From: covici@ccs.covici.com (John Covici)
Reply-To: covici@ccs.covici.com
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Subject: news 08/21/92
Date: 28 Aug 92 7:31:35 GMT
Organization: Covici Computer Systems

Sweden fears replay
   of `great war'
   
Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt
warned that it is ``not improbable'' that
Sweden's traditional neutrality could be
upset by a Russian attack on Finland or
the three Baltic states at some point in
the future, in an interview with the
daily {Svenska Dagbladet} on Aug. 11. He
said that Sweden might one day be faced
with a similar dilemma to that of 1939,
when Stalin invaded neighboring Finland. 
   Bildt warned of the coming to power
in Moscow of an authoritarian Russian
regime with ``revanchist'' ambitions.
Should the Baltic states or Finland then
be threatened, ``Who could assert that
automatic neutrality should be Sweden's
line?'' he asked. 
   Professors Gerner and Hedlund, two
Russia experts from Lund University,
warned of parallels between the crises in
the Balkans and what is now unfolding in
the former Soviet Union, in an article in
the Swedish weekly {Sunday.} 
Headlined ``The Impending Risk of a Great
War,'' they warned that there are already in
the former U.S.S.R. more than 1 million
internal ethnic refugees, which is a sign
that the situation is ``on the way to an
explosion.'' A Russia-Ukraine conflict is
looming, and a big confrontation is
shaping up in the Baltics, where shooting
has already begun. Because of all this,
they argue, ``it is high time for Swedish
politicians to recognize that the old
patterns of passivity and wishful
thinking'' must come to an end. 
   Gerner and Hedlund proposed that
Russian troops leave the Baltics
immediately, in return for the Baltic
governments guaranteeing the rights of
Russian minorities living there. 

   Malaysia faces wrecking
   operations, Mahathir warns
   
``Some sectors overseas want us to
face problems and disunite like in
Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the
former Soviet Union,'' Malaysian Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamed told a function
of the United Malays National
Organization (UMNO) in late July, Bernama
news agency reported. 
   On Aug. 8, Mahathir charged that the
foreign press was praising the rival
party government in Malaysia's
northeastern Kelantin state, the only
state government ruled by the opposition
fundamentalist Parti Islam (PAS), in an
attempt to wreck Muslim unity in the
country. He noted that the western press
particularly disliked Islamic
fundamentalists but had showered praise
on the PAS-run government. Mahathir said
that writers from several foreign
magazines had visited Kelantin and filed
reports that it was a moderate regime
which did not oppress anyone, ``but in
actual fact, they want to see more
conflicts among the Muslims.'' ``The
Kelantin government welcomed these people
although they used to describe these
magazines as anti-Islam,'' he said. He
said the PAS government had become
``hot-headed because they thought they got
the support of the international
community.'' 
   Recently, the Kelantin government
barricaded roads leading to the site of a
Malaysian-sponsored dam project to back
its demand for compensation for
state water rights. It removed the
barricades only after the federal
government agreed to pay yearly
compensation for 35 years. 

   China takes political
   risk in opening Tibet
   
In keeping with forging a new ``Silk
Road'' across Asia, China has reportedly
decided to open Tibet completely to the
outside world. The region's Communist
Party committee and government decided on
July 14 to turn ``from a closed or
semi-closed economy to active
participation in domestic and internal
commerce,'' the Aug. 3 {Tibet Daily}
reported. 
   The government will offer foreign
investment opportunities, direct air
links
with Beijing, Kathmandu, and Hong Kong,
and go all-out in promoting tourism. 
   Tibetan exiles consider the move a
cover for bringing even more Chinese into
Tibet, AFP reported. A {Tibet Daily}
editorial said that the move will be to
``speed up Tibet's economic development,
and ... strenghten the unity of the
nationalities''--meaning that if it can
provide a faster-rising living standard
to the population, it might weaken
Tibet's Buddhist independence movement.
The decision is a risky one. 

   Kuwait accused of 
   abusive treatment
   
The Washington-based human rights
group Middle East Watch released a report
in mid-August on the widespread abuse of
foreign women servants by Kuwaitis which
goes unpunished, almost a year after
{EIR} had exposed such abuses. 
   According to the report, ``A
pervasive pattern of rape, assault and
mistreatment of Asian maids takes place
largely with impunity.... Almost without
exception, the women interviewed spoke of
non-payment of salary, passport
deprivation, and near total confinement in
their employers home.... All abuses are
illegal under Kuwaiti law, but have gone
largely unattended to by the government.'' 
   Meanwhile, joint U.S.-Kuwaiti
military exercises, which held their
biggest maneuver near the Iraqi border on
Aug. 11, ``could have as much to do with
instability inside the Kuwaiti royal
family as with [Iraqi President] Saddam
Hussein,'' a London source said. ``In
recent weeks, major scandals have
suddenly erupted over the management of
the Kuwaiti foreign investment holding
KIO, controlled by the al-Sabah royal
family. There are hints this might be
part of a major internal power struggle
aimed at the dictatorial grip of the
al-Sabahs in Kuwait. Perhaps ... Bush
sent in U.S. troops to prop up the
al-Sabah and with it likely a
considerable flow of funds into
Washington pet projects.'' 

   Armenia seeks CIS aid
   in `undeclared war'
   
Azerbaijan has launched an
``undeclared war'' against Armenia,
Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrossian
charged on Aug. 9, in response to two
reported attacks by Azerbaijan forces on
Armenian territory. Armenia has appealed
to the other nations of the Community of
Independent States (CIS) to fulfill their
``collective security responsibility''
mandate and come to the aid of Armenia. 
   In one attack, the Azeris reportedly
used Russian SU-25 bombers against the
region of Goris in southeastern Armenia.
The Azeri attacks follow the breakdown of
multilateral peace talks on the
Armenian-inhabited enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan that had
been taking place in Rome. 
   Armenian charge@aa d'affaires in
London Prof. Armin Sarkissian told BBC
Aug. 10 that Azeri forces have ``occupied
territory in Armenia.'' Azerbaijan now
controls 40 square kilometers of Armenian
territory in northern Armenia. 
   The escalating crisis is producing
dramatic political changes. The
government of Nagorno-Karabakh resigned
Aug. 12, with the outgoing regime
recommending the introduction of martial
law and the creation of a new defense
council to rule, Radio Moscow reported.
Also, high-level Russian-Armenian
diplomatic contacts on increasing
cooperation in a number of fields are
reported. In Armenia, a new defense
minister, the first who has combat
experience, has been appointed. 

   Prisoners increasing 
   in Russian gulags
   
Yelena Bonner, the widow of Andrei
Sakharov and a well-known human rights
activist, Amnesty International, and a
political party called the Economic
Freedom Party charged in a press
conference in Moscow Aug. 12 that
Russia's gulags are still there and the
number of prisoners is increasing. 
   Gennady Zhavoronkov, editor of the
newspaper {Moscow News,} who sponsored a
fact-finding tour to the gulags, said
that a conservative estimate would be
that there are 40,000 prisoners in the
gulags, but there are probably actually
100,000 or more. The prisoners work 12-16
hours a day cutting timber for
domestic and foreign use. He said that
three new camps have been opened up in
the Moscow area. 
   Zhavoronkov stressed that many of
the prisoners were in an Orwellian
situation, i.e., the crimes for which
they had been convicted under communism
were no longer crimes in Russia, but that
a general amnesty mainly for political
prisoners had not been applied to them
because they were considered ``economic
criminals.'' 
   One of the firms benefitting from
this ongoing slave-labor operation is
Palm International, which is based in
Siberia and California. Palm's press
releases have invited Americans to invest
in a sure thing in the Soviet Union--the
lumber industry, which Zhavoronkov
stressed has always been primarily worked
by slave labor. 

   Iraq: Egypt hurting 
   Non-Aligned Movement
   
Iraq has accused Egypt of harming
the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and of
attempting to put the 104 member states
and their resources at the mercy of the
United States. The charges come as signs
of a split in NAM are appearing. 
   Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa
has suggested that NAM should become part
of the Group of 77 developing countries,
claiming NAM is no longer is needed. 
   ``It is an American proposal, whose
objective is to give it unrivaled control
over ... the potential and resources of
the developing countries,'' {al-Thawra,}
organ of Iraq's ruling Baath Party, said
in early August. ``It is a suspect
proposal aimed at transforming NAM into a
mere economic group of backward and poor
countries who will be helpless in a world
economic order which is characterized by
economic disparity,'' it added. ``Depriving
the movement of its political nature
would not only weaken the movement ...
but would also eliminate its historic
role and divert it from its vital path.''
{Al-Thawra} praised Indonesia, which will
host the NAM summit in Jakarta from Sept. 1-6, for
``rejecting the Egyptian proposal'' and
urged other members to condemn ``these
subversive attempts.'' 
   The Balkan crisis is causing
increasing problems for the NAM. The
Malaysian government severed diplomatic
links with Yugoslavia on Aug. 12.
Indonesia has taken up much of the slack
in recent months for directing NAM, which
was supposed to fall to the former
Yugoslavia.
   On Aug. 12, Indian Foreign Affairs
Minister Eduardo Faleiro said that Serbia
and Croatia had applied for observer
status at the summit and that he expected
a similar application from Bosnia. 

   FOOD IMPORTS
to Iraq from Jordan,
its main lifeline to the outside world,
have been cut in half, Iraqi Trade
Minister Mohammad Mehdi Saleh said Aug.
11. Saleh added that no trucks had
reached northern Iraq from Turkey for 20
days because of a conflict between Iraqi
Kurds and Turkish Kurds. 

   CHINESE
Prime Minister Li Peng met
with Kazakhstan Foreign Minister T.S.
Suleimenov in Beijing Aug. 8, {China
Daily} reported. Li has been invited to
visit Kazakhstan by President Nazarbayev,
and Suleimenov said that there is
potential for ``much better relations''
between the two countries. Li cited the
recent opening of the Chinese-Kazakh rail
line earlier this year for its positive
role in bilateral relations. 

   `IS THE WEST
procrastinating, so
that the hidden agenda of the Serbs can
be achieved?'' Bosnian representative in
London Paul Trvtkovic asked in an
interview with BBC Aug. 10. He questioned
the purpose of military protection for
humanitarian convoys, saying all this
would do would be to ``feed people in
their abominable state.'' 

   A U.N. BAN
on the use, manufacture,
and possession of chemical weaponry is
ready for approval, German Ambassador Adolf von
Wagner, the chairman of the negotiations,
said Aug. 10. The treaty marks a new
milestone in the effort to impose
technological apartheid. 

   ABU ABBAS,
who organized the
{Achille Lauro} hijacking and a failed
Palestinian Liberation Front raid on
Israeli beaches which led the United
States to suspend dialogue with the PLO
in June 1990, was detained by Iraq on
Aug. 8, Reuters reported, based upon a
statement from the PLF.  

   THE ISLAND
of Capri wants the
British Museum to return the altar of
Tiberius, which the British Army seized
in 1806, Reuters reported Aug. 13. The
altar was dedicated to the goddess
Cybele.                 

Senate debate on pro-death 
   federal judge delayed 
   
The U.S. Senate has postponed to
Sept. 8-9 its debate on the nomination of
Edward E. Carnes, who wrote Alabama's
death penalty laws, to be a judge on the
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Despite the fact that Carnes was
presented to the Senate on Aug. 7 by
ultra-liberal Morris Dees of the Southern
Poverty Law Center, Carnes's barbaric
record emerged in a brief debate that
occurred in the Senate. 
   Carnes has boasted that since he
wrote Alabama's death penalty laws, the
legislature has not changed a word. The
law allows a judge to impose a death
sentence, {even if the jury has voted for
life imprisonment.} The sentences of
one-fourth of Alabama's 117 current death
row inmates were imposed by judges who
overrode their juries. 
   Despite pursuing executions for more
than 10 years, Carnes told the Senate
Judiciary Committee in May, ``I do not
believe that capital punishment is
applied in a racially discriminatory
manner in Alabama or the nation.'' Sen.
Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) pointed out in the Aug. 7
debate: ``In Alabama, there is an
incredible disparity--two-thirds of the
state's murder victims are black, yet in
death penalty cases, less than 15% of the
murdered victims are black. Two-thirds of
those executed in Alabama have been black
... yet Mr. Carnes does not see it.''
Moreover, since 1980, only 5% of
Alabama's murders involved blacks who
killed whites. While more than 60% of
Alabama's murder victims are black, the
majority of the 117 persons on death row
are blacks convicted of killing whites. 

   DCI Gates must testify 
   in Claire George trial 
   
U.S. District Judge Royce C.
Lamberth refused to quash a subpoena on
Aug. 11 for Director of Central
Intelligence Robert Gates to testify as a
hostile defense witness in the
Iran-Contra trial of former CIA official
Claire George, saying that Gates ``is up
to his eyeballs in his knowledge'' of the
affair. ``There were only two people
above George, and one [Bill Casey] is
dead,'' Judge Lamberth said. Gates was
the late director Casey's number two. 
   CIA official George Cave testified
on Aug. 11 that then-Vice President
George Bush met with Israeli arms dealer
Amiram Nir on July 26, 1986 to discuss
details of the arms-for-hostages
operations being run by Oliver North.
According to Cave, North arranged the
meeting between Nir and Bush, and North
told Cave, ``I think it's necessary to
brief the vice president, because he
isn't up to speed on this operation.'' 
   Claire George took the stand in his
own defense on Aug. 12. During
cross-examination on Aug. 13 by Craig
Gillen, George was pressed about whether
he lied to Congress about the identity of
``Max Gomez,'' by attempting to mislead a
Senate panel about the fact that Gomez is
an alias for former CIA officer Felix
Rodriguez. The question centered around
lapel buttons that CIA officials were
sporting asking, ``Who is Maximo Gomez?'' 
   ``It was a fun item for you?''
Gillen asked George. ``It was a fun item
for the White House,'' George answered.
``That's where I got them''--identifying
the office of Donald P. Gregg, who was at
the time the national security adviser
for Vice President Bush. 

   D.C. death penalty 
   proposal moving ahead 
   
According to the office of Sen.
Richard Shelby (D-Ala.), the proposal to
have the citizens of Washington, D.C.
vote to enact a death penalty will be
taken up by a House-Senate Conference
Committee in mid-September. If the
provision is not killed in conference
committee, it will be placed on the
November ballot, unless a court challenge
is successful. 
   Shelby's current draft legislation
would give District courts the power to
impose the death sentence. This will
become law if Shelby's referendum gets on
the ballot in November and passes. If
court challenges arise, other variations
are envisioned, such as giving federal
courts the right to impose the death
penalty in the District, or simply making
the referendum a preference declaration
on which to piggyback later legislation. 
   Shelby proposed the death sentence
legislation after one of his aides was
murdered in the Capitol Hill area. 

   N.Y. tenants' group 
   goes after ADL, HUD 
   
A mid-August demonstration by the
Queensbridge Tenants Association before
the Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan
denounced the federal department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the
New York Housing Authority, and the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai
B'rith, and demanded that housing
officials hire the Nation of Islam to
provide security in their drug-infested
housing projects. The Nation of Islam has
achieved national attention for its
successful unarmed security services to
private housing complexes in the most
violent neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. 
   A spokesman for the Queensbridge
tenants group said residents are afraid
to walk through the project to their
homes. Children can't play outdoors
because of the drug-related violence,
including shootouts. Tenants who work at
night cannot come home safely until
daylight. Elderly people don't dare use
the local subway stop because of thugs. 
   When the tenants requested that the
New York City Housing Authority hire the
Nation of Islam for security, the ADL
intervened to prevent it, alleging that
the group is ``anti-Semitic''--the same
lie used against the Nation of Islam in
Washington. 

   New trial sought in 
   Nebraska child abuse case 
   
Lincoln, Nebraska attorney John
DeCamp filed a motion in mid-August for a
new trial for Alisha Owen, a key
victim-witness in the Frankin Credit
Union child sex abuse case, who was
sentenced to 9-15 years in prison for
``perjury'' for steadfastly maintaining
she was abused by prominent Omahans.
According to an AP wire, ``DeCamp seeks a
new trial in the lower court, citing new
evidence. He enclosed sworn statements
from three jurors who said they watched a
segment on the case on CBS' `48 Hours,'
even though acting Douglas County
District Judge Raymond Case instructed
them not to.'' The program aired 
the night before the jury returned its
guilty verdict. ``DeCamp also enclosed
sworn statements'' that another abuse
victim, Troy Boner, whom the FBI
pressured to recant his initial
testimony, ``lied during his trial
testimony against Owen.'' 
   The FBI is said to be infuriated at
DeCamp's persistence in the case, and has
put out the word that they intend to
``have his head on a silver platter.''
DeCamp has written a book about the case,
{The Franklin Cover-up,} whose initial
10,000 copies sold out. 
   DeCamp has amassed new information,
in part in response to his book,
including extensive evidence that
children who were abused and disappeared
were kidnaped as part of a CIA/military
intelligence/MK-Ultra brainwashing
program known as ``Project Monarch,'' one
of whose leaders was former Franklin
Credit Union chief Larry King. King is
also formerly with Army Intelligence.
Another ``Monarch'' leader is notorious
Satanist Michael Aquino, formerly with
Air Force Intelligence. 

   Gonzalez subpoenas
   `Iraqgate' documents
   
House Banking Committee Chairman
Henry Gonzalez's office said Aug. 13 that
he has issued ``the first of many''
subpoenas in the investigation of the
Atlanta branch of Italy's Banca Nazionale
del Lavoro (BNL) and its connections with
Iraq. ``For the first time, the committee
is issuing subpoenas for documents from
the Justice Department, the CIA, the
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the
National Security Agency,'' Gonzalez
said, because Attorney General William
Barr has, since May 15, prevented the
committee staff from examining any of the
classified records of the government
agencies. 
   The committee has also subpoenaed
Christopher P. Drogoul, the former first
vice president of BNL's Atlanta branch,
to appear before the House Banking
Committee on Sept. 17. 
   Document subpoenas have also been
issued to the named agencies for
information about dealings with
Ljubljanksa Bank, (one of whose former
board members is now Acting Secretary of
State Lawrence Eagleburger), and document
subpoenas for related material have been
issued to the Comptroller of the Overseas
Commodity Credit Corp. for information on
First City Texas Bank, Houston, and the
Gulf International Bank; to New York
Banking Superintendent Derrick D. Cephas,
for documents on Beobanka, Jugobanka and
LBS Bank-N.Y.; and to Federal Reserve
Chairman Alan Greenspan for Federal
Reserve documents on the same
institutions. 

   Farmers send ton of milk
   powder to Iraqi children
   
Local South Dakota farmers, led
by grain farmer and independent
congressional candidate Ron Wieczorek,
gathered at the Davison County Courthouse
on Aug. 18 for a ``send-off rally'' of a
one-ton shipment of milk powder destined
for starving children in Iraq. The milk
powder, manufactured at the AMPI plant in
Freeman, S.D., was purchased with
donations from farmers from 26 states.
The ``milk lift'' began as a means for
dairy farmers to protest phony government
claims of a milk surplus. Rather than
dump milk they can't sell, they are
donating it, at the urging of the
Committee to Save the Children in Iraq. 
   Forty bags of Grade A non-fat dry
milk will travel to Philadelphia, from
where it will be flown to Germany,
compliments of Lufthansa Airlines. The
shipment will then be transferred to a
German military airplane under U.N.
auspices. The 10,000-mile journey will
end with delivery of the milk to the
children's wards of hospitals in Baghdad
by the Red Crescent organization. 
   Wieczorek told the press, ``This
South Dakota-produced milk powder is
going to mean about 10,000 more quarts of
milk for Iraqi children, who are still
being starved by the U.N. embargo. We
hope this will build more support to lift
the embargo once and for all.'' 

   THE HOUSTON
{Jewish
Herald-Voice} gave prominent coverage to
the Texas tour of Webster Tarpley,
co-author of {George Bush: The
Unauthorized Biography} in its Aug. 13
issue. 

   ROSS PEROT
is still
``available'' to run for President, a
spokesman for his New York petition
committee recently said. Perot plans to
pay as many as 360 workers to gather the
15,000 signatures needed by Aug. 27 to
qualify for the New York ballot, UPI
reported Aug. 13. 

   `EAGLEBURGER
is like an
overweight Kissinger without the warts,''
wrote the Aug. 15 issue of the Berlin
daily {Tageszeitung,} is its profile of
Acting Secretary of State Lawrence
Eagleburger, who is the former president
of Kissinger Associates. 
      
   THE DEATH
sentence of a
retarded African-American, Earl
Washington, was upheld by federal Judge
Claude Hilton on Aug. 12. The only
evidence against Washington was his own
incoherent confession. His appeal was
based on ineffective assistance of
counsel, because his trial attorney did
not introduce evidence from the Virginia
forensic report indicating Washington's
innocence. 

   RICHARD GEPHARDT
(D-Mo.)
raised and spent more money on his
reelection campaign than any other member
of Congress, according to the Federal
Election Commission, spending $1.6
million from 1991 through June 30. He
ranked first among all House candidates,
incumbents and non-incumbents, in both
PAC and individual contributions,
totaling $2.6 million for that period. 

   AL GORE'S
rantings against
Plato in his book {Earth in the Balance,}
came out of lengthy ``philosophical''
discussions with eco-nut Jeremy Rifkin,
according to published reports. Gore
blames the Platonist tradition for
creating a dualism between mind and
nature, which impelled man to seek
dominion over nature, rather than
``stewardship.'' 
Ibero-America
   
Debt rising in wake 
   of Brady Plan 
   
Daniel Muchnik, economics columnist
for the Buenos Aires daily newspaper
{Clari@aan,} wrote on Aug. 9 that despite
all the palaver about debt reduction,
including the Brady Plan (named after
U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady),
the debt of Ibero-American nations
continues to rise, hitting $435 billion
this year, up from $410 billion in 1989,
and is expected to rise to $443 billion
next year.
   One reason the debt didn't fall is
that many banks went for the option that
held the principal at par, but lowered
the interest rate to a fixed 6.25%.
Today, with interest rates below 6%,
these countries are paying more interest
than they would have been without the Brady
Plan, i.e., the Brady Plan has been worse
than nothing. 
   The Latin American Bishops
Conference (CELAM) has called on the
governments of the continent to look for
alternative viable economic models that
can bring about economic growth with
decent wages and a reduction of
unemployment. 

   Technology
   
Boeing to establish 
   center near Moscow
   
Boeing Corp. will establish a
technical research center in the Moscow
area, to utilize otherwise unemployed
Russian aerospace scientists, engineers,
and technicians in the development of
commercial aircraft, the Aug. 14 {Journal
of Commerce} reported. Benjamin A.
Cosgrove, Boeing's senior vice president
for technical and government affairs,
acting on behalf of Boeing's Commercial
Airplane Group, has signed a joint
communique@aa with Anatoly G. Bratukhin,
director general of Russian aviation. 
   Airbus Industrie and McDonnell
Douglas, the two other western
manufacturers of large commercial
aircraft, have held talks in Russia, but
have not closed any deals yet. 
   L. Paul Bremer III, a consultant
with Kissinger Associates in New York
City, told the {Journal of Commerce,} ``In
the long run, the only way the Russian
economy is going to get fixed is from
inflows of private investment and
mobilizing domestic savings.'' 

   Agriculture
   
Sudan bucks IMF, 
   produces surplus crop
   
In November 1990, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) ``decertified'' the
nation of Sudan, and acted to cut the
nation off from international credit at a
time when severe drought had devastated
Sudan's food grain crops. In the
subsequent two years, Sudanese
agricultural planners have intervened to
make the nation self-sufficient in food
grains. 
   According to the Aug. 5 {New
Horizon} newspaper from Khartoum, the
capial of Sudan, ``Sudan's total cereals
production for the 1991-92 season
amounted to 4.8 million metric tons,
compared to 1.9 million tons in 1990-91.''
Sudan is now exporting grain to Egypt and
to Ethiopia. 
   This feat was accomplished by a
determined increase in the inputs per
acre for cereals grain. The government
shifted much of the sowing of cereals
grain crops (millet, sorghum, and wheat)
{out} of the rain-fed region that is
subject to the vagaries of rainfall, and
{into} the famed Gezira region of
irrigated acreage, located in the region
where the White Nile River and the Blue
Nile River join. 
   Cash crops, such as cotton,
which the IMF encourages countries to
grow as a means of generating funds for
debt repayment, were shifted in the
reverse direction. If it doesn't rain, no
one suffers food shortages that year. 

   Poland
   
Government provokes
   nationwide labor strike
   
The refusal of the Polish
government, led by Prime Minister Hanna
Suchocka and Labor Minister Jacek Kuron,
to enter talks with miners who are
objecting to vicious International
Monetary Fund (IMF)-imposed austerity and
the threatened widespread elimination of
the mining industry in Poland, has led
unions which had organized the ongoing
strike wave in southern Poland and the
earlier farmers' protests to form a
national strike committee and to prepare
a general strike. 
   The strike committee, which has
already-established support groups across
the country beyond the Silesian mining
region, consists of the rural
self-defense organization Samoobrona, the
Solidarnosc 80 union, the new union of
locomotive conductors ZZMK, the new
miners union FZGG, and the post-communist
OPZZ union federation. 
   Leaders of the strike committee said
that the government's intransigence has
created a situation where labor, in order
to achieve anything, is forced to go
beyond mere wage demands and launch a
national protest action, with the aim of
substantially changing the country's
economic policy. Repudiation of the IMF
conditionalities imposed upon the
government and the banking sector, and
the creation of a system of productive
credit along with protective import
tariffs, are prime demands of the general
strike campaign. 

   AIDS
   
Federal health officials 
   rejected screening donors
   
An appeal by some AIDS experts to
screen blood donors for a newly
discovered AIDS-like illness that first
came to public notice at the
international AIDS conference in
Amsterdam in July, was rejected by U.S.
federal health officials, the Aug. 15
{Washington Times} reported. 
   ``We must remember the lessons of
AIDS,'' Dr. Donald Armstrong of Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, told a
Centers for Disease Control
(CDC)-convened meeting of AIDS experts in
Atlanta on Aug. 14. ``The most important
thing is the safety of our blood supply.
I don't want to be behind once again,''
said Armstrong, who in 1983 issued the
first call to screen the nation's blood
supply for HIV, although routine testing
wasn't instituted until two years later. 
   CDC officials countered that
researchers lack evidence that the
illness is spread through blood. ``We
don't have enough to make a
recommendation on blood safety,'' said Dr.
Harold Jaffe, acting director of the
CDC's AIDS division. 

   Trade
   
China arranges huge
   barter deal with Russia
   
China signed a barter deal of 500
railway cars of food and textiles for
four Russian Tu-15M passenger jets this
spring, the biggest barter deal in
non-government Sino-Russian trade, the
{China Daily} reported Aug. 10. The total
value of bartered goods was $313 million. 
   Special markets for people from
Russia and eastern Europe, which deal in
barter as well as currency, have been set
up in Inner Mongolia and Shanghai. Food
and clothing are the key items sought by
Russians. 
   The architect of the airplane deal,
Mou Qizhong, is planning to sponsor an
annual world economic forum for people of
Chinese descent from all over the world.
The forum, inspired by the Davos World
Economic Forum, ``is to pool the wisdom of
people of Chinese blood from all over the
world for the economic advancement of
China and the prosperity of Chinese
communities the world over,'' Mou said. 

   Health 
   
Insurers blocking 
   new technologies
   
Insurance companies are blocking the
use of promising new medical technologies
by demanding that it first be
demonstrated that such technologies will
reduce long-term costs before they will
grant insurance coverage for their use.
Lack of insurance coverage, however,
precludes their use in most cases. 
   In one example, there is an
already-developed technology, called
``intravascular ultrasound,'' that
threads a catheter into arteries and uses
ultrasound to reveal a very detailed
picture of the inside of arteries. Dr.
Jeffrey Isner, chief of cardiovascular
research at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in
Boston, Massachusetts, told the Aug. 16
{New York Times} that ``this could be the
most important change in the way we
evaluate patients with coronary disease
in the last 30 years.'' 
   The {New York Times} reported that
if used frequently, intravascular
ultrasound would almost certainly be
found to save money by permitting early
treatment of heart disease, cutting down
on heart attacks, and making more
expensive treatment unnecessary. 
   Yet, the technology is hardly used
today because most health insurance
companies refuse to pay the several
thousand dollars it costs to do the test
on a patient. The companies are demanding
that it be proven in advance that this
cost will be more than made up by savings
before they will cover it. However, the
only way to prove it will save money in
the long run is if it is used frequently,
which it won't be unless it is covered by
insurance. 

   International Credit
   
Non-Aligned draft calls 
   for debt write-offs
   
The Indonesian government, with
significant input from India, has
prepared a draft document that will set
the agenda for the summit of the
Non-Aligned Movement in Jakarta on Sept.
1-6. The draft document reads, ``They [NAM
leaders] endorsed the idea of a major
write-off of debts by official donors and
commercial banks, as well as by
multilateral institutions,'' Reuters
reported Aug. 12. 
   The statement, according to Reuters,
says write-offs should cover all kinds of
debts and include those countries which
made ``great efforts'' to repay their
debts. It also notes that the situation
of the underdeveloped countries has been
worsened by ``the emergence of large
negative reverse flows from the
developing to the developed countries,
high interest rates, and the acute
erosion in export earnings.'' 
   The document cautions that developed
countries and international agencies
should not use ``environmental
considerations as an excuse for
interference in the internal afairs of
the developing countries, nor should they
be used to introduce any conditionality
in aid.'' 

   SOUTH KOREA
lofted a 110-pound
research satellite into Earth orbit on
Aug. 11, UPI reported. Uribyol (Our Star)
Number 1 will conduct experiments with
broadcasts and communications, and
measure cosmic radiation. It was designed
and built by a team at Surrey University
in Britain, working with researchers from
the Korea Advanced Institute of Science
and Technology. 

   CHOLERA
killed 70 people in an
eastern Cambodian province in June and
July, the official SPK news agency from
Phnom Penh reported on Aug. 11. A total
of 460 people had caught the disease in
Kompong Cham. It was also spreading
through other provinces which were badly
hit by floods last year, the agency said. 

   THE PENSION
Benefit Guarantee Corp.
requested $40 billion from the U.S.
Congress Aug. 11. It said that without
the money, the pensions of 40 million
Americans will be unfunded. General
Motors plans to cut pensions, starting in
October. 

   VIETNAM
signed a contract with Nopec
Co. of Norway on June 9 to conduct
deep-water hydrocarbon surveys in the
South China Sea, the {Far East Economic
Review} reported. Vietnamese officials
will not say if the area which China
signed a deal with the U.S. oil company
Crestone to explore, and pledged to
defend militarily, is in the contract. 

   AN OUTBREAK
of black plague,
believed to have been caused by the
hunting of plague-ridden marmots, has
killed three people in Mongolia and
infected three more, Reuters reported
Aug. 12. Doctors are rushing to outlying
areas in three provinces to treat 1,300
people who have come into contact with
the disease, health officials said. 

   MORE THAN 25%
of all children in the
200 largest U.S. cities live in poverty,
according to a new report by the
Children's Defense Fund, UPI reported
Aug. 13. Since 1979, the rate of poverty
among children increased by 4%. 
               



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

Newsgroups: alt.activism