Cable Briefs

Press, 25 March 1981, Page 8

Cable Briefs

Rebels killed Burmese troops killed rebels and wounded at least five in a special military operation against heroin, trafficking insurgents near the Thai border last week,> Burmese Army spokesman has said. Three battalions of troops, airlifted into the area, fought seven battles with the rebels on March 19 and 20 to destroy their jungle hide-outs and illicit heroin refineries close to the border, the army spokesman told a press conference. Burmese troops seized 23kg of heroin, 6kg of brown opium powder, and 102 kg of opium. It was reported from Bangkok on Monday that a large number of rebels had fled to Thailand after the swoop.—Rangoon. Third reprieve

Garbed in black with two crucifixes around his neck, Adelaido Ramos was about to enter the death chamber when the telephone rang. It was the presidential palace granting him his third reprieve in two months. A convicted killer of a pregnant wife and her two children, Ramos, aged 33, had eaten his “last meal” and his head was already shaved clean when President Ferdinand Marcos postponed his exeat-, tion in the electric chair, by another 35 days.- Prison offi« cials refused any press inter-, views with Ramos, who clutched his crucifixes and looked as though a fishbone had been taken from his throat when the reprieve came. — Manila.

- Dali work in jail J A mess hall at a New ; York City prison has not • only been dishing out meals, , but for the last 16 years a 1 cultural diet as well, as un- , knowing inmates and staff sat > under a Salvador Dali painting the artist gave in 1965, The 1.2 m by 1.5 m painting of the Crucifixion has been investigated by officials over the last two weeks after a warden at the Rikers Island' prison called in an art dealer who . authenticated the piece and appraised it around $lOO,OOO. The origins and value of the work, given after Dali had visited ’ the prison, had been obscured and forgotten with the change in wardens, guards and corrections officialsover the years. But prison" officials, trying to trace the history of the piece, said' that if a second appraisal supported the first, the.Cor.'; rections Department would i like to ask the ailing Dali,-’ aged 76, for. permission. Cosell the Work; New York.-;,