Of course, her story will end instead in tragedy.
Italian prosecutors issued a warrant for the arrest of Abu Nidal, charging the breakaway Palestinian leader with masterminding the attack at Rome’s airport that killed 16 people and wounded 80. Italian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Palestinian terrorist leader Abu Nidal on charges of mass murder in the terrorist attack on Rome airport December 27. Legal sources in Rome said anti-terrorist police have uncovered enough evidence linking Abu Nidal — code name for the renegade terrorist Sabri Banna — to justify the warrant. Abu Nidal’s whereabouts are not known, but the United States has accused Libya of harboring him. The Rome attack and one in Vienna the same day took a total of 19 lives.
The number of AIDS cases in Europe is increasing at a faster rate than in the United States, but the total remains far lower. The World Health Organization reported 1,573 cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome in Europe as of September 30, 1985 — a 150% increase over 1984. France and West Germany led the list. In the United States, AIDS cases totaled 16,574 on January 20, but the annual rate of increase has been only 100%.
The U.S. Senate Democratic leader, Robert F. Byrd, Jr., said today that President Reagan had tentatively agreed to appear jointly before Congress with Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader.But White House officials said no decision had been made. Senator Byrd presented the idea in a telephone call and a letter to Mr. Reagan today. According to the Senator, the President said “it would be fine.” Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said, “I guess we would have to wait till we get the summit schedule before we scheduled any appearance before Congress.” Another White House official said: “This is the first we have heard of it in terms of a formal proposal for a joint appearance. We dont have details. Our first impression is it would not be the most appropriate thing to do. The purpose of the meeting overall is such that many issues have to be discussed, work has to be done. Our reasoning is that this would be much more of a working session than a ceremonial one.” Mr. Gorbachev is scheduled to visit the United States this year, but no date has been set. Previous visiting Soviet leaders — Nikita S. Khrushchev and Leonid I. Brezhnev — have not addressed Congress.
Twenty-four Nobel Prize winners sent a telegram to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev appealing for the release from internal exile of dissident Andrei D. Sakharov, who was banished to the closed city of Gorky six years ago. The appeal was coordinated by the New York-based International League for Human Rights, and the signatories included scientist Linus Pauling. Sakharov won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.
In what was possibly her most difficult afternoon in the House of Commons since she became the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher acknowledged today that the disclosure of a letter that embarrassed a member of her government had been authorized by her own office. Her formal statement to the House, reporting on an official inquiry into the source of the disclosure, gave new intensity to a drawn-out controversy over the small, insolvent helicopter company called Westland. It also raised new questions about the future of Leon Brittan, the Cabinet member responsible for carrying out Mrs. Thatcher’s policies in the affair.
Citizens of Northern Ireland lined up under heavy guard today to vote in parliamentary elections that are the first popular test of the British-Irish agreement signed in November. The police said all leaves were canceled, and about 25,000 police officers and soldiers were mobilized to guard the 529 polling stations against disruptions by the Irish Republican Army or Protestant militants. No election-related violence was reported. Voting hours were from 7 AM to 10 PM. The ballots are to be counted Friday. The 15 by-elections were made necessary by the mass resignation of Northern Ireland’s Protestant lawmakers from the British Parliament to protest the accord, which grants the Irish Republic a say in the province’s affairs.
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres proposed that Arab mayors on the occupied West Bank and Palestinian members of the Jordanian Parliament should represent the Palestinians in Mideast peace talks, a senior Israeli official said. The official said that Peres made the suggestion at a meeting in London with British opposition leader Neil Kinnock. The Israeli leader’s visit to Britain has included talks with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy.
President Amin Gemayel’s Christian loyalists and Syrian-backed militia forces exchanged heavy artillery and tank cannon fire in Lebanon’s central mountains today. The police said five combatants were killed and seven wounded. The battles followed the arrival in Damascus late Wednesday of Elie Hobeika, Mr. Gemayel’s main challenger for leadership of Lebanon’s Christians. A week ago Mr. Hobeika went into exile in France. Mr. Hobeika, 29 years old, was flown out of Lebanon after the Gemayel forces crushed his militia followers in a daylong battle January 15 that left 350 dead and more than 600 wounded. The battle wrecked a Syrian-sponsored peace pact that Mr. Hobeika signed and Mr. Gemayel opposed. Mr. Hobeika held nightlong talks with the Syrian Vice President, Abdel Halim Khaddam, the accord’s architect. The two men met in another closed-door conference today.
The U.S. begins maneuvers off the Libyan coast. The American Navy off Libya has informed Tripoli air controllers that planes from two aircraft carriers will be carrying out maneuvers for one week. Reagan Administration officials said the activity was intended to demonstrate the United States presence offshore. It also puts the aircraft carriers close to Libya as the deadline approaches on February 1 for the withdrawal of the remaining 1,000 Americans in Libya, who have been ordered to leave as part of the United States’ economic sanctions. The official notification, in the form of a routine “notice of intent to conduct flight operations” from the Sixth Fleet, was sent to the air traffic controller at Tripoli, Libya.
The United States, concerned that Moscow may have decided to back the more hard-line forces in Southern Yemen, has urged the Soviet Union not to intervene in the civil war there, State Department officials said today. Publicly, the Soviet Union, an ally of Southern Yemen, has taken a neutral position toward the rival Marxist factions, both of which profess pro-Soviet sentiments. Fighting erupted on January 13 after President Ali Nasser Mohammed al-Hassani announced that four officials had been executed for trying to overthrow him. Mr. Hassani, who fled Southern Yemen, was reported to have returned to the country.
Fears that the Philippine election February 7 will be fraudulent prompted senior Reagan Administration officials and members of Congress to express serious concern over the prospect. Officials cited the recent slayings of nine campaign workers, reports that “intimidation in a number of areas is growing” and the reported printing of extra ballots for stuffing voting boxes. Assistant Secretary of State Paul D. Wolfowitz, the senior State Department official involved in Philippine affairs, said that if President Ferdinand E. Marcos did not permit free elections, “it will substantially worsen the situation there.” Mr. Wolfowitz added, “People will turn to radical alternatives, specifically the Communists.”
Corazon C. Aquino, denouncing President Ferdinand E. Marcos as a dying dictator, said she would tour the Philippines and encourage daily protest demonstrations if she wins the presidential election but is denied office.
Ferdinand E. Marcos dismissed a report that the United States Army repeatedly rejected his official claims that he led a World War II guerrilla unit during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines as “fraudulent” and “absurd.” Mr. Marcos, called the report, published in The New York Times Thursday, “foolishness” disseminated by “crazy people.” The report in The Times said that the Army had concluded after the war that Mr. Marcos’s official claims that he led a force called Ang Mga Maharlika during the Japanese occupation of his country were “fraudulent” and “absurd.” Speaking to an election campaign rally here on Thursday, President Marcos told supporters, “Don’t pay any attention to these people.”
Some anti-Marcos Filipinos in New York said they thought the report on Mr. Marcos’s wartime record would influence the outcome of the February 7 election. “I wasn’t surprised by the Army report because it confirmed my personal research when I was working in Mindanao,” said Usopay Cadar, a volunteer in the Ninoy Aquino Movement’s Election Information Center. “I’m glad about the timing of the report and think it will be crucial to the election.”
Imelda Marcos owns 4 buildings in Manhattan worth about $350 million, according to testimony before a House panel by a New York lawyer. The lawyer, Barry Knox, said a real estate broker repeatedly told him about the holdings. At one of those meetings, he said, Mrs. Marcos was accompanied by Rolando C. Gapud, a Manila banker who, according to Congressional aides, business documents and Filipino business officials, also handles the personal business affairs of the Philippine President, Ferdinand E. Marcos. The testimony came as the Asian and Pacific Affairs subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee continued its hearings on charges that the Marcoses have made extensive, hidden real estate investments in the United States. Some subcommittee members have questioned whether American foreign aid money may have been diverted to help underwrite investments.
A Canadian abruptly pleaded guilty to passing official secrets to Moscow as long as 30 years ago. The prosecution in the Ottawa trial of James D.F. Morrison, a 69-year-old former corporal in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, charged that he sold information to a key double agent for about $2,500. The double agent, who gave Canada valuable information about Soviet espionage activities, was later recalled to Moscow and is believed to have been executed.
A U.S. cruise missile that crashed seven miles short of its target in Canada was found in thick woods, a Canadian Forces spokesman said. The unarmed missile broke into three parts when it crashed about 175 miles northeast of Edmonton as it neared the end of its flight over northwestern Canada. Officials said the missile’s two parachutes did not open and the instrumentation was shattered, but they said the test was successful because the missile’s low-altitude, 1,500-mile flight went smoothly. Plans for another test this week were scrapped, however.
About 300 peace activists from 32 nations ended a journey through Central America with a rally in Mexico City attended by a crowd estimated at 10,000. The marchers left Panama City on December 10. They were expelled to Nicaragua by Costa Rica, and then Honduras and El Salvador refused to issue them visas, forcing the group to fly to Guatemala City and board buses for the rest of the trip. At the rally, speakers condemned U.S. intervention in the region.
The Nicaraguan Government has accused the head of the country’s Roman Catholic Church hierarchy of aiding President Reagan’s campaign to raise more funds for anti-Sandinista rebels. A statement issued Wednesday night said the prelate, Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, was using a visit to the United States to wage a “campaign of attacks and calumny” against the Nicaraguan Government.
Ugandan rebel forces advanced to the outskirts of Kampala today and an army barracks in the capital was reported shelled. The developments came a day after Government soldiers went on a rampage in which six people, including four schoolchildren, were killed. A source in Uganda’s military Government said guerrillas from the National Resistance Army had moved to within three miles of Kampala from positions farther to the southwest. Foreign Minister Olara Otunnu of Uganda said at a news conference here today that in the last six days the National Resistance Army rebels had mounted an eight-pronged offensive in an attempt to wreck their peace agreement with the Government. The pact, signed December 17, was designed to end a five-year-old civil war.
The killing of Dian Fossey at her remote mountain camp in Rwanda last month has prompted acquaintances to offer theories about her slaying, including accounts of the eccentric behavior of the zoologist who seemed prepared to go to any lengths in her increasingly aggressive, 18-year struggle to protect mountain gorillas from poachers.
Lesotho’s new military rulers said that anti-apartheid refugees from South Africa will be flown out of Lesotho as quickly as possible and will not be turned over to the Pretoria government, Radio Lesotho reported. A statement by the military council said that arrangements to airlift the refugees to other countries were being made by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees with help from the African National Congress, the main guerrilla group fighting apartheid. Lesotho’s prime minister was deposed by the military after Pretoria brought economic pressure to bear because of the refugees’ presence in Lesotho.
At least 30 people were reported slain in renewed tribal fighting between Zulus and Pondos south of Durban today that left hundreds of shanty homes ablaze and sent hundreds of blacks fleeing for safety. The battle, fought with homemade shotguns, spears, clubs and knives, appeared to be a continuation of similar clashes between Zulus and Pondos last month that left around 60 dead. At that time the Zulus seemed to have suffered the most casualties. But in the fighting today, apparently set off by an attack by a group of Pondos on a Zulu, the Pondos were said to have come off worse.
The White House reaffirmed support for a comprehensive immigration bill. However, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers had placed a new obstacle in the legislation’s path after a draft report by the council said provisions in the bill to punish employers of illegal aliens would adversely affect the nation’s economy. A draft report by the council says that proposals to punish employers of illegal aliens would have adverse effects on the nation’s economy, reducing output and imposing a new “labor market tax” on employers. The report is to be submitted to Congress in early February, but some of its conclusions were published Thursday in The New York Times.
President Reagan enjoys breakfast with a group of Republican Senators.
President Reagan participates in a Cabinet Meeting to discuss the upcoming State of the Union Address and the economic report.
The NASA space shuttle orbiter Columbia returns to Kennedy Space Center via Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. Astronauts on the recent hard-luck flight of the Columbia said today that a broken light intensifier kept them from taking pictures or even getting a glimpse of Halley’s comet. The astronauts, at their first news conference after their trouble-plagued mission, said views of the comet were blotted out by the light of the Sun and the Moon. Even with binoculars, they said, they could not see the comet.
Her sister ship, the orbiter Challenger, is now five days from launch. The countdown began today for the launching of the space shuttle Challenger, which is to carry the nation’s first private citizen into space. The start of the 25th shuttle mission was postponed from Saturday afternoon to Sunday at 9:36 AM because of bad weather at an emergency landing field in Africa. The countdown began on time at 10 AM. The Challenger’s crew, including Christa McAuliffe, a social studies teacher in Concord, New Hampshire., arrived at the Kennedy Space Center here after flying from Houston.
The weather is warm in Florida — in the 70s during the day — but a major winter storm is moving out of the Rockies. By Tuesday morning, low temperatures in the morning will dip in the upper 20s. Challenger will sit on the pad through two long freezing nights as the launch date slips from Sunday to Tuesday. And thus, her fate is sealed.
The Voyager 2 was detecting radio emissions from Uranus, the first clear evidence of the distant planet’s extensive magnetic field, as it sped toward its historic rendezvous with Uranus today.
A long-range anti-asbestos plan was proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency to help safeguard Americans’ health. Under the program, five widely used asbestos products would be banned, and all other mining, processing, manufacturing and importing of asbestos would be phased out over 10 years. The new rule would not affect asbestos products already in use. There would be no requirement that asbestos be removed from private or public buildings or vehicles.
A former messenger for a Washington company that transcribes Congressional proceedings pleaded guilty today to a charge of supplying national security documents to a person who was not entitled to receive them. The plea was entered by Randy M. Jeffries, 26 years old, in exchange for a promise by the Government to drop a charge of delivering classified material to the Soviet Union, which carried a possible sentence of life in prison. Under the plea bargain, Mr. Jeffries faces a prison sentence of up to 10 years. Mr. Jeffries showed little emotion as he announced his plea in Federal District Court in Washington. “My client is very happy with the resolution,” said G. Allen Dale, his lawyer. “He didn’t want to face life in prison.”
Vice President George Bush accused New York Governor Mario M. Cuomo of trying to play down the achievements and hardships of ethnic Americans and with representing a party that advocates “the same old destructive politics of divisiveness and resentment.” Bush, a likely Republican candidate for President in 1988, singled out Cuomo, a potential Democratic rival, in a speech delivered to a Conservative Party dinner in New York.
A judge denied a defense motion to dismiss the alien-smuggling conspiracy case against 11 sanctuary movement members on grounds of government misconduct. U.S. District Judge Earl H. Carroll said in Tucson that the conduct was “not so patently egregious as to warrant dismissal.” He said he had found “no justifiable prejudice” against the defendants to warrant dismissing the case.
The U.S. Army announced it is launching a major environmental impact study of how best to dispose of aging stockpiles of chemical weapons. The service said it hoped to complete a draft environmental impact statement by late summer after analyzing “the impacts associated with alternate courses of action for destroying the chemical munitions and agents.” The United States has not produced chemical weapons since 1969, prompting warnings that they had become dangerous to store.
The president of Planned Parenthood accused the Roman Catholic Church of “political and religious persecution” when it declared the organization’s executive director in Rhode Island had been excommunicated. “Planned Parenthood deplores the action that has been taken by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church” against Mary Ann Sorrentino, said the group’s president, Faye Wattleton, at a news conference in New York.
A 5-year-old boy kidnaped a year ago was located after the child saw his picture on a Birmingham, Alabama, television show about missing children and told a baby sitter, authorities said. The baby sitter said she “nearly dropped dead” when the boy pointed out his picture on the NBC television show “Missing” Wednesday night. “He said, ‘Look at me, I’m on TV,’” said the baby sitter, Pam Robinson, 30. Police charged Benjamin Lester Studer, 33, of Covington, Kentucky, with kidnapping his son, Benjamin Lee (Buddy) Studer, from his ex-wife last year.
Pro-union demonstrators in Austin, Minnesota today tried to block a highway near a Hormel meat-processing plant to prevent non-striking employees from getting to work, and eight people were arrested, the authorities said. The meat-processing plant has been the scene of a bitter, five-month strike, and hundreds of National Guardsmen have been called in to keep it open.
Ohio Governor Richard F. Celeste of Ohio, a Democrat, opened his campaign yesterday for a second four-year term, while former Governor Edward J. King of Massachusetts said he would not seek the Republican nomination to oppose Governor Michael S. Dukakis. Mr. Celeste told supporters in Cleveland, his hometown, that his first term had laid a “solid-rock foundation” on which he intended to build.
A Federal District judge refused today to dismiss smuggling charges against 11 church workers on trial in Tucson for offering sanctuary to Central American aliens. Attorneys for the defendants filed a motion for dismissal Tuesday after allegations that the Government’s chief witness, Jesus Cruz, had perjured himself.
Farmers have asked a Federal district judge to prevent the Farmers Home Administration from acting under new rules that the farmers say could cause a wave of foreclosures. Judge Bruce Van Sickle, whose order in 1984 resulted in a two-year moratorium by the farm agency on foreclosures, was to hear additional arguments in the case today.
More than 800 Americans died last week from influenza and pneumonia, a higher-than-expected number that shows the flu season is getting worse, government health experts said. The national Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, which monitors deaths in 121 leading U.S. cities, said flu and pneumonia were responsible for 6% of the 13,895 reported deaths last week, up from 4.9% six weeks earlier. The increase comes as 25 states and the District of Columbia reported confirmed cases of influenza to the Atlanta-based CDC. One of the most recent outbreaks occurred earlier this month at a nursing home in California’s San Joaquin County, where 27 of 74 elderly residents came down with flu or flu-like illnesses.
Dartmouth has an intermittent tradition of campus protest, but in the last few days there have been vandalism and sit-ins with students aiming at unusual targets: one another. This afternoon more than 100 students at this small, isolated campus ended a sit-in after 30 hours in the office of President David T. McLaughlin. They shouted, pleaded and cried in long sessions with Mr. McLaughlin that displayed a deep strain of alienation and bitterness among students who are black, female, homosexual or native American. Down jackets, heavy sweaters and other accouterments of a New Hampshire winter were spread over the antique furnishings in the president’s office, including the desk from the law office of Daniel Webster, class of 1801. The protesters were seeking the administration’s support, but they were actually fighting the attitudes of other students. Meanwhile, a faculty panel unanimously acceded to the students’ request that classes be canceled today for a university symposium on racism, sexism and toleration of dissent.
Late last month, an American zoologist who had devoted years to the study of the rare mountain gorilla was killed at her research camp in a rain forest near the top of a mountain in central Africa. The authorities say they are continuing to investigate the killing of the zoologist, Dian Fossey, and that no charges have been filed. But those who knew her offer their own theories about her death, including accounts of eccentric behavior by a woman who seemed prepared to go to any length to protect what she called “my gorillas.” Many of the theories revolve around Miss Fossey’s battle to save the rapidly dwindling population of mountain gorillas from poachers, who make souvenirs of the animals’ heads and hands or sell young gorillas to zoos.
Musical “Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood” opens at Ritz Theater NYC for 13 performances.
Inaugural class of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees: Chuck Berry; James Brown; Ray Charles; Sam Cooke; Fats Domino; The Everly Brothers; Buddy Holly; Jerry Lee Lewis; Elvis Presley; Little Richard; Robert Johnson; Jimmie Rodgers; Jimmy Yancey; Alan Freed; John Hammond; and Sam Phillips.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1511.24 (+8.95)
Born:
Dwight Lowery, NFL safety and cornerback (New York Jets, Jacksonville Jaguars, Atlanta Falcons, Indianapolis Colts, San Diego Chargers), in Santa Cruz, California.
Frédéric St. Denis, Canadian NHL defenseman (Montreal Canadiens, Columbus Blue Jackets), in Greenfield Park, Quebec, Canada.
Died:
Joseph Beuys, West German avant-garde artist (Fluxus movement)
History Diaries 