Cable Briefs

Press, 31 December 1980, Page 6

Cable Briefs

Governor honoured The Governor-General of Australia (Sir Zelman Cowen) has been appointed a Privy Councillor in the Australian List of New Year Honours. Eight new knights are created, including Sir Phillip Lynch for parliamentary services, and one new dame, Beryl Edith Beaurepaire, for services to women’s affairs. One of the new knights bachelor is the Rev. Sir Alan Walker, one of the best known churchmen in Sydney. — London. Cancer alert

An imitation grape or cherry flavouring agent called cinnamyl anthranilate has been found to cause cancer in laboratory animals, the United States Health Department has reported. The synthetic flavouring caused liver cancers in male and female mice and kidney and pancreas cancers in male rats given it in feed for 103 weeks, the department said. Compounds found to be carcinogenic (cancer-causing) in the tests, were generally considered capable of causing cancer in humans, a department snokesman said. Cinnamyl anthranilal: is used extensively in drinks, ice cream, . aets, baked goods, gelatine, and chewing gum. It is also present as a fragrance in soaps, detergents, creams, lotions, and perfumes. The flavouring is already restricted foods in the United States to the “minimum quantity needed to produce the intended effect.” — Washington.

’Policemen rioted’ The American State Department has said it believes that an hour of rioting in central Kabul yesterday was caused by Afghan policemen protesting against an extension of their two-year tours of duty. The department said that according to reports reaching Washington, about 40 Afghan policemen threw stones at the Ministry of Information and Culture, at passing vehicles, and at a Soviet bookstore in the Afghan capital. Afghan security police arrested the rioters after about an hour, he said. — Washington.

Budget disappoints The Japanese Cabinet has approved an austere national Budget that fails to meet United States hopes on defence spending to counter a Soviet military build-up'in the Far East. The draft allowed for a 7.61 per cent rise in defence spending over the fiscal year 1980, which ends next March, far short of demands from Washington and the Japanese defence establishment for an increase of about 10 per cent. The Cabinet accepted the Budget, which goes to Parliament next: month, after a week of debate in the conservative ruling Liberal Democratic Party over the initial draft which would have raised spending on defence by only 6.7 per cent. — Tokyo. Peace effort

[ Zimbabwe’s fractious coalition partners appear to [ have launched, a serious reconciliation effort, with one of Robert Mugabe’s hardliners heaping praise on a. former foe, Joshua -Nkomo. The Finance Minister (Mr Enos Nkala), who only weeks ago said Mr Nkomo should be “crushed", told the “Herald" newspaper that his former adversary had worked wonders with a pre-Christmas peace call. Mr Nkomo, Home Affairs Minister and junior coalition partner in Mr Mugabe’s Government, last week urged , the country's • feuding political parties and their guerrilla sunoorters t 0,., halt the (factional violence that has claimed over 90 lives since independence last April. — Salisbury.