The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.31           September 15, 1997 
 
 
In Brief  
Moscow, Beijing sign arms pact
China's Gen. Liu Huaquing signed an arms agreement with the Russian government for the delivery of weapons worth more than $100 million. Gen. Liu, a member of the Political Bureau of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, met with Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin August 27 to discuss further military cooperation and his tour of military factories across Russia. Moscow has sold some $1 billion worth of armaments to China over the past year. The Kremlin has pressed for strengthening military and political ties with Beijing in the face of Washington's plans to expand the NATO military alliance and station U.S. troops on its borders. Russian president Boris Yeltsin is scheduled to visit China later this year. "Relations between Russia and China are positive as never before," said Chernomyrdin.

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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