Briefs

Press, 27 July 1989, Page 8

Briefs

Pro-democracy move Hundreds of Chinese students will gather in Chicago at the week-end to form a new organisation aimed at preserving the democratic movement in their homeland, organisers of the event said. The meeting may draw as many as 300 students from China and perhaps another 100 non-voting delegates from Taiwan, Hong Kong and academic circles, the group said. Organisers of the First Congress of Chinese Students in the United States said the main purpose of the meeting was to bring together groups from campuses across China which sprang up last month during the prodemocracy protests in Peking which were crushed by the Government.—NZPA-Reuter Rape, murder arrests Thai police said they had arrested two fishermen for an attack on Vietnamese boat people in which some men were killed and women held and raped for nine days. Three women survivors identified the men, aged 33 and 19, as two of the pirates who attacked them and 32 others on June 27, two days after they had left south Vietnam in a wooden boat, a police spokesman in Bangkok said.—NZPA-Reuter Tickle puzzle An eminent London specialist is trying to find out the answer to a riddle which has mystified him throughout his career: Why does tickling yourself not have the same effect as being tickled? Dr Bernard Freedman, aged 77, a specialist in lung diseases and allergies, has apppealed through the august pages of the “British Medical Journal” to his colleagues to help him solve the puzzle. He insjsted that his question was serious. “I am hoping neurologists will suggest some answers,” he said.—NZPA