The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 1

"I K.H EL MER1D1 EN Next week Seafood Lunch Buffet JUJ. HlRTOiSON. Canon PC 3 II PORTABLE PERSONAL BUSINESS COPIER priciH BREAK- jTHHOUQHI CAFEFLEDRI 845 Bumtitl at Robson 682-5511 (50 cents minimum outside Lower Mainland) -KMMWMMm, 50 CENTS Sii wbri MMai9 ANC srftemi stand. imiimi9 Midwife system Miss Daisy pair in Oscar drive Jessica Tandy has been nominated for best actress in this year's Academy Awards. Also nominated this morning is her co-star in Driving Miss Daisy, Morgan Freeman.

But the film faces stiff competition from Born on the Fourth of July, with star Tom Cruise nominated. Details, C5 TIRE FIRE FOUGHT mm Canadian Press with N.Y. Times News Service SOWETO, South Africa The African National Congress is willing to compromise with the government on details of a post-apartheid political system as long as the principle of black rights is ensured, Nelson Mandela said today. The 71-year-old black leader was asked if the ANC was willing to ease its demand for a one-person, one-vote system that would lead to black majority rule. "Compromises must be made in respect to every issue, as long as that Embassy evolves, A9 compromise is in the interest not only of one population group but the country as whole," Mandela told reporters outside his home.

"That is the nature of compromises." The ANC has repeatedly rejected any system falling short of one-person, one-vote. Mandela has stressed that his movement would like to address white fears of black domination, although he opposes the government's concept of "group rights" that would give special legal protection to whites and other minorities. "We are aware of the fears of the whites in the country, of being dominated by blacks and we are addressing that very seriously and very earnestly," he said in his first interviews since he was released Sunday after 27 years in prison. "I am convinced that in discussions between the ANC and the government, we will be able to find a solution which will be accepted by everybody." Mandela did not elaborate on Please see MANDELA, A2 -f t'i: German unification, troop cuts step nearer By FRANK RUTTER Sun Foreign Affairs Columnist with Southam News OTTAWA A historic meeting of foreign ministers ended Tuesday with announcements of a two-step plan to reunify Germany and a U.S.Soviet agreement on sweeping troop reductions in Central Europe. "Basically, everything has changed," External Affairs Minister Joe Clark told reporters after the agreements were reached in Ottawa Decades of division, A3 at the first meeting ever of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

The 23 foreign ministers came here to talk about Open Skies allowing aerial surveillance of each others countries. And they did agree on the framework of an open skies treaty to be signed in Budapest in May. But, in the context of the rapid and revolutionary change across Europe, they found themselves going far beyond this mandate at meetings beginning even before the official start of the conference on Monday. While most now have gone home, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze remained for a two-day official visit in Ottawa, the high point of which will be an appearance before the joint parliamentary com-mittees on foreign affairs and defence on Thursday. The agreement on conventional forces in Europe sets a ceiling of 195,000 on the number of troops and aircrew the U.S.

and the Soviet Union will base in central Europe. However, the U.S. will be allowed up to another 30,000 troops outside central Europe for example, if they are based in Britain. This is a negotiating victory for the U.S., which had proposed these Please see TALKS, A2 Early immersion in French scrapped French immersion classes will be phased out of early grades on the Sunshine Coast. However, the school board insists the trustees' decision has nothing to do with demands by the local branch of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada that the early immersion program be scrapped.

The board says it remains committed to teaching French, but its program will start at the Grade 4 level. Details, Bl Hagersville, Ont. Authorities Urged more than 2,000 people within a radius to Jeave their homes to escape the toxic smoke. (StoryTA8.) FLYING HIGH, a waterbomber relets its load of water and fire retardant Tuesday on a blazing mountain of about 12 million tires at a recycling depot in Trio in court after hostage-taldeg negotiator Elles Peleskey said at a press conference Tuesday night. Prince George RCMP were called in by the Standard Bus Contracting which operates a regular run for students in outlying regions, after other company drivers noticed a bus loaded with students heading in the wrong direction.

Police surrounded the bus at Sun-land Motor Cars on a main street near the downtown core, where a spokesman for the three gunmen told Peleskey over the bus radio they wanted a car in the lot. The spokesman said they would "start shooting" if police came too close. CANADIAN PRESS them and thought they were friends of somebody." She said no one paid much attention until they pulled their weapons. "I leaned over to the person next to me and said: 'Get down, he's got a She thought it was a joke at first, but then she saw that they were not joking." Borotski said the three told the students they did not intend to hurt them but she said they seemed disorganized. Police Insp.

Mervin Harrower told reporters the bus driver, 54-year-old Syl Meise, allowed the three on the bus although they did not belong to the school because they said they had a package to deliver to one of the students. The bus left the school on its regular route, dropping off several students before the gunmen ordered the bus to return to the city. "It was during that trip that a number of other bus drivers noticed the bus was heading in the wrong direction with a number of students on it," Harrower said. "They repeatedly called him on the bus radio. One of the accused answered the radio stating he was holding the bus driver and students hostage." A Subaru vehicle was taken from the lot and the gunmen and a male hostage headed north towards Dawson Creek.

Trying to elude police, the gunmen turned on to a dead-end road. The car spun out of control and came to rest in a snowbank, where police surrounded the vehicle. The three surrendered with no shots fired, Peleskey said. In custody are two 18-year-old residents of Prince George and a 14-year-old. Hostage Bonnie Borotski, 16, told The Vancouver Sun Tuesday night that none of the students on the bus recognized the three suspects when they boarded.

"I just got on the bus and looked at Highway scandal, which saw that project's cost more than double despite the government's insistence it was on budget. When the Island highway was first announced in November 1988, highways ministry officials said costs would stay close to budget and be Please see HIGHWAY, A2 By JUSTINE HUNTER Sun Staff Reporter PRINCE GEORGE Two young men and one juvenile were appearing in provincial court today after three gunmen hijacked a Prince George school bus here demanding a fast car, a police radio and a set of handcuffs. The incident began about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday after three males armed with two sawed-off rifles commandeered a bus carrying 13 teenagers from Prince George senior secondary school. "The suspects demanded a fast car and indicated they would be taking one hostage with them," police Island road By KEITH BALDREY Sun Victoria Bureau VICTORIA The price tag for the Vancouver Island highway project has ballooned to $1.3 billion from $600 million, Premier Bill Vander Zalm revealed Tuesday.

Vander Zalm made the disclosure in response to a question about the project from an audience member at City cost soars, premier says a business luncheon. At $1.3 billion, the highway will cost more than the first two phases of the Coquihalla Highway from Kamloops to Hope. The project's true cost has been a closely guarded secret in the highways ministry. Officials have been reluctant to discuss the costs of such projects ever since the Coquihalla Socialist challenge in Japan examined The pinstripe politicians who have run Japan for half a century are facing a tough challenge in campaigning for crucial lower-house voting on Sunday. Leading the assault is Takako Doi, a hard-hitting socialist.

The Sun's Asia-Pacific correspondent, Ben Tierney, In Japan this week for the campaign, looks at the socialist challenge. Tierney 's dispatch, Dll HERMAN "I'll meet you in about an hour." INDEX Boyd Bridge Business Canada Focus Classifieds Comics Crossword Editorials Entertainment Food High Tech Horoscope Hume Letters Movies B1 E6 D4 A8 Et D1 1 E7 A10 CS CI D1 E5 All A10 C6 Names Palmer Parton Ski Report Sports Theatres TV LOTTERIES: A2 Classified 736-2211 Circulation 736-2281 56 PAGES FOUNDED 1886 VOL1M No. 234 A2 A10 Bl El B5 C7 C6 slow to face test of good taste -TT- lr -M -k 1 1 i 1 V. i A I a I I KiS Duncan is one of several Vancouverites who believe the city is ready for an innovative public-art program. So it is timely that the Planning Institute of B.C.

and Design Vancouver w(ili sponsor a public meeting and slide lecture on public art, Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Robson Square conference centre, 800 Robson. Speakers will include Willard Holmes, Vancouver Art Gallery director; Seattle artist Jack Mackie; Eloise MacMurray, manager of Portland's public-art commission, and art consultant Eve Baxter of Marathon Realty's Toronto office. A workshop will be held the same day for city council, which is poised to consider a report from a special subcommittee that it struck in 1986 to draft a public-art policy. In addition, a report on public art from city council's art-in-public-places subcommittee will go to the planning and neighborhood committee next month.

Kitty Heller, the lawyer and art aficio- Please see ART, A12 Alan Duncan, a landscape architect and planner at city hall, calls much of the city's public art especially that donated for Vancouver's centennial celebrations "unfortunate schlock" and says such a beautiful city "deserves better." The anchor sculpture at Jericho Beach exemplifies why Vancouver needs a public-art policy, he says, adding it is "a case of art imitating life, and not doing a very good job of it." Yes, visitors to our parks and plazas can enjoy superb mountain and ocean views at least on clear days. But sadly, most of the city's artistic splendors are seen only by the gallery-visiting few. Duncan says the Georgia Street plaza, north of the Vancouver Art Gallery, is one important site that could stand a facelift. Instead of being a showpiece, this patchwork of grass and concrete is sullied by a dreary fountain that Duncan calls "out of scale and inappropriate." The fountain's detailing is designed to be appreciated up close looked at from a distance, the fountain "looks like a blob," Duncan says. By ELIZABETH GODLEY Sun Regional Affairs Reporter NO VISITOR to Seattle who encounters manhole covers emblazoned with artist Nathan Jackson's compelling Tlingit whale design can forget them.

Four of Jackson's covers appear underfoot, without fanfare, on downtown Seattle sidewalks. Placed there via the city's ambitious public-art program, they surprise and delight strollers. Equally unforgettable are Jack Mackie's light-hearted bronze shoe-prints, inlaid along a Capitol Hill sidewalk. Titled Steps, the shoe-prints a tongue-in-cheek reference to old-style how-to-dance diagrams celebrate the romance of dancers like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Seattle, just three hours south of Vancouver by freeway, boasts one of North America's finest public-art programs.

But Vancouver (home to a very lively visual-arts community that has produced many national and international stars) has little in the way of imaginative, challenging art in its public places. PETER BATTISTONI TERRY FOX MEMORIAL: Alan Duncan with design that caused brouhaha.