Crime Bulletins from Italy

> Next to kidnaping, auto theft is Italy's favorite pastime; according to the latest figures, last year thieves heisted an estimated 46,000 cars from the streets of Rome. This is a necessary enterprise, since the city is far too overcrowded with automobiles and their removal helps ease the acute shortage of parking places.

> Italy's jails, too, are vastly overcrowded, and the police report that the prisoners are doing an excellent job of alleviating the problem. There was a jail break roughly every 24 hours in 1976, and the rate is climbing. As the new year began, 13 prisoners overpowered their guards at Treviso penitentiary and dispersed in nearby Venice, presumably in search of getaway gondolas.

Bedtime Story

Chinese readers who turned to their copy of Sports News were treated to a smashing journalistic tripleheader. One major story reported on Kung Fu matches in the rural communes. Another offered a detailed and edifying answer to a reader's query asking whether an athlete who is afflicted with piles should play badminton and shadowbox (he should). The third scoop was a blow-by-blow account of how Chiang Ch'ing, the wife of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, murdered her ailing husband last year, offering the latest twist in the continuing campaign against Madame Mao. Three of the Chairman's physicians charged that when the ailing Mao was sleeping in his sickroom, Chiang Ch'ing would yell at him, brandishing documents under his nose. Then she made her first attempt with an improbable blunt instrument. This was a high-wattage lamp that she cunningly placed on Mao's bedside table. Though "in dread of heat," he survived. Then Chiang Ch'ing, her Maocidal mania unabated, burst last September into her husband's sickroom. Taking advantage of the chief doctor's absence, Chiang Ch'ing insisted that Mao be rolled over in bed. That did it. Some 18 hours later, having taken Chiang Ch'ing's turn for the worse, Mao was dead.

Will 13 Be Lucky?

Cyprus Prelate-President Archbishop Makarios considers 13 his lucky number. He was born on Aug. 13, 1913, and frequently chooses the 13th of the month for important meetings. Last week, for the first time in 13 years, Makarios held a meeting in Nicosia with his archrival, Turkish Cypriot Leader Rauf Denktas, to begin thrashing out the differences between Greek and Turkish Cypriots that have long engulfed the island in fratricide. Details of the talks were not disclosed, but.it seemed that Makarios was in luck. Later, he described the talks as "a breakthrough" and "a good step toward a settlement." Said Denktas: "The exercise has been successful."

The peace initiative was the result of intense behind-the-scenes activity by Western European governments and the new Carter Administration. Noting that the meeting took place while Vice President Mondale was in Europe, one Western diplomat declared: "It is a big push by the Carter-Mondale-Vance team. They are coming on like gang-busters." At week's end the betting was that former Defense Secretary Clark Clifford would be named to follow up the historic Makarios-Denktas opening. It could not hurt that (like Walter Mondale) Clifford has 13 letters in his name.

Big Daddy's Big Do

It was the sixth anniversary of the military coup that brought President Idi Amin Dada to power, and Big Daddy was ready to celebrate with the funkiest bash in East African history. In the reviewing stands at Kampala, a gaggle of Soviet Russians, Libyans, Cubans and representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization sat mesmerized by the show. Uganda army bagpipers in Royal Stuart tartan kilts marched by implausibly tootling Scotland the Brave. Undaunted by the number of invitations declined--notably by Henry Kissinger --the 300-lb. dictator exuberantly grabbed a spear and joined dancers in a local variant of the jig. After a speech in which he denounced the "Zionists and international bandits" who had visited Entebbe airport uninvited last July, Amin awarded 2,000 medals to soldiers, civil servants and relatives. Among those honored were his latest wife Sarah, 20, and his son Mwanga, 6, who appeared in an army camouflage uniform, carrying a toy rifle with bayonet. In Amin's sentimental citation, he lauded his wife and boy because "they worked so untiringly with me on the night of the raid on Entebbe."

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