Joblessness hits high in France
Unemployment in France rose to a two-year high of 12.6 percent in September, according to the Financial Times of London. The rate is a whole percentage point higher than just one year ago. The labor ministry report came at a time when Prime Minister Alain Juppé's popularity is at its lowest since he took office 17 months ago. On October 17, nearly 2 million public workers struck over the austerity measures of the Juppé government. German business dumps U.S. soy
UDL, a German subsidiary of the UK-Dutch conglomerate Unilever, said it had stopped using U.S. soybeans in margarine because it was unable to distinguish between genetically- modified and unmodified beans. This comes after of Nestlé's German unit vowing to avoid using U.S. soybeans from this year's crop. The Financial Times of London reported that there is stepped-up pressure from European companies for U.S. soy producers to separate new genetically modified beans. Israeli gov't expands settlements
Tel Aviv is actively pursuing a policy of expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories of the West Bank. It is offering financial incentives and allocating some $183 million in 1997, doubling last year's allotment. "There is now a conscious policy of expanding the settlements and encouraging people to settle in them," said Mossi Raz, a member of Peace Now, an organization that has opposed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policies. The projects would give money specifically for expropriating land at Har Homa. The land at Har Homa is in east Jerusalem, where Tel Aviv's jurisdiction is not recognized under international law. It has, however, been earmarked by the Zionist regime for developing a Israeli-inhabited district.

Israeli settler charged in killing
An Israeli settler was charged with manslaughter November 1 for beating to death an 11-year-old Palestinian boy on October 27. The death sparked two days of protests by Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hussan. Palestinian youth who witnessed the beating said Nachum Korman grabbed the youth and hit him with a pistol butt. The official charges say that Korman, "placed his foot along the deceased's neck and hit him in the head with the butt of his handgun." U.S. jet fighters fly over Korea
The U.S. warship USS Independence launched jet fighters in the Sea of Japan in provocative war games October 28. It was the first time the aircraft carrier has been used in annual U.S. - south Korean military exercises, which involve some 34,000 U.S. troops and most of south Korea's 650,000-strong armed forces. Jet fighters will fly as many as 120 sorties a day, and pass as close as 90 miles to the border of north Korea during the two-week exercise. "The exercises are composed of those tasks expected to be executed in the event of war," U.S. Rear Admiral Charles Moore said. Washington has maintained a military force there since the Korean War. Philippine airline workers strike
Philippine Airlines (PAL) threatened to fire some 9,000 striking employees if they fail to return to work before Manila hosts the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit. The Philippine government intends to quell public protests when leaders of the trade forum show up there in late November. Manila's airport would suffer heavily if the strike persists, reported the Financial Times, because most of PAL's maintenance and ground-handling crew are on strike. Instability looms in Mexico
"Uncertainty looms as Mexicans Forge their yearly economic pact," read the New York Times headline on October 28. The article points to the instability of both the peso and the health of Fidel Velázquez, the 96-year-old official who has kept a grip on Mexico's unions for decades. The Mexican government and labor officials reached an agreement October 26 that keeps wages in check and insures that government's austerity policies will continue for another year. "The pact" has been signed every year since 1987, which subscribes the collaboration between the government and labor officialdom for the year. Finance minister Guillermo Ortiz added, "We are not easing up."

The pact includes a 17 percent wage increase that pales in comparison to the 70 percent loss in workers' real wages in the last decade. The peso fell 4.9 percent in the last three weeks of October, and on October 25 the peso closed at a yearly low of 12.63 cents.

Venezuelan prisoners launch hunger strike
In late October, some 1,000 prisoners from Retén de Catia and El Rodeo prisons in Venezuela declared a hunger strike, protesting the death of 25 inmates. The prisoners died in a fire after guards launched incendiary devices into a crowded jail cell in La Planta jail October 22. "The hunger strike is a form of solidarity with the those that died and against what happened," said Henrique Meier in a brief phone conversation with the Associated Press.

Prisoners are demanding that they facilitate the process of transfers of the trials and they are also citing overcrowding. Rafeal Naváez, a prisoner who is on strike, told reporters that the strike has been peaceful and that the only way the strikers will stop is when government officials negotiate and begin to reduce the overcrowding. Curfew law overturned in D.C.
A Federal district judge ruled October 29 in Washington, D.C. that a curfew law is unconstitutional, ruling that it violated the rights of minors and parents. The decision came in a case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union last November. The law took effect a year ago and set curfews of 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. on weekdays, and midnight to 6:00 a.m. on weekends for youth under 17 years old. The judge, Emmet Sullivan, ruled that the curfews violated minors' rights to free movement and minors' rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. Washington threatens Malaysia with sanctions for Iran trade
Malaysia's national oil company may face sanctions by Washington for investing in Iran, according to the Financial Times of London. Gregg Rickman, legislative director at the office of U.S. senator Alfonse D'Amato, said the Malaysian company should face sanctions.

The threat of sanctions comes from the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, passed in August, against companies that invest more than $40 million a year in the oil and gas sectors of the two countries. Under the law two of six sanctions, including the ban of goods in the U.S. market, could be imposed on the particular foreign company. Petronas, Malaysia's state oil company, has agreed to take a 30 percent stake in two oil fields in Iran - with a total investment of $600 million.

- MEGAN ARNEY  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home