Cable news in brief

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33985, 28 October 1975, Page 17

Cable news in brief

Hain charged

The British Liberal Party leader, Mr Jeremy Thorpe, has offered to give evidence, in any court case against the Young Liberals’ president, Peter Hain, aged 25, a research student and antiapartheid activist, of Putney,! who has been charged with stealing £490 from a bank near his home. He is due to appear in court tomorrow,! and said yesterday: “I am innocent.” A Liberal Party spokesman said: “Jeremy Thorpe and the Liberal Party Chief Whip (Mr Cyril Smith) discussed in general what to do about the situation, and Mr Thorpe offered, if it ever got to that stage, to appear as a personal witness for Hain, if he so wishes.” The spokesman, added that he thought the party would organise a defence fund, if necessary. — London. t Death dive A man kicked away a firemen’s ladder as they tried to rescue him from a blazing London hotel, and then dived to his death. Eyewitnesses say that the man, an Afghan aged about 35, dived head first from a second-floor window at the Kensington Towers Hotel, after shouting “They won’t get me.” — London. Scottish train crash A locomotive crashed into the rear of a stationary express train near Arbroath, Scotland, killing one person and seriously injuring 12. The 10.15 a.m. express from Aberdeen to London had experienced engine trouble and halted on the track above the picturesque Lunan Bay, four miles north of Arbroath, and it was struck by a locomotive which had been called to replace the original one. Ambulancemen, policemen, and railwaymen dug trapped passengers from the wreckage, and the casualties were rushed along the country roads to local hospitals. The police said that a total lof 33 people were injured. ,— Arbroath. Victim freed Mr Pasquale Leuzzi, the wealthy manufacturer of olive oil in Calabria, southern Italy, who was kidnapped more than a month and a half ago, has been released. The police report that 200 million lire ($250,000) was paid as ransom by Mr Leuzzi’s family. — Cosenza. Turkish census Ankara, the Turkish capi-! tai, was like a ghost city when a nation-wide dawn-to-dusk curfew went into effect lor the country's five-yearly census. The only people on the streets were a handful of policemen, census officials making door-to-door calls, and press photographers. In the last census. Turkey had a population of about 38 million. — Ankara.

Hurricane havoc

Hurricane Olivia has struck the Mexican Pacific coast city of Mazatlan, killing at least nine people, injuring 82, and leaving 50,000 (homeless. Winds gusting up [to 150 miels an hour blew (away about 5000 shanty houses on the city’s outskirts, wrecked small aircraft at the (airport, and sank eight I fishing-boats in the port and (on- nearby beaches. Seventeen convicts were injured when the roof of the local prison collapsed, and seven others profited from the confusion to escape.—Mazatlan. Arms ordered ... China is seeking to purchase Mirage fighters and other sophisticated weapons from France, according to diplomatic sources in Paris, who say that Peking wants at least 200 Mirage FI jets with the powerful new M 53 engine. China told the French Government 18 months ago that it was ready to convert its options on three British-French Concorde supersonic airliners into firm orders if France sold it Mirages. — Paris. . . . and sought Turkey has agreed to buy 60 helicopters from the Soviet Union, thus ending more than a quarter of a century of relying on the United States for its arms, the American magazine, “Newsweek,” reports. It says that the purchase was spurred by the arms embargo on Turkey imposed by the United States Congress after its invasion of Cyprus. The embargo was recently partly lifted.

Princess thrown

Princess Anne was thrown

from her horse in a cross-! country event at Long; Buck.by, Northamptonshire, i after colliding with ' a horse, ridden by her husband, Cap-j tain Mark Phillips. The Prin-| cess was not hurt in the l fall, which came while she and Captain Phillips were representing the Royal Academy, Sandhurst. Their team finished fifteenth in a field of 40 teams. — London.