Caspian oil pipeline deal signed

The governments of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey agreed November 18 to construct a U.S.-promoted $2.4 billion pipeline from the Caspian Sea that would bypass the existing pipeline through Chechnya to Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossisk. The 1,080-mile pipeline would start in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, cross Georgia, and end at the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey. A second pact was signed among the regimes in the region to build a 1,250-mile natural gas line from Turkmenistan, which has the world's fourth largest natural gas reserves, to Erzurum, Turkey.

Washington hopes these deals will strengthen its influence in the Caucasus. "This is a major foreign policy victory... that advances America's strategic interests," crowed U.S. energy secretary William Richardson. But one oil executive cautioned, "A million things could happen" in the turbulent region by the time construction begins in 2004 or later.  
 

Romanian workers rally for jobs

Some 2,000 workers rallied November 18 at the Black Sea port of Constanta, Romania, to demand the government take measures to reverse falling living standards and rising unemployment. In other parts of the country thousands of workers demonstrated in the southwest town of Turnu Severin, while oil workers and truck drivers marched through the oil town of Ploiesti. The regime in Bucharest has announced plans to lay off 100,000 workers as part of an agreement with the World Bank to sell off, restructure, or shut down state-owned enterprises

In January 10,000 miners from the Jiu Valley waged a two-week strike and a five-day march toward Bucharest that pushed back plans to close two mines in the region.  
 

Thousands in Austria march against anti-immigrant campaign

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Vienna November 12 against racism and hostility to immigrants. Politicians of the long-ruling Social Democratic and Austrian People's parties were booed and pelted with eggs. Estimates of the number of marchers ranged from 30,000 by the conservative Presse to 60,000 by the liberal Standard. The action came in the wake of recent electoral advances by the ultraright Austrian Freedom Party, whose leader, Jörg Haider, denounced the demonstrators as "fanatics." The Freedom Party, whose campaign included scapegoating immigrants, won the second-highest number of votes in Austria's parliamentary elections in October. The police, which is a bastion of the Freedom Party, estimated 25,000 people participated in the protest.  
 

Tamil Tigers overrun bases

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have scored major victories over the Sri Lankan military. In early November the army withdrew units from the east to reinforce troops in the north, where heavy artillery exchanges and other fighting have occurred. The Tamil Tigers overran 10 army bases in five days, retaking territory that the Sri Lankan army had conquered in 19 months at a cost of 2,500 soldiers killed. A presidential election is due in Sri Lanka in December. The Tamil people are fighting for a homeland and an end to discrimination. They make up 18 percent of Sri Lanka's 18 million people.  
 

Strike halts transport in Ecuador

Public transportation was paralyzed for six hours on November 18 in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, when the association of drivers went on strike demanding their debt in U.S. dollars be converted to the national currency, the sucre. The head of the association, Jorge Yánez, said the drivers obtained loans when the sucre was worth 3,000 to the dollar; its value has dropped six-fold since then. "We can pay our debts with a lesser-valued dollar," Yánez stated.

Earlier this year a general strike organized by trade unions, peasant groups, students, and others paralyzed the country during protests against austerity measures imposed by the government. The regime was forced to retreat from plans to sell off several state-owned companies, jack up gas prices, and raise the value- added tax.  
 

Thousands demand jobs in Brazil

Hundreds of thousands of workers in Brazil went on a brief strike in mid-November and organized rallies throughout the country to protest joblessness and worsening economic conditions. During the first half of 1999 several state governments defaulted and stopped paying debts, while the currency has plummeted 31 percent against the U.S. dollar this year. In the last two years the country's domestic debt nearly doubled from $108 billion to about $205 billion.  
 

U.S. gov't halts release of Arab man jailed on 'secret evidence'

U.S. attorney general Janet Reno blocked the release of Nasser Ahmed, an Egyptian jailed on "secret evidence," after he was due to walk out of the New York Metropolitan Correctional Center November 19. Citing "national security implications" that supposedly link Ahmed to "terrorist organizations," Doris Meissner, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), urged Reno to intervene against him. Last July an immigration judge ruled Ahmed should be granted asylum. He has been imprisoned for more than three years.

In October U.S. District Judge William Walls ordered the release of Mahmoud Kiareldeen, a Palestinian who was incarcerated under similar circumstances for 19 months without ever being charged with violation of any criminal laws. Some 24 Arabs have been jailed by the INS based on so-called secret evidence authorized under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act signed into law by U.S. president William Clinton in 1996.  
 

INS steps up deportations

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has deported more than 89,000 people through the "expedited removal" process in the last year, according to a report released November 12 by the agency. Overall, some 177,000 immigrants were deported during the 1999 fiscal year, an increase of 3 percent. Under the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, INS officials can deport immigrants almost immediately upon their arrival in the United States without allowing them to see an attorney or have a judicial hearing.  
 

Furor over Confederate flag deepens in South Carolina

A economic boycott campaign of South Carolina organized by the NAACP, aimed at removing the battle flag of the slavocracy from flying over the state Capitol in Columbia, has provoked a polarization in the state. An all-white memorial service of 2,500 people to honor the Confederacy was held November 12. The boycott campaign has put a national spotlight on the issue and has cost the state an estimated $80 million, according to NAACP officials. Gov. James Hodges said he wants the flag removed and offered to push for a bill to make Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a state holiday, if the NAACP drops its boycott campaign.

The Confederate flag was put up over the capitol in 1962 as symbol of racist defiance to the movement of hundreds of thousands of Blacks in the South to end the system of Jim Crow segregation. "I am a southerner... and I like living in the South," stated Charleston resident Danny Gilliard, who is Black. "But that flag on top of the Capitol is the most offensive thing I have ever seen."

—MAURICE WILLIAMS

Robert Dees contributed to this column.  
 
 
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