Cable briefs

Press, 25 October 1984, Page 10

Cable briefs

Eggs to be thawed The director of Melbourne’s in vitro fertilisation programme, Professor Carl Wood, has welcomed the de- s cision to thaw two orphan embryos and give them to an infertile couple. The Victorian Legislative Council passed amended legislation on Tuesday that means the orphan embryos will be given a chance of life. He said it was unlikely they would survive, since the technique used when they were frozen had had no success. — Melbourne. Kabul link cut France’s generally proMoscow Communist Party, which approved the 1979 Soviet * intervention in Afghanistan, yesterday, suspended links with the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party in Kabul in protest against the jailing of a French journalist, Mr Jacques Abouchar. — Paris. Film actor dies The Austrian-born film actor, Oskar Werner, who Sd Jules in Francois aut’s “Jules and Jim” (1961), died yesterday of a heart attack, two days after the death of Truffaut. He was 61. Werner was- bom Josef Bschliessmayer in Vienna on November 13,1922. He began his acting career in 1941 in Vienna’s Burgtheatre before entering the cinema. At the time of his death Werner, who was also a director and film producer, was touring West Germany reading antiwar verse. — Marburg. Women on fast The wives of three Opposition political leaders taking in Hip British Consu-

late were on a 48-hour fast on Tuesday to protest against Britain’s refusal to allow them to visit their husbands. The women were joined by the wives of three other dissidents who initially sought refuge in the Consulate, but left on October 6 and were immediately arrested. Britain has banned visits except for medical reasons, saying the fugitives were using the consulate to make political statements. — Durban. Moscow meeting The Soviet Communist Party’s central committee met for a special session yesterday to discuss agricultural problems and endorse some personnel changes in the upper ranks of the party, East European sources say. The 1984 grain harvest is expected to be one of the worst in the last decade. The United States Agriculture Department has predicted that it will total 170 million tonnes, some 70 million tonnes below target. — Moscow. Smith ally dies A former Rhodesian Minister of Justice, Law and Order, Des Lardner-Burke, has died, aged 76. He was a close ally of the Rhodesian Prime Minister, Mr lan Smith, and was one of the’ signatories of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from Britain in 1965. As Minister from 1964 to 1976, he ordered the detention of several guerrilla leaders fighting white minority rule, among them Zimbabwe’s FTime Minister, Mr Robert Mugabe, and the chief opposition leader, Joshua Nkomo. — Harare.