World Notes

EGYPT Unraveling an Unholy Alliance

Ever since Muslim fundamentalists assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981, Egyptian authorities have been jittery about a resurgence of Islamic extremism. Last week their vigilance paid off. Four junior army officers and 29 civilians were indicted on charges that they planned to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak in a "holy war." The government said some of the plotters, who were arrested last April, were allegedly linked to the fundamentalist group responsible for killing Sadat.

The court action was the first official acknowledgment since Sadat's death that fundamentalists had infiltrated the army. The case now goes before an emergency Supreme State Security Court in Cairo. If convicted, the defendants face life imprisonment.

BRITAIN Spies Tell Their Tales

Was the late Sir Roger Hollis, onetime head of Britain's counterintelligence service, M15, really a Soviet mole? Did the supersecret agency plot against the government of Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson? These are some of the juicier questions reportedly raised in Spycatcher, a memoir by Peter Wright, who worked as an agent for M15 from 1955 to 1976. The book, which has not been released in Britain, has raised a furor because London has blocked publication of excerpts by invoking national security considerations.

Attempts to squelch publication of Spycatcher abroad, however, have not fared so well. In September 1985, the London government filed suit in an Australian court to prevent release of the memoir. So far, the testimony of government witnesses in the case has been embarrassingly inconsistent. British Cabinet Secretary Sir Robert Armstrong has admitted that he was "economical with the truth" on the stand. The defense also noted that British officials allowed Journalist Chapman Pincher to publish a book in 1981 that contained similar material.

British efforts to uphold strict standards of secrecy were set back further last week when a Dublin judge rejected the government's request to block publication in Ireland of One Girl's War, a memoir by former M15 Agent Joan Miller.

GRENADA Crime and Punishment

In 1983 the murder of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop of Grenada prompted the U.S. to send an invasion force of 6,000 troops to the country. Last week a final chapter in the Grenada story was written. A jury in St. George's, the capital, handed down verdicts in the trial of 18 former political and military leaders implicated in the slayings of Bishop and ten others.

Security was tight around the courtroom as the trial drew to a close. Prime Minister Herbert Blaize reinforced local police with small contingents from neighboring countries. In the end, 14 of the defendants were convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. Among them: former Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard, his wife Phyllis and General Hudson Austin.

ISRAEL When Is a Jew Not a Jew?

It was an insult. Although Israel's Law of Return guarantees all Jews citizenship, Shoshana Miller, 43, a convert to Judaism, was told when she emigrated from the U.S. last year that her status as a Jewish national was in question. Reason: she had been converted by a Reform rather than an Orthodox rabbi. Interior Minister Yitzhak Peretz, himself an Orthodox leader, insisted that Miller's identity card be stamped with the word convert.

Last week, in a significant decision for millions of non-Orthodox Jews, Israel's Supreme Court annulled the Interior Ministry ruling. Said the court: "There are not two nations--one Jewish and one converted to Judaism." Peretz declared he would appeal the decision. Said Miller: "A stone has been lifted from my head."

COLOMBIA Frenzy of Fire And Blood

He began by knifing two former neighbors in the Bogota neighborhood of Alhambra. Later he returned to the apartment he shared with his 72-year-old mother and fatally shot her. He wrapped the body in paper and set the gruesome bundle on fire. Then he knocked on neighbors' doors and, one by one, shot them as they answered. After leaving the building, Campo Elias Delgado Morales, 51, strolled to the swank Pizzeria Pozzetto restaurant, placed an order and began reading.

But the killing spree had only begun. After belting down three vodkas, Delgado, a Colombian electronics engineer and a Viet Nam veteran, opened fire again, indiscriminately spraying the restaurant and its patrons with gunfire before police finally arrived and shot him dead. At week's end, the motive behind the massacre remained unclear. The final toll: 27 dead and ten wounded.