Bonn, West Germany — The economic summit of the world’s major industrial democracies closed Saturday without agreement on a firm date for a new round of world trade talks, sending President Reagan home without one of his major goals. But the seven nation summit’s final communiqué contained a package of measures for sustaining world economic growth and increasing employment, satisfying other U.S. objectives.

Cairo, Egypt — Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court ruled Saturday that a provision in the personal status law requiring a husband to inform his wife of his intention to marry a second woman was unconstitutional.

The court said the late President Anwar Sadat violated the constitution when he issued a decree on the law when the People’s assembly was not in session.

Under sharia, the Islamic law, a man is entitled to have four wives simultaneously.

Sadat apparently was trying to limit a man’s freedom to have up to four wives by obligating a husband to inform his first wife of his intention to marry again and giving her the option of divorce.

The 1979 decree had been criticized by Moslem sheikhs who argued that it violated the provisions of Islam.

Bangkok, Thailand — Vietnamese forces killed or captured nearly 100 Chinese intruders during the past week, Radio Hanoi said Saturday. The broadcast, monitored in Bangkok, said Chinese troops fired 2,000 artillery shells into Ha Tuyen Province from April 27 to last Friday. The area borders China’s mountainous Yunnan Province.

Official Radio Hanoi said a Chinese company also intruded into Ha Tuyen last Tuesday and scouts crossed into Quang Ning, Lang Son and Hoang Lien Son Provinces during the week.

“The local armed forces and people of these northern border provinces killed or captured nearly 100 Chinese intruders,”’ the broadcast said. There was no mention of Vietnamese casualties.

China and Vietnam fought a month-long border war in 1979 and have paraded frequent accusations of provocations since then. Many of the reports have been exaggerated.

Dublin, Ireland — Former Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, winding up a four day visit Saturday to Ireland, called for an end to nonjury trials in Northern Ireland.

On the last day of her private trip, Ferraro addressed members of the Women’s Political Association. Earlier in her visit she dined with Irish Foreign Minister Peter Barry and met Ireland’s President Patrick Billery.

She has been accompanied by her son, John Zaccaro Jr.

Ferraro, who attended the trial in Belfast Saturday of a loyalist informer and heard him implicate 25 people in more than 100 crimes, said she was “unhappy at the number of people being tried at the same time.”

“One solution might be to have three judges instead of one,”’ she said.

Prague, Czechoslovakia — Joint exercises by Soviet and Czechoslovak troops are scheduled from May 25-31 in Czechoslovakia, the official Czechoslovak news agency CTK said Saturday.

The exercises involving ground and air force units of some 25,000 troops will be held in the northwestern part of Czechoslovakia between the capital of Prague and the East German border, CTK said.

The purpose of the exercises is to train both Warsaw Pact forces to cooperate in different areas of the military, CTK said.

Dublin, Ireland — A Belgian airliner was diverted to Shannon International Airport Saturday following an anonymous telephone call that a bomb was on board, officials said.

The Sabena airlines jet carrying 219 passengers and 15 crew’s members, while security officers checked the jet and luggage for explosives.

“It is almost certainly a hoax but we can’t take any chances,” said a spokesman for Air Rianta, the Irish airport authority.

Article extracted from this publication >> May 10, 1985