Cable Briefs

Press, 26 July 1979, Page 8

Cable Briefs

Highlands quiet Tribal fighting has ceased in the highlands of Papua New Guinea as the Govern--1 ment imposed state of emer- '■ gency entered its third day. ; Local reports suggest that ‘ news of tough police action, associated with the state of ■ emergency, spread quickly throughout the areas in 'which trouble has been oc1 curring. Police spokesmen said that road-blocks had ■ been set up at strategic spots throughout the highlands. Most of the police acI tion has been concentrated in Mount Hagen and in the . Enga province. — Port Moresby. Sentence cut _ The man convicted of kill- > ing Robert Kennedy, Sirhan : Bishara Sirhan, has been ■ granted a four-month reduc- ■ tion in his life prison sen- • tence after he told a parole i board he has been offered asylum in Libya. Sirhan, in ; a personal plea for freedom, also said he believed that he i was not responsible for more than one shot that was 1 fired at Senator Kennedy and that his hands were forced by those who grabbed and subdued him. With the four-month sentence reduction, he could be released in November. 1984. — Soledad (California). Skylab winner An Australian teenager, Stan Thornton, has given a burned chunk of Skylab to the Franklin Institute and museum officials gratefully handed him a plastic antiSkylab helmet in return. Thornton, a 17-year-old truck-drivers’ helper from the small town of Esperance in Western Australia, won SUSIO.OOO for being first to deliver his fragments of the downed satellite to the San Francisco "Examiner.” — Philadelphia.

Bid to stop fire Five firefighters have clambered aboard the blazing supertanker Atlantic Empress in a perilous effort to snuff out the fire that has been raging for five days from ruptured oil tanks. A fifth tank exploded yesterday increasing spillage from the hulk, which is being towed farther out to sea. The Empress collided with another supertanker, the Aegean Captain last Thursday night about 32kms off the coast of Tobago. Both ships caught fire and 27 crewmen are missing presumed dead. It had been feared the accident might lead to the worst oil spill ever involving ships, but only one of the Aegean Captain’s 20 tanks was damaged while four of the Empress’s 18 tanks were ruptured, — Port of Spain,