Cable briefs

Press, 22 January 1982, Page 6

Cable briefs

'Black boxes’ found

United States Navy divers have retrieved the two electronic flight recorders from the wreckage of the Air Florida plane that crashed at Washington a week ago. killing 78 people. Hopes for learning the causes of the accident rest chiefly on these devices. Both devices, which are crash-resistant, were taken under police escort to the laboratory of the National Transportation Safety Board. Later they were reported to be in excellent condition - Washington.

Miners killed An explosion and fire that hurled debris many metres has killed seven miners, four of them family members, deep inside a family-run eastern Kentucky coal mine. The police said the bodies of the seven miners had been found. The police had believed that the miners were trapped 425 metres down in the mine, but rescuers had found three bodies about 214 metres inside the mindc.--Louisville $7.4 billion claim The Belgian-born wife of a billionaire" Saudi Arabian sheikh has sued in Los Angeles for a legal separation and half the value of communal property her lawyer estimated at more than SNZ7.4 billion. The lawyer. Marvin Mitchelson. told reporters that the wife, named in the petition as Sheikha Dena Fassi. aged 22. was seeking what he believed was the world's biggest communal settlement. The husband. Sheikh Mohammed Fassi. scandalised people in the exclusive Beverly Hills area several years ago when he bought a $4 million mansion on Sunset Boulevard and had pubic hairs painted on statues in the grounds—Los Angeles. K.G.B. man dead Semyon Tsvigun. first deputy chief of the Soviet K.G.B. security police, has died at the age of 64 after a long illness. Moscow Television has announced. General Tsvigun was the Soviet Union's most senior career security officer and had been in the 'K.G.B. for more than 40 years. General Tsvigun was closely associated with the K.G.B' clamp-down on Soviet dissidents in the 19705. Last October General Tsvigun said the K.G.B. had effectively ' suppressed all organised political resistance in the Soviet Union.-Mos-cow. Journalist pardoned The "New York Times" and a "Times" reporter who served 40 days in jail for refusing to surrender his notes in the controversial 1978 "Dr X" murder trial have received pardons for criminal contempt. Civil liberties lawyers said that the pardons, granted by the Governor Brendan Bryne of New Jersey shortly before he left office, could' have positive effect on future freedom of press cases. The reporter. Myron Farber, was jailed during the murder trial of Dr Mario Jascalevich for his refusal to turn over notes demanded by the defence. The order led to an outcry in press circles that reporters were in danger of being made agents of the court in stories they probed and would be forced to violate the confidentiality they had promised to their sources.Trenton. Minister assaulted The founder and leader of the Fijian Nationalist Party. Sakiasi Butadroka. has been fined SNZI37 by the Suva Magistrates Court for assaulting a Government minister. Butadroka. pleaded guilty to assaulting Mr Solomone Momoivalu: the Minister for Information, on Parliament steps on Tuesday. Butadroka said in mitigation that the Minister was I a personal friend, apart from their political differences. He said claims made by the Minister concerning his party in connection with • “voodooism" had angered him.—Suva. Top food award The proudest award in catering finally arrived in Britain yesterday when the Michelin' Organisation announced that it had awarded three stars to Le Gavroche Restaurant in Mayfair. London. It is the first time that a ’ British restaurant has been deemed worthy of three stars and therefore of a special journey to enjoy a meal, since Michelin published its first guide to Britain in 1911.—London. Journalist barred The Ugandan Government has withdrawn the press credentials of the last Western journalist in the country, pending the formulation of a new press policy. A letter from the Information Minis-. try to Trent O'Keefe, a 27-/ vear-old Australian journalist, said the new policy would "ensure the objective representation of events jn Uganda by foreign correspondents." O'Keefe has worked in Uganda for Western news agencies, the British Broadcasting Corporation. ’ and the Australian . media since last October.— Kampala.