The Greek Parliament failed today for a second time to elect the Government’s candidate as President. But it appeared that a coalition of Socialists and Communists would succeed on the final ballot next week. Christos Sartzetakis, the 56-year-old Supreme Court judge unexpectedly chosen by Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou as an alternative to Konstantine Karamanlis, got 181 of the 300 votes in Parliament — 200 are required for election on the second ballot. But in the third and final vote on Friday, only 180 votes are needed.
Encouraged by the improvement in relations between the Soviet Union and the United States, East Germany’s Communist leadership has signaled that it is ready to resume stepped-up exchanges with West Germany. The first major sign of a thaw in the rather frosty ties between the two Germanys came in Moscow on March 13 when Erich Honecker, the East German leader, met for two hours with Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Both were there to attend the funeral of Konstantin U. Chernenko, the Soviet leader. In an unusual step, the two leaders issued a short communique that praised the renewed Soviet-American nuclear arms negotiations in Geneva and predicted they could give “a general impulse for an improvement in East-West relations.”
The Soviet Union’s veteran Minister of Electric Power was retired today, a day after an editorial in Pravda accused his agency of poor performance. The press agency Tass, in announcing the retirement of the minister, Pyotr S. Neporozhny, 74 years old, said he was leaving office for health reasons. But the timing of the announcement and the absence of tributes usually extended to retiring officials indicated that he had been dismissed. It was the first replacement of a top national Government official since the new Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, took office on March 11. In another personnel shift, at the regional level, Pravda announced the replacement of the 69-year-old party leader of Kirov Province, in northern European Russia. The regional leader, Ivan P. Bespalov, had controlled the province since 1971.
Exiled Soviet scientist Andrei D. Sakharov has threatened to resign from the Soviet Academy of Sciences unless his wife, Yelena Bonner, is allowed to travel abroad for treatment of a heart ailment, a London-based human-rights group reported. Keston College, citing a reliable source in the Soviet Union, said Sakharov made the threat in a letter to the academy from his exile in Gorky, where he was sent in 1980 after speaking out against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Moderates in Finland’s Communist Party completed their takeover of the party at a special one-day congress boycotted by the hard-line, pro-Moscow minority. Delegates voted to oust the last pro-Moscow member from the ruling Central Committee and endorsed the policies of party chairIman Arvo Aalto, who urged a change of course to revive the party’s fortunes before 1987 elections.
The Italian Cabinet has appointed a new High Commissioner to coordinate the fight against the Mafia. The Prefect of Naples, Riccardo Boccia, 63 years old, was named to succeed Emanuele de Francesco, the Cabinet announced Friday night. Mr. Boccia will take over in Palermo, Sicily’s capital, from Mr. de Francesco after three years in Naples, where he oversaw a successful drive against the Camorra, the Neapolitan version of the Mafia. A trial of 600 Camorra suspects is under way in Naples. Interior Minister Oscar Luigi Scalfaro told reporters the change had been made at Mr. de Francesco’s request.
An American Roman Catholic priest being held hostage by Lebanese terrorists said he does not want to be freed by military force, according to a letter released by his family. Relatives of Father Lawrence Jenco, who was kidnaped in West Beirut on January 8, said in Joliet, Illinois, that Jenco wrote that he is being held hostage for men being held in Kuwait-an apparent reference to Arabs jailed there for terrorist bombings against French and American targets. He added that “military intervention on my behalf will not be good for me.” The priest is believed to be held by Shia Muslim terrorists loyal to Iran. Four other Americans are also being held hostage in Lebanon.
President Amin Gemayel held talks in Damascus today with President Hafez al-Assad of Syria amid signs that Syria is reassessing its role in Lebanon. Officials close to Mr. Gemayel said he was trying to persuade Mr. Assad not to order Syrian forces in Lebanon to crush a revolt by Christian militia forces and to prevail on his Lebanese Muslim and leftist allies not to start fighting. About 10,000 Syrian troops are deployed next to an enclave controlled by the Christian rebels 26 miles north of Beirut, and they have imposed restrictions on travel from areas they control to the south of the country. The Governor of northern Lebanon, Iskandar Ghobril, has announced that residents of the northern port of Tripoli and neighboring sectors must now obtain permits to travel south to the capital.
Although Iraq apparently won the largest battle of its long war with Iran last week, neither army performed with great skill, according to experts, who added that they did not see it as a decisive victory that was likely to turn the war completely in Iraq’s favor. An analyst of Middle East military affairs said one of the main lessons of the fighting was that both sides find it difficult to exploit success, to react rapidly to unforseen events and to coordinate airpower, artillery and ground forces. An American official called it “the slow-motion war.” He said Iraq, which has more and better military equipment, can “determine the scale of the war, but Iran can determine the length.”
Rajiv Gandhi made his first trip as premier to India’s troubled Punjab, home to most of the nation’s Sikhs, and announced measures to rejuvenate the state. Among the measures are construction of a giant dam and hydro-electrical project on the banks of the Ravi River near the Pakistan border and of a large railroad car-manufacturing complex. Gandhi said that a resolution of the three-year-old Punjab crisis is still not in sight.
The Burmese Government said today that its troops had killed 1,870 rebels and captured 506 in a year-long campaign. It said 920 had surrendered. It said 566 government soldiers had been killed and 1,195 wounded in 3,015 separate clashes, including 20 major battles with rebel groups. Among arms reported seized were 11 artillery pieces, 1,241 small arms, 815 mines and 622 hand grenades. For decades, Burma’s armed forces have been fighting a dozen insurgencies, including those by Communist guerrillas and ethnic minorities seeking autonomy.
Well-armed and organized bandit gangs from the volatile Cambodian war zone are breaking into a lightly guarded Cambodian refugee settlement at night to rob and sometimes kill its unarmed inhabitants, according to residents and international aid officials. Banditry in this border area is not new. Travelers are periodically attacked and refugee settlements, including the camp of Khao I Dang north of Aranyaprathet, have been robbed in the past. But what concerns the refugees as well as Thai and international aid workers who administer Khao I Dang and its humanitarian services are the increasing frequency, size and violence of the attacks on the camp.
Pakistani leader General Zia ul-Haq appointed Mohammed Khan Junejo as the nation’s first prime minister in eight years. Junejo, 52, said he would seek an immediate vote of confidence from the new 237-member National Assembly. Zia, in a speech to the first meeting of Parliament since he overthrew Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977, said Pakistan would not withdraw support for the Afghan resistance despite stern warnings from the Soviet Union.
South Korea made no direct response to China’s request for the return of a Chinese torpedo boat and its crew. The boat drifted into South Korean waters Friday with six dead crew members, and reports said they were killed in a mutiny after some crewmen tried to defect to Taiwan.
Retired Salvadoran General Jose Alberto Medrano was killed by several gunmen as he parked his car in northern San Salvador, witnesses reported. No one immediately claimed responsibility but police said they suspected leftist guerrillas. Medrano, in his 60s, was closely tied to extreme right-wing groups and was considered a hero of El Salvador’s 1969 border war with Honduras. He prided himself on traveling without security guards but normally carried a .45 caliber pistol and hand grenades in his car. Salvadoran army spokesman Lt. Col. Ricardo Cienfuegos was similarly slain on March 7.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra said today that Brazil and Ecuador had offered to help Nicaragua resolve its acute shortage of fuel oil. Mr. Ortega said he had encountered “great solidarity” for the Sandinista cause during his nine-day visit to Brazil, where he met with several leaders gathered for the installation of Brazil’s civilian government. He said that as a result of his talks there, Brazil and Ecuador would soon be expanding their commercial ties with Nicaragua. Before visiting Brazil, Mr. Ortega attended the funeral of Konstantin U. Chernenko and met with the new Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev. He said they “reaffirmed the friendly relations between the two countries” and agreed on “the need to maintain a common front to prevent intervention” by pro- American forces hostile to the Sandinista Government. At a news conference at the airport this morning on his return from Brazil, the 39-year-old leader said that he had tried to meet privately with Vice President Bush, who was also in Brazil, but was rebuffed by him.
Bolivia’s powerful labor unions, bowing to government pressure and defecting rank and file members, voted to end a 16-day-old general strike. The union leadership-representing miners, petroleum workers, factory workers, construction workers and state workers-accepted the government’s offer of a 40% wage increase. The agreement came after the government threatened to fire state workers who did not show up on the job Monday.
Ecuadorean Air Force pilots said Friday that they had spotted another fire in the Galapagos Islands even as the blaze on Isabela Island continued to spread, officials said. The pilots said that the fire on the second island, San Cristobal, was approaching the farmland of residents, but that it appeared easier to control than the wildfires on Isabela. About 350 men, including Ecuadorean soldiers, are fighting the Isabela fire with the help of three experts and equipment from the United States. Officials of the London-based World Society for the Protection of Animals said society members were on the islands trying to move rare species of animals to safety. The Galapagos, which harbor giant tortoises, dwarf penguins and other exotic wildlife, were the site of biological studies by Charles Darwin in 1835. Darwin later based his theory of evolution on his island research. The islands belong to Ecuador and are 625 miles off its Pacific coast. As of Friday, the three-week-old fire on Isabela and the newly discovered one on San Cristobal were believed to have burned 50,000 acres of land.
A secret U.S. airlift rescued virtually all the remaining Ethiopian Jews stranded in the Sudan when an earlier Israeli-sponsored airlift was halted. Reagan Administration officials announced the completion of the airlift, which was conducted over a three-day period ending yesterday, taking 800 people to Israel. Because of the sensitivity of the issue, the United States Government would not officially comment. Israel has also refused to discuss the matter and has imposed censorship on news dispatches related to it, saying that the lives of people involved were at risk.
Violence in South Africa erupted again in black townships in the troubled Eastern Cape. The police reported that black activists had killed five fellow blacks suspected of being Government stooges and that two other blacks were shot and killed by a black policeman. Five of the slayings were apparently in revenge for the shooting deaths by the police of 19 blacks in a funeral march Thursday in Langa township near the southern automotive center of Uitenhage. Three of those killed were said by the police to be friends or relatives of the township’s last remaining community councilor. Many blacks in South Africa feel that blacks who work with the white authorities share responsibility for the authorities’ actions. Thus, in the vengeful mood that followed the shootings Thursday, such figures would be seen as candidates for retribution. In the violence today, the homes of black policemen were set on fire.
The House vote on the MX missile Tuesday is now expected to be very close, both sides say. The once-comfortable margin in favor of providing money for the 21 missiles requested by President Reagan is slipping, and for the first time, supporters of the huge intercontinental weapon are openly worrying that it could be defeated. But opponents concede that the odds still favor approval. Representative Les Aspin of Wisconsin, a leading Democratic proponent of the missile, assessed the fight as “very, very close.” In an interview reported by The Associated Press today, House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. said opponents of the MX had gained ground in recent days with “ones who were wavering.”
President Reagan today linked the budget deficit to waste and unnecessary Federal spending as he called on Congress to pass his proposed spending cuts. In his weekly radio address, the President reiterated a line of argument he has used in the budget confrontation with Congress: that Congress had not done enough to cut domestic spending. Mr. Reagan’s remarks reflected his insistence that Congress approve the basic outlines of his budget proposal in the face of attempts by Senate Republican leaders to forge a compromise spending plan with the White House. Mr. Reagan said that his meeting Friday with Senate Republican leaders about the budget had been candid and constructive and that he was confident the White House and the lawmakers were “coming closer to a meeting of the minds… We agreed that uncontrolled spending poses a threat to our expansion and we agreed that we must face that threat together and face it now,” Mr. Reagan said.
President Reagan is informed of a terrorist bombing of Air India Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 passengers and crew.
President Reagan returns to the White House from the weekend at Camp David.
The NASA Space Shuttle Discovery moves to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida) for mating of the STS 51-D mission.
The Social Security Administration is owed nearly $2 billion by beneficiaries, survivors, and dependents who received checks to which they were not entitled, Congress’ General Accounting Office reported. The debt, as of September, 1984, was eight times the amount owed to Social Security in fiscal 1978, and represented 1.4 million cases of overpayment. In fiscal 1982, Social Security’s retirement and disability trust funds spent or lost $288 million because of overpayments — $140 million in lost investment income, $124 million in administrative costs and $24 million written off as bad debts, the GAO said.
Cuban-U.S. relations warmed as officials announced that the first 20 immigrants who qualified under the terms of the “Mariel Pact” have arrived in Miami. A spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service said seven of the immigrants arrived in February and another 13 arrived this month. Under the terms of the pact, Cuban President Fidel Castro agreed to take back 2,746 “unwanted” Cubans who arrived in the United States in the 1980 Mariel boat lift. In return, the United States will seek to expedite “preference visas” for up to 20,000 immigrants a year, the INS spokesman said.
General Dynamics Corp. billed taxpayers more than $2,500 for a company executive’s 1982 and 1983 trips to New York and California, where he hosted guests at an exclusive military ball and the Super Bowl, sources said. In expense claims for the two trips by retired General William (Moon) Mullins, a company vice president, General Dynamics also charged the Pentagon $802 for a “business conference” at a New York nightclub and $70 in baby-sitting fees, investigators for the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee said. The company has denied any improprieties.
Lawyers for plaintiffs in the Bendectin lawsuit against Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals asked a federal judge for a new trial, citing what they said were 43 errors made by the pharmaceutical company’s lawyers. More than 1,100 plaintiffs nationwide have charged that Bendectin, an anti-nausea drug used to treat pregnant women, caused birth defects in their children. On March 13, a U.S. District Court jury found in favor of Merrell Dow, the Cincinnati-based company that manufactured the drug until 1983.
Seven people were electrocuted in Florida today when 7,260 volts of electricity shot through a car as they were getting into it, the authorities said. Sheriff’s deputies said the four adults and three children were in a mobile home when a power line fell in front of the home at about 4 AM, causing a fire. They fled to an automobile parked near the mobile home. When a door of the car was opened, the deputies said, it touched a car parked beside it that was in contact with the power line. The victims died in a chain reaction as they touched each other or the car.
46 Ohio savings and loans reopened after state officials gave approval Friday night for the reopening of state-insured institutions that were closed nine days ago by Governor Richard F. Celeste to prevent a run on deposits. In most cases, customers were limited to withdrawals of $750 every thirty days.
Privately insured nursing home care for the elderly will be encouraged by the Reagan Administration to reduce the burden on Medicaid and Medicare, Administration officials said. A study conducted for the Department of Health and Human Services concluded that there was a potential market for such insurance.
A member of the Texas Legislature was indicted Friday on charges of distributing cocaine and promoting obscenity. The legislator, Senator Carl Parker was named in two indictments by a Jefferson County grand jury, the District Attorney’s office said. Mr. Parker, a Democrat from Port Arthur who has served 21 years in the Legislature, was indicted in September for perjury, promotion of prostitution and promotion of obscene material. A state district judge threw out the charges, saying that he felt the grand jury was biased. The indictments Friday came from a different grand jury.
Synthetic heroin and cocaine that addicts say are indistinguishable from the naturally derived drugs are being produced by one or more chemists working secretly in California, where 20 percent of the heroin now used is said to be synthetic. Synthetic narcotics may be manufactured and possessed legally, though they are stronger and potentially more lethal than the narcotics made from natural sources.
Pan American World Airways and its striking ground workers reached a tentative contract, the federal mediator in the negotiations announced. The walkout that began 24 days ago halted half the airline’s flights. The accord, which is subject to union ratification, was announced by Robert J. Brown of the National Mediation Board, who has been participating in intensive negotiations since March 13 at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan. The terms of the three-year contract, which is retroactive to January 1, were not disclosed pending a vote by 5,800 members of the Transport Workers Union, which broke off talks and struck on February 28. A member of the union bargaining committee indicated that the money provisions in the sudden settlement closely resembled those the union had earlier turned down, but that the terms had been rearranged to make them more attractive to the union.
The General Motors Corporation has day recalled 47,000 of its 1984 Chevrolet Corvette sports cars for repair of the cruise control systems, which it said could cause “unexpected engine acceleration.” Some customers in colder climates had complained that their cruise controls were acting up and a check showed that a part in the solenoid, an electrical coil, could corrode, Ed Lechtzin, a spokesman for General Motors, said Thursday. Dealers will replace the part and relocate it under the hood so it is not as exposed to the elements, Mr. Lechtzin said.
Although most Americans live in or near cities, nearly half of them would move to places with 10,000 people or fewer if they had the chance, according to a recent Gallup Poll. Presented with seven choices ranging from a large city with a population of a million or more to rural areas, a total of 48 percent preferred to live in a small town with a population ranging from 2,500 to 10,000, in a rural area on a farm or in a rural area but not on a farm. The Census Bureau says 153 million Americans, nearly two-thirds of the nation’s population, live in or near urban areas of 10,000 people or more.
Wind erosion in the Great Plains so far this year is the worst in four years, the Agriculture Department says. Peter C. Myers, chief of the department’s Soil Conservation Service, said Friday that a total of 4.01 million acres was damaged in the 10-state area from November 1 to February 28.
A physicist has discovered a quasar more than 10 billion years old that could mark a major step forward in the study of the origins of the universe, University of Pittsburgh scientists reported in a current journal issue. Dr. Cyril Hazard, a physics professor at the university who made the discovery, said that the quasar is the most distant object ever detected with an optical telescope. It was one of two quasar discoveries reported in the British journal Nature by Hazard and Richard McMahon, a postgraduate astronomy student at Cambridge University in England.
The U.S. performs a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site.
American ‘Piano Man’ Billy Joel (34) weds American supermodel Christie Brinkley (31), on a yacht moored alongside the Statue of Liberty; they divorce in 1994.
Julian Lennon’s first concert, in San Antonio, Texas.
David Bowie is special surprise guest at Tina Turner concert at NEC arena in Birmingham, England; they perform duets of Bowie’s “Tonight” and a medley of Chris Montez’ “Let’s Dance” and Bowie’s song of the same name.
Born:
Maurice Jones-Drew, NFL running back (Pro Bowl, 2009, 2010, 2011; Jacksonville Jaguars, Oakland Raiders), in Pinole, California.
Died:
Patricia Roberts Harris, 60, Democratic politician, 1st African American woman cabinet member (Secretary of Health and Human Services, 1977-1979), of cancer.
Richard Beeching, 71, English physicist, engineer and chairman of British Railways (1961-1964).
[Ed: Barbarians. I said what I said.]
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