Cable briefs

Press, 6 July 1983, Page 6

Cable briefs

Suicide stopped Indian police have prevented 13 “harijans” — Hindu untouchables — from setting themselves on fire in the south Indian town of Bangalore and charged them with attempted suicide, the United News of India news agency reports. The group tried to bum themselves in front of the Karnataka State Assembly to draw Government attention to their problems.—New Delhi. Brazilian pause Brazil has been granted a two-week delay to help it repay a SUS4OO million bridging loan from the Bank for International Settlements, European banking sources say. The loan, part of a 8U51.45 billion central bank credit, was due on June 30 and had been extended past the end of May when it was originally due. It now has to be repaid on July 15 when the 8.1.5., the central bankers’ bank based in Basle, Switzerland, next meets.— London. Mafia implicated Six Mafia families decided to kill Italy’s top anti-terror-ist policeman last year because he posed a direct threat to their control of organised crime in Sicily, says an official report. The assassination of General Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa, ambushed and shot dead along with his wife and bodyguard in Palermo on September 3, was intended to assert the families’ authority in the Sicilian Mafia, it said. The report named six western Sicilian families prominent in the heroin trade and an organised crime gang

from Catania on the east of the island as responsible for planning and executing the killing.—Palermo. Dam report A report on an alternative power scheme to the Franklin dam project has been ordered by the Tasmanian Government. The Premier, Mr Robin Gray, said that the state Cabinet had requested the Tasmanian Hydro Electric Commission to begin an immediate investigation into an alternative power scheme as a result of last week’s High Court decision stopping work on the Franklin dam. The state Government wants an initial report on alternatives to the Franklin project by July 31.—Melbourne. Train derailed Seven people were killed and 21 others injured when a train was derailed 250 km west of Belgrade, reports Tanjug news agency. The train, travelling to Belgrade from the Adriatic Sea city of Split, left the tracks while traveling at an “excessive speed” in heavy fog.—Belgrade. Priest's debt dive A retired French priest dived 17 metres from a cliff into a river to pay off a debt incurred in his former parish. Father Robert Simon, curate of the eastern French village of Saone from 1944 to 1963, was sponsored for the dive for 40,000 francs (JNZ8000), and cheered by an audience of 10,000 as he dived into the River Doubs. The debt — the same amount as his sponsorship — was incurred as part of the purchase of land and a housing project in the parish.—Villers le Lac.