News stories from Saturday September 14, 1974

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

Islam, the religion of millions from Africa to Asia, is flourishing and attracting many converts as Christianity is declining, perhaps smothered by secular cultures. [New York Times] The General Accounting Office has accused the ,Federal Power commission of acting improperly in allowing a number of natural gas producers to raise prices to millions of their customers. It also alleged that a number of commission officials had owned securities of the companies they regulated, and had failed to comply with the commission's rules against conflicts of interest. The F.P.C. ordered 19 officials to sell some of their securities. In reply, the commission denied that it had acted improperly, and said most of the non-compliance with the conflict-of-interest regulations had resulted from inadequate record keeping procedures. It also said that all of these situations had been cleared up. [New York Times] The Northeast and some other regions of the country are moving toward a natural gas shortage this winter that will be the biggest yet, according to industry and government experts. These authorities believe that the shortage will be still greater in 1975-76 and even worse in 1976-77. [New York Times] The special Watergate prosecutor's office, although strongly opposed to the decision to return White House tape recordings and documents to former President Nixon, was given no direct role in the discussions that led to the decision according to several well-placed sources. [New York Times] The Ford administration has drafted the first national criteria for determining which cities will get federal aid to build rapid transit systems and which will have to settle for buses. The standards are expected to be sent to Secretary of Transportation Claude Brinegar on Tuesday for approval. They indicate that many cities that expected the government to pay most of the cost of transit lines will be disappointed. [New York Times] In the Detroit News column that he resumed when he resigned as President Ford's press secretary, Jerry terHorst said that Mr. Ford was "spending an inordinate amount of time soothing his own loyalists and placating the sensitive feelings" of Gen. Alexander Haig, President Nixon's former White House chief of staff. He said that this was time that Mr. Ford "might better devote to the task of devising a policy to bring inflation under control, shaping his administration's domestic and foreign policies and installing his own men in the key posts of government." [New York Times] The Senate will begin hearings Tuesday on the controversial presidential nomination of Gov. Thomas Meskill of Connecticut to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Governor's prospects of confirmation are believed to be not good. Among the opposition is the American Bar Association, which believes Mr. Meskill has had too little courtroom experience. His nomination was one of former President Richard Nixon's last official acts. The Second Circuit hears appeals from Federal District Courts in Vermont, Connecticut and New York. [New York Times] The proposed presidential appointment of Civil Court Judge Henry Bramwell, a Brooklyn Republican, to the federal bench in the Eastern District of New York has met some opposition among the district's federal judges. His appointment has been recommended by both New York Senators. The opposition believes that Judge Bramwell has not had adequate experience for the federal bench and that he has been selected, at least in part, because of his race. [New York Times] Negotiations for the release of the French Ambassador to the Netherlands and eight other hostages held by Japanese terrorists at the French Embassy in the Hague reached an impasse. The conditions of the captives was not known. The captors, who said they were members of the Japanese Red Army, a terrorist group, seized Ambassador Jacques Senard and the others in the embassy Friday, demanding the release from a French prison of a man named Yutaka Furuya. The prisoner was flown from France to the Hague but was said to have refused to leave the plane. [New York Times] Well-informed government sources said that Secretary of State Kissinger personally directed a far-reaching Nixon administration program intended to curtail all United States economic aid and credits to Chile after the election of the late President Allende in 1970. They said that Mr. Kissinger, who was then President Nixon's adviser on national security, took charge of a series of weekly interagency meetings at which administration officials worked out a policy of economic sanctions -- "retaliation," as one source put it -- against Chile. The Nixon administration repeatedly denied that there had been any deliberate economic sanctions against the Allende government. Mr. Kissinger had no comment. [New York Times] While the West struggles with inflation and recession, Saudi Arabia is enjoying an economic boom that benefits the rich and the poor. Because of the oil revenues pouring into its treasury, the government is able to spend several hundred million dollars a year for an import subsidy program that protects Saudi Arabians against inflated world prices. For example, the price of such food staples as rice and sugar are at the level of a year ago. The government has also subsidized public utility rates, reducing electricity and water charges by 50 percent. The price of gasoline is very low: an automobile owner may fill his tank for little more than $2 at the new, reduced, high-test gasoline price of 16 cents a gallon. [New York Times]