News stories from Sunday February 11, 1979
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- A battle between Congress and the administration was predicted by key members of the House and Senate if President Carter proceeds with a pending proposal to strip the Army Corps of Engineers of its authority to plan and economically justify billions of dollars worth of water projects. The proposal is expected to be submitted soon to Congress, where the corps has powerful supporters. [New York Times]
- Millions of Mexicans are successors to the European immigrants who came to the United States nearly a century ago and much for the same reasons, but with a big exception -- most of them are here illegally. Their future is perhaps the touchiest issue that President Carter and President Jose Lopez Portillo of Mexico will discuss in Mexico City this week. [New York Times]
- "A fresh examination" of the conditions under which people charged with serious crimes are released on bail has been called for by Chief Justice Warren Burger. There has been a "startling increase" in the number of new crimes committed by people who have been freed on bail, the Chief Justice told members of the American Bar Association at a meeting in Atlanta. [New York Times]
- Reform of Alabama's harsh prison conditions has been started by Gov. Fob James Jr. At a meeting in Montgomery last week with federal district judge Frank Johnson, who in 1976 declared the prison conditions unconstitutional, Governor James promised to make changes that his predecessor, George Wallace, and Wallace appointees to the State Board of Corrections refused to make. The judge put Mr. James in charge of the prisons and stripped the corrections board of its duties. [New York Times]
- A union member was killed in a clash between striking farm workers and non-strikers in California's Imperial Valley. As the strike grew increasingly violent, growers asked Gov. Jerry Brown to call out the National Guard. [New York Times]
- Washington's new Mayor, Marion Barry, is the first radical black leader of the 1960's civil rights movement to become the top elected official of a major city. The 42-year-old Mayor has clearly indicated that he wants a position of national influence in the Democratic Party and among black leaders. [New York Times]
- Shahpur Bakhtiar resigned as Prime Minister of Iran, a close aide reported, after the army, which had been supporting him, called its troops back to their barracks "to prevent further bloodshed and anarchy." About 200 people are believed to have been killed and many hundreds more injured in weekend demonstrations by supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini, Dr. Bakhtiar's opponent. The army announced that it would now be neutral in the political crisis.
U.S. Marines and helicopters will help take Americans out of Teheran if their evacuation becomes necessary, and to protect the American Embassy, a Defense Department spokesman said. A detachment of 69 Marines and 6 helicopters has been sent to a "forward location" in Turkey.
[New York Times] - Egypt and Israel formally agreed to make a new effort to conclude a peace treaty and negotiators for both sides will meet about Feb. 21 at Camp David, American officials said. [New York Times]
- Chairman Hua Kuo-feng of China asked the government of Pakistan to spare the life of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose death sentence for conspiracy in a political murder has been upheld by the high court. Mr. Bhutto has visited China several times. He was described in the official press as "an old friend of the Chinese people." [New York Times]
- More American arms will be sent to Yemen and the Sudan, Defense Secretary Harold Brown told Saudi Arabian leaders, to help stabilize the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. [New York Times]