Okinawans: U.S. bases must go
Opposition to U.S. military bases in Okinawa is mounting
as a result of the outrage stemming from three U.S.
servicemen charged with raping a 12-year-old girl there in
September. Attorneys for the soldiers are discussing
financial compensation for the young woman and her family,
as a way to diffuse the storm of protests that involved
tens of thousands of people demanding U.S. troops leave the
island. "I would like the bases to just disappear," Tamotsu
Tokeshi, a home owner near an air base, told the New York
Times.
U.S. defense secretary William Perry, following behind other White House officials, offered an apology for the assault and said that the Clinton administration would consider shifting some GIs out of Okinawa to calm the outrage. Seeking to maintain Washington's imperialist outpost in the Pacific, Perry declared, "this is where we have to be to provide a security umbrella for the region." With imperial arrogance, Perry admonished Japanese officials for questioning the military setup stating, "you will be very glad they are there." Nearly half of the 60,000 U.S. soldiers in Japan are stationed in Okinawa.
Sri Lanka army prepares assault
More than 30,000 Sri Lankan troops are preparing a new
offensive to take the northern town of Jaffna from the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam after two weeks of bloody
fighting. Jaffna is the center of a Tamil separatist
movement, which is seeking to establish an independent
state in northern Sri Lanka.
The regime of Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga seeks to crush the rebels who have run the city and much of the area for the past four years. A diplomat in Colombo, the nation's capital, told the Financial Times that the loss of Jaffna would be a "significant" blow and force the Tigers to retreat to "a guerrilla movement on the run."
Philippine maid spared death
Sarah Balabagan, a Philippine maid sentenced to death
for killing a man who raped her, was spared execution by an
Islamic court in the United Arab Emirates. The court
sentenced her to 100 lashes, a year in prison, and
deportation after she pays a fine of $41,000 to the dead
man's family. The judge said the 15 months Balabagan had
already spent in jail would not count toward her sentence.
GM wins $1 billion China deal
Officials from the Chinese government and the General
Motors Corp. announced October 30 that the Shanghai
Automotive Industry Corp., China's leading auto maker, has
selected GM for a $1 billion project to build 100,000-
180,000 Buicks a year. The Shangai company projects plans
to ultimately build 300,000 vehicles a year, targeting
Chinese company fleets.
Shanghai Auto also has a 10-year-old joint agreement with Volkswagen AG of Germany, which will assemble 175,000 sedans this year. Volkswagen has captured nearly one-half of China's car market. GM could begin to challenge VW's dominance in the Chinese market by the turn of the century.
Nigerian given death sentence
Ken Saro-Wiwa, a founder of the Movement for the
Survival of the Ogoni People in Nigeria, was sentenced to
death October 31 by a military-appointed court. Saro-Wiwa
was charged with the murders of four local politicians in
Ogoniland who were killed when the Nigerian military swept
through the area in May 1994.
Saro-Wiwa led a campaign among the Ogonis, who have been fighting for several years for rights to petroleum revenues and compensation for environmental damage by Royal Dutch Shell. The Niger delta, where the Ogonis live, is an oil- producing region that provides more than 90 percent of the country's exports and 80 percent of the regime's revenue, but most Ogonis remain impoverished, living in mud huts.
Autoworkers rebel in Russia
The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that riots erupted
October 31 in the Russian city of Bryansk when autoworkers
demanded payment for over five months back wages at the
Automobile Works. The mayor of Bryansk said that the city
was loaning the plant $335,000 to help it pay the nearly
$1.5 million owed to the workers. Coal miners and other
workers have organized strikes and demonstrations also
demanding back pay. The Russian government has accumulated
massive debts to hundreds of enterprises in attempting to
adhere to a budget arranged with the International Monetary
Fund last spring.
Divorce debate stirs in Ireland
A November 24 referendum to legalize divorce in Ireland
has fueled debate. The Catholic Church hierarchy has
criticized the measure and has instructed priests to
promote views extolling the sacrament of marriage. A
similar referendum failed in 1986. The government says that
divorce should be available for 75,000 people who are in
broken-down marriages but are legally separated. An article
in Ireland's 1937 constitution declared, "No law shall be
enacted providing for the grant of a dissolution of
marriage."
Crisis advances in Argentina
The Argentine government has issued $2.28 billion in
international bonds in the past three months and entered
several loan arrangements with local and international
banks secured against future tax revenue and the sale of
government-held shares. The moves have provoked nervousness
among international investors like Morgan Stanley, Inc. "If
they keep up this pace of borrowing, next year they'll have
a tough time," said Ernest Brown, a company official.
The Argentine economy is in recession, and the government will barely meet 1995 tax and spending agreements made with the International Monetary Fund, according to the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile the jobless rate has jumped to 18.6 percent, and bankruptcies are climbing.
5,000 protest cuts in Hawaii
Some 5,000 people participated in a "Death of Education
March" October 31 in Honolulu, Hawaii, to protest cuts
totaling $50 million over two years. Gov. Benjamin
Cayetano, who was shouted down by protesters, told
University of Hawaii faculty members and students that the
state administration had no choice but to slash the
school's budget.
FBI seeks massive wiretapping
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is proposing to
establish a national spy system that would allow cops to
simultaneously eavesdrop on as many as one out of every 100
phone lines in cities throughout the country. Minimally the
plan would give the secret cops the ability to snoop on
74,250 phone lines at once, more than 10 times the number
of surveillance orders in 1993. "These are staggering
numbers," said Mark Rasch, an official with the Science
Applications International Corporation in McLean, Virginia.
"Either they do a lot more wiretaps than they now admit, or
they plan on a significant larger number of wiretaps in the
future."
Cabbies issued racist directive
Officials at the Lincoln Yellow Cab Company headquarters
in Springfield, Illinois, posted a notice warning cab
drivers not to "pick up any black males unless you feel it
is safe." The sign, alluding to some robberies, emphasized
that "they have all been by BLACK MALES." The company
manager, Earl Reno, anticipating a potential discrimination
lawsuit, removed the sign November 1 after his lawyer
advised him to do so.
- MAURICE WILLIAMS