A week earlier, the foreign ministry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea issued a statement protesting Washington's deployment of additional combat planes in south Korea as an attempt to "turn the Korean peninsula into a military strategical vantage for aggression on Asia and world domination by stifling the DPRK by military force. The U.S. call for `security' and `peace' on the Korean peninsula is nothing but a hypocrisy and an artifice to camouflage its criminal moves and plans."

Japan activists: `no nuke dumps'
Local farmers and antinuclear activists blocked the port of Mutsu-Ogawara, in Rokkasho, Japan, March 10 in opposition to Tokyo's plans to allow a British ship to dump 30 tons of nuclear waste there. The governor, Morio Kimura, also opposed the nuclear waste site. Kimura charged the Japanese government with failure to develop a plan for storage of the toxic material. The government says a plan won't be in effect until 2020. "If we don't say no, they will continue to make more and more waste," explained Yumiko Oshita, a longtime anti-nuke activist there.

Tel Aviv puts conditions on withdrawal from Lebanon
Israeli government officials have recently floated the suggestion they may withdraw troops from Lebanon, but not immediately and only on condition that the Lebanese government bust up and disarm guerrillas there. UN secretary general Kofi Annan said March 20 he supported the troop pullout, but he rejected demands by the Lebanese and Syrian governments that a withdrawal be unconditional. UN Resolution 425 -adopted in 1978 and ignored by Tel Aviv -urges Israel "immediately to cease its military action against" Lebanon and "withdraw its forces." Israeli forces have violated Lebanese sovereignty for more that 25 years. They invaded that country in 1972, seeking to deal a blow to Palestinian guerrillas, in 1978, and again in 1982, leaving troops occupying a nine-mile-wide "security zone."

Oil barons vie for African fields
Imperialist oil barons are scrambling to exploit offshore oil fields in the Gulf of Guinea and the West Coast of Africa. Major players include U.S. companies Mobil Oil and Chevron, the French-based Elf Aquitaine, and the British- Dutch company Royal Dutch/Shell, all of whom are fiercely competing for rights to the resources in the region. The countries of Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Congo Republic, and Angola hold approximately 24.4 billion barrels of oil reserves and 116.4 trillions of cubic feet of gas reserves. Over the next 20 years, industry experts say, U.S. capitalists will invest between $40-$60 billion in the Gulf of Guinea alone.

The oil corporations' interests were highlighted when U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright traveled to Angola in December. About 40 percent of Nigeria's oil goes to the United States, and the U.S. oil company Chevron is the leading producer of oil in Angola, but is facing stiff competition from Elf. Meanwhile, U.S. president William Clinton will begin a six-nation tour of Africa in late March, promoting U.S. imperialists' interests in trade and investment.

IMF withholds loan to Ukraine
The International Monetary Fund is withholding the latest payment of a $585 million loan to Ukraine, saying it will resume discussions on the credits sometime in April after the parliamentary elections. Ukraine would then receive the loan payment only if it met IMF dictates, which represents the interests of the biggest imperialist banking trusts. One problem the IMF officials cited was that the Ukrainian government has not done enough to slash government expenditures, such as paying mounting back wage and pensions owed to workers.

Italians demand: `work, work!'
Tens of thousands of unionists and others took to the streets of Naples, Italy, March 20 to protest high unemployment chanting, "Work, work, work!" March organizers put the number of participants at 80,000, while cops estimate 50,000. The march was organized by the three main trade union organizations in Naples. Joblessness in Italy is 12 percent nationwide and as high as 22 percent in the country's southern region. Rome has carried out austerity moves against working people over the last two years in the name of meeting the criteria needed to gain acceptance into the European Monetary Union.

Brazil: 4,000 peasants occupy gov't offices demanding land
Thousands of landless peasants took over government offices in 16 cities across Brazil in mid-March. The actions were led by the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST), which has occupied idle farms for years. The MST has now begun occupations of buildings in urban areas, pressuring the government for land reform. "Congress keeps stalling. They say they'll make the changes we asked for, but they don't," explained Eduardo Luiz Emmerck. "Invasions are the only weapon we have." Emmerck was one of 1,000 peasants who spent the night in the Treasury Department in Sao Paulo. As more than 4,000 peasants began leaving the government buildings, they threatened to block highways and invade national banks if the government did not speed up the distribution of some 1.1 billion acres of farmland among the 4 million landless peasants.

University workers in Dominican Republic win student backing
Striking workers at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic were joined by students March 18. The strikers are demanding a 20 percent wage increase and the reinstatement of a dozen fired workers. Cop agents, sent in to break up a the action, shot three youths and detained several others. Students walked out when the Dominican student federation president was detained for distributing literature that called for a student strike.

Paraguayan peasants protest
Some 5,000 peasants in Paraguay marched on the capital March 18 to protest the government's failure to keep promises it made a year ago to provide land, agricultural training, and other agrarian reforms. About 200 riot cops were deployed during the demonstration. In response to peasants protests last year, the government offered $15,000 to buy necessities, which did little to solve the economic hardships they face. Rural workers make up 60 percent of Paraguay's 5 million people.

NY cops raid `wrong' apartment
Claiming to be seeking drug dealers, New York city cops burst into a Bronx apartment with a battering ram on March 18. "I was scared, scared they were going to shoot us," said six-year-old Jaquan Fulton, who was there with his mother and grandmother. Two days later, police acknowledged they had smashed up the "wrong" apartment, entering without a search warrant. In the last year, at least 11 raids have been made in New York City that involved cops entering a home not listed on the warrant. This does not include raids carried out without a warrant, such as the one at the Fultons' home. A lawyer for the Fulton family said they were preparing a $30 million lawsuit against the city over the police break-in. Another "mistaken" police raid took place in February in which cops shot off 26 rounds and ransacked Ellis Elliot's apartment in the Bronx.

-MEGAN ARNEY

AND BRIAN TAYLOR  
 
 
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