Israeli artillery units fired on positions in the Syrian-held territory in the Bekaa region of eastern Lebanon. It was the first such shelling in months. A cease-fire was generally holding in Beirut, where there was only sporadic shooting. Israel shelled suspected terrorist bases in the Syrian-held Bekaa Valley of Lebanon in response to recent attacks that wounded eight Israeli soldiers, Israel’s military command said. The first such shelling in at least a year-although Israeli jets have made numerous raids against similar targets-heightened tensions between the Syrian troops in the valley and Israeli troops holding positions opposite them. The Lebanese army and Druze militias also clashed in the mountains, but the cease-fire in Beirut generally held.
The question of whether to move the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is an issue that appears to have caused considerably less excitement in Israel than in the American Presidential campaign. Israeli officials are approaching the issue with extreme caution and are wary of making any comments that could be construed as interference in American politics. They have limited themselves to formal policy statements that Jerusalem is their capital and the logical place for any embassy.
Afghan rebels assert that the Soviet Union has stepped up its bombing of villages and guerrilla supply routes in Afghanistan in a spring offensive against anti-Government forces. The rebels, based in Peshawar in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, said in interviews that the Soviet Union was also using ground troops more extensively, raising the prospect of heavier fighting and a further exodus of refugees. ”They are using more offensive tactics,” said Barhanuddin Rabbani, leader of Jamiat-i-Islami, the main guerrilla fighting force in northern Afghanistan. Previous Soviet strategy had been to establish Afghan Army posts in the hope of having those forces engage in small clashes with the guerrillas rather than sending Soviet troops to engage the rebels directly.
The tougher stance, they said, focuses on strategic supply routes stretching north and east of Kabul, the Afghan capital, along highways between Kabul and the Soviet Union and around the southern city of Kandahar, the rebel leaders said. ”This time they are not worrying about establishing military posts,” Mr. Rabbani said. ”They are attacking villages and patrolling our supply routes.” He said the Soviet Army, which formerly stayed close to its fortified bases and protective armored columns, was now sending soldiers into combat with the guerrillas more often. ”They are coming out of their tanks, and so they are also taking higher casualties,” he said. The Soviet forces, which entered Afghanistan at the end of 1979 to prop up the faltering Communist Government there, are estimated at 105,000 men, more than two and a half times the estimated size of the shrinking Afghan Army.
Saudi Arabia’s top religious figure today condemned frequent visits by young Saudis to the United States and Europe as a serious threat to the Islamic faith. Sheik Abdel Aziz bin Baz, director general of the Office of Scientific Research, Religious Ruling and Guidance, described ”frequent travels to the countries of atheism and deception” as a ”serious threat to the Islamic faith.” In a religious ruling issued here, he took note of ”promotional campaigns organized by travel agencies inviting our children to learn English during their summer vacations in Europe and America.” These campaigns are ”overt and covert means to brainwash Muslims,” the Sheik said.
The Communist Party newspaper Pravda accused the United States today of doing nothing to reduce international tension and said the Reagan Administration was destroying detente. ”Washington has not taken a single step which would actually lead to the relaxation of tension,” the paper said. ”Everything it has been doing is indulging in empty rhetoric while the very word ‘detente’ has been anathemised by the White House.” ”The record of the present Administration actually is a list of actions aimed at destroying the system of international treaties and agreements which is aimed at stabilizing the world situation and preventing the slide to nuclear war,” the newspaper said.
Police clashed with hundreds of doctors taking part in an anti-nuclear demonstration outside a U.S. Army base at Mutlangen, West Germany, site of a Pershing 2 nuclear missile unit. The clash, involving fistfights and the hurling of stones, erupted when police sought to clear the doctors from the entrance to the base. No serious injuries were reported. About 350 doctors traveled to the base by buses from a nearby medical congress on the prevention of nuclear war and displayed a banner bearing the slogan “Doctors Against Nuclear War.”
Poland’s Roman Catholic bishops, in a pastoral letter read at every church in the country before packed congregations, defended the display of crucifixes in the Communist state as a symbol of Polish nationalism and the nation’s Christian culture. The letter was the church’s latest response to the government’s order for removal of crucifixes and other religious symbols from state-run schools and other facilities. The letter declared that the crucifix is a symbol of ethical values “which fulfill the most significant of educational tasks at home, at school and in all places of work and social life.”
Lech Walesa, the founder of the banned Solidarity trade union, said in a statement released from Gdansk that there could be no compromise in the battle to keep crucifixes in public buildings and vowed that Poles would use ”all means available” to protect their children and their conscience, The Associated Press reported.
An Italian prosecutor has notified American Archbishop Paul C. Marcinkus and two other Vatican Bank officials that they are under investigation in connection with a possibly illegal loan, Italian newspapers reported. The papers, including Milan’s Corriere della Sera and Turin’s La Stampa, said the investigation involves a 1972 Vatican bank loan of about $85.7 million to Italmobiliare, a Milan-based holding company. Vatican officials said there would be no immediate comment on the reports, and Marcinkus could not be reached at his home or office for comment.
Vietnam denies that its troops crossed into Thailand from Cambodia and attacked Thai civilians, the Vietnamese press agency said today. The agency, monitored in Bangkok, also accused Thailand of allowing Cambodian guerrilla followers of former Prime Minister Pol Pot to use Thai territory as a sanctuary. ”Over the last few days,” it said, ”the Thai authorities have repeatedly spread the slander that Vietnamese Army volunteers in Cambodia had intruded into Thai territory and attacked civilians. This is a trick of thief shouting thief.” The agency quoted the Vietnamese-controlled Cambodian press agency as saying that in the week ended March 22, Thailand conducted 32 air sorties over Cambodia, intruded into Cambodian waters with warships on 80 occasions and fired big guns at Cambodian territory 52 times.
Honduras’s army chief was ousted because of the dissatisfaction of younger officers with his autocratic ways and his plans to restructure the army, officials said. Honduras announced Saturday that General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez was asked to resign. His removal does not appear to have been motivated by discontent with his close ties to the United States, the authorities said.
Argentina’s financial rescue by a consortium that is lending it funds to pay overdue interest represents a watershed in the three-year imbroglio over the onerous debts of the developing world, international financial experts say. For the first time, fellow debtors, in this case four of Argentina’s neighbors, joined in the rescue, demonstrating their solidarity behind a common cause, with banks setting the easiest payment terms ever for such a loan.
Direct elections were ruled out in Brazil by the head of the military Government. President Joao Baptista Figueiredo said direct elections for the next president “are inopportune at the moment” but said that the successor of the next president would be chosen freely. General Figueiredo promised to hold democratic presidential elections but refused to specify a date. His televised speech, on the anniversary of a 1964 coup, prompted strong objections from opposition leaders, who have conducted huge street rallies to demand the end to 20 years of military rule. When Figueiredo completes his term and steps down in March, 1985, the next president will be nominated to a six-year term by an electoral college gerrymandered to give the government a majority.
Colombia’s President Belisario Betancur announced that a cease-fire between government security forces and the country’s largest left-wing guerrilla group is tentatively set for May 28. The truce with the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces is the first such accord with the leftist rebels, who have been fighting the government for more than 30 years. Betancur, in a nationwide radio and television address, called it “a great step for hope.”
Swaziland and white-ruled South Africa announced that they signed a mutual security agreement more than two years ago, and will now exchange trade representatives. There was no explanation of why the agreement was kept secret until now. Since mid-February, South Africa has reached security agreements with Angola and Mozambique, both Marxist nations. However, the Swazi accord was described as more far-reaching.
President Reagan speaks with Archbishop Lakovos of the Greek Orthodox Church on the occasion of the archbishop’s 25th anniversary of his enthronement.
Pledges of mutual respect were made by the three Democratic Presidential candidates as they began a joint television appearance in Manhattan. A brief effort to rise above what Gary Hart called the “penny ante” exchanges that have characterized the New York primary campaign was almost immediately upset as he, Walter F. Mondale and the Rev. Jesse Jackson fell back into their running feud over foreign policy and the tactics used to attract New York’s ethnic and religious groups.
Responding to the intervention of President Reagan, his Administration has backed away from a plan to close and sell a 1,000-bed shelter for the homeless in downtown Washington. Instead, in a move that activists say reflects an election-year sensitivity on the part of the Reagan Administration, officials have indefinitely delayed the sale until another site can be found. Before that decision, the emergency shelter was to be closed Saturday. At the two-acre site of the shelter today, a red-white-and-blue 30-inch sign remained in place. It read: ”Auction sale by the U.S. Government. April 25, 1984.” Two telephone numbers were provided for parties interested in the facility at 425 Second Street in Northwest Washington, about a half-mile from the Capitol.
The 10,000 athletes expected to attend the Olympic Summer Games in Los Angeles will be protected by a security force of more than 17,000 people. “In terms of a law enforcement challenge, there has probably been nothing comparable to it in history,” according to Comdr. William Rathburn, Olympic security coordinator for the Los Angeles Police Department.
Marvin Gaye, the pop singer, died from a bullet wound at a Los Angeles hospital, after being shot at his father’s home. His father, Marvin Gaye Sr., will charged with murder or manslaughter, the police said. The singer was 44 years old.
More than three-fifths of all married couples in the United States have become two-income families, up significantly from earlier decades. the Census Bureau reported. About 26.3 million couples, or 62%. had both husband and wife employed in 1981. the most current statistics available for the study. That was up from 50.1% of married couples with two incomes a decade ago, and only 40% in 1960. Average family income for married couples in 1981 was $25,550, but this climbed to $28.560 when both had jobs.
Two more North Carolina counties — Scotland and Greene — devastated by Wednesday’s tornadoes were declared federal disaster areas. Governor James B. Hunt Jr. called for a day of prayer as flags flew at half-staff and relatives buried some of the dead from the series of tornadoes that cut a 350-mile swath through the Carolinas. Many churches collected money for the 1,000 injured and the 3,300 whose homes were damaged or destroyed. Government relief officials, meanwhile, raised damage estimates to $104.3 million in North Carolina and $25.8 million in South Carolina. The figures are expected to continue rising.
Former President Jimmy Carter led major Christian leaders in paying tribute to the 25th anniversary of the enthronement of Greek Orthodox Archbishop lakovos. Carter. in a homily delivered to 1,200 worshipers jammed into the 800-seat Orthodox Cathedral on New York’s Upper East Side, chose to speak of the frustration and disappointment felt by lakovos, a leader of the interfaith movement, rather than praise the archbishop’s accomplishments. Iakovos is the spiritual leader of more than 2 million Greek Orthodox Christians in North and South America.
A team of Tennessee Valley Authority archeologists plans to explore a lake bottom this week for Civil War vessels sunk in an 1864 battle that Confederate leaders hoped would cut supply lines to Union General William T. Sherman. Officials said that the team, led by TVA’s John Coverdale, has located at least three ships, and there are indications of as many as 23 more on the bottom of a one-mile stretch of Kentucky Lake on the Kentucky. Tennessee border.
A police task force in Seattle investigating the murders and disappearances of more than two dozen young women turned up the skeletal remains of two more possible victims. They were found on a hillside in south King County. In all, the weekend discoveries produced three more possible murders by the unknown killer who has been preying on perhaps two dozen prostitutes along the business strip near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and disposing of their bodies in nearby woods.
Contract talks broke off today hours before a midnight strike deadline set by 30,000 Nevada hotel and casino workers. Bartenders, waiters, musicians and stagehands at 40 hotels and casinos were set to begin a strike at 12:01 AM. Unions representing the workers are seeking a wage and benefit increase of about 8 percent. Management wants to freeze wages for two years and eliminate the guaranteed 40-hour work week. Some unions were expected to ratify individual contracts with 10 other hotel-casinos in southern Nevada. Those set to strike include members of Local 226, International Culinary Union, Local 226, and of the bar, stagehands and musicians unions.
Talks between the New York Post and striking employees failed to produce a contract settlement in time to publish the newspaper’s early Monday editions, one of its editors said. “No one has shown up.” said Post metropolitan editor Steve Dunleavy. He said he had enough non-union staff to continue editorial work despite Saturday’s walkout by news and administrative staff. But the Post’s 800 craft employees and drivers supported the 400 members of the Newspaper Guild by refusing to cross picket lines when their shifts began, he said.
Donna Curley Hearn’s effort to sober up Boca Raton for a week drew national attention but little compliance from the town’s residents, it was reported today. Mrs. Hearn, a community education coordinator at Boca Raton Community Hospital, had called on the city’s 60,000 residents to stop drinking for seven days beginning March 24 in observance of Alcohol Awareness Week. The Orlando Sentinel reported today that alcohol consumption in the city dropped little during the week. Patty Caselle, a bartender, said, ”Seems like the people who didn’t quit are making up for those that did. I haven’t noticed any change at all.”
The $30 million Scandinavian Sea cruise liner, much of her gutted by a fire last month, has been declared a total loss, officials said. ”Repairs are simply impractical at this point,” said William Armstrong, Scandinavian World Cruises’ vice president of operations. His company is searching for a permanent replacement for the 506-foot vessel, which on March 9 cut short a daylong gambling cruise after fire was discovered in a cabin.
Prompted by a request from pediatricians. Mattel Corp. has developed a new type of plastic that shows up on X-rays, hoping that it will help doctors reduce deaths and injuries among children who swallow or inhale small toy parts. Drs. H. James Holroyd of USC and Joseph Greensher of Nassau Hospital on Long Island, New York, announced the development of the so-called radiopaque plastic at a meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Phoenix.
Lawyers for Baltimore say the Baltimore Colts illegally moved to Indianapolis. The city sought to enjoin the Colts from moving and began actions to acquire the team, invoking its powers of eminent domain customarily used to purchase land for highways or other public projects. Baltimore had been the football team’s home for 30 years.
Electricity use was reduced by many Floridians to demonstrate their opposition to a $455 million rate increase sought by the Florida Power and Light Company. Blackout Sunday was said to be most effective in the Miami area.
The elderly moved in increasing numbers to metropolitan areas in the last decade, according to Census Bureau figures. The trend is a significant reversal of a long-standing migration of people over 60 to small towns and rural regions.
14th Easter Seal Telethon raises $24,600,000.
American filmmaker Joel Coen (29) marries American actress Frances McDormand (26).
PGA Tournament Players Championship, TPC at Sawgrass: 24-year-old Fred Couples finishes at 277 (-11), 1 stroke ahead of runner-up Lee Trevino.
3rd NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship: USC goes back-to-back; beats Tennessee, 72-61; Cheryl Miller 2nd consecutive MOP award.
Died:
Marvin Gaye, 44, American soul singer-songwriter (“It Takes Two”; “What’s Going On”; “Let’s Get It On”), shot to death by his father Marvin Gay, Sr., during a domestic dispute in Los Angeles.
History Diaries 