Part of a report that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev made to the Supreme Soviet, in which he called the November summit with President Reagan “positive,” appeared in an advertisement in the French newspaper Le Monde. The ad, signed by the Soviet news agency Novosti, was purchased because “a certain number of points considered essential by the Soviet Union… were not sufficiently reflected in the French press,” a Novosti spokesman said. The ad contained a long statement in which Gorbachev told the Soviet legislators that although there was no breakthrough on arms control, “we must say that the general result of the summit was positive.”
Exit visas for Russians who have links to the United States have begun to be approved by the Soviet Union, American diplomats said. The Russians are for the most part those who were on a list made public by the State Department last month.
The second of 26 Irish republican prisoners threatening to “fast until death” over their convictions on an informer’s testimony began his hunger strike in Northern Ireland’s Maze prison, the British government said. Gerard Steenson, 28, began his fast on schedule by refusing breakfast in the prison, near Belfast, seven days after Robert Tohill, 26, began the mass hunger strike. The 24 other republicans convicted of guerrilla crimes last week are due to join the fast at one-week intervals. Steenson and Tohill were both convicted of murder. All 26 are members of the Irish National Liberation Army, a splinter group of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, which seeks an end to British rule in Ulster.
Heavy rain swelled the Thames River to a dangerous level in London and severely flooded parts of southern England, blocking many roads and keeping holiday travelers at home. The London Weather Center said an inch of rain has soaked the capital since Christmas Day. Firemen and municipal workers sandbagged homes south of the capital, and the Thames Barrier, a series of 10 concrete gates that forms a dam across the historic waterway at Woolwich Reach, was closed to prevent a flood tide from surging up the river to London.
The Yugoslav police have arrested 94 ethnic Albanians who purportedly belong to clandestine groups advocating separatism and nationalism in the southern province of Kosovo, a senior police official said today. The 94 are between the ages of 20 and 30 and included students, teachers, workers, university graduates and one policeman, the official said. He described them as well organized and said they had printed and spread anti-state propaganda and had maintained links with hostile emigre groups abroad. Kosovo, Yugoslavia’s poorest region, was the scene of Albanian nationalist riots in which at least eight people were killed in 1981.
A pro-Government Greek paper was prosecuted today for publishing two documents on an espionage case that the public prosecutor said revealed state secrets. The editor of the newspaper, Eleftherotypia, was charged with publishing two top secret documents that the newspaper said were sent by the head of Greek intelligence, Lieut. Gen. George Politis, to judicial authorities investigating the spy case. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou told Parliament that five Greeks, including a naval officer, had been caught spying after the defection from here to the United States of a Soviet diplomat, Sergei Bokhan.
More than a decade after the Turkish invasion of this Mediterranean island, some Cypriot families still suffer from the grief of uncertainty, trying to discover what happened to relatives whose fate remains unknown and pressing for an answer that is likely to be painful. The total of the missing on the Greek side is 1,618. They are distinct from the men, women and children lost without trace in the two surges of fighting in July and August 1974 that left the northern part of the island occupied by Turkey. They are people who, the Greek Cypriots say, probably fell into the hands of the invading army. The Turkish Cypriots, too, have reported the names of missing people -600 from the 1974 war and 200 from fighting on the island in 1963. But the initiative that has kept the issue alive has come from the Greek Cypriots. The victorious Turks want to put the past behind them, but the Greek Cypriots, seeking to recover what they lost, pursue the issue, constantly pressed by committees of the afflicted families.
Lava stopped spewing from Mount Etna today, but security forces remained on alert as earthquakes continued around the volcano, officials said. After a team of scientists inspected Mount Etna, Europe’s most active volcano, by helicopter, the Civil Defense Ministry issued a statement saying that lava stopped pouring down its southeastern side early today. But three tremors hit the area, the statement said. The most serious, measuring 4 on the open-ended Richter scale, struck at 3:34 AM. The state-run television said the tremor sent hundreds of people fleeing from their homes. The civil defense statement said the quakes caused only minor damage to some buildings and said Government inspectors were checking the buildings to determine if anyone should be evacuated. The volcano erupted on Christmas Day, setting off a series of earthquakes that collapsed a resort hotel, killing an Italian man and slightly injuring 12 other people, the authorities said.
Jordan’s King Hussein will visit Syrian President Hafez Assad in Damascus on Saturday, capping four months of Arab League-sponsored talks aimed at easing years of animosity between the Middle Eastern nations, diplomatic sources said. They said they expect Assad to return the visit early next year to cement a rapprochement begun when the two countries’ prime ministers met in Saudi Arabia in September. The two leaders last exchanged visits in 1975, before relations became deeply strained by differences over how to handle the Arab-Israeli conflict and, more recently, over the Iran-Iraq War.
Syria has moved missiles back into eastern Lebanon, Prime Minister Shimon Peres told Israeli newspaper editors. The Syrian action raised concern that the redeployment of the Soviet-built antiaircraft missiles might pose a new challenge to Israeli planes flying over Lebanon. The missiles were withdrawn two weeks ago after the United States had told Syria, on Israel’s behalf, that the weapons unnecessarily raised tension in the area. “We are watching the situation very carefully,” Mr. Peres said in a meeting with Israeli newspaper editors. There was no immediate statement from Syria.
Lebanon’s warring militias have agreed on a pact to end 10 years of civil war, a Shiite militia leader said. The leader, Nabih Berri, said the groups had reached agreement on the Syrian-mediated pact after three months of talks in Damascus, and said he expected the agreement to be signed within five days. However, while Mr. Berri’s announcement evoked a measure of optimism in this war-battered country, there was still widespread skepticism about whether the accord could be put into effect, or, if it could, how effective its application would be. Peace accords have been signed before in Lebanon, but have fallen apart as they were being put into effect.
Six years to the day after Soviet forces swept into Afghanistan, more than 100,000 Soviet soldiers and airmen confront a stubborn and elusive guerrilla army in a war with no end in sight. The fighting has fallen into a pattern and the war is deadlocked, according to rebel commanders and fighters interviewed in Afghanistan in five and a half months of travel through the country with rebel convoys. The Soviet-backed leaders of Afghanistan have not permitted visits by Western reporters to the Government side of the front. The Russians have said repeatedly that they will negotiate with the existing Communist Government in Kabul on a withdrawal of Soviet troops only after Western and other aid to the rebels is cut off. Rebel leaders are unanimous in saying that the Russians, estimated at 118,000 troops, must withdraw to the last man and tank and that they will not accept any formula that would keep the Communist Government in place. The rebels say that if any attempt is made to impose a diplomatic solution on them, they will fight on alone. They say they believe a long struggle lies ahead.
After five months of on-and-off talks to end a violent insurgency in the nearby island nation of Sri Lanka, Indian officials have begun expressing impatience with the resistance of the warring parties to accepting a compromise. “There is a wide gulf between the two sides,” said an Indian Foreign Ministry official involved in the negotiations. “We have to find out now how to bridge it. There cannot be a military solution to this problem.”
Pakistani authorities today ordered more than 260 political dissidents released in the province of Punjab as the country awaited an expected lifting of martial law in the next few days, official sources said. The sources, speaking in Lahore, the Punjab provincial capital, said orders were issued for the immediate release of all opposition politicians and workers arrested since December 22.
North Korea has joined the 1968 nuclear nonproliferation treaty, Reagan Administration officials said today. The move by North Korea was described by government officials and private experts as an important development in efforts to prevent the spread of the ability to make nuclear weapons to the Korean peninsula. North Korea formally acceded to the treaty in Moscow on December 12. The Soviet Union informed the United States of the action on December 19, a State Department official said.
President Reagan meets with Chief of Staff Donald Regan to discuss Japanese trade.
The opposition presidential candidate, Corazon Aquino, said today to thousands of cheering people who live near the Subic Bay Naval Base that she would allow the United States to use Philippine military bases at least until 1991. It was her most pro-American statement yet in the campaign for the February 7 election, which President Ferdinand E. Marcos called more than a year ahead of schedule in an effort to prove he has public support. President Marcos has accused his opponents of having Communist sympathies and of receiving funding from United States sources. Both contentions have been denied by Mrs. Aquino, wife of the assassinated opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., and Salvador H. Laurel, her vice presidential running mate.
Thieves robbed some of Mexico’s most cherished national artifacts from a museum in Mexico City on Christmas Eve, authorities said. The 140 pre-Columbian artifacts, representing Mayan, Aztec and other ancient civilizations, were discovered to be missing Christmas morning from the National Museum of Anthropology. They had been in seven glass cases in three of the museum’s galleries on the first floor and in a basement exhibition area. Symbol of Cultural Heritage The museum, in Chapultepec Park in the heart of Mexico City, is one of the city’s most famous tourist attractions. The museum and its contents are regarded by Mexicans, who are fiercely proud of their Indian heritage, as one of their national treasures, a symbol of the cultural richness of the advanced civilizations that existed in Central America before the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th century.
Chile’s President Augusto Pinochet rejected a manifesto urging transition from military to civilian rule when he met on Christmas Eve with the Roman Catholic primate who initiated the document, a sponsor of the plan said. Pinochet’s rebuff to Cardinal Juan Francisco Fresno marked a “breakdown in communications” that could lead to more violence, said Sergio Molina, a coordinator of the manifesto. The document proposes election of a congress to amend Pinochet’s constitution so a president can be elected by popular vote by 1989.
The Ethiopian famine of 1986 seems about to begin as only one-third of the food needed to avoid it has been committed so far, that by the United States, officials said. Although signs of hunger are less evident now than they were last year, officials say the country will require as much food as it received in 1985 if widespread starvation is to be averted.
The West African nations of Mali and Burkina Faso said Thursday that they were in the second day of border clashes that the United States says apparently started over a census. The Burkina Faso radio later said that a second cease-fire had been arranged as of midnight, but there was no immediate word on whether the fighting had stopped. According to the radio, the cease-fire was arranged by Foreign Minister Ali Abdussalam al-Treiki of Libya, who was reported to have said that Burkina Faso’s leader, Captain Thomas Sankara, and Mali’s President, Moussa Traore, had agreed to pull back their troops.
An official of the Central African nation of Rwanda reported that 319 cases of AIDS have been diagnosed there since 1983. Christophe Mfizi, director of Rwanda’s information office, said 106 of the AIDS victims have died. He also said that of the 319 cases, 86 are under the age of 15. Mfizi’s revelations, made in a telephone interview with reporters in Nairobi, Kenya, marked the largest disclosure by an African country of the presence of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
South African political violence accounted for at least six more deaths, the police said, bringing the death toll from four days of tribal and other bloodshed to 71, the worst Christmastime tally in years. In addition, The Johannesburg Star quoted residents of Soweto, the city’s sprawling black satellite, as saying five other blacks died when migrant workers fought students in a dispute over the declaration of what was called “black Christmas,” a boycott of seasonal festivities. The police said there had been a fight between the two groups on Christmas Day, but a spokesman said he could not confirm that there had been killings. In southern Angola, meanwhile, South African troops were said by military officials in Pretoria to have killed nine more Angolan-based insurgents in what was described as a hot-pursuit raid into Angola that began December 14.
For 47 years Maude DeBruin has made beds for whites, cooked their meals, cleaned their houses and reared their children. Miss DeBruin, 68 years old, says she considers herself fortunate because “the madam” for whom she has worked for nearly 19 years has “been good to me.” In the relationship between employees and servants in South Africa, “good” is a most relative term. Although many other domestic workers might be dismissed for minor mistakes, Miss DeBruin says she would get only a severe rebuke.
President Reagan’s draft budget for fiscal 1987 would reduce spending on veterans’ benefits by cutting the number of people treated, according to a published report. Also, for the first time, the government would require veterans’ insurance companies to help pay the costs, according to today’s editions of The New York Times. The administrator for veterans’ affairs, Harry W. Walters, warned in a letter quoted by the paper that cutbacks in spending and staff could “ultimately result in a reduced quality of medical care” for veterans. He made the comment in a letter to the Office of Management and Budget, which wrote the proposals. The draft 1987 budget, to be submitted to Congress in early February, would require many veterans to show financial need to receive care. It would also provide no money for new nursing homes for veterans even as the number of older veterans is rising rapidly because of the large number of men who served in World War II.
President Reagan spends the day at the White House doing homework.
The classified transcripts allegedly delivered to the Soviet Union by spy suspect Randy Miles Jeffries came from a congressional hearing that included discussion of U.S. nuclear war fighting plans, operating areas of Trident submarines in the Pacific Ocean and the vulnerability of U.S. computer and telephone systems to Soviet eavesdropping, the Washington Post reported, citing a declassified version of the session. Jeffries told an FBI undercover agent posing as a Soviet representative that he had given the Soviets at least 13 “sample” pages of the hearing transcript, which was classified top secret, an FBI agent testified Tuesday.
A judge ended the defense’s case in the McMartin Pre-school sex abuse case in Los Angeles, surprising both defense and prosecution lawyers. A defense lawyer called the judge’s action “most extraordinary.” Having held a preliminary hearing for the last 20 months, the judge in the McMartin Preschool sex abuse case surprised both defense and prosecution lawyers by resting the defense’s case Tuesday. The preliminary hearing, the longest of its kind in the history of the county, was required under state law to determine if there was sufficient evidence to try the seven suspects on charges of sexual molestation. After any rebuttal by the prosecution, the judge, Aviva K. Bobb of Los Angeles Municpal Court, is to rule on whether some or all of the defendants should stand trial in California Superior Court. Judge Bobb decided to rest the defense’s case after defense attorneys said that their expert medical witness would not be available until early January and asked for a postponement until then.
A medical license acquired during marriage in New York is considered marital property, entitling the ex-wife of a doctor to a share of his future income, the state’s top court ruled. In a unanimous ruling, the Court of Appeals upheld a $188,800 award to a woman and set a state precedent by declaring that professional licenses obtained during marriages are considered property, and therefore are subject to equitable distribution in divorces.
A synthetic hormone appears to help delay or prevent a recurrence of breast cancer in some women who have had surgery for the disease, and without side effects associated with chemotherapy, a new study said. But for breast cancer sufferers who have not reached menopause, treatment by the new hormone, tamoxifen, does not work, and chemotherapy should be considered standard care even though it can cause side effects, said the study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.
Farmers who had staged a sit-in at the Wisconsin Capitol at Madison since Monday to call attention to their financial troubles rolled up their sleeping bags, vowing to return in late January to monitor legislative progress in dealing with the issue. Meanwhile, Governor Anthony S. Earl prepared for a meeting on farm problems with other Midwestern governors today in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Florida voters will decide next year whether to approve a constitutional amendment that would legalize casino gambling, the state Elections Division announced. Citizens for Jobs and Tourism, which supports the gambling initiative, submitted petitions with the 342,939 signatures needed to put the question on the November ballot, officials said.
Chicago’s “ultimate street gang” is seeking official recognition as a religious organization in a Federal trial. The gang, the El Rukns, does not deny its criminal side. “I don’t think it makes any difference from a legal standpoint,” said their lawyer. “It’s my belief that a group can be a combination of gang members and religious believers.”
A sniper hidden in fog fired dozens of shots near a San Jose, California highway and eluded more than 50 officers who looked for him all day, the authorities said. Eight people were evacuated and a two-mile stretch of Route 237 was closed for about 12 hours. No injuries were reported, according to Larry Stuefloten, deputy chief of field operations for the San Jose Police Department The police were alerted at 3:30 AM with a report of a man shooting in front of a home, according to Sgt. Dwight Messimer. The sniper’s identification and motive remained a mystery, Mr. Stuefloten said. Officers surrounded the area but were hampered by dense fog, Mr. Stuefloten said.
Earthquakes in the Yellowstone Park area have occurred in record numbers this fall, worrying residents of West Yellowstone, Montana, a town near the Park’s western entrance. More than 300 tremors, including 135 above 3 on the Richter scale, have struck since October. In an average year, only 26 earthquakes of that magnitude occur.
Federal officials began an investigation today into a Colorado helicopter crash that injured three members of a medical emergency team. The pilot, Mike Myers, remained in critical condition at St. Mary’s Hospital here but was showing signs of improvement, according to a hospital spokesman, Steve Ward. Linda Bretey, a nurse, 25 years old, was upgraded from critical condition to serious, Mr. Ward said, and the third member of the emergency team, Lisa Gentile, 28, was upgraded from serious condition to fair. The three were injured when their Bell 206, leased by St. Mary’s from a Denver company, hit a power line and crashed 11:30 PM Christmas Eve while lifting off near Monticello, Utah. The two nurses had assisted in the birth of a premature baby.
New federal rules making it harder for children under 18 to call “dial-a-porn” telephone recording services were blocked from taking effect by a federal appeals court. The Federal Communications Commission said an appeals court in a December 20 order granted a stay to Carlin Communications of New York, which offers the “dial-a-porn” service. The new FCC regulations are designed to prevent children from calling “dial-a-porn” phone numbers, which offer sexually explicit messages. Callers would require the use of a special telephone access code-issued to those 18 and older-before transmission of “obscene or indecent” recorded messages could occur. The stay delays implementation of the FCC action until the court rules. A decision in the case is pending.
Meat cutters and drivers involved in a violent eight-week strike against 1,000 Southern California supermarkets voted on new contracts today and indications were that the drivers approved their pact while the meatcutters rejected theirs. Negotiators for the teamsters union, which represents the drivers, had urged their 12,000 drivers and warehousemen to approve the pact and The Los Angeles Times reported in the Friday issue that most had accepted the recommendation.
Female guards at California’s San Quentin Prison can conduct searches of clothed male convicts and watch them using shower and toilet facilities without violating inmate rights to privacy, a Federal appeals court ruled today. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that San Quentin, which has 113 women among its 720 guards, had made “reasonable and constitutionally permissible” assignments of female guards to meet prison security needs. The court said the state’s need for security outweighed inmate privacy rights in the case. The ruling came in a class action suit filed by three inmates.
A Boston minister who was mugged and robbed on Christmas Eve invited his assailants to “come up to the church for help.” The 77-year-old Boston minister, who was conducting a 26-hour “Alcathon” for alcoholics, was mugged by two assailants as he took a break outside the church. Rev. James K. Allen said of the two robbers. “They don’t know how to live and need to learn a better way.” Mr. Allen, a 77-year-old Unitarian pastor at the First Parish in the Dorchester section of Boston, added: “I wouldn’t turn them in to police if they came to me for help. I’m here to do whatever needs to be done.”
Chilling air from Canada set records for low temperatures across the Southeast yesterday, causing concern among Florida’s citrus growers but sparing their crops. The Arctic air brought a new storm to the Middle West, with drifting snow caused by winds gusting up to 80 miles an hour. Fog persisted west of the Rocky Mountains, stranding airplanes and thousands of holiday travelers at airports and prompting advisories for motorists. In Bakersfield, California, the fog broke a 20-year-old record with 13 consecutive days in which visibility consistently dropped below a quarter of a mile.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1526.49 (+7.34)
Born:
Beth Behrs, American actress (“Two Broke Girls”), in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Steven Hartman, American actor (Rick Forrester- “The Bold and the Beautiful”), in Westlake, California.
Yu Shirota, Japanese-Spanish singer and actor (The Sailor Moon Musicals, Tenisu no Ôjisama), in Tokyo, Japan.
Byron Westbrook, NFL cornerback (Washington Redskins), in Washington, District of Columbia.
Chris Carpenter, MLB pitcher (Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox), in Bryan, Ohio.
Damir Markota [Omerhodzic], Croatian NBA power forward (Milwaukee Bucks), in Sarajevo, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SFR Yugoslavia.
Died:
Dian Fossey, 53, American zoologist (“Gorillas in the Mist”), murdered in Rwanda.
Harold P. Warren, 62, American film director (“Manos: The Hands of Fate”).
Jackie Ormes, 74, African-American cartoonist (“Torchy Brown”).
History Diaries 