Cable briefs

Press, 15 December 1983, Page 6

Cable briefs

Rumanians flee Twenty Rumanians had fled to Austria by hiding in a sealed truck container to evade border guards, said Austrian police. It was the biggest single mass escape on record from Rumania to a Western country. The group had asked for political asylum.—Vienna.

Irish brew war The Irish police have begun a pre-Christmas crackdown on the making and sale of home-made liquor, known as poteen, which can be twice as strong as commercial brands and sells for much less. In what has become a December ritual, the police said that they had raised illicit stills on remote islands off the west coast where the fiery liquid, usually made from potatoes, was being made. A spokesman for the Irish Vintners’ Association blamed high taxes for raising the price of commercial liquor to around SUSIS ($22.96) a bottle. Poteen sells for about SUSS.BO ($8.89) a bottle. Oil wells blocked Iran has blocked all but six of its oil wells in two offshore fields with cement, virtually eliminating the risk that war damage could result in more oil pollution of the Persian Gulf, said the World Wildlife Fund. Some 75 wells in the Nowruz field and an unspecified number, including all wells in the nearby Ardeshir field, had been blocked down to the seabed.—Gland, Switzerland.

Assurance for Shultz The American Secretary of State, Mr George Shultz, said he had talked with the Australian Foreign Minister, Mr Bill Hayden, and had been assured that a refusal to give dry dock privileges to a British ship last week did not mean American ships would be unwelcome. The aircraft carrier, the H.M.S. Invincible, needed repairs but the Australians refused to allow the ship to dry-dock, saying the vessel might be carrying nuclear weapons—Lisbon. Death of author A top-selling writer, Mary Renault, has died in Cape Town, South Africa, aged 78. She died in hospital after a short illness. Her numerous novels set in ancient Greece included “The Last of the Wine,” “The King Must Die,” “The Bull from the Sea,” and recently, the highly acclaimed “Funeral Games,” the last of her trilogy on Alexander the Great.—London. Brandt weds A former West German Chancellor, Willy Brandt, aged 69, has married his 37-year-old former assistant, Brigitte Seebacher, at a secret ceremony. It was his third marriage. Mr Brandt and Miss Seebacher, a journalist, had been living together for some years at Unkel, a wine-producing village on the banks of the Rhine.—Bonn.