page News Digests- Ne^kan
L Qy Saturday, December 17,1988
__ ____ _________—..... —
Historic American-PLO meeting held in Tunisia
TUNIS, Tunisia ~ U S. Ambassa
dor Robert H Pelletreau Jr. opened
histone talks w ith the PLOon Friday,
and both sides said they hoped the
dialogue would lead to a comprehen
sive Middle Fast peace.
The meeting, coming just two
days after Washington reversed a
longstanding policy of refusing to
deal with the PLO, inspired hope in
many quarters that the Middle East
peace process soon will become more
than just an empty phrase.
“Our discussions were very prac
tical and characterized, I would say,
by seriousness of purpose,” Pelle
treau told reporters after the 90-min
ute meeting with a four-man PLO
delegation led by Yasser Abd-Rab
bou, a member of the group’s execu
tive committee.
The ambassador implied there
would be other meetings but did not
say when. Abd-Rabbou said the next
session probably would conic in the
next few weeks.
“It is our hope that this dialogue,
as it develops, will help bring about
direct negotiations that will lead to
comprehensive peace,” said Pclle
treau, who was accompanied to the
talks by Edmund Hull, political coun
selor at the U.S. Embassy in Tunis.
Each side made separate state
ments to reporters after the meeting at
Dar Maghrcbia, an official Tunisian
government guest residence in
Carthage, a suburb just north of
Tunis. Neither side gave substantive
details of the talks.
“We hope this dialogue will con
tinue, and wc think it will continue,
said Abd-Rabbou.
“This beginning ol the dialogue
shows that the whole world now is
approaching the peace process with a
more objective approach, and only
the rulers of Israel arc insisting on a
policy of arrogance and terrorism,
and the continuation of the rejection
of all United Nations resolutions,” he
said.
i Mai 5 wiiy wc iiupc uie applica
tion of this change in the policy of the
United States will be practiced
though a real pressure on Israel in
order to change the policy of occupa
tion, the policy of terrorism, the pol
icy of oppression against our Pales
tinian people.”
Since the announcement. Wednes
day in Washington, the United States
has emphasized that the new contacts
arc merely a “dialogue” and do not
represent real peace negotiations.
Bush finally appoints Tower as national defense secretary
WASHINGTON - President
elect Bush Thursday named former
Texas Sen. John Tower to be the
nation’s next defense secretary, cap
ping an extraordinary semi-public
debate over the retired lawmaker’s
personal and professional fitness for
the post.
In making the announcement be
fore reporters, Bush hailed “my
friend Sen. Tower” as a man of
“great experience, expertise and
commitment to peace and freedom.”
He said the former lawmaker is com
mitted to reforming the Pentagon.
Tower thanked Bush for the ap
pointment and said the nation must
nave “as much if not more defense
for less money.” He said that would
require reforming the defense pur
chasing system as well as installing
biennial budgeting. He said both
depended on close cooperation with
Congress.
Bush dodged but did not deny a
question of whether he intends to
appoint outgoing GOP Rep. Jack
Kemp - a rival in the 1988 presiden
tial campaign - to head the Depart
ment of Housing and Urban Develop
ment. Sources say that decision has
been made, and that the incoming
president also intends to make Chi
cago transportation official Samuel
Skinner his secretary of Transporta
tion.
Bush met on Thursday with Dr.
Louis Sullivan, a medical school
president and top contender to be
come secretary of Health and Human
Services and the first black in the
Bush Cabinet.
Willi Bush rushing to complete his
Cabinet by the end of next week,
sources also said Gary MacDougal, a
Chicago business exocutive and Bush
transition adviser, has emerged as a
leading contender to be secretary of
Labor.
Tower has held a variety of sensi
tive posts since leaving Congress,
including as a negotiator in arms
control talks with the Soviet Union
and as head of a review board, popu
larly known as the Tower Commis
sion, appointed by President Reagan
to probe the Iran-Contra affair.
Bush made the announcement of
Tower’s appointment in the custom
ary style, at an appearance before
reporters that quickly turned into a
question-and-answer session.
Asked about a possible meeting
with Soviet leader Mikhail Gor
bachev, Bush said, “There is no
expectation that we will or won’t”
have a summit session. “I don’t want
to send out a signal that signals recal
citrance or unwillingness to think
anew or unwillingness to try to build
upon progress,” he said. But he said
he didn’t want to “send out the other
signal ’ ’ and seem to be acting hastily.
He said Gorbachev and other
Soviet officials understand his view
point.
The president-elect said he
r
“wouldn’t overstate the impor
tance’’ of the United States begin
ning meetings with the Palestine
Liberation Organization. He stressed
that the Reagan administration has
embarked on a dialogue and not a
negotiation.
As for Tower, some conservatives
have complained that he is not a
strong supporter of the proposed Stra
tegic Defense Initiative, known as
Star Wars. However, Bush said,
“Senator Tower and I agree with...
the position I look in the campaign,
which is strong support for SDI.’’
Tower himself said the proposed
system would not only be a useful
deterrent to attack but also “a very
valuable negotiating tool.’’
-1
inflation tears dampened Dy increase
WASHINGTON -- Despite large
November increases for gasoline and
healing oil, wholesale prices con
tinue to rise at an annual rate of less
than 4 percent, the government said
Friday, confounding predictions of a
mounting inflation problem.
Wholesale prices edged up just 0.3
percent in November as food costs at
the wholesale level showed no in
creases for the second straight month,
the Labor Department said.
The Novembe r increase, if it per
sisted lor 12 months, would amount
U> an annual inflation rate of just 3.3
percent, lower than the 3.K percent
annual i/.cd rate for the first 11
months of 1987.
“Inflationary fears exceed infla
tionary reality at the present time,”
said Donald Rataje/ak, director of
economic forecasting at Georgia
State University in Atlanta.
Those fears were aggravated ear
lier this week when the government
reported that industrial production
rose another half a percentage point
in November and that factories were
operating at a nine-year high of 84.2
percent of their capacity.
Dirk Van Dongen. president of the
National Association of Wholcsal
crs-Distributors, said he sees no indi
cation from the association’s 45,000
member companies that they arc
building inventories in anticipation
of future price spikes.
Van Dongcn called the inflation
ary fears a “manifestation of tribal
rites in Washington and on the New
York financial circuits” with the
changing of presidential administra
tions.
“Let’s keep the debate a little bit
honest,” he said. “I don’t see an
inflationary psychology taking root,
but Washington can talk itself into all
sorts of things.”
I wo experiments suggest cancer and
brain disease treated by gene change
WASHINGTON - Experiments
in twoCalifomia laboratories suggest
that genetically engineered cells may
offer promise for suppressing the
growth of some cancers and for cor
recting hram disorders such as Alz
heimer’s disease.
The studies, in two dilfcrcnt labo
ratories at the University of Califor
nia, San Diego, involved the use of
cells that were genetically altered and
then injected or graded into labora
tory animals, according to reports
published Friday.
In a study of cancer, Wen-Hwa
Lee, a professor of pathology at
UCSD, said a cancer-suppressing
gene was insetted into the altered
genetic pattern of a retrovirus, a type
of virus that controls the genetic pat
tern of a normal cell
The retrovirus carrying the can
cer-suppressing retinoblastoma
gene, or RB, was then transplanted
into cancer cells.
To serve as a comparison, another
type of gene, called luciferase, or
LUX, was processed in the same way.
Lee said both types of altered
cancer cells then were injected into
nude mice, a type of laboratory ro
dent that lacks an immune system and
is highly susceptible to developing
cancer. Each of seven mice received
both kinds of the altered cells, one
type in each rear flank, he said.
After a month, said Lee, the flanks
injected with the LUX-infeeted cells
developed tumors. No tumors, how
ever, grew on the flanks that had
4
received ihe RB-infcctcd cells.
Lee said il appears ihal ihe virus
carrying ihe cancer-suppressing gene
is able lo prevent ihe formation of
malignant cells. Il suggests that this
technique could be used to geneti
cally convert malignant tumor cells,
which grow very rapidly, to cells that
grow normally, he said.
“After the tumor cell received this
virus,” said Lee, “the tumor cell
would lose its malignancy. There
fore, it would slop growing, or phase
into a normal cell.”
He said the technique using the
RB gene theoretically could work in
treatment of breast, bone and lung
cancer, and a rare type of eye cancer
in children. The absence of the RB
gene has been linked to all these types
of cancers.
In another UCSD experiment,
Theodore Friedmann, professor of
pediatrics, said he and a group of
researchers grafted genetically al
tered cells into the brains of rats to
produce a special protein called
nerve growth factor that prevented
damaged brain tissue from dying.
Friedmann said the researchers
disarmed a retrovirus by removing
part of its genetic pattern. A gene that
carries instructions for the production
of nerve growth factor was then put
into the pattern of the retrovirus.
Next, the team put the altered
retrovirus into cells called fibrob
lasts. These fibroblasts now had the
genetic instructions for producing
nerve growth factor.
The scientists then made surgical
lesions in the brains of 16 rats, cutting
the connection between the forebrain
and the hippocampus. Normally, this
would cause the degeneration of
cholinergic cells, a type of brain tis
sue that requires the nourishment of
nerve growth factor.
Eight of the rats received brain
grafts containing fibroblasts altered
to produce nerve growth factor. The
other rats received grafts of unaltered
fibroblasts.
After two weeks, both groups of
rats were killed and autopsicd.
Friedmann said the rats that re
ceived the unaltered fibroblasts expe
rienced a loss of S1 percent of their
cholinergic cells. But the rats that had
received the fibroblasts carrying the
nerve growth factor gene lost only 8
percent of their cholinergic cells.
“The result is that cells that were
destined to degenerate and die and
disappear because of theinjury did
not degenerate and die and disap
pear,” the scientist said. * ‘They were
spared by the presence of the cells
producing nerve growth factor.”
Among the disorders that may one
day benefit from this type of therapy,
he said, are Alzheimer’s disease,
some types of mental retardation and
cerebral palsy, and genetically based
degeneration diseases.
Both studies are published Friday
1h Science, the journal of the Ameri
can Association for the Advancement
of Science.."
|cmE.CT CAU
II f^ROtA NWAfcNI* ,
li Vsj\\,v SO^
Armenians can now call U.b.
MORRIS TOWNSHIP, N.J. -
Armenians can now make collect
phone calls to the United Slates for
the first time, under an agreement
reached between the American
Telephone & Telegraph Co. and
Soviet authorities.
In a statement Thursday, the
company said the agreement cov
ers only the Armenian Republic,
which has spent the past 10 days
digging out from a devastating
earthquake.
“This is the first agreement of
its kind between AT&T and the
Soviet Union, and marks a dra
matic lessening of restrictions for
Soviet citizens seeking to call the
United States,” the company said.
The volume of calls to and from
the Soviet Union rose to eight
times the normal level following
the Dee. 7 quake, said Rick Mat
thews, spokesman for Morris
Township-based AT&T Interna
tional.
AT&T said it is also sending 10
facsimile machine? to Armenia to
help rescue teams coordinate relief
plans with organizations around
the world.
Neoraskan
Editor Curt Wagner Night News Editor Amy Edwards
472-1766 AMI Nwht News
Managing Editor Diana Johnson Edilor/Librwian Anna Mohri
Assoc News Editors Jane Hlrt Art Diroctorc John Bruce
Lee Rood Andy Men hart
Editorial Page Editor NNkeReiUey General Manager DenShaltll
Wire Editor Bob NeKon Production Manager Katherine Pabeky
Copy Desk Editor Chunk Green Advertising Manager Robert Bates
Sports Editor Sieve Sipple Setae Manager David Thiemann
Arts 4 Entertain- Circulation Manager Eric Shanks '
ment Editor Mickl Haller PutXicasons Board .
Diversions Editor Joeth ZUcco Chairman Tom Macy
Graphics Editor Tim Hartmann 476-3000
Photo Chief Eric Gregory Professional Advisor Don WoMon
Asst. Photo Chief David Fan lea on 473-7201
Tho Daily NebraskanfUSPS 144 060) is published by Vie UNL PublicaUons Board, Na
braska Union 34,1400 R St , Lincoln. NE. Monday through Friday during »>e academic
year, weekfy during summer sessions
Headers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to Vie Daily Nebraskan
by phoning 472-1763 between 0 a.m and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The public also
naa access to Via PubkcaVons Board. For information, contact Tom Macy, 476-0666.
Subscription price is 345 tor one vaar
Poetmaster Send address changes to Vie Davy Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34,1400
R St..Lincoln. NE 66666-0446 3econd-ctoM postage paid at Lincoln. NE.
ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT tMODAJLY NEBRASKAN
-. i : i, . -—