A U.S. battleship off Beirut shelled rocket and mortar positions in the hills east of Beirut after United States Marines were fired on and a Marine fuel depot was set afire. The USS New Jersey was joined in the counter-attack by the destroyer USS Tattnall, a Marine spokesman said. Civilians at Beirut International Airport, where the Marines are based, said that rockets, mortars and fire from antiaircraft guns came from hills occupied by Druze militiamen. Major Dennis K. Brooks, a Marine spokesman, said in a statement that there were no Marine casualties.
Islamic foreign ministers declared that President Reagan’s Mideast peace plan is incompatible with Palestinian rights because it rules out the creation of an independent state. The ministers, gathered in Rabat, Morocco, for a meeting of the 43-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, also said the Reagan plan is unacceptable because it does not recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. The Reagan plan calls for a Palestinian entity on the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in association with Jordan.
Israel’s labor unrest deepened when more than 70,000 government employees went on strike or staged limited work stoppages as the Central Bureau of Statistics announced a record 190.7% inflation for 1983. Postal and rail service workers staged an all-out strike and civil servants stopped work for two hours to protest price increases and the effects of the record inflation on their wages. Leaders of Histadrut, Israel’s labor federation, condemned the inflation figure as proof that government economic policy has failed and said they are considering calling a general strike.
A TWA Boeing 747 jetliner, en route from Tel Aviv to New York, made an emergency landing at Athens after the pilot was informed that a telephone caller had claimed a bomb had been placed on board. A search failed to find a bomb, and the plane, carrying 243 passengers and a crew of 12, resumed the flight.
The U.S. and Britain agreed that despite their willingness to discuss arms control issues with the Soviet Union at the meeting opening in Stockholm tomorrow, they not would offer concessions to persuade the Russians to return to the negotiating table, American and British officials said in London.
Tony Benn, described as a “leftwing rebel” wins Labour’s nomination for the by-election in Chesterfield, UK.
Dissident Spanish Communists, opposed to Eurocommunism and planning to return to orthodox Marxism, formally established a new pro-Soviet party with the open support of the Kremlin. The new grouping, called simply the Communist Party, was formed at the end of a three-day congress with Ignacio Gallego, 69, as its leader. The new party, which claims 25,000 members, disagrees with the 80,000-member Spanish Communist Party and advocates the eventual abolition of capitalism and of the monarchy.
Pope John Paul II praised a parish center run by the Opus Dei movement today as an example of the church’s identification with the working classes. He said organizers of the educational and sporting center smoothed the way for Roman Catholic pastoral work in the parish of St. John the Baptist at the Latin Hill, a working-class district in southwest Rome. It was the first time John Paul had visited an Opus Dei establishment since elevating the movement to the status of personal prelature in November 1982. Church officials said the parish center, which provides a home for 150 young people as well as education, technical training and sports, was fully in line with the Pope’s ideas of how a religious order should help the local bishop and clergy.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes said the Reagan Administration could have permitted a small group of reporters to accompany U.S. troops in the invasion of Grenada last October without worrying about maintaining the security of the operation. “Now, I think we probably could have preserved secrecy with a very small pool of reporters involved from the first,” Speakes said in a radio interview. Reporters were not allowed on the island until two days after the invasion began.
Leftist guerrillas staged a heavy mortar attack on the military garrison in Chalatenango Province in northern El Salvador, military sources said. The Defense Ministry press office said that rebels attacked Chalatenango, capital of the province of the same name, at midnight, but that the army controlled the city by 6 A.M. Army sources in the city said some fighting continued. The press office said 7 soldiers had been killed and 15 wounded and Colonel Adolfo Blandon, Chief of Staff of the Salvadoran armed forces, said at least 12 rebels died. The rebels’ clandestine radio reported that insurgents had launched simultaneous attacks on the city’s garrison and on a military post three miles to the west. The broadcast said the rebels had captured 30 weapons and freed prisoners at the city prison.
Leaders of guerrillas fighting the Nicaraguan Government said in interviews over the weekend that with the help of continued aid from the United States, they can bring down the Government in 1984. Adolfo Calero Portocarrero, leader of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, which is the largest of the rebel groups and is estimated to have as many as 8,000 men under arms, praised the report of the Kissinger commission. The commission, headed by former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, indirectly endorsed United States aid to Nicaraguan rebels and the pressure to negotiate that the commission said the rebels were putting on the Sandinista Government.
Uruguay has reimposed a crackdown on political dissent. After more than 10 years of military rule, the Government of General Gregorio Alvarez is facing growing public discontent. The crackdown and other developments could cause postponement of elections scheduled this year.
Policemen swung nightsticks to break up crowds of stone-throwing workers today, the second day of protests in northern Kashmir State by members of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party. There were reports that at least 25 people were injured. Party workers staged processions in five cities to mourn the deaths of at least six people killed by the police during protests on Saturday. The party called for a general strike in the Himalayan state on Monday to protest the police use of firearms to break up Saturday’s demonstrations.
The police sought arrest warrants today for six people accused of negligence in a hotel fire in South Korea’s second largest city that killed at least 38 people and injured 74. Police officials said arrest warrants were being sought for the owner of the Dae-A Hotel, Kim Dooha, and five employees of a sauna bath where a fire broke out Saturday in the 10-story building in the southern port city of Pusan. An initial investigation indicated that an overheated kerosene heater exploded in the fourth-floor sauna at 7:20 A.M., touching off the third worst fire in South Korean history. Thirty-seven people were killed in the three-hour fire, and a 40-year-old woman died today of severe burns at a hospital, raising the toll to 38. The dead included two Japanese. No other foreigners were among the victims.
A Thai policeman performing a shooting exhibition at a school to celebrate National Children’s Day accidentally fired his rifle into a crowded grandstand, killing 3 children and wounding 17, the police said today. Authorities in Kalasin Province, 285 miles northeast of Bangkok, said the shooting occurred at Rong Kam provincial school during a fair Saturday on Children’s Day, a national holiday. Two children were killed instantly and another died on the way to a local hospital. Two of the 17 wounded were reported by hospital officials to be in critical condition today.
Provincial officials said they invited a police lieutenant, Paisal Samranchit, to entertain about 500 children at the school with a shooting demonstration of the HK-33 rifle. After firing several clips of blank cartridges, Lieutenant Paisal responded to the children’s cheers by loading his automatic rifle with live ammunition, officials said. When he pulled the trigger, he reportedly lost control of the weapon, spraying a full clip of 20 rounds into the crowd of children. The lieutenant was arrested and held at the Kalasin provincial jail.
The United States has allowed the commercial export of more than $28-million worth of military technology to South Africa since 1981, violating a U.N. arms embargo, according to a study by the American Friends Service Committee and the Washington Office on Africa. Although the United States has stopped outright sales of arms to Pretoria, corporations have been allowed to export computers, navigation gear, encoding devices and other items that have military applications and are banned by the embargo, the report said. The State Department has denied violating the ban.
South Africa announced that it has completed the withdrawal of troops from a five-week campaign in Angola against Namibian rebels. A South African military spokesman said his country’s forces killed as many as 500 enemy soldiers during the campaign 145 miles deep into Angola, which was aimed at heading off an annual offensive by guerrillas of the South-West Africa People’s Organization. South Africa’s military commander in Namibia said last week that his men killed 100 Namibian rebels and that the rest of the dead were Cubans and Angolans.
A shouting match broke out between Walter F. Mondale and Senator John Glenn over Government spending at a debate at Dartmouth College in which the eight major Democratic candidates for the Presidential nomination participated. The exchange between Mr. Glenn and the former Vice President centered on the cost of programs promised by Mr. Mondale and his call for legislation to protect the American automobile industry from foreign competition. Mr. Mondale said Senator Glenn’s figures were “baloney.” The Rev. Jesse Jackson and Senator Gary Hart of Colorado played lively and aggressive roles in the debate sponsored by the House Democratic Caucus.
President Reagan spends much of the weekend crafting his State of the Union address.
The President and First Lady return to the White House.
Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret M. Heckler helped about 300 homeless men and women in Washington open the nation’s largest shelter. “To the homeless, I want to say you have as much right to dignity and respect as anyone else in this society,” Heckler said as she stood on the steps of the old Federal City College, just six blocks from the Capitol. The opening was an “overdue” fulfillment of the Reagan Administration’s pledge to allow unused federal buildings to operate as shelters, said Mitch Snyder, director of the Community for Creative Non-Violence, a local activist group that negotiated for the shelter. The General Services Administration plans to put the college building up for sale in April.
Wages of white women, who were newly employed, were further behind the wages of comparable white men in 1980 than they were in 1970, a study of census data has found. The decline occurred despite the growth of affirmative action and education gains by women. The study found that black men and, to a lesser extent, black women over the decade reduced the disparity between their wages on entering the labor force and the entering wages of white men.
Many wives earned more in 1982 than their husbands did, according to a census study. The income study found that among working couples nearly six million women had incomes that were higher than their husbands’. In addition, there were nearly two million working couples in which the wife was the sole wage earner.
Financial aid for college students declined by $2 billion in the last two years after two decades of rapid growth, the College Board reported. The decline from a peak of $18 billion in 1981-82 is even greater if inflation is taken into account, according to “Trends in Student Aid: 1963 to 1983,” a study prepared by the board’s Washington office.
Senator Paul Tsongas, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in an interview today that the illness prompting his decision to leave office is a mild form of cancer of the lymph nodes. In an interview with The Boston Globe, Mr. Tsongas, who is 42 years old, said he learned he had the cancer October 7. The Senator announced Thursday that he had decided against seeking a second term this year. He said then he had a “serious” illness but declined to identify the ailment. He was quoted in the article as saying he had been diagnosed as having one of the mildest forms of cancer of the lymph nodes and was assured he could return to the Senate. He began his re-election campaign, but, after three days of campaigning away from his wife, Nicola, and daughters Ashley, 9, Katina, 6, and Molly, 2, he said he began thinking about the sacrifices entailed by public life. “Cancer makes you think about other things,” he continued. “If I’m going to have regrets, let it be on my political career and not my family.”
Colby College, a liberal arts institution with 1,650 students, is abolishing fraternities because their presence is “detrimental and divisive,” school officials announced in Waterville, Maine. The private college’s eight fraternities will be replaced by a new “commons” system of residential groupings. Recognition also will be withdrawn from two sororities, which do not have their own houses. About 20% of the students are members of fraternities or sororities. Fraternities were introduced at Colby in 1845 and at their peak had 90% of undergraduate men as members. However, they have come under mounting criticism on grounds of sex discrimination, alcoholism and an anti-intellectual outlook.
The publishers of eight of North Carolina’s largest newspapers are asking a federal court in Winston-Salem to end secret jury questioning in the civil rights trial of nine Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party members. The nine are charged in connection with the November, 1979, shooting deaths in Greensboro, North Carolina, of five anti-Klan demonstrators, members of the Communist Workers Party. After federal Judge Thomas Flannery denied the publishers’ request, they took their case to an appeals court, which ordered Flannery to stop his secret questioning pending a hearing today.
If the United States wants to save the dirty lower Mississippi River, it will have to follow the example of England, which 10 years ago passed stringent laws to clean up the Thames, said Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of ocean explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. “By the time the river water gets to New Orleans, it has everybody else’s pollution,” said Jean-Michel Cousteau, in New Orleans for a convention. “Knowing what I know, I wouldn’t want to live here,” he said.
A “tremendous” explosion blew out the back of a brick apartment building in Brookline, Massachusetts, after nightfall, injuring at least two persons and possibly trapping as many as six others in the ruins. Six units in the building, which residents said had been recently converted to condominiums, were blown away completely. The explosion, which one neighbor said came after an odor of gas was detected in the three-story structure, started a seven-alarm fire as stunned residents scrambled out windows to safety. Brookline Fire Chief James Fallon said there were several persons unaccounted for. “There may be zero, but there may be as many as five or six.”
More than 1,700 pounds of enriched uranium, enough to make 85 atomic bombs, has been reported missing since 1947 from a government nuclear weapons plant at Oak Ridge, according to a published report. Even after security and accounting procedures at the top-secret plant were tightened five years ago, the records showed that about 178 pounds of uranium was unaccounted for from 1979 to 1982, the Scripps-Howard News Service said. Government documents do not suggest that any of the uranium has been stolen, the article said. In the past, when uranium has been missing at other government facilities, officials have blamed faulty bookkeeping. They also have said that bits of the element could have been accidentally thrown out with radioactive garbage, ejected through smokestacks or stuck in the machinery and miles of pipe in the plants.
San Diego’s Mayor is a sure bet for election to a full four-year term, according to those in political circles. Mayor Roger Hedgecock, elected to complete the term of Pete Wilson, is a liberal Republican who has won the confidence of the local conservative business establishment though most people in that group say he is too liberal.
Officials of Rockwell International Collins, concerned over possible terrorist attacks, said today that, starting Monday, they will search the lunch boxes, briefcases and purses of everyone entering and leaving the military contractor’s plants. Townsend Hoopes, a spokesman for Rockwell, said Friday he was not aware of any specific threats against the Rockwell plant here. He said the order was passed from company headquarters to all Rockwell plants in the United States.
Three homosexual prostitutes in Mississippi withdrew statements they made last year that they had had sex with the successful gubernatorial candidate, Bill Allain. They said they had never met Mr. Allain and were paid to make the allegations by a private investigator employed by supporters of his opponent. The reversal was reported by The Jackson Clarion-Ledger.
The remnants of a giant Rocky Mountain snowstorm lingered over the southern and central Plains. Trucks skidded off snow- and rain-slicked roads in the heart of Dixie. Bitter cold stung the North. The Western storm weakened after leaving 15 inches of snow on parts of the Rockies but its remains spread a snowy grip over Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. A mixture of snow, sleet and freezing rain made travel hazardous across northern sections of the Gulf Coast states and bitter cold stung the North. The low for the day was 29 degrees below zero at Pellston, Michigan.
John McEnroe reverses previous year’s result with a 6–3, 6–4, 6–4 win over Ivan Lendl to claim his second season-ending ATP Masters Grand Prix tennis title at Madison Square Garden, New York, New York.
Martina Navratilova’s 54-match winning streak ends when beaten by Hana Mandlíková 7-6, 3-6, 6-4 in the final of the Virginia Slims of California tennis event in Oakland; after loss Navratilova wins next 74 matches for new record.
Born:
Ben Shapiro, American conservative political commentator and writer, in Los Angeles, California.
Josh Gattis, NFL defensive back (Chicago Bears), in Durham, North Carolina.
Victor Rasuk, American actor (“Colony”), in New York, New York.
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