Cable Briefs

Press, 9 May 1980, Page 6

Cable Briefs

Meeting with Gromyko

Mr Edmund Muskie has taken over as United States Secretary of State and is expected to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister (Mr Andrei Gromyko) next week fo; the first "high-level U.S.-Soviet talks since Moscow’s intervention in Afghanistan. Mr Muskie will be sworn in today, after the Senate overwhelmingly approved his nomination. He had earlier told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he believed an introductory me eting with Mr Gromyko would be useful as a way of identifying differences and common ground.—Washington.

Killanin in Moscow Lord Killanin, president of the International Olympic Committee, has met Soviet President (Leonid Brezhnev) in a bid to save the Moscow Games from a large-scale Western boycott. An 1.0. C. statement said the two had had a “frank discussion in the critical situation that; has arisen” over the Olympics. 1.0. C. sources in Moscow said Lord Killanin] would visit Washington later] this month in the hope of holding similar talks with; President Carter, who; launched the boycott campaign in retaliation for last December’s Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. —Moscow.

Oil output down The Iranian Oil Minister (Dr Ali Akbar Moinfar) has said that Iranian oil exports have now fallen below one million barrels a day. Before the fall. of the Shah, Iran; exported more than 5 mil-' lion barrels a day. Internal: unrest and the loss of| buyers unwilling to pay! higher prices are blamed for the fall.—Taif, Saudi Arabia.

Students protest

Thousands of steel-hel-meted riot police guarded entrances to universities in South Korea yesterday after student-police clashes on Wednesday left more than a dozen seriously injured. Armed with wooden staves! and tear-gas grenades, the' police sat in rows in an allnight vigil backed by armoured vehicles mounted with water cannon for crowd dispersal. At four universities in Seoul, thousands of students tried to break through the police cordon to take their' protest for an end to martial law and greater campus freedom on to the streets. They were driven back into the university grounds and dispersed with tear-gas.—Seoul. Case withdrawn

The Indian Government has withdrawn a suit filed against the Prime Minister (Mrs Indira Gandhi) to recover 5182,000 expenses on Indian Air Force planes for ■electioneering three years ago. Government counsel [said the bills had been paid. Meanwhile a Delhi magistrate has allowed prosecutors 'to withdraw a criminal case against Sanjay Gandhi, the Prime Minister’s son, for an alleged murder ■ attempt during a demonstra- ' tion. Almost all the charges brought against Mrs Gandhi and her son have now been dismissed after Mrs Gandhi’s re-election.—New Delhi.,

Mgent defects* >

The British Foreign Office has declined to either confirm or deny a report that a senior Soviet intelligence officer had defected and was now living at a secret hide-: •out in England. A front-page ireport in yesterday’s “Daily! iMail” said Ilya Dzhirkvelov, [aged j 3. had fied from the Soviet Union a month ago .with his wife and young [daughter. The report said [Dzhirkvelov. a former Tass .news agency correspondent, [had been working as press [officer for the World Health Organisation in Geneva. — [London.