Cable briefs

Press, 1 December 1987, Page 10

Cable briefs

'Quake kills 42 The death toll from an earthquake in eastern Indonesia last week has risen to 42, with 75 people still missing, a spokesman for the governor’s office said. Sixty-three people were injured seriously and 38 others suffered light injuries in the ’quake which hit Nusatenggara Timur province on the island of Pantar. The earthquake measured 5.8 on the Richter scale. — Jakarta. U.K. to pay more Britain will increase its contribution to the cost of the military presence in Hong Kong “after an urgent appeal from the colony’s Government,” the “Sunday Telegraph” reported. It said the British share was likely to rise from 25 per cent of the cost to 40 per cent, with the colony paying 60 per cent instead of its present 75 per cent. — London. Airline strike Canada’s air travel system struggled to absorb thousands of passengers stranded by a strike at Air Canada. About 8500 ground workers were off the job, forcing the Gov-ernment-owned airline to cancel all scheduled flights. Other airlines added extra flights to their schedules to accommodate the displaced Air Canada travellers and the national rail system. Via Rail, added some carriages to its trains. — Toronto. Cuba wanted The Presidents of eight Latin American countries agreed that Cuba should be included in important regional organisations which had previously excluded it. “We believe we have to struggle so that Cuba can be integrated into the Latin American system,” President Jose Sarney of Brazil said. The three-day summit is the first large-scale meeting the countries — Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Panama, Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Uruguay — have held without United States participation. — Acapulco. Congressmen rebuked China’s Parliament, the National People’s Congress, has expressed in-

dignation at the participation of United States Congressmen in a Washington demonstration against alleged human rights violations in Tibet. "We express our utmost indignation at and strongly condemn their actions of wantonly interfering in China’s internal affairs,” the body’s nationalities committee said in a statement on the front page of the “People’s Daily” and other newspapers. — Peking. Visit discouraged The “Sunday Telegraph” said Nigeria had advised British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, not to go ahead with a planned trip to Lagos because it could incite disturbances over her policies on South Africa. The newspaper said it understood Nigerian leader, Ibrahim Babangida, had sent "a polite but discouraging signal to Whitehall suggesting a threat of student protests and possible serious disturbances in Lagos if Mrs Thatcher went there." — London. A.I.D.S. tests Would-be employees at a General Motors plant at Figueruelas, near Saragossa in north-eastern Spain, will have to take a test to prove they are not carrying the A.I.D.S. virus, the company said. The tests are intended to “safeguard the health of the personnel and avoid conflict among the workers,” the head of medical services at the plant said. The plant employs about 8000 people. — Saragossa. Drug arrests Customs officers at Heathrow Airport arrested five Colombians one day after seizing $5.8 million worth of cocaine in records and children’s books. Customs officials said the four women and one man were on a British Airways* flight from Bogota, the Colombian capital, to London, where they were to have boarded a flight for Switzerland. The records had been split so that the drug, a total of seven kilos, could be inserted and the records reassembled. The work was done so skilfully, Customs , said, that the records could have been played. — London.

Lawyer shot A Sicilian pensioner, exasperated by years of delay to his lawsuit, took a gun to court and shot his lawyer. Police said Salvatore Amenta, aged 77, drew a pistol from his pocket during a hearing in Lentini and fired at Salvatore Maddalena, aged 37, slightly wounding him and a colleague. Amenta had been seeking a ruling to secure the demolition of a house that he alleged had been built without planning permission opposite his, blocking the view. — Lentini, Sicily. Children suffocate Three six-year-old children were found suffocated to death inside a large refrigerator in a garbage depot in central South Korea. The two boys and one girl had been listed as missing in Taejon city for two days. The police said they suspected the children had accidentally locked the refrigerator after climbing inside. The incident was still being investigated. — Seoul. Ammunition seized Philippine police say they dealt a blow to rebel soldiers trying to destabilise the Government when they seized a big ammunition cache left over from last August’s bloody coup attempt. The Manila police commander, Brigadier-General Alfredo Lim, said more than 23,000 machine gun rounds found at the home of a businessman were part of a new coup plot. — Manila. No meeting Chinese leaders will not meet members of a Hong Kong group seeking direct elections next year in the British territory, a Chinese official said. An official of the New China News Agency, Peking’s de facto embassy in Hong Kong, told reporters. “The Chinese Government does not wish to comment on or discuss matters relating to direct elections, which it considers a decision to be made by the Hong Kong Government” A spokesftian for the group, which includes several legislators, said that a 10member delegation would leaveyfor Peking in spite r

of the Chinese statement. — Hong Kong. Rioting pays Meat, sausage and frozen turkey have suddenly become available in shops of the troubled Rumanian city of Brasov as the authorities try to sweeten up the workers whose rioting on November 15 left two policemen dead and shook the Government. The rioting at Brasov, 140 km north of Bucharest, left a police commander and another policeman dead and is believed to be the worst outbreak of violence against the regime of President Nicolae Ceausescu in at least 10 years. Other industrial centres in Rumania are also to receive substantially increased deliveries of food. — Vienna. Rights check An eight-member factfinding team will investigate human rights in the Philippines. Members hope to meet senior Government officials, military personnel, Church leaders and national human rights organisations, as well as victims of human rights violations and their relatives, a statement from the Philippines Resource Centre in Melbourne said.—Melbourne. War-crime law Australia has introduced new laws to prosecute Nazi war criminals living in the country. The Attorney-General, Lionel Bowen, said the laws would allow witnesses from East European countries to be brought to Australia to give evidence. — Canberra. Remains handed over Vietnam, has returned to the United States the recently discovered remains of five Americans missing from the Vietnam war, Hanoi Radio said. The handover to United States officials in Hanoi was the nineteenth since the war ended in 1975. The remains of about 150 missing Americans have been handed back. Washington says some 2400 are still unaccounted for in Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea.—Bangkok.