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News stories from Sunday November 16, 1980
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Iraq said more than 500 Iranians died in a major battle for the southwest Iranian town of Susangird in the oil-producing province of Khuzistan, while the Iraqis continued the assault on Abadan. The official Kuwaiti press service said several Iranian jets attacked a Kuwaiti area bordering Iraq with rockets, but were driven off by ground fire.
An appeal for national unity in Iran was made by Ayatollah Khomeini. Over the Teheran radio, he rebuked newspapers and politicians for creating a climate of dissent while the country was at war with Iraq. He did not mention the 52 American hostages held by the Iranians. In an earlier broadcast, the radio quoted the speaker of Parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani, as saying that Parliament was "too busy" to discuss the hostage issue further. [New York Times]
- After meeting his economic advisers, President-elect Ronald Reagan vowed to do "what I said throughout the campaign that I was going to do." He did not address the specifics, but he described a report by his economic policy coordinating committee as "plans for implementation, reducing the cost of government, reducing the tax burden on the American people." [New York Times]
- Brush fires in southern California destroyed at least 90 homes and forced thousands of people to flee. Made worse by high winds, flames spread across 25,000 acres in five communities near Los Angeles, and the efforts of 2,000 firefighters had little effect. [New York Times]
- A $2 billion synthetic fuels plant, the first such large-scale plant in the nation and a major step toward lessening the nation's dependence on foreign oil, is being built in North Dakota. Construction follows a decade of planning and negotiations, and financial problems still beset the project. [New York Times]
- Water shortages in scattered places in the East are believed to be attributable to the cloud-catching effect of Appalachian mountain ridges. Meteorologists say that because of the vagaries of the high-altitude jet streams aloft, rains fell mainly west of the Appalachians last summer. While the resulting water shortages are isolated, some communities from Brockton, Mass., to Norfolk, Va., are rationing water, and others are considering restrictions. [New York Times]
- A ban on testing all nuclear weapons could be concluded by the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain within a year provided that there is a favorable international political climate, highly qualified Western sources in Geneva said. The talks among the three nations were begun in 1977 and recessed at the close of the 12th round of negotiations in Geneva last week to await the Reagan administration's assessment of the arms control negotiations. [New York Times]
- Haitian refugees who had resisted attempts by the Bahamian government to take them from a tiny Bahamian island where they had been marooned after fleeing Haiti were taken home in a Bahamian ship. They said they preferred death on the island to life in Haiti. [New York Times]
- Pope John Paul II urged Catholics in West Germany to widen their contacts with other Christian churches. In the first papal visit to the homeland of the Reformation in 198 years, the Pope celebrated an open-air mass attended by 14,000 people at Osnabriick, the seat of West Germany's northernmost Catholic diocese. [New York Times]
- China alleges that 34,000 people died because of persecution by Jiang Qing, who is Mao Ts-tung's widow, and nine other radicals during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960's. Further excerpts from the government's indictment of the group, said that among the people "persecuted to death" were six mayors and deputy mayors of Peking and Shanghai. [New York Times]
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