News stories from Saturday October 18, 1980
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- New conditions for the release of the hostages appeared to have been posed by Iran's Prime Minister, Mohammed Rajai. In a discussion with reporters at the United Nations, he said twice that Iran's Parliament would set the conditions for the hostages' release "very soon," and he also insisted that what Iran saw as American aid to Iraq would have to end before their release. [New York Times]
- Iran said it has started a counteroffensive against Iraqi troops threatening Abadan and Khorrmashahr and that the main routes to the two cities had been recaptured. The counterattack was indirectly confirmed by the Iraqis, but the Baghdad radio quoted an Iraqi military spokesman as saying that the "Iranian attempts to break the siege around Abadan have been smashed,"and that the Iraqis were closing "a ring of steel" around the two cities. [New York Times]
- Widely divergent positions on foreign policy have been taken by President Carter and Ronald Reagan, on issues ranging from arms control with the Soviet Union to dealing with economic grievances in the third world. Politicians and specialists believe the candidates' policy differences reflect still more basic differences about the role of the United States in the world and what its international priorities in the 1980's should be. [New York Times]
- A new "crisis of poverty" would occur if attacks on federal social programs succeeded, a presidential advisory group warned. The National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity said in its annual report to the President and Congress that a resurgence of "the politics of negativism" would, if unchecked, place millions of more Americans into the ranks of the poor. [New York Times]
- The virtual bondage of Hispanic aliens in the United States through underground labor exchanges appears to be a growing practice but still not a common one, according to Immigration and Naturalization Service officials and others concerned with migrant laborers. Self-described labor contractors, exploiting the aliens' illegal status, are said to truck the aliens around the country in consignments for delivery to farmers and growers for hundreds of dollars a head. [New York Times]
- The F.B.I. sought to disrupt the Black Panther Party's New York chapter in the late 1960's and the early 70's through the use of black journalists, anonymous telephone calls and forged letters, according to documents from the agency's files released under the Freedom of Information Act to attorneys for Richard Moore, former leader of the New York chapter. [New York Times]
- Illness has followed the explosion last month of the Titan 2 missile silo in Damascus, Ark. Residents around the silo area complain of headaches, dizziness and diarrhea, and say they believe toxic gases emitted by the explosion are the cause. [New York Times]
- Australia's Liberal Party won the national elections, but with a majority sharply reduced from that of the previous election three years ago. [New York Times]
- Italy's cabinet crisis ended as Arnaldo Forlani, head of the dominant Christian Democratic Party and former Foreign Minister, took office as Prime Minister. He will head a four-party coalition government. [New York Times]
- Greece has accepted compromises submitted to the government last week by NATO, intended to bring Greece back into the Western alliance's military wing after a six-year absence. [New York Times]