UDK World News
By United Press International
--claim under Peruvian regulations.
Arabs hit Elat Peace plan nixed
WASHINGTON — The United States has put off indefinitely more than $70 million worth of sanctions scheduled to go into effect this week against Peru for its expropriation of an American oil company.
Secretary of State William P. Rogers announced the deferral at his first formal news conference and said the United States believed the way was open for a satisfactory settlement between Peru and the International Petroleum Co. (IPC).
Had the Nixon administration not acted, Peru would have lost $30 million in foreign aid and $44 million in sugar import quotas with the sanctions automatically taking effect tomorrow.
Property confiscated
The military government of Peruvian President Juan Velasco Alvarado confiscated the IPC properties in northern Peru shortly after it took power last October and turned IPC assets over to the state-owned oil company.
Expropriation followed claims by the Peruvian government that IPC had exploited the oil fields for 46 years without legal title to them and therefore owed $690.5 million in back taxes and other debts growing out of illegal operations.
When the United States protested the expropriation without compensation, Peru offered to pay $71 million to IPC, but only on condition that the oil company pay the government's $690.5 million claim.
Nixon's envoy
However, Rogers said President Nixon's personal envoy to Peru, John Irwin, had brought back word that IPC could contest the $690.5 million
Supersonic jetliner suffers tire blowout
BRISTOL, England — The Concorde, the supersonic jetliner built by Britain and France, blew out one of its tires practicing taxing yesterday but officials said they thought the plane could make its maiden flight today.
Flooding Tigris River leaves many stranded
CAIRO — Flooding along the Tigris River has stranded 8,000 persons near Samraa and Tekrit south of Baghdad, Al Ahram, the Cairo newspaper, reported yesterday.
Thousands of acres of farmland were under water but no casualties were reported.
"After discussions with attorneys for IPC, the company has informed us that it plans shortly to present a document to the minister of energy and mines within the framework of this Peruvian administrative process," Rogers said.
Under the Hickenlooper amendment to the foreign aid bill, and the amended sugar act, the United States must cut off all aid and impose sanctions against any nation which seizes American-owned property and refuses to pay for it within six months. The six months would have ended tomorrow.
Rogers said the United States viewed the procedure for contesting Peru's claims against IPC and "current negotiations" as constituting "appropriate steps within the meaning of the Hickenlooper amendment to the foreign assistance act and of the amended sugar act."
Judges request guns
JAKARTA (UPI) - Judges in North Sumatra have asked the Central Board of the Indonesian Judges' Association for permission to carry pistols while on duty. The request was made after a local judge was beaten by unidentified persons moments after he left his courtroom.
JERUSALEM — Arab gunners inside Jordan wounded at least 13 Israelis in Elat on the Red Sea with salvos of rockets early today. Israeli jets streaked into Jordan and reported silencing the batteries.
Israeli military spokesmen in Jerusalem reported the attack and counterattack, fourth reported by either Jordan or Israel in as many days. They said an undetermined number of 122mm rockets of the same type used by the Viet Cong smashed into buildings and vehicles in Elat.
They said the firing point was Aqaba, Jordan's Red Sea port only a few miles away. No details were released on the air raids except that they allegedly knocked out the batteries. Four of the Israeli wounded were reported in serious condition.
Egypt, meanwhile, clamped a curfew on a stretch of the Suez Canal where fighting has been heaviest.
PARIS — The Viet Cong rejected South Vietnam's proposal for "national reconciliation" yesterday as a pack of "well-known allegations." South Vietnamese Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky said "the enemy at the present time is not ready for serious talks."
Dismissing a plan that South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu said could bring peace, the Viet Cong responded it "contains nothing essentially different from that which the United States has said and repeated for a long time."
The Saigon government has "only obeyed the orders of the United States to repeat some well-known allegations," the Viet Cong delegation to the peace talks charged in a statement.
parties in South Vietnam. He said Saigon would agree to elections that would pit the Viet Cong against his regime, provided the Viet Cong became a legally constituted party and obeyed South Vietnam laws.
Thieu had called for an end to fighting and the prompt establishment of two political
Ky, arriving in Paris where he is chief coordinator of the Saigon delegation, said the Communists evidently are "counting on the impatience of the American public for an advantageous settlement."
"In my opinion, the enemy at the present time is not ready for serious talks." he said.
Ky said he thought the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese realize they will lose on the battlefield.
VICENZA, Italy (UPI) — A court ruled it was no accident when motorist Eugenio Dolo ran over a rabbit. The court fined Dolo $102 for killing the rabbit out of the hunting season.
14 KANSAN Apr.8 1969