PROSECUTION
One. of the witnesses in the Sinyavsky-Daniel trial, identified by the Associated Press [February 12), as a "Mr. Golumshtok," may be placed - on trial himself.
During his testimony, he admitted that he had read the “works which the two writers had published abroad under pen names. A’. "friend," he said, had obtained the books for him.
Although: the was threatened with punishment - for his recalcitrance , he refused to identify the friend. wat In. accordance. with legislation maintained by the Stalinist ‘“‘pureaucracy - to preserve its privileged position in Soviet society, Golumshtok’can be sentenced to. a labor camp for six months or fined fifty rubles [$55] for his crime of reading forbidden. literature.
NIGERIAN POLICE USE TEAR GAS ON, STRIKERS
The Nigerian police used tear-gas grenades February 18 to disperse several hundred clothing workers on strike in a Lagos suburb. The workers, who" are demanding a pay increase, said they would con-
tinue their strike despite the police violence...
The incident was the first of its kind since the recent military coup. Great expectations were aroused among the populace by the overturn of the old regime. which was thoroughly hated because of its scandalous corruption, incompetence , and antilabor policies...
General Aguiyi Ironsi, who: heads the new government, has ap- : pealed for "patience" in face of the widespread hopes for an early rise in the standard of living.
LIKE HUNTING FOR AN..H-BOMB IN SPAIN.
~The old analogy has: been modernized. It's no longer like hunting for a needle in a haystack; it's like hunting for an H-bomb in Spain. This is the conclusion that emerges from the latest reports about the search for: the H-bomb, one of four~that fell from .a B-52 after the bomber collided- ‘with a tanker plane over the- peninsula’
All fishing in the Mediterranean has’ ‘beén banned by" ‘the Spanish authorities for an area extending ten miles offshore from Palomares. This would indicate. that the two American pocket submarines are still combing che. mud and debris on the ocean bottom.
The ban will. probably not affect. the local fishing industry — ; in view of the fact that it has been virtually impossible to sell ° fish from the area since the news first spread about the accident.
The Americans have also intensified their activities ashore in a continuing effort to‘lower the level of radioactivity in the area where one of the H-bombs cracked its casing upon landing, diffusing the deadly plutonium trigger. The troops are pulling up tomato plants and dumping them, stakes and all, in a crusher. How the mash is finally disposed of has not been’ reported in the press.
After harvesting the tomatoes in this thoroughgoing way, the ground is plowed. The next step is to drench the newly upturned soil with water hauled in tanker trucks equipped with sprinklers.
The. ‘most instructive’ ‘lesson in all this is the amount of work required to rid even a small area of radioactive contamination. Perhaps that American general was: not: boasting when he said that the United States now has a stockpile of nuclear weapons of such size . and deadliness that the entire population of the Soviet Union could be wiped out by merely dumping the contents over Russia, without exploding a.single bomb! ~ :