Cable Briefs

Press, 20 September 1978, Page 8

Cable Briefs

Big plane order The Independent British airline, Laker Airways, has announced that it will buy five McDonnell Douglas DClO’s from America and 10 wide-bodied versions of the European Airbus for $690 million in what it described as the biggest single order ever placed by a private airline, The airline’s chairman (Sir Freddie Laker), who revolutionised low fare travel by introducing his cheap, no-frills sky-train service between London and New York a year ago, told a press conference that the quieter and wide-bodied planes ordered would enable Laker Airways to offer even more competitive fares. — London.

Latvian defects The American State Department has allowed Imante Liehinekye, a Latvian-born Soviet translator at the United Nations and reported to be a Soviet secret police agent, to remain in the: United States with his family. A State Department 1 press officer declined to say whether Liehinekye had requested residence or political asylum in the United States. The State Department, as a matter of policy, does not ' comment on what it considers intelligence-related matters. — Washington. More jail James Watt, a self-con-fessed Protestant guerrilla already sentenced to eight life prison terms, has been given 13 more sentences of 20 years each. The new sentences, to run concurrently, stem from a series of terrorist crimes committed in 1975. Watt, aged 25, a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force, admitted responsibility for an explosion at a Belfast glassworks and another outside Belfast Prison. He also confessed to having made little parcel bombs in boxes made for shamrocks and sending them to Belfast Roman Catholics. — Belfast, Unpaid taxes The exiled Russian writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who owes nearly 146,500 Swiss francs ($NZ244,500) to the tax-man in Switzerland is not suspected of any fraud, the tax office has said. Solzhenitsyn failed to pay tax on some of his royalties banked in Switzerland when he lived there because they were turned over to various organisations helping Soviet exiles. However, Switzerland only allows a deduction of 20 per cent of total income for such donations. The remainder of a person’s revenue is liable for tax even if it is given away. — Zurich. Lonrho accused Tanzania has charged that the British-based trading group, Lonrho, whose Tanzanian assets were taken over by the Government on Saturday, had overestimated their value by SUSSO million. The Government-owned • “Sunday News” said that Lonrho was claiming “an astronomical figure of $54 million for assets worth only about S4M.” — Dar-es-Sa-laam,