News stories from Sunday March 18, 1979

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

Questions about the future of nuclear power as a principal source of electricity have been renewed by recent federal government actions. Some experts predict that concern over reactor accidents and the problems of radioactive waste disposal will bring an end to reliance on nuclear power. Others assert that nuclear power is emerging from a testing period normal for any advanced technology and is about to take on the ambitious role long anticipated for it. [New York Times] Misleading information about the Carter family's peanut business was often sent to the National Bank of Georgia, a former bonded Carter warehouseman said, so that his reports would conform to what he thought was the family's loan payment arrangement. [New York Times] Hard evidence that illegal aliens by the hundreds of thousands are living in New York City has been gathered by city agencies. But no city or federal agency has an authoritative count of the number of aliens who are illegal residents of the city. This official ignorance has had a multimillion-dollar effect on the city's economy. [New York Times] A fertilizer poisoned the thousands of birds found dead on a farm in Newburgh, N. Y., according to a state investigator who said that the fertilizer had been spread in unusually heavy amounts. "Other harmful agents," such as pesticides in the fertilizer, may also have contributed to the deaths, the investigator said. Nearly 10,000 birds perished. [New York Times] A cargo of 20 tons of hashish seized by the Coast Guard off Sandy Hook, N.J., was said to be the largest hashish seizure ever made in this country. Its street value was estimated at $40 million. The ship, with a crew of five Americans and three West Germans and owned by a West German company, had been under surveillance for nearly a week. It was first spotted off Norfolk, Va. [New York Times] Minimum-competency tests, intended to make sure that students know reading and math before they graduate, have become the most popular new idea in American elementary and secondary education. There is very little evidence that they are costing many students diplomas or, in fact, have more than a shallow effect on standard school systems. [New York Times] The youth employment programs that constitute, a federal official said, the largest social experiment the nation has ever undertaken, are being evaluated by the White House. The review will guide the Carter administration in its attempts to get an extension of the Youth Employment Demonstration Programs Act of 1977. [New York Times] An exact timetable for Israel's troop withdrawals from Sinai remained unsettled after talks in Washington between the Egyptian and Israeli defense ministers. This is the last unresolved question in the negotiations for a peace treaty. The talks between Defense Ministers Ezer Weizman of Israel and Kamal Hassan Ali of Egypt will continue, and they will deal with the fine points of the treaty language, an Israeli spokesman said.An Israeli religious party threatened to resign from the government unless Prime Minister Menachem Begin accepts its demands to insure that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip remain under Israel's control. King Hussein of Jordan refused to back the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in talks with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser, although the atmosphere was friendly. Mr. Brzezinski then flew on to Cairo to brief President Sadat on his talks with Arab leaders. Saudi Arabia also would not support the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, despite appeals by an American delegation led by Mr. Brzezinski. However, the Saudi Arabian leadership pledged to refrain from a "precipitous" economic or political boycott of Egypt, and promised not to join other Arab nations that have advocated harassment of Egypt. [New York Times] A highway to the Arctic linking the urban areas of the United States and Canada to the vast mineral-rich region north of the Arctic Circle is about to be opened. The $100 million highway, under construction for 22 years, starts near the city of Dawson in the Yukon Territory and runs north and east to Inuvik near the Beaufort Sea. [New York Times] Allegations that South Africa bribed American politicians widened. A Johannesburg newspaper carried a report suggesting that a presidential candidate may have been among those who received campaign contributions. The newspaper also said that several pro-South Africa speeches made by Western and third-world politicians were drafted in part by Eschel Rhoodie, a former South African Information Ministry official and a key figure in the government bribery scandal. [New York Times]