The death toll from the gas leak at the Union Carbide insecticide plant in Bhopal, India, was said to have risen to at least 1,200 and possibly as high as 2,000. Medical authorities said a growing concern was the threat of epidemics and unanticipated health problems for the more than 50,000 people believed to have been stricken. “We are concerned about the chances of kidney and liver infections, which could begin any time, not once the first 72 hours are over,” said Dr. N. R. Bhandari, a pediatrician and the superintendent of a hospital in Bhopal. He said he had been told that these were possible side effects and that “this could lead to more fatalities.”
Thousands of Indians continued to flood the hospitals of the anguished city of Bhopal two days after the gas leak from the insecticide plant. Dozens of infants and children are lying next to each other, crying as they make an effort to breathe. Many victims just sit or lie on the ground. Others of the stricken were living under tents set up by relief organizations and the army, fed by citizens groups and attended by a throng of doctors, nurses and medical students. They coughed and vomited. Their eyes are closed in pain, for the gas has caused a burning sensation in the eyes and distorted vision. Some are temporarily blind. Almost all had running eyes and found breathing hard.
A senior manager at the plant where poison gas leaked out Monday was quoted in an Indian newspaper as having said the accident occurred while the outside pesticide storage tank was being cleaned by unskilled workers. The report said no engineers were at the site, contrary to stipulated practice. Dr. Nily Chaudhuri, the chairman of the Central Water and Air Pollution Board, said in New Delhi today that he could not confirm or deny the report, but that the answer would probably be known in a few days. Because of the sensitive nature of the installation, Dr. Chaudhuri said, entrusting the job to unsupervised, unskilled people would be like “having an atom bomb and asking kids to play with it.” According to the report, the unskilled workers fled from the scene when the gas began to escape. One was said to have rushed to a supervisor’s house about six miles away. By the time the supervisor returned in a gas mask to try to shut off the leak, according to the report, the damage had been done.
President Reagan signed an order to release 300,000 metric tons of grain, worth $50 million, from the U.S. strategic wheat reserve for emergency use in Ethiopia and other African nations stricken by famine. At the same time, he transferred $50 million from other accounts to buy additional food. Reagan promised continued U.S. government aid but also noted the importance of private aid in fighting famine. Officials estimated shipping costs at $25 million. The actions, taken under the 30-year-old Food For Peace Program, supplement 600,000 tons of food for famine relief, worth about $190 million, already committed since October 1. M. Peter McPherson, administrator of the Agency for International Development, said the aid pipeline to Ethiopia is full but that problems of distribution within Ethiopia may remain.
Paul H. Nitze will serve as adviser to Secretary of State George P. Shultz for next month’s arms talks with Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, President Reagan announced. Mr. Nitze is a 77-year-old specialist in national security affairs. Mr. Nitze, who was the negotiator in the suspended Geneva talks on medium-range missiles in Europe, is to help work out a negotiable set of proposals on banning space weapons, reducing strategic arms, and limiting medium-range missiles, all of which are to be discussed with Mr. Gromyko. The United States has been trying to develop a unified negotiating position within a Senior Arms Control Group, an interagency committee headed by Robert C. McFarlane, the White House national security adviser.
Konstantin U. Chernenko said in a letter published today that he hoped the renewed arms talks with the United States would lead to “mutually acceptable understandings” on nuclear and space weapons. Replying to a letter from the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War, an antiwar group, the Soviet leader alluded to the scheduled meeting between Foreign Minister Gromyko and Secretary of State Shultz. Mr. Chernenko’s letter, as made public by the Tass press agency, said: “The Soviet Union, firmly determined to achieve a major breakthrough in reducing the danger of an outbreak of war, looks to the forthcoming Soviet-United States negotiations with a view to achieving mutually acceptable understandings on the entire set of questions related to nuclear and space weapons.”
Britain’s House of Commons unanimously approved the Sino-British agreement to transfer Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. After a six-hour debate, and some expressed reservations, legislators in the lower house of Parliament shouted a chorus of “ayes.” There was no vote count, and no dissenting voices were heard. The House of Lords is expected to approve the agreement next week.
A protest by middle-class students and their parents over proposed cuts in student aid has handed Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher a major policy setback. Sir Keith Joseph, the Secretary for Education and Science, had proposed cuts in the food and housing grants given to university students, regardless of their means. Today he rescinded a part of his plan that also would have made well-to-do parents pay part of their children’s tuition. He promised to consider Government-backed student loans, which are not now available.
The 30th game in the world chess championship between titlist Anatoly Karpov and challenger Gary Kasparov ended in a draw, the 25th in the Moscow match that began nearly three months ago. The Soviet grandmasters agreed to a draw after the 20th move. Karpov leads the series, 5-0, and needs one more victory to retain the crown that he has held since 1975.
Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel arrived in Paris today on a four-day visit aimed at enlisting French support. It is the first official visit here by an Israeli leader in 20 years. Mr. Peres was met at the airport by Prime Minister Laurent Fabius and the two men later discussed cooperation in a wide range of areas, from economics to science. The visit coincides with growing efforts for a new Middle East peace initiative. Israeli Government sources said Mr. Peres believed that European nations, particularly France, could play a major role in developing an initiative.
Five hijackers holding an airliner at Tehran’s international airport said a passenger they had fatally shot was an American diplomat, the Iranian press agency reported. The hijackers of the Kuwaiti airliner said they will blow it up with more than 90 people aboard unless terrorists imprisoned in Kuwait are freed, Iran’s official news agency reported. The State Department said it could not confirm the report, but it said there were three officials of the U.S. Agency for International Development aboard. The hijackers have freed 67 passengers.
Pakistan’s military ruler, General Zia ul-Haq, issued a decree making it a crime to urge a boycott of an election or referendum, with a penalty of up to three years in prison and disqualification from running for Parliament or a provincial assembly for seven years. The main opposition alliance, the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy, has called for a boycott of the December 19 referendum Zia has ordered to approve his Islamization policies and give himself a new five-year term. Opposition sources said today that the military authorities on Monday night had arrested a leading opposition politician, Fazlur Rehman, in Northwest Frontier Province. The reason for the arrest was not immediately known.
A coal mine explosion near Taipei killed two miners today and trapped 93 others deep underground, the police said. It was the third major mine accident in Taiwan in six months. One miner scrambled to safety moments after the explosion at the Haishan Yikeng Mine, 16 miles south of Taipei. The 93 men are believed trapped in a tunnel 1.2 miles from the mine’s entrance. Among those trapped were two mining officials who had been checking the mine. The cause of the blast was not known, but it was believed that methane gas, which exists naturally in coal areas, was responsible. After seven hours of digging, rescuers reached the two dead men 600 feet into the tunnel, the police said. In July 103 miners were killed when a fire swept through a mine near Taipei. In June 74 miners were killed in another mine explosion near Taipei.
At least 23 Nicaraguan civilians were killed by right-wing guerrillas in the northern city of Esteli, residents of the area reported. The victims, who included students and workers, were ambushed on their way to work as coffee pickers in the northern province of Nueva Segovia, close to guerrilla bases in neighboring Honduras. It was the largest single casualty figure since the guerrillas started a campaign to sabotage Nicaragua’s coffee bean harvest.
The House Intelligence Committee concluded today that the Central Intelligence Agency’s guerrilla warfare manual for Nicaraguan rebels violated the law because it advised the rebels on how to overthrow the Sandinista Government. But the committee, completing a two-month investigation of the manual, did not recommend specific actions against C.I.A. employees. That conclusion caused dissension, committee members said. “At least 7 or 8 times in the manual, there is a reference to overthrowing the Sandinistas,” said Representative Edward P. Boland, the Massachusetts Democrat who is the committee’s chairman. “It was the opinion of the vast majority of the committee that there was a violation of the Boland Amendment.”
Unless one side or the other changes its position, peace talks between the Government of President Jose Napoleon Duarte and Salvadoran leftist rebels may be stalemated. In two meetings each party has presented proposals that the other has rejected as a demand for surrender. In interviews this week, rebel and Government officials showed little willingness to budge from their initial stands. The rapid progress to deadlock is an indication of the political constraints that bind each side and the formidable obstacles to a negotiated end to five years of war. The fundamental differences separating the two parties have turned even optimists into doubters.
French colonials killed some Kanak natives in New Caledonia. Six or more Kanak native militants were killed in a clash with white settlers in the South Pacific island of New Caledonia as part of a continuing dispute over the Kanaks’ campaign for independence from France, territorial authorities reported. French officials in Noumea reported a higher death toll, saying eight people were killed in the clash between Kanaks and European settlers in eastern New Caledonia. Initial police reports indicated that a group of Kanaks in two cars were ambushed by whites who threw dynamite, then opened fire. The Kanaks, 43% of the 150,000 people of the island, are strongly opposed in their pro-independence campaign by French and other white settlers.
Korem, the site of Ethiopia’s largest camp for victims of the drought and famine, is now “critically short of food,” according to a relief official. The official, Caterine Damesin of the French organization Doctors Without Borders, who returned here from Korem Tuesday, said the camp had not had a food delivery in two weeks. “They are beginning to go through their stocks,” Miss Damesin said. “I can’t say exactly how much is left, but it’s a question of days, no more.”
About 30 people were killed and several others were hurt Tuesday when kung fu devotees clashed with unemployed youths here, the Madagascar radio reported today. Witnesses said they saw people shot around the headquarters of the Awareness Association, a state-sponsored craft cooperative of unemployed youths, where the fighting occurred. No official confirmation of the fighting was immediately available, and no motive was known, although the radio said the martial arts devotees had set fire to the cooperative building. Kung fu was banned in Madagascar in September, setting off riots in the capital. An official said the ban was an attempt to stem urban crime committed mainly by kung fu practitioners.
Many widely popular programs are identified for “reforms, cuts and terminations” to save $24 billion in the next fiscal year in the budget proposal that President Reagan presented to his Cabinet. Administration officials said they also planned to save $10 billion through holding certain benefit programs to their current spending levels and hoped to save $8 billion in the military budget, which is still under review.
President Reagan participates in a meeting with the Freshman Republican Members of Congress.
President Reagan meets with corporate leaders about World Hunger.
The Environmental Protection Agency denied petitions by three Northeastern states that asked the agency to force seven states to reduce sulfur emissions by as much as 40%. The agency said New York, Pennsylvania and Maine had not proved allegations made in the petitions that sulfur emissions from the industrial Midwest and border states were contributing significantly to air pollution in the Northeast. EPA officials also said acid rain allegations could not be addressed by the EPA because the petitions were filed under the federal Clean Air Act-which does not deal with acid rain.
As of today, 43 states are virtually out of Federal interstate highway money and there will be no more interstate grants until Congress approves a formula for distributing $7.2 billion from the highway trust fund. The Federal Highway Administration considers a state “virtually out” of interstate funds when its account falls under $10 million. The list includes New Jersey and Connecticut but not New York. Colorado, for example, is completely out of funds. It is one of 10 or so key states with big projects stalled, including major sections of the Interstate System in the Denver area and interchange work held up for years by local disputes over locations. Colorado highway officials know they would have about $116 million if only Congress could agree to release it.
House Democrats shelved a proposal to limit after-hours televised speeches because no consensus could be reached on how to deal with the issue. There currently is no limit on such speeches, used extensively by conservative Republicans to set out their agenda and attack the Democratic House leadership. The proceedings are broadcast to more than 18 million homes by the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network called CSPAN.
The producer of a disputed CBS documentary on Vietnam testified in federal court in New York that he wanted the show to investigate “a perversion of the intelligence process in the middle of the only war we ever lost.” George Crile, along with CBS, is being sued by retired General William C. Westmoreland, who contends he was libeled by the documentary’s allegation that there was a “conspiracy” in the general’s command to underestimate the strength of enemy forces in Vietnam in 1967.
William J. Schroeder took his longest walk since receiving an artificial heart and began a series of exercises, but later became a “little pooped” after sitting in a chair for 90 minutes, one of his doctors said in Louisville, Kentucky. Schroeder reportedly showed no adverse effects from taking a dozen steps and exercising his limbs. But “he looked a little pooped at the end of the hour and a half” in which he sat in a chair to read two copies of his hometown newspaper and watch a college basketball game.
As William J. Schroeder, the recipient of an artificial heart, showed continued improvement and began a new phase of exercise, two officials of the American Medical Association deplored the publicity for the artificial heart and the baboon heart transplant experiments. One of them, Dr. David I. Olch, a member of the group’s Judicial Council, called the plans to implant six artificial hearts at Humana Heart Institute International here “the wrong approach and the wrong setting.” By wrong approach, he meant the wide publicity that is carrying news of this experiment daily from the hospital into the living room. And by wrong setting, he referred to the Humana hospital, which is a commercial enterprise.
The bureaucracy is coming to the aid of a fatally ill Milwaukee police officer whose family could lose a big part of his pension if he dies before December 24, an alderman said today. Under the terms of the contract between the city and the police union, if Sgt. John Pederson dies earlier than 60 days after his application for a pension his family would receive a lump sum of $46,000. If he lives longer, his wife, Judy, 43, would receive a pension of $1,100 a month for life. The couple have two children, Jill, 20, and John Jr., 17. Five alderman said they would introduce a resolution in the Common Council December 11 to get a waiver of the requirement that Sergeant Pederson, 43, live 60 days from his application. Sergeant Pederson, a member of the force for 20 years, learned three years ago he had leukemia. It became acute in June. A bone marrow transplant failed, so he applied for a disability pension October 25.
A Federal district judge today ordered the Reagan Administration to stop deducting Social Security overpayments from the bank accounts of thousands of elderly Californians without advance notice and a hearing. The government said it would appeal. The ruling, by Judge Spencer Williams, stemmed from a 1981 suit by three elderly widows that was expanded to apply to all Californians in their circumstances. It affects mainly people who continue to receive Social Security payments for their recently deceased spouses because the government has not been notified of the deaths or has not updated its records. When it discovers the overpayment, the Social Security Administration tells banks to deduct the amount from the recipient’s account. If no account exists, the money is deducted from future benefits. The plaintiffs’ attorney, Susan Jackson Balliet, said each of her clients had notified Social Security immediately of her husband’s death and none knew they were being paid erroneously. One woman’s account was reduced to $11 without notice, the attorney said.
An Oklahoma judge agreed Tuesday to move the trial of a man charged with raping a 14-year-old Ponca City girl after he was also charged with the girl’s murder.The body of the rape victim, Rosalie Anne Adams, who was 15 when she disappeared November 21, was found Saturday in a river here. The defendant, Kirk Warren McBrain of Blackwell, 23, was jailed Monday on a a first-degree murder charge in Miss Adams’s death. Miss Adams was to have been the chief witness against Mr. McBrain and two others charged with raping her on March 23. Mr. McBrain had been scheduled to go to trial on kidnapping, rape and sodomy charges on Tuesday. However, District Judge Lowell Doggett granted a request to move the trial because of publicity about recovery of the body and the subsequent charges filed against Mr. McBrain. The trial is set for January 28 in adjacent Noble County.
Raises and the length of the school year in Chicago were the key obstacles in contract negotiations today, the third day of a strike that has shut the nation’s third largest school system. Representatives of the Board of Education met with representatives of nonteacher unions in the morning and scheduled a third day of negotiations with the 28,000-member Chicago Teachers Union. The strike, begun by the teachers when the board deducted medical insurance premiums from paychecks last month, has idled 431,000 students and closed 596 schools.
No action on acid rain generated in Middle Western or Border states is planned by the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency formally rejected a petition by New York, Pennsylvania and Maine to curb pollution, including sources of acid rain, coming from Middle Western and Border states.
Church-state issues were explored again by the Supreme Court, which examined the permissible limits of Government aid to parochial schools in cases from New York City and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Justices have recently emphasized the need for the Government to accommodate religious interests.
Talks in Chicago aimed at ending a three-day walkout in the nation’s third-largest school system resumed with union officials sounding optimistic and the school board reportedly considering a salary bonus for striking teachers. The strike has idled 430,000 students since Monday, when the walkout was called by the union representing 28,000 teachers and others, representing 12,000 non-teaching school workers. The teachers are seeking a 10% raise.
The life-size model of a pterodactyl dinosaur that is scheduled to fly above the Mall in Washington will be ready next fall, the model’s designer, Paul MacCready of Pasadena, announced. A study has determined that the project, announced last summer, is feasible, said MacCready, who also designed the first human- and solar-powered aircraft. He told a news conference at the National Air and Space Museum he is confident that propelling the replica of a 65-million-year-old Quetzalcoatlus northropi, the largest flying creature ever, would be no problem. The model will have a 36-foot wingspan.
The abolition of boxing, both amateur and professional, was urged by the American Medical Association. A resolution adopted by what was described as an “overwhelming” voice vote called on medical groups throughout the country to lobby for state laws banning the sport because of “the dangerous effects of boxing on the health of participants.”
The Oakland A’s send base-stealing outfielder Rickey Henderson and pitcher Bert Bradley to the Yankees in exchange for pitchers Jay Howell and Jose Rijo, outfielder Stan Javier, and minor leaguers Tim Birtsas and Eric Plunk. On the same day, the Yankees trade catcher Rick Cerone to the Braves for pitcher Brian Fisher.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1171.6 (-13.47)
Born:
Wallace Gilberry, NFL defensive end (Kansas City Chiefs, Cincinnati Bengals, Detroit Lions), in Bay Minette, Alabama.
Josh Lueke, MLB pitcher (Seattle Mariners, Tampa Bay Rays), in Covington, Kentucky.
Chris Solinsky, American distance runner, in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.
Lera Lynn, American singer-songwriter (“True Detective” soundtrack), in Houston, Texas.
Lauren London, American model and actress (“Madea’s Big Happy Family”), in Los Angeles, California.
Died:
Adam Malik, 67, Indonesian politician and diplomat (Third vice president of Indonesia from 1978–1983; President of the United Nations General Assembly, 1971–1972).
History Diaries 