News stories from Saturday February 10, 1979
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Anger and resentment in Mexico at the way the Carter administration has handled its Mexico policy will be evident when President Carter arrives Wednesday for talks with President Jose Lopez Portillo. Having been pointedly ignored despite the "new era" proclaimed in Washington two years ago, Mexico is deeply distrustful of the sudden interest shown by the United States toward the country's vast oil and natural gas reserves. [New York Times]
- Loans to Jimmy Carter's business from the National Bank of Georgia enabled the President and his relatives to sharply increase their profits and personal access to cash in 1975 and 1976, according to documents in the hands of Charles Kirbo, trustee of Mr. Carter's business holdings. A federal grand jury in Atlanta is investigating the finances of the Carter peanut warehouse, and Mr. Kirbo has speculated that one of the questions that the jury is considering is whether any of the borrowed money was used in Mr. Carter's presidential campaign. He denies that the money was directly fed to the campaign, which would be illegal. [New York Times]
- A switch from hand labor to machines is revolutionizing the tomato-growing industry in Ohio, and thousands of farm laborers will lose their jobs. Seldom has the shift been so sudden and the social and economic impact so visible because the area affected by the mechanical harvesters is small enough to permit a look at the impending change at its inception. [New York Times]
- A new lead on Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance may come, federal officials hope, from an underworld informer who was a friend of the former Teamsters union president. United States Attorney Peter Vaira said that the informer, Charles Allen, had been cooperating with his office in Philadelphia on a number of cases, including the Hoffa investigation. [New York Times]
- Civil war in Iran seemed imminent as rival factions of the armed forces fought one another and thousands of armed civilians roamed the streets of Teheran, calling for an uprising to bring down Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar's government. More than 100 people were killed and several hundred were wounded in the fighting that broke out when cadets and technicians at the Farahabad Air Force Base defected. [New York Times]
- The human rights movement had gains and losses last year in the 115 countries receiving economic or military assistance from the United States, the State Department said in its third annual report to Congress. The report included 10 more countries than the previous one and reflected, the department said, "an increased awareness of human rights conditions around the world." The department defended foreign aid "as an effective instrument of our human rights policy." [New York Times]
- The Soviet Union is suggesting that the long-expected meeting between President Carter and Leonid Brezhnev be held in Moscow and not in Washington as planned, apparently because it is wary of appearing to compete with China for popularity in the United States. [New York Times]
- Pakistan will invoke punishments decreed by Islamic law and make its laws conform to the tenets of Islam, the national religion. President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq announced that the law would provide for adulterers to be stoned to death, thieves to have a hand cut off and drinkers to get 80 lashes. He also announced new taxes on land and accumulated wealth and a start on eliminating "the curse of interest" in financial dealings. [New York Times]