News In Brief

Canadians upset by visit of PLO man to Parliament

The first talk by a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Canada's Parliament in Ottawa has raised a furor in Canada, Monitor contributor Fred Langan reports.

Zehdi Terzi, the PLO observer at the United Nations, was invited about three weeks ago to speak to the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, according to committee chairman George van Roggen. The senator's critics say that in the Senate's two-year look into Middle Eastern affairs no one from the Israeli government has been invited to give testimony.

Liberal MP Roland de Corneille criticized his own party's action. ''This is a matter of giving legitimacy, of giving credibility, giving respect, to an organization that is in fact a terrorist organization,'' he said.