Thousands of Parisians, marching in a densely packed mass through the narrow streets of the old Jewish quarter of the city, demonstrated today against what they said was a renewal of racist violence in France. The crowd, which included such personalities as Yves Montand and Simone Signoret and several of France’s leading political figures, gathered on the Rue de Rivoli outside the entrance to a movie theater where 18 people were wounded on Friday night in a bomb attack. The theater was holding its annual Jewish film festival. The demonstration was mostly silent, though some young people, marching under a banner saying “Union of Jewish Students,” chanted slogans against fascism and racism.
Israel’s occupation of the West Bank now extends to 52 percent of the territory, an authoritative study says. The study project, headed by Meron Benvenisti, a former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, also says that Israel has monopolized virtually all the growth potential in the occupied territory for Jewish use and that its exploitation of the land has been accompanied by a web of questionable legal tactics.
An Israeli settler was shot to death while he waited for a bus in the town of El Bireh in the occupied West Bank of the Jordan River. Zalman Abulnik, 52, was shot in the head at close range, Israel radio said. It said he was armed but had no chance to draw his weapon. A statement by the Damascus-based Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine said its commandos “liquidated a Zionist settler in El Bireh.” The shooting occurred a short distance from the spot where gunmen killed an Israeli soldier February 4.
Israel’s Cabinet adopted a new economic plan backed by labor and industry but assailed by critics who say it fails to grapple with the nation’s economic turmoil. Finance Minister Yitzhak Modai announced price increases but added that prices now will be frozen for the next two months. Under the plan, prices of most items rose 7% while those of subsidized foods such as milk and eggs went up as much as 20%. Prime Minister Shimon Peres said the goal is to reduce inflation to less than 10% a month.
Artillery shelling and automatic gunfire shook the south Lebanon port city of Sidon today as Christian forces battled Muslim militiamen and Palestinian guerrillas for a third day. At least 51 people have been killed and more than 140 wounded in the weekend of violence, according to police reports. The heaviest toll was in Sidon, but in the hills around Beirut, artillery exchanges between the Lebanese Army garrison at Souq al Gharb and Druze gunners killed five people and wounded eight Saturday night and early today, according to police reports.
Two top Egyptian economic officials, Economy Minister Mustafa Kamel Said and Central Bank Governor Mohammed Shalabi, resigned and were immediately replaced, an official statement said. The resignations came one day after the conclusion of a five-month banking trial during which the prosecution accused Said of corruption. It was not clear why Shalabi resigned. Sultan abu Ali was named economy minister and Ali Negm the new head of the central bank.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, suffered a drop of more than 30% in its 1984 revenues due to “continued weak demand” in the international petroleum market, the Saudi Monetary Authority announced. Its annual report said 1984 oil revenues fell 31.1% to $36.6 billion. The kingdom’s revenues in 1982 reached $94 billion, but there was a drop of 43.4% in 1983. Saudi Arabia’s daily output is now about 4.3 million barrels-a decline from its peak of 10.3 million barrels in late 1979 and early 1980.
Iraq announced that it carried out air raids against five Iranian towns today, just hours after an early-morning explosion shook Baghdad. An Iraqi military spokesman, in what was believed to be an indirect reference to the blast, said the air attacks were in retaliation for “Iranian crimes against our towns and their insistence on aggression.” Soon after the explosion, Iran announced that it had launched two surface-to-surface missiles at the Iraqi capital. Iraqi officials did not acknowledge the explosion in the capital or reveal how many casualties there were. But residents and diplomats here said they believed that it had been caused by a missile, and that, given the time and location, there probably had been few casualties.
The Secretary General of the United Nations began a 10-day trip to four Persian Gulf countries today, and he was conferring with colleagues about whether he would also visit Iran and Iraq in an effort to help end the Gulf war. The Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, has said he will visit both countries, but only if they are willing to have full-scale talks on all aspects of the war. Iraq formally invited Mr. Perez de Cuellar to visit during Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz’ recent stay at the United Nations.
Refugees from Laos are continuing to stream into Thailand at the rate of about 1,000 or more a month, despite Thai Government efforts to stop the flow, according to refugee workers and police officials in the country’s northeast. The refugees, who arrive in Thailand more or less daily, according to local officials, are overwhelmingly lowland Laotians, not the hill people – Hmong, Yao and others – who formed the bulk of earlier migrations. More than 40,000 of the hill people remain in a closed but unfenced camp at Ban Vinai, near the Mekong River town of Ban Pak Chom.
Opposition leaders in the Philippines warned today that the failure of key witnesses to testify in the Aquino murder trial and other courtroom developments threaten to turn the proceedings into a “mockery of justice.” “We are alerting our people to exert extra vigilance over the trial,” leaders of the country’s largest opposition parties said in their first joint statement since the trial began February 22 in a special anti-graft court. General Fabian C. Ver, armed forces chief and a cousin of President Ferdinand E. Marcos, is on trial with 25 other defendants in the killing of the opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. Mr. Aquino was killed Aug. 21, 1983, at Manila airport as he returned from three years of self- exile in the United States. The one-page statement issued today noted the “mysterious disappearance” of certain witnesses and the “suspicious retractions” of testimony by others.
Toronto police used specially trained dogs to search sections of the city’s 800-mile public transit system after receiving a bomb threat from Armenian terrorists. In a letter to police, a group calling itself the “Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Our Homeland” threatened to carry out the bombing today if authorities did not release three Armenians arrested for an attack on the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa on March 12 in which a security guard was slain.
President Jose Napoleon Duarte’s Christian Democratic Party claimed an upset victory in national elections here today. President Duarte, speaking in an interview, said he believed his party had won at least 31 seats, giving it a majority in the powerful National Assembly. The contention was supported by a national exit poll carried out by the Spanish International Television Network. The poll, based on a survey of almost 11,000 voters, indicated that Mr. Duarte’s party would win a majority of at least 32 seats in the country’s powerful 60-member National Assembly. The Miami-based network conducted a similar poll after presidential elections here last year that was within four- tenths of one percentage point of the final result. Official returns from the contest for the National Assembly and 262 municipal councils are not expected for at least another day.
The former head of Guatemala’s police force and his 2-year-old grandson were slain by gunmen as they drove through the center of Guatemala City, police said. Retired General Manuel Francisco Sosa Avila, 65, and his grandson, Roger Manuel Mungia, were shot several times in the chest and head. The general’s daughter, who was also in the car, was slightly wounded. The killers escaped, and no one has claimed responsibility for the attack. Sosa Avila, brother-in-law of former President Efrain Rios Montt, headed Guatemala’s police force from 1970 to 1974.
Farm workers found the stabbed and mutilated bodies of three opponents of Chile’s military government near Santiago’s airport. The three men, kidnaped last week, were identified as Manuel Guerrero, 36, Jose Parada, 34, and Santiago Nattino Allende, 64. Guerrero and Parada were said to have been members of the outlawed Communist Party. The killings, believed by dissidents to have been carried out by government security forces, touched off protest demonstrations in Santiago.
Chilean policemen used riot sticks and water cannon to disperse 300 demonstrators gathered outside Santiago’s Cathedral today to protest the killing of three opponents of the military government. The police said six people had been injured in the clash and 15 others arrested, including three 14-year-old boys whose teacher was one of the victims of the latest wave of violence. The police also raided the headquarters of the National Teachers Union, which had called for a nationwide strike Tuesday.
“Not only are lives at stake,” the coordinator for the United Nations famine relief effort in Africa said a few months ago, “but in a sense the international community is on trial.” According to the relief coordinator, F. Bradford Morse, a former Republican Congressman from Massachusetts who is overseeing the aid program, the verdict now appears to be favorable. Mr. Morse announced this month that preliminary figures suggested one-half to two-thirds of the $1.5 billion 1985 emergency aid target established by the United Nations had been met. As a result of pledges by donor countries at a United Nations meeting in Geneva on March 11-12, Mr. Morse said he was “fully confident” the United Nations would meet the immediate needs of African countries severely affected by drought. Among those most affected are Angola, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger and the Sudan.
Doctors in the Sudan extended a work stoppage today and called for a general strike to unseat President Gaafar al- Nimeiry, who is visiting the United States. President Nimeiry, who is scheduled to meet Monday with President Reagan, left this North African country last week as rioting broke out to protest steep increases in the prices of food and essential commodities. “The disturbances and riots which took place recently were a natural result of the present political and economic regime,” a senior member of the Khartoum Doctors’ Union executive committee said. “Our strike is a notice, a symbol, to show that we reject the present situation.” The union’s executive committee decided today to extend a one-day strike another day and scheduled a meeting Monday to consider further action.
Young gunmen belonging to the ruling Uganda People’s Congress Party opened fire on a rural wedding ceremony southwest of Kampala, killing 30 villagers, including the groom, an opposition Member of Parliament said today. John Bosa, Democratic Party member of Parliament for Mubende North, said the incident took place March 23 at Lwendagi village in Mubende district, about 100 miles southwest of Kampala. “The youth-wingers just opened fire for no reason,” Mr. Bosa said. “Eleven people fell dead on the spot, including the bridegroom. Very many people were seriously wounded and died in hospital.” There has been no government comment on the incident. The area is considered a center of anti-government guerrilla activity, and the government has armed its party’s youth wing with automatic weapons to assist army patrols in sweeps against the guerrillas.
South Africa’s army joined the police on patrol in black townships in the troubled Eastern Cape region. The Government ordered troops to enter the townships after weeks of unrest and the killing of 19 blacks by the police in that area 10 days ago. A procession at a funeral in Port Elizabeth for four people killed in earlier unrest was reportedly fired on by policemen, who were said to have used tear gas and rubber bullets.
Education Secretary William J. Bennett denied yesterday that proposed Federal budget cuts for student aid would result in “fewer people going to college,” but he said some might have to find alternative education. College students may be forced to move expensive institutions to less expensive institutions, he said. Asked if there was a disparity between military spending and cutbacks in education financing, he said: “The Federal Government has a monopoly on defense. Education is mainly a state and local responsibility.”
Rebuilding the Democratic Party is essential to restore its competitiveness in national elections, according to many Democrats who have reflected on President Reagan’s landslide re-election. This is the consensus that emerges in interviews around the country with party leaders, poll takers, consultants and others involved in Democratic politics.
Social Security’s 50th anniversary was observed by five prominent New Dealers at a meeting sponsored by the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where they toured the Social Security Administration’s data processing center.
The National Archives, the custodian of the nation’s history, steps forth on its own today as it becomes an independent agency in the federal government. Established a half-century ago to preserve and protect the nation’s historic documents and records, the Archives houses the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other documents of nationhood.
Unfilled judgeships in Federal courts are causing delays in courts throughout the nation, according to senior judges and members of Congress. The Reagan Administration has had difficulties in filling 115 openings on the Federal benches. It admits there is a pressing need for new judges, but says it will be months before a substantial number of nominees could be chosen and sent to the Senate for confirmation.
Costs for troop training manuals are beginning to concern both the Defense Department and the industry that turns them out. The Pentagon is paying hundreds of millions of dollars per weapon system for the manuals, which officials say are overpriced and riddled with errors.
Congress is responsible for waste in military spending of $10 billion a year, a senior Pentagon official said in a television interview. Lawrence J. Korb, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower, Installations and Logistics, said “pork barrel” costs “the taxpayer at least $10 billion a year, things we don’t want, things we don’t need, but are in there to protect vested interest.” His remarks appeared to be the Reagan Administration’s sharpest criticism yet of Congressionally sponsored military spending.
Prices paid by consumers in the United States and its main non-communist allies in 1984 showed the smallest rise in 12 years, the International Monetary Fund reported. The average increase in 21 countries was 4.8%, which the fund called a sharp overall drop from the 5% of 1983. Although the United States had a below-average inflation rate of 4.3%, its 1984 rate was higher than the 3.2% of 1983. The average money supply, a major element in inflation, grew by only 7% in the 21 countries. It was 9.9% in 1983.
A giant merger pact was announced by the Hospital Corporation of America, the nation’s largest hospital management chain, and the American Hospital Supply Corporation, the largest distributor of medical supplies. No cash would be exchanged in the $6.6 billion merger, which was unanimously approved by the boards of both companies but awaits approval by shareholders.
Dissident Lutheran minister D. Douglas Roth and 15 followers held Palm Sunday services outside their padlocked church in Clairton, Pa. a Pittsburgh suburb, but avoided arrest by worshiping in pairs on seven nearby street corners. Roth, 33, is prohibited by court order from holding services inside Trinity Lutheran Church, which was seized January 4 by Allegheny County deputies after seven of his supporters barricaded themselves inside in defiance of a court injunction in a dispute over labor activism.
A mother and her two daughters were shot and killed in a church parking lot after noon Palm Sunday services, and authorities charged the woman’s estranged husband with murder. The shootings occurred as Linda Moser, 35, of Eaglesville, Pennsylvania, and her daughters, Joanne, 10, and Donna, 14, left St. James Episcopal Church in the Philadelphia suburb, police said. Leon Moser, 42, of Collegeville, who was already facing a charge of wife abuse, was arraigned on three counts of murder.
Heavily armed Federal agents arrested another suspect Saturday in the killing of a Denver radio talk-show host who the police say was shot by white supremacists. The suspect, 46-year-old David Lane of Denver, had been trailed for two days, since shortly after the arrest in Rossville, Georgia, of Bruce Carroll Pierce. Mr. Pierce, of Metaline, Washington also has been described as a suspect in the murder of the radio host, Alan Berg, last June 18. Mr. Lane was arrested at a shopping center parking lot when Federal Bureau of Investigation agents stormed a pickup truck. Two other men identified by the FBI as Ku Klux Klan sympathizers were also arrested.
Commercial catching of striped bass — forbidden in the Hudson River since 1976 because of contamination from polluted waters — was banned all around New York City. An order by Governor Mario M. Cuomo prohibited commercial catching of striped bass — a $7.2 million retail industry in the state — in New York Harbor and in the waters off western Long Island. Cuomo allowed commercial catches only off eastern Long Island, where state officials said the bulk of the striped bass catch is made.
A tentative contract was agreed to by major trucking companies and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Washington. Talks with smaller carriers continued.
Snow piled up as a large storm crossed the central Plains, and Minnesotans braced for a spring blizzard. Scores of families along Lake Erie in Michigan fled windwhipped floodwaters, and ice and snow were blamed for at least three traffic deaths in Iowa and Nebraska. Hundreds of homes and businesses along Lake Erie, including some near Toledo, Ohio, and others around Lake St. Clair, north of Detroit, were flooded. Flash flood watches were posted over a large portion of New York state, western Pennsylvania and southeast Ohio.
15th Easter Seal Telethon raises $27,400,000.
WrestleMania I, Madison Square Garden, NYC: Hulk Hogan & Mr T beat Roddy Piper & Paul Orndorf.
4th NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship: Old Dominion beats Georgia, 70-65; Monarchs’ Tracy Claxton, MOP.
Born:
Steve Bernier, Canadian NHL right wing (San Jose Sharks, Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks, Florida Panthers, New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders), in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.
Kory Sheets, NFL running back (Miami Dolphins), in Manchester, Connecticut.
History Diaries 