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Yeltsin proposes one-year leap to market economy
MOSCOW — Russian President
Boris Yeltsin proposed Monday a
painful one-year leap to a market
economy for Russia and said the hard
ships consumers will suffer were better
than the alternative of eternal pov
erty.
Yeltsin invited the other 11 Soviet
republics to join his speedy reform
plan, which would free state-controlled
prices and privatize most businesses
in Russia. But he also said Russia was
prepared to act unilaterally.
He served notice that Russia would
form its own army and print its own
currency if other regions’ increas
ingly aggressive independence drives
hurt the largest and richest Soviet
republic.
Yeltsin’s timetable for economic
reform was the fastest and most ag
gressive proposed by any level of
government in the Soviet Union, in
cluding Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev. Previous Kremlin plans
to move to a market economy have
fallen short because of half-hearted
' implementation or the refusal of the
entrenched Communist bureaucracy
to cooperate.
Yeltsin’s blunt acknowledgement
that living standards will get worse
before they improve was the most
candid political admission of how
tough it will be to dismantle seven
decades of bureaucratic central plan
ning.
“Today, in acute crisis conditions,
it will be impossible to implement
reforms painlessly,” Yeltsin told the
Russian Congress of People’s Depu
ties, the republic’s parliament.
“I call on all Russian citizens to
understand that a transition to market
prices, a difficult transition, a forced
transition, is a necessary measure,”
Yeltsin said. “It will be worse for
everybody for about six months.”
After that, he predicted, “the stabi
lization of our economy will begin by
autumn 1992 and the living standards
of the people will gradually improve.”
Yeltsin urged that lawmakers give
him new executive powers to help
him carry out the reforms and pro
posed he be given the additional title
oi prime minister, i ne post nas been
vacant since Ivan Silaycv resigned to
run the national economy following
the failed August coup.
The offer was a tacit acknowledge
ment that Yeltsin has been unable to
end the infighting within his admini
stration that has prevented it from
carrying out real reform.
It also represented a throwback to
previous heads of the Soviet Union
who endowed themselves with more
than one leadership post.
Women
explain
suicides
Kevorkian’s lawyer
releases videotape
SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — Two
disabled women wept and laughed on
the eve of their assisted suicides as
they explained the suffering that
brought them to Dr. Jack Kevorkian,
a videotape released Monday showed.
“I thought about it for a long time,
a long lime. I have no qualms about
my decision,” Sherry Miller, 43, told
Kevorkian in her parents’ home in a
tape released by Kevorkian's lawyer,
Geoffrey Ficger.
“I want to die and I know there s
no turning back,” she said, her voice
faltering.
The videotape was recorded Oct.
22, the day before Miller, who had
multiple sclerosis, and Marjorie Want/
joined Kevorkian in a secluded
Oakland County cabin and killed
themselves with devices he invented.
Kevorkian was expected to make
his first public appearance Monday
since the suicides. He didn’t show at
Fieger’s Southfield office, but the
attorney read a statement from
Kevorkian in which the retired pa
thologist called for a national panel to
explore doctor-assisted suicide and
set guidelines.
Kevorkian, 63, would issue no other
statements until the Oakland County
prosecutor’s office decides whether
to charge him with a crime, Fieger
said.
No charges have been brought
against Kevorkian despite his appar
ent violation of a court order issued in
January barring him from assisting
suicide.
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Violence erupts
in Middle East
on eve of talks
MADRID, Spain — In an out
break of terrorist violence just two
days ahead of Arab-Israeli peace talks,
attackers firing automatic weapons
killed two Jewish settlers Monday in
the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Hours earlier, two separate terror
ist attacks in Turkey killed a U.S.
soldier and wounded an Egyptian
diplomat.
The West Bank attack appeared
likely to harden Israeli opposition to
the peace talks and put a sharp focus
on Israel’s oft-stated worries over
security.
Israelis blamed the Palestinians and
vowed revenge for the shootings, which
also wounded six people, including
five children.
“Whoever was looking for a proof
that we have nobody to discuss peace
with, that our enemies . . . want to
continue to kill us and to destroy us.
.. got the message tonight,” Cabinet
Minister Rchavam Zeevi told report
ers at a rally in Tel Aviv. As word
spread of the deaths, the crowd swelled
to 50,(XX) people, some shouting
“Death to the Arabs!”
Zalman Shoval, Israel’s ambassa
dor to Washington, said of the attack:
“It certainly harms the atmosphere
and it raises some very grave question
marks with regard to their genuine
attitude toward this whole process.”
Hanan Ashrawi, a spokeswoman
for the Palestinian delegation, con
demned the violence but explained it
as the consequence of the “extreme
violence” of the Israeli occupation.
“Unless we really work hard to
remove causes of conflict and the
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causes of violence, it’s going to go
on,” she said in a television inter
view. Ashrawi also predicted more i
attempts to disrupt the talks.
There have been several Muslim
fundamentalist calls for attacks to 1
impede the conference that begins
Wednesday in Madrid, Spain. A
Lebanese newspaper reported Mon
day lhataradical Iranian leadcrcallcd
for suicide attacks on the Jewish state
and said the peace conference was
“high treason.”
Palestinian and Jordanian delegates
arrived in Madrid to an enthusiastic
greeting from a score of supporters.
Young Palestinians and Spaniards
waved placards saying in Arabic,
Spanish and English: “Long Live a
Free and Independent Palestine.”
Soviet President Mikhail Gor
bachev arrived Monday night and
President Bush arrives today, a day
before the conference begins.
Bush said he hoped the talks would
be a first step to peace, but cautioned
that “there’s a long, long way to go.”
Consumer groups charge misuse of crash-test results
WASHINGTON — Consumer activists
accused Transportation Secretary Samuel Skin
ner and other officials Monday of misusing
vehicle crash test results in a campaign against
tougher fuel-efficiency standards.
A Transportation Department spokesman
denied the accusations of groups founded by
Ralph Nader. They have feuded at length with
the Bush administration and automakers over
whether the government should order the in
dustry to improve new cars’ gasoline mileage.
Skinner and Jerry Curry, head of the Na
tional Highway Traffic Safety Administration,
spent $200,000 on tests and an “illegal” lobby
ing campaign to scare people into believing
that stronger mileage requirements would make
highways more dangerous, said Joan Clay
brook, president of Public Citizen.
“This is indeed a sordid talc, particularly for
a government agency whose credibility de
pends on its scientific analysis of the facts,”
Claybrook said. She led the NHTSA in the
Carter administration.
Agency spokesman SkippCalvert said,“We
categorically deny that these tests were staged
for lobbying.” He said the tests were among
tnose conducted routinely to determine whether
new cars meet government standards for pro
tecting occupants in collisions.
The dispute arose as the Senate prepares to
debate a national energy package that would
allow the agency to continue setting mileage
standards.
Consumer and environmental groups sup
port a bill sponsored by Sen. Richard Bryan, D
Nev., that would require each manufacturer to
improve its ncw-car fleet’s average mileage40
percent within a decade. Under current regula
tions, each fleet must average 27.5 miles per
gallon.
Bryan is expected to offer his bill as an
amendment to the energy package, which the
Senate may begin debating later this week.
Automakers bitterly oppose the Bryan plan,
contending that it would iorce them to manu
facture only small cars or to make highly
expensive design and material changes.
For several months, an industry-financed
coalition has sponsored a television commer
cial showing footage from a government test in
which a nearly 4,000-pound Ford Crown Vic
toria and a 2,000-pound Subaru Justy collide
head-on.
NetSraskan
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Student solves ancient chess puzzle
BALTIMORE — A 25-ycar-old
graduate student solved an ancient
chess puzzle by taking a computer
to places no computer has gone
before.
The double feat by Lewis Stiller,
a computer scientist at Johns
Hopkins University, not only settled
an old chess conundrum. He opened
the door for analysis once consid
ered too complicated for even the
fastest computers.
“It’s very important. Sort of like
discovering that there’s a new ele
ment,’’ said Hans Berliner, a com
puter scientist at Camcgie-Mellon
■J University in Pittsburgh.
By performing one of the largest
computer searches ever conducted,
Stiller found that a king, a rook and
a bishop can defeat a king and two
knights in 223 moves, ending argu
ment over whether the position is a
draw.
Stiller, who works in Hopkins’
artificial intelligence lab, made the
search by writing a new program
that tapped the power of a parallel
computer at the Los Alamos
National Laboratories in New
Mexico.
The computer is actually thou
sands of processors working side by
side on parts of a program. Unlike
most computers, the Los Alamos
machine has 65,536 processors
instead of one. That enables it to
break a problem into many smaller
problems and solve them simultane
ously.
Stiller devised a way to avoid
bogging down the computer with
communications between the proc
essors while it worked his 10,000
line program.
The computer solved the chess
problem in five hours after consid
ering 100 billion moves by retro
grade analysis - working backward
from a winning position.