Israel demolished four houses in the Gaza Strip belonging to the families of the Palestinian guerrillas who hijacked a bus Thursday. The army carried out a standard practice of the Israelis to demolish homes of Palestinians who have been caught or have confessed to terrorist acts. The buildings were razed Friday morning, only hours after troops stormed the bus, where the hijackers were holding about 35 passengers hostage. A 19-year-old Israeli woman died and seven other passengers were injured. The army said all four terrorists were killed. It has long been standard practice of the Israelis to demolish houses belonging to Palestinians who have been caught or have confessed to terrorist acts. Sometimes, as a lesser measure, houses or apartments are sealed with brick and mortar and the families forced to move elsewhere.
The army, which did not explain why it waited 24 hours to announce the demolitions, said the houses were bulldozed in the villages of Bani Suheila and Abasan, near the town of Khan Yunis, 15 miles southwest of Gaza, in the occupied Gaza Strip. The occupants were evacuated before the dwellings were destroyed. The Palestinians had hijacked the bus on the coastal highway south of Tel Aviv and forced the driver to speed into the Gaza Strip. The bus swerved off the road after soldiers shot out the tires. After a 10-hour standoff, the army attacked the bus. Questions still surround the fate of the Palestinian hijackers.
Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko has accused the United States of opening another round in the arms race, this time on the world’s oceans and seas, the Soviet news agency Tass reported. Tass said the charge was contained in a letter in response to questions by U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar about recent U.N. resolutions on arms control. Gromyko said the United States and its allies have blocked Soviet proposals for limiting naval maneuvers and armaments and establishing maritime confidence-building measures. The United States has accused the Kremlin of having undertaken a massive naval buildup in recent years.
Soviet Premier Nikolai A. Tikhonov has called the West German Peace Movement “a major moral and political force” and praised it for opposing the deployment of new U.S. medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe, the Soviet news agency Tass reported. Tass said Tikhonov’s comments were contained in a letter addressed to the movement, which he described as expressing “the will of the majority of the (West German) people.” He reiterated the Kremlin’s position that stalled U.S.-Soviet arms talks could be resumed only if the United States removes the new missiles.
The Soviet Union will continue to boost its real military spending by at least 2% each year throughout the 1980s. Byron Doenges, an official of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency said. Speaking with reporters following a three-day North Atlantic Treaty Organization conference in Brussels, Doenges said that the Soviet military will meet with growing competition from other sectors of the Soviet economy. But, he added, the Soviet defense establishment, as the “premier Soviet institution,” will have priority over resources, technology and production facilities.
About 6,500 Weste German environmental protesters tried to storm a new runway at Frankfurt International Airport today but were turned back by riot policemen with water cannons and a crowd-control chemical. At least six policemen and three protesters were reported seriously injured and 52 people were arrested. The demonstrators, most of them young and many wearing helmets and masks, hurled firecrackers, stones and tree branches onto the runway, and dozens tried to ram through a security wall with fallen tree trunks. The runway has been the target of repeated protests during three years of construction. Environmentalists object to destruction of forests. Local residents have complained of the noise from increased air traffic.
On the surface, everything seems normal in the resorts of St.-Jean-de-Luz, Biarritz and other villages hugging the beaches of France’s southwestern coast. The tulips are well tended, the cafe waiters haughty and the windows of the boutiques artfully arrayed with fishnet sweaters, driftwood, suntan lotion and piles of sand bearing footprints. It takes a second glance to catch the symptoms of fear. A number of bars in an old quarter of Bayonne are strangely deserted by early evening. A stranger draws suspicious glances. A car that quietly cruises the narrow streets at night can sow panic. “Everyone is waiting to see who will be the next one killed,” said Christian Fando, a lawyer in St.-Jean-de-Luz who defends Spanish Basques living in France. A Campaign of Killings
Since December the 800 or so Basques who have fled northern Spain to live in the French Basque region — many of them supporters or activists of E.T.A., the separatist organization engaging in terror — have themselves been the target of terror. A mysterious right-wing death squad calling itself the Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups, or G.A.L. in the Spanish acronym, has unleashed a campaign of kidnappings and assassinations. The new group announced its existence last December, in a note left in the pocket of a released kidnapping victim. In an “eye for an eye” war of revenge, it pledged to answer every E.T.A. killing south of the border with one of its own to the north. It has made good on the vow: seven suspected E.T.A. members have been gunned down so far and two others have disappeared and are presumed dead.
Sikh extremists set about 25 railway stations ablaze in India’s troubled Punjab state, the Press Trust of India reported. The news agency quoted an official spokesman as saying the attacks occurred simultaneously in eight districts of the rich farming state bordering Pakistan. The spokesman said ticket booths and records were destroyed, but no trains were canceled. More than 130 people have died this year in Sikh-Hindu clashes and Sikh extremist attacks in Punjab, where the Sikhs are seeking to win political and religious concessions.
A man and a woman opened fire at the Golden Temple today, killing at least one Sikh, a fugitive wanted in connection with the slaying of a Hindu politician, the authorities and witnesses said. Five other people were wounded. Rival Sikh factions inside the 17th-century temple blamed each other for the attack at the shrine, which houses hundreds of Sikhs armed with automatics weapons, spears and swords. The police identified the slain victim as Surinder Singh Sodhi, a fugitive and a follower of the Sikh leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, whose minority fundamentalist faction is believed to be responsible for much of the religious violence in the northeastern Punjab state. The state police also said that Sikh terrorists today shot to death Gurdial Singh, leader of a dissident Sikh sect called the Nirankari, south of Amritsar. They had few details.
The United States will sell Thailand 40 more M-48 tanks to add to its arsenal of 60 such vehicles as part of an effort to shore up Thailand’s defenses against Vietnamese incursions. President Reagan has announced. Reagan also indicated in a statement following a meeting with Thai Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda that the Administration would sell Thailand F-16 jet fighters if the Thai armed forces continue to request the top-of-the-line aircraft. However, discussions are expected to be held on Pentagon efforts to induce Thailand to settle on less costly, more easily maintained aircraft, such as the F-20 or the F-16-79, an export version of the F-16.
Vietnamese troops attacked a guerrilla base on the Thai-Cambodian border today, killing and wounding about 60 Cambodian civilians, provincial military sources said. The dawn attack was supported by tanks and artillery. The sources said about 50 artillery shells landed on Thai territory near the base of guerrillas who oppose Cambodia’s Vietnamese-backed Government. In a broadcast monitored in Bangkok today, guerrillas loyal to Prince Norodom Sihanouk said Vietnam had eight battalions within striking distance of their stronghold at Ta Tum, a settlement just inside Cambodia’s northern border. Thai troops had been put on full alert to prevent a spillover of the fighting, the provincial sources said.
About 150 people, mostly unemployed or with low incomes, marched through Manila today calling for a boycott of the May 14 parliamentary elections, which they say will not benefit the poor. The marchers said they were also protesting government inaction on demands for jobs and higher wages, and they criticized government housing projects, which they said were intended for the poor but priced beyond their means. Some opposition factions have also called for an election boycott. On Friday the former wife of a sportsman who is now married to President Ferdinand E. Marcos’s daughter started running for the National Assembly. Imelda R. Marcos, the President’s wife, has attacked Aurora Pijuan-Manotoc’s candidacy as a “truly sick, cruel and mean” tactic against her daughter, who is also running.
The President and First Lady host a luncheon on their upcoming trip to the People’s Republic of China.
President Reagan addresses the nation about Central American issues. El Salvador’s emergency arms aid was ordered by President Reagan because “we cannot turn our backs on this crisis at our doorstep,” the President said in his first public comments since the furor in Congress in recent days over the Administration’s policies in El Salvador and Nicaragua.
A crime wave in Brazil has brought about frequent street executions of muggers and thieves by residents, particularly the slum dwellers in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Lacking adequate police protection, different sectors of society are increasingly improvising their own, sometimes violent, responses to crime.
Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, in his first public comment on the government’s latest military crackdown in the southern Matabeleland region, dismissed as “very fantastic indeed” charges that the army has committed atrocities against the civilian population there. The Most Rev. Henry Karlen, the bishop of Matabeleland, issued a report in February listing names, times and places of the alleged atrocities by troops sent to crush a rebellion in the southern province. Mugabe added that missionaries should “stick to their prayers and leave the running of the country to me.”
Voter registration drives in the U.S. aimed at poor people receiving government benefits may benefit the Democratic Party the most, critics of such efforts and poll data indicate. Litigation has arisen in several states as some officials complain that registration drives at social agencies disrupt their work. Such registration programs have been encouraged by a nationwide coalition of social service organizations. Interviews with more than 2,300 people who have not registered to vote indicate that such people are considerably more likely to identify with the Democratic Party than the Republican Party.
The finding suggests that mass registration drives would be more advantageous to Democrats than to Republicans, and Democrats do talk eagerly of their hopes to see great increases in voter registration among blacks, Hispanic Americans and women, groups whose voting patterns favor the Democrats. Interviews for the New York Times/CBS News Poll indicate a direct correlation between age, income and education and the likelihood that a person is registered to vote. The unregistered are most likely to be found among young people, those with low incomes and those with little or no college education. In addition, 72 percent of unregistered blacks said they tended to identify with the Democratic Party, as against 44 percent of the unregistered whites.
A foundation has rebuffed attempts by Congress and a Congressional investigating arm, the General Accounting Office, to examine its books and those of a trust established in 1980 to help finance Ronald Reagan’s transition to the Presidency. Access to its records was denied despite a pledge in 1980 by transition officials of full disclosure. The foundation raised and spent almost $1 million between the election and the inauguration, according to its tax returns. That amount was in addition to $2 million from the General Services Administration, which buys and manages government property and supplies. Transition planners for Mr. Reagan said in 1980 that they were raising private money because the G.S.A. funds would not be enough to pay for salaries and expenses. A month after the inauguration, $286,590 of the G.S.A. money was left over, according to the Comptroller General, although additional bills could have been received later.
A nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, must obey hazardous waste laws, even though government lawyers contend that doing so could endanger national security. U.S. District Judge Robert L. Taylor ruled in a suit brought by environmentalists and Tennessee authorities. He ordered the Energy Department to apply for permits to process waste from its Y-12 plant. Hazardous substances, including PCBs, uranium, plutonium and thousands of pounds of mercury, had been found in streams at the plant. The plaintiffs argued that legislation regulating hazardous wastes includes federal facilities. The Energy Department claimed an exemption under the Atomic Energy Act.
The man who first reported unusual symptoms in underweight infants given injections of E-Ferol Aqueous Solution vitamins said he is not sure that the product is responsible for the deaths nationwide of 12 babies. Dr. Donald Frank of Cincinnati’s Good Samaritan Hospital said, “It’s too premature to tell what went wrong.” and he noted that some of the babies who received the vitamins suffered no ill effects. The Food and Drug Administration recalled the product, which is manufactured by Carter-Glogau of Glendale, Arizona, after 12 babies injected with it died and 17 others became ill.
Northwest Orient Airlines reached a tentative contract settlement with its 2,900 flight attendants just hours before the union had planned to go on strike. Matt Gonring, spokesman for the Minneapolis-based airline, said the tentative 36-month pact calls for a six-month pay freeze, followed by a 6% pay increase on July 1, 1984, and an additional 5% on July 1, 1985. Gonring and Teamsters Local 2747 President Sylvia Dombrowski disagreed on whether the pact includes a dual wage scale allowing the airline to pay new employees about 30% less than under the old contract, Gonring said it does. Dombrowski said it does not. Mail ballots on the new pact will be tabulated on May 14.
Harvard University said it will reject about $4 million in Pentagon-funded research contracts unless the Reagan Administration drops a proposal to censor the publication of unclassified research. Daniel Steiner, university vice president, said in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that Harvard “will not agree to any restrictions, by the Defense Department or anyone else, in the right to publish research results.” The Pentagon said it was concerned that the Soviet Union would acquire information about advanced U.S. technology from the published reports. Last month, the California Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also said they would refuse to accept such funding.
The Texas Board of Education, meeting in El Paso and acting on its own 23–2 recommendation a day earlier, voted unanimously to repeal a rule that restricted references to evolution in public-school textbooks. The Texas Board of Education repealed a decade-old rule that required school textbooks to describe the theory of evolution as “only one of several explanations” for the origin of human life. The repeal decision, taken reluctantly, came after State Attorney General Jim Mattox ruled that the requirement was an unconstitutional intrusion of religion into state matters. The board’s action was called as significant as the Scopes monkey trial of 1925.
Scores of helmeted Las Vegas police and highway patrolmen closed off a major street tonight and arrested 65 pickets as hundreds of sightseers watched. It was the latest incident in a bitter two-week strike of the city’s major hotels. Pickets standing across the street from the officers chanted, “We’ll be back tomorrow,” following the incident at 7 PM outside the M-G-M Grand Hotel. No injuries were reported. Witnesses said pickets had sat down on a sidewalk outside the M-G-M Grand, linked arms and refused to move.
The arrests followed by several hours a two-hour march by about 3,500 people along a three-mile stretch of the busy Las Vegas Strip. No arrests or incidents were reported in that march. Meanwhile, union officials and hotel negotiators met Friday for their longest bargaining session of the strike. Governor Richard H. Bryan, who helped coax the two sides back to the bargaining table, reported the two-hour session achieved some movement in contract language and a new wage proposal from the resort association.
Norfolk, Virginia police officers throwing tear gas opened fire on a gunman trying to escape from a house he was using for cover early today in an eight-hour standoff that also included the fatal shootings of an officer and a bystander. The man, identified as Nathaniel Robinson, 39 years old, a computer technician, was shot to death after he fired on officers while running from the white, one-story house in which he lived, said Police Chief Charles Grant. “He fell to the ground and started trembling,” said Charlene Moore, who lives in a house nearby. “Dirt was jumping and grass was jumping. Every time he moved, they shot him.” Mr. Robertson’s home was later found to contain a large cache of weapons, the police said. The police identified the dead officer as Douglas Drye and the slain bystander as Diane Lambino, 25, of Virginia Beach. Neal Windley, an assistant city manager, said Mr. Robinson had a history of mental problems and last year held members of his family hostage in a New York State incident.
A tornado destroyed a mobile home and damaged several houses near the path of killer tornadoes that passed through the Carolinas last month. No injuries were reported in the latest storm. The tornado cut a path about 50 yards wide as it swept through the town of East Laurinburg, North Carolina., damaging at least six houses, uprooting several large trees and snapping the tops off pine trees, authorities said. The tornado touched down about 6:20 pm, the National Weather Service at Raleigh, North Carolina, reported. Meanwhile, in Surry County, where strong winds tore down three barns and uprooted trees, the sheriff’s department also received a report of a twister.
Born:
Tyler Thigpen, NFL quarterback (Kansas City Chiefs, Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills), in Winnsboro, South Carolina.
Blake Costanzo, NFL linebacker (Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers, Chicago Bears), in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.
Chris Leroux, Canadian MLB pitcher (Florida Marlins, Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Yankees), in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
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