MaTATC Oi (XPet Associated Press
1 hL, f V ^ XcLV ^ Edited by Brandon Loomis
Polish prime minister pushes to move up election date
WARSAW, Poland - Prime Min
ister Tadcusz Mazowiccki asked par
liament Thursday to move up the date
for democratic elections for local
governments, saying Communist
holdouts are resisting reform.
“The government’s most impor
tant task next to leading the nation out
of economic collapse is the building
of a strong and stable democratic
foundation for a democratic system,”
Mazowiccki told the Sejm, the lower
house of parliament.
“Until we create a real ‘self-gov
ernment,’ we will not defeat the resis
tance that we meet while introducing
reforms.”
I
Parliament members rose to their
feet and applauded his call for earlier
elections, despite concern that Poles
may blame the East bloc’s first non
Communist government for suffering
caused by the radical economic and
political reforms it imposed.
As a sign of that discontent, more
than 6,(XX) miners demanding higher
pay were on strike for a third day at
five southern mines, the official PAP
news agency reported. The strikes arc
the first significant labor protest since
the government began implementing
the reforms.
The local elections had been ex
pected in June or November, but
Solidarity leader Lech Walesa on
Monday urged earlier balloting.
Mazowiecki said the reforms are
being implemented too slowly at the
provincial and municipal levels, where
the Communist officials remain in
power.
During tHfc 40-mmutc speech,
Mazowiecki also announced that
legislation abolishing censorship will
be submitted next week.
A law lifting restrictions on free
speech and gatherings will be ready
in February, he said.
Communist President Wojciech
Jaruzelski, who watched Mazow iecki’s
speech from a gallery, agrees with the
new election timetable, the pro-Soli
darity Ga/.cta Wyborc/.a newspaper
reported Wednesday.
With a non-Commumst prime
minister and the Communists power
waning as economic rclorm sweeps
state-run industries, the provincial and
municipal governments arc a last area
of control for the parly apparatus.
“The government elected in free
and autonomous elections is execut
ing its power in the namcol the people
and answers directly to them, Ma
/.owiccki said. “We have never had
such a self-government since World
War II.”
In the past, the law has allowed the
prime minister to approve candidates
for mayor before they arc elected by
municipal councils. In that way, all
local governments were ultimately
controlled by the Communist-domi
nated central government.
The Communist-run municipal
governments, in turn, allowed the party
apparatus to run local affairs, includ
ing commerce, allocation of scarce
raw materials and distribution of a
wide range of privileges.
Sol idarity candidates won an over
whelming victory in free parliamen
tary elections in June, leading to crea
tion of the Solidarity-dominated
government that ended four decades
of Communist control of Poland.
/ Food, tobacco, energy prices
push inflation to 8-year high
as housing industry declines
WASHINGTON - Inflation
increased modestly in 1989 to an
eight-year high of 4.6 percent,
boosted by double-digit price in
creases for dairy food, eggs, to
bacco and fuel oil, the government
said Thursday.
Construction of new housing,
meanwhile, plunged 7.6 percent
last year to 1.37 million units, the
lowest level since the recession
year of 1982.
Economists attributed both the
relative stability of consumer price
increases and a weak housing in
dustry to the Federal Reserve
Board's tight money policy.
The Bush administration quickly
blasted a suggestion from Federal
Reserve policy-makers that inter
est rates will not fall again anytime
soon.
“These numbers . . . indicate
thr*i inflation has remained very
steady over the last seven or eight
years and that lower interest rates
are justified, W hite House spokes
man Marlin Fite water said in rare
public criticism of the central bank.
Financial markets, which have
been spooked in recent weeks by
inflation fears, continued their early
1990 slide. But traders said the
market was reacting more to disap
pointing corporate earnings reports
and worry over intere'st rates than
to the slightly bctter-than-expectcd
inflation news.
The 1989 rise in the Labor
Department’s Consumer Price Index
marked a modest acceleration over
the 4.4 percent rates posted in 1988
and 1987. Still, it was the steepest
increase since 1981, when prices
shot up 8.9 percent in a lingering
aftershock from the double-digit
inflation of 1979 and 1980.
Most economists expect infla
tion to hold steady or decline slightly
in 1990. The relatively low unem
ployment rate, at 5.3 percent in
December, will keep wages rising
and prevent a dramatic improve
ment, they said.
The Labor Department said in
another report that Americans’
inflation-adjusted earnings were
unchanged in December after fall
ing 0.6 percent in November.
Average weekly earnings were
S340.81 in December, up 3.2 per
cent from a year earlier but not
enough to keep up w ith the rise in
prices.
Food prices jumped 5.6 percent
in 1989, the steepest in nine years;
December food costs were up a
moderate 0.4 pc.ccnt.
Dairy products rose a sharp 2.2
percent in Dccembc", bringing the
increase for the year to 10.3 per
cent. The price of meat, poultry
fish and eggs rose 1 percent in
December, with much of that at
iriDuieo toa .v / percent advance in
egg prices, which climbed 35.4
percent for the year.
Energy prices gained 5.1 per
cent last year, driven up by a 19.5
percent rise in fuel oil. Fuel oil
increased 3.8 percent in Decem
ber. A congressional committee is
investigating allegations that oil
companies used the cold weather
as an excuse to grab profits.
Gasoline prices, which soared
early in the year, fell in six of the
last seven months of 1989, includ
ing a 2 percent drop in December.
For the year, they were up 6.5
percent.
Natural gas prices increased 2.1
percent last month, while electric
ity rose 0.8 percent.
Prices excluding the volatile food
and energy sectors, considered by
many analysts to be the best indi
cator of underlying inflationary
pressures in the economy, rose 0.4
percent in December and 4.4 per
cent for the year, a drop from 4.7
percent in 1°88.
Gov. Orr to reconsider waste dump
if other host states try to back out
LINCOLN - If other states try to
avoid building low-level nuclear waste
dumps, Gov. Kay Orr will reconsider
Nebraska’s position on being home to
such a facility, a spokesman for the
governor said Thursday.
Sen. Loran Schmit of Bellwood,
who had been instrumental in getting
Nebraska to join a five-state compact
for stnnne low -level radioactive waste,
told the Legislature on Thursday the
state may have made a mistake.
He said fewer waste sites may be
designated for waste storage than
officials originally thought w ould be
needed.
“The governor wants to make clear
that if in fact Congress intends to
change the rules of the game as Sen.
Schmit suggests, w'c could very well
say we’re not going to play anymore,”
said Bud Cuca. a spokesman for Orr.
That means a change in the federal
program for nuclear w aste sites could
mean the governor would reconsider
whether Nebraska should host a multi
state sue, Cuca said.
“We may have made a mistake,”
Schmit said after abruptly stopping
his discussion on another bill.
“We were told, and this Legisla
ture accepted in good faith, that there
would be 14 sites designated for the
storage of low-level nuclear waste,”
he said. “Now I find out that we may
be able to gel along with three of
those sites.”
“It’s an embarrassment to me to
n • i
tell you I didn’t do my homework
thoroughly” on the waste compact
bill, he told the Legislature.
The other member states will now
probably “drag thc*r feel” designat
ing waste sites and pressure Congress
to pass legislation requiring fewer
sites, Schmit later said.
“The high population states have
the most members of Congress, so
they’ll probably be successful at get
ting that passed,” Sctimit said.
Nebraska joined the Central Inter
state Low-Level Radioactive Waste
Compact in 1983 and was chosen by
the compact as the host slate for a
reinforced, concrete warehouse for
radioactive waste.
Last month US Ecology, the de
veloper, said it prefers a site near
Butte in Boyd County for the dump. It
will hold waste from Nebraska, Ar
kansas, Kansas, Louisiana and Okla
homa.
Cuca said the governor finds
Schmit’s comments interesting and
officials intend to talk with Schmit
about where he got his information.
Meanwhile, Schmit introduced
LB 1238, a bill that would suspend the
license of any nuclear waste site in
Nebraska as of Jan. 1, 1993 and stop
the dump from accepting more waste
unless the governor certifies that a
license has been issued in two or
more other states.
Cuca said the governor would
support the bill.
“Nebraska and the Central Inter
state L ow-Level Radioactive Waste
Compact may be vulnerable to changes
in federal law' that could potentially
limit the ability to bar waste from
states which are not members of the
compact,” the bill’s statement of intent
says.
The governor plans to watch the
situation closely, Cuca said.
“We would be very concerned if
Congress would go that way (allocc
fewer sites), and we would do every
thing we could to protect the rights
and public health and safely of Ne
braskans,” he said.
He said Nebraska’s congressional
members have indicated they do not
anticipate any change in the federal
law.
“But we are most definitely going
to continue looking into this,” Cuca
said.
Schmit declined to say who told
him that fewer nuclear waste sites
were likely to be built around the
country.
Sen. Spence Morrissey of Te
cumsch, a frequent critic of the proc
esses used in developing the nuclear
waste site, said he has for months
been trying to raise the issues brought
up by Schmit.
Morrissey said withdrawing from
the five-state compact and paying
whatever financial penalties might be
required “might be cheaper than the
eventual cost in the long run.”
soviets send reserves to stop civil war
MOSCOW - The Defense Minis
try called up reserve troops Thursday
to help 29,000 soldiers quell ethnic
violence in the Caucasus that has killed
at least 66 people and wounded more
than 220.
Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov
said the additional troops were neces
sary to maintain order and possibly
enforce a curfew - a measure authori
ties in the republic of Azerbaijan have
refused to impose despite reports of
vicious attacks by Azerbaijani ex
tremists on Armenian residents.
Yaxov did not specify how many
reserve soldiers had been called up.
He said men were being called up
from “neighboring regions,” but did
not specify. Tass said the men had
recently completed their compulsory
military service.
At least 10,500 Armenians report
edly have been evacuated from the
Azerbaijani capital of Baku, where
rampaging Azerbaijani mobs began
the violence Saturday.
Extremists have obtained heavy
weaponry, including helicopters, tanks
and ground-to-ground missiles in what
Interior Minister Vadim Bakatin on
Thursday called a “civil war.”
In his first public comments since
the Baku riots, President Mikhail
Gorbachev defended the Kremlin’s
decision Monday to declare a state of
emergency but said the ethnic prob
lems date back centuries.
“We are now busy trying to halt
this process, to prevent it from going
deeper and getting more acute,”
Gorbachev said in comments broad
cast on state radio.
Members of the Azerbaijani
People’s Front said Thursday they
had warned Moscow that if a curfew
or martial law were imposed on Baku
they would launch a general strike in
the strategic oil center.
On Wednesday, the 29,(XX) troops
already in Azerbaijan and the repub
lic of Armenia were authorized to
shoot if necessary to stop the bitter
fighting in the hills around the dis
puted territory of Nagorno-Karabakh,
according to Soviet media.
Foreign reporters were barred from
travel to the republics.
In Nagorno-Karabakh, a largely
Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan,
of I icialsexpandcd an existing curfew
by two hours Thursday, said Tass, the
official Soviet news agency.
The military commandant in Na
gorno-Karabakh also ordered unreg
istered organizations dissolved, Tass
said.
Yevgeny Primakov, a top-ranking
I
Soviet legislator, confronted a mass
anti-government demonstration out
side the Azerbaijani Communist Part)
headquarters in Baku and said the
riots had to stop. The demonstrators
called for the liquidation of Soviet
power in Azerbaijan and the resigna
tion of the Azerbaijani leadership,
reported Interfax, a news service of
Radio Moscow.
Extremists in Azerbaijan have
blockaded highways, interrupting the
movement of troops, and hailed 136
freight trains, including three carry
ing military equipment, Interfax said
Yerevan, the Armenian capital, was
reported to be running out of fuel
because of the Azerbaijani blockade.
Armenians countered with a block
ade of Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani
enclave inside Armenia, Interfax said.
Yazov said he understood reserv
ists would be unhappy about his move
but emphasized that they are not going
with the task of killing, shooting,
going onto some offensive. It is prin
cipally to protect public order,”
---1
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