Cable Briefs

Press, 2 December 1978, Page 6

Cable Briefs

University charge Birmingham University, I England, where a woman ( died after contracting smallpox from a medical research' ; laboratory, is to be prosecuted for failing to take adequate safety precautions. A (Government-funded body, the Health and Safety Executive, said the charge agianst the university would be: “Failing to ensure, so far as was reasonably practicable, the health of their employees in the east wing of the medical school.” Mrs Janet Parker, aged 40, died last September, 15 days after she contracted a particularly virulent form of the virus from the university research laboratory where she worked as a photographer. — Birmingham. ’Quake toll doubt As municipal officials assessed the damage done by a series of earthquakes on Thursday that stunned central and southern Mexico, there were no confirmed reports of deaths caused by the shocks. The Police Public Relations Office in Mexico City said it was believed there were probably six dead, but emphasised this was not a confirmed report. Newspapers reported between four and nine dead. About 100 people were injured, and 500 treated for shock.—Mexico City. Plea for missing Relatives of 1542 people missing after being abducted by armed groups have called on the Argentine Supreme Court to help find out what happened to them, a humanrights body has said. The Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, an independent organisation whose members include lawyers and priests) said writs of habeas corpus failed to pro-| duce results because the authorities said there were no records that the people had been detained. — Buenos Aires.

Refugee profiteers’ Profiteers suspected of helping organise the mass exodus of Vietnamese “boat people” are probably among the thousands now flocking into refugee camps along the Malaysian east coast, diplomatic sources have said in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital. They said many of the boats often dropped their refugees at the offshore settlements and then returned to Vietnam to pick up more. They said there was evidence suggesting that people involved in organising the refugee fleet waited until four or five trips had been completed before themselves leaving Vietnam. —Kuala Lumpur.