Russian gov't kills Exxon oil deal
Russian natural resources minister Viktor Orlov canceled
a $1.5 billion project with Exxon Corp. to develop oil
fields in the Timan-Pechora province. The region contains
about 150 million metric tons of recoverable crude oil.
Vladimir Tyumarkin, spokesman for the state-owned Russian
oil company Rosneft, accused the U.S. oil giant of pushing
its weight around and demanding unacceptable conditions from
potential partners. Exxon official James Riley said Moscow's
decision to annul the pact was "inappropriate." The move, he
said, "would not be conducive to encouraging private
investment in Russia."
Sterilization case rocks Sweden
Margot Wallstrom, Sweden's social affairs minister,
announced August 28 that a special commission will
investigate allegations that up to 60,000 women were
forcibly sterilized through government programs for over 40
years to create a "stronger Swedish race." Stockholm
admitted that a policy of "ethnic cleansing" was launched in
1935 and involved women with learning difficulties or from
non-Nordic ethnic backgrounds. The Swedish government paid
$6,289 in compensation to 16 victims in the past 10 years.
In Norway, meanwhile, the health ministry acknowledged some 2,000 men and women who had mental illnesses or were poor went through a forced sterilization program between 1934 and 1976. Oslo denied charges that 40,000 women were forced to undergo sterilization experiments of "racial cleansing sciences."
Former apartheid chief retires
"The time has come for me to retire from active
politics," declared former South African president F.W. de
Klerk at a Cape Town news conference August 26. De Klerk
resigned as leader of the National Party, which instituted
and ruled the apartheid system of racial oppression in South
Africa for more than 40 years. Under massive pressure from
the antiapartheid movement, de Klerk was forced to release
Nelson Mandela from jail in 1990, lift the government-
imposed bans on the African National Congress and South
African Communist Party, and call the first democratic
nonracial elections. Mandela won the presidency in that
ballot in 1994. De Klerk accepted a post as one of two vice
presidents before he pulled the National Party out of the
coalition government in 1996. He had spent the last 18
months crisscrossing the country, unsuccessfully trying to
remake the racist image of his organization. "The National
Party has been dead for some time," said Andre du Toit, a
political analyst at Cape Town University. "But the corpse
takes a long time to decompose."
Brazil dock workers to strike
Dock workers in Brazil voted to strike August 28 against
the Santos seaport after Codesp, the Sao Paulo state ports
authority, announced a decision to fire 2,300 workers on
September 1 and force them to register at a federal agency
on a daily basis. The agency already hires about 7,000 day
workers at Santos each month. "We don't want to strike but
it is the only weapon we have left," stated Donizete Moura,
general secretary of the dock workers union. The ports
authority is trying to reduce labor costs as part of its
plans to sell 70 percent of the container terminal to
private investors. The sell-off is linked to the Brazilian
regime's measures to stave off a currency crisis and
possible devaluation. Some 36 million tons of cargo passed
through the Santos seaport last year, accounting for one-
third of the country's foreign trade.
Washington aids Korea defectors
The government of north Korea broke off arms
negotiations with Washington August 27 protesting CIA agents
assisting the defections to the United States of its
ambassador to Egypt and a trade official at Pyongyang's
mission in Paris. Li Gun, north Korean deputy representative
to the United Nations, said the Clinton administration's
actions was a "grave insult" and reflected "hostility"
toward his country. The Washington Post quoted an unnamed
former senior U.S. intelligence official saying, "It's the
first time we don't have to wait until the south Koreans
wring a guy's brain out." Chang Sung Ho, former north Korean
ambassador to Egypt, is the highest official of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea to defect directly to
the United States rather than south Korea.
Li said the White House actions could also affect the four-party talks between the governments of north and south Korea, China, and the United State scheduled on September 15 to negotiate a formal end to the Korean War. The Korean people pushed back the 1950 U.S. invasion, which ended the slaughter with the country divided in 1953. Today, Washington maintains 37,000 U.S. troops in south Korea.
Mitsubishi settles sex abuse case
Lawyers for the Mitsubishi Motors Corporation announced
an agreement August 28 to pay $9.5 million to settle a
lawsuit with 27 women, who charged the company of condoning
sexual harassment at its plant in Normal, Illinois. The
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a separate
lawsuit in April 1996 accusing the company of sex harassment
against more than 300 women.
50 million in U.S. live in poverty
The annual report of the United Nations Development
Program, released in June, stated that about 50 million U.S.
residents -19 percent of the population of 265
million - live below the national poverty line. The UN study
estimated that poverty increased in the United States by 3
percent between 1974 and 1994 . Meanwhile, under the new tax
law signed by U.S. president William Clinton, 50 percent of
the tax cuts will benefit the top 20 percent of income
earners.
Courts block antiabortion law
Judges in three U.S. district courts ruled against laws
in several states that prohibited women's access to a method
of abortion called dilation and evacuation. Judges Jerry
Cavaneau of the Eastern District of Arkansas, Gerald Rosen
of the Eastern District of Michigan, and Richard Bilby of
the District of Arizona stopped implementation of new state
laws against so-called partial birth abortions. Judge Rosen
said the ban violated the constitutional rights of women
seeking abortions in decision on July 31. Medical experts in
Arkansas testified the new law there could be construed to
include any abortion procedure at almost any stage of
pregnancy.
- MAURICE WILLIAMS
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