Ivory Coast army cracks down

The former colonial rulers of the Ivory Coast in Paris initially proposed to reinforce their base of 550 marines near Abidjan with hundreds of soldiers from Gabon and Senegal. Gueï refused their entry, threatening a blood bath. Paris has offered Bédié asylum but has not demanded that his regime be restored. An official at the U.S. embassy in Abidjan praised General Gueï for "making the right noises" after he promised to honor the country's huge foreign debts.  
 

Argentine workers resist layoffs

On December 20 state workers in the Argentine province of Corrientes began receiving several months' back wages they are owed. A week earlier hundreds of workers had blocked an important bridge to demand their pay. Federal police fired on the protest, killing two, after the federal government assumed control of the bankrupt province. Federal "intervener" Ramón Mestre coupled his order for the payment of the back wages with an announcement of a program of deep-going cuts in public spending, including wage reductions and layoffs.

A group of several hundred workers chanted "Murderers" at Mestre and other officials as they entered the Corrientes government house on the day of the announcement. That night, 3,000 workers affiliated to the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) demonstrated to oppose the austerity drive. Corrientes is the latest Argentine province to erupt in protests.  
 

Kashmir focus of hijack

Tensions between the Indian and Pakistani governments surfaced during a hijacking drama in Kandahar, Afghanistan, which began December 24. Several hijackers diverted an Indian Airlines jet from its route, demanding the release of 36 people held by the Indian government. One passenger died of stab wounds and the Taliban government in Kabul surrounded the aircraft with dozens of soldiers and several military vehicles. On December 31 New Delhi agreed to free three Kashmiri prisoners in a deal that allowed the hijackers to leave the country after they released the remaining hostages.

The hijackers had demanded the release of Masood Azhar, who calls for the independence of Kashmir and is a leader of the Harakat ul-Ansar or Partisan movement. He has been slandered by Washington as a "sponsor of terrorism." The Indian and Pakistani rulers have clashed many times over control of the Kashmir region, where working people have waged a decades-long struggle for self-determination. The coalition government in Delhi, led by the rightist Bharatiya Janata Party, tried to whip up support for its refusal to bow to the hijackers' demands against the wishes of relatives of the hostages. They have arranged meetings between journalists and widows of soldiers killed during battles in Kashmir last summer.  
 

Jakarta workers protest vs. Nike

Some 8,000 protesting workers from two Nike factories in Indonesia demonstrated December 22, during negotiations over their holiday payments. "We want larger holiday bonuses and the 10 percent tax imposed on the bonuses to be canceled," said a protester. The workers make shoes for the U.S. company in factories in Tangerang, near the capital city of Jakarta. The protest also demanded that an election be held for a union representative.

Other workers organized actions on the same issue. The union office in the PT Adis plant was damaged during a struggle waged by 6,000 workers who forced their employers to fork out the bonus, which is usually equivalent to a month's salary. Many employers traditionally pay the bonus at the time of the Idul Fitri celebrations, during which millions of working people travel from the capital to their home towns and villages. The Indonesian Minister of Manpower [Labor] said that most companies paid out this year. In 1998, he said, 147 companies were allowed to defer payment, citing the monetary crisis.  
 

Scandal rocks German party

A financial scandal involving Germany's most prominent politician of the last two decades is rocking the Christian Democratic Union and embarrassing the country's capitalist rulers. On December 29 prosecutors in Frankfurt said they would begin a criminal investigation into funds managed by Helmut Kohl, chancellor of the country from 1982 until his defeat in December of 1998 by the Social Democratic Party.

The revelations of secret bank accounts have already become a target of muckraking frenzy in the media. Kohl, dubbed "Europe's most powerful leader for most of this decade" by the New York Times, still plays a major role in the Christian Democratic Union. The furor around Kohl adds to the problems of the rulers of Europe's largest economy, which remains mired in slow growth and high unemployment.  
 

Many stocks decline in boom

If the U.S. economy is still growing in February its expansion will have lasted nine years and be the longest on record. Much of the continued growth is driven by trading in newer "high tech" companies. Most companies, however, in the Standard and Poor's index of 500 stocks have declined in value. On the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq index, which features high tech companies, two-thirds of stocks are down 20 per cent or more from their peaks.

Speculative trading plays a major part in sustaining the market's growth, as shown by the rise of many Internet-related companies. In 1999 some 73 percent of IPOs or Initial Public Offerings earned no profits - an extraordinarily high figure. The earnings of Internet startups are even more meager: 93 percent had no profits in 1999.  
 

Students protest in Jordan

Some 500 university students rallied in the Jordanian capital of Amman on December 8. The action was called to protest the government's deportation on November 21 of four leaders of Hamas, a bourgeois-nationalist organization that has gained a following among Palestinians in the region with its stance against Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

Most of the participants in the protest, a rare event in Jordan where most such activities are banned, were affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood Movement. Jordanian police deported the Hamas leaders, who are Jordanian citizens, to Qatar, claiming that they had been involved in military training. Hamas leaders denied the allegations. Authorities closed Hamas offices and banned activities of the organization in a crackdown which began in late August.

- PATRICK O'NEILL

 
 
Panama takes over the Canal 
 
Crowds celebrate during the December 31 ceremony to transfer ownership of the Panama canal from Washington to Panama. The occasion felt like "Independence Day" commented participants to one reporter.  
 
 
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