CNN denied bureau in Cuba
Washington is blocking a CNN attempt to set up a long- term reporting bureau in Cuba. Cuba approved the CNN proposal over two months ago. "That the United States government would resist in any way the opening of an independent news bureau by an independent news organization seems to us to run counter to all that this government represents," said Tom Johnson, the president of CNN. Other press groups like the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Committee to Protect Journalists have endorsed the CNN project. A 36-year embargo placed on Cuba by the U.S. government makes it very difficult to travel to or get information about the socialist island.

Ecuador workers resist `reforms'
Transportation, telecommunications, and energy workers, together with students all over Ecuador have entered their third week of protests against austerity measures put forward by Ecuadoran president Abdalá Bucaram. Cops in Quito, the country's capital, along with Guayaqiol, Cuenca, Ambato, Ibarra, Puyo, Macas, and Loja tried to break up demonstrations. Dozens of people were injured and hundreds were arrested. Bucaram's new program for economic reform includes provisions that make it easier to lay off or replace workers and promote privatization. The program also pushes higher taxes and price raises in telephone, electricity and gas services.

Bucaram came to power last July during a deep economic crisis. His austerity package projects reducing the current currency exchange from 3,500 to 4 sucre to the dollar. "He said he would lower prices for poor people, that he would provide housing," Luis Aníbal Robalino, a street vendor, told a New York Times reporter. "I feel defrauded for having voted for Bucaram."

Professors join Venezuela strike
Some 35,000 professors from 17 universities in Venezuela joined striking doctors January 12 in demands for higher pay. Classes for half a million students have been affected. Public sector engineers, architects, and dentists have threatened to walk out in support of the doctors. The Associated Press described the strike as "some of the worst labor and social conflicts of President Rafael Caldera's three-year presidency." Doctors went out on December 27 paralyzing 6,300 public hospitals and clinics. Inflation in Venezuela is the highest in Latin America at 103 percent.

Colombia gov't declares crisis
The government of Colombia declared an economic crisis January 14, citing an escalating budget deficit and upward pressure on the value of the peso. The regime announced spending cuts, raising sales taxes, and restricting wage increases for public workers as proposals to resolve the crisis. Colombia had a budget deficit of $4 billion in 1996 and the jobless rate soared from 8.1 percent in 1995 to 11.9 percent in 1996. "Strikes and protests will be of no use," asserted President Ernesto Samper, seeking to head off any working-class resistance to the government's austerity measures.

Pretoria defies U.S. gov't prying
South African president Nelson Mandela rejected Washington's warning to halt sales of $650 million worth of military arms to Syria. Washington threatened to take away the $82 million aid package pledged to South Africa if it did business with countries U.S. officials have declared "terrorist."

Rusty Evans, the South African Foreign Ministry director, pointed out that three other European companies are trying to make the same deal, but only South Africa is being singled out. "We will conclude agreements with any country whether they are popular in the West or not," Mandela declared. Mandela has also defended South Africa's right to associate with the socialist government of Cuba. "We will never renounce our friends, no matter how unpopular they may be," he said, referring to the Caribbean island.

New Delhi shoots down drone
The Indian air force, the world's fourth largest, shot down a Pakistani drone January 15. The remote-controlled pilotless aircraft was brought down by a missile fired over an airport in Bhuj, a town in the western state of Gujarat. The Indian government in New Delhi issued a formal protest against the Pakistani government for violating its airspace and demanded such "violations must cease immediately." The Indian air force has put radar and missile stations in Gujarat on high alert since the shootdown.

The defense ministry of India had announced December 5 that it had "successfully completed" research on an intermediate-range missile with nuclear capability. The Pakistani regime, which has fought three wars with India in recent decades, had denied New Dehli's accusations of airspace violations by its military aircraft as "totally groundless."

Harassed women quit Citadel
Kim Messer and Jeanie Mentavlos have left the Citadel - the South Carolina military college - due to repeated, and unanswered violent offenses and sexual harassment. Messer says she never asked for special treatment, but received "criminal assaults, sadistic illegal hazing, and disgusting incidents of sexual harassment." The two women described having fingernail polish thrown on them and set ablaze, being shoved with rifles, and having cleanser stuffed into their mouths.

As early as September, reports the Washington Post, Mentavlos's mother complained about the harassment of her daughter to deaf ears. A senior cadet from a different company also witnessed the improper physical contact and reported it, but received no response from the Citadel administration.

Court strikes down voucher plan
Wisconsin state judge Paul Higginbotham ruled January 15 against a plan by Gov. Thomas Thompson to use public funds or tuition vouchers to send students in Milwaukee to religious schools. Higginbotham's decision also struck down the Thompson administration's plan to expand its voucher program for nonreligious private schools from 1,650 to 15,000 students.

The state government pays $3,600 per student to private schools participating in the voucher program, which would increase to about $55 million in public funding to private schools under the expansion plan. A similar voucher plan for 2,000 students was started last fall in Cleveland, Ohio.

Pentagon cops shoot teens
Seven Pentagon cops fired at least 20 shots into a minivan January 15, critically wounding one teenager who was shot in the head and another who was shot in the abdomen. Police had surrounded a minivan they said was stolen, trapping four of the five unarmed teens involved in the incident.

"Why would you start firing a gun and you don't see any weapons?" asked Donald Felder, the father of one of the youth. "They could have waited [for the youths] to get out of the car." One of the teens' parent said the cops' actions were "like target practice."

- BRIAN TAYLOR  
 
 
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