From: covici@ccs.covici.com (John Covici)
Reply-To: covici@ccs.covici.com
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Subject: News 09/25/92
Date: 1 Oct 92 19:2:27 GMT
Organization: Covici Computer Systems

U.S.-Israeli strategic 
   cooperation expanded 
   
As part of the sale of F-15 fighters
to Saudi Arabia, the United States and
Israel are in the process of negotiating
a major military cooperation deal, the
Sept. 17 {International Herald Tribune}
reported. 
   Defense Secretary Richard Cheney and
Israeli Ambassador Zalman Shoval have
already met to establish the framework
for the deal. ``I would expect that out of
that process there will be decisions ...
that will provide for higher levels of
effort, a greater degree of cooperation,
coordination and support from the United
States to the government of Israel,''
Cheney said Sept. 14. 
   There will be five commissions,
covering five areas, including: 1) the
possibility of the U.S. storing of $200
million of military equipment, which
could be drawn on by the Israelis. The
same committee would consider stockpiling
equipment in Israel to supply a full U.S.
division; 2) the possibility of turning
over $700 million of U.S. surplus
military stocks now in Europe; 3)
participation in the proposed Global
Protection System, an early-warning radar
system against missile attack; 4)
long-term military cooperation, including
an Israeli request for $1.8 billion in
U.S. military aid; and 5) ways to expand
military high-technology cooperation. 

   Iran insists U.S., U.K.
   `provoking' Gulf row
   
Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei claimed Sept. 15 that western
powers were fanning the crisis between
Iran and the United Arab Emirates over
control of the Abu Musa and the Greater
and Lesser Tumb islands in the Persian
Gulf, to justify a military presence.
``Who can fail to see the hand of the
powers present in the Persian Gulf, of
America and of that old and ominous
colonialist--Britain--in this affair?''
Khamenei said in a speech broadcast on
Teheran Radio, Reuters reported. Iranian
newspapers were predicting on Sept. 17
that the United States would seize the
islands. 
   Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr
Moussa, who chaired a meeting of foreign
ministers of the Arab League in Cairo on
Sept. 14, told reporters the 21-member
League had ``issued a resolution clearly
supporting the U.A.E.'s stand against Iran's
occupation of the Abu Musa islands.... We
urge Iran ... to review its position and
approach because the continuation of its
presence in the islands will lead to a
dangerous development, threatening the
whole region.'' 
   Unidentified ``western diplomats'' say
Iran wants to build a deep-water base on
Abu Musa--which lies almost midway across
the Gulf close to its narrowest point at
the Straits of Hormuz--for submarines it
wants to buy from the former Soviet
republics. 
   Teheran insists it is responsible
for the islands' security under a 1971
accord negotiated by Britain, which then
controlled the foreign relations of the
seven lower Gulf sheikhdoms that became
the U.A.E. later that year. The U.A.E.
maintains the 1971 agreement was signed
under duress and has reasserted its claim
to another island earlier occupied by the
Shah of Iran, the Tumbs. Iranian media
have noted that if historical claims are
to be pursued, it could assert rights to
Bahrain and parts of Iraq. 

   LaRouche featured 
   on Colombian radio 
   
A one-hour taped interview with U.S.
presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche
was broadcast twice on Radio Todelar, the
third largest radio chain in Colombia,
with 28 stations around the country, on
Sept. 20. The broadcast was featured on
Todelar's popular ``Personality of the
Week'' program. 
   LaRouche was introduced by
journalist Luis Enrique Rodri@aaguez as a
candidate and political prisoner, calling
from a public payphone in jail because he
fought with Henry Kissinger and the
``centers of power'' in the United States.
He presented aspects of the LaRouche
case, and told Colombians that many
people have defended LaRouche
internationally, and that the case has
been presented before the United Nations.
Two quotes from LaRouche's autobiography,
{The Power of Reason,} were read; and the
work of {EIR,} which was founded by
LaRouche, and of LaRouche's wife Helga
Zepp-LaRouche was cited. 
   The interview covered topics ranging
from LaRouche's opposition to the
Maastricht Treaty for European Union, his
solutions to the monetary crisis,
including his proposal known as Operation
Jua@aarez, to the problem faced by
Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and
the sovereign right of a nation to defend
itself against such plagues as the
terrorist Shining Path and drugs.
LaRouche also discussed his opponents
George Bush and Bill Clinton, the coffee
pact, and other topics. 
   For 15 years, Colombian media have
maintained one of the tightest blackouts
of LaRouche activities of any country in
the world. But LaRouche's spectacular
interview was the third time LaRouche and
his associates had been on Colombian
media as of mid-September. Aurelio
Cordoba had been interviewed briefly on
Medelli@aan television on the arrests in
Peru of Shining Path terrorists, and
Dennis Small had been interviewed live
for 20 minutes on the LaRouche case and
the world crisis by a Bogota@aa radio
station. 

   China declares holiday
   for bestial emperor
   
In a move equivalent to Germany's
honoring Hitler, or Italy's honoring
Caligula, China has declared a holiday
for Qin Shihuang. Qin was the emperor
from 221 to 207 B.C. who built the
Great Wall with slave labor and burned
alive Confucian scholars, and Confucian
books with them. A ``legalist,'' the
equivalent of the Spartan-Aristotelian
ideology in the West, Qin was the hero of
Mao during the bloody 1966-76 Cultural
Revolution, when Mao bragged that he
killed even more ``counter-revolutionary
intellectuals'' than his mentor Qin. 
   The Chinese news agency Xinhua
announced on Sept. 16 that Oct. 2-6 is to
become the first festival dedicated to
Qin. ``The festival aims to reinforce the
unity of all the Chinese people in the
world and further develop economic and
cultural exchanges with the outside
world,'' Xinhua said, Reuters reported.
``Services will be provided for visitors
who want to offer sacrifices to the Qin
Emperor, such as sacrificial utensils and
ancient music.'' 
   This celebration of the most
infamous tyrant in Chinese history must
be viewed as part of an expanding effort
to reassert Maoism in its pure satanic
form, part of a reaction to the mounting
economic crisis being brought on by Deng
Xiaoping and his ``reformers,'' who are
implementing a Chinese variation of
International Monetary Fund shock
therapy. 

   Ecuador gripped by 
   anti-IMF protests 
   
The International Monetary Fund
(IMF)-authored draconian austerity
program imposed by Ecuador's new
President, Sixto Dura@aan, sparked violent
protests and looting on Sept. 16 in the
capital city of Quito, where at least one
person died, according to an AFP wire
published in the Peru daily {Expreso} on
Sept 18. Members of the subversive
organization ``Alfaro Vive Carajo,'' which
three years ago announced its
demobilization, led the looting in Quito,
according to the report. 
   The port city of Guayaquil has been
militarized, say diplomatic sources.
Dura@aan, a rabid free trader, also
announced that he is pulling Ecuador out
of the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC), in order ``to
be free to increase our production.'' 
   Diplomatic sources say nationalist
military circles in Ecuador blame Dura@aan's
IMF economic program and his threatened
withdrawal from OPEC for the budding
resurgence of the ``Alfaro Vive Carajo''
narco-terrorist gang. Also, the military
is reluctant to take on the role of
repressing the population, and is even
less happy about expected cuts in the
military budget. 

   `30 Days' journal hits        
   West for support of Deng
   
The Italian Catholic monthly {30
Days} published an attack on western
support for Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping
and the tyrannical Beijing regime, and
pointed to Deng's policy of allowing
exploitation of coolie labor as the
reason for that support. The
August-September issue refers to the
well-known fact that 17 bishops and about
50 priests are incarcerated in China
because of their refusal to deny their
beliefs and commitments to the Catholic
Church. 
   ``In 1989, the so-called free press
dedicated rivers of ink to the persecuted
churches of East Europe. At that time, it
was useful to the Americans to hide their
political interests behind the moral
shield of Christian martyrs. Today,
newspapers and television are ignoring
the new `church of silence' in the Far
East. And the reason is clear. On the
economic front, China is making a great
show of opening up to the West.... Under
these circumstances, the order and
political stability the Chinese Communist
Party guarantees are highly welcome
factors.... At the moment in China, a
persecuted church is only the source of
unwanted tension. And so there is a news
blackout.'' 

   Protests continue in
   Kosovo against Serbians
   
In an attempt to mobilize
international pressure against Serbian
oppression, ethnic Albanian high school
students and teachers of Kosovo on Sept.
14 began staging daily silent protests in
front of schools to which they have been
denied admission for two years. This
enforced closure of high schools to
ethnic Albanians is perhaps the most
degrading of the Serbian repressive
measures, and it has been destroying the
future of an entire generation. 
   The protests were orderly and
peaceful. Only in the town of Pec were
there minor, police-provoked scuffles,
where several Albanian teachers were
arrested. How long Albanian patience will
last and such protests remain peaceful is
an open question. 
   A member of the Bosnian presidency,
meanwhile, warned that embittered
Bosnians may turn to international
terrorism. ``I'm scared to death that some
people abroad may do something terrible,''
said Ejup Ganic, a member of the Bosnian
presidency. ``I'm very afraid of
radicalizing this problem.... We send
messages to people to behave properly,
but it is a serious matter,'' Ganic said,
in an interview with Reuters Sept. 16. 

   MALAYSIA
will help Iraq obtain food
and medicines, including a long-term
loan, the Sept. 5 Malaysian daily {Berita
Harian} reported. President Dr. Mahathir
Mohamed gave the assurance to Iraqi Vice
President Taha Yasin Ramadan when the two
were in Jakarta for the Non-Aligned
Movement summit in early September. 

   ISRAELI
authorities granted
convicted Zionist terrorist Shimon Barda
an early release from prison, despite a
request from Israel's High Court of
Justice. Barda was caught in 1984 hauling
explosives to destroy the Haram es-Sharif
Mosque (the Dome of the Rock). In 1988,
he broke out of prison and stole Army
weapons to try again, the Sept. 14
{Washington Times} reported. 

   ARMENIA
lost its last rail link to
the outside world after saboteurs blew up
a rail bridge in the republic of Georgia
Sept. 14. A Georgian communique@aa said
that the bridge was destroyed by ``unknown
terrorists,'' but it is believed that
forces linked to former Georgian dictator
Zviad Gamsakhurdia, whose Chechen forces are
allied with the Azeris, were involved. 

   JAPAN
formally protested to Moscow
over Russian plans to develop the islands
off Japan's northern coast. The protest
came after Japan confirmed that local
authorities had awarded a Hong Kong front
for unknown British investors a 50-year
lease to build a casino gambling resort
on one of the disputed islands. 

   SYRIAN PRESIDENT
Hafez al-Assad's
brother Rifaat has returned from European
exile. Rifaat, formerly head of Assad's
secret police and security forces, was
forced into exile in the mid-1980s
following a failed power play. Renewed
rumors of Assad's ill health have brought
up the question of succession. 

   TAIWAN PRESIDENT
Lee
Teng-hui called for Asian countries to
set up a system of collective security
and contribute to a fund promoting
regional peace, in a statement released
Sept. 17. 

Iran-Contra probes ends, 
   Bush role unanswered
   
Iran-Contra Independent Counsel
Lawrence Walsh announced Sept. 17 that he
is ending his investigation of the
Iran-Contra scandal without any further
indictments. The investigation began
nearly six years ago; officially it has
cost $32.5 million, although total costs
are at least twice that. There remain
three trials, including one of former
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger.
Although George Bush should be breathing
a little easier now, he can't keep his
name out of the Iran-Contra news. 
   The {New York Times,} front
page, wrote on Sept. 18: ``But the Walsh
investigation, like several congressional
inquiries and a presidential review, did
not answer the most tantalizing political
question at the heart of the Iran-Contra
affair: whether President Reagan and Vice
President George Bush were aggressive
participants, or bystanders....''
   The next day, the {Times'}s lead
editorial said: ``What did George Bush
know about the Iran-Contra affair and
when did he know it?|... The answers turn
out to be: a lot, and early....
   ``His security adviser, Donald Gregg,
was supposed to be Vice President
Bush's eyes and ears worldwide. He
claimed to have learned of White House
involvement in the Contra resupply
program in August 1986 but didn't tell
his boss until the rest of the world
knew. Far from disciplining Mr. Gregg,
when Mr. Bush became President he made
him an ambassador.''
   A Reuters wire on the ending of
Walsh's investigation, noted that the
scandal ``still bothers President George
Bush, who dislikes questions about the
role he played as then vice president. He
denies he knew about the arms sales,
although recent notes provided the court
have both Weinberger and former Secretary
of State George Shultz puzzled by Bush's
claims of ignorance.'' 

   Iraqgate fall guy
   withdraws guilty plea
   
In a surprise development in the
Atlanta federal case involving illegal
loans to Iraq by the Banca Nazionale del
Lavoro (BNL), the bank's Atlanta manager
Christopher Drogoul withdrew his guilty
plea and asked for a trial instead.
Drogoul's move on Sept. 17 was triggered
by a federal investigator's testimony
that the CIA operated a front company
which used BNL to finance sales of
equipment and machinery to Iraq. Federal
prosecutors have maintained that U.S.
intelligence agencies had no knowledge of
the loans made to Iraq by BNL's Atlanta
branch. 
   Drogoul withdrew his plea during
hearings at which he was supposed to be
sentenced. Federal Judge Marvin Shoob is
expected to decide in late September
whether to reduce Drogoul's sentence or
order a trial. 
   At the hearings, Drogoul's attorney
Bobby Lee Cooke characterized the Bush
administration's efforts to ``suppress
the truth'' in the case as ``the mother
of all coverups,'' according to the
London {Financial Times.} Cooke promised
to provide evidence in court to explain
how the U.S. government ``from the very
onset has tried to suppress the truth and
mislead the court.'' He said that the
position of the U.S. Department of
Justice in the case ``denies all logic
and Socratic reasoning and, most
importantly, is not the truth.'' 
   Cooke said he would now be
introducing evidence to show that
officials for the National Security
Agency made regular visits to Drogoul in
Atlanta, and were briefed on the
BNL loans to Iraq, and that senior White
House and State Department officials
interfered in the BNL case by telephoning
prosecutors in Atlanta. 
   On Sept. 16, Cooke introduced a memo
from the Federal Reserve which described
how then-Attorney General Richard Thornburgh personally
intervened to scrub an investigation into
BNL activities in Turkey, and similar
memos which scrapped investigations in
Rome, Italy, where BNL is based. 

   Investigative judge sets
   Demjanjuk hearing dates
   
Judge Thomas Wiseman, who was
appointed as Special Master in August by
the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals
to gather evidence on possible Justice
Department misconduct in its extradition
case against John Demjanjuk, has
scheduled four days of evidentiary
hearings, which will take place in
federal court in Nashville, Tenn., on
Oct. 15 and 16 and Nov. 12 and 13.  
   Two attorneys for the Justice
Department's Office of Special
Investigations, Parker and Moscowitz,
have already been subpoenaed for the
October hearings, and OSI director Allan
Ryan will be one of the witnesses called
in November. 
   In addition to the calendar of
hearings, Judge Wiseman also set a
deadline of Oct. 2 for the production of
documents that are not contested by
either side. After the initial round of
discovery and hearings, Judge Wiseman
will ask both the OSI and the attorneys
for Demjanjuk to submit any additional
witness and document recommendations. 
   The OSI sought to have retired
Cleveland auto worker Demjanjuk deported
to Israel to stand trial as Treblinka
concentration camp guard ``Ivan the
Terrible.'' When Demjanjuk appealed his
death sentence in Israel, his attorneys
produced evidence that both the U.S.
Justice Department and Israeli
prosecutors knew he was innocent, and
knew what ``Ivan's'' real name was. 

   Calif. bishops blast
   euthanasia proposition
   
The Catholic bishops of California
are asking parishioners to contribute to
the campaign to defeat the euthanasia
legislation on the Nov. 3 ballot,
Proposition 161. A letter, which is to be
read at Mass, has been sent by the
California Catholic Conference to all
1,070 parishes in the state. The
euthanasia initiative, the letter says,
``not only contradicts traditional
Catholic morality, but also attacks the
principles underlying our system of
government and threatens the lives of the
poor and powerless in our state.... The
issue of allowing doctors actively to
take the lives of people has been pushed
into the public policy arena by
proponents of the initiative, and this
must be addressed and debated.'' 
   The Sept. 18 {Los Angeles Times}
quoted Jack Nicholls, campaign director
for the pro-``mercy killing''
Californians Against Human Suffering,
attacking the bishops and the Catholic
Church: ``There would not be a campaign
against Proposition 161 of any
significance if the Catholic hierarchy
were not leading the charge....
Parishioners are going to have to be
badgered and intimidated and pushed
around if they are going to be forced to
vote against 161.'' 

   Ecologists take hit in
   property rights case
   
Nevada ranchers Wayne and Jean Hage
are suing the federal government for
compensation, claiming the U.S. Forest
Service confiscated water and grazing
rights belonging to their ranch by means
of regulation. 
   A cast of mostly environmentalist
characters sought to inject itself into
the case as the government's
co-defendants: Nevada Attorney General
``Frankie Sue'' Del Papa, the Nevada
Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club, the
National Wildlife Federation, and the
Natural Resources Defense Council. Del
Papa, a board member for the Trust for
Public Lands, hired a National Wildlife
Federation attorney to represent the
state, whose brief argued that cattle
grazing is a public nuisance! 
   U.S. Claims Court Chief Judge Loren
A. Smith ruled Sept. 14 against the
attempted intervention by Del Papa and
her powerful friends. Lawyers for the
Hages say this ruling ``is a setback to
environmental groups who seek to remove
ranchers from federal lands ... it likely
will prevent future environmentalist
intervention in other property rights
cases.'' 

   Bush taps ambassadors
   for Balkan states
   
President George Bush announced his
nominees to become ambassadors to
Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia
on Sept. 17, completing the establishment
of full diplomatic relations with the
former Yugoslav republics. 
   For Bosnia-Hercegovina, Bush named
44-year-old Victor Jackovich, a career
foreign service officer who is now
executive assistant to the counsellor of
the U.S. Information Agency. He nominated
Mara M. Letica, 37, to the embassy in
Croatia. Letica is a founder of the
Croatian American Association and a
lawyer for the Letica Corp. in Rochester,
Michigan. E. Allen Wendt, 56, a career
foreign service officer and formerly
senior representative for strategic
technology policy at the State
Department, was nominated as ambassador
to Slovenia. 

   Texas moves to
   step up executions
   
Texas had executions scheduled for
Sept. 21, 22, and 24, until the U.S.
Supreme Court granted a stay of Warren
Bridge's execution, set for Sept. 21. The
grounds of the stay are not yet known. On
Sept. 22, James Demouchette, age 37, was
killed by lethal injection. The Supreme
Court refused a stay 7-2, with Justices
Stevens and Blackmun dissenting.
   The Sept. 24 execution of Mexican
national Ricardo Guerra by lethal
injection was stayed by Texas's highest
court on Sept. 22. Guerra's case has
become a {cause ce@aale@agbre} in Mexico,
and President Carlos Salinas de Gortari
appealed earlier this year to Gov. Ann
Richards to grant clemency. Guerra
maintains he is innocent of killing a
policeman in 1982. 
   Texas is the leader in U.S.
executions. Ten death row inmates have
been executed there already this year. 
   In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov.
Robert Casey signed a death warrant on
Sept. 22 for convicted murderer Lawrence
Christy, who is scheduled to be executed
during the week of Nov. 16. 
   In Virginia, Lyndon LaRouche's
vice-presidential running mate, Rev.
James Bevel, has launched a campaign to
oppose the death penalty to begin on
Sept. 27, with a 110-mile march from
Richmond to the U.S. Supreme Court,
ending in a rally Oct. 7. The Supreme
Court will be deciding in the {Herrera}
case, whether an innocent man convicted
of a capital crime can be executed. 

   INCUMBENT
Rep. Ted Weiss won
the Democratic primary in New York last
month, in spite of the fact that he had
died a few days earlier. His only
opponent was backed by the radical
counterculture New Alliance Party,
forcing an embarrassed Democratic Party
to campaign heavily for the deceased.
Jaded New Yorkers have long ago accepted
that the dead can vote; apparently they
can now also run for office. 

   TED KOPPEL
was put on the
spot by a member of the Nation of Islam,
who intervened into Koppel's carefully
scripted live broadcast, ``Town Meeting
on the Elections,'' on Sept. 16. The
member spoke out against the slanders
against Minister Louis Farrakhan,
especially the charge that he is
anti-Semitic, and announced that
Farrakhan would be addressing 72,000
people in Atlanta on Oct. 18, and would
suggest who to vote for for President. 

   OHIO
was ordered by the
state court of appeals to process the
petitions of independent presidential
candidate Lyndon LaRouche on Sept. 18,
and qualified the required number of
signatures on Sept. 22. In a related
development, New York State informed the
campaign on Sept. 11 that it was ruling
its more than 35,000 signatures ``null
and void'' because of a ``filing
technicality.'' 

   ALBERT PIKE's statue in Washington,
D.C. was the target of a demonstration on
Sept. 17, following presidential
candidate Lyndon LaRouche's demand that
the statue of the Ku Klux Klan founder be
removed. The statue of Pike, a
Confederate general, is maintained by the
Department of Labor. 

   THE VIRGINIA PILOT
carried an
editorial on Sept. 15 headlined ``Bush
Should Take a Page from Alexander
Hamilton,'' which termed the proposals in
first treasury secretary's 1791 ``Report
on Manufactures,'' ``common sense'' and
counterposes ``economic growth'' which
``comes largely from improved
productivity which is gained through
technological advances'' to the
burgeoning of fast-food restaurants and
minimum wage jobs. 
Labor
   
Poland plans more layoffs
   under IMF pressure
   
As demanded by the International
Monetary Fund, the Polish government
intends to phase out two-thirds of coal
mining and send 12,500 nurses home, in
the next round of budget cuts and
``consolidation'' measures. 
   According to a report in the Polish
daily {Gazeta Wyborza,} the government
plan to restructure the Polish steel
industry foresees the closure of seven
steel mills (Szczecin, Buczek, Bobrek,
Batory, Ostrowiec, Bankowa, and
Kosciuszko) by the year 2002, with 80,000
workers laid off. In 1988, there were
200,000 steel workers; in 2002, there
would only be 40,000, and production
would be only 50% of that in 1980. 
   This year's report by the National
Accounting Office stated that 80% of the
equipment in Polish steel mills is
antiquated, that new investments are too
costly, and that only two mills, Katowice
and Sendzimira, will be modernized. The
Ministry of Industry is hoping to get
funds for this project from the World
Bank and the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development. 
   Similarly, there is no money for the
Polish Red Cross (PCK), which used to be
financed by the Ministry of Health,
Ministry of Labor, and local
governments. According to a law passed in
November 1990 which will be implemented
next year, the PCK will have to rely 
on local governments for funding. It is
expected that 12,500 nurses will lose
their jobs, and elderly and sick people
who depend on them will have to be moved
to hospitals, which are in terrible
shape. 
   The ``savings'' will not be felt for
the time being because the PCK will have
to pay 100 billion zlotys, or $640 to
each nurse laid off, in severance pay. 

   Infrastructure
   
European industrialists
   urge great projects
   
Fiat president Umberto Agnelli,
president of the ``Infrastructure Working
Group'' of the European Business
Roundtable, and Jerome Monod, a former
member of the Club of Rome and president
of the roundtable, said that there is a
critical need for Europe to build a real
infrastructure network, in a report
released in Paris on Sept. 14, the French
daily {Le Figaro} reported. 
   Agnelli stressed that infrastructure
development is ``one of the axes on which
the future of Europe turns.'' The group
wants to modernize existing transport
routes, and to develop new modalities of
cooperation in financing infrastructure
based on private-public sector
collaboration. According to Agnelli,
``Europe is the terrain which is the most
dependent on infrastructure, but these
are national; what is lacking are those
infrastructures which link together the
countries of Europe.'' ``A society which
has a perspective for development needs
modern infrastructure,'' he said. 
   One project outlined is a high-speed
TGV rail link between Lyons, France and
Trieste, Italy. More important than any
specific project is to get such projects
going now, since ``what would be serious,
would be to lose time,'' said Agnelli. 
   Agnelli said that the importance of
the new report is that it underlines the
``particular nature of infrastructure, as
a common good,'' especially since European
infrastructure is ``emerging from one
century of technological and
institutional stagnation.'' The roundtable
proposes to set up a ``Center for
Prospective Analysis on Infrastructure''
as an independent institution, ``dedicated
to the physical and economic and social
cohesion of Europe, improved
competitiveness, and to a higher quality
of life for its citizens.'' 
   ``To increase private investment in
infrastructure,'' the roundtable proposes
that governments ``provide guarantees for
long-term investments''; ``reduce risks by
providing a stable contractual
framework''; and ``diminish the financial
cost with off-budget instruments.'' 

   Life Sciences
   
Tadpoles born in space 
   defy the expected
   
Astronauts aboard Space Shuttle
Endeavour reported Sept. 16 that tadpoles
born from eggs artificially fertilized in
space were doing fine. The tadpoles were
the first non-insect animals to be
conceived and hatched in microgravity. 
   Kenneth Souza, principal
investigator for the frog embryology
experiment, explained that the stage most
sensitive to gravity changes, and the
stage at which symmetry of the frog is
established, occurs shortly after
fertilization. This stage, from the very
start of life, has never before been
observed in space. 
   Souza said that the tadpoles'
weightless aquatics, according to AP,
were ``certainly not what one would see on
Earth.'' The tadpoles were swimming in
backward somersaults and forward
somersaults. ``There was a real hodgepodge
of swimming behavior from these tads,''
Souza stated. He pointed out the
importance of learning that eggs can be
fertilized in the absence of gravity,
which could have implications in the
future for human reproduction in space. 

   Food Irradiation
   
Poultry processing
   clears last U.S. hurdle 
   
The U.S. Department of Agriculture
announced Sept. 18 that the final rule
governing irradiation of poultry would be
published in the {Federal Register} on
Sept. 21. This means that the federal
Office of Management and Budget has at
last approved this technology for control
of pathogens like salmonella, listeria,
and campylobacter. 
   Vindicator, Inc., the food
irradiator in Tampa and Plant City,
Florida, reports it can proceed with the
irradiation of chickens within 30 days
after publication of the final rule. The
chickens will be labeled with the green,
international symbol for irradiation
along with the words ``Treated with
Radiation.'' 
   While the technology has been
available for decades and the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration approved poultry
irradiation in 1990 after it found that
radiation controls bacteria with no
hazard to consumers and with no adverse
effects on nutritional value, it took a
political fight to overcome obstacles
erected by the green anti-technology
mob--a fight in which {21st Century
Science & Technology} quarterly and food
irradiation pioneers played major
parts--while the big corporate poultry
producers sat on their drumsticks.

   Astronomy
   
Galaxy redshifts are 
   quantized, skeptics admit
   
The redshifts of galaxies--supposed
to represent their recession
velocities--are quantized, say
astronomers who set out to prove that
they weren't. The preference of galaxies
and quasars for periodic redshift values
corresponds to no known physical cause
and raises the question that redshifts (or
a component thereof) may not result from
the velocity of the source. This may
``force a rethinking of cosmic
questions,'' according to the {New York
Times} Sept. 15. Evidence for this
conclusion was reported in {21st Century
Science & Technology} magazine in January 1989. 
   Bruce Guthrie and William Napier at
the Royal Observatory at Edinburgh,
Scotland, studied 89 spiral galaxies
chosen at random. Their apparent
redshifts are also randomly distributed,
until corrected for the redshift
contribution from the Sun's motion around
the galactic center. Then the periodicity
appears. 
   William Tifft, a University of
Arizona astronomer, reported quantization
of galaxy redshifts in 1976, and, with
John Cocke, has continued to gather and
refine the data that show periodicity. 
   Guthrie said, ``We undertook this
project to find the flaw in Tifft's
conclusions, assuming we could settle the
matter in a couple of months.... But
we've been at it for four years now.
We've tried every statistical attack we
could devise or that others have
proposed, and this periodicity still
doesn't go away.'' The finding has
spill-over implications in favor of the
work of the much-maligned astronomer
Halton Arp. 

   Algeria
   
Central control of
   economy reasserted
   
The Algerian government is moving
back into central control of the economy,
and has established a committee to
control and restrict imports, Reuters
reported from Algiers Sept. 17. The
government said the move was ``to contain
the risk of economic, social, and
political collapse'' as a result of the
unprecedented economic strains from
servicing its $28 billion foreign debt. 
   Algeria is faced with a debt-service
ratio of 74% (i.e., 74% of export
earnings). Despite the fact that the
nation enjoys a trade surplus--imports of
$7 billion and exports of $11.3
billion--the surplus is used exclusively
in servicing the debt. 
   Guidelines issued by Prime Minister
Belaid Abdessalam empower a government
committee to control imports to conform
with economic priorities, which give
preference to imports of needed
medicines, food, construction materials,
and spare parts, but discourage consumer
items, such as luxury cars or
sophisticated communications equipment. 
   The guidelines appear to replace
regulations issued in April of last year
which allowed Algerian enterprises to
import what they liked directly from
foreign suppliers, Reuters reported. 

   Agriculture
   
World Bank opposed
   agricultural advances
   
The World Bank was attacked for
obstructing the agricultural ``Green
Revolution'' of Dr. Norman Borlaug, the
Iowa plant breeder who won the 1970 Nobel
Peace Prize for introducing new,
high-yield wheat crops to Asia in the
1960s which tripled and even quadrupled
food output, in a commentary in the Sept.
14 {New York Times} by Richard
Critchfield. 
   Critchfield wrote: ``Senior officials
of the bank, mainly economists or former
academics who have never set foot in an
African maize field, are wedded to
policies like `structural adjustment,' a
buzzword in free-market strategies that
entail drastically cutting budgets and
inflation, privatizing industry, lowering
trade barriers and encouraging foreign
investment.'' 
   Borlaug said bitterly, ``The World
Bank says you can't justify our kind of
field work because enough research hasn't
been done, even though we've demonstrated
clearly that we can double, triple, even
quadruple yields.'' World Bank bureaucrats
and economists have ``never lived in
Africa. They live in an ivory tower
called the World Bank.''

   ASIA
is replacing Ibero-America as
the most heavily indebted region of the
world, according to a report just
released by the OECD, the Sept. 14
{International Herald Tribune} reported.
Developing countries' debt totaled $1.5
trillion last year, up 73% from 1982.
Among Asian countries, India, China, and
Indonesia are the most indebted. Total
external debt in Asia amounted to $480
billion, nearly double the level of a
decade earlier. 

   THE AMERICAN
Society of Civil
Engineers says New York City needs $50
billion in infrastructure repairs over
the next 10 years if it is to avoid a
total collapse of roads, bridges,
waterworks, and sewage systems, in a
report released mid-September. ASCE
president Chuck Pennoni said, ``A nation's
infrastructure is the heart and arteries
of its economy. The investment needed to
put it back in shape is an investment in
economic health.'' 

   UKRAINE
Minister of Defense Victor
Ivanovich Antonov said 500 programs have
been created to convert defense
production to civilian production,
combined with interest-free loans from
the government, in remarks at the
National Press Club in Washington Sept.
17. Orders from the former U.S.S.R.
dropped from 160 billion rubles last year
to 10 billion rubles this year. 

   WORLD BANK
vice president Wilfried
Thalwitz said the economies of some
former communist bloc nations could
shrink by up to 40% before ``recovery''
sets in, Reuters reported Sept. 18. 

   ZIMBABWE
has appealed for 750,000
tons of food aid in the next eight
months, on top of the 1.25 million tons
already imported, for victims of the
worst drought in a century. ``We need this
food to avoid mass famine,'' Vice
President Simon Muzenda told a U.N.
conference on disaster management.
Zimbabwe's farmers grew less than 30% of
their normal crops in the 1991-92 crop
cycle under the impact of the drought. 




----
         John Covici
          covici@ccs.covici.com

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