Cable Briefs

Press, 24 October 1980, Page 6

Cable Briefs

i Snotrdon ‘broke’ ■ Lord Snowdon, the former husband of Princess Margaret. has told friends that he is broke, the “Daily Mirror” has reported. The paper said that although this “must be an exaggeration there are several reasons why his position has become less rosy.” The news of the projected sale of the “Sunday Times,” a main source of his income as photographer, must increase his worries, it added. Although he remains a favourite of the royal family. Lord Snowdon gives the royalties from his pictures of them to help disabled students with their education. He was courted by .-.clients because he was married to Princess Margaret and work from those sources has declined since the divorce, the report said. — London.

Men ten plea jails

A request by the wealthy Dutch art collector, Pieter Menten, jailed for war crimes that he be released from prison immediately because of age and poor health, has been rejected by the Hague District Court. Menten. who is 81, is serving a 10-year sentence

for his part in the execution of between 20 and 30 people, mainly Jews, in German-oc-cupied Poland in 1941. The Court ruled that Menten’s bladder ailment and the coma he suffered on hearing the prison sentence passed by a Rotterdam court in June did not form an obstacle to de- ■ tention. — The Hague. "Priest murdered* A Roman Catholic bishop has been battered to death for ■ conducting a religious service in a prison camp in Albania, the Slav Missionary Society has reported. The bishop, identified only as Coba, was said to have been a frequent visitor to .Albanian prison camps, a society spokesman quoted a traveller as saying. He said that this was the first death of a clergyman in Communist Albania since 1973 when Stefan Kurtis, a; Catholic priest, was killed for; baptising a child of a fellow; prisoner. — Stockholm. i

“ Israeli air raid Israeli planes have attack- ■ ed targets near the Palestin- ' ian stronghold of Damour, 1 20km south of the Lebanese capital, Beirut Radio said. (Palestinian sources said an 'unspecified number of civil- ■ ians were wounded in the raid which drew heavy fire 1 from ground defences. It was 1 the first Israeli air raid on Lebanon since August 20. Israeli ground troops made a raid into south-eastern Le-j banon last week. — Beirut. ( Spy probe ' ■[. A former Central Intelligence Agency covert agent, , ! under Federal investigation for allegedly working for the Soviet Union, tried unsuccessfully to join the staff of three separate Government committees : that oversee United i States intelligence work, United States Government officials and sources have said. (But the agent, David Barnett,’ 'did not do part-time work! under contract for the C.1.A.! after he came under Soviet; (control, they said. A con- : rgressman said a tip from the Federal Bureau of Investiga-) i tion thwarted Barnett’s ef-j (forts to join a House of. Re-; presentatives committee. — Washington. i|

Saturn surprise

; Strange “fingers” reach I out . from Saturn to its (centre ring, photographs from the Voyager 1 spacecraft reveal. “These leave us i really perplexed,” said BradCord Smith, head of a Unijversity of Arizona team that, iis interpreting photos from; [the mission. Astronomers Isay they would not be sur-( ■prised if Voyager 1 comes ;up with more surprises from (Saturn. The craft is hurtling'through space 16km per sec-j ohd toward a rendezvous on; November 12 with the ring-; ed planet. — Tuscon, Ari-I ,zdna. i