Cable Briefs

Press, 27 December 1979, Page 6

Cable Briefs

Fiji jail riot Rioting prisoners at a Fiji jail celebrated Christmas with an orgy of drinking and destruction which left two firemen and three prisoners injured. Fifty-six riot police were called to Natabua Prison at Lautoka City when the riot broke out at about 11.30 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Nineteen prisoners in the upstairs section of the jail’s block six had run wild, burning bedding, mattresses and furniture and smashing everything they could. Firemen called in to put out the burning materials were assaulted as they flooded the section with water. — Suva. Sentences confirmed South Korea’s martial-law 'commander (General Lee Hi Song) has confirmed death sentences on former intelligence chief. Kim Jae Kyu, and six other men for their involvement in the assassination of President Park Chung Hee two months ago. The general also confirmed a three-year jail sentence on the eighth man convicted by a martial-law court last week, the martiallaw command said. All the men except a serving army colonel, have automatic appeals within a week against General Lee’s confirmation of the military-court verdict. — Seoul.

Saudi denial The Saudi Embassy in Beirut has denied that Saudi authorities were involved in the disappearance of the head of a clandestine Saudi Arabian opposition group. An embassy source said neither the embassy nor any other Saudi quarter had any information on the disappearance of Nasser Said last week. Mr Said is the head of a group known as the Union of the Peoples of the Arab Peninsula, which wants to overthrow the Saudi royal family and establish a republic. Last month he claimed his organisation was linked to the gunmen who seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. — Beirut. Gott survives

The Government led by the Israeli Prime Minister (Mr Menachem Begin) easily survived a parliamentary' confidence vote over the serious plight of the nation’s farmers. By a vote of 60 to 44. the Knesset (Parliament) rejected a Labour Party motion condemning the Government for tlte problems of agriculture. Opposition speakers charged that thousands of farmers were on the verge of bankruptcy, resulting in large part, they said, from incompetence on the part of the Agriculture Minister (Mr Ariel Sharon). — Jerusalem. Gunman subdued One man was killed and another wounded yesterday when a lone gunman held off police in downtown Salisbury with bursts of automatic rifle fire from a restaurant. The siege lasted about two hours until the police rushed the building housing the Carvery restaurant in a block of apartment buildings, the police said. There was no immediate indication as to why the gunman took over the restaurant and began firing his automatic rifle, but one police source said the man had gone “penga,” local slang for beserk. — Salisbury.

Budget rejected The French Constitutional Council has declared the Government’s finance law for 1980 to be unconstitutional. On learning of the council’s decision, th# Prime Minister (Mr Raymond Barre) announced through his office that he would confer with President Valery Giscard d’Estaing about the issue. Mr Barre forced the Budget into law on December 17 without a National Assembly vote by making it a confidence issue after the Gaullist partners within his Centre-Right coalition Government said they w’ould not support the bill in normal voting. — Paris.