Italy’s first cruise missiles are now operational, Defense Minister Giovanni Spadolini told Parliament. The Chamber of Deputies then voted, 290 to 8, to reject a motion to force the removal of the 16 missiles. As part of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization modernization program, Italy plans to deploy a total of 112 cruise missiles. New missiles already are operational in West Germany and Britain.
At least a third of the world’s nations torture or otherwise abuse prisoners. Amnesty International charged. In a report, the human rights organization listed abuses in 98 countries, ranging from killings and mutilations to beatings. Amnesty International said its evidence included testimony from released detainees, refugees and doctors. It called for international action to end “torture as a tool of state policy.”
The world’s population has increased by 770 million to 4.67 billion in the last decade, but the rate of growth has declined in both the developed and developing regions, a U.N. report said. After reaching a record peak of 2.1% in the last 10 years, the rate of growth at the start of the 1980s stood at 1.7%, the report said. It added that the downward trend in developing regions was strongly influenced by a very rapid decline in China’s growth rate.
American-Soviet talks have been held in the last two days. The discussions reportedly covered all aspects of relations, including plans for the resumption of negotiations on new cultural and consular agreements. A Soviet source said Mr. Dobrynin had conveyed a note from the Soviet leadership to Mr. Shultz, responding to American messages and denying that the Soviet Union was to denying that the Soviet Union was to blame for the lack of progress in relations. The State Department and the White House would not confirm that such a note had been delivered. From what was said by American officials later, there was no apparent progress on the key issue — the Soviet refusal to resume negotiations on limiting medium-range missiles or strategic arms until the United States dismantles the new medium-range missiles it has deployed in Western Europe.
The largest Soviet battle fleet ever seen has been assembled in the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic for a naval exercise, according to Britain’s Defense Ministry. Officials of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said it was assumed that the Russians, whose fleet has been growing rapidly in recent years, plan to test “their ability to conduct various surface, air and submarine activities.” The officials, who say that NATO was not caught by surprise, added that there was no sign of hostile intentions. At least 29 Soviet warships, accompanied by support vessels, submarines, amphibious craft, Backfire bombers and long-range reconnaissance planes based on the Kola Peninsula on the north Russian coast were reported between Greenland, Norway and the Shetland Islands off Scotland. The 820- foot, 22,000-ton battle cruiser Kirov, one of the biggest Soviet ships, appeared to be the flagship of the fleet.
The British said smaller Soviet exercises were under way in the Mediterranean Sea and in the Indian Ocean, raising the possibility that Moscow was planning a worldwide command and control operation of a type not seen since 1975. In addition, the 16,500-ton aircraft carrier Leningrad, which can carry up to 18 helicopters, was reported to have left Cuba in company with other ships, apparently headed north.
A gunman riding behind a motorcycle driver wounded a U.S. soldier with pistol fire when the American stopped his car at a traffic light in Athens. Master Sgt. Robert Judd Jr., 36, was hit in the right hand and left shoulder and was later reported in satisfactory condition with a .45-caliber bullet lodged in his lung. Judd, postal officer for the Joint U.S. Military Aid Group, was on his way to Hellenikon Air Base, a U.S. facility at the Athens airport, when the attack occurred. There was no immediate indication of the attackers’ identities.
About 200 students returned to classrooms bare of crucifixes today, and there were signs that Poland’s month-long “war of the crosses” was easing. Both sides — the Roman Catholic Church and the Communist Government — appeared to have softened their stances in the dispute over an official ban on crucifixes in state-run schools and other public buildings. Bishop Jan Mazur indicated an agreement was imminent on the seventh day of a bread-and-water fast he began in support of defiant students at Stanislaw Staszic Agricultural High School. A priest, who asked to remain anonymous because his superiors had told him not to discuss the case, said there was “a possibility” that the government authorities “will permit one or two crosses” in lecture halls at the school in Mietne, 40 miles south of Warsaw.
Four men received prison terms and five others were put on probation at the conclusion of a trial in Vienna, Austria of purported neo-Nazis that began last October. Sentenced late Monday to five years, for a series of 1982 bomb attacks on property owned by prominent Jews and for illegal neo-Nazi activities, was Ekkehard Weil, a West German. Mr. Weil, the main figure at the trial and the only non-Austrian, was found not guilty of bombing the apartment of Simon Wiesenthal, the well-known pursuer of Nazis. Attila Bajcsi, Manfred Luxbacher and Egon Baumgartner were sentenced to prison terms of three years, 30 months and 20 months respectively.
Three ecologists spent a second night perched on a gasoline refinery chimney in Le Havre, France to protest acid rain, but demonstrations in several other Western European countries were ruined by the weather. The demonstrators from the ecology action group Greenpeace climbed the smokestack as part of a weeklong campaign in eight European countries for stricter controls on smoke emissions. A spokesman said similar protests were continuing in Denmark and the Netherlands. But climbers were forced to come down from chimneys in Belgium, Austria, West Germany and Britain because of bad weather and in Czechoslovakia after warning shots were fired.
Washington officials confirmed reports from Peking that China is a major supplier of arms to Iran, and they characterized China as a “substantial factor” in keeping Iran’s army on the battlefield in the war with Iraq. Peking also supplies Iraq, to a lesser extent, and lower-level U.S. diplomats have several times told the Chinese that neither side in the bloody Persian Gulf war should be encouraged to continue fighting, the officials said. State Department spokesman John Hughes indicated that Washington, which professes neutrality in the war, is more troubled by China’s sales to Iran than by those to Iraq.
Egypt, a founder of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, formally rejoined the group after a four-year suspension precipitated by its signing in 1979 of the Camp David treaties with Israel. The conference’s secretary general, Habib Chatti of Tunisia, received Ahmed Abul Khair, the Egyptian representative to the organization, who submitted his ambassadorial credentials, an announcement said.
Assassins in Punjab killed a member of Parliament, a university professor who was fatally shot at his home by killers who had said they were students waiting to see him. The killers fled in a car. Meanwhile, at least 10 people were killed and scores injured when the police fired on a crowd in Amritsar, the holy Sikh city in the northern India state.
President Reagan’s $61.7-million military aid package for El Salvador survived what Republican leaders saw as a crucial test when the Senate rejected a move to withhold 15% of the funds until the Salvadoran government obtains a verdict in the 1981 murder of two U.S. labor advisers. The proposed amendment by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) was rejected 69 to 24, his second defeat in two days on Salvadoran aid.
A car bomb exploded in the South African port of Durban, killing three people and seriously injuring five. No group immediately took responsibility for the blast, but the government implied it was the work of the outlawed African National Congress. The black nationalist group’s office in Zambia said it was awaiting confirmation that its underground members in South Africa planted the bomb. The attack occurred two weeks after South Africa signed a security pact with neighboring Mozambique in a bid to curb the rebels.
Guinea’s armed forces seized power in a coup a week after the death of President Ahmed Sekou Toure to end what they called a “bloody and ruthless dictatorship.” All mass organizations were dissolved and the West African nation’s airport and borders were closed. Guinea suspends the constitution.
Soyuz T-11 carries 3 cosmonauts (Yury Malyshev, Gennady Strekalov, and Rakesh Sharma) to Salyut 7. Soyuz T-11 was the sixth expedition to the Soviet Salyut 7 space station, which in 1984 carried the first Indian cosmonaut (Sharma) along with Soviet crew members. Salyut 7 was uncrewed after the undocking of Soyuz T-11 in October 1984 until Soyuz T-13 docked with the station in June 1985. Salyut 7 developed problems during the time it was uncrewed, which meant that the crew of Soyuz T-13 had to perform a manual docking and do repairs to the station. The Soyuz T-11 launch crew Malyshev, Strekalov, and Sharma returned from space in the Soyuz T-10 spacecraft on 11 April 1984.
Low-income families have lost the most money and high-income families have gained the most from the cumulative effect of budget and tax reductions adopted since January 1981, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office. The report was the first detailed study showing the effects of the tax and budget cuts at different income levels.
A federal judge ruled that the government must pay women in the U.S. Civil Service system the same as men with the same duties and responsibilities, regardless of where they are located. Margaret Mary Grumbine, a regional counsel of the Customs Service assigned to Baltimore, Maryland, had sued the Treasury Department because she was classified as a GS-14. Her suit noted that the agency’s eight other regional counsels, as well as her immediate predecessor, all male, were classified as GS-15s. A GS-14 has a starting salary of $42,722 a year, while a GS-15 begins at $50,252 per year.
The Administration asked a federal appeals court to refuse to order the Justice Department to pay $25,368 in legal fees incurred by the parents of a severely handicapped infant as they battled the government’s unsuccessful effort to obtain the baby’s medical records. The parents of the infant, known as “Baby Jane Doe” to protect her privacy, intervened in the case as defendants. The Justice Department lost in both courts in its effort to obtain the medical records it contended that it needed to determine if the hospital and parents had illegally discriminated against a handicapped individual when they decided against surgery for the infant.
The chairman of the House health subcommittee accused the Reagan Administration of playing “political football” with a federal family planning program that has broad congressional support. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-California) attacked the Administration for its fourth annual attempt to turn family planning funds over to the states and charged that government officials sought to “sabotage from within” after their earlier efforts to eliminate the federal program failed.
The House passed and sent to President Reagan a bill that would pay wheat farmers who agree to limit their production this year and next. The action came on a 379-11 vote approving a compromise that had been worked out between the House and Senate last week. Reagan was expected to sign the bill quickly. The Agriculture Department then will reopen for two weeks the period when wheat farmers can sign up for the revised 1984 price support program.
The next battlefield in the Administration’s fight with Congress over control of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission may be its budget, which critics hope to put together in a way that will force the revamped panel to carry out the mission they say it is neglecting. The House is not expected to cut off the commission’s funding, which leaders of black, Latino and women’s congressional caucuses have advocated. But key staff members said they are quietly weighing options for restricting the way in which the commission can use the money it receives.
President Reagan prepares in the White House theater for an upcoming press conference.
President Reagan meets with the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.
President Reagan meets with Republican Leadership from both Houses of Congress.
Cost overruns on the Seabrook nuclear plant in New Hampshire total 800 percent. As a result, the customers of 53 electric companies from Connecticut to Maine will face higher rates, and at least one utility, Seabrook’s main builder, may be forced into bankruptcy.
Sexual abuse of children, often for commercial purposes, is increasingly alarming law-enforcement and medical authorities. Experts say the arrests of the operators of an exclusive nursery school in Manhattan Beach, California, on charges of sexually molesting 18 children reflect a shadowed national phenomenon.
[Ed: In this case, it represents hysteria, mental illness on the part of one mother, the political ambitions of the people in the district attorney’s office, and some really shitty psychiatry. The case results in no convictions, was pretty clearly fantasy from the start.]
Walter F. Mondale scored a sweeping victory in the Democratic Presidential primary in New York, giving him a major push toward the nomination. The former Vice President’s victory followed his success in the primary in Illinois two weeks ago and positioned him for the Pennsylvania primary next Tuesday.
A heavy vote among older whites for Walter F. Mondale and a surge of young black voters for the Rev. Jesse Jackson put a generational squeeze on Senator Gary Hart in the New York Democratic Presidential primary, according to a New York Times/CBS News Poll. Mr. Mondale, in his first victory in the Northeast, attracted a traditional Democratic coalition — Jewish and Roman Catholic voters, union households and low-income groups.
A panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today held that a district judge erred when he ruled that an accused spy, James Durward Harper Jr., would be subject to a penalty of death if convicted at his trial, scheduled to start April 24. Judge Samuel Conti ruled the death penalty could be imposed in the case of Mr. Harper, a 49-year-old engineer who is charged with selling ballistic missile research data to a Polish spy for $250,000. Mr. Harper has pleaded not guilty.
Striking Las Vegas hotel-casino workers clashed with security guards today and the police arrested 16 people, including four union leaders. The clash occurred when about 60 chanting strikers tried to march past security personnel into the Las Vegas Hilton in a demonstration against 30 resorts, said Lieutenant Jim Chaney. There were no serious injuries, the police said. Among those arrested was Jeff McColl, the head of the Culinary Union. The strike shut down showrooms and restaurants but gambling continued. Showgirls crossed picket lines to work as cocktail waitresses and hotel clerks. A primary issue is the hotels’ demand for concessions by the 17,000 strikers, the union said.
Diane Matthews, 25 years old, of South Portland, Maine, who was discharged from the Army’s Reserve Officer Training Corps after she acknowledged that she was a lesbian, was ordered reinstated today by a United States Magistrate. Magistrate D. Brock Hornby said that her discharge from the R.O.T.C. at the University of Maine at Orono “as a result of her declaration of homosexuality, without any evidence of homosexual conduct,” violated her First Amendment right to freedom of expression.
Ford Motor Co. announced a repair program covering up to 1.1 million model 1981-83 subcompacts that could suffer severe engine damage if faulty rubber timing belts break. The automaker said it has received up to 5,000 complaints of the faulty timing belts from owners of Ford Escort and EXP and Mercury Lynx and LN7 models. The firm said it will replace broken belts and repair any resulting engine damage to the subcompact models.
A blizzard buried the buds of spring under as much as two feet of snow from Colorado to South Dakota and trapped thousands of travelers in the Plains. Scores were stranded overnight in stalled cars and trucks. Rescuers on snowmobiles fought head-high snow drifts on the lonely highways of eastern Colorado, looking for marooned motorists and some local residents were reported missing. The snowstorm was blamed for two deaths on Wyoming highways earlier in the week. Elsewhere, five tornadoes touched down in Kansas during the night, causing minor damage.
Arbitrator Richard Bloch rules that the Royals Willie Wilson and the Mets Jerry Martin can return to action on May 15th, the day their year-long suspensions are first due to be reviewed.
On Opening Day, Detroit Tiger rookie Barbaro Garbey becomes the first Cuban refugee to play in the majors when he grounds out in the seventh inning as a pinch-hitter for Dave Bergman. The 27-year-old utility player will stay in the game, playing first base in Detroit’s 8–1 rout of Minnesota in the Metrodome.
After rain washes out yesterday’s Opener at Royals Stadium, Yul Bryner tosses out the first ball and Kansas City opens with a 4–2 win over the Yankees. The threat of snow holds the crowd to just 10,006. Bud Black, with relief help from Quisenberry, tops Ron Guidry, still winless in Openers. Onyx Concepcion hits Guidry’s first pitch of the game for a homer, while Dave Winfield has a two-run homer for New York.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1148.76 (-4.40).
Born:
Kyle Phillips, MLB catcher and pinch hitter (Toronto Blue Jays, San Diego Padres), in San Diego, California.
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