January 7, 1991

The USX Corporation and the United Steelworkers of America will reopen negotiations today that could determine whether the nation's largest steelmaker can retain the edge in cheaper labor costs it has enjoyed over its rivals for two years. USX's contract with 18,000 steelworkers expires at the end of this month. Talks between management and the steelworkers on a new four-year contract broke down six weeks ago. Industry analysts and experts say it is too soon to tell if USX, which suffered through a six-month shutdown four years ago, will have another strike on its hands.

Three days before his Foreign Minister is to meet Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d in Geneva to discuss the Persian Gulf crisis, President Saddam Hussein told his armed forces today that they were prepared to go to war to keep Kuwait a part of Iraq. "You are now prepared for one historic battle after the return of the branch Kuwait to the root," Mr. Hussein said over the state-run television and radio. "The return of Kuwait is a fact and not a claim. It is the 19th province on the maps of Iraq, with its long history in the present and future."

In the clearest sign of newly emerging problems in Soviet-American relations, President Bush is on the verge of postponing a summit meeting scheduled for Moscow in February because of differences over arms control and uncertainty in the Persian Gulf, Administration officials said tonight. "We have been going over the prospects for the summit thoroughly in the last few days and there is now a strong possibility that there may not be a meeting in Moscow next month," said an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Hundreds of illegal immigrants coming north from Mexico have been killed or injured in the past four years as they try to run across highways in an effort to avoid capture by immigration agents. Many of them are rural people unfamiliar with speeding traffic who are often dumped at the side of the highway by smugglers trying to avoid arrest. They can be seen in the early evening hesitating by the side of the road before dashing, often hand-in-hand, into the oncoming traffic.

A year after Gov. Mario M. Cuomo helped Mayor David N. Dinkins get elected, the once-warm relationship between their administrations has become a casualty of New York's growing fiscal problems. In Albany, Mr. Cuomo and his aides have begun to speak about the Dinkins administration in increasingly critical terms, warning that New York City is coming dangerously close to losing control of its finances. Several of Mr. Cuomo's aides and advisers have gone so far as to say that they are worried that the Mayor cannot solve the city's financial problems on his own and that the Governor will have to intervene.