Walk-out in Peking

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33065, 4 November 1972, Page 15

Walk-out in Peking

Ot.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) PEKING, Nov. 3. The Soviet Union Ambassador (Mr Vasseli Tolstikov) and other East European diplomats, who had walked out of a Peking reception last night, declined today to join a four-day outing organised by the Foreign Ministry for ambassadors accredited to China. Other senior diplomats left for a visit to the province of Szechwan, which is said to be one of the most beautiful areas in China. Informed sources say that the joumev has been avoided by the East Europeans betause they feared they might not be back in Peking in time to mark the fifty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Soviet Republic. Despite assurances from the Chinese that they would be back in time, the Soviet bloc diplomats expressed doubts, and suggested privately that the trip was "a manoeuvre to prevent us from attending the reception in the Russian Embassy.” Last night’s walk-out, from • reception marking Algeria’s Rational Day, came when the Chinese Foreign Minister (Chi Peng-fei) made a passtog reference to “superpowers” in the Meditertanean.

Multiple explosions Hundreds of families were taken to safety from an area ••rounding a propane-gas •torage field after more than *OO explosions in 251 b to 1001 b domestic tanks had rocked two Detroit suburbs) ™t night. It was two hours •fore firemen could bring a •ties of fires in the field under control, but only one ®>n was injured. A 15,000pllon storage tank a few hundred feet from where m *ny of the explosions Spurred did not explode.— **troi > t, November 3.