The U.N. deplored terrorism unanimously. A landmark resolution approved by the General Assembly condemns all acts of terrorism as “criminal.” The United Nations for the first time closed ranks against terrorism, unanimously adopting a resolution condemning all such acts as criminal. Delegates to the General Assembly broke into applause after the vote, following a decade of wrangling over the definition of terrorism. But the thinness of consensus soon became evident as Israel and the Arab states launched a series of recriminations. Israel charged that some of the nations voting for the resolution “are the worst offenders,” while Libya accused the Israelis of “state terrorism” against their Arab foes.
Former Chancellor Willy Brandt, chairman of the West German Social Democratic Party, ended a visit here today amid criticism from the Government’s political opponents that he had shunned them while lending his stature and support to Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Polish leader. Polish officials were reflecting jubilantly on a week of diplomacy that began with General Jaruzelski’s meeting with President Francois Mitterrand of France and ended with Mr. Brandt’s visit. The two events were being cited by the Polish press as evidence that the West’s policy of isolating Poland had collapsed. Mr. Brandt had been invited here to mark the 15th anniversary of the Polish-West German treaty, which he signed and which acknowledges Poland’s annexation of prewar German territory east of the Oder-Neisse line. In his comments during his stay, Mr. Brandt portrayed the treaty as the foundation for the Helsinki process of East-West cooperation in Europe that began in 1975.
Five West European countries that accused Turkey in the European Court of Human Rights of torturing political prisoners and other abuses have agreed to drop the case after Turkey promised to speed up its return to democracy, it was announced today. The agreement, announced by the European Commission of Human Rights, ends more than three years of litigation on charges against Turkey of violating the European Convention of Human Rights. Turkey had been accused by France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The Government of Prime Minister Turgut Ozal had repeatedly tried to end the litigation Among the provisions of the settlement, the Government agreed to submit progress reports every three months, starting next February and to allow members of the European human rights organization to conduct on-site investigations.
A dispute swirled today on the eve of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony over criticism of the personal physician of Soviet leaders for having signed a joint letter in 1973 denouncing Andrei D. Sakharov. The Kremlin physician, Dr. Yevgeny I. Chazov, 56 years old, and Dr. Bernard Lown, 64, of the Harvard School of Public Health, have been invited to accept the prize Tuesday on behalf of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, a Boston-based group they founded in 1980. The two men are its co-presidents. Because of the information brought to light about Dr. Chazov, the United States and West Germany have instructed their ambassadors to stay away from the ceremony, and Britain is reported to have protested to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
West German television showed film of Soviet dissident Andrei D. Sakharov trudging along a street in the closed city of Gorky, carrying two heavy suitcases to a railroad station. The Hamburg-based newspaper Bild said this was part of a Kremlin campaign to rebut reports that Sakharov was in poor health. Bild, which provided the film, said the scene was shot by a hidden camera November 26 as Sakharov’s wife, Yelena Bonner, was going to a railroad station to begin her journey to the West. Bonner and others maintain that Sakharov, 64, is ailing.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Government said today that East and West Germany conducted an exchange of imprisoned agents five days ago. Responding to a report in the current issue of the mass-circulation newspaper Bild, Friedhelm Ost, the Government spokesman, said that the spy exchange had involved “small fish” but would furnish no details. It was reported to have taken place at an unnamed border post.
Fire swept through a barracks at Camp Shiloh, an Israeli army facility northeast of Jerusalem in the Samarian hills of the occupied West Bank, killing eight soldiers and injuring seven others. Three Arab guerrilla organizations claimed responsibility for the fire, but those assertions were dismissed tonight by Major General Amnon Shahak, the area commander. He said no sign of hostile infiltration had been found in an inspection of the perimeter of the camp. The general said the cause of the fire had not been established. Brigadier General Danny Yatom, the unit commander, speculated that one of the soldiers might have lit a candle or a cigarette. He said in a television interview that 50 men had been sleeping the barracks and that most had been able to escape through windows.
Israeli President Chaim Herzog has commuted the sentences of two Israelis convicted of plotting to blow up one of Islam’s holiest shrines, freeing them after 20 months in jail, the president’s office said. Yosef Zuria and Dan Beri, sentenced to three years in prison, were convicted of planning to destroy the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. They were among 24 Israeli Jews convicted of planning or carrying out terrorist acts against Arabs. Conservative Israelis have urged a blanket pardon.
Lebanese Premier Rashid Karami unveiled a new peace plan for Muslim West Beirut, the latest in a series of Syrian-sponsored formulas to end the violence there. Militiamen are to be pulled off the streets and a 450-man security force from the army and police will begin patrolling early Wednesday, Karami said, without giving details. The new plan is the seventh since Muslim militias took over West Beirut in February, 1984. All so far have proved unworkable.
The 200,000 Muslims stranded in Bangladesh since its 1971 war of independence are to be resettled in Pakistan. Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq said they will all be moved as soon as transportation is available. The non-Bengali Muslims — known as Biharis, from their origin in the Indian state of Bihar — supported the Pakistani army in its unsuccessful fight to keep Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, from becoming independent. About 160,000 Biharis have been accepted by Pakistan since 1971, while the remaining 200,000 live in 68 refugee camps.
The top leaders of a separatist movement seeking independence for the Indonesian province of West Irian have surrendered to Papua New Guinea authorities, the Government said today. James Nyaro, commander of the Free West Papua Movement, and his defense minister, Alex Donald Derey, gave themselves up last weekend near the border with West Irian, Foreign Minister Legu Vagi of Papua New Guinea said in a statement.
Salvador H. Laurel registered as a candidate for president of the Philippines after rejecting a last-minute offer from Corazon C. Aquino for a compromise that might have allowed them to run on a joint ticket. Many political commentators agreed that a divided opposition faced seriously reduced chances of defeating President Ferdinand E. Marcos in the February 7 elections.
Guatemala’s first civilian President in 15 years will be a Christian Democrat, Marco Vinizio Cerezo Arevalo. He easily won election over another civilian, Jorge Carpio Nicolle, who congratulated Mr. Cerezo and offered to work with him “for the good of Guatemala.” Final results announced by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal gave Mr. Cerezo 68 percent of the valid votes to 32 percent for his opponent, Jorge Carpio Nicolle of the National Union of the Center. Mr. Cerezo was officially reported to have polled 1,133,517 votes, more than any other candidate in Guatemalan history. An estimated 73 percent of eligible voters went to the polls.
Marco Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo, who emerged today as the overwhelming civilian winner of Guatemala’s presidential election, carries the hopes of his countrymen as no leader has in more than three decades. Mr. Cerezo is an independent-minded liberal in a country long dominated by rightist military officers. In an environment of ruthless terror, he has not only survived, but has built the most effective nationwide political organization the country has seen in years. At least three attempts have been made to kill Mr. Cerezo, all during the Government of General Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia under whose rule death squads killed thousands.
On election day, the main opposition party in Guyana withdrew from the voting, accusing the ruling People’s National Congress of launching a “violent and massive attack on all opposition groups contesting the election.” The Marxist People’s Progressive Party withdrew after its leader, Cheddi Jagan, and a British newsman traveling with him said they were roughed up at a polling station. Prime Minister Hamilton Green denied the allegations.
A 75-year-old woman was rescued in Armero, Colombia over the weekend after being trapped in her house for 24 days by mud that inundated the town after the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano, the town’s Mayor said today. The Mayor, Army Major Rafael Horacio Ruiz, said Maria Rosa Echeverri was rescued by Red Cross workers on Saturday.
Five Argentine ex-military leaders were convicted by a civilian court of crimes committed during a campaign against leftist urban guerrillas in the 1970’s in which more than 9,000 people disappeared. Two of the five — General Jorge Videla and Admiral Emilio Massera — were given life sentences, and four other former military leaders were acquitted. Those convicted included two former Presidents, one of whom was sentenced to life in prison. The other drew a 17-year term.
AIDS may become as much a scourge in Africa as smallpox once was if the number of cases continues to rise unabated and if effective preventions and treatments are not found soon. Doctors have pleaded for international groups to help combat the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
Sudanese officials expect another 200,000 Ethiopian refugees to flood across the border from Tigre province after another poor harvest there. The military governor of the Sudan’s eastern region, Major General Mohammed al-Mahdi Ali Osman, told reporters that the influx had already begun. The reporters were accompanying Princess Anne of Britain in a visit to the Safawa camp, the home for earlier refugees from Tigre, Refugees from the province, in northern Ethiopia, where rebels have been fighting the central Government since the mid-1970’s, are now arriving in small numbers, the military governor said.
Charges of treason against 12 prominent opponents of the South African Government were dropped today by the prosecution. Four others still face charges in the case. Last week the state’s key witness admitted in court that he did not know the ideological differences separating various political groups and had made “fundamental mistakes” in his testimony that could have misled the court. The 12 against whom charges were dropped are leaders of the United Democratic Front. The front, a multiracial group that says it has more than 600 affiliates and at least 1.5 million members, is the country’s largest nonparliamentary opposition movement.
Top House and Senate negotiators sought today to resolve White House objections that a bill to require a balanced budget would hit the Pentagon too hard. A scheduled meeting this evening of the full House-Senate conference on the budget-balancing bill was canceled after agreement on the military issues could not be reached. But the key negotiators said they thought agreement could be reached Tuesday. “There have been a number of very sticky but not major obstacles,” said Senator Warren B. Rudman, Republican of New Hampshire, a chief sponsor of the bill. But he was not pessimistic. “The fact that we didn’t meet tonight is of no great consequence because we’ll get an agreement in the next 24 hours.”
President Reagan calls Republican Representatives to encourage their votes on a tax reform bill.
The soil conservation program would undergo its most sweeping changes in 50 years under a measure tentatively approved by a House-Senate conference. The bill is designed to cut soil erosion in half by paying farmers an annual fee not to grow crops on up to 40 million acres of the most fragile farmland. The acreage set aside by the program would become part of a new national land inventory. Once farmers decided to place land in this conservation reserve, they would not be allowed to use it for anything other than growing erosion-resistant grass or trees. Payments for the conservation reserve would start next year.
The House, on a voice vote, approved seven regional agreements among 38 states not including California for building and operating low-level nuclear waste dumps. The pacts were approved as part of a legislative package aimed at averting à potential low-level waste crisis on January 1. South Carolina, Washington and Nevada had threatened to cut off access on that date to the only three currently operating waste burial facilities. Three other regional agreements, in addition to the seven approved, have been proposed but have not yet been ratified by all of the states involved.
A judge in New Orleans declared three of Louisiana Governor Edwin W. Edwards’ co-defendants innocent of federal racketeering charges, but he allowed trial to continue for Edwards, whom a prosecutor called a liar in final arguments. U.S. District Judge Marcel Livaudais ruled that there was too little evidence to justify going on with the trial for the governor’s nephew, Charles Isbell, and two others. The judge also dismissed an obstruction of justice charge against businessman Gus Mijalis, but refused to acquit him and the governor’s brother Marion of other charges, which include using political clout to obtain state certification for hospital and nursing home projects in which they held interests.
Individuals, businesses and other governments owe the U.S. government $64.6 billion in delinquent debts, a congressional report said. Rep. John R. Kasich (R-Ohio), who released the audit by the congressional General Accounting Office, called for creation of a new office of “debt czar” to collect much of the money, which he said keeps growing every day. For instance, he said, the GAO report showed the delinquencies stood at $50 billion on Sept. 30, 1984, and had risen to $64.6 billion as of last June 30. The GAO report said $41.1 billion- the single largest amount owed is — due to the Treasury Department, mostly for overdue taxes, interest and fines.
The Supreme Court agreed today to decide whether states may constitutionally execute prisoners who say they have become insane without giving them a chance to prove it in court. The case is an appeal by a Florida prisoner whose lawyers say has been driven insane by 11 years on death row. The Court has never squarely decided whether the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment bars states from executing condemned prisoners who were sane when they committed their crimes but show signs of having become insane while in prison. Florida and most or all the 35 other states that have the death penalty prohibit the execution of mentally incompetent prisoners. About half of them, including Florida, New York and Connecticut, do not allow prisoners who claim mental incompetence to have judicial hearings on the issue. Most of the others allow some opportunity for the prisoner to try to prove his insanity in court.
The troubled Union Carbide Corporation has become the latest target in Wall Street’s series of takeover battles. After months of rumors, yesterday the GAF Corporation announced a $4.3 billion offer to acquire the chemical company, which is far larger than GAF. Union Carbide declined to say how it would react. “We are aware of GAF’s proposal, and we will respond at an appropriate time,” the company said in a statement issued by its public relations staff at corporate headquarters in Danbury, Conn. On Wall Street, however, the betting was that Carbide’s best hope would be to try to take over GAF instead, a maneuver that marked the fierce Bendix-Allied takeover battle in 1983. Reflecting this assessment, GAF’s shares rose $10 yesterday to close at $57.625, defying a pattern that normally sees the stocks of prospective acquirers decline. Carbide’s stock also climbed, ending the day at $66.375, up $3.375.
Alan Cranston spent much more than any other Senator on Government-paid newsletters to constituents in the third quarter of the year, according to the first disclosure of Senators’ mass mailing costs. The report showed the California Democrat spending $1.6 million, more than double the costs of the runner-up, Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, who spent $789,189.
A Federal judge today turned down a third request by Anne Henderson-Pollard to be freed on bond while awaiting trial on charges of obtaining classified documents. The judge, John H. Pratt, ruled in Federal District Court that Mrs. Henderson-Pollard, 25, posed a risk to national security and was likely to try to flee the country if released.
Cathy Evelyn Smith pleaded not guilty to a single murder charge and 13 counts of felony drug furnishing in connection with the March 5, 1982, overdose death of comedian John Belushi. Smith, 38, will return to Los Angeles Superior Court on December 23, when Judge Robert R. Devich, who supervises the county’s criminal courts, is expected to name the judge who will preside over Smith’s trial. The district attorney’s office conceded that Smith did not intend to kill Belushi but is prosecuting her under a legal theory that holds that anyone who commits an inherently dangerous felony during which a death occurs can be tried for second-degree murder. In this case, the dangerous felony is the alleged furnishing of drugs. According to testimony presented at Smith’s preliminary hearing, she repeatedly injected Belushi, who was in Los Angeles working on a film script, with “speed balls” — mixtures of heroin and cocaine — in the days and hours before he died.
A gunman who took six people hostage in a Philadelphia high school and demanded that President Reagan resign and surrender leadership of the country to him was overpowered by three “very brave” captives who decided that his gun was not real, police said. The gun that the man had used during the 72-hour siege at Archbishop Ryan High School was a starter pistol loaded with blanks, said acting Police Commissioner Robert Armstrong. The three students, all 16 years old, subdued Steve Gold, in his 20s, in a scuffle, and he was taken to a hospital under police guard, where he will undergo psychiatric observation, the commissioner said. There were no injuries, although a “very emotionally upset” Gold appeared to be hyperventilating after the incident.
Yale University will announce today that Benno C. Schmidt. Jr., dean of Columbia University Law School and a constitutional scholar, has been selected to be its 20th president, sources close to Yale said. Schmidt, 43, a Yale graduate, will succeed A. Bartlett Giamatti, who said in April that he will resign next June, after eight years as Yale’s president.
Three Ghanaians were ordered held without bail in Newark, New Jersey, pending a hearing on charges they conspired to smuggle an arsenal from the United States to rebels trying to overthrow the African nation’s government. U.S. Magistrate Serena Perretti scheduled a hearing for today to determine whether the government can imprison the three men pending their trial on charges of conspiring to violate federal laws regulating exporting arms.
A farmer killed a bank president, according to the authorities in Hills, Iowa. They said the farmer, Dale Burr, was saddled with heavy debt and went berserk, fatally shooting the banker, John Hughes, a neighbor, Richard Goody, his wife and finally himself.
Many Honda assembly line workers at a Marysville, Ohio, plant are defiantly wearing buttons with the emblem of the United Automobile Workers neatly cut in half by a red slash. The buttons, distributed by antiunion employees, are a symbol of opposition to the union’s uphill drive to organize workers here. It would be the first time for the U.A.W. to successfully organize a Japanese-owned automobile plant against company opposition. The election, set for December 19, marks the first confrontation of this type for Japanese management practices and American labor principles. It is being closely watched by other Japanese companies that have invested in the United States, as a measure of labor’s strength.
Indians who have occupied Federal land in the Black Hills since 1981 won a court battle today in their effort to set up a permanent religious community. A Federal district judge ruled that a decision by the United States Forest Service to deny a special use permit for the land at the Yellow Thunder Camp “had the effect of discriminating against Indians who were trying to practice religion.”
A snowstorm buried Colorado and Wyoming with up to 17 inches of snow Monday, closing schools, delaying flights and shutting Wyoming’s state government in Cheyenne before blustering eastward into the Plains.
NFL Monday Night Football:
The Los Angeles Rams clinched at least a wild-card berth in the playoffs and came within one victory of clinching their division title by defeating the San Francisco 49ers, 27–20, tonight. The victory, which gave the Rams a 10-4 record in the Western Division of the National Conference and put them two games ahead of the 49ers with two games to play, came as a result of two fine plays, one by the wide receiver Henry Ellard and the other by the cornerback Gary Green. Ellard caught a 39-yard touchdown pass from Dieter Brock with 5 minutes 8 seconds remaining to tie the score at 20–20. Green’s 41-yard return of an interception less than two minutes later put the Rams in the lead for good. The loss left the 49ers with an 8–6 record and severely jeopardized their playoff chances. Not a little bit of luck was involved in the Rams climbing back. They had fallen behind, 20–13, when Joe Montana threw a 1-yard scoring pass to Roger Craig with 5:38 remaining. But on the Rams’ next possession, they got a big assist from Carlton Williamson, the 49ers’ strong safety, who was called for pass interference on the tight end Tony Hunter. That gave the Rams a first down at the 49ers’ 47. Two plays later, Brock threw deep down the right side line for Ellard, Ronnie Lott tipped the ball and Dwight Hicks tried to catch it as he fell. But Ellard plucked it out of the air at the 5 and ran it in. Then, after the 49ers had run two plays to move to their 37, Montana threw over the middle to Carl Monroe. Green, playing in front of him, intercepted it and ran it up the left side for the score. 49ers wide receiver Jerry Rice began an NFL record streak of 274 consecutive games with a reception in this game at Candlestick Park.
Los Angeles Rams 27, San Francisco 49ers 20
Stock prices pushed ahead again yesterday to record levels as investors cheered the prospects of lower energy costs, hoping they could have a positive effect on the nation’s already improving economy. Trading was heavy. The Dow Jones industrial average, which again toyed with the 1,500 level, closed at an all-time high of 1,497.02 for a gain on the day of 19.84 points. The market’s advance, while impressive, did not quite match the performance of last Wednesday, when the Dow rose 25.34 points.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1497.02 (+19.84)
History Diaries 