President Reagan meets with Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Lord Peter Carrington to discuss the Strategic Defense Initiative.
The State and Defense Departments are arguing about the circumstances surrounding the slaying of an Army major in East Germany by a Soviet soldier. Officials from both departments said the dispute had revived some fundamental disagreements between the two agencies over how to deal with the Soviet Union. For several months, the Administration, annoyed by frequent references in the press to differences between Mr. Weinberger and Secretary of State George P. Shultz on East-West issues, was able to keep the discord submerged.
Negotiators dealing with strategic nuclear weapons met for two and a half hours today in the fourth week of arms control talks between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou said he has decided to hold national elections in June, more than five months before his four-year term runs out. The call for early elections follows three weeks of political tension arising from President Constantine Karamanlis’ resignation — after Papandreou’s Socialist Party refused to support him for a second term — and the disputed election of Christos Sartzetakis by Parliament as the new president.
A car bomb exploded outside a courthouse in the Northern Ireland border town of Newry, killing a policeman and a court security guard and injuring nine people, police said. The outlawed Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for the attack, not far from the Newry police station, where an IRA mortar attack killed nine officers in February.
A new voting system in France for parliamentary elections was announced by the Government. If current trends persist, the system would both strengthen the Socialists and increase the representation of far-left and far-right parties. France announced sweeping changes in its electoral system in a move likely to bolster President Francois Mitterrand’s chances of completing his seven-year term of office. The Cabinet agreed to replace the present winner-take-all constituency system with proportional representation. Legislation containing the new rules is to be submitted shortly to the National Assembly, where Mitterrand’s Socialist Party enjoys a comfortable majority. The new system is to be introduced in time for elections early in 1986.
There has been a flurry of exit permits issued in Moscow, raising hopes among Jews that the upturn in relations with the United States may lead to more emigration. Jews who have long been waiting for visas and Western diplomats note that overall figures have not shown any significant increase and that the impression of movement may be the result of a disproportionate number of visas issued in Moscow. But they agree that the approval of visas for several people who have long been refused emigration and the fact that so many visas are being issued here suggest a deliberate signal from the authorities. According to officials in Israel, 97 people received visas in March, only marginally more than in most recent months. But most of these visas went to Moscow residents.
The U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Malcolm Baldrige, announced today that the amount of fish the Soviet Union may catch in United States waters would be cut by at least half because of Soviet violation of an international whaling agreement. According to the Commerce Department, Soviet whalers exceeded their allowable quota of 1,941 minke whales from waters around Antartica by about 500. The quota is set by the International Whaling Commission.
Suspected Arab terrorists fired a grenade at the penthouse headquarters of the Jordanian Embassy in Rome, but the projectile missed and exploded in an apartment on the floor below. There were no injuries. A suspect apprehended by a building porter identified himself as a member of the Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September, blamed for the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Witnesses told police that three men were believed to have taken part in the attack.
Israel apparently violated an international agreement on Tuesday when it transferred 1,100 Lebanese detainees from southern Lebanon to Israel, the Reagan Administration said. The State Department said the transfer of the Lebanese from the Ansar detention camp to the territory of the “occupying power” – Israel – “is prohibited regardless of motive” under the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. The convention deals with treatment of prisoners and the obligations of occupying powers. In Jerusalem, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said the detainees transferred to Israel had been accorded all the privileges due prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention, although he said they did not qualify for that status.
Israeli troops were reported to have detained 300 men today in a search for guerrillas in a Muslim market town near the Ansar dentention camp in southern Lebanon. Some 200 Israeli troops stormed into the village square of Shehabiye, a Shiite Muslim market town 10 miles south of Ansar, Lebanese security sources said. Several men were arrested by the Israelis, who drove into the town with 19 armored personnel carriers, a tank, 13 military vehicles and a bulldozer.
Iraqi warplanes raided Tehran tonight, and Iraq warned that it would strike at other Iranian cities Thursday, a military spokesman announced. Iraq’s last announced attack on Iranian cities was on Monday, when Iran said at least 15 people were killed in an Iraqi air raid on the Iranian capital.
Iraq announced that it will begin firing long-range missiles at Iranian cities “because Iranian rulers have rejected the call for total peace.” Western diplomats in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, said the threat indicates that Iraq has decided to use Soviet-made SS-12 missiles for the first time in the 42-year-old war. So far, both Iran and Iraq are believed to have used the shorter-range Soviet-made Scud B missiles against each other’s cities. The SS-12 has a range of 500 miles.
Separatist guerrillas set off land mines under two jeeps in Eastern Province of Sri Lanka today, killing 9 policemen and wounding 10, a government spokesman said. The policemen were traveling on the Chenkaladdy road when the vehicles were blown up, he said. Residents there said shops closed and tension was high in the area soon after the incident. Guerrillas are fighting to set up an independent homeland in northern and eastern areas for Sri Lanka’s 2.5 million minority Tamils.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee tonight approved a $14.5 billion foreign aid bill for 1986, including $5 million in military aid to be funneled through Thailand to non-Communist Cambodian forces battling the Vietnamese occupation army. Representative Stephen J. Solarz, Democrat of Brooklyn, author of the aid bill, compared the situations in Cambodia and Afghanistan, where guerrillas battling Soviet troops are receiving extensive United States aid.
South Korea’s two largest opposition parties merged to form a unified front against President Chun Doo Hwan. The alliance results from the merger of the Democratic Korea Party with the New Korea Democratic Party and will retain the latter’s name. The New Korea Democratic Party, formed early this year and backed by dissident leaders Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam, won 68 of 276 seats in the unicameral National Assembly in February 12 elections. That made it the No. 2 party behind Chun’s Democratic Justice Party, which won 148 seats.
China’s Family Planning Minister expressed regret today over a decision by Washington to cut $10 million in contributions to a United Nations population agency because of allegations of forced abortions in China. In a statement to the state-run New China News Agency, the minister, Wang Wei, rejected the allegations, saying China had clarified its policy on population and family planning on several occasions. He charged that Washington had based its decision on distorted reports in the American press. China, with a population of more than one billion, has adopted a policy of one child per family to limit the country to 1.2 billion people by the turn of the century. It has encouraged abortions for pregnant women who already have one child, a policy that has drawn criticism from the anti-abortion lobby in the United States.
Despite the uproar in Washington over Japanese protectionism, most trade experts say Japan has erected fewer tariffs or quotas than many other industrial countries. Although Japan’s tangle of bureaucracy and regulations has served as a trade barrier, experts conclude that on balance the Japanese Government is not much less of a free trader than governments in Europe or the United States. But even without intentional restrictions, they add, the Japanese market remains more elusive than most because of deep cultural differences – the way Japan organizes its society, arranges its economy and views the world. While some of the regulations and bureaucratic obstacles can and probably will be reduced, the cultural barriers to trade can not be easily negotiated away in talks with Japan’s Prime Minister, Yasuhiro Nakasone.
A Philippine national who asserts he was a political murderer-for-hire in the Philippines is in the custody of federal immigration authorities in California awaiting possible deportation. Jose Fronda Santos Jr. is being held without bail pending deportation in the Oakland City Jail for a visa violation, according to an official of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Arthur Shanks, deputy director of the immigration agency’s regional office in San Francisco, said today that action on the deportation was awaiting the outcome of an appeal by Mr. Santos of a federal immigration judge’s denial of his request for political asylum.
President Reagan attends a National Security Council meeting to discuss the Contras in Nicaragua. An Administration proposal for $14 million in aid to anti-Government rebels in Nicaragua was “dead in the water” without changes in policy, the House Republican leader told President Reagan. The leader, Robert H. Michel of Illinois, conveyed his negative message to the President at a White House meeting.
El Salvador’s electoral commission tonight unanimously rejected a demand by leaders of rightist parties to nullify the results of national elections here, ending a bitter 24-hour struggle between the conservatives and President Jose Napoleon Duarte. The decision not to consider the assertion by the rightist leaders that the Government and the army had manipulated the vote, came just four hours after the Salvadoran Army’s high command called an extraordinary press conference to declare that it had been neutral in the contest and that all political factions should “act honestly and consolidate democracy.”
Sudanese police broke up an anti-government protest led by doctors in Khartoum, the capital, and foreign diplomats said a general strike was under way. The Sudanese press agency said the police had used tear gas to disperse the demonstrating doctors, lawyers and other professionals. Most reports of the unrest were obtained by diplomats outside the country, and efforts to reach Khartoum by telephone and telex were unsuccessful. Doctors have led agitation against President Jaafar Numeiri’s government since last Thursday, the third day of rioting that followed demonstrations over large price increases. At least five people have died in the violence.
A proposal to cut military personnel by 175,000 soldiers and civilians was rejected by the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Republican- backed proposal was defeated in a closed session meeting as the Senate committee completed its work on President Reagan’s fiscal 1986 military budget. Senate aides who have been present for two days of debate and votes in the committee said it appeared likely the panel would vote Thursday to recommend that the President’s military budget be cut by $10 billion. The aides said the committee had drafted such a bill by trimming a variety of programs, without canceling any major weapons systems.
The Republican Party not only is widely perceived as more likely than the Democratic Party to keep the nation prosperous, but is also considered the party more likely to keep the nation at peace, the Gallup Poll found. This is the first time the GOP has held a clear-cut lead on both these crucial issues since the poll began these measurements in 1951. In the latest survey, 48% said the Republicans will do a better job of keeping the U.S. prosperous, while 32% named the Democrats and 20% saw little difference or had no opinion. On keeping the peace, 39% saw the Republicans as stronger, contrasted with 33% who cited the Democrats and 28% who saw no difference or had no opinion.
The Reagan Administration has decided to reduce the staff of the Social Security Administration by 21 percent and is considering closing or consolidating some of the 1,300 Social Security field offices. The Administration contends the cuts will not disrupt service to the public but some members of Congress and the Social Security agency disagree. The plan does not need Congressional approval, although Congress could pass legislation to block the personnel cuts or the closing of field offices. Congress appropriates money for Government agencies but rarely specifies the number of employees.
The Senate today beat back an effort by lawmakers from industrial states and gave final approval to a bill to gradually eliminate unemployment benefits for thousands of Americans whose state checks have run out. The vote was 94 to 0. Bob Dole of Kansas, the Republican leader, said he was “fairly certain” President Reagan would sign the legislation, which would end the program by July. Mr. Reagan had wanted the benefits program to end immediately.
Senate Republicans abruptly postponed until after the Easter recess a scheduled vote on the reappointment of Donald J. Devine to head the nation’s Civil Service system after a committee head count showed that Devine apparently would have been defeated. The GOP controls the Governmental Affairs Committee, seven to six, but Democrats apparently are solidly opposed to Devine, and Senator Dave Durenberger (R-Minnesota) was absent.
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick formally registered as a Republican. Dr. Kirkpatrick, returning to private life after serving four years as President Reagan’s chief delegate to the United Nations, described herself as a “born Democrat” who had grown “tired of swimming against the current of my own party.’
FBI Director William H. Webster said the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations organization is more dangerous than the Ku Klux Klan groups that spawned its extreme brand of racial and religious hatred. Webster, appearing before the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on security and terrorism, described the Aryan Nations — and its violent offshoot, The Order, also known as the Silent Brotherhood — as being “based on racial and religious bias and hatred.” The rightist group is nearly controlled, the Federal Bureau of Investigation says after making 21 arrests in 10 states over several months. At least three other members of the group, however, are still at large.
Union Carbide Corp. officials said its Institute, West Virginia, plant will reopen in 10 to 15 days to produce methyl isocyanate, the gas that killed more than 2,000 persons in a leak in Bhopal, India, last December 3. The company said the Institute plant has been revised to make it safer since the gas, which is used to make pesticides, escaped from the Carbide plant in India. The Institute plant was closed after that leak and Carbide said it would not resume production until it had studied the India leak. When production resumes in Institute, the plant will be the only site in the world where the chemical is made.
An investigation has been launched into a near-collision in which a Northwest Airlines DC-10 flew 50 to 200 feet over another Northwest jumbo jet to avoid sliding into it on a snowy runway in Minneapolis. More than 400 persons were aboard the jets in the “very rare close call” Sunday night, said Jim Burnett, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. “Basically we had a near-collision on the runway,” he said.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing the Philadelphia Police Department of violating the constitutional rights of hundreds of people in a recent crackdown on drug trafficking. The A.C.L.U. said in the suit, filed in Federal District Court, that the police had no reasonable cause to search many of the 1,000 people questioned in the two-day sweep. The suit asks the court to issue an injunction blocking the city from carrying out similar raids and to award the plaintiffs unspecified damages and attorneys’ fees.
William J. Schroeder, the artificial heart recipient, will be released from the hospital Saturday, an official said today. He will ride in his customized van at 2 PM from Humana Hospital Audubon to a specially equipped apartment across the street, said Robert Irvine, director of public relations for Humana Inc. Mr. Schroeder, 53 years old, has been recovering from a series of strokes he suffered in December after the artificial heart was implanted November 25.
A Federal judge today approved an $87.5 million settlement of a suit against a consortium of insurance companies by MGM Grand Hotels Inc. The lawsuits stemmed from the November 21, 1980, fire that gutted the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, killing 85 people and injuring 400 others. The settlement, approved by Judge Paul Goldman, calls for 28 insurance companies and two other defendants to pay the hotel $67 million on April 15, and $9 million more over two years. The insurance companies previously paid the hotel $11.5 million, bringing the total settlemant to $87.5 million.
A 19-year-old woman must pay a $150 fine and do community service work for filing a false rape report that sent her former fiancé to jail for more than a year. The woman, Kathryn Hargis Tucci, of Laurel, was sentenced Tuesday to perform 1,000 hours of work with sexual assault victims, preferably at the county Rape Crisis Center. Circuit Judge Robert H. Heller Jr. of Anne Arundel County told the woman, “I want you exposed to the real trauma of someone who has been exposed to a rape experience.”
A new drug for treating heart attacks is nearly twice as effective as medication now used to halt heart attacks, a Government study shows. The experimental drug dissolves blood clots, which are a major cause of heart attacks.
Twenty-seven persons have been indicted in a theft ring that has stolen $5 million worth of grain and farm supplies in 11 states since 1980, federal authorities said. The indictments climaxed a three-year investigation of the ring, which stole most of its grain at night from elevators in remote areas, said James Ahearn, head of the FBI’s regional office in Omaha.
Fiery explosions at a factory that packages pesticide bombs released toxic fumes that sent at least 50 persons to hospitals, officials said in Rockford, Illinois. Most of the injured were firefighters. Dozens of homes and businesses were damaged and debris was scattered up to three blocks away. Walt Pederson, 45, who owned the factory — Pewe Packaging Co. Inc. — died of an apparent heart attack after he and 13 others escaped the flaming building, Rockford Fire Chief William Baylor said. None of the other injuries were serious and all the victims were quickly released, officials said.
The baseball Players’ Association agrees to the owners’ proposal to expand the 1985 League Championship Series from the best-of–5 games to best-of–7.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1258.06 (-7.62)
Born:
Leona Lewis, English pop singer-songwriter (“Bleeding Love”; “Better In Time”), in Islington, London, England, United Kingdom.
Brandyn Dombrowski, NFL tackle and guard (San Diego Chargers), in Buffalo, New York.
Mike McClendon, MLB pitcher (Milwaukee Brewers), in Arlington, Texas.
Luis Martinez, MLB catcher (San Diego Padres, Texas Rangers), in Miami, Florida.
Gerald Coleman, NHL goaltender (Tampa Bay Lightning), in Romeoville, Illinois.
Armintie Herrington, WNBA guard (Chicago Sky, Atlanta Dream, Los Angeles Sparks, Washington Mystics), in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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