Lebanon’s Prime Minister resigned and President Amin Gemayel immediately announced an eight-point program for national reconciliation. It included a promise to anti-Government forces that “everything” was negotiable. The program, addressed primarily to Mr. Gemayel’s Syrian-backed opponents, appeared to fall far short of their conditions for participation in any government of national unity, and it seemed unlikely to halt the drift toward political and security disintegration in Lebanon.
President Gemayel was urged by the Reagan Administration to move quickly to form a new government that would include, for the first time, key people from Lebanese factions opposed to his policies.
Israel said it will reinforce its military and police presence in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and take tough measures against both Jewish and Arab lawbreakers. The announcement was contained in a policy declaration published after a meeting of the Israeli Cabinet on the subject of law and order. which took place against a background of mounting public criticism of the government’s alleged failure to apply the law equally to Arabs and Jews. Israel said no Jewish or Arab resident of the West Bank or the Gaza Strip was exempt from the obligation to obey the law and to maintain public order. The declaration of policy from the Cabinet was apparently aimed at serving notice that the authorities were prepared to crack down on both Arab stone-throwers and Jewish settlers who attack Arabs.
The body of a kidnapped Indian official has been found on a farm road 20 miles from the English city of Birmingham, police said. The victim was identified as Ravindra Hareshwa Mhatre, 48, the second-ranking official in India’s consulate in Birmingham, Britain’s second largest city. Responsibility for the kidnapping was claimed by an obscure group called the Kashmir Liberation Army. In a letter delivered to Reuters news agency in London, the group demanded a ransom of $1.4 million and the release of Kashmiri prisoners held by India. Kashmir, on India’s northeastern border, is partitioned into Indian and Pakistani zones. The Kashmir Liberation Army seeks independence for Kashmir, a predominantly Moslem territory partitioned between India and Pakistan. It has been an issue of contention between the two countries since the end of the British rule in 1947. Birmingham’s large south Asian population includes about 10,000 Kashmiris.
Greece has set out to improve what it termed its “distorted” image in the United States and has demanded revision of a United States-Greek civil aviation agreement that it says is unfair. The Economy Minister, Gerasimos Arsenis, left for the United States over the weekend to begin a week of meetings with potential investors, press and television representatives and public relations companies. The Government spokesman, Dimitrios Maroudas, announcing the demand for revision of the 1946 aviation agreement, said the accord gave unfair rights to United States carriers at the expense of the state-owned airline, Olympic Airways. The original aviation agreement granted Trans World Airlines landing rights in Athens and allowed it to fly between Greece and European and Middle Eastern points. Since then, other United States carriers have been granted similar rights.
Vitaly Smirnov, a senior member of the Soviet Olympic Committee, said today that the Soviet Union had protested the accreditation of reporters from Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty to cover the Winter Olympics. But Monique Berlioux, executive director of the International Olympic Committee told a news conference: “I have not heard officially of any protest. There are 3,500 accredited journalists and I do not know whether they are on the list.”
A Nicaraguan opposition leader charged in Managua that a delay in the announcement of an electoral law for 1985 elections shows that the leaders of the leftist Sandinista government “don’t have plans for a true democracy.” Myriam Arguello, vice president of the opposition Conservative Democratic Party, said the postponement is part of a plan by the Sandinistas to ensure that they remain in power. The government had promised to announce the electoral law Tuesday but now says it will not do so because of recent air attacks on Nicaraguan installations.
Nicaragua’s 1985 elections might still take place despite the Government’s announcement Saturday that it had postponed indefinitely an important preparatory step, Western diplomats in Managua said. The diplomats, and some Nicaraguan politicians, who are putting pressure on the Government to hold the elections, say that at the same time Nicaragua hopes to force the United States to accept the legitimacy of its Marxist-led Government without giving up much power to the democratic opposition.
Nicaragua’s election-law delay was “a transparent device to back away from elections,” Secretary of State George P. Shultz said. His comment on Nicaragua’s announcement Saturday that it would postpone consideration of a draft of election laws was the first response by a Reagan Administration official.
Hundreds of people are being tried in secret in Morocco in connection with violent protests last month over higher food prices, and a number of the accused face life imprisonment or death sentences, the West German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur quoted various reports as saying. Meanwhile, Moroccan authorities have imposed a news blackout on the local press, and some newspapers were prevented from publishing, the reports said. News accounts of the violence in northern Morocco on January 19-21 did not meet the approval of government censors.
U.S.-based Chevron Oil Co. is phasing out operations in parts of southern Sudan and may shut down its activities there after a rebel raid, a company spokesman said. Gunmen, believed to be Christian secessionist guerrillas opposed to the Muslim government, killed three employees last week at a Chevron base camp near Bentiu, 470 miles south of the capital of Khartoum.
Philippine riot police gave way to anti-government demonstrators and allowed 21 to kneel on the spot at the Manila airport where their hero, opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., was assassinated last August. Police, after a four-hour deadlock, lifted a street blockade and allowed 1,000 demonstrators to march to the airport, but they allowed only 21 onto the tarmac. The marchers were led by Aquino’s younger brother, Agapito, and Luis Araneta, father-in-law of a daughter of President Ferdinand E. Marcos.
Residents displaced from Diego Garcia, an Indian Ocean island leased by Britain to the United States as a military base, have asked President Reagan for $6 million to finance their resettlement in Mauritius. In a memorandum submitted to the United States Embassy in Port Louis, Mauritius, the islanders said that a recent British grant of $6 million to their trust fund was not enough. The islanders estimated that the United States had spent $435 million in upgrading the Diego Garcia base. “But no amount of financial compensation will ever make up for the physical and mental suffering we have known since 1965,” they said. It is estimated that 900 Diego Garcia families now live in Mauritius.
Four people were killed and four were injured in a bomb blast set by rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola in Huambo province, the government radio reported. The broadcast did not say when the blast occurred but repeated Angola’s complaint that the opponents of the Marxist government, led by nationalist Jonas Savimbi, are backed by South Africa. In a separate speech, Angolan Defense Minister Pedro Maria Tonha charged that South African troops still occupy parts of southern Angola even though South Africa says they are being pulled back.
More than 30,000 hungry and destitute Mozambicans have flocked to northeastern Zimbabwe in search of food and work, officials said in Zimbabwe today. Hundreds of Mozambicans trudging through the area say they are fleeing from a third year of drought that has ravaged most of southern Africa. Others say they are escaping anti-Government forces of the Mozambique National Resistance, which seeks to overthrow President Samora Machel’s Marxist Government. The influx is not welcomed in Zimbabwe, which last year sent hundreds of refugees back across the border, only to have them trudge back again. Officials warn that Zimbabweans are themselves suffering from a food shortage, with hundreds of thousands surviving on relief rations.
President Reagan prepares for a trip out West to Illinois, Nevada and California.
Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee have accused President Reagan and his Administration of failing to propose a program to control acid rain. But William D. Ruckelshaus, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, at a committee hearing Thursday, defended the President’s decision to continue research but not to take direct regulatory action, calling it “rational and not irresponsible.” Under questioning by the panel, however, Mr. Ruckelshaus said he could not estimate when the Government might undertake a program to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide from coal- burning power plants and factories. Such emissions, along with nitrogen oxides, change chemically in the atmosphere and fall back to earth as acidic precipitation. The particles have been found by studies to be killing fresh-water life in the Northeast and Canada and may be damaging crops, forests and, possibly, human health.
Most Americans consider violent crimes more serious than property offenses but view purposeful dumping of hazardous waste as a worse act than some homicides, the Justice Department said. Reporting on the largest survey of attitudes toward crime to date, the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics said public attitudes are more consistent than might be assumed from the disparity of criminal sentences around the nation. The bureau said that the public ranked so-called victimless crimes, such as personal use of small amounts of drugs, among the least serious of offenses. But the agency said that most people consider bombings, corporate fraud, environmental pollution and official corruption to be major offenses.
Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for dealing with food products contaminated with EDB should be 30 times as stringent, a University of Illinois biologist charged, but other experts said the permissible levels are safe. Biologist Robert Metcalf, appearing on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation,” said EDB, or ethylene dibromide, is a powerful carcinogen and criticized the guidelines announced earlier by EPA Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus. The pesticide was banned as a fumigant on grain and grain products and the guidelines suggested maximum safe levels for residue of EDB in grain-based food products that are already contaminated. Ruckelshaus said a decision on the use of EDB on citrus fruits would be made in two weeks.
Challenger’s crew curtailed a rehearsal of space maneuvers for making repair calls on orbiting satellites after a target balloon released by the shuttle burst. This was the second serious mishap in its mission. A malfunction Friday sent a communications satellite into the wrong orbit. Engineers said they had found the satellite and it appeared to be good shape, but probably would never be usable as a communications relay because it is out of position.
Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale has lost some of his lead for the February 28 New Hampshire Democratic primary, with Jesse Jackson picking up strength to threaten Senator John Glenn of Ohio for second place, a Boston Globe poll said. The newspaper said Mondale received support from 37% of voters, a drop of 9% from the newspaper’s last poll in December. Glenn had 18%, followed by Jackson with 16%, a jump of 10 points from his showing in the previous poll.
Political stirrings in Iowa have raised new hopes and concerns for Democrats seeking the Presidential nomination. Few Iowans challenge the assumption that Walter F. Mondale will get the nomination; they say the real question, when the state caucuses begin February 20, is whether one of the other candidates can deny Senator John Glenn the solid second-place finish that many see as crucial to his candidacy.
Six men charged with gang-raping a woman on a barroom pool table go on trial tomorrow in Fall River, Massachusetts, and outraged feminists plan to monitor the proceedings “in the interest of all rape victims.” The six are accused of taking turns assaulting the mother of two who went into the now-closed Big Dan’s Tavern in nearby Bedford last March 6 to get a pack of cigarettes. She said she was beaten and raped repeatedly for two hours until she managed to flee half-naked into the street and flag down a passing motorist for help.
A technician who played a key role in designing the skywalks that collapsed in the Hyatt Regency Hotel on July 1981 had failed a state engineering license test, The Kansas City Star reported today. In 1975, Edward C. Jantosik, a senior technician with Jack D. Gillum & Associates of St. Louis, failed the written test, the newspaper’s article said, citing results on file with the Missouri Board for Architects, Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. Mr. Jantosik confirmed Saturday that he had failed the test leading to licensing. Documents made public after the collapse, which killed 114 people, disclosed that he had reviewed, initialed and sent on for construction the final blueprints for the skywalks. An unlicensed person may legally perform such work under a licensed engineer’s supervision.
Business survival in Silicon Valley, California, brings with it a spirit of entrepreneurship and technical innovation that many business experts believe gives the United States an important competitive advantage over Japan and other nations in the computer and information revolution. This is illustrated by the rise to profitability of Hunter & Ready, one of the many small ventures that spring up annually in area.
Heroin and cocaine addiction in the Chicago area has tripled in the last five years, fueling a dramatic increase in crime, authorities reported. Felony arrests for heroin. and cocaine rose sharply last year, including those in the suburbs, where cocaine arrests jumped from 198 in 1982 to 418. In addition, Chicago police confiscated some $583 million worth of illegal drugs, mostly heroin and cocaine smuggled from foreign countries, statistics show.
State officials and the Cook County (Chicago) state’s attorney’s office have joined forces in a crackdown on bogus doctors and dentists. The state’s Registration and Education Department expects to refer more than 100 cases to state’s attorneys statewide this year, compared to only 11 in 1982.
Earthquakes rumbled beneath. Mt. St. Helens with increasing intensity, a new sign that molten rock was getting ready to burst through. the surface of the volcano’s huge dome of crusty lava. “Seismic readings have been climbing somewhat in the last 24 hours and have reached high levels,” University of Washington seismologist Bob Norris said in Vancouver. “Right now, it’s a waiting game.”
Drunken driving curbs have helped reduce traffic deaths since they were introduced three years ago, according to state and officials and highway safety experts. But many experts say that the effectiveness of the measures often diminishes with time, and that only a change in attitudes toward drinking and driving can bring about a long-range solution.
Voters on the island of Kauai have restored resort zoning to a Japanese-financed tourist development, but a citizens’ group has vowed to continue its struggle against the project. Hasegawa Komuten, a Tokyo-based company, had to halt work in 1980 on the $50-million-plus hotel and condominium project after Kauai voters, by 2 to 1, directed the County Council to rescind a zoning change from agricultural to resort use for the beach site about 100 miles northwest of Honolulu.
Dr. Henry S. Kaplan died at his home in Palo Alto, California. Dr. Kaplan, a radiologist, was credited with a major role in transforming Hodgkin’s disease from a hopeless form of cancer to one of the most curable. He was co-inventor with Edward Ginzton of the first medical linear accelerator in the Western Hemisphere.
The Yankees obtain third baseman Toby Harrah and minor leaguer Rick Brown from the Cleveland Indians for Dan Boitano, rookie outfielder Otis Nixon, George Frazier and minor leaguer Guy Elston. The team’s new third baseman will hit just .217 in the one season he plays for the Bronx Bombers, but Nixon will go on to have a solid 17-year major league career, leaving the game in 1999 with a lifetime batting average of .270.
Born:
Nate Salley, NFL safety (Carolina Panthers), in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
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