Cable Briefs

Press, 17 September 1980, Page 8

Cable Briefs

Big bird Scientists have discovered fossils of what is believed to have been the largest bird ever to soar, the skies of the earth — an animal the size qf a tnan with a wingspan of 7.6 m. The discovery, announced by the National Geographic Society, was made in Argentina. The remains are of a bird that measured 3.3 m from beak to tail, weighed between 72kg and 77kg. When standing, it could have looked a I.Bm man directly in the eye. The biggest flying bird alive today is the Andean condor, a soaring creature with a 3m wingspan that can weigh about 15kg. Bhutto ally wins The High Court of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province has ruled that the military Government’s decision to prosecute the country’s former Attorney-General, Yahya Bakhtiar, on charges of election fraud was unconstitutional and antiIslamic. Mr Bakhtiar was chief defence lawyer for the former Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was executed in April last year for complicity in the killing of a political opponent. The case against Mr Bakhtiar for election rigging was made soon after the military ruler, General Zia : U 1 Haq, toppled Mr Bhutto , in a bloodless coup in July, 1977. His trial before a ; special tribunal was delayed until after Mr Bhutto’s con- i viction and had become a test of the Government’s < authority to crush legally its < political opponents.—lslama- 1 bad.

( Iranian boat sunk 9 ' Iraqi forces have said that they have sunk an Iranian gunboat and burnt two others in the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway at the head of the Gulf. A Defence Ministry spokesman said that there had been renewed clashes involving Iraqi troops, artillery, and planes. Fighting between the two oil exporters erupted earlier this month along the southern part of their 1200 km border.—Beirut. Malaysian shuffle Malaysia’s Prime Minister (Datuk Hussein Onn) has taken control of defence and dropped three Ministers in a Cabinet reshuffle. Political observers said the move reflected Datuk Hussein’s increasing concern over secur-

ity in the South-East Asian region and his wish to oversee the proposed expansion of the defence forces under the Fourth Malaysian Plan starting next year. — Kuala Lumpur.