News In Brief

Conservative Prime Minister Kaare Willoch held a slight edge over Labor challenger Gro Harlem Brundtland in opinion polls yesterday as Norwegians voted in a general election. Norway's 3.1 million voters were voting to determine who would represent the country's 19 counties in the 157-seat national parliament, the Storting. Mr. Willoch's Conservatives, backed by Christian Democrats and the Center Party, have controlled 79 seats and Mrs. Brundtland's Labor Party and the Socialist Left commanded 70.

Iraq claims Gulf war inroads on land and at Kharg Island

Iraq said its forces killed thousands of Iranian soldiers in a daylong battle yesterday and that its jet-fighters bombed Kharg Island again, dropping eight tons of explosives on Iran's main oil terminal. Earlier yesterday, Iraq said its air force attacked Kharg Island, in the northern gulf, for the eighth time since Aug. 15.

China completes wide sweep in regional leadership posts

China's Communist Party said Sunday it has completed a sweeping rejuvenation of the regional leadership with the appointment of 26 new governors and party secretaries in the country's 29 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities. About one-third of senior party and provincial government officials have been replaced. Top leader Deng Xiaoping ordered the regional shake-up to ensure continuation of his open-door, market-force economic reforms, opposed by some fellow veteran revolutionaries.

A ban on meetings with PLO backed in Israeli parliament

Israel's parliament gave preliminary approval yesterday to a bill calling for a ban on meetings with members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), under penalty of up to three years in prison. The bill must pass two more readings in parliament for it to become law and could be amended in committee. It passed the initial reading by a show of hands.

The measure, an amendment to a 1948 antiterror law, came amid a crackdown on anti-Israel attacks, for which the government blames the PLO.

Western Europe weighs shift to a political union for EC

West European foreign ministers opened a series of meetings yesterday to consider broadening the Common Market from a predominantly economic entity to a political union with a joint foreign policy. The ministers attending are under orders to propose a set of amendments to the Common Market heads of government at their December summit conference in Luxembourg.

Basque group says it set off bomb that hurt 18 in Madrid

A car bomb exploded yesterday in downtown Madrid near a van carrying members of the civil guard and injured 18 people, including an American businessman, police said. The Basque separatist organization ETA claimed responsibility for the bomb, which police say was was detonated by remote control.

Reagan, Gorbachev will give positive blueprint, Bush says

Vice-President George Bush said yesterday that an ``agenda for the future'' of US-Soviet relations can realistically be expected from the November summit meeting between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. ``We want this meeting to reflect as much substantive agreement as possible, but more importantly to produce an agenda and work program that should reduce tensions between our countries,'' Mr. Bush said in remarks prepared for delivery at a Landon Lecture at Kansas State University in Manhattan.

11 white-supremacy suspects in a rackets trial in Seattle

A racketeering trial opened yesterdaymon for 11 alleged members of The Order, a white supremacist group accused of waging war on the government with a campaign of murder, armored-car robberies, and terrorism. The trial follows a federal grand jury indictment returned in April that accused 23 people of running a criminal enterprise as defined by the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

In the past 41/2 months, 10 of those indicted have pleaded guilty, and at least some of them are expected to testify for the prosecution. The defendants were arrested late last year and early this year in states from Washington to Arkansas.

Meese lists White House aims for new laws on immigration

The Reagan administration favors an immigration bill that would generously admit foreign agricultural workers, limit reimbursements to state and local governments, and retain prohibitions against job bias, Attorney General Edwin Meese III told Congress Monday. Mr. Meese said President Reagan also insists on sanctions for employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens and favors an amnesty program that would apply to those in the United States by Jan. 1, 1980.

The attorney general testified before the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee, which held its first hearing this session on legislation to control illegal immigration. (Related story, Page 7)

Teachers back in one system, but strikes go on elsewhere

Teachers in Pontiac, Mich., went back to work yesterday without a contract settlement, but Seattle teachers said they were prepared for a long strike as no new talks were scheduled in a walkout that has affected 43,500 students. Elsewhere, a threatened teacher strike in Euclid, Ohio, that would have affected 5,000 students was averted early yesterday when negotiators reached tentative agreement on a new two year-year contract. Strikes continued in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.

In New York, about 375 teachers at C. W. Post, the Greenvale branch of Long Island University, went on strike yesterday, the first scheduled day of classes for about 6,200 undergraduate students.

US may seek subsidy funds to spur manufacturer exports

The Reagan administration, searching for ways to maintain the initiative on trade, is considering asking Congress for $300 million to help subsidize exports by US manufacturers, officials said yesterday. The proposed request for additional funds for the Export-Import Bank, a program President Reagan earlier this year sought to scuttle, is part of a package of additional trade measures to be sent to the President in the next few days.

Seoul says N. Korean recruits sent to stir unrest are arrested

The government said yesterday it had rounded up 22 people recruited by North Korean agents to infiltrate South Korean universities and stir up unrest. The Agency for National Security Planning and the Defense Security Command, which are responsible for quarding South Korea against subversion by the North, said one group of agents was led by two South Korean students recruited by the North while studying in the US.

Sixth `killer bee' colony destroyed in California

State officials say they have found and destroyed the sixth colony of ``killer bees'' in a commercial apiary in Kern County. The first colony of ``killer bees'' discovered in this country was found in June at Lost Hills and was believed to have been brought in on oil drilling equipment.

Summer ease-up in gas prices may be in for seasonal rise

Gasoline prices that dropped this summer will probably rise as cold weather looms and refiners heed a federal order to get the lead out, an industry expert said. Overall gasoline prices dropped two-thirds of a cent during the past two-week period, according to the Lundberg Survey of 17,000 service stations nationwide.

The overall retail price of gasoline is now $1.219 a gallon, down from $1.240 over the period since July 4.