Cambodian guerrillas claimed to have killed or wounded more than 800 Vietnamese troops in a nine-day battle for control of the rebels’ military headquarters at Ampil on the Thai-Cambodian border. General Sak Suthsakhan, chief of staff of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, said his forces have surrounded nearby Ampil Lake, seized by the Vietnamese on April 15. A Thai army spokesman said the rebels were attacking, but Sak’s claims could not be otherwise verified. A coalition of Cambodian guerrillas is battling a regime installed by Vietnam.
The Soviet Union has launched a major new offensive in Afghanistan, using heavy bombers in the conflict for the first time in an effort to take a rebel stronghold that has resisted six previous Soviet campaigns, Reagan Administration officials said. The pounding began Saturday and continued through the weekend, they said. They added that a column of 20,000 Soviet and Afghan army troops with 600 to 800 vehicles is now moving north through the Panjshir Valley, a region that has resisted Communist control since the Soviet invasion in December, 1979.
The three main factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization ended a three-day reconciliation meeting in Algeria and called for a renewed fight for a Palestinian state “by all means, including armed combat.” Diplomatic sources said disagreement still appears to exist among Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and PLO sources said talks will resume at a higher level within two weeks. PLO discord peaked last year when Syrianbacked PLO rebels drove Yasser Arafat loyalists out of Lebanon.
Reports of a secret visit to Syria by Egypt’s defense minister added to the chill in Egyptian-Israeli relations. The Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al Qabas said Abdel-Halim abu Ghazala made the visit during a period of high Israeli-Syrian tension earlier this month, and the paper quoted him as saying. “Egypt would not stand aside if Syria were endangered.” Egypt recently severed diplomatic relations with Costa Rica and El Salvador because they moved their embassies in Israel from Tel Aviv to the disputed city of Jerusalem.
An end of a London Embassy siege is in prospect. A spokesman for the diplomats and students in the Libyan mission said they would leave the building next Sunday, the deadline set by Britain when it broke off relations with Libya. The spokesman said: “We have a lot of packing to do. After that, we will all be happy to leave Britain.”
Tens of thousands of West Germans demonstrated in several dozen cities today, the fourth day of protests against the arms race and United States missiles in Europe. Organizers estimated that 600,000 people turned out over the four days. The police put the figure at about 200,000. In Mutlangen, an estimated 20,000 people made a human chain around a United States Army airfield where American missiles are stationed. In Munich, about 15,000 people formed a seven-mile-long chain around a hill made of rubble of buildings destroyed in World War II. In Cologne, the police said about 10,000 people made a chain around the downtown area.
Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti of Italy held talks today with Andrei A. Gromyko, his Soviet counterpart. An Italian spokesman said the discussions centered on the missiles in Europe and the security conference in Stockholm.
Portuguese President António Ramalho Eanes announced tonight that he would sign into law a bill liberalizing abortion in this largely Roman Catholic country. Parliament passed the bill in January and it was judged constitutional by an independent tribunal. The President had hesitated to approve it, saying many Portuguese opposed the measure. The law does not legalize abortion, but mandates no punishment in cases involving rape, fetal deformities or danger to the mother’s health.
Europe’s economies are performing better than many analysts expected, according to accumulating evidence. Unemployment is still high and Europe’s emerging high-technology companies remain in fear of American and Japanese competitors. But growth, investment and exports are strengthening.
A U.S.-China nuclear accord is expected to be announced by President Reagan after he arrives in Peking on Thursday for his six-day visit. Administration officials indicated that negotiators had reached agreement on a treaty that would permit American companies to help China build nuclear reactors.
China now little resembles the Spartan Maoist garrison state visited by President Nixon in 1972 and President Ford in 1975. Under Deng Xiaoping, sweeping changes have been carried out, particularly in agriculture, without bloodshed.
A Cuban-sponsored rebel offensive in El Salvador is likely this fall, according to intelligence information reported by the Reagan Administration. As a result, senior officials said, the Administration is planning a major drive to gain Congressional approval of increased aid to El Salvador and to Nicaraguan rebels.
Nicaragua’s Sandinista leaders rejected a plea by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops for negotiations with U.S.-backed rebels, saying it would be a “dialogue with the murderers of our people.” The bishops made their appeal in a pastoral Easter letter, also criticizing press censorship, detention of political prisoners and violence against the Indian minority. In response, the junta said. “The church forgot to condemn the aggression that Nicaragua suffers at the hands of North American imperialism.”
In the Dominican Republic, businessmen joined youths in violent protests today against Government-ordered price increases. At least four people were killed, scores injured and nearly 300 arrested during clashes with the police. Stores were set afire and looted in Santo Domingo’s old section and riots spread to three other large cities Santiago, San Francisco de Macorís and San Cristóbal. Businessmen’s organizations had called for a 24-hour strike against the Government’s decision last week to increase prices of all imported goods, including medicine, by 200 percent. The prices of foods also were raised by varying amounts as the Government sought to meet conditions for a loan from the International Monetary Fund. The police said three men and a woman were killed. Dominican radio stations reported tonight that a policeman also had been shot and killed, but this could not be confirmed.
Jacobo Timerman, the Argentine newspaper publisher who was held for more than two years by the former military Government, said today that he would testify this week before the supreme military tribunal trying former military rulers. Speaking of the tribunal, he said in a telephone interview: “I presented written testimony over two months ago. Now I will appear before them to answer questions about my testimony.” Mr. Timerman, publisher of La Opinión until his arrest in 1977, wrote a book about his imprisonment, implicating high-ranking military officials. President Raúl Alfonsín’s civilian Government, which took power in December, ordered the armed forces to try nine junta members by court-martial for human rights violations.
Six people were killed in a gunfight today between security forces and armed men in the Punjab state border town of Ferozepore, the Press Trust of India reported. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said her government had proof of foreign involvement in the Punjab violence. The news agency said unidentified armed men in Ferozepore attacked members of the paramilitary reserve police force, who returned the fire. In a speech in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, Mrs. Gandhi said that the ruling Sikh majority in Punjab had lost control and that agents working for what she called the big powers had taken charge.
A major environmental disaster occurred last year in the remote and heavily forested island of Borneo. Compounded by the worst drought in the area in a century, a forest fire burned for several months, destroying plant and animal life over 13,000 square miles of woodland, an area the size of Connecticut and Massachusetts combined.
Nigeria’s military government announced that it is closing the country’s land borders immediately and will replace its currency, the naira, by May 6 in a crackdown on currency smuggling. The army’s chief of staff. Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon. announced the measures in a Lagos broadcast that was monitored in London. He blamed the West African nation’s financial plight on the elected civilian government, overthrown in a coup last December 31. Nearly 500 politicians and public officials are scheduled to be tried on charges of diverting funds.
Jesse Jackson agreed to help avert a confrontation at the Democratic National Convention in exchange for a promise by the party’s national chairman to consider Mr. Jackson’s demands for the seating of additional delegates who would support him and for changes in party rules that the Presidential aspirant regards as discriminatory. The preliminary accord was announced after Mr. Jackson and the chairman, Charles T. Manatt, met privately for one hour.
The President and First Lady attempt to avoid the press by using Mrs. Sicily Johnston’s residence on the Hawaiian island of Oahu for a swim in the ocean. The press arrived within 5 minutes and footage appeared on the evening news.
Limits on the amount of EDB permitted in grain-based foods were made mandatory by the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency, which issued voluntary guidelines Feb. 3, promised vigorous enforcement against contamination by the pesticide. Some states, including New York, have imposed far tougher EDB limits, and those standards will remain in force. Mandatory nationwide limits on the presence of the pesticide EDB in grain-based foods have been imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. which promised vigorous enforcement of the standards. The new rules are the same as the voluntary state guidelines EPA released February 3 to limit the potentially cancer-causing chemical in a wide variety of grain-based food products. The enforcement program will focus on raw grains. “so as to attack the contamination at its earlier source.” said EPA spokesman Al Heier. He said there will be “secondary testing” of grain products in food warehouses before they reach grocery shelves.
A federal appeals court in a 7-6 decision in New Orleans rejected a racial quota plan designed to promote more blacks in the New Orleans Police Department, but it also rejected a Justice Department attempt to block racial quota systems. Under the plan, approved by the city and blacks who filed suit but opposed by white, Latino and women officers, one black would have been promoted for every white until half the department’s ranks was black. The ruling of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals supported a district judge’s refusal to sign a consent decree setting up the quota plan.
Jury selection began in Jacksonville, Florida, in the murder trial of Ottis Elwood Toole, who has confessed to at least 50 slayings during an eight-year crime spree with his lover, convicted killer Henry Lee Lucas. Toole, 35, is on trial for the 1982 death of George Nicholas Sonneberg, who died a week after being severely burned in a boarding house fire. Toole was a maintenance man at the boarding house and is charged with setting the blaze that claimed the life of Sonneberg, 63. He already is serving a 20-year prison term for two other arson convictions.
An ordinance that defines pornography as sexual discrimination and a violation of women’s civil rights, making distributors subject to civil lawsuits, was approved by the Indianapolis City-County Council on a vote of 24 to 5. City corporation counsel John Ryan said the measure is aimed at distributors of pornography rather than toward those who produce pornographic material or possess the material privately. “The main intent is toward books, but it could go against films, pictures,” Ryan said. Opponents of the measure said the ordinance would not pass a court test on its constitutionality in respect to the First Amendment protection of free press and expression.
A union filed a sex discrimination suit in U.S. District Court in New York seeking a minimum of $10 million in back pay and damages for 5,500 women working for Nassau County. The suit, filed by the Nassau County chapter of the Civil Service Employees Association, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees affiliate, claims the women were segregated into certain jobs, that women were paid less than men. whose jobs require comparative skills, and seeks to permanently enjoin the county from engaging in salary discrimination based upon sex. It also seeks payments covering at least two years to compensate for the alleged wage inequities.
The Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, Vincent A. Cianci Jr., said he would resign tomorrow. His statement came hours after he was given a five-year suspended sentence for assault with a deadly weapon. The Providence City Charter prohibits convicted felons from holding office. The mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, agreed to resign within 48 hours after a judge gave him a five-year suspended sentence for assault. Vincent A. Cianci Jr., who had pleaded no contest to beating a man he believed was having an affair with his estranged wife, was required to leave office because the sentence made him a convicted felon. Also, Police Chief Anthony J. Mancuso was fired by Public Safety Commissioner Sanford H. Gorodetsky, but he refused to step aside. Mancuso said he arranged for state police cruisers to surround City Hall to “protect the integrity” of all documents pertaining to an investigation into alleged corruption in the city’s Public Works Department.
A possible breakthrough on AIDS was announced by American federal researchers. They said they had found a virus they believe is the cause of the mysterious disease that has afflicted more than 4,000 Americans. They called the virus HTLV-3 and said they had developed a technique to mass-produce it for the purpose of developing the tools to conquer AIDS.
A Federal appeals court today rejected a racial quota plan designed to promote more blacks in the New Orleans police department, but it also rejected a Justice Department attempt to block racial quota systems. Under the New Orleans plan, approved by the city and by blacks who filed suit, but opposed by white, Hispanic and women officers, one black would have been promoted every time a white officer was, until half the department’s ranks were black. The judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, splitting 7 to 6, upheld Federal District Judge Morey Sear’s ruling that the quota plan was not needed. But the court dismissed Justice Department claims that quotas could not be used to remedy past discrimination.
One of eight protesters who admitted breaking into a Pershing 2 missile plant said today the “symbolic action” demonstrated “an appalling lack of security.” Patrick O’Neill, 28 years old, said he and his companions, had they been terrorists, “could have blown up, destroyed or removed one of the weapons and taken it with us.” Mr. O’Neill and Anne Montgomery, a Roman Catholic nun, told reporters the group wandered around the Martin Marietta Corporation complex in Orlando, Florida for almost an hour on Easter morning. All were arrested and charged with felony criminal mischief, burglary and possession of burglars’ tools.
The mother of a federally protected witness in a drug investigation was killed by machine-gun fire in Fort Lauderdale and the police said today that they were seeking three suspects. Meanwhile, two men indicted as a result of the drug investigation pleaded guilty in an Alabama court today. Mildred Ann Cornell of Burbank, Illinois, died shortly after she was shot in an apartment here Sunday, said Matt Weissing, a Broward County sheriff’s spokesman. “She is the mother of a man who is testifying in a narcotics trial out of state,” Mr. Weissing said. “That appears to be the motive.”
The Louisiana House of Representatives voted today to bail out the World’s Fair by approving a $10-million loan to continue construction, but opponents complained about having to find the money while the state faces cutbacks in services. The vote was 66 to 29 in favor of aiding the fair, which is scheduled to open May 12. The measure goes to the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1149.50 (-8.58).
Born:
Quinn Ojinnaka, NFL guard and tackle (Atlanta Falcons, New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts, St. Louis Rams), in Seabrook, Maryland.
Ryan McBean, NFL defensive tackle (Pittsburgh Steelers, Denver Broncos), in Kingston, Jamaica.
Dallas Reynolds, NFL center and guard (Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants), in Provo, Utah.
Dave Davidson, Canadian MLB pitcher (Pittsburgh Pirates, Florida Marlins), in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada.
Alexandra Kosteniuk, Russian chess grandmaster (Women’s World Chess Champion 2008-10), born in Perm, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.
Died:
(William) “Red” Garland, 60, American jazz pianist (Miles Davis Quintet), of a heart attack.
Juan Tizol, 84, Puerto Rican jazz trombonist (Duke Ellington), and composer (“Caravan”; “Perdido”).
History Diaries 