Cable Briefs

Press, 11 July 1980, Page 6

Cable Briefs

Industrialist freed The French industrialist. Michel Maury-Laribiere, has been freed 11 days after being kidnapped. Mr MauryLaribiere, aged 59, a vicepresident of France’s powerful Employers’ Association, was abducted as he drove from his home near the village of Confolens in south-western France to his building materials factory 15km away. The kidnappers had demanded a ransom of $733,000. The ransom was not paid. His employees had offered to pay the ransom if his family could not afford it. — Angouleme. 3 die in stampede Three women were killed and dozens of people were injured in a stampede at a football stadium where Pope John Paul was due to speak, the police said. Order was restored by the time the Pope arrived and he made no reference to the incident in his speech. The head of security forces in Fortaleza, north-east Brazil, said the deaths occurred when a mass of people forced their way into the stadium. The gates were due to open four hours later, about two hours before the Pope was scheduled to appear. — Fortaleza. Boycott, resumes South African police used tear-gas to disperse 2000 rampaging schoolchildren who resumed a classroom boycott this week after a two-week holiday. Schools reopened on Wednesday and a police spokesman said the 2000 pupils dispersed yesterday had shattered windows at black schools, ripped down blackboards, stoned cars and threatened a principal in Grahamstown, near Port Elizabeth. — Port Elizabeth. Oil men strike Last-minute mediation efforts by the Norwegian Government has failed to avert a strike by 1500 _ drilling workers employed in Norway’s lucrative offshore oil industry. The drillers went on strike to back their demands for a 60 per cent pay rise. They joined 2000 production workers who downed tools seven days ago asking for higher pay, shorter working hours, and earlier retirement age, amounting to the equivalent of a 100 per cent pay rise. — Oslo. Lucky escape Eight hundred passengers had a spectacular escape yesterday when a tube train smashed into the back of another at Holburn on London’s Underground. The impact hurled travellers to the floor, smashed windows, sent empty seats spinning into the air, and pushed the front carriage of the moving train into the tunnel roof. Yet amazingly only 19 people were hurt — and then only slightly — and only one. the driver of the moving train, was kept in hospital. His injuries were not believed to be serious even though the crash compressed his cab. — London.

Power dropped The British Government has dropped the power to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely and without trial from the Northern Ireland Emergency Provisions Order laid before Parliament this week. Under the measure security forces have had the power to hold suspects for any period. It was introduced in August, 1971. More than 2000 people were held under the measure between then and February. 1975, when the last order under the measure was made. The last detainee was freed in December, 1975. — London. Smuggler suspects Two of 14 illegal immigrants who survived the blistering heat of the Arizona Desert without water and one of 13 who died, may have been border smugglers, according to a sheriff’s spokesman. The spokesman emphasised that 1 no charges had been made and the investigation was still in a preliminary stage. Thirteen members of a party of illegal immigrants from El Salvador, including nine women and a 13-year-old boy, died in the Arizona Desert last week-end after being smuggled across the border from Mexico. — Tucson.