FRUITLESS BID TO END S. VIET NAM STRIFE

SAIGON, May 31 (Reuter and AP). GOVERNMENT and Buddhist leaders of South Viet Nam today made another bid together to end the civil strife wrecking their country - and it was as fruitless as the others. The Buddhists' spiritual leader at the same time appealed to faithful to cease laying down their lives in sacrifice - in the way a 17-year-old Buddhist girl did today, burning herself to death in a street in Hue. Her name was Nguyen Thi Van. In a desperate act of protest against South Viet Nam's military Government, she soaked herself in petrol and touched a match to her clothing. She died later in hospital. The Hue high school girl was the fifth Buddhist to take her life in this way in three days.