TATE/NATION/ WORLD WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 6, 1989 Teacher strikes affect students across Pa. By TED DUNCOMBE Associated Press Writer Teachers in one Pennsylvania school district went on strike yesterday but reached a settlement later in the day, while two other strikes began and another one ended at least temporarily. The developments left strikes in three districts affecting 378 teachers and 5,700 students across the Commonwealth. Strikes began yesterday morning in the Morrisville and Bristol Borough school districts in Bucks County and the Perkiomen Valley district in Montgom ery County. Perkiomen Valley, which has 2,300 students and 159 teachers, announced a settlement yesterday afternoon, clearing the way for students to start classes Thursday. In the Union School District in Clarion County, teachers returned to work on a day-to-day basis, allowing classes to resume for 975 students. The 56 mem bers of the Union Teachers Association had walked out Friday to protest the lack of progress toward replacing a con tract that expired June 30,1988. The second week of a strike idling 3,200 students began yesterday for the 192 members of the Big Spring Educa tion Association in Cumberland County. Talks broke down between school board members and teachers yesterday Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa holds up a golden horseshoe to photog raphers. He received the horseshoe from an unknown visitor after his arrival at Duesseldorf Airport yesterday for a four day visit to West Germany. Solidarity leader visits Germany By TERRENCE PETTY Associated Press Writer DUESSELDORF, West Germany Poland's Solidarity leader, Lech Walesa, began a West German visit yesterday with a plea for Western aid, saying Solidarity's plan for eco nomic reform in Poland will crum ble without it. "Our victory in Poland is like a house of cards," Walesa said during a luncheon with the board of direc tors of the powerful German Feder ation of Labor anions. "It would crumble if it were not financially ensured." Walesa, on the first day of a five day visit, also met with Johannes Rau, governor of the industrial state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He presented Rau with a list of 16 proposed projects for West German companies in the Baltic port city of Gdansk, Walesa's hometown and the birthplace of the Solidarity trade union movement. Neither Rau nor Walesa gave details about the proposed projects. Walesa said he was extending an invitation to West Germans to "come and rebuild Poland" and urged West Germany to make a quick decision on financial assis tance to the country. "The longer one waits the more expensive every thing becomes," he said. "The East bloc, which has lifted its Iron Curtain, can also be attractive to Western investors," he added. West Germany has built good business ties with Eastern Europe, and the United States has suggested it take the lead in the West's efforts to support East bloc reforms. Chancellor Helmut Kohl's govern ment has promised West German aid for Poland, but the two sides have been unable to agree on how much. The more conservative wing in Kohl's coalition government also wants to link the aid to Polish prom ises to improve the condition of eth nic Germans in Poland. Walesa is trying to secure aid to help promote Polish reforms under the new government of Solidarity activist Tadeusz Mazowiecki, named last month as the East bloc's first afternoon but were scheduled to resume Friday. In the two districts that went on strike yesterday, in addition to Perkiomen Valley, Morrisville has 1,150 students and 97 teachers and Bristol Borough has 1,350 students and 89 teachers. Jeffrey T. Sultanik, chief spokesper son and negotiator for the Perkiomen Valley school board, said the tentative agreement was reached at 3:45 p.m. State mediator John Taylor imposed a blackout on details of the tentative set tlement. William Westcott, Perkiomen Valley superintendent, earlier said the district had offered salary increases of 49.13 percent over four years. The teachers had sought a 48.84 percent increase over three years. No talks were scheduled in Morris ville or Bristol Borough, where teachers are seeking parity with salaries in sur rounding Bucks County communities, said Don Atkin, regional field director for the Pennsylvania State Education Association!' A strike was likely today in the Phoe nixville Area School District in Chester County, said Donald F. Morabito, assis tant executive director of the PSEA's Philadelphia-area office. Talks contin ued yesterday but the sides were far apart, he said. "We have the chance to work together fruitfully. From the airplane, I saw that we are indeed a united Europe, but it is hilly here and there, and there are also other obstacles." LECH WALESA, Solidarity leader non-Communist government leader. Upon arrival at Duesseldorf air port yesterday, Walesa called for East and West to overcome econom ic and political barriers, creating a Europe "where everyone feels that they are free." "We have the chance to work together fruitfully. From the air plane, I saw that we are indeed a united Europe, but it is hilly here and there, and there are also other obsta cles," Walesa told reporters through an interpreter. "Ibelieve that these hills, obsta cles and walls can be removed," he said. Differences between the two coun tries spoiled Kohl's hopes of travel ing to Poland to mark the 50th anniversary of the start of World War 11. Relations between the two coun tries have been strained by recent suggestions by West Germany's con servative finance minister, Theo Waigel, that Polish lands once part of the German empire technically still belong to Germany. Labor Minister Norbert Bluem said yesterday that he told Walesa a month-old West German ban on Polish seasonal workers was being lifted. Speaking to reporters after meet ing with Walesa, Bleum said there would be negotiations between Poland and West Germany on a quo ta for such workers. Teachers picket outside a Perkiomen Valley school In Graterford. Yesterday, the school was one of three eastern Pennsylvania districts shut down by strikes affecting 5,000 students on the first day of classes. Cosmonauts blast off after delay By ANDREW KATELL Associated Press Writer BADCONUR COSMODROME, U.SS.R. Two cos monauts riding an advertising-emblazoned rocket blasted off yesterday in search of a Soviet space suc cess following a series of failures and bitter public dis putes over costs. Interrupting its regular programming, official Radio Moscow reported "a Soviet space craft with a crew of two blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmo drome." As the countdown progressed toward the launch time of 1:38 a.m. MOSCOW time Wednesday (5:38 p.m. EDT yesterday), soldiers had gathered around bon fires under crystal-clear skies to watch the launch. The blastoff was televised live on Cable News Net work in the United States. The white Soyuz TM-8 capsule, resting on a gray booster rocket, sat in the middle of the Central Asian desert, with no other structures or space vehicles nearby. Correspondents watched the countdown from a viewing stand about a mile away. Mission commander Alexander S. Viktorenko and engineer Alexander A. Serebrov have a busy schedule of space construction and science laid out for them during their six-month mission aboard the now vacant orbital station Mir. But from the way their mission has been promoted, the public relations aspects are also important. AP LaserPhob Soviet officials have stressed repeatedly that such spaceflights can yield practical dividends sorely needed in a country now struggling with economic and environmental woes, and pounded home the theme in the final hours before the cosmonauts' liftoff. U.S. sends By BRUCE HANDLER Associated Press Writer BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) Two gunmen killed an army colonel's wife outside a supermarket yesterday, and Washington delivered five helicopters to help the government break the drug lords' violent grip on the country. A police source said the government's 2 1 / 2 -week-old crackdown on traffickers has virtually paralyzed the nation's cocaine-producing laboratories. A newspaper predicted rising prices and a shortage of the coveted drug in the United States. Meanwhile a man suspected of being one of the chief money launderers for Cokinbia's cocaine cartel faced a dead line today for appealing his extradition to the United States. Also yesterday, the mayor of Bogota banned outdoor marches and demon strations for an indefinite period as a precautionary measure in response to terrorist attacks by drug traffickers, Colombian radio reported. The private national radio network RCN said Bogota Mayor Andres Pas trami Arango ordered the ban "to main tain normal public order." In Medellin, where a nighttime cur few has been in effect since last week, an armed gang forced everyone out of a restaurant, then set the establishment on fire with gasoline, police said. It was not immediately clear if the attack was related to the cocaine barons fighting the government crackdown. Police and soldiers late yesterday continued patrolling the streets of Medellin, the nation's principal cocaine center 150 miles northwest of Bogota, which was the site of four bomb attacks Monday night. Police gave no motive for the slaying of Angela de Guerrero, 32. She was shot four times as she sat in her small sedan outside a supermarket in the northern suburbs by two gunmen who fled in a white car. Television footage showed a carton of eggs beside the slain woman and hys terical shoppers near the scene. The victim was identified as the wife of Col. Cats Guerrero, a logistics plan ning officer for the joint military forces. "Right now we're not concerned about motive," said a Defense Ministry spokesman, Col. Eduardo Arevalo. To help their country's space program pay more of its own way, the Soviets have even•allowed commer cial advertising on the flight. One of three stages of the 150-foot booster rocket, painted orange, carried an ad for the Italian insurance company Generali. Others, for a Soviet electronics company and "New Dawn" perfume, were displayed on a side of the launch pad and in a room where the cosmonauts met reporters Monday night. The 20-ton Mir was designed to be manned perma nently manned, and two cosmonauts ended a year on the space station in 1988. It was unexpectedly mothballed in April, however, because two add-on modules were not ready and the Kremlin did not want to keep a crew aboard while leg islators and ordinary people were demanding more spending at home. "If we had colossal sums, we could have had the two modules on time, but we have limited resources like everyone else," Lt. Gen. Vladimir A. Shatalov, head of cosmonaut training, told The Associated Press. Deciding to leave the Mir unoccupied for only the second time since it was launched in February 1986 showed a new sensitivity to public opinion by the Sovi et space bureaucracy, which generally has been more interested in matching or surpassing the U.S. space Program. Gorbachev's political reforms have given space offi cials something in common with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration: opposition from a skeptical public and from legislators trying to trim a budget deficit of 120 billion rubles ($192 billion at the official exchange rate. ) Space officials invited reporters from all 15 Soviet to Colombian government aid ''4 k 4 i • - , - 400 ki‘ Heavily armed Colombian military police patrol Bogota's El Dorado International Airport. Yesterday five "Huey" helicopters donated by the United States for the government's war on narcotics traffickers arrived. "We're concerned about catching the killers." Police have blamed previous instances of random violence on drug traffickers retaliating for the govern ment crackdown. The United States delivered five UH -111 "Huey" transport helicopters, mod ified versions of the combat choppers that gained prominence during the Viet nam war. They arrived in a huge C-5 transport plane at Bogota's El Dorado airport, the last of the big-ticket items in President Bush's $65 million package to help the government fight its drug war. In recent days, the United States has sent Colombia five C-130 transport planes and eight A 37 reconnaissance and attack jets. The aid also includes machine guns, bulletproof vests, gre nades, boats and trucks. Drug lords have waged a campaign 0:NIX Win sslgt f lath of bombings, assassinations and threats, largely to intimidate the gov ernment into refusing to extradite drug traffickers wanted in the United States. Colombia's powerful cartels are believed to supply the United States with 80 percent of its cocaine. The drug war began in earnest Aug. 18, when an assassination squad believed hired by drug czars killed lead ing presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan. Shortly after the helicopters were unloaded, an apparent bomb threat caused airport security agents to remove passengers and luggage from a jet of Colombia's Avianca Airlines about to take off for Miami. Soldiers cleared the airport and brought in bomb-sniffing dogs. A suspicious suitcase, shown on local TV newscasts, turned out to be full of rocks. jprip,:psEANlA republics and several Western countries to the huge Baikonur Cosmoctrome, 1,560 miles southeast of Mos cow in Kazakhstan, to watch the blastoff. They also showed off the new space shuttle Buran and its ground facilities, gave news conferences and allowed reporters to roam freely in the once restricted nearby city of Leninsk. In a scene unlikely at NASA's Cape Canaveral, jour nalists were even allowed on a flatbed railroad car that carried the 310-ton capsule and booster assembly to the launch pad at dawn Monday. Flight preparations gave Soviet officials opportu nities to defend the space program from allegations that it pollutes the environment, does not produce practical benefits and is too costly. Yuri P. Semenov, the chief engineer, said the Soviet Union spent 1.3 billion rubles ($2 billion) on its civilian space program last year and the TM-8 mission cost 90 million rubles ($138.8 million). He estimated potential economic benefits from the flight, such as discovery of mineral deposits using Mir's remote sensing equipment, at 86 million rubles ($132 million). Officials said the new modules were nearly finished and the two cosmonauts would attach them in October and February. Mir already is joined with Kvant, an astrophysics laboratory. The first new module features a shower and sink, airlock for spacewalks and incubator in which Japa nese quail eggs will be hatched to study the effects of weightlessness on heredity. The second has a telescop ic camera for studying the stars, a docking port for the Buran shuttle and equipment to grow vegetables. Viktorenko and Serebrov are to be replaced by another crew in early March. U.S. teacher strikes abound By The Associated Press Teachers in Sacramento, Calif., hit the picket line after contract talks broke down, boosting to more than 110,000 stu dents around the nation who had no classes yesterday. In Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, teachers overwhelmingly ratified a new two-year contract with the school board, ending the threat of a strike set for yesterday. Walkouts in 12 districts in Illinois, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and Pennsyl vania affected about 66,000 students as of Labor Day. Negotiators worked through the hol iday to try to head off a strike in Sacra mento, with 48,000 students the biggest district in the nation to have a walkout. Talks broke down about 3 a.m., and teachers were on strike by 7 a.m., offi cials said. The teachers want a 12.7 per cent raise this year and are seeking class-size limitations and hiring dead lines for new teachers. In Michigan, teachers in the Jackson and Saginaw Township school districts were on strike yesterday. The National Police said yesterday that since the crackdown began, cocaine production in Colombia has practically stopped and that prices should go up as a result. "Cocaine-processing plants in Mag dalena Medio, Vichada and the eastern plains are inactive," said a police offi cial, who insisted his name not be used. So far this year, Colombian authori ties say they have destroyed 252 cocaine labs, mostly in those three remote regions. The Bogota newspaper El Tiempo, citing unidentified police sources, fore casted yesterday a cocaine shortage in the United States "within 30 days at most." It also said that based on police infor mation, a kilogram of cocaine, or 2.2 pounds, which now costs $1,500 in Colombia and $lO,OOO at its wholesale distribution point in Miami, will go up AP LmrPholo
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