Cable Briefs

Press, 13 April 1978, Page 8

Cable Briefs

‘l'riaZ for plotters*

Somali Government officials have announced that leaders of a brief and abortive coup d’etat attempt launched by “young officers and troops of the Army” are all under arrest and will be put on trial. Mogadishu Radio had reported that some of the plotters were killed, some were arrested, and others were on the run. Diplomats believed the uprising against the Socialist military Government started when a small group of soldiers tried to occupy a barracks near the university campus on the road to the village of Afgoi on the Shabele River. — Mogadishu. Cypriot crisis The Turkish community on the divided island of Cyprus has been plunged into a fresh political crisis because the outgoing Prime Minister, Mr Necat Konuk, has announced that he has abandoned attempts to form a new government. A statement issued by the government of the self-pro-claimed Turkish Federated State of Cyprus said Mr Konuk had done so for health reasons. He has suffered two mild heart attacks in the last week. — Nicosia.

Gypsy crusade Yul Brynner, the film actor, has called for an end to discrimination against gypsies and has said he will seek a meeting with the United Nations SecretaryGeneral (Dr Kurt Waldheim) to urge backing for the Romanies as a nation. The actor, honorary president of the Romany Congress, told a press conference that support for gypsies “simply on the human level is of greatest importance.” He read a seven-point declaration calling for the Romany people to be given United Nations status and for governments to recognise the Romanies as a separate national group. The declaration also called for reparations from West Germany for some half a million gypsies killed by the Nazis, and an end to discrimination against nomads in Western Europe. — Geneva. Cease-fire failure the Philippine Defence Department has said 2806 people have been killed, injured or reported missing in 1539 violations of the 16-month-old cease-fire between i Muslim rebels and Govern-: ment forces in the southern Philippines in the last 14; months. — Manila.

Speech disappoints The United States dollar yesterday fell ter 218.50 yen bn the Tokyo foreignexchange market, reflecting market disappointment at the speech on inflation and energy by President Carter of the United States. The speech did not offer any significant measures to defend the dollar, according to dealers. However, Mr Takeo Fukuda, the Japanese Prime Minister, has welcomed the speech. — Tokyo. Smear campaign Two centuries-old paintings of the Dutch and Spanish schools have been badly damaged at Frankfurt’s Staedel Museum in Europe’s latest case of art vandalism. A colourless paste, causing the oil colours to run, was smeared on a 17th-century work by the Dutch master, Dirckhais, entitled “Joyful Company,” and a fifteenthcentury trypticon painted by an unknown Spanish artist. — Frankfurt.