Christmas Day.
Lebanon’s Army said it defeated attacks by Shiite and Druze militiamen that broke out in Beirut over the weekend. The fighting took place near bunkers occupied by United States Marines and put the marines on battle alert. There were no reports of them participating in the fighting, though 50 rounds of smalls-arms fire were reportedly directed against them.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson said the Syrian Government had invited him and a group of American clergymen to Syria to “discuss Middle East issues and the specific question of your concern,” the release of a captured American flier. Mr. Jackson, a Democratic Presidential candidate, sent a telegram last week to the Syrian Government asking for the release of a Navy flier, Lieut. Robert Goodman, who was shot down December 4 in a bombing raid on Syrian positions in Lebanon.
Jordan ended a five-year economic boycott against Egypt and signed a trade agreement upgrading its economic relations with Egypt to a level higher than the pre-boycott era. The boycott was imposed by all Arab League nations against Egypt for having signed the Camp David accords of 1978. Mustafa Kamal Said, Egypt’s minister of economy and foreign trade, said his country has already signed trade agreements with Iraq and Lebanon, part of the trend to bring Egypt back into the Arab fold.
Three French diplomats have been ordered to leave Iran, the French Foreign Ministry said in Paris, in the latest development in the continuing diplomatic tug-of-war between the two countries. Earlier, the French announced they were closing the Islamic Center in Paris and planned to expel three Iranians employed by the Iranian Embassy for activities “incompatible with their diplomatic status”— presumably espionage. The identities and positions of the French envoys were not reported.
The New York Times’ Drew Middleton opines (badly):
“Four years ago this week two Soviet motorized rifle divisions crossed from Soviet Central Asia into northern Afghanistan. Kabul, the capital, had already been seized by an airborne division. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan had begun. Western correspondents are barred from Afghanistan. A balance sheet at the end of four years must rely on the reports of European and other intelligence services, the claims of the rebels fighting the Soviet-backed Government and occasional admissions in Soviet military publications.
“The most significant conclusion that can be drawn from these sources is that, whatever else it is, Afghanistan is not the Russians' Vietnam. The Soviet Union faces many military and political problems in the country, but none are of a magnitude to suggest that the Russians face military defeat or political turbulence.”
[Ed: I’ll take Opinions that Look Stupid in Hindsight for $500, Alex…]
The United States should insist on some important changes but stay in the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, members of the National Commission for UNESCO said. Leaving UNESCO could cripple many important international efforts, including one to help understand the world’s troublesome weather, said James Holderman, commission chairman and president of the University of South Carolina. President Reagan reportedly has decided to give UNESCO a year’s notice of the American intention to withdraw. The quasi-governmental commission monitors and helps guide U.S. participation in UNESCO.
Pope John Paul II called on world leaders to spend less on arms buildup and to turn their attention to the “unspeakable sorrow” of starving children. The Pope made the appeal in his annual Urbi et Orbi Christmas message to the city of Rome and the world, and afterward gave Christmas greetings in 43 different languages. In his third such appeal in four days, John Paul urged world leaders to work out “equitable and honorable” solutions to global crises, “which make ever more threatening the clouds gathering on the horizon of humanity. “Look upon the unspeakable sorrow of parents witnessing the agony of their children imploring them for that bread which they have not got but which could be obtained with even a tiny part of the sums poured out on sophisticated means of destruction,” the Pope said. “Look with the eyes of the newborn child upon the men and women who are dying of hunger while enormous sums are being spent on weapons,” he said.
Hundreds of policemen with dogs hunted for the kidnappers who freed jewelry heiress Anna Bulgari Calissoni and her son. Doctors said they will try to re-attach the youth’s right ear, hacked off by the abductors. The mother, 56, and her son, Giorgio, 17, were released on Christmas Eve near the family villa south of Rome where they were abducted November 19. Carmine Punzi, the family’s lawyer, told reporters ransom was paid but that it was “way below” the figure of $2.4 million reported by the Italian news media. The kidnappers left the ear in a trash can in Rome December 18 as a warning that the captives would be killed if ransom was not paid.
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s party won elections in four northern India states, but opposition parties won in Gandhi’s stronghold of Uttar Pradesh state. The results of the elections, held for seats in Parliament and state assemblies, will not seriously affect Gandhi’s domination of the lower house of Parliament, where her Congress-I Party holds a two-thirds majority. One of the victorious parties in Uttar Pradesh was that of Maneka Gandhi, the prime minister’s estranged daughter-in-law, who was married to her late son, Sanjay.
Grenada is still without a firm leader, and many Grenadians, who have not got over the upheavals that followed the killing two months ago of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, say that for now they do not want one. They say they are confident of the security provided by the United States forces remaining on the island.
Four men armed with submachine guns robbed a bank in Mexico City of $1.9 million, the largest such heist in Mexican history. The four entered the Banco Mercantil branch near the downtown Zocalo Square after one of them told a guard that he was delivering a gift to an employee. Police said they suspect present or former employees in the holdup because of the robbers’ familiarity with the facility.
El Salvador’s U.S.-backed army ignored an unofficial Christmas truce as 2,000 troops continued a sweep of two northeastern provinces. Their commander, Colonel Domingo Monterrosa, said the purpose of the drive is to kill as many left-wing guerrillas as possible. Of secondary importance, he said, is the retaking of territorial control of Morazan and San Miguel, rugged mountain provinces that have served as rebel strongholds in the four-year civil war.
Thousands of Uruguayans celebrated Christmas with noisy protests and peaceful street demonstrations against 10 years of military rule, witnesses said today. They said that in a now traditional form of protest thousands of people in this capital of 1.2 million banged saucepans at midnight Saturday night while hundreds of others took to the streets to press for a return to democracy. Tension rose last week over growing press censorship and demands for an amnesty for the country’s 900 political prisoners.
Two former Presidents of Upper Volta and as many as 36 former ministers are to be tried for corruption and mismanagement, official sources said today. Tribunals will try General Sangoule Lamizana, President from 1966 to 1980, on January 3, the sources said. The trials of Colonel Saye Zerbo, President from 1980 to 1982, and the former ministers are expected soon afterward. The tribunals were formed by Captain Thomas Sankara’s National Revolutionary Council, which took power in a coup five months ago.
Joan Miro, the artist, who for more than 60 years had an important role in the imaginative life of the 20th century, died in Palma, Majorca. He was 90 years old.
The President and the First Lady spend Christmas with members of their family. Members of President Reagan’s family celebrated their third Christmas in the White House with a few close friends and their families and a roast turkey dinner that included “turnip sleighs with spiced apple puree” and “packages with ribbons made of sherbet.” Two of Mr. Reagan’s children were there: Patti Davis and her brother, Ron, who brought his wife, Doria. The President gave his wife, Nancy, some heavy plaid shirts to wear at their ranch in California. She gave him a beige sweater and bedroom slippers.
The menu released by the White House also included cracked wheat dressing, a spinach wreath with a creamed chestnut center; cranberry relish; salad with pine nut dressing, and monkey bread. Other invited guests were Charles Z. Wick, head of the United States Information Agency; Michael K. Deaver, Mr. Reagan’s deputy chief of staff; Senator Paul Laxalt, Republican of Nevada; Daniel Ruge, the White House physician, and Joseph Canzeri, a former Reagan aide.
Poor service to cable-TV customers is a major problem in the industry. Critics say that while the industry is spending millions to install new, high-technology systems nationwide, it has left little time to develop customer services.
New farm technologies, including genetic engineering, will bring about enormous changes in the American farm and its products, experts in microbiology and agriculture say. A rapid expansion of the limits of plant productivity will be possible through genetic engineering, one of the experts said. Among the non-genetic developments are underground water sensors that would operate irrigation pumps, and infrared aerial photography to find out what fields need more fertilizer, reducing the blanket use of chemicals.
Oil and gas reserves discovered in the submerged tidal flats of Mobile Bay in Alabama have made the area much more attractive to the University of South Alabama. It received the nearly 7,700 acres of mud flats as a gift from the Chamber of Commerce of Mobile in 1974 before geologists discovered their potential value, estimated at more than $250 million. But Gov. George C. Wallace says the public owns the tidelands.
The hypothesis of a “nuclear winter” that would devastate the human species following a nuclear war was argued in detail for the first time in a scientific journal. Specialists elaborating on the hypothesis, presented at a recent conference in Washington, disputed the belief that people in the Southern Hemisphere would be relatively unharmed if cities in the North were struck.
Walter F. Mondale would support a mutual verifiable nuclear freeze and institutionalized summit conferences with the Soviet Union if he became President. The former Vice President said that other campaign pledges he would make would be a limit on increases for the military to 4 or 5 percent a year, a reduction in farm program costs and a reduction in interest charges through reduced deficits. He would cancel the B-1 bomber and the MX missile, and would proceed with the Midgetman missile.
The Federal Aviation Administration has suspended all flights by Global International Airways, citing serious questions about the safety of their aircraft, an agency official said. The action was mainly due to poor maintenance records, an FAA official said. “They (the records) are just so badly kept that we couldn’t tell whether the airplanes were in safe condition to fly or not,” the spokesman said. The airline operates charter flights, and the New York Times said about 20 flights scheduled for resort areas such as Hawaii and Mexico had been subcontracted to other domestic airlines after the FAA order was handed down. Global has had no fatal accidents in its six years of operation.
A survey of seven big cities in the United States shows Boston is one of the least livable cities in the nation for blacks, the Boston Globe concluded. The newspaper sent reporters to Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia and San Francisco and said it reached its conclusion based on census data and interviews. The median household income in Boston is, at $19,384 for whites and $10,277 for blacks, the widest margin of any of the cities surveyed. However, the black unemployment rate of 10.5% — compared with the white rate of 7.5% — was the lowest of all the cities. Yet Boston remains the hardest place in America for a black to get a job or a promotion, the Globe said.
The draft report of a presidential commission studying hunger in the United States recommends stiff penalties against states for errors in the food stamp program, the New York Times reported. The report by the staff of the President’s Task Force on Food Assistance also calls for a slight expansion of federal food programs, including a more liberal restriction on recipients’ assets. Quoting unidentified staff members, the newspaper said proposals include the substitution of cash for food stamps for elderly and disabled persons who may have difficulty cooking and liberalization of the rule barring food stamps to households with assets of more than $1,500 — or $3,000 if there is an elderly member.
Lawyers hoping to delay or derail cases in the Cook County (Chicago) Circuit Court system are responsible for the daily disappearance of up to 50 court files, the court clerk has charged. “We know what’s happening to these files: They are being stolen,” said Morgan Finley. “But we don’t have the number of employees to investigate.” Finley said the scope of the problem was evident when the staff of a recently deceased attorney went through his desk and found nearly 20 complete case files from the circuit court, the Chicago Tribune reported. Although stealing such files is a felony, Finley says no one has ever been prosecuted for theft of the documents.
Four people who had flown to Georgia to pick up a kitten for a Christmas gift were killed when their small airplane crashed in rugged woodlands, officials said today. The wreckage of the single-engine Mooney aircraft was found today, about 17 hours after the flight was due back in Anderson, South Carolina. The plane had crashed near Six Mile, about four miles north of Clemson, South Carolina, said Captain J. D. Dennis of the Georgia Civil Air Patrol. Those killed were the pilot, Larry S. Jones, 27 years old, and his wife, Sharon, 27, of Augusta, Georgia; his father, Harry Winburn Jones, 63, of Anderson, and his brother-in-law, Wade A. Watson 3rd, 32, of Columbia.
Animals used in research were stolen from a medical center early today, and an animal rights group claimed responsibility. The group, the Animal Liberation Front, also said it was responsible for a theft of laboratory rats from the Johns Hopkins University in Maryland and the damaging of fur shops in Miami, according to a statement released in Washington. John Hopkins officials, however, said they had no report of any break-ins. The statement said, “Twelve dogs, seven with surgical implants, have been liberated” from the medical center, which is affiliated with Los Angeles County and the University of California at Los Angeles. Sgt. Robert L. Moore, in charge of the medical center’s security office, confirmed tonight that some animals had been reported missing.
Newly published research recommends that the United States at least study the possibility of disposing of high-level radioactive wastes at sea as well as on land. The Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne is headquarters for the global effort to compile the most current research on the subject. Supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the project reached that conclusion in the third of a series of books dealing with wastes in the ocean, the editors of the books reported.
The first live telecast of Christmas Parade at the EPCOT Centre, Disney World Florida.
Born:
Noelle Reno, American fashion entrepreneur, television presenter, socialite and former model, in Phoenix, Arizona.
History Diaries 