a205  1055  05 Jun 85
AM-Foreign Briefs,0561
    PEKING (AP) - A U.S. Navy port call postponed last month still is
being discussed, but no new date has been set, Foreign Ministry
spokesman Ma Yuzhen said Wednesday.
    ''There are still some questions concerning the proposed visit by
U.S. naval ships to China, and the two sides will maintain contact
and continue discussions on this,'' Ma told a regular weekly press
briefing.
    Three 7th Fleet destroyers were to visit Shanghai May 18-24 as a
symbol of bilateral military cooperation, on the first U.S. Navy port
call to China since the Communist Party took power in 1949.
    It was put off because China demanded that the ships not carry
nuclear weapons. Washington responded that its policy of not
divulging whether ships are nuclear-armed remains unchanged.
    ---
    BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - The European Common Market environment
commissioner proposed rules Wednesday to reduce vehicle-exhaust
pollution in the 10-nation trade bloc over the next decade.
    Stanley Clinton-Davis said his proposals would cut nitrogen oxides,
the most dangerous pollutants, by 50 percent and achieve
''substantial'' reductions in carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons.
    He told reporters the standards are based on driving patterns in
European towns and would be introduced in stages to meet the
timetable set by Common Market environment ministers in March.
    ---
    LONDON (AP) - The last of the four clock faces on the Big Ben tower
was revealed Wednesday, after 21 months of obscurity behind
scaffolding.
    The 320-foot tower and the adjoining Houses of Parliament are
undergoing a $11.4 million facelift, the first in 50 years. Cleaning
and restoration of the blackened neo-Gothic complex began in July
1981 and is to be finished in 1990.
    Big Ben is the 13 1/2-ton bell, cast in 1858, that chimes the hours
from behind the clock faces.
    ---
    CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - A researcher cataloging rare books after
a fire at the National Library says she discovered two letters by
18th-century author Samuel Johnson and his biographer James Boswell
pasted into a book.
    There also were copious notes about Dr. Johnson, who compiled the
first comprehensive English dictionary in the 1750s, Dr. Ra Foxton
said.
    The volume is one of two in a first edition of Boswell's ''The Life
of Samuel Johnson,'' published in London in 1791.
    The Johnson and Boswell letters were pasted on blank pages by the
original owner, the Rev. John Hussey, a friend of Johnson's, who also
wrote lengthy observations on Boswell's text.
    ---
    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - President Chun Doo-hwan called again
Wednesday for a summit between South and North Korea, and urged that
a joint team be formed for the 1988 Summer Olympics to be held in
Seoul.
    ''If only the meeting could be held within this year, the 40th
anniversary of the fatherland's liberation, we would be able to make
the year a meaningful one in national history by opening a new era
for peace and unification,'' Chun said.
    He made the remarks to a general meeting of the Advisory Council for
Peace and Unification Policy, a group of more than 10,000 delegates
from various fields.
    Chun first proposed a summit in January 1981, but North Korea's
communist government has shown little interest.
    The Korean peninsula was occupied by the Japanese in World War II.
    
AP-NY-06-05-85 1356EDT
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