Cable Briefs

Press, 12 July 1979, Page 6

Cable Briefs

Separatist robbery? Basque guerrillas may have been responsible for the theft of S4M [in Spain’s biggest' bank’ robbery, police sources have! said in the town of Oviedo. I The sources quoted wit-! jnesses as saying the armed; I robbers who kidnapped a; ; cashier and forced him to : ' open the vault of the bank ; had spoken with Basque accents. The Basque separatist igroup. E.T.A., has often robbed banks to finance its ; guerrilla fight for an independent, Marxist Basque I State.—Oviedo. Mistake regretted The Canadian Prime Min-1 ister (Mr Joe Clark) said in! an interview published this "'week that he bad made a ’ mistake “by going in too 3 early” with his plan to shift the Canadian Embassy in ’ Israel from Tei Aviv to ' Jerusalem. “I had not had a chance to be briefed on ail J the nuances. It was a miss take of tone from which, I ■ am convinced, we can recover to the good of the 5 country,” he said in an ini terview with the “Toronto i Star," his first with a Canac dian newspaper since coming > to power a month ago. Arab 1 nations have said they will: . impose an economic boycott. i against Canada if the em-l 1 bassy move goes ahead. — Quebec. ' Talks ‘good’ 1 The Israeli Prime Minister i (Mr Menachem Begin) and 1 President Anwar Sadat of f Egypi, still greatly divided on the question of autonomy i to Palestinians of the Jordan t West Bank and Gaza Strip, ’ will end their summit talks I near Alexandria today in an ' atmosphere described by Is- ■ raeli officials as good. An Israeli spokesman declined / to say what they discussed, t but added: “The talks were f good and the atmosphere i was very good.” He said the 1 leaders made no specific I decision since they were 1 engaged in free discussion rather than negotiations.—Alexandria. Ex-union boss jailed A former senior official of the Teamsters’ Union has been sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges of exerting thousands of dollars jin exchange for labour peace J from an international shipI ping firm. Anthony (“Tony Pro”) Provenzano, once a vice-president of the Team- . sters, which represents truck drivers among many others, and head of its powerful New Jersey district, and three other men were convicted in May on charges of racketeering. There were reports that the Government urged harsh sentences in the ! hope that they might encourage at least one of ! the four to talk about the July, 1975, disappearance and presumed murder of the former Teamsters’ Union president, James Hoffa.—New York. ‘‘Son of San^ , slashed The convicted “Son of Sam” killer, David Berkowitz, who terrorised New York City in 1977 with a series of random murders, has been attacked in jail by a razor-wielding fellow inmate, Attica State Prison officials have said. A prison spokesman said that Berkowitz, who is 26, had received 50 to 60 stitches to close a gash from the left Side of his neck to the 1 middle of his back. Ber- ’ ko’witz was sentenced last : year to 25 years to life on r each count for six murders.—Attica (New York).