INTERNATIONAL
University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, April 29, 1992
7
INTERNATIONAL BRIEFS
Kiev, Ukraine
Pact will cut nuclear weapons
The heirs of the former Soviet nuclear arsenal have agreed to follow an international arms pact that will slash nuclear weapons, Ukraine's president said yesterday, reaffirming his nation's pledge to relinquish such missiles.
The four nuclear powers in the former Soviet Union will soon sign a protocol promising to abide by a 1991 U.S.-Soviet treaty cutting long-range nuclear arms by at least 30 percent, said Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk.
Ukraine halted shipments of missiles to Russia earlier this year, saying it wanted international supervision of arms destruction. Kravchuk last said last month that Ukraine would resume the transfer of arms, but no date was set.
He also reaffirmed a nuclear disarmament pledge by Ukraine, which has been squabbling with Russia over how to dismantle weapons. He was on the verge of nuclear state states are Kazakhstan and Belarus.
Bonn, Germany
A society accustomed to efficiency and cleanliness found its normally well-swept streets filling with trash.
Germany's first public-workers' strike in 18 years spread yesterday as tens of thousands of garbage collectors, letter carriers and rail workers demanded more pay.
German public workers strike
Germany's most populous state. North
Germany's largest city. Monday.
The first day of the nationwide strike
But today the ranks of striking workers were swelled by 57,000 employees in North Rhine-Westphalia, about half of them in the transit sector.
Commuters jammed autobahns as North
Pacific thalia's used their cars instead of
BRAKES.
Union officials said about 130,000 workers were participating in the strike, 55,000 more than on Monday.
Cape Town, South Africa
Report shows ethnic differences
The infant mortality rate for Blacks is almost five times higher than for whites, according to a national health report released yesterday.
Whites also live an average of 10 years longer than Blacks, said the report by the Department of National Health.
The national infant mortality rate was 47 out of 1,000 live births, with wide discrepancies in the racial breakdown
The rate among whites was nine out of 1,000 live births, compared to 35 for people of mixed-race and 52 for Blacks, the report said.
Intestinal infection was the main cause of death for Black children under 5, while drownings and transport accidents were the main causes of death for white children, it said.
Blacks and mixed-race people had a life expectancy of 63 years, compared to 73 for whites,the report said.
From The Associated Press
Ethnic groups continue to battle for dominance
The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan — A rebel coalition triumphantly declared an Islamic government yesterday, then unleashed a hail of machine-gun bullets and rockets in a renewed effort to crush a radical rival's troops.
Explosions shook the capital minutes after officials of the deposed Communist government stood at a ceremony at the Foreign Ministry to pledge allegiance to Sibghatullah Mojaddidi, president of the interim governing council.
Despite its calls for unity, the new rebel council appeared determined to deny fundamentalist leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar a role in governing the country after 14 years of war against a succession of Soviet-backed governments.
As the coalition's fighters, led by Ahmed Shah Massood, fired glowing tracer bullets and flares into the night sky in celebration, their comrades fought to wipe out the enemy. Hekmatyar's troops occupy only 1.5 million people.
The heaviest fighting was around the Interior Ministry compound, but Hekmatyar's men teniously held onto the important position in central Kabul after repelling assaults by Masood loyalists.
Masood and Hekmatyar are personal enemies from different ethnic groups who are split on their visions of the government. Hekmatyar favors strict imposition of Islamic law, while Masood would apply it more moderately.
"This would have been a very happy day for us to
see the transfer of power to the Islamic government," Mojaddidi said while taking power in a ceremony witnessed by foreign dignitaries, journalists and rebels.
Mojaddiad and other members of the governing council arrived earlier in the day in a convoy of hundreds of dusty cars and trucks that made a 27-hour trek over twisting mountain roads from Pakistan.
Hundreds of guerrillas in the convolver joyously fired their guns in their air and cheered "Allah Akhbar!" or "God is Great!" Some rebels danced on the bed of deposed President Najibullah in the presidential palace.
The turnover of power came one day after the 14th anniversary of the Marxist coup that ignited the rebellion by numerous groups of mujahdeen, or Islamic holy warriors, who were backed by the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China.
Najibullah, who was forced from power April 16 and hiding in Kabul, lost his grip on power after Moscow cut off arms supplies in January. The mujahedeen, aided by defecting soldiers, seized government positions around the country and then overran Kabul on Saturday, touching off the battle among rival rebels in the capital.
The Red Cross said fighting killed at least 15 people and wounded nearly 360 by yesterday morning, but no casualties.
The fighting slackened for a few hours yesterday but erupted again as soon as Mojadiddi formally accepted power. The few peddlers and pedestrians who had emerged in the morning fled to shelters.
Warfare in Bosnia rages; shelling strikes hospital
The Associated Press
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia — Ethnic battles raged yesterday across Bosnia-Herzegovina, where a hospital maternity ward was shelled, and the United Nations denied a renewed role for its peace-affirming staff the stbfeljsk train.
About 400,000 people have their homes in newly independent Bosnia, swelling the flood of refugees in the former Yugoslavia to more than 1 million, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees
"I imagine the shame of people having to live in an Europe because they have no other shelter." Foosil said.
The European Community's latest attempts to stem the violence stalled as negotiators waited in Lisbon, Portugal, for Bosnia President Aljaferi and Serbia's president of the Croatian coast to join Serbians at talks on Bosnia's future.
Violence erupted after the majority Muslims and Croatians in Bosnia voted for independence Feb. 29. The violence intensified after Bosnia won broad international recognition this month.
U. N. High Commission representative Sylvana Foa said in Geneva that for the first time in memory, the UNHCR will have to build tent camps in the mountains of Croatia, most of whom have fleed to neighboring Croatia.
million people and oppose independence.
Serbians make up about one-third of Bosnia's 4.4
Heavy fighting broke out in Sarajevo late Monday right after Bosnia's collective presidency ordered the estimated 100,000 federal army troops in the republic to leave or join a Bosnian defense force.
Commanders of the Serbian-led federal forces rejected the ultimatum, as mortar and cannon fire reverberated all night.
Similar bombings occurred in Mostar, a city of 100,000 people in the Croatian-dominated southwest where a hospital was shelled.
Bombardments Monday in Mostar killed at least one person and wounded 17. The streets of Mostar were lit.
Associated Press reporter Slobodan Lekic, in Mostar, said the hospital maternity ward wasevacuated after a shell plummeted through the hospital roof, spewing debris on patients. Bullets flew in through the windows of the ward, but there were no injuries, doctors said.
Burned-out cars littered the streets of Mostar, the site of a key federal air force base and headquarters for thousands of troops since the federal army moved in by Dubrovnik on Croatia's Adriatic coast last fall.
Fighting also was reported near Foca, one of a string of Muslim towns overrun by paramilitary Serbians backed by the Serbian-led federal army earlier this month.
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LAST CHANCE TO TAKE A BREAK BEFORE FINALS!
OAKS is having a picnic on Stop Day, May 4th.
Take a break from studying and join us for a while. We will be at Centennial Park, at the corner of 9th and Iowa (behind Bucky's). Bring some food, friends, and join us for the fun!!
Starting time is at 11:30 a.m.
For more information call: 864-7317 OAKS (Nontraditional Student Organization)