+** THE STARS AND STRIPES Sunday, March 16,19B7Experts urge furtherUNITED NATIONS (DPI) — World economistsFriday forced*! continuing high domestic and foreigndcfidi! by the United States and urged a "more broad-based decline of the dollar" ai well as further U.S.fiscal lightening.The group of 80 economists from more than 30naliom who met last week at U.N, headquarters inNew York also said in their report that they see "nosigns of a significant improvement" in the persistenthigh unemployment that hat plagued Western Europe,The report of the Expert Group on Short and Medi-um Term Projections of World Economy, known asProject LINK, said the world economy will continue tocraw in the short run at a modest annual rale of about3.5 percent,In the medium term, world trade can be expected togrow in the range of 4 to 5 percent, said the group,whose chairman is Professor Lawrence R. Klein, aNobel laureate in economics.With the exception of modest price increases in theUnited Stales, the report said new inflationary pressur-es arc still several years away,"In the present:environment of low commodityprices and cautious policy stances in the industrialworld, no significant accelerating inflationary tenden-cies arc discernible, although some modest price in-creases arc expected, particularly in the UnitedStates," the report said.Dealing with U.S. economic problems, the expertssaid, "The United States will have a continuing highcurrent account deficit. A policy environment morefavorable toward a reduction of worldwide current ac-count imbalances would have to include, amongolhers, a more broad-based decline of the dollar.""In addition." the report said, "a fiscal lighteningin the United Stales, accommodated by offsetting do-mestic monetary policy and complementary fiscal ex-pansion in other industrial countries, would help toof dollarreduce the need for large-scale capital lnltowi into theUnited Stoics."West European countries, "despite a moderately op.timisttc outlook with respect to real activity, continueto be plagued by persistent high unemployment," thereport said."There are no signs of a significant improvementover the immediate future. The expansions that arebeing projected in production arc simply not largeenough to bring down the unemployment rales by sig-nificant margins," the economists said.They urged "major efforts to be directed toward acorrection of the three major world imbalances; thelarge offsetting current account imbalancs within theindustrial world, the continued indebtedness of majordeveloping countries, and the undcr-utillzation of thelabor force in many industrial economies, especially inWestern Europe." ,news updateLiver failure victimPITTSBURGH (APJ — A 4-ycar-old girl whose need for a livertransplant prompted a court rulingproviding her with Medicaid fundshas died of liver failure, hospitalofficials said friday.Michelle Todd, of Arlington, Vs.,died at Children's Hospital of Pitts-burgh, where she received transplantson March 3 and March 6, said hospi-tal spokeswoman SueCanJilto.Doctors learned early Thursdaymorning that the girl's hepatic ar-tery, the primary artery to theliver, was blocked and an Infectionquickly spread throughout herbody, Cardillo said.temperaturescuropean weatn -PianMdDyOlt(3:7m(hntri wOrW*« L—4in>4|m19 aV 4120 4!ta ait MIt 4134 4«•STB150 MonbBAl —4B 41 MOtcO*. I34 il Cun. lM 34 Twonto. —Proposal for tax hike 'dead duck/Reagan tells conservative backersWASHINGTON (AP) — Taking aimat suggestions in Congress for new taxes,President Reagan says such proposals"bave about as much chance of flying asa dead duck." .Reagan, speoking to a group of con-servative business: jupporters Friday, ap-peared to be responding to House Speak-er Ji'Ji Wright ofTexas, who has said thebudfiel can't be balanced by spendingcub alone and has argued for the need toraise more revenue.Saying "there are some" in Congresswho want lo back away from theGramm-Rudman budget-balancing law's$ 108 billion deficit target for fiscal 1988,which starts Oct. 1, or have suggestedthat new taxes are needed, Reagan saidthey should know "that's just not goingto happen." ."All these lax-hike schemes haveabout as much chance of flying as a deadduck," Reagan said, adding: "My pledgelo veto any ta* rale increase remainsrock solid. There will be no lax rate in-crease In the (current) lOQlh Congress."House Budget Committee ChairmanWilliam H, Gray UI issued an immedi-ate and caustic response, challengingReagan to submit an honestly balancedbudget lo Congress.'The president should have learnedTram the Irangale affair to get full com-mand of the facts before he speaks out."Cray said. "His budget does not do whathe claims— A president is supposed tolead. Let him lead.1'Gray's panel and its Senate coun-terpart will begin next week formallydrafting their spending plans, and saythey may fall as far short of the SI Oftbillion deficit target for fiscal I98S asReagan did in his budget. By congres-sional estimates, the president's spendingplan would leave a deficit of about $135billion.State Department denies Soviet claimU.S. caused leakage of radioactivityWASHINGTON (UP!) — The StateDepartment Friday denied a Sovietcharge that U.S. underground nucleartests wen responsible for a leakage ofradioactive fallout that Washington hasblamed on Moscow."That is not true," said departmentspokesman Charles Redman. "The Unit-ed States has made a concerted and suc-cessful effort to resolve the problems ofcontaining radioactive debns from un-derground nuclear explosions."The Soviet Union Thursday an-nounced it had conducted its second un-derground nuclear blast in two weeksWednesday.A Soviet spokesman also branded as a"gross falsification and a lie" the StaleDepartment's charge 'Wednesday thatthe earlier Soviet underground test Feb.26 violated the 1963 Limited Test BanTreaty by releasing radioactive falloutinto Ute atmosphere. State-run Moscowradio blamed the leakage of radiation onU.S. tests in Nevada.Redman said that, for more than 10years, "there have been no ventings andonly two incidents of local seepage ofradioactive gases at the Nevada test sitewhich were detected at levels barelyabove natural levels and certainly didnot result in any spread of radioactivitybeyond our national boundaries."During the same lime frame, therehave been numerous Soviet venting inci-dents."The Limited Test Ban Treaty bans therelease of radioactive materials over na-tional borders during testing. Redmandeclined to say over which countries fall-out from the Feb. 26 test were detected,saying that is classified information.On Aug. 6, 198S. Soviet leader Mik-hail Gorbachev announced a unilateralmoratorium on testing and asked theUnited Slates to join it.Washington refused the offer and con-ducted 24 underground tests before theSoviet Union said in December it wouldend Its moratorium after the first US,underground test in Nevada In 1987.That resulted in the Soviet blast Feb. 16.Senator ca//s for inquiry into memourging support for Reagan speechWASHINGTON (AF) — A memourging Agriculture Department employ-ees to phone in approval of PresidentReagan s speech on the Iran-contra af-fair should come in for a departmentalinvestigation, a Senate committee chair-man said Friday."It is outrageous that political employ-ees at the Department of Agriculturemay have pressured Civil Service em-ployees lo call the While House to makeit appear that there was overwhelmingpublic support for the president'sspcL-ch." Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vl., saidLeahy, chairman of the Senate Agri-culture Committee, said in a letter toAgriculture Secretary Richard E. Lyngthat the episode involving the nationallybroadcast speech March. 4 "should notbe taken lightly.""Attempts to coerce Civil Service em-ployees into distorting public-opinionpolls cannot be tolerated," Leahy said.He urged Lyng to "ask your inspectorgeneral to examine this matter."Following the speech, the White Housesaid it had received 3,645 positive re-sponses by telephone and 247 negativecalls.quotiLyng's press secretary, Lynn Melillo,joted him as saying that sending outthe memo was "a stupid thing to do' butsaid that he knew nothing about it untilthe mailer appeared in the media."Secretary Lyng in no way condoneswhat happened, Melillo said.The memo, which went out under thename ofGeorge S. Dunlop, assistant sec-retary for natural resources and environ-ment, actually was written by Dunlopsecretary Pamela Estcs, she said."It occurred on the initiative of anemployee in Sccrcjary Dunlqp's shopand it was her decision to distribute thatmemorandum," Melillo said. She saidthe phone number contained in thememo was one meant for critiques of thepresident's remarks by political employ-ees of the federal government.She said Esles had not understood thatthe number was for political employeesonly and not civil servants. Since then,Eslcs has been sent lo a departmentalethics class for political employees.