Taiwan to get warplanes, tanks
Taiwan military officials announced April 18 that Paris will
begin delivering 60 Mirage 2000-5 fighter planes in May. Taipei
will also receive 160 F-16 warplanes from Washington in July. The
United Daily News, a major Taiwan newspaper, reported that Taipei
plans to purchase 300 more M60-A3 tanks from the U.S. government,
in addition to 160 tanks it agreed to buy in 1994.
The Chinese government has protested the sale of weapons to Taiwan - a part of China under capitalist rule. U.S.-backed forces fled to the province after a workers and peasants revolution overthrew the big land-owning and capitalist classes in 1949.
Chrysler balks at Vietnam plant
Vance Peacock, Chrysler's manager for Thailand and Vietnam,
said the company was reassessing its plans to assemble vehicles in
Vietnam because of expected competition in a limited auto market.
"The original proposal was based on us being one of four licensees.
So with 12 in the picture we're looking at what level of investment
makes sense now," he said.
The auto maker was awarded a license in 1995 to build a $192 million assembly plant in Dong Ngai province. The Ford Motor Company is building a $102 million assembly plant outside Hanoi with vehicles scheduled to begin rolling off the production line in October 1997. "Vietnam has a population of 74 million but few people can afford cars," notes a report in London's Financial Times.
London contests beef ban
British prime minister John Major has urged the heads of
state from France, Germany, and Italy to help end the European
Union's ban on British beef exports. He met with them April 19
during a summit of the "Group of Seven" in Moscow. "We think it
unreasonable, and the ban should be lifted as soon as possible,"
Major complained.
British agriculture minister Douglas Hogg said April 16 he would challenge the ban in the European Court. Huge stocks of unsold beef have accumulated in the country's slaughterhouse industry since scientists linked a fatal human disease to the "mad cow" disease that has plagued herds of cattle in Britain.
Strikes cripple hotels in Norway
Members of the Norwegian Hotel and Restaurant Workers' Union
went on strike April 16 after negotiations broke down on wages and
working conditions. The labor action shut down 10 major hotels in
Norway, costing them several millions of dollars a day. It was the
first strike in Norway's hotel industry in 11 years and threatened
to spread to 21 more hotels.
The workers are demanding a wage increase of nearly 6 percent and accused the hotel employers of imposing an effective wage freeze this year. They are also resisting the hotel bosses' attempts to change the centralized collective bargaining to local wage negotiations.
Paris helps crush revolt in Africa
French troops, joined by government forces, put down a revolt
involving 400 soldiers of the Central African Republic. The
soldiers, who were demanding back pay, seized the radio station and
main fuel depot April 19 in the capital, Bangui. The rebellion
broke out April 18 after teachers and other civil service workers
went on strike earlier in the week over the same issue. Low-ranking
army officers said they hadn't been paid in four months.
According to news reports, Ange-Felix Patasse, president of the Central African Republic, took refuge in a French military barracks near his palace. Paris has 1,300 troops in that country, which won independence from France in 1965. The Associated Press noted April 20 that this "was the latest in a series of French interventions in former African colonies."
300 killed by U.S. cops at Mexican border in 1995
The chairman of the foreign relations commission of Mexico's
Senate, José Murat, said at an April 12 news conference that about
300 Mexicans were slain in incidents along the U.S. border in 1995.
"This matter is nothing new," he stated. "The most recent incident
became seriously notorious because it was recorded on video, but
this has occurred many times."
Public workers strike in Brazil
Public workers at social security offices, courts, and
universities in Brazil went on strike April 16, demanding an
across-the-board pay increase. Several thousand workers marched to
the presidential palace in Brasilia to press their demands.
Union officials are calling for a 46 percent pay hike for the country's 600,000 civil service workers, who have been expecting their annual wage increase since January. Some ministers in the government of Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso have been pushing for a wage freeze.
Sex harassment at Mitsubishi
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed
a lawsuit April 9 charging Mitsubishi Motors Corp. with allowing
sexual harassment of female workers at the company's auto plant in
Normal, Illinois. The agency stated that 300-500 women were
subjected to abuse. The class-action suit, which seeks compensatory
and punitive damages as well as back pay, came after 26 women
workers filed a formal complaint against the company. The
settlement could total more than $10 million, according to John
Rowe, director of the EEOC office in Chicago.
Top executives at the company called a meeting April 11 with employees and threatened that they could lose their jobs if the charges caused sales to drop. According to the Washington Post, company officials said they were planning an "employee march" on the Chicago offices of the EEOC. Patricia Benassi, a lawyer in Peoria representing the women in the original suit, said threats had been made against women at the plant for taking legal action.
Affirmative action battle looms
Georgia attorney general Michael Bowers is pressing the
state's university system to abolish affirmative action admission
policies. "If you use race to determine who is admitted to Georgia
institutes of higher learning, you need to revise them," Bowers
said April 9, citing a federal court ruling that struck down the
University of Texas Law School affirmative action admissions plan.
Meanwhile, university officials in Texas said they would resume affirmative action measures after a federal appeals court stayed the ban April 19. State officials had earlier suspended a $1.5 million scholarship program that benefits 1,300 students of oppressed nationalities. Several state legislatures are debating bills that would stop universities from using affirmative action admissions programs.
Perot party makes ballot in Ohio
Ohio secretary of state Robert Taft told a news conference
April 19 that the Reform Party of Ross Perot won a spot on the
presidential ballot in Ohio with nearly 35,000 valid petition
signatures. The Reform Party is now on the ballot in nine states.
In the 1992 presidential election, Perot captured 19 percent of the
vote. The billionaire businessman is bankrolling a campaign to put
his Reform Party on the ballot in all 50 states.
- MAURICE WILLIAMS