Rail workers strike in Peru
Rail workers in Peru occupied the San Pedro station in
Cuzco August 25, helping shut down the line from that city
to the ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu. Both tourist and
freight lines are now closed down. Pickets have blocked
freight trains at Cosicha near the capital Lima. The
regional directory of industry and tourism said that army
helicopters have started a replacement service between
Cuzco and Machu Picchu.
The workers are protesting a deal handing the state- owned railways to a private consortium for 30 years. They are demanding a guarantee of five years' work instead of the one year promised under the deal, and severance payments of $5,000.
Ecuador gov't defers debt
Ecuador's government announced August 25 that it will
defer a payment of $96 million, due at the end of this
month, on so-called Brady Bonds. Created in the 1980s and
named for the then-secretary of the U.S. Treasury, these
bonds repackaged defaulted loans in 18 Latin American
countries and are backed by U.S. Treasury securities.
Estimates of Ecuador's total foreign debt reach as high as
100 percent of its gross domestic product. Interest
payments due in 1999 run to 42 percent of the annual
budget.
The U.S. Treasury and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved the deferral, in hopes it will buy time for the Ecuadoran government to carry out economic "reforms" demanded by the IMF in exchange for a new $400 million loan. There is mass opposition, however, to the attempts to impose austerity measures. Protests and strikes in March and July forced the government to back off fuel price rises, the sale of state-owned assets, and other proposals.
UK-Argentina military exercises
British and Argentine armed forces are planning a joint
military exercise later this year. This will be the first
bilateral mission involving the two countries since the
1982 Malvinas war, fought over the Malvinas Islands off
Argentina's Atlantic coast. In that conflict British
forces defeated Argentine troops, laying hold once again
of this colonial territory, dubbed the "Falklands" by
London.
In recent years, the two forces have cooperated under UN command in Cyprus and Kuwait. As economic conditions in Argentina have become more depressed and volatile, President Carlos Menem has been working to cement closer ties with the imperialist powers.
Rallies protest Philippines gov't
Up to 150,000 people rallied in Manila and others
elsewhere in the Philippines August 20. They gathered to
oppose the proposals of the government of President Joseph
Estrada to rewrite the country's constitution. Estrada
wants to scrap provisions that limit or ban foreign
ownership of businesses and land. Rally participants also
criticized him for corruption and attempts to muzzle the
press. To the fore in the protests were major figures in
the bourgeois opposition to Estrada, like former president
Corazon Aquino and leaders of the Catholic Church.
Forests are burned in Indonesia
Hundreds of fires are burning in the rain forests of
the Indonesian islands of Kalimantan (Borneo) and Sumatra.
Smog from the fires has disrupted some airliner flights
and blurred the skyline in parts of South Asia, and has
been blamed for a collision at sea that killed 10 people.
The owners of large plantations use the fires as a crude
means of clearing land for their enterprises. Indonesian
officials say they suspect 176 companies of using the
method, which is forbidden under the country's laws, but
none have been successfully prosecuted.
Government officials from 10 countries in the region discussed the growing problem in Singapore on August 26. Environmentalists warn that a repeat - or worse - of the 1997 crisis is on the cards. The smog at that time turned noon into dusk in nearby Malaysia, and cost Indonesia $9 billion. Police arrested 60 small-scale farmers for setting the fires, but 80 percent of the fires began on "plantations controlled by a few politically connected growers and timber barons," according to one analyst.
Sell-off of Daewoo to begin
Daewoo, the second largest conglomerate in south Korea,
is on the chopping block. Facing imminent collapse under
the weight of $50 billion of domestic and foreign debt,
the company has agreed to the sale of its shipbuilding,
electronics, and brokerage companies. The company will
hold on to its car manufacturing business and some other
divisions.
The Daewoo group accounts for more than 5 percent of south Korea's gross domestic product, and employs more than 150,000 people. Since the economic contraction dubbed the "Asian crisis" in mid-1997, the government in Seoul has faced pressure from imperialist lenders and governments to break up the large conglomerates known as chaebol. Although banks and corporations from Japan and capitalist countries in Europe and North America are hoping to profit from a fire sale of Daewoo's assets, they are nervous the company might still default on its debts.
China `spy' charges unravel
The former chief of counterintelligence at Los Alamos
National Laboratory stated in mid-August there is "not a
shred of direct evidence" to support allegations of spying
against We Ho Lee. The scientist was employed at the
laboratory until he was fired in March for "security
violations" amid a blaze of publicity about supposed
Chinese theft of U.S. nuclear weapons secrets. A report
by the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs
raised doubts about the case against Lee, and also about
the charges against Beijing. "We take no position ...
whether ... nuclear weapons information was in fact
compromised," states the report.
The witch-hunting accusations have served Washington in a period of rising tension between the governments of China and the U.S. ally and client state of Taiwan. Washington has assumed a more openly hostile stance to the Chinese workers state.
U.S. force to leave Haiti, for now
The Clinton administration announced August 25 that the
480 U.S. troops in Haiti will be pulled out by the end of
the year. Under the banner of the United Nations, 20,000
U.S. forces invaded Haiti in 1994 in the name of restoring
order following the 1991 military coup that ousted newly
elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The invading
forces reinstated an Aristide government weaker and more
beholden to imperialism. Earlier this year President René
Préval dissolved the Haitian parliament.
U.S. troops will now have a "frequent presence, not a continuous one," in Haiti, said Pentagon spokesman Admiral Craig Quigley. Four hundred UN forces acting as advisors to the police force will remain deployed in Haiti.
Court allows school vouchers to continue in Cleveland this year
A federal judge issued an injunction halting a tuition
voucher program 18 hours before the start of the school
year. Under the scheme the state provides scholarships to
the tune of $2,250, covering up to 90 percent of the
tuition fees in private and religious schools. U.S.
District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. stated in his August 24
decision that "the Cleveland program has the primary
effect of advancing religion." Critics of vouchers also
explain they are part of an ideological and financial
attack on public education. The groups that brought the
issue before the court include Americans United for
Separation of Church and State, the American Federation of
Teachers, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Ohio's attorney general filed an emergency appeal against the decision. Three days after the original decision Oliver said the vouchers could continue for now to avoid "disruption." There was "no substantial possibility" he would ultimately support the voucher program, he stated.
- FRANK EVANS