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Press, 20 March 1982, Page 8

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Jobless crackdown The Federal Labour Office has announced tough measures which will deprive West Germany’s two million unemployed of welfare benefits if they turn down jobs. The measures, due to take effect next month, mean a worker will lose eight weeks unemployment pay the first time he rejects a job or training post and forfeit his benefit altogether after a second refusal, the office said. Those out of work for more than four months will gradually have to accept a wider range of jobs, less compatible with their previous earnings and skills. West German unemployment reached a 26-year high of 1.94 million, or 8.1 per cent of the workforce, last month. — Bonn. 5U575,000 order The multi-million-dollar divorce battle between a Saudi Arabian sheik and his estranged wife has moved from the Bahamas to Los Angeles and to immediate chaos in court. A judge ordered the sheik to pay $U575,000 a month to Sheikha Dena Fassi, but admitted that he could not help her collect the money. “This is the highest support payment ever made by any court in the world,” said Marvin Mitchelson. obviously elated by the judge's decision for his client, the Sheikha. — Los Angeles. U.S. disappointed The Reagan Administration says it is disappointed that a United Nations investigation has not yet officially supported American allegations about the use of Sovietsupplied chemical weapons in Indo-China and Afghanistan. But the Administration plans to release shortly a detailed report containing fresh evidence to back up its charges on the sensitive chemical warfare issue, a Deputy Secretary of State, Walter Stoessel, has told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. — Washington. Teachers protest The Pakistani police used batons in Lahore to break up a demonstration by thousands of school teachers demanding higher pay. The demonstration was the latest challenge to a ban on public protest imposed by Pakistan’s military rulers 2’za years ago. About 1000 policemen were called out. Teachers’ union sources estimated the number of demonstrators about 50,000; other sources put the total at 20,000.—Lahore. Holy law? Pakistan’s military ruler, General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, has ordered life imprisonment for anybody who desecrates the Koran, the sacred book of Muslims. The decree follows a recent announcement by authorities that they had arrested two men who were allegedly involved with the hiding of a booby trap in a hollowed-out volume of the KoranIslamabad. 6.8 M sterilised Nearly 6.8 million people in India have undergone sterilisation voluntarily during the first two years of the present five-year development plan, the Indian Parliament has been told. India's Health Minister,. B. Shankaranand, said that the tentative target for'the whole campaign period was 24 million—New’ Delhi. Nestle boycott A coalition of environmental and church organisations has said that it will continue its global boycott of Nestle products until the company shows a big change in its marketing of breast-milk substitutes for infants. The Swiss-based food processing company has announced its intention to abide by the World Health Organisation's guidelines — the marketing of the substitutes in the developing world. Critics have charged that the substitutes are'lnferior to mother's milk and lead to malnutrition and other big health problems.—Washington. Children riot About 20 school children have rioted at a comprehensive school at Barnsely, Yorkshire, in protest at the use of the cane in schools. The pupils, aged between 12 and 17, piled timber and debris across the school’s main entrance and lit fires in the playgrounds, according to the “Daily Telegraph” newspaper.—London. News curb The United States Senate has approved a bill that would make it a crime for journalists and others to disclose the names of covert United States intelligence agents under certain conditions. Senators voted, 90-6, to endorse the measure, which would make it illegal for a person to make public names of secret intelligence agents if the person had reason to believe that doing so would impair intelligence opera tions, and if he had engaged in a pattern of such expoSiirpj? —