News stories from Sunday November 30, 1980

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

Talks on a new arms limitation pact between Washington and Moscow could begin a few weeks after Ronald Reagan's inauguration Jan. 20, Edwin Meese, the President-elect's senior adviser, said in a television interview. Mr. Meese, who is the future presidential counselor, also said that "foreign policy was a close second" to "getting the economy back in order." [New York Times] Four branches of conservatism are expected to influence the Reagan administration. They are the "libertarian" or free-market conservatives, represented by Milton Friedman, the economist; the "traditional" conservatives, exemplified by William F. Buckley and George Will; the neo-conservatives, former socialists and liberals, who include Norman Podhoretz, the editor, and the "new right," whose views on social issues such as the equal rights amendment, abortion, school prayers are opposite to those of some members of the traditional and neo-conservative groups. [New York Times] Natural gas may be more abundant than previously believed, according to new data, and it may be America's best immediate alternative to imported petroleum. Energy analysts are weighing the new evidence as skeptics question the future availability of gas. [New York Times] Eight persons were still missing from a 25-foot whaling boat in the Gulf of California. A search for them continued although the weather was reported to be too dangerous. The boat, one of four on an expedition by a juvenile delinquent center in Tucson, Ariz., was lost in a storm last Monday night. The three other boats and their occupants survived. [New York Times] A "deluge" of smuggled drugs in Louisiana included more marijuana seized since Oct. 1 than in the previous 12 months, a customs official said. It seems to be related to the influx of Cuban refugees in the Miami area over the last year when the Coast Guard relaxed its vigilance against smugglers to deal with the refugee flow. [New York Times] The auto industry's response to federal safety standards is "a tragedy," the chief federal automobile safety enforcement official said. Joan Claybrook, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said in letters to officials of nine car manufacturers that the nation faced an increase of 10,000 to 15,000 lives lost in accidents per year by 1990. [New York Times] Iraq denied losing the strategic offshore oil-loading terminal of Mina al Bakr to Iran in a 48-hour battle at the northern tip of the Persian Gulf. Iran had reported capturing it. Both sides, however, confirmed that the battle for Mina al Bakr was one of the biggest engagements in their war. [New York Times] Haiti rounded up suspected dissidents in an attempt to turn attention from the country's worsening economy while it prepares for a meeting with international banking and aid organizations, Haitian and foreign diplomatic sources said. Among those arrested and held without being charged with a specific offense were journalists, politicians and human rights activists. [New York Times] Hundreds of thousands of survivors are homeless following the earthquake in southern Italy last week and are in need of vaccinations, water, food, clothes and shelter. Authorities in Rome announced that an evacuation program had begun and that the survivors were being taken to tourist hotels near Salerno on the Amalfi coast. In the earthquake area things were less orderly than the announcement implied. One of the problems is that the survivors do not want to leave, not even to go a short distance. [New York Times] Evidently trying to prevent a war between Jordan and Syria, which has reportedly placed thousands of troops along its border, King Khalid of Saudi Arabia sent his brother, Prince Abdullah, to Damascus for talks with President Hafez al-Assad. Prince Abdullah, a Second Deputy Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, also met with Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization. [New York Times]