Cable Briefs

Press, 4 October 1977, Page 8

Cable Briefs

M.N.L.F. attack Six rebels of the Moro National Liberation Front and three soldiers were killed during an attack on a coast guard station on the far southern island of Balut, military reports reaching Manila have said. A military report described the surprise dawn attack by 500 men as the worst violation of a 10-month-old cease-fire by the M.N.L.F., which has been' blamed for the killing last month of 24 civilians on Basilan, another island 284 km north-west of Balut. — Manila. Prisoners escape Two of the most prominent political enemies of President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines have escaped martial law custody and fled to the United States, the Presidential Palace has said. Mr Eugenio Lopez, jun., former publisher of the defunct “Manila Chronicle,” and Mr Sergio Os- , mena 111, grandson of a President of the Philippine Commonwealth, apparently used travel documents supplied by the United States Embassy. The palace announcement said the two, who had been in custody for five years for plotting to kill Mr Marcos, apparently left by private plane for Hong Kong, and from there flew by Japan Air Lines to Los Angeles. — Manila. Passengers hurt At least 35 people were injured when an Americanowned DCB airliner bound for Baltimore caught fire as it was taking off from Shannon Airport in Ireland. An airport spokesman said: “If the plane had actually left the ground many people could have been killed.” About 10 of the injured were believed to have; broken ankles using the l emergency chutes. — Shannon. Lava flow cools A fiery lava flow that threatened the seaside village of Kalapana began to cool yesterday to. a harmless black rubble on the outskirts of the town, slowed by a sudden halt of eruptions at Kilauea volcano. But so much lava had already oozed down the slope that civil defence officials said 120 evacuated families could not return to their homes until it was certain that the flow's, own momentum would not| i carry it over the village. — i I Kalapana (Hawaii). S E.T.A. alters tactics The Basque separatist guerrilla organisation. E.T.A., has abandoned its tactic of drawing “revolu- ' tionary taxes” from industrialists, the Basque newspaper, “Egin,” has reported. , The practice of demanding [ “revolutionary taxes” to fund operations was being abanout of control, “Egin” said, , and criminal gangsters had ; cut themselves into it. E.T.A.’s most spectacular act was the assassination in December, 1973, of the Prime Min- ’ inister, Mr Luis Carrero Blanco, the man being groomed by General Franco as his successor. — Bilbao. Cholera toll More than 4000 persons have been stricken with cholera in nine Middle East countries since the outbreak , of the epidemic last June, ■ according to official counts. :Of the total, 126 persons ; were reported dead, about 2000 cured and discharged: ■ from hospitals, and some 2000 are still in hospitals. —. Beirut.