Banner Graphic, Volume 19, Number 69, Greencastle, Putnam County, 25 November 1988 — Page 2
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THE BANNERGRAPHIC Novtmbsr 25,1988
Feds mail last farm delinquency notices
WASHINGTON (AP) The Farmers Home Administration is mailing out Friday the last of 83,480 delinquency notices to farmers who owe more than $8 billion in past-due government loans. Agency officials began sending out the notices by certified mail on Nov. 15 telling FmHA borrowers they have 45 days to complete and return the nine forms. Basically, the notices tell farmers about the options they have for settling their debt, including restructuring and writeoffs. Congress ordered FmHA in the Agricultural Credit Act of 1987 to revise its lending practices, including ways to handle long-overdue debt owed by
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Larry J. Wilson and David B. Wilson are pleased to announce the formation of a partnership for the practice of law under the firm name of Wilson & Wilson, with offices at 16 South Jackson Street, Greencastle, Indiana. Telephone 653-2632.
Bleasejoin our family on this joyous occasion when our father, f. Sherman Mocker celebrates his seventy-fifth birthday at a reception in his honor on Saturday, the third of { December , nineteen hundred and eighty-eight from two to four in the afternoon ‘Bette ‘Union firehouse Bette Union, Indiana
We’re putting together a SURPRISE memory book for Dad. Please help make this gift special by bringing Dad a fond memory you have of him. He requests no gifts. Your presence at our celebration and memory for the book will be cherished for many years to come. Thanks
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thousands of farmers. Parts of the law were put into effect earlier in the year but debt writedown, or forgiveness, kicked in this month. THE PURPOSE OF the notices is to give delinquent borrowers an opportunity to let FmHA know how they want to handle their debt under the new law’s provisions. Leland H. Swenson, president of the National Farmers Union, explained: “The new law basically says FmHA must give borrowers whose delinquency was caused by factors beyond their control 45 days to convince the agency that it could recover more by working with them than it could by forcing them out”
OPEC to cut production
VIENNA, Austria (AP) OPEC oil ministers cut a tentative deal to end a bitter dispute between Iran and Iraq and boost crude oil prices on the international market Iran’s oil minister, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, rushed to Tehran today to get his government’s approval to sign the pact which would lead to higher prices for gasoline and other petroleum products. Aghazadeh announced the offer late Thursday after meeting with key ministers of the 13-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. THE MINISTERS opened their winter meeting on Monday but postponed further discussions to
AIDS breakthrough?
Researchers find new drug that attacks infected cells
WASHINGTON (AP) Laboratory experiments announced today show that a plant toxin combined with a synthetic protein is able to attack and kill cells infected with the AIDS virus while leaving healthy cells untouched. In a study published today in the journal Science, a group of researchers report that a manmade molecule called recombinant CD4 can be used to deliver a killer toxin to cells infected with AIDS in testtube experiments. HOWEVER, THEY cautioned that the new laboratory development like other incremental advances in AIDS research was far from being ready for clinical application and, at best, might offer a potential new treatment approach rather than a cure. Dr. Jonathan W. Uhr, chairman of the department of microbiology
give them time to end the stalemate between Iran and Iraq, which agreed to a cease-fire in August in their eight-year war. A final agreement would have to be approved by all the ministers. “It’s a fluid situation,” said Venezuelan Oil Minister Julio Cesar Gil._ “It depends. ... Mr. Aghazadeh went to Tehran for consultations.” A minister involved in the discussions, asked if the plan could be modified, replied, “Not from our point of view.” He spoke on condition of anonymity. SPEAKING TO reporters in a crowded hotel lobby, Aghazadeh said the arrangement would set
world
Armenians flee Soviet violence
MOSCOW (AP) Hundreds of ethnic Armenians fled to their homeland from a neighboring republic, where several people were killed in the worst ethnic riots in months, reports from the southern region said. Two other Soviet republics, Lithuania and Georgia, mounted challenges to Moscow’s central authority. REPORTS FROM THE south said Soviet troops used helicopters and trucks Thursday to evacuate women and children from one troubled area of Azerbaijan. The soldiers were sent to the republic to try to control the escalating violence. Musa Mamedov, chief of the information department of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, said Thursday night that reports from the city of Kirovabad were sketchy but that several people were killed in rioting. “There were more outbreaks of violence,” Mamedov said by telephone from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku. “There are victims, deaths.” The number of deaths was not known. He said from 50,000 to 100,000 protesters remained on the streets of the city. THE OFFICIAL NEWS
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at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said the CD4 molecule naturally binds to a gycoprotein, called gpl2o, that forms on the surface of cells infected with human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which causes AIDS. CD4, he said, will not attach itself to cells not infected with HIV. In the laboratory, Uhr said, his research group combined a synthetic CD4 molecule with a toxin called ricin that is extracted from plants. WHEN EXPOSED in a test tube to HIV-infected cells, he said, the CD4-ricin combination binds to the cell surfaces and the ricin then kills the cell, thus eliminating a source of HIV virus. “Early in the course of HIV infection, T-cells and macrophages (two types of immunity cells) are
total OPEC production at 18.5 million barrels a day for the first six months of 1989. Output has been running more than 20 million barrels a day. The ministers want the production agreement to dry up some of the glut on the market so prices will go up. It also would retain the cartel’s benchmark price of $lB a barrel. The futures price for West Texas Intermediate, a major U.S. crude, closed Wednesday at $13.97 a barrel. EACH $1 INCREASE in the price of crude oil theoretically means a rise of 2.5 cents a gallon in retail gasoline prices.
agency Tass blamed the situation on “irresponsible nationalistic elements” and reported fighting between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. In Nakhichevan, border troops evacuated at least 500 Armenian women and children to Armenia with “helicopters, trucks and anything else they could find,” said Boris Kufaryan, senior editor of Armenia’s official Armenpress news agency. Kufaryan, speaking by telephone from the Armenian capital of Yerevan, said more than 1,700 Armenians who fled from Azerbaijan in recent days had registered as refugees in his republic. NAKHICHEVAN IS the capital of an Azerbaijani region of the same name that is separated from the main part of the republic by the southern section of Armenia. According to the 1970 census, 190,000 Azerbaijanis share the region with 6,000 Armenians. In Kirovabad, frightened Armenians formed an emergency committee to send their women and children to Armenia, said Arpenay Popoyan, wife of Armenian activist Rafael Popoyan. She said from Yerevan that they asked military authorities to be sent to the city to provide transport.
thought to be the major cellular reservoirs for the virus. Both of those bear the CD4 molecule that permits the virus to enter,” said Uhr. Bv combining a toxin with the CD4 molecule, the researchers are, in effect, creating a guided missile that attacks only those cells that are infected. Healthy cells are not touched by the toxin, said Uhr. THE SCIENTIST SAID toxic effects of the CD4-riein combination will have to be studied in the laboratory before the technique could be used in clinical experiments. Ricin has been used in cancer drugs and has been found to be well tolerated by patients if managed carefully, he said. Uhr said it will be at least a year before the drug could be tested on patients. And, though this technique shows promise, he said he is not
‘Shop early’ is experts’ holiday shopping advice
By JOYCE M. ROSENBERG AP Business Writer Christmas shoppers wading into the post-Thanksgiving rush today face a little added pressure this yean Tight inventories. That’s a business decision prompted by a long-running slump in the retail business, but for consumers it means limited selection and shortages of hotselling items. Friday’s opening of the nation’s annual shopping spree finds retailers optimistic about improving their seasonal sales, but conservative enough to stock sparingly. Inventories have been tight for much of the year, and few retailers are likely to take many chances at this point. THE ADVICE FROM industry analyst Monroe Greenstein of the investment firm Bear, Steams & Co., is to shop early. “If consumers want to buy popular items, they better not wait,” he said. The most popular items this season are expected to include designer and cashmere sweaters, leather goods and compact disk players and for children, Nintendo video games and Barbie dolls. “It is still too early to get a true reading on whether this is going to be a nail-biting Christmas. We never anticipated Christmas 1988 to be a barnburner Christmas,” said Mike Wellman, marketing vice president for K mart Corp. in Troy, Mich. ‘THERE ARE more people working, the election is behind us, and people seem to be reasonably, if not optimistic, comfortable with the shape of the economy.” K mart, with thousands of discount stores, book shops and drugstores, expects holiday sales to run about 6 percent ahead of last year in the range of most optimistic forecasts. For K mart, and other big retailers, the decisions that may make or break Christmas 1988
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suggesting that it would cure AIDS. “We would not expect it to kill a latently-infected cell and this represents a significant obstacle in terms of curing this disease,” said Uhr. “I think that one might expect, at best, to slow it down.” He said the AIDS virus is known to invade cells and stay there quietly, not making the gpl2o protein that would be targeted by the CD4 molecule. “ONE WOULD HAVE to consider the problem of these latent infected cells as a major one in toms of ridding the body of all the infected cells,” said Uhr. Dr. Flossie Wong-Staal, a National Institutes of Health AIDS researcher, said the finding was “important” but added, “we could never eliminate the virus infection by this means” because of the latently infected cells.
were made as long as 16 months ago. “We have been playing the whole inventory thing conservatively all year long and that’s continued right into Christinas,” Wellman said. Promotions are expected to help generate traffic. WHILE THE DAY after Thanksgiving is the traditional start of the season, many stores have had their decorations up for weeks. At Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship store in Manhattan, for instance, the evergreens went up right after Halloween. To get Chicago shoppers in the spirit, Marshall Field’s hired carolers and minstrels to roam its stores and installed a Christmas tree in one location that it calls “the tallest indoor handmade-ornament tree in the world.” Some “sale” signs and price markdowns will be popping up around the country, but analysts say many of these promotions also were planned in advance and prices have been adjusted to account for them. “WE CONTINUE to operate in a very competitive environment, and we see some caution on the part of the consumer,” said Kathy Blackburn of Mervyn’s, a Hayward, Calif.-based department store chain. Sears, Roebuck & Co., the nation’s largest retailer, plans to give shoppers a taste of the new low prices that are part of its recently announced restructuring plan. Most Sears stores will not switch to “everyday low pricing” until next year, but the company will still be touting holiday sale items. Some retailers say price chopping may be inevitable later in the season. IN A SURVEY conducted last month by the accounting firm Touche Ross & Co., 90 percent of a group of 70 New England retailers said major markdowns would take place earlier or at the same time as last year.