News stories from Saturday June 30, 1979
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Southern California was shaken by the fourth earthquake in three days. The shocks originated in Big Bear, a mountain resort 90 miles east of Los Angeles. Scientists did not know whether more shocks were coming, "but we can only know generally that there is strain building up in those faults," said Dennis Meredith, a spokesman for the California Institute of Technology. [New York Times]
- A billion-dollar development fund to encourage energy exploration in Latin America is being considered by the Carter administration. The fund is being promoted by the Inter-American Development Bank, and its officials say that Japan, Switzerland and Finland have privately indicated support for the proposal, but whether they would contribute would depend on Washington's decision. [New York Times]
- The Rev. Benjamin Hooks has had little impact on the long-entrenched board of directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People despite his popularity as executive director among the membership, according to interviews in Louisville, Ky., where the organization concluded its annual convention. It appears that he has been discouraged about the slow-to-change bureaucracy he inherited two years ago. [New York Times]
- Three-way talks with North Korea have been proposed by the United States and South Korea according to diplomatic sources in Seoul, where President Carter is meeting with President Park Chung Hee. A formal announcement is expected tomorrow. The goals of this major diplomatic initiative by the Carter administration would be to reduce tension between the two Koreas and, eventually, reunify the divided country. [New York Times]
- Refugees are being barred by the five Southeast Asian countries that have given shelter to the great majority of those who have fled or been forced to leave Indochina. Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia. and Singapore said that not only would they not accept additional refugees, but that they would exercise their right to return all refugees to their home countries, including those in camps maintained by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
A United Nations meeting on refugees has been called by Secretary General Kurt Waldheim in Geneva on July 20, and 71 countries have been invited to attend the two-day session. The meeting will be at ministers' level and it was likely that Secretary of State Cyrus Vance would head the United States delegation.
[New York Times] - Peking wall posters accuse two senior Chinese party leaders, one of whom was Mao Tse-tung's bodyguard commander, of embezzling state funds to build a mansion and of participating in the execution of an innocent woman. They appeared as the National People's Congress, the nominal legislative body, was debating a series of new legal codes. One of the new measures would make everyone equal before the law, including Communist Party members, and provides that "no one will be shielded if he is found guilty." [New York Times]