November 10, 1990 – CBS World News Roundup – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
November 10, 1990 – busy news day, no shortage of cliff-hangers.
Secretary of State James Baker met with French officials in an attempt to drum-up support for the pending invasion of Kuwait on this day. Reports from Baker termed the meetings “positive” and “productive”, but there was no clear statement that French troops would join in a possible military action against Iraq, or that France would accept a UN resolution authorizing the use of force in the Gulf. Baker maintained however, that the coalition remained solidly united but that it was clear that more negotiations were needed before a consensus could be reached on a Military operation in the Gulf. The fishing expedition continued.
An Air Force spokesman in Frankfurt Germany said three American hostages were released by Iraq earlier this week and that they were in good physical shape – one of three, Miles Hoffman, was shot in the arm by Iraqi troops in Kuwait.
Citing the UN embargo, Britain rejected an Iraqi offer to swap an impounded British Airways jet for engines and spare parts.
After an election campaign riddled with bullets, Guatemala finally lined up at the polls to vote. There were 12 candidates for President, but only three were given any chance of winning. The candidates all said they wanted to improve the economy of Guatemala, and a decades-old guerrilla insurgency that stopped human rights abuses. But dozens had been killed during the election campaign. Many of the killings were attributed to paramilitary death squads in ongoing political violence which has long plagued Guatemala. Adding to all this, were threats from a former Military dictator who was prohibited from running for President by Guatemala’s Supreme Court. But despite all this, there were glimmers of hope – and Guatemalans were heading to the ballot box.
Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev was pressing the flesh in Germany, but apparently that was all he got. Gorbachev was in Germany hoping to drum up promises of Food shipments to Russia which were anticipated to be needed the coming Winter. But many German officials felt that Russia’s needs were secondary; Germany’s pressing need was to rebuild the former East Germany and then help in Eastern Europe – Gorbachev was in line behind that.
Muslim militias were pulling out of Beirut as part of a government plan to take control of the city and put an end to Lebanon’s fifteen years of civil war. The plan was supported by Syria, which had 40,000 troops in Lebanon.
A dozen countries were represented at Cambodian peace talks taking place in Djakarta, Indonesia – but Cambodia wasn’t one of them. Fighting between rebels and government troops was temporarily at a halt, but was set to resume once the Monsoon season was over in a few weeks.
And Charles Keating was slated to return to court, pending the prosecutions re-writing of the government’s case against the Savings and Loan Tycoon and his co-defendants. Prosecutors in the case had been given until November 19 to file adequate charges against Keating and four defendants. The judge had ruled that 22 of the 42 counts were not specific, that they didn’t state a public offense that they violated the defendants due process rights. Attorneys were scheduled to return to court on December 3rd to see if the amended charges against Keating and three co-defendants passed constitutional muster.
And that’s a small slice of what happened on this November 10, 1990 as reported by The CBS World News Roundup.
