Cable Briefs

Press, 1 May 1978, Page 8

Cable Briefs

Soldier’s plea

A Libyan-born Israeli sol - dier facing trial by Palestin j ian guerrillas has appealed ; to his Government to securt . his release in exchange foi J Arab prisoners in Israel. Pri rate Abraham Amram, age« • 32, who was captured bj 1 the guerrillas in south Lebat s non on April 4, made hit - plea after receiving a firs) , visit from International Red ■ Cross officials at a secret !o--l cation in Lebanon. Palestin. ■ ian officials said the ques- • tion of a prisoner exchange I would not be considered until Amram had been tried by his captors, the Popular : Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command. They said he would be charged with engaging in war against the Arabs and entering Lebanon to commit aggression against the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples. Anti-nuclear rallies About 10,000 people packed Trafalgar Square in London on Saturday demonstra* ting against a plan to extend a giant nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Windscaie in the English Lake District, to be debated in Parliament this week. Among speakers in the square was Dr Roelof Kruisinga, the former Dutch Defence Minister, who resigned last month over the neutron bomb issue. It was the biggest anti - nuclear power protest ever staged in Britain. In Golden, Colorado, hundreds of anti-nuclear demonstrators gathered at the Rocky Flats nuclearweapons plant, the United States’ only facility which produces plutonium components for nuclear weapons, and hundreds more gathered in Barnwell, South Carolina, for a three-day anti-nuclear rally.—London.

Sudan learning

. The Sudanese Army is i keeping a close watch on Ethiopian military concen- ! trations backed by Soviet ■ advisers and Cuban troops “which are moving these . days to try to liquidate the ! Eritrean revolution,” the ' Sudan News Agency has reported, according to Agence France-Presse. Sudanese military sources told the agency that tlie Sudanese armed forces would' not intervene militarily outside Sudan's borders unless in Organisation of African Unity -sponsored actions. But military sources warned that the Sudanese armed forces “stand ready to protect our border and will not be silent over any danger threatening Sudan’s sovereignty and integrity.”—Khartoum. Moro letter .An emotional letter, the sixth, from the kidnapped former Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, has alleged that his fellow Christian Democrats had abandoned him and it reiterated calls for an exchange of prisoners between the Government and his Left-wing guerrilla captors. The exchange of 13 prisoners was the price the Red Brigades had set for the release of their hostage, abducted in Rome on March 16. In an alleged interview with an injured Red Brigades gunman in a Turin hospital “Il Tempo” in Rome and “Il Giomale” in Milan Have quoted Cristofero Piancone as saying that there are 1500 in the Brigades who receive a year’s training, almost always aboard. He is quoted as saying that there should have been a campaign of subversion after the Moro snatch but it was cancelled by a high-level decision. — Rome. Millers rescued Work crews have clawed through debris clogging a narrow gold mine shaft in Buffelsfontein, South Africa to rescue twelve men who had been trapped for three days more than I.6km inside the pit by rock falls set off by an earthquake. A thirteenth man in the group was found dead, bringing the known death toll in the accident to 15. The other 14 victims died in another section lof the shaft. — Johannesburg.