News stories from Monday May 31, 1982

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

The diversion of reservoir water from a South Dakota reservoir along the Missouri River to make slurry to transport coal to the South is being opposed by other Missouri River Basin states, conservationists and Sioux Indians whose territory is in the diversion area. Energy Transport Systems Inc. has a contract with South Dakota to divert up to 50,000 acre-feet of water annually. The hundreds of millions of dollars that will be paid to South Dakota over the 50-year life of the agreement will be used to pay for badly needed water projects for the state's arid western area, officials say. [New York Times] Many more blacks became residents of the Washington metropolian area in the last decade, with the greatest concentration in the Maryland and Virginia surburbs, where the black population more than doubled, according to 1980 Census figures. The figures indicate that nearly 90 percent of the Washington metropolitan area's population growth in the 1970's was composed of blacks. An independent urban study found that Prince Georges County in Maryland now has the largest percentage of blacks of any large suburb in the nation. [New York Times] 300 Japanese were denied visas by the State Department. They were planning to attend the United Nations Special Session on Disarmament June 7, and a disarmament rally June 12. The State Department was reported to have acted under the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, which allows the government to exclude foreign members of proscribed organizations. Most of the prospective Japanese visitors were members of two of Japan's largest anti-nuclear organizations. The visa applications are being considered for a waiver of the exclusion, but that may not be completed in time for United Nations meeting. [New York Times] U.S.-Soviet arms limitation talks will start June 29 in Geneva, President Reagan announced. He also said the United States would not undercut previous arms limitation agreements with Moscow, "so long as the Soviet Union shows equal restraint." Washington and Moscow announced the starting date for the talks simultaneously. The statement said that "both sides attach great importance to these negotiations." [New York Times] President Reagan will attempt to formally end the huge expansion of East-West trade that took place in the 1970's in a bid to make the West more cautious about trading with the Soviet Union and its satellites. At this weekend's Western economic summit in Versailles, he will press the six other industrial democracies at the meeting to support new curbs on trade with the Eastern Bloc; to withhold cheap export credits; to place a ceiling on future lending to the Soviet Union and its satellites, and to tighten existing NATO restrictions on the sale of strategic goods. Meanwhile, trade with the Soviet bloc is being stifled by the bloc's huge debts, a stagnant world economy and worsening political relations. [New York Times] The British were within 15 miles of Stanley, the main Argentine stronghold in the Falklands, the Defense Ministry in London indicated. The ministry said that British troops were fighting Argentine forces in the hills west of Stanley. A BBC correspondent reported fighting in the area of Mount Kent, a steep 1,535-foot hill dominating both of the rough tracks leading to the capital. [New York Times] Argentine forces fought to push back the British advance on Stanley, senior military officers in Buenos Aires said. They reported that both sides were fighting over a strategic pass through the hills west of the capital, where Argentina has decided to make its final stand. They said the pass was just north of Mount Kent. [New York Times] The Pope condemned contraception and abortion in an address to 200,000 people crowded into the Knavesmire Racecourse in Manchester, England. He said marriage was an unbreakable alliance and society's future rested in family bonds. [New York Times] Iran will cross the Iraqi border if necessary to punish its enemy and protect Iranian territory, Iranians are being told in public pronouncements and in sermons in mosques. The threat is taken seriously by foreign observers in Teheran, most of whom have been convinced by the recent Iranian victories, particularly by the swift recap-ture of Khurramshahr, that Iranian forces have the capacity to cross the border almost at will. [New York Times]