10,000 miners rally in Romania
Ten thousand miners marched toward Bucharest, the capital of Romania, January 18 demanding higher wages and an end to proposed layoffs. The government deployed police against the workers. The cops used helicopters, fired tear gas and smoke bombs, blocked roads, and halted all trains from the Jiu Valley coal region, vowing to use "all legal means" to stop the miners. January 18 marked day 14 of the strike. A local court declared the strike illegal January 15.

Washington sanctions Russian institutes over Iran relations
Washington slapped sanctions on three scientific institutions in Russia January 12, accusing them of providing the Iranian government with missile and nuclear technology. The Moscow Aviation Institute, the Mendeleyev University of Chemical Technology, and the Scientific Research and Design Institute of Power and Technology are barred from buying U.S.- made goods, exporting products to the United States, or selling to the U.S. government. Russian officials denied the allegations.

"Any attempts to speak to us in the language of sanctions and pressure are absolutely unacceptable," read a Russian foreign ministry statement. "Naturally they will not go unanswered." Gennady Seleznyov, the speaker of the lower house of parliament said, "Americans keep finding new areas for confrontation and that spells no good for Russian-American relations." The latest round of sanctions brings to 12 the total number of Russian companies and institutes Washington has sought to penalize for alleged dealings with Tehran.

Yeltsin faces impeachment
Russian president Boris Yeltsin could face an impeachment vote in the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, as early as February, according to Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov.

Five impeachment charges will be levied against him. The charge that Zyuganov says would have the most backing accuses Yeltsin of illegally launching the 1994-96 war against Chechen independence fighters, which was a fiasco for Moscow. Other charges blame him for the break up of the Soviet Union and "genocide" against the Russian people. Three hundred of the 450 votes in the parliament are needed to impeach.

Turkey has new prime minister
The Turkish government, after six weeks of failed attempts, elected a new prime minister January 11. Bulent Ecevit replaces Mesut Yilmatz, who resigned last November under allegations of corruption. Ecevit, head of the Democratic Left Party who was thrice elected as prime minister in the 1970s, after a failed first attempt was able to patch together a minority coalition with the participation of two conservative groupsings. Ecevit describes his regime as having "a limited tenure to govern." The principal task "is to carry Turkey to the general and local elections" in April.

Ecevit projects pushing through austerity measures such as hacking social security. He is known for sending troops into northern Cyprus in 1974, following a coup in southern Cyprus that was backed by the Greek government. That island remains divided today.

Tensions recently flared over attempts by the Greek Cypriot government to install Russian missiles in the south, a plan that has been halted for now.

Protesters demand Palestinian Authority release prisoners
Scores of Arab women protested outside the Palestinian National Council building in Ramallah, West Bank, January 13, demanding the release of Palestinian political prisoners held by the Palestinian Authority (PA). "Justice minister, where's the justice?" they chanted blaming PA justice minister Freih Abu Medein for the jailing of some 450 Palestinians without a trial. "We want an end to the issue of political detention," said Muyasar Jaber, whose husband along with others were rounded up by PA cops as a suspect in a September suicide bombing in Jerusalem. "The only thing they did was believe in a political line that is different from the Authority."

Meanwhile, some Palestinian officials gave Yasser Arafat's government two weeks to either press charges or release the detainees. Many of these arrests came as concessions made through "peace" deals between Tel Aviv, Washington, and the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli government has been responsible for jailing tens of thousands of Palestinians during nearly three decades of military occupation of Arab land.

- BRIAN TAYLOR  
 
 
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