"We made a compromise," said union president Errol McCleod. But "we have gained some things." The union's fight was weakened by a number of picket line crossers. The Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago has vowed to deal severely with any strikers who they claim were involved in incidents on the picket line.
Mexico border fence okayed
Doris Meissner, commissioner of the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, declared September 11 that the U.S.
Border Patrol was approved to erect a 10-foot-high steel-
mesh fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. The fence is to be
built between Sunland Park, New Mexico, and Ciudad Juárez,
Mexico, and stretch for 1.3 miles along the desert.
Meissner said the fence would be a "firm response" to immigrant workers trying to cross the border into the United States. Mexican officials say the barrier would be an insult to Mexico.
Buenos Aires to sign oil pact
The Argentine government reached a tentative accord with
London September 19 governing the extraction of natural gas
and petroleum around the Malvinas Islands, which the British
government seized from Argentina in 1832. The two countries
waged a 74-day war over the islands in 1982 that killed
1,000 troops. Buenos Aires maintains its claim of
sovereignty over the islands.
Argentina's largest daily newspaper, Clarín, reported September 19 that under the agreement the British government would grant licenses to explore waters to the east of the Malvinas and obtain 66.6 percent of earnings on any oil or gas discovered there. Argentina would receive the rest. Revenue on gas and oil found in waters to the west of the islands would be divided equally.
Chechnya facing more war
The shaky truce signed July 30 between Moscow and Chechen
guerrilla forces is threatening to come apart completely as
cease-fire violations continue. The Chechen rebel commander-
in-chief, Aslan Maskhadov, acknowledged that Chechen heavy
weapons had been moved into "combat positions" instead of
surrendering them to Russian authorities. Maskhadov stated
that while the accord required the Chechens to turn in some
45,000 weapons, "We will not listen to ultimatums."
Russian troops still routinely bomb three southern mountain towns that they were never able to conquer. Rebel fighters loyal to Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev have set up self-defense units in villages as they return to their homes. Alek Makhayev, who spoke at a rally September 17 in Samashki, said he led a battalion in the war and had no intention of giving up his weapons. "We will only disarm when Russia leaves this place," he told the New York Times.
Russia: electricity at gunpoint
Russian sailors forced the authorities at the Kola
Peninsula power company to restore power to a naval base at
gunpoint September 21, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.
The power company cut off the electricity because the fleet
owed about $4.5 million in unpaid bills. The power outage
caused a submarine's reactor system to overheat and "the
danger of an accident with unpredictable consequences became
imminent," the agency stated.
Since 1992, there have been 16 cases of power being cut to military installations for non-payment of bills. Moscow is often months behind in meeting payments to utilities and its soldiers. In one case, a base commander in the Far East used a tank to expedite getting his power turned back on.
Hunger crisis widening in Iraq
Officials of the United Nations's World Food Program and
the Food and Agriculture Organization said 4 million Iraqis
are completely destitute today, compared with 2 million a
year ago. The agencies report that 70 percent of the
population does not have enough to eat and that the country
needs $2.8 billion in food aid to halt widespread hunger.
The officials blamed the UN sanctions imposed on Iraq after the U.S.-organized war against that country in 1990. The UN Security Council extended the five-year-old sanctions against Iraq September 8.
Furor on Okinawa rape case
The rape of a 12-year-old girl by three U.S. soldiers in
Okinawa has sparked demands for the closure of the massive
U.S. military bases there. There are 45,000 U.S. troops
stationed in Japan, with 29,000 in Okinawa. Tokyo pays about
70 percent of the costs of maintaining the bases, which take
up 20 percent of the land on the island.
Okinawans say the case, one of 4,500 crimes committed by U.S. GIs stationed there since 1972, has increased tensions that have been simmering for years. "All Okinawans are shaking with anger," said Fumiko Nakamura, an 81-year-old opponent of the U.S. bases in Okinawa. A women's protest has been called against the bases.
Court won't ban nuke tests
The World Court judges in The Hague, Netherlands, dumped
the New Zealand government's request to ban French nuclear
tests in the South Pacific September 22. The judges refused
to reopen a 1973 case against Paris's atmospheric atomic
testing, saying it didn't apply to the underground program.
The French government ignored an interim ban imposed by the
court in the 1973 case.
Jacques Baumel, vice-president of the French National Assembly's defense commission, said September 22 that the next nuclear test, which is scheduled within the next 10 days, could be more powerful than the September 5 underground blast at Moruroa Atoll. Meanwhile, delegates to the annual conference of the 122-nation International Atomic Energy Agency wound up their meeting by passing a resolution calling for a halt to nuclear testing.
Virginia gov't rushing to execute
The state of Virginia plans to execute nine people in the
next three months - an unprecedented schedule of one for
every 10 days for the rest of the year. A Virginia law put
into the books July 1 sets new restrictions for habeas
corpus appeals and requires local courts to schedule an
execution date within 70 days after an inmate's petition to
appeal has been rejected by the Virginia Supreme Court or
the federal appeals court.
Defense attorneys in Virginia warn that the rush to execute could result in innocent people being killed, especially now that nonprofit organizations that represent penniless death row inmates are threatened with loss of federal funding. "The greatest cost is going to be people who are innocent being caught up in this riptide," Steven Hawkins, director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, told the Washington Post.