Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 107

REPUBLIC nNAL WWVJ tnrr THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC Thursday, July 15, 1982 Ph robe 601X In high-tech traffic Today Computers believed bound for Soviets intercepted last week in W. Germany By Sam Stanton Republic Staff A Phoenix firm that apparently was involved in shipping computer systems to West Germany is under investigation by the Customs Service because federal officials believe the equipment was headed for the Soviet Union. MLPI Business Systems Inc. of 2525 West Beryl Ave. is one of at least two firms under investigation after last week's seizure of a shipment of U.S.-built computers.

The company has denied any wrongdoing. William Von Raab, the Customs Service's commissioner, said in Washington that four complete computer systems 41 pieces of gear worth $400,000 were seized July 6 after surveillance by U.S., Canadian and German authorities. "Criminal prosecution is pending at this time in the United States and Canada for violation of U.S. and Canadian export laws by the U.S. and Canadian firms," Raab said.

Raab said the surveillance began in June after authorities learned that the computers were being trucked from the United States to a Canadian company, where they were stored until Canadian export permits were obtained. "The shipment, upon arrival in West Germany, was watched by German customs officials and the U.S. customs attache," Raab said. "When the shipment was diverted (by authorities) from the scheduled shipping route to Switzerland, it was seized by German customs." Pat O'Brien, head of the Customs Service's "Operation Exodus," which seeks to stem the flow of high-technology equipment to communist nations, said it was legal to ship the computers to West Germany. That country is one of about a dozen nations cooperating with the United States in the effort.

He added, however, that shipment of such gear to Switzerland was not legal because Switzerland is not participating in the effort to control the high-technology flow. Al Beeson, vice president of MLPI Business Systems in Phoenix, said MLPI Newcorp Inc. owns MLPI Business Systems of Phoenix and Toronto but that the firms operate separately. He said MLPI Newcorp would not issue a statement immediately. High-tech, C6 Fannie Mae to back 1 0-year home loans with rising payments -J A Back to work General Motors Corp.

and Toyota Motor Co. of said in Detroit on Wednesday. Speaking at a news Japan likely will decide on this vacant GM plant in conference at the Communications Workers of Fremont, for joint production of a small car, America convention, Fraser said the site is better United Auto Workers President Douglas Fraser suited for the work than one at Southgate, Calif. Republic Staff and Wire Services The Federal National Mortgage Association announced in Washington on Wednesday a new type of mortgage that will enable borrowers to own. homes in less than 10 years instead of the traditional 30 years.

The-association, known as Fannie Mae, said the new mortgage is called a growing-equity, rapid-payoff and equity-building loan. It is a fixed-rate mortgage with gradually increasing monthly payments. The corporation said the payment increases are used to reduce principal so the loans are paid off faster than other kinds of fixed- or adjustable-rate mortgages. Gordon Murphy, director of the Savings and Loan League of Arizona, said the new program will have a positive impact in the state. However, Murphy said, no new loan program can be totally successful "until we see a general reduction in mortgage interest rates." "But it's nice to see that someone is trying something new," he said.

Fannie Mae said it will buy the loans for its own portfolio through negotiated transactions with individual lenders and, beginning Sept. 1, regularly commit to issue and guarantee securities backed by them, "mak ing it the first national source of funds for such mortgages." Such loans to which the association has committed to date provide for annual increases in the monthly payments of 2.5 to 7.5 percent, resulting in a loan payoff in a maximum of 15 years and a minimum of nine years, 10 months. A similar loan is under consideration for a $101 million mortgage-revenue bond issue approved by the Phoenix and Maricopa County industrial-development authorities. The bond issue would result in the issuance of 15-year growing-equity mortgages. Such loans would involve a fixed interest rate of about 12.75 percent, with low first-year monthly payments.

Each year, the payment would increase by 3 percent, with the additional money applied toward reducing the mortgage principal. Fannie Mae said some loans also entail more traditional graduated-payment features that lower monthly payments in the early years. Loans with these features pay off in about 10 to 15 years, Fannie Mae said. Murphy said such loans have proven popular in Arizona because they allow a larger number of buyers to qualify for a mortgage. eat-inspection trims planned British Rail threatens shutdown British Rail said Wednesday it will shut down the nation's rail network in seven days and fire 20,000 striking engineers unless they end their 11 -day strike.

Union leaders said the strikers will stay off the job, but other rail unions demanded that the engineers end the strike and arbitrate their dispute. Soviets dispute trade claim The Soviet news agency, Tass, has disputed a U.S. Commerce Department report that Moscow is increasingly dependent on trade with Western nations and called the 200-page document "lies." The claim of a "dramatic imbalance" in trade between Moscow and the West is "an obvious and crude falsehood," Tass said. GM gets huge Army pact The Army has awarded General Motors Corp. the automaker's largest military contract since World War II, a $689 million deal to build more than 53,000 utility cargo vehicles.

The three-year contract is likely to create jobs for workers at 31 GM component plants across the country. Off-peak air fares cut People Express Airlines, based in Newark, N.J., is moving into the Washington-Newark-New York market with off-peak fares as low as $19. Starting Aug. 3, the airline will offer five flights daily from Newark to Washington and five back to Newark flights it was able to add by purchasing landing slots at both airports. The standard weekday fare will be $44, and the $19 fare will apply to flights after 7 p.m.

and on weekends. Casino furloughs 56 Fifty dealers and six supervisors have been laid off in the casino of the Sahara Hotel on the Las Vegas, Strip. Hotel spokesman David Dearing said the layoffs include 18 full-time dealers and 32 part-time dealers. Dearing said the layoffs resulted from reduced business in recent months. The Sahara Hotel, owned by the Del E.

Webb was sold in May to Hacienda Hotel owner Paul Lowden for $50 million. It has been announced that Lowden will take over operation of the 932-room resort next month subject to approval by Nevada gaming agencies. Illinois bans Sunday car sales Illinois Gov. James Thompson has signed legislation that will prohibit auto dealers from opening Sundays after Jan. 1, 1983.

Dealers lobbied strongly for the law, arguing that staying open seven days a week is too costly for the depressed industry. Inventories dip Businesses increased sales sharply while continuing to cut production in May, resulting in the biggest decline in inventories since September. Inventories fell $4.4 billion, or 0.9 percent, to a seasonally adjusted $505.7 billion. Outboard-motor 'dumping' alleged Outboard Marine Corp. has filed anti-dumping petitions in the European Community and Australia against Japanese outboard-motor manufacturers.

Outboard Marine is the manufacturer of Evinrude and Johnson Outboard Motors. Oriental-fruit-fly larvae found Laboratory tests confirm that larvae found in a box of fruit mailed to California from Hawaii were of the Oriental fruit fly, cousin of the crop-destroying Mediterranean fruit fly. Agricultural officials said the shipment to an individual was considered an isolated incident and there will be no spraying or quarantine. Firm to buy Taiwanese robots A Taiwanese firm plans to sell up to 5,000 robots in the United States for instruction and research purposes. Scientech Automation Corp.

will deliver 200-500 "Taiwan 1" and "Taiwan 2" robots in October to Sandhu Engineering Design Co. of Champion, 111. "Taiwan 1" is a 32-inch robot that is able to carry 5 pounds, and "Taiwan 2," which is 24 inches, can carry 1 pound. The arms for both types ol robots move in six directions. Inside: Stock market Blue-chip stocks, headed by International Business Rohrer and C.J.

Parsons, board fiscal officer, and 90 percent of the livestock-inspection force will take the four weeks' pay cut. Positions vacated by the retirement of five employees will not be filled, and travel will be reduced in all of the board's programs. Reduced travel will not seriously affect livestock inspections, Rohrer said. "Since we are in a period of declining inspection activities in the livestock-inspection program," he said, "we are hopeful we will be able to absorb the reduction in miles driven without adversely affecting the program goals." The planned inspection cutback does not affect plants that ship products out of state; those plants are federally inspected. Plans for the "calculated risks" came as Dr.

Wayne Wiekhoret of the disease-control and inspection division reported that the federal Argriculture Department's food-supply and quality bureau has granted Arizona a ranking of 6 the second-highest ranking for custom meatpacking plants. Custom plants are those meeting the needs of individuals. Budget cuts force 'calculated risks' in examinations of plants by state ByA.V. Gullette Republic Staff The Arizona Livestock Sanitary Board was told Wednesday that budget cuts will make it impossible to conduct mandated inspections at all meat- and poultry-processing plants before their operations start daily. "With reduced funding, it is necessary that we take some calculated risks and stagger plant inspections, concentrating our activities on those plants where we have developed a history of non-compliance," board Director Thomas E.

Rohrer told the members at their monthly meeting. "Since this program is 50 percent funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we may encounter some repercussions," he said. Most of the board's 10 percent budget reduction will come from salaries. Gov.

Bruce Babbitt has ordered all state agencies to cut their budgets by 10 percent because of declining revenues. Most employees of the board will give up four weeks' pay, Rohrer said. In addition, there will be reductions in personnel and a slight cut in travel expenses. Sperry taking aim at IBM with new computer family Savers wary of in-store teller machines For example, the 1100-90 can be organized into a four-processor configuration, meaning the system could be working on four separate problems simultaneously or that four processors could be working in conjunction on one problem. Another benefit of multiprocessing is so-called redundant, or fault-tolerant, processing of information so that should one processor fail, the others would continue working.

Sperry Univac does not have any production facilities in the Valley. With the capability of a four-processor system, the new Sperry Univac series "is an effective competitor" with IBM's 3081 series, which can employ a dual-processing configuration, according to Sanford J. Garrett, an analyst with Paine Webber Mitchell Hutchins. Associated Press NEW YORK Sperry Univac, hoping to overcome International Business Machines dominance of the mainframe-computer market, unveiled a new family of computer systems Wednesday that Sperry calls its most powerful and advanced to date. The new 1100-90 series includes four models and a host of new software, or operating programs.

Prices of complete systems range from $4 million to $15 million, and the first customer deliveries are scheduled for June, the company said. Specifically, Sperry Univac, a unit of Sperry said its top 1100-94 model provides twice the memory capacity and nearly twice the processing speed of IBM's top-of-the-line mainframe, the 3081K. That is partly because Sperry Univac's new machines can employ a "multiprocessing" configuration, which means taking separate computers and linking them together. By Naaman Nickell Assistant Economics News Editor Arizonans like the convenience of automated teller machines, but they aren't taken too much by the idea of using one at a convenience store or gasoline station, according to a survey conducted by Behavior Research Center Inc. of Phoenix.

The survey indicates that financial institutions that are planning to expand their automated-teller networks are going to have to undertake a strong marketing program to educate customers about their new ideas. Among the 350 heads of households interviewed in Phoenix and Tucson, 85 percent said they would be reluctant to use an automated teller located at a gasoline station and 75 percent said they would be reluctant to use one located at a convenience store. The survey shows that people are much more comfortable with the machines located outside bank branches, at shopping malls, or in supermarkets. The survey's finding on automated tellers at convenience stores will be no to the Savings and Loan League of Arizona, which in April announced plans to install the machines at 25 all-night Circle stores, according to Gordon Murphy, executive director of the league. Additionally, less than 10 percent of those surveyed said they were aware of arrangements under consideration that would permit customers of banks or savings and loans in the Valley to conduct automated-teller transactions at participating institutions in other areas.

But about 25 percent indicated they would use automated tellers more often if such a shared arrangement were available. Plus Systems which is being offered by the Arizona Bank; Cirrus, an automated-teller network that includes First Interstate of First Interstate Bank Arizona; First Bancnet of which Valley National Bank was a founding member; and Instant Teller Network are the major shared systems now being marketed. But he emphasized that IBM is expected to announce a three- and four-processor machine by year's end. Also, he noted, IBM has a head start in shipping its 3081 series, unveiled about 18 months ago. Fourth desert solar deal announced State panel to study creation of low-rate-mortgage agency Creation of a state financing apencv The project is expected to cost more than $100 million by the time it is fully operational and will be designed, built and operated by Luz.

It will require 1.2 million square feet of collectors to produce 15 megawatts. A large portion of the project will be manufactured in Jerusalem by Luz Industries Israel a wholly owned subsidiary of Luz International. In addition to the Luz project, Edison recently announced agreements with Acurex Solar Corp. for a 12-megawatt solar-trough project at the same desert location and with Arco Solar Inc. for a one-megawatt photovoltaic-cell project nearby at Hesperia.

Also in the area at Barstow is the world's largest functioning solar thermal-power plant, the 10-megawatt Solar One. Built by the federal Energy Department and several California utilities, Solar One uses a field of 1,800 tracking mirrors focusing the sun's rays onto a boiler on top of a central tower to produce electricity. McDonnell Douglas which designed Solar One and Southern California Edison and Bechtel Power Corp. now have designed a 100-megawatt plant that will use the same design and 15,000 heliostats. They have not announced construction plans.

Luz also is constructing a privately financed $3.5 million industrial solar system at the Cyprus Bagdad Copper Co. in Bagdad that will use solar power rather than oil to dry copper-molybdenum concentrate. Republic Staff and Wire Services Luz International Ltd. of Los Angeles on Wednesday announced plans to build a 15-megawatt solar-electricity plant in the Mojave Desert near Daggett, joining a growing number of solar plants under construction there or being considered. The new plant is at least the fourth announced in the desert area about 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Roger Adams, vice president and general counsel of Luz, said Southern California Edison will buy the power and deliver it through its existing distribution system. Adams said he believes the project to be the largest solar-electric plant announced in the country. However, the Consortium of Alternate Energies in Lemon Grove, said it still is proceeding with plans to build a 500-megawatt plant on 4,000 acres near Ridgecrest, Calif. Luz's project will be developed in phases of three or six megawatts each and will occupy 100 acres of Edison property near other solar projects. Construction is expected to begin this year, with operation of the first, three-megawatt phase planned for December 1983.

Adams said the project will use tracking, trough-shaped parabolic collectors to heat oil in a tube to about 500 degrees Fahrenheit The oil will be circulated to a heat exchanger to produce steam for running a generator. Several other states already operate bonding authorities for the housing market. They issue tax-free bonds, then turn over the funds to lending institutions for loans to home buyers. Ryan said consideration of a state financing entity probably will be the No. 1 priority of the task force, although other methods of making home buying easier also will be explored.

"We plan to look for all types of ways to make housing more affordable," he added. A similar effort was started in Phoenix this year and already has resulted in some changes in regulations that city officials and some home builders claim will reduce the cost of new homes. Ryan said the task force also is expected to look at government regulations but probably will not make any recommendations that would involve the state's trying to take over building controls from local Machines staged a dramatic last-hour surge Wednesday, and the that would make low-interest loans available to home buyers is among proposals to be examined by a task force named Wednesday by Gov. Bruce Babbitt. Martin F.

Ryan, a Douglas lawyer who will head the 17-member group, said such an agency could perform in a manner similar to, but possibly more effectively than, the many county and city industrial-development authorities operating in the state. The authorities were established to issue tax-free bonds for industrial and commercial construction projects and for some housing projects. Ryan said a state authority could specialize in bonds for housing and probably could market bonds that would be more salable and carry less interest than those issued by the smaller, local authorities. "The name of Arizona on the bonds probably would make them more salable," he said. market closed mixed as institutions stormed the market to join the summer rally bandwagon.

The rally was impressive because, with the exception of IBM, second-quarter earnings reports so far have been disastrous. The Dow Jones average rose 4.19 points, to 828.39. C3. Netf-car sales plunge Domestic new-car sales fell 14.8 percent in the first 10 days of July. C4..