The World - News from Sept. 15, 1986

Seychelles President Albert Rene fired his defense minister, arrested 12 other people and forced several senior army officers to retire after foiling a plot to assassinate him, London’s Sunday Times reported. The plotters in the Indian Ocean island nation “were upset at the country’s poor economic position, made worse by political repression, a decline in tourism and dwindling foreign exchange reserves,” the newspaper said. Soldiers disenchanted with Rene’s left-wing regime planned to assassinate him when he returned from the recent conference of nonaligned countries in Zimbabwe, the paper said. But Rene reportedly learned of the plot and returned a day early to confront the conspirators.