Cable briefs

Press, 10 February 1989, Page 6

Cable briefs

Gamblers held Shanghai authorities have arrested more than 12,000 people in three weeks of raids on illegal gambling dens timed to coincide with Chinese New Year festivities, the “Shanghai Evening News” reported. Police confiscated 320,000 yuan ($NZ145,160) in stake money during the crackdown, assisted by neighbourhood "anti-gambling squads” of schoolchildren, old people and women, the newspaper said. One . gambling school had been caught with 100,000 yuan ($NZ43,548) in stake money, or about 100 years’ pay for a typical Chinese worker, it said.— Peking. Arms effort Australia will take a direct role in trying to reduce the arms build-up in the Indian Ocean and persuading India and Pakistan to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, said after a long meeting with his Pakistani counterpart, Benazir Bhutto. He will meet the Indian Prime Minister, - Rajiv Gandhi, in New Delhi later this week. In a separate news conference Ms Bhutto made it clear Pakistan was very concerned about India's military and naval build-up.—lslamabad. U.N. help wanted Sri Lanka’s separatist Tamil guerrillas have called on the United Nations for the first time to help mediate a negotiated settlement of the island’s ethnic conflict. The appeal by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (L.T.T.E.), who are fighting for an independent homeland, came in a letter to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, a copy of which was given to Reuters today. The L.T.T.E. also appealed to the commission to help persuade the Indian Government to call an immediate ceasefire its

fight against Tiger guerrillas in the north and east.—Colombo. Pay rise rejected Faced with an outraged public, Congress turned down a 50 per cent pay rise but did not resolve another political battle — the fee system for outside speeches that some have labeled "dirty money.” Under intense pressure from voters, the House and Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a salary increase to $U5135,000 ($NZ220,050) that was to take effect one minute after midnight. The pay rise for Congress, federal judges and top civil servants had been recommended by an independent panel and had been endorsed by President Reagan and President Bush.—Washington. Author dies Barbara Tuchman, aged 77, a two-time Pulitzer prize-winning author of popular histories, has died of complications following a stroke. Tuchman began hdr writing career as an editorial assistant and occasional correspondent for “The Nation,” which her father, an investment banker, Maurice Wertheim, bought in 1935 to save from bankruptcy. She wrote 10 books, winning the Pulitzer prize for “The Guns of'August” in 1962 and “Stilwell and the American Experience in China” in 1971.—Greenwich, Connecticut. Award for Charles? A controversial documentary made by Prince Charles on post-war British architecture is in the running for a top television award. Prince Charles upset leading architects and planners when he criticised much modern-style architecture in “A Vision of Britain,” which was shown on British television last year. The British/ Academy of Film and Television Awards has announced that the programme has

been nominated for a best-documentary award..—London. No Marcos deal Talks between the Philippines Government and lawyers for Ferdinand Marcos produced no deal on the former President returning millions of dollars he is accused of stealing from the country. Ted Lagautan, special counsel for the Government of President Corazon Aquino, said the talks resulted only in a request from Marcos’s lawyers to allow the former President, now in a Honolulu hospital, to return home. —San Francisco. S2IM settlement A judge tentatively approved a SUS2I million settlement of lawsuits filed by thousands of people who claim the remains of their relatives were desecrated in group cremations. The settlement would end a legal battle focusing on practices at the largest crematorium in Orange County, south of Los Angeles. Mortuary operators were accused of cremating bodies in groups between 1978 and 1985 after stacking them in unrefrigerated rooms.—Santa Ana. Abortion-ruling row A judge empowered a man to authorise an abortion for his comatose wife in an effort to improve her chances of recovery, but right-to-life advocates immediately moved to overturn the decision. Three hours after State Supreme Court Justice Bernard McCaffrey named Martin Klein as his wife’s guardian, an appeals court judge granted two anti-abortion-ists a stay blocking the ruling until an appeals panel could review it. Nancy Klein, aged 32, who is about 17 weeks pregnant, has been in a coma since a car accident on December 13.— Mintsgla, New York.