News stories from Saturday February 26, 1977

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

President Idi Amin of Uganda has postponed until Wednesday his meeting with United States citizens living in that country, according to the Uganda radio. The radio reported earlier that President Amin said it had never been his intention "to make any Americans hostages" when he ordered that no United States citizens could leave the country until he met with them. The radio said President Amin wished simply to meet with about 200 Americans, most of them missionaries, to congratulate them on the work they had done for Uganda. The broadcast said that "a spokesman for the President wished to make it absolutely clear" that that meeting "should cause no alarm." The same broadcast said President Amin was aware of the presence of a United States naval task force off the East African coast. [New York Times] A White House statement welcomed assurances that the Kampala government intended no harm to Americans in Uganda but said it remained concerned about their welfare. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, meanwhile, told reporters that he believed the Americans would be safe. [New York Times] A sharp increase in racism -- directed mainly toward South Asians -- in Toronto has attracted national attention. Attacks, mostly by teenagers and in the form of insult, vandalism and assault, have been so numerous that a government human rights agency said the situation "demands emergency action." Pakistanis especially are the victims of overt prejudice and the racist term "Paki" now includes all people of South Asian origin. The prejudice seems to be motivated to a large extent by economic insecurity. [New York Times] Foreign fishing fleets no longer will have access to the fishing grounds off United States coasts starting Tuesday. The government on that day will take control of virtually all ocean fishing out to 200 miles and far beyond it in some areas. New England fishermen regard the new limit as a chance for survival that has come not a moment too soon, but the restriction is resented abroad and has raised some misgivings in this country. [New York Times] The Social Security Administration and state governments are conducting pilot projects that are introducing radical new ways of paying hospitals for the care they provide, in a major effort to cut waste and runaway costs under the principal medical insurance programs. Under one system being tested in New Jersey and soon to be tried in New York, hospitals would no longer be paid a daily rate based on the average cost of all the patients they care for -- a system based on dividing care by time. [New York Times] Firepower and manpower of armored and mechanized infantry divisions will be raised by the Army to counter the recent strengthening of similar Soviet divisions. The Army's program will be tested in maneuvers starting this fall in Fort Hood, Tex. [New York Times] Raisa Nemikin, a 27-year-old employee of the Protestant Episcopal Church who has been resisting a grand jury's questions about any knowledge she might have of a Puerto Rican terrorist group, was declared in contempt in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Judge Marvin Frankel told Miss Nemikin that he would ordered her jailed on Monday if she continued to refuse to answer the jury's questions. [New York Times]