News stories from Sunday April 29, 1979

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

C.I.A. restraints would be loosened for small covert operations abroad, under a legislative proposal prepared by the Carter administration, White House officials say. The proposal would allow the agency to carry out such operations without the personal approval of the President, and, under certain circumstances, would allow the C.I.A. to spy on Americans overseas. [New York Times] About 2,000 Americans will die of cancer by the end of the century as a result of atomic energy, according to one of two studies recently completed National Academy of Sciences. The other report, dealing with the effects of low-level radiation, estimated that one out of every thousand Americans gets cancer from all radiation sources. [New York Times] Further inquiry into the Carter peanut loans has found a four month lag between the time Billy Carter has said Carter's Warehouse repaid a $2.2 million loan in 1976 and the time the National Bank of Georgia passed the money to other banks that had financed part of the loan. About $1 million from the repayment would have been in the bank's hands for four months in the spring and early summer of 1976. Paul Curran, the Justice Department's special counsel, is investigating whether any of the money was diverted to Jimmy Carter's campaign. [New York Times] Senate charges against Herman Talmadge will be heard at a hearing Monday. He is charged with violations of the Senate's code of ethics. The 65-year-old Georgia Democrat, one of the Senate's most senior and influential members, faces five counts of mishandling his financial affairs. [New York Times] Seeking to halt an exodus of industries and businesses from the Northeast and Middle West, a coalition representing diverse groups is attempting to persuade legislatures in those regions to impose sanctions upon corporations that plan to move. [New York Times] The release of the Soviet dissidents was celebrated in New York by more than 100,000 of their American supporters who held a rally across from the United Nations headquarters. Two of the five dissidents, both Jewish activists, attended. They were Mark Dymshits and Eduard Kuznetsov, who was reunited with his wife Silva Zalmanson, a resident of Israel. A few hours after the rally, Mr. Dymshits and the Kuznetsovs boarded a plane for Israel. [New York Times] Israel authorized the death penalty for Palestinian guerrillas convicted of terrorist acts of "inhuman cruelty." Permission for prosecutors to seek capital punishment in such cases was approved by the cabinet in a 7 to 5 vote. The death penalty has been carried out only once in Israel: 18 years ago, against Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal. [New York Times] Israel and Egypt began negotiating final details of Israel's gradual withdrawal from Sinai, which will be returned to Egypt under their treaty. The opening meeting of a joint military commission was largely ceremonial, but a communique from both sides said that an Egyptian reconnaissance team would be allowed to enter El Arish, the Sinai provincial capital, next Sunday, nearly three weeks before it reverts to Egyptian control May 26. [New York Times] The carnage left behind by Idi Amin in Uganda was evidence of institutionalized brutality of a state gone insane. Car axles, sledgehammers and machetes were instruments of murder at a military police barracks whose walls were splattered with blood. Cells at the headquarters of the secret police were packed with corpses of prisoners slain in a final bloodletting as Tanzanian troops and Ugandan exiles approached Kampala, the capital. A handful of prisoners survived by drinking their own urine and eating the dead. [New York Times] Saigon has been transformed in more than name. A reporter returned after four years, as Ho Chi Minh City prepared to celebrate tomorrow's anniversary of Liberation Day, the day the United States evacuated its last soldiers and officials from a blasted and besieged Saigon. [New York Times] The Tories will win, but narrowly, in Britain's general election Thursday, according to the two most closely watched opinion polls. The polls indicate that Margaret Thatcher, the Conservatives' leader, is holding on to a reduced, but still substantial lead over the incumbent Labor Party. [New York Times] The Times of London abandoned plans to publish an international edition in Frankfurt, following threats from local unionists and an apparent sabotage attempt on the plant where it was to use presses. The newspaper's publication in London was suspended five months ago in a labor dispute. [New York Times]