ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly today [May 29] inconclusively discussed a private Member`s motion for leave to introduce a Bill to discourage use of alcoholic liquors in the country. ... Maulana Ghulam Ghaus Hazarvi`s motion for leave to introduce the Prohibition Against Alcoholic Liquors Bill was opposed by Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Malik Mohammad Akhtar on technical grounds. Opposing the motion, Malik Akhtar said it was in effect a money Bill and could not come up before the House without prior permission of the President. He argued that it would indirectly affect tariff as it sought to prohibit import of liquors.

[Meanwhile as reported by news agencies from Paris,] the United States and France today disagreed publicly on whether the floating of world currencies should be allowed to continue. French Finance Minister Jean-Pierre Fourcade told the 24-nation Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development annual ministerial meeting that it was in the common interest of all countries to return to fixed but adjustable parities. But U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon told the Ministers: `Flexibility in monetary arrangements is not chaos.