The article describes changes to shipping regulations in the Bosprus Strait. These changes will make shipping in the Black Sea more costly but are aimed not at Iran but at an existing pipeline with a terminal in Russia and a proposed pipeline ending in Georgia.
Ron Richards
Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico
Impact of deforestation
Your article on the "social disaster" in Central America
triggered by hurricane Mitch (see November 23 Militant), missed
one factor that reinforces the point of the article: it is the
capitalist profit drive that is responsible for the horrendous
destruction and loss of lives and livelihood for thousands of
workers and farmers in the region.
An article in the November 11 Globe and Mail explains that widespread deforestation by multinational banana producers and timber corporations has resulted in a loss of 48 hectares of forest every hour in the region. Mountainsides no longer have trees to hold back landslides or stop the rain from sweeping away topsoil and dumping it into rivers.
According to Juan Blas of the Central American Council on Forests and Protected Zones, "the rain that fell in deforested regions could not be absorbed. Instead it carried the soil into the rivers depositing sediments in river beds. This diminished the rivers' capacities and worsened the floods."
John Steele,
Toronto, Ontario
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