Europe: jobless at 50-year high
The jobless rate in Europe is at the highest level since
World War II, according to the New York Times. Spain leads
the pack with an unemployment rate of 23 percent, while
joblessness in France and Italy is hovering around 12
percent. Some 3.3 million workers in France are registered
as unemployed as big companies have trimmed the payrolls in
their drive for higher productivity. The French auto-maker,
Renault, eliminated 70,000 jobs in the last 10 years. Many
politicians claim the joblessness is a result of workers in
Europe having higher wages, longer vacations, and better
health benefits than workers in the United States.
Workers in Russia demand pay
More than 2,000 workers from Vektor, an aerospace
manufacturer, blocked the streets and paralyzed the city of
Yekaterinburg, one of Russia's biggest industrial cities,
June 13. The workers were protesting that they have not been
paid since February. Moscow has failed to pay workers in
many enterprises as a result of an austerity drive that it
hopes can stabilize the ruble.
Fascists win seats in French vote
The fascist National Front won mayoral elections June 18
in the French towns of Orange, Marinagne, and Toulon. Jean-
Marie Le Chevallier of the National Front won a tight three-
way race with 37 percent of the vote in Toulon, a city of
about 170,000 people. A former National Front candidate won
the mayoral contest in Nice, a French Riviera city of
342,000 people.
Marie-France Stirbois, the National Front candidate for mayor of Dreux, lost that race with 39.3 percent of the vote to 60.7 percent for her conservative rival. Stirbois promised to make Dreux "a more French city," scapegoating immigrant workers. "One day the mayor of Dreux will be named Muhammed," she complained to the New York Times.
Paris nuke tests hit
Governments in the South Pacific protested Paris's June
13 decision to resume nuclear tests in the region. French
president Jacques Chirac announced that his government would
begin a series of eight tests to be completed before signing
an international test ban treaty. The South Pacific Forum,
made up of the small island states in the region, denounced
the tests. Chirac showed "flagrant disregard for world and
regional opinion," said the group's secretary-general,
Ieremia Tabai, based in Fiji.
New Zealand prime minister Jim Bolger announced his government was suspending all defense links with Paris. Australian prime minister Paul Keating said he would freeze all military cooperation with France while the testing takes place. In 1973, the New Zealand government sent a warship to the French test zone in response to nuclear blasts.
Settlers seize land in West Bank
Hundreds of Israeli settlers seized 13 abandoned
buildings June 13 in the occupied West Bank to protest the
planned withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian towns.
The settlers, who call themselves the true Zionists, said
the action was the first shot in a new campaign to claim as
much West Bank territory as possible while negotiations
continue on extending Palestinian self-rule to other areas
in the West Bank. What powers Palestinian officials will
have - such as control of West Bank water supplies and land
use - is unclear. There are about 130,000 Jewish settlers
living in the West Bank.
Tokyo sets fund for ex-sex slaves
The Japanese government June 14 said it was establishing
a fund to aid the estimated 80,000 to 200,000 women from
Korea, China, the Philippines, and elsewhere whom the
Japanese army forced to be "comfort women" or sex slaves
during World War II. This attempt to quell complaints over
Tokyo's abuses falls short of the victims' demands. The same
day the fund was announced, the upper house of Japan's
Parliament squashed a resolution stating remorse for wartime
conduct.
Women like Kim Yong Sil, a Korean who at age 13 was picked up off the street and gang-raped by Japanese officers, were forced to have sex with 20 to 30 men a day. Some Japanese officers argued this was "humanitarian," because it supposedly reduced instances of rape. The fund is supposed to pay the former "comfort women" a modest sum and cover their general medical expenses.
Honduran military to open files
Officials in the Honduran military announced June 14
that they would open the military's records for
investigators to examine the fate of opponents who
disappeared in the 1980s. Honduras was used as a platform by
U.S.-backed forces trying to overthrow the revolutionary
government of Nicaragua in that period.
The Honduran government issued a report in 1993 stating that the CIA trained members of Battalion 316, the counterinsurgency unit said to be responsible for the atrocities. The battalion was set up under the command of Gen. Luis Alonso Discua, currently head of the Honduran armed forces.Military spokesman Col. Napoleon Santos Aguilar said the army "will not permit any of its officers to be jailed because of pressure from local human rights organizations."
101,000 fewer jobs in May
Some 101,000 workers were dropped from the payrolls in
May, according a June 2 report from the U.S. Labor
Department. It was the largest monthly decline since the end
of the last recession in the spring of 1991. In
manufacturing, 56,000 jobs were chopped off, affecting
nearly all industries. A report from the Federal Reserve
stated June 15 that the operating rate of U.S. mines,
factories, and utilities fell for the fourth consecutive
month, and is now below the May 1994 level.
N.Y. cop corruption charges rise
Corruption charges filed against New York City cops rose
28 percent in 1994, according to a report released June 16
by the police department's Internal Affairs Bureau. The
report showed that while corruption arrests by the police
department increased sharply in 1994, disciplinary actions,
including suspensions imposed by the department, dropped
substantially.
In 1994 with a department of 31,000 cops, 141 police officers were arrested on corruption charges, up 48 from 1993. Last year, 161 officers were suspended compared with 204 in 1993. The number of cops testing positive for drugs went up 31 percent over the same time period.
No rules on repetitive injuries
The Clinton administration has dropped plans to issue
regulations to protect workers from repetitive strain
injuries. Business groups like the National Federation of
Independent Business and the National Association of
Manufacturers, as well as Republican party politicians, had
campaigned against the safety rules.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) says that 700,000 workers suffer from work-related repetitive stress injuries annually. U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay proposed to cut $3.5 million from OSHA's budget, arguing that ergonomics regulations are too time-consuming and costly for business.
-MAURICE WILLIAMS