Inmates said prisoners are punished by suspending them by their wrists from trees and beams at the facility. They demanded one mentally ill prisoner be let down who had been suspended naked from a stairway for eight days. They also accused guards of molesting female visitors to the prison. Security director of the prison, Ignacio Pe'rez, was relieved of duty pending an investigation into the charges, said Veracruz prison director José Lagunes López.

Strike halts flights at Air France, pilots walk out at TAT
Workers at Air France Europe forced the airline to cancel several flights when they organized a strike March 28. The workers are protesting a merger of the airline with its parent company - the state-owned Air France - which is expected to cut the wages of most Air France Europe employees. The strike coincided with a walkout by pilots and ground personnel at the commuter airline TAT, who are protesting a merger of that airline with another small carrier, Air Liberte. Pilots at the airline are planning a two-day strike March 31 and April 1.

Meanwhile, hospital interns announced March 28 they would continue a 16-day strike against government cutbacks on health care. These strikes occur as the number of jobless workers in France reached a postwar record of 3.28 million in February- 12.8 percent.

French officials approve new anti-immigrant legislation
The lower house of the French National Assembly passed a new bill March 25 that allows police to keep passports and other travel documents of undocumented immigrants. The most controversial aspect of the proposed new law has been amended. The previous draft of the new law - named after Interior Minister Jean-Louis Debré -would have required those housing immigrants to inform authorities when their guests leave or overstay their visa. Nearly 100,000 people demonstrated in Paris and several thousand more in other cities February 22 to protest against the anti-immigrant law being discussed in the National Assembly.

Meanwhile, the ultraright National Front party held its triennial congress March 29-31 in Strasbourg. In an attempt to counter the gains of the National Front, the opposition Socialist party is drafting stiffer anti-immigrant legislation that would supposedly replace Francés existing immigration laws with "entry quotas which would vary in proportion to the economic health of the country."

U.S. to sanction Japanese ports
The two largest dockworkers' unions, which represent 55,000 dockworkers are planning work stoppages to protest sanctions that Washington plans against Japanese shipping companies. Officials at U.S. and European shipping companies claim their access to Japan's ports is hampered by discriminatory licensing, scheduling, and labor- contracting practices. The U.S. government plans to impose fines of $100,000 per Japanese ship docked at ports in the United States.

The Japan Harbor Transportation Association threatened "massive retaliation against U.S. carriers" if the trade sanctions are implemented. Union members have already decided to halt work on Sundays and plan to stay off the job between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m. The protest will affect about half of Japan's ports, including Yokohama, Kobe, and four other major ones.

WTO backs U.S. capitalists
A World Trade Organization (WTO) panel issued a preliminary ruling March 20 stating that the European Union's (EU) banana-import policy violated world trade rules. Washington pursued the case on behalf of Chiquita Brands International, Inc., which complained about the EU tariff preferences given to bananas from Caribbean nations that were once European colonies.

While the U.S. government apparently accepts this ruling by the WTO panel, it is refusing to cooperate with the panel over a dispute concerning Washington's so-called Helms-Burton law, which targets companies doing business in Cuba. Trade officials in the EU, Canada, and Mexico are challenging the law in the WTO on the grounds that it violates world trade rules by trying to impose U.S. law on other countries. The Clinton administration said the Helms- Burton law is exempt from WTO rules because it is a national security and foreign policy issue, not a trade matter.

Farmers battle timber baron
A coalition of Chicano farmers and environmental activists have organized blockades of logging trucks six times this year in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. The farmers charge the wealthy landowner, Zachary Taylor, of ruining their irrigation system and clogging it with sediment from his timber cutting operations. Taylor's high altitude estate is a watershed for the southeastern portion of the San Luis Valley. Devon Peña, coordinator of Salva Tu Sierra, vowed that the coalition would wage a "hot summer of protest," the New York Times reported.

Judge upholds firing of gay reservist in the Air Force
Federal judge Joseph McGlynn ruled March 26 that Air Force officials were correct when they fired reservist John Hoffman from his civilian job after he told his supervisor he is gay. McGlynn said military policy required Hoffman to be a reservist to hold his job as civilian mechanic at the Air Force Reserve station in Willow Grove Pennsylvania. He was turned down for other jobs he applied for at the station, which do not require the employee to be a reservist.

Military officials cut off Hoffman's weekend pay in April 1996, stripped him of his uniform, and told him he would be discharged from the Reserve, pending completion of an investigation. Hoffman, who is 51 years old, said he decided to retire from the Reserve before he could be discharged because he did not want to lose his pension, but no one told him he would lose his civilian job if he left the military. Stefan Presser, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said he planned to appeal the case.

Judge issues workfare injunction
In response to a lawsuit filed by six welfare recipients, New York State Supreme Court acting justice Jane Solomon issued an injunction March 24 ordering the New York City administration to stop assigning welfare recipients to "workfare" programs unless it does a full assessment of needs and skills to determine whether they should be placed into educational programs instead. The judge allowed the plaintiffs to expand the lawsuit to include all current and future welfare recipients considered for workfare.

The plaintiffs charged the city with undermining their jobs prospects and steering them away from education opportunities, including one who had her public assistance cut after she refused to drop out of school to take a workfare assignment. City officials claim placing welfare recipients into workfare jobs such as cleaning parks or streets is the best way to get a "permanent" job.

-MAURICE WILLIAMS  
 
 
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