News stories from Saturday March 1, 1980
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Plans for a meeting with the hostages continued to be negotiated by the United Nations commission in Teheran. A spokesman for Ayatollah Khomeini said the militants holding the Americans had agreed in principle to the meeting, but discussions continued on how many commission members would be allowed to attend the meeting and whether all or only some of the hostages would attend. [New York Times]
- The United States rebuked Israel in the Security Council of the United Nations by voting with the 14 other Council members to deplore the increasing Israeli settlements in territories seized during the 1967 war. Diplomats at the United Nations believed it was the first time that Washington had cast a Council vote against Israel on the issue of the settlements on the West Bank. [New York Times]
- Colombia prepared to negotiate with the guerrillas who have been holding about 30 diplomats, including the American Ambassador, hostage in the Dominican Embassy in Bogota since Wednesday. The talks will be held in a van outside the embassy. The guerrillas agreed to a meeting in the van after rejecting a suggestion that the meeting take place in the embassy. [New York Times]
- Gerald Ford cautiously invited the Republican Party to ask him to run again for President. In an interview at his California home he said that Ronald Reagan could not be elected, and "if there was an honest to goodness bona fide urging by a broad-based group in my party, I would respond."
Insights into New Hampshire voters' switch from George Bush to Ronald Reagan, along with how voters' views change with day-to-day events, were provided by a New York Times/CBS News poll. It also indicated that in November, President Carter might face substantial defections by Democrats, even in a race against Mr. Reagan.
[New York Times] - ABC News has been subpoenaed to provide information for possible use against Hamilton Jordan, the White House chief of staff, who allegedly used cocaine in a visit to a New York discothetque, according to persons familiar with the investigation. Arthur Christy, the special prosecutor who is conducting the investigation, has convened a grand jury but no witnesses have appeared before it yet. [New York Times]
- A devastating livestock disease called Rift Valley Fever has spread over all of Africa. World health officials are concerned that the disease, which can make humans blind, may spread to other continents. The fever had been confined to East Africa before it spread from Capetown to Cairo and into the Sinai peninsula, where a Bedouin caught the fever in 1978. [New York Times]
- Pakistani planes fired warning shots at a Soviet military plane that entered Pakistani airspace from the Afghan frontier, a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Islamabad said. The Soviet plane, described as twin-engine turboprop, was escorted back to the frontier. [New York Times]