecture students Shane Christian and Scott LaTu-
lipe discuss a final design for the Upshur County Civic Center.
Lip-syncing band
stripped of Grammy
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The band
Milli Vanilli was stripped of its
Grammy Award on Monday because
other singers substituted for the pop
duo on the best-selling “Girl, You
Know It’s True” album.
It’s the first time in the 34-year
history of Grammys that an award
had been taken away.
Trustees of the National Academy
of Recording Arts & Sciences voted
overwhelmingly to rescind the
award given to Milli Vanilli members
Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan,
said academy President Michael
Greene.
“The academy hopes its action
sends a clear signal to producers,
music packagers and record compa
nies that they need to take very se
riously their task of giving us and the
public credible information on that
packaging,” he said.
“I do think it’s an isolated inci
dent. We are as upset about it as the
public has the right to be.”
The attorney representing Pilatus
and Morvan said the pair already
had planned to surrender the
Grammy.
“My guess is when the academy
read that, they decided to beat us to
the game,” attorney Alan Mintz said.
“Needless to say, this is an emo
tionally trying time. But (Pilatus and
Morvan) are determined to prove to
the world that they will come back
strongly and demonstrate that they
are indeed artists.”
Pilatus, 25, from Germany, and
Morvan, also 25 and a native of the
Caribbean island of Guadaloupe,
scheduled a Tuesday news confer
ence in Los Angeles to discuss the
scandal. They were unavailable for
comment on Monday.
A decision on the disposition of
the 1989 new artist award will be
made by an academy subcommittee
Dec. 5 in New York.
Pilatus and Morvan, the dancing,
dreadlocked frontmen for the
group, suggested the award go to
the three singers who actually per
formed the vocals for Milli Vanilli.
Greene said that was “not a possibil
ity.”
In announcing its unprecedented
move, the academy said it recognizes
that “packaging” groups is part of
the music industry, especially in the
kind of “Euro-dance” music per
formed by Milli Vanilli.
But misleading record labels are
unacceptable, Greene said.
“The integrity of that album label
copy obviously was flawed. It said
‘Vocals: Rob and Fab.’ That was just
absolutely false,” he said.
Shortly before the academy an
nounced its decision, Milli Vanilli’s
producer, Frank Farian, and record
company, Arista Records, called on
the duo to surrender the Grammy.
“Initially, I felt that this honor gave
recognition to the entire Milli Vanilli
team. This has not, however, been
the case,” Farian said in a statement
from Frankfurt.