CABLED BRIEFS

Press, 26 February 1977, Page 6

CABLED BRIEFS

Hostage freed A Government employee Eh William.-, aged 33. who held his estranged wife hostage in the Agriculture Department with a razor blade at her throat for three hours, has released her unharmed after police flew the couple s young children by helicopter io Washington. No-one was hurt in the tense confrontation but the woman. Annette Williams, aged 36. was shaken Williams released his wife when he saw the Icl.ildren outside the building He was arrested— Washington Students riot Students have smashed the ; windows of the American .cultural centre in Tunis and [stoned police vehicles as violence continued in Tunisian universities. Or. Monday, they claimed, clashes in the Bardo University city in Tunis cost the lives of six of their colleagues.—Tunis. Death sentences A special court in Iraq has sentenced eight people to death and 15 to life imprison ment for their part in disturbances in the pilgrimage cities of Najaf and Karbala in which one person died on February 5 and 6. Bagdad Radio has announced. The radio said 87 other people had been acquitted. The disturbances were blamed at the time on a "clique of traitors." —Amman. Bandits free friends Four armed men have killed an accused criminal and two police guards before freeing nine friends who were facing life sentences, the police have said. They said that the incident occurred while police were transporting 32 accused men from a provincial jail in eastcentral Thailand to a nearby courthouse.—Bangkok. Minister quits The Rev. Louis Hillendahi. criticised for holding nude therapy sessions while pastor at the suburban Ingleside United Methodist Church in Chicago, has agreed to leave his ministry, church officials have said. A church spokesman said Mr Hillendahi agreed to take a leave of absence ending his ministry and the church’s investigations into his unorthodox group sessions.—Chicago. Jail disturbance About 200 inmates at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield threw trays and food and battled guards during a disturbance in the institutions dining room, injuring at least 12 guards and 17 inmates. A spokesman for the Ohio Department of Corrections in Columbus said that between 50 and 60 officers from other sections of the prison were called in to quell the outbreak.—Columbus. Plane hits house A twin-engine plane has exploded in flight and crashed into a house, killing eight persons, including the Pennsylvania Transportation Secretary (Mr William Sherlock) —Pittsburgh. Extortion charges Four black youths, bused to high school in a white suburb in a voluntary programme in Los Angeles, have been found guilty of extorting more than SUSISOO from a 14-year-old white boy. The youths were arrested on February 2, after the 14-year-old told an assistant principal hat they threatened to kill iis parents unless he gave hem another SUSIOOO. He said he took the earlier payments from his Bar-Mitzvah recount without his parents’ snowledge after the four threatened him with a knife. ■—Los Angeles, Caught again A Taiwanese fishing boat, tabbed by the Royal Ausralian Navy for illegal fishng. has been confiscated by t Darwin court for the second time in six months. A Jarwin magistrate fined the naster of the vessel isAust4oo or fishing inside the Ausralian 12-mile limit and coniscated the boat. The Crov.n “rosecutor (Mr John Peluso, said that the same boat with i different captain was taught and forfeited to the Lourt on a similar charge ast August but redeemed by ts owners for sAusl7oUo — Darwin. Talks on again After an interval of neatly 12 months, China is reads to ■esume preliminary contacts .vith the Common Market rimed at negotiating a fullscale trade agreement, the E.E.C. Commission spokesman has said. Apart from fugoslavia. China is the rnly Communist country to ■ecognise the community’ formally and to maintain iccredited diplomats at E E C teadquarters.—Brussels. 'Negotiations fail’ The latest round of Chinesesoviet negotiations on border problems appear to be anrroaching an end v. ithout ■esult, the Yugoslav official lews agency, Tan.tug. has rejorted from Peking Tamug said it had learned in the Chinese capital that the chief Soviet negotiator (Mr Boris lichov). Deputy Foreign Minster. was about to leave ’eking and return to Moscow. —Belgrade.