IBM, following the lead of General Motors, announced today it's pulling out of South Africa. Like General Motors, IBM says it's selling its South African holdings because of the political and economic situation there. Anti-apartheid groups have praised the decision, but the State Department says business pullouts are regrettable. Spokesman Charles Redmond said today the Reagan Administration believes US corporate involvement in South Africa has been a progressive force against apartheid. "We regret any decision to reduce US private sector involvement in South Africa. Such reductions could have harmful effects on black workers, injure the South African economy which has, on the whole, weakened the premises of apartheid and provided a means of improving the living standards and skills of many people otherwise disadvantaged by apartheid, and it might limit the extent of US influence in South Africa." State Department spokesman Charles Redmond. IBM employs some 1,500 people in South Africa.


More than fifty black youths were arrested today in Harare, Zimbabwe, when police broke up demonstrations at South African offices and the US embassy. Julie Fredricks reports. "A group of more than a thousand students and youths caused thousands of dollars of damage by burning and stoning the offices of the South African trade mission, South African Airways, Air Malawi, and the Malawian High Commission. The demonstrators suspected South African complicity in the plane crash that killed Mozambiquan President Machel in South Africa and blamed Malawi for supporting the Pretoria-backed insurgents that are attacking Mozambique. Zimbabwean government officials appealed for calm, and a statement from Prime Minister Mugabe just back from a trip to London is expected tomorrow. For National Public Radio, this is Julie Fredricks in Harare.


President Reagan met for about an hour today with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl at the White House. Kohl is the first European Leader to visit the President since the Reykjavik summit. US officials say Kohl expressed support for the President's SDI program.


West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl is in Washington D.C. for four days of meetings. Among the issues on his agenda are economic relations with the US and Germany's policy towards southern Africa. But today, Kohl's talk with President Reagan was dominated by the recent US-Soviet summit meeting in Iceland. NPR's Brenda Wilson reports.
While no major agreement was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in Reykjavik, the two countries made progress in arms control talks in areas that are a central concern to America's European allies. Those particular areas involve disarmament proposals made in Iceland, affecting medium-range missiles and long-range missiles over which allies have voiced some reservations. This was a major topic of discussion with Chancellor Kohl today, even though his Foreign Minister was briefed by the US Secretary of State only last week. In remarks welcoming Chancellor Kohl, President Reagan sounded a positive note, saying that there was ample reason for optimism. "When the next agreement is finally reached with the Soviet Union, and I say when, not if, it will not be the result of weakness of timidity on the part of Western nations. Instead, it will flow from our strength, realism and unity." The President also explained that achieving such an agreement would depend upon pushing ahead with his Strategic Defense Initiative, SDI, because it offered protection against cheating. But members of NATO, including Germany, have expressed concern that eliminating medium-range missiles in Europe as was proposed in Reykjavik would potentially leave Europe vulnerable to the Soviet shorter-range missiles and greater superiority in conventional forces. They expressed doubts that SDI could make up for those deficiencies. The allies, in particular West Germany, want reductions in medium-range missiles tied to reductions in shorter-range missiles and conventional forces. Chancellor Kohl was expected to press these points and to urge President Reagan to compromise on SDI to keep talks between the US and the Soviets moving. Speaking through an interpreter in his arrival remarks, Kohl did not mention SDI, "It remains our goal, and I know that I shared with you, Mr. President, to create peace and security with ever fewer weapons. In Reykjavik, thanks to your serious and consistent efforts in pursuit of peace, a major step was taken in this direction. And we must now take the opportunities that present themselves without endangering our defensive capability."
After the meeting between Kohl and the President, a senior administration official quoted Kohl as saying that he has always been in favor of the Strategic Defense system. At the White House, I'm Brenda Wilson.


A group of business leaders in Boston today announced plans to expand a college scholarship program to include any eligible Boston high school graduate. The business leaders announced plans for a permanent five-million dollar endowment fund, and they also promise to hire any of the students who go on to complete their college educations. Andrew Kaffery of member station WBUR has the report.
The Boston business community's involvement in the Boston public school dates back almost twenty years, from work internships to an endowment program for Boston teachers. Business has pumped more than one million dollars into the public schools. Now business leaders say they're ready to make their biggest commitment yet: a multi-million dollar scholarship program that will enable the city's poorest kids to go on to college and to jobs afterward. The program is called Action Center for Educational Services and Scholarships, or ACESS. According to Daniel Cheever, the President of Boston's Wheelock College, ACESS in not a blank check for the eligible graduates. "First We'll help them get as much aid as they can from other sources, and secondly, we'll provide the last dollar scholarship. I should add, of course, they have to qualify for financial aid; that is, we're not handing out money to students who don't need it." The average grant is around five hundred dollars and already the program has given one hundred Boston students more than fifty thousand dollars in scholarship money.
Other assistance from the program has helped those students raise more than six hundred thousand dollars in additional financial aid. School officials say this program will help a system where 43% of the students live below the poverty level, and almost half who enter high school drop out. Robert Weaver was on Boston high school graduate who could not afford college. He's in the ACESS program now and will get a degree in airplane mechanics next year from the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. "I got the Pale grant and the state scholarship, but there was still a gap. There was like a twenty-three hundred-dollar gap. Wentworth's total bill was fifty-seven hundred, so I had to fill that amount with working over the summer, my family contribution. I paid for my own books, my own tools, things like that. But without ACESS I wouldn't be where I am today."
This program comes at an important time for the city of Boston. Unemployment here is among the lowest in the nation and business leaders say they're having a hard time finding qualified job applicants. So the ACESS program is not just good public relations. Business leaders, like Edward Philips, who is the chairman of the ACESS program, say there's a bit of self-preservation involved. "Over time, we believe this program will increase the flow of Boston residents into Boston businesses and that, of course, is a self-serving opportunity. If where you are has a supply of qualified people to enter managerial and technical-professional level jobs, that can't be anything but a plus." Philips says any scholarship student who finishes college will be given hiring priority over other job applicants by the participating businesses. College student Robert Weaver says the program has inspired other high school students to stay in school. "I went back to my high school yesterday, Brighton High School, and I talked to a senior class, the general assembly, and I was telling them basically what I'm involved in, and basically, to get yourselves motivated and go look for those ACESS advisers. They're not going to come to you all the time. You have to get out there and get it if you want to take account for your own life, because no one else is going to do it for you. And that really pumped them up, and now that they're aware, and they know that ACESS advisers are there, things will be a lot easier for them."
The business group is in the middle of a five-million-dollar fund drive. Two million dollars has already been collected. Thirty-two of Boston's most influential corporations have already joined in, with twenty more soon to follow. The program has drawn the praise of US Education Secretary William Bennett, who predicted it will become a national model. For National Public Radio, I'm Andrew Kaffery in Boston.