Cable Briefs

Press, 23 October 1980, Page 6

Cable Briefs

• Cruise problems ; The Pentagon ’ has said that there have been new technical problems with the ground-launched Cruise missile. but it has denied that there will be any delay i n the planned deployment of Cruise in Western Europe in December. 1953. Officials said the delay reported in the defence industry press and other publications was | strictly an “internal” affair, affecting Pentagon research land development schedules, i Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation voted in December to modernise N.A.T.O. nuclear forces by deploying 464 Cruise missiles and 108 Pershing II medium-range ballistic missiles in Western Europe to offset Soviet SS--20 missiles. — Washington. Objection to judge Defence lawyers for the Zimbabwe Manpower Planning Minister. Edgar Tekere. who is charged with murdering a white farmer, have applied for the white judge in the case to withdraw, legal sources have said. The lawyers argue that since Judge John Pitman was a member of the former white Rhodesian Judiciary, he was not fit to conduct a murder trial in independent Zimbabwe. A public High Court hearing on the issue will be held next Monday, the sources said. Tekere is accused along with seven bodyguards of murdering a farin manager, Gerald Adams, aged 68, last August 4. His trial is scheduled to open on November 3.- — Salisbury'; L’.A’. deadlock The United Nations General Assembly has failed to choose a candidate to fill :he Latin American seat on :he Security Council next /ear. Ideological differences rave turned what had been expected to be the routine election of Costa Rica into a protracted tug-of-war. The election has now been adbumed indefinitely. Costa Rica was the only official xmdidate for the seat, but a >well of Third World supeort developed for Guyana, vhich was considered more politically activist than the peaceful Central American ■epublic. The vote requires a wo-thirds majority, — New fork. Nuclear safety Nuclear experts meeting rt Stockholm tq discuss reictor safety in the shadow pf last year’s Three»Mile-Is-and accident, have voiced atisfaction with standards tnd criticised ovewregulation >f ithq industry. —» Stpckiolrm