Cable Briefs

Press, 5 December 1978, Page 8

Cable Briefs

Spanish alert Specially-mobilised troops are guarding communication’ centres and other strategic,, installations to prevent any! 1 acts of sabotage as Spain! prepares for a referendum tomorrow on a new democratic constitution. The only;' area where the Army was! I not called out was the vio-H lence-prone northern Basque!' I country. Instead of troops’* i the Government sent 2500!* police and Civil Guard rein-’J forcements to that region, “ — Madrid. c /Jig turn-out l A huge turn-out of voters; J in Venezuelan Presidential ■' elections delayed the close * lof polling for three hours on Sunday. No voting figures't have so far been announced,. I but early, unofficial returns]< ’ indicated a close race as ex-1 < peered between the top ! rivals, Luis Pinerua Ordaz of c the ruling Action Democratic’ Party and the Social Chris-]; ; tian, Luis Herrera Campins.: s (The winner will succeed I v President Carlos Andrezlp Perez next March for a fiveI year term. Voting was com-1, pulsory. — Caracas. Jonestown books Two books on the mass ’suicide of members of the’t People’s Temple religious]I sect in Guyana two weeks; iago went on sale in New! (York yesterday, heralding at j !least three more books and ' la spate of television docu-l mentaries on the deaths. The ■ two initial books are by journalists who witnessed ;the tragic events — Ron ! Javers of the San Francisco |**‘Chronicle,” whose 233-page (account is called “The Sui-i 1 jcide Cult,” and Charles; Krauze of the “Washington Post,” who called his 256- ( page book “Guyana Mass- * acre.” Ten survivors of the > Jonestown suicide-murders * flew to New York from Gu- , yana yesterday, but 18 men : were left behind because 1 three were carrying knives,] the plane’s pilot has said. 1 ' Pan American flight captain!' Albert Brockob said he re-j» fused to let the men board] J after a dispute with the Federal Bureau of Investigation;, over a lack of F. 8.1. escorts] ‘ for the group. — New York. ; I, Boat 101 l grows , s j The bodies, of 31 Vietnam-'! : ese refugees have been j 1 I found off the coast of south-!. I ern Thailand after their boat ; was hit by strong winds, thei f ’ Bangkok police have said.'' They said the victims were!, among 300 people fleeing]' from Vietnam aboard a boat], that arrived in the Takbail district of Narathiwat prov-l! ince, near Malaysia, on Sat-]' - urday. More than 380 refu-|' 'gees have died in incidents ! ’ i involving boats off the! i coasts of Thailand and Malaysia in the last two weeks. ] — Bangkok. ]• Computer attack > 1 Urban guerrillas have set 1 fire to the main computer in ; an Italian Transport Minist try office, causing millions ■ of dollars damage. Hundreds - of thousands of files and microfilms representing 1.1 more than 20 million trans- . Sport documents were des-' - [troyed in the attack on a ] Ministry registration centre Jin Rome, Ministry officials Isaid. The attack 'was later ’Claimed by a hitherto uniknown group the “Armed j Anti-Imperialist Movement” lin a telephone call to the 1 Communist daily newspaper, .]' ’Uita.” — Rome. Train pile-up ;! All eight passenger cars > and two of four engines of a ii Southern Railways train J piled up on a curve in -i mountainous south-central i] Virginia at the week-end, ■killing five people and in- .. juring at least 60. An ini'. jured cook was still entangled in the wreckage of :! the dining car more than, i eight hours after the accident. His legs were pinned! [ beneath a stove, and rescue' -’workers used bulldozers to; t'peel back the side of the car ? to get at him. — Washing-; ; ton.