Much going on, this January 9th in 1978 – starting with the Middle-East and the issue of Settlements on the West Bank:
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin said in Tel Aviv Sunday that his nation may withdraw its offer to return all of the occupied Sinai Peninsula to Egypt if Egyptian President Anwar Sadat refuses to allow existing Jewish settlements to remain there. Sadat did just that during a visit to Khartoum, Sudan, Sunday. Addressing a joint press conference with Sudanese President Jaafar Numiery, Sadat said he would reject the presence of a single Israeli soldier or civilian on Sinai soil once a peace settlement Is reached. The Egyptian leader said the Israelis must alter their “old conception” or there would be a “counter reply from our side.”
Meanwhile, in a stormy five-hour session of the Israeli cabinet in Jerusalem, the ministers rejected a controversial plan to establish new Jewishettle-ments in the Sinai, but agreed to bolster the settlements already there. . Begin spoke to a gathering of right-wing supporters in Tel Aviv two hours after the Israeli cabinet decision.
In other news: Bill Barlow, an Idaho businessman who is becoming a hero among his peers because of his challenge to a government agencys right to inspect his business premises without i cause or warrant. His suit against the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was scheduled for arguments in the Supreme Court today. Both sides acknowledge it to be a test of the entire federal regulatory system. It could also kill an administration effort to revitalize OSHA, one of the government’s most unpopular agencies after years of adverse publicity.
And Vietnam’s border conflict with Cambodia had set back, if not shattered, the idea of an Indochina united under communism and probably will sharpen Soviet-Chinese rivalry in an area torn by hostility since the Second World War. Diplomats viewed the latest development as a two-tiered conflict: a regional clash between two countries with a disputed border and a history of hatred, and a still-fluid jockeying for power between Moscow and Peking. Communist ideology had taken second place to national interests. Cambodia and Vietnam have broken diplomatic relations. With a force of fewer than 100,000 soldiers and a primitive economy, Cambodia has taken on not only Vietnam, which has 600,000 men under arms, but also neighboring Thailand in a series of smaller border clashes that began the year before.
And along with the continuing story of West Bank Settlements, that’s just a little of what happened, this January 9th in 1978 as reported by The CBS World News Roundup.
