The Texas-based company BJ Services, which had personnel in Nigeria, did little for the first two days of the blaze. After the majority of injuries were already incurred, workmen were sent in to put out the blaze. Firefighters stopped fighting the flames October 19, letting the fuel remaining in the Jesse section of the pipeline burn itself out. This lasted until October 23.

The Nigerian government and the government-owned Pipeline and Products Marketing Company blamed local residents for the explosion. "If you people are complaining of marginalization," said Nigerian ruler Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar on a visit to the tragic site in Warri, "that is not enough for you to go on destroying government property." An article in the October 20 New York Times described refineries in Nigeria as "poorly maintained." The government has ruled out compensation for the families, calling them thieves.

Indonesia: glove workers strike
About 700 workers struck a glove factory owned by PT Latex Indotoba Perkasa in Medan, Indonesia, nearly 900 miles northwest of the capital city of Jakarta recently, demanding higher pay and better benefits. Associated Press reported strikers were seeking to go back into the factory when they were then pushed away and attacked by dozens of policeman guarding the building. Five people were killed by gunfire. One worker was struck with a bayonet, four others were wounded by rubber bullets, and at least one picket was thought to have been beaten after being taken to a police station.

Malaysian gov't attacks protests
Thousands of Malaysian people turned out in Kuala Lumpur to oppose the 17-year rule of Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir. The action was called by bourgeois opposition forces that back jailed and ousted Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. The ruling regime there has made all pro-Anwar protests illegal and threatened mass arrests. Anwar was arrested in September on charges of corruption and sexual misconduct, which he denies. Hundreds of cops were sent in to break up the protest, using water cannons filled with blue- foam pepper spray and firing 50 rounds of tear gas. Some people leaving grocery stores in the area were randomly arrested. Cops followed a group of protesters to a nearby mosque, drenched the house of prayer in pepper spray, and were chased away by those in the mosque. Several hundred were detained.

West Bank: underneath `peacé accords polarization sharpens
U.S. president William Clinton, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) head Yasser Arafat signed a so-called land-for-peace agreement October 23 in Maryland. Under the U.S.-brokered accord, Tel Aviv is to pull back its troops from another 13 percent of the West Bank and release 750 of the 3,000 Palestinian political prisoners. The PLO is supposed to crack down on armed liberation organizations - an action supervised by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency - and remove references of replacing the Zionist state with a secular Palestinian state from its charter. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian Legislative Council member, said, "There is no confidence in the Israeli government" to make good on the agreements "because we have learned from experience that this Israeli government is certainly not interested in bridging the gap between signing of an agreement and honoring the commitment."

Zionist settlers, the National Religious Party, and other rightists in Israel opposed to any troop withdrawal have labeled Netanyahu's agreement "treason" and a "surrender." Settlers in the West Bank have demonstrated against the pull back, blocking roads. Some in the Israeli government have threatened to topple Netanyahu's coalition regime if any land is given up.

Tokyo tries bank bailout package
On October 16 the Japanese government enacted a plan to pour as much as $500 billion capital into its hobbled banking system, while nationalizing banks too weak to survive. The first that will most likely be taken over by Tokyo is Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan Ltd., due to its inability to pay key bondholders. New laws require any bank facing such difficulties to report them to the government, which must then decide whether to nationalize the lender.

Meanwhile, Nomura Securities - Japan's largest investment bank - is axing 2,000 jobs and scaling back some of its international operations in order to compensate for $2.3 billion lost in the first half of the fiscal year. Daiwa and Nikko, the second- and third-largest investment banks, have taken similar measures.

Ruble crisis affects Siberia
The declining value of the Russian ruble threatens to have a devastating impact on the eastern region of Siberia this winter. Essential food and other product shipments sent there will, in some cases, be chopped in half and in remote areas cut off completely. Contributing factors include: a two-thirds fall in the value of the ruble causing import prices to rise in transit and the lack of fuel for nuclear-powered ice-breaking barges that can navigate the frozen streams that pass distant areas in Siberia. Food reserves accumulated over the years are fast running out.

Meanwhile, trade unionists have threatened to launch a national strike if Moscow continues to stall payment on the 21 billion ruble debt owed to workers. Some 44 million Russians - 30 percent of the population - now live below the poverty line.

Dominicans demand electricity
One month after Hurricane Georges ravaged the Dominican Republic, hundreds of people in Navarrete and the capital city, Santo Domingo, protested chronic water and electricity outages. Cops were pelted with rocks by some demonstrators at the October 22 actions. Troops were deployed in one neighborhood in Santo Domingo, where they reportedly pulled some youths out of their houses, beat them, then took them in to the police. Cops shot and injured at least one protester and arrested and detained hundreds. The Dominican Energy Corp. claims they restored electricity to 80 percent of the island. Hundreds of people were killed in the hurricane, according to the government, and at least 100,000 have been left homeless. Accounts by many residents put the death toll in the housands.

Texas nuclear dump rejected
After months of protests in Mexico, and in southern Texas, the Texas state environmental commission decided to deny a license to build a nuclear waste dump outside Sierra Blanca, west Texas, near the border with Mexico. Sixty percent of the town's 600 residents are of Mexican descent. The dump, planned for 15 years, would have sat on top of a precarious geological fault line in the area prone to earthquake risks. On October 12 more than 1,000 people, including government officials, protested in Mexico City against the proposed dump. The Mexican government had just reversed its position and declared its official opposition to the construction of the facility, which would store radioactive waste from U.S nuclear reactors.

BRIAN TAYLOR  
 
 
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