From: pmiragli@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Pierluigi Miraglia)
Subject: Notizie fresche di giornata
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 16:44:02 GMT

Godetevi quanto segue (non si potrebbe ripostare, ma quanno ce
vo' ce vo'):

Subject: Pensioners march through Rome to protest austerity program
     ROME (UPI) -- Some 150,000 pensioners marched through Rome Saturday in
the latest installment of a nationwide protest movement aimed at
shooting down the government's drastic economic austerity program.
     The march of the pensioners, culminating in a rally addressed by
labor union leaders in Rome's vast San Giovanni square, climaxed four
days of protests in cities all over Italy as irate workers demanded the
government change its economic package.
     Police reported no violence at the pensioners' rally, unlike the
week's earlier demonstrations in Florence, Milan, Turin, Genoa and other
cities, where leftist extremists hurled eggs and tomatoes, as well as
nuts and bolts at union leaders accused of being too soft with the
government.
     Hundreds of police, many of them in riot gear, quickly isolated a
small group that approached the speakers' platform shouting calls for a
general strike over megaphones. They arrested a youth who had a
pocketful of nuts and bolts.
     But the mood of the pensioners, ferried in by special buses and
trains from all over Italy, was as angry as that of the workers.
     They shouted slogans against Prime Minister Giuliano Amato and
Finance Minister Giovanni Goria and waved red banners calling for a
general strike.
     ``If it proves necessary we will arrive at one, or two, general
strikes until we overcome the resistance of our opponents,'' Bruno
Trentin, leader of Italy's communist-dominated CGIL labor union told the
vast crowd in his speech.
     ``Probably a decision will be made next week,'' he said. ``But the
important thing is to build a movement that lasts longer than the
resistance of the government.''
     Political commentators said the fierce anger which brought hundreds
of thousands of workers into the streets on successive days was unlike
anything seen since the 1970s, when the former Communist Party
marshalled the workers to attack government policies.
     The Communist party has changed its name to the Democratic Party of
the Left,but its leaders and tactics have remained the same.
     The austerity program outraged the workers because it hit welfare
state benefits like the state medical service, pensions and public
sector employment.The program is aimed at slashing $75 billion from the
1993 finance bill by cutting public spending and imposing stringent new
taxes.
     Prime Minister Amato, a socialist whose four-party coalition has been
in power only three months, said the program was essential to convince
Italy's European Community partners that Italy was at last doing
something to curb its enormous public debt.
     The program also aimed at bolstering the lira, the Italian currency
which underwent a 7 percent devaluation Sept. 13.
     Amato has said if his economic package is drastically altered when it
comes before Parliament, he will resign his government. Since the
political situation is in such chaos after April elections which
weakened the traditional parties, the political vacuum following his
resignation could last for weeks.
     ``We are maybe in the most dramatic phase of Italian history, because
we have a collapse of both the political system and the economic system,
'' said Marco Boato, a member of Parliament for the Greens environmental
protection party.
-- 
Pierluigi Miraglia       Miraglia.1@osu.edu
Dept. of Philosophy, The Ohio State University
Logic before Frege: "Metalanguage? It's like when you talk about
football in French" (Intro. to Symbolic Logic anonymous)