Polish Murder Trial Recalls Communism's Grip

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Jan. 9 — A former Polish police captain convicted in the killing of a pro-Solidarity priest has testified in support of a communist-era general charged with ordering the murder, the news service reported.

Grzegorz Piotrowski refused to implicate Wladyslaw Ciaston, 75, the former head of the Polish Interior Ministry, in questions surrounding the 1984 murder of Father Jerzy Popieluszko, a popular priest and supporter of the Solidarity trade union whose murder shocked the country.

Ciaston was first tried in 1992, after the toppling of communist rule by Solidarity paved the way for investigations into possible involvement of more senior officials. He was acquitted for lack of evidence, but an appeals court later ordered a retrial.

Ciaston could face life in prison if convicted.

Piotrowski, 49, is considered the main perpetrator of the 1984 murder and is the only one of four original defendants still in prison. He is due to be released in August.

Zambia Suspends Pro-Condom Campaign

BBC NEWS, Jan. 11 — The Zambian government has suspended a controversial television advertising campaign that promoted so-called safe sex for youth through the use of condoms, the news service reported.

The move followed fierce criticism from churches who complained after the ads were first aired on state-run television a couple of weeks earlier that they were encouraging promiscuity.

In one scene teen-age girls talk frankly about sex and condoms. In another, how to use a condom is illustrated. The ads aired in prime time, when parents and children traditionally watch television together.

At first the Health Ministry refused to stop the campaign, saying people needed to face up to the reality that Zambia has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world.

But in the face of continued criticism, not only from church leaders but also from government circles, the minister for health, Enoch Kavindele, ordered the ad campaign to be suspended.

Kavindele said it would resume only after the ads had been thoroughly reviewed and offensive material edited out.

Catholic Convert and Philosopher G.E. Anscombe Dies

THE INDEPENDENT, Jan 10 — Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, a student and translator of Ludwig Wittgenstein and a convert to the Church, died Jan. 9, the London daily reported.

Though Anscombe's parents were not religious, their only son became a priest in the Church of England and she converted to Catholicism.

Anscombe took instruction in the faith, The Independent noted, while an undergraduate at Oxford not long before meeting her future husband, Peter Geach, who was also a convert. They were married in 1941 in the Brompton Oratory with only two witnesses present.

After graduating from Oxford, Anscombe was elected to a research fellowship at Newnham College, Cambridge. It was there, The Independent said, that she first met Wittgenstein. When Wittgenstein died in 1951, he left a will in which he named Anscombe as one of his three literary executors.