News In Brief

It was Mrs. Johnson's complaint to police that began the investigation leading to charges against seven workers at the McMartin Pre-School in Manhattan Beach. The school closed amid the allegations that hundreds of children had been molested. Charges against all but two defendants were later dropped. The trial of Raymond Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, is tentatively scheduled to begin Jan. 12.

Nicaraguans to receive $300 million in Soviet aid

The Soviet Union has signed a $300 million economic aid package for Nicaragua for next year, the official Sandinista newspaper Barricada reported Saturday. Most of the aid will be in the form of gasoline, raw materials, and machinery, it said. The agreement was signed in Moscow Saturday by Henry Ruiz, minister for foreign cooperation, and Alexander Kachanov, Soviet vice-president for external collaboration. It was not clear if this represented the total economic aid for 1987.

Labor dispute brings French trains to a halt

The entire French train network came to a virtual standstill yesterday as Prime Minister Jacques Chirac met senior ministers to assess a four-day-old strike, as well as disruption in ports and in the Paris M'etro system. Unions and management at the state-owned railway were due to open negotiations yesterday. A spokesman for the rail agency said talks on 1987 wages, which had been scheduled for January, had been advanced by Transport Minister Jacques Douffiagues. Rail workers, unhappy with management wage offers and working conditions, began strikes on Thursday in Paris.

Iran-contra update. No Reagan lure for NSC aides

President Reagan has no plan to use his power of granting pardons to lure former aides John Poindexter and Oliver North to the congressional witness table, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said yesterday. ``The President is not planning a pardon for them, but of course as chief executive always retains the right to executive clemency,'' he said.

Earlier on ABC's ``This Week With David Brinkley,'' Sen. Daniel Inouye (D) of Hawaii, chairman of the special Senate panel investigating the US arms sales to Iran, said the panel might consider limited immunity for White House officials and seek help from Iran to learn about the transactions.

Rep. Lee Hamilton (D) of Indiana, head of the House Intelligence Committee, said on CBS's ``Face the Nation'' that independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh should get a chance at determining whether criminal acts have been committed before any decision on immunity is made.

In other recent developments:

The Observer, a London newspaper, reported that the eldest son of the speaker of Iran's parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani, is believed to have fled to Canada with at least $6 million in commissions from the secret US-Iran arms deals. The Observer, quoting unidentified Iranian sources in London, said Mehdi Bahremani left his home in Brussels on Nov. 15 after being tipped off that Iranian President Ali Khamenei was sending an investigator to question him about his alleged involvement in the sales. The paper said Mr. Bahremani is a close associate of Manoucher Ghorbanifar, identified as the head of Iran's intelligence network in Europe, who allegedly played a key role in buying US arms.

Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite said fighting around the Lebanese capital would likely prevent him from returning to Beirut at Christmas to resume negotiations for the release of American hostages.

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