Cable briefs

Press, 4 March 1982, Page 8

Cable briefs

I Kim’s term slashed ; South Korea’s leading dis- ! sident, Kim Dae Jung, has I had his life sentence for I sedition slashed to 20 years I under a presidential amnesty to mark the anniversary of I the fifth republic. Mr Kim, a ! former Presidential conI tender, was among 2863 to be amnestied by President Chun Doo Hwan to eliminate the scars of the turbulent 1980 student riots and Kwangju armed uprising. Mr Kim, aged 56, a Catholic, was sentenced to death by a i military court in September, 1980, having been found ■guilty of planning to overthrow the Government by force through fomenting student riots and rebellion in j the provincial capital of I Kwangju.—Seoul. i Recovery optimism j A recovery in the United j States economy is likely by : the (northern) summer, ac- ' cording to members of the I Federal Reserve Board, the j independent central bank, r but they are concerned that s President Reagan’s projected i Federal deficits either will I limit or abort the improvei ment. The five governors ; lent support to the nowi dominant view in Congress i that the record deficits must I be reduced. Paul Volcker, ; the chairman of the Federal ■ Reserve, has already pubI licly expressed concern I about the deficits, which I have alarmed Republicans, i as well as Democrats, so i much that the President’s ; Budget is regarded as all but ( dead in Congress, although ; there is no agreement on i what should replace it — i Washington. i Japan talks sought i The Belgian Foreign Mini ister (Mr Leo Tindemans) i‘ has called for a Japan-Euro-i pean Economic Community i forum to discuss trade prob- ? lems and head off a possible i trade war. But he sounded a ; warning in Tokyo that Japan , must abide by international I trade ■ rules, underlining : growing complaints in the j E.E.C. and the United States j that Tokyo does not import ; enough of their products. Mr i Tindemans, president of the ! E.E.C.'s Council of Ministers, ' said the trade imbalance, , which reached SUSIO billion i in Japan’s favour last year, ; could not continue and there . was a real danger of protec- ; tionism against Japanese j goods.—Tokyo. i Arms for Cuba Cuba apparently replaced • Vietnam as the biggest Third World recipient of Soviet arms aid last year, according

to the Director of United States Naval Intellience (Rear-Admiral Sumner Shapiro). Libya, Iraq and Syria probably also moved ahead of Vietnam in Soviet arms deliveries, he told the House of Representatives Armed Services sub-committee on seapower and strategic and critical materials. President Reagan said last week that Cuba received 66,000 tons of Soviet'war supplies in 1981 — more than at any time since the 1962. Cuban missile crisis.—Washington. Bomb found in jet A bomb has been found aboard an Air Tanzania Boeing 737. Tanzanian Army bomb disposal experts were flown to Kilimanjaro airport in northern Tanzania to try to disarm the device, found in the baggage hold of a Boeing 737 on an internal flight, from Mwanza, on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria. Mwanza was the point of origin of the other Air Tanzania 737 which was hijacked soon after take-off last week by men demanding the resignation of President Julius Nyerere.—Dar-es-Salaam. McCartney sued A former Beatle, Paul McCartney, is reported to be facing a $4 million lawsuit brought by a girl claiming to be his illegitimate daughter. Lawyers representing Bettina Hueberg, aged 19, have been negotiating for the last year with McCartney’s solicitors, according to the “Daily Star.” Bettina’s German mother, Erika, had alleged that she and McCartney were lovers during the early days of the Beatles 20 years ago. the newspaper said. McCartney, aged 39, has always denied that Bettina is his child. — London. / N-plant lag The .United States foresees no immediate resumption in the construction of nuclear power plants, and might one day find a move back to coal from the atom for'electricity, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s chairman (Mr Nunzio Palladino). He told a House of Representatives sub-commit-tee that the current lag in nuclear power was the result of the economic recession, and would recover only if an economic expansion created a strong new demand for electricity. Last year this demand increased by only 1 per cent, he said.