Significant Central Highlands victory Liberation troops win strategic Ranger base

NORTH VIETNAMESE troops advancing into the Central Highlands tured a vital government Ranger base at Plei Me, about 20 miles west of th of Pleiku. The Americans called in two flights of heavy B52 bombers in a and unsuccessful attempt to repel the North Vietnamese attack.

This defeat is the most serious military setback to the South Vietnamese government since last June. Heavy fighting is also taking place on the north-east approaches to An Loc, 60 miles north of Saigon.

Meanwhile, the South Vietnamese government has announced a new 2,000-man PRINCE SIHANOUK said yesterday that China and North Vietnam had found new ways to transport supplies through North Vietnam to the southern battlefields despite the American aerial bombardment.

"The bombing is having some effect. There are less weapons getting through but we have still got enough, he said.

Chinese Premier Chou En-lai has told him that in the event Anniversary clashes due FIERCE CLASHES were expected yesterday throughout Chile between supporters of President Salvadore Allende and rightwing Christian Democratic National Party members.

Union leaders have called on workers to down tools and join the parades and rallies to mark The second anniversary of Allende's electoral victory in which he obtained 31 per cent of the vote and defeated the Christian Democratic candidate Radomiro Tomic.

Popular Unity leaders have warned of a 'September Ulster marathon at BRITISH Prime Minister Edward Heath strongly called on his Irish counterpart Jack Lynch to crack down on IRA activities operating from the south. Both are in Munich at the Olympic Games.

Heath was in a tough mood when the two men met for an hour-and-a-half at the British Consulate General for talks on the Northern Ireland situation.

The talks come one week before Heath is due to meet leaders of the Social Democratic and Labour Party. They also precede the all-party conference on the future of Northern Ireland arranged for later this month by Ulster Supremo William Whitelaw. armoured drive across the routes used by the liberation forces between southern Cambodia and the western Mekong Delta.

In Cambodia, government forces have still made no progress towards breaking the grip of the liberation forces on Highway Iwo, the main link to the south from the capital, Phnom Penh.

of the war going on another four years, China would continue to make all-out efforts to assist the Indo-Chinese peoples until final victory.

There has been a new agreement between the Soviet Union and China for the trans-shipment of Soviet war material through China to North Vietnam to offset American mining and blockading of North Vietnamese ports and the renewed US bombing campaign. organized by domestic and foreign reactionary groups aiming at the overthrow of Allende's regime.

Former President Eduardo Frei, whose Christian Democrats ruled from 1964 to 1970, has issued a statement saying that if the Popular Unity called its people onto the streets 'then we, too, should do the same because we are the biggest single party and we also have the right to occupy the streets' Olympics As well _as Northern Ireland, the Heath-Lynch talks were expected to cover entry into the Common Market. This is Heath's first meeting with Lynch since the signing of the EEC accession treaty in Brussels last January.

Heath and Lynch will both have separate talks with West German Chancellor Willy Brandt later this week.

Heath is also due to meet West German Foreign Minister Walter Scheel and the Bavarian right wing leader Franz-Josef Strauss.

Another key 'Olympic' meeting involves Willy Brandt and the French President Georges Pompidou.

Liberation forces cut the highway at several points along an 18-mile stretch last week.

Cambodian troops also failed to free Highway Five, the only road to the north-west, which supplies Phnom Penh's rice.

Some liberation are now within Phnom Penh.

In Laos, North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao troops now control 80 per cent of the country, leaving only the major population centres and land along the Mekong River bordering Thailand in government hands.

Diplomatic reports say that Prince Souvanna Phouma's government intends to try to regain some of the territory it has lost over the last three years northern Laos and the Bolovens Plateau in southern Laos. This would strengthen the government's hand in a hoped-for conference between the two sides.

In the latest exchange of messages, Pathet Lao leader Prince Souphanouvong, who is Prince Souvanna's half-brother, rejected the Prime Minister's call for a cease-fire under international supervision. He has also rejected a suggestion that military and political problems should be discussed separately.

In turn the government refused a long-standing Lao demand that the U1 States stop bombing opera in Laos.

The Pathet Lao claims that since President Nixon took office, the Americans have dropped more than 3 million tons of bombs on Laotian territory.

Without this bombing, of course—which began at his request in 1964 — Prince Souvanna would be unable to keep the battered Laotian army in the field.

Prince Souvanna also faces a political threat from rightists in the National Assembly who have called for a complete government reorganization.

But all the foreign powersincluding China-connected with the 1962 Geneva Agreement, which placed Prince Souvanna in office, have indicated that his government is the only acceptable one for eventual negotiations on the Indo-China war.

Prince Souvanna has stated that his government needs two more years to achieve 'national conciliation' with the Pathet Lao.

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