NOTEBOOK/WORLD WATCH	JANUARY 19, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 3
	World Watch BELFAST In a bid to save foundering peace negotiations, Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam took a major political gamble, holding an unprecedented meeting with leaders of a loyalist militant group jailed in the Maze Prison near Belfast. Protestant paramilitaries had voted earlier to withdraw their support from further talks on Northern Ireland's future, arguing that the process favored the republicans. Mowlam said she had offered "no concessions and no guarantees," but her move paid off. Politicians of the Ulster Democratic Party, representing the prisoners, agreed to resume their seats. PARIS Hundreds of long-term unemployed people occupied 28 welfare offices and held protest marches across France to demand a $600 Christmas bonus and higher welfare payments. After meeting with protest leaders, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin pledged $160 million in aid to the most vulnerable of the jobless but refused to agree on the bonus--his attempt to respect France's beleaguered social contract without conceding a budget-busting reversal that would endanger French participation in monetary union next May. In Germany, a new spurt of unemployment in December--to 4.5 million, or 11.8%--prompted Chancellor Helmut Kohl to drop his promise to cut joblessness in half by 2000. ROME Police chiefs from six European Union nations and Turkey met in an effort to stem the flow of Turkish and Iraqi Kurds, nearly 2,000 of whom have arrived in southern Italy over the last month. The security officials agreed to coordinate investigations into organized crime's link to illegal immigration. While President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro says Italy will always accept those suffering persecution with "open arms," the German government fears most of the recent arrivals would like to join family and friends in Germany, and is calling for stricter frontier controls. Turkey, which has been fighting Kurdish guerrillas for 13 years, contends that the immigrants are economic migrants. The government announced a crackdown on illegal immigration schemes and a tightening of Turkey's borders. AMSTERDAM The 40-year homosexual partnership of two Dutch men has been registered, making them the first gay couple in the Netherlands to complete a new procedure that gives them almost the same legal rights as married heterosexuals. A two-week waiting period between application and registration was waived because one of the men was critically ill. The major difference between a registered partnership and marriage is that children may only be adopted by one of the partners in a gay couple. VILNIUS A retired official of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from Chicago was elected to the largely ceremonial post of President of Lithuania by a wafer-thin majority. Valdas Adamkus, 71, defeated Arturas Paulauskas, the Baltic nation's 44-year-old Prosecutor-General, by less than 1% in a runoff. Adamkus joined the resistance against Soviet forces at the end of World War II before making his way to the U.S. ISTANBUL Rarely has a small-scale, simulated search-and-rescue operation at sea become a subject of international dispute. Because the eastern Mediterranean exercise in question--dubbed Reliant Mermaid--was the first to include both Israel and Islamic countries, however, it was criticized by several Arab nations, as well as Iran and Russia. While the U.S. described its maneuvers with Israel and Turkey--with Jordan as an observer--as "strictly humanitarian," Iraq called them an "American-Zionist plot...a hostile stand against Arab nations" and Syrian newspapers saw a "menacing threat" and a "sinister alliance." Reliant Mermaid reflected growing military cooperation between Turkey and Israel since 1996. ALGIERS As murderous violence continued in Algeria, Western governments attempted to come up with a diplomatic initiative to stop the killings. The Americans suggested an international inquiry, Canada said it could send a special envoy to Algeria and the European Union offered a fact-finding mission composed of representatives from Britain, Luxembourg and Austria. Although Algeria has always rejected any outside intervention, the government agreed to the E.U. mission on condition it focused only on combating terrorism. CAPE TOWN Former President P.W. Botha is to be prosecuted for refusing to appear before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is investigating apartheid-era abuses. Botha, 82, has persistently rejected the panel's attempts to question him on his role as head of the State Security Council. Botha--who has dismissed the commission as a witch hunt and has ignored earlier subpoenas to appear--is to be charged on Jan. 23. If convicted he could face up to two years imprisonment. BANGKOK Fears are growing that the International Monetary Fund's $17 billion bailout package for Thailand is having no effect and will have to be revised. Prime Minister Chuan Leepai said the country would not be able to produce a budget surplus, as required by the IMF, and that "the premises on which the terms were based have changed." Rejecting the term "renegotiation," Finance Minister Tarrin Nimmanahaeminda said "a review by mutual consent" was being sought. Since the Thai bailout deal was accepted in August, the economic situation has worsened HONG KONG Legislators approved a $97 million compensation package for farmers, vendors and truckers in Hong Kong's poultry industry, following the slaughter of 1.4 million birds in an effort to wipe out the avian H5N1 virus. The funds, in the form of cash to cover direct losses and low-interest business loans, were increased after four days of protests over a lower offer. So far, "bird flu" has killed four of the 16 people who have been infected. Three other cases are suspected. JAKARTA Demands for political reform in Indonesia--including an end to President Suharto's 32 years of autocratic rule--grow louder. Strikes and street unrest increase daily, while the government delays implementation of the tough measures recommended by the IMF to reverse the country's economic decline. The IMF could suspend a second $3 billion loan installment until Suharto's new budget--seen by analysts as overly optimistic--is revised. IMF officials have questioned the government's commitment to its pledges to restructure the economy. Politically popular subsidies continue, while the rupiah is in free fall and new investment is not forthcoming. A $43 billion rescue plan had been agreed. OTTAWA Canada formally apologized to its aboriginal peoples and pledged $440 million to set up "healing centers" and boost economic development in native communities. The move came in response to a landmark 1996 report by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which detailed the plight of the the country's native populations and called for billions of dollars in assistance. Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart said the government was "deeply sorry," particularly for a setting up a program of residential schools that separated thousands of children from their families, forced them to speak English and subjected them to physical and, sometimes, sexual abuse. DENVER The jury failed to agree on a sentence for Terry Nichols after convicting him of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter in the 1995 bombing of a government office building in Oklahoma City. Federal District Judge Richard Matsch will now take over sentencing, but unlike the jury, he cannot impose the death penalty. Oklahoma County District Attorney Bob Macy pledged to try Nichols on state charges of murder in the bombing deaths of 168 people--and again seek the death penalty. CAPE CANAVERAL Twenty-five years after the last Apollo mission, the U.S. is poised to explore the moon again. The Lunar Prospector raced toward orbit around Earth's satellite, from where it is to search for evidence of ice, minerals and useful gases at the moon's poles. Their presence would boost plans to set up a lunar base from which astronauts could work. RIO DE JANEIRO All Brazilians over the age of 18 are considered potential organ donors under a new law designed to increase the number of organs available for transplant. Those not wishing to be donors must specifically state their desire on an official document, such as a driver's license. Opponents of the law say it infringes the rights of individuals and their families. Others object to the fact that donors have no say over who might get their organs, and that they may be removed upon brain death, even if the heart is still beating.
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