6B
Wednesday, June 12, 1996
WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Airlines agree to partnership
American Airlines, British Airways hook up for tickets, connections
The Associated Press
LONDON — American Airlines and British Airways today announced plans for an alliance that would give them a dominant market share on many lucrative overseas routes.
But the deal immediately raised complaints that it would lead to higher prices and fewer choices for travelers. Rival Virgin Atlantic Airways said the two giant airlines could abuse their huge market share.
"Together, they will dominate the market with over 60 percent of the U.K.-U.S. traffic and up to 100 percent in the worst cases," Virgin chairman Richard Branson said.
American Airlines and British Airways will remain independent, but will coordinate ticket sales and allow connections to one another's flights.
The airlines said they would "offer the widest choice of routings and departure times" with connections on their services linking Europe, Africa and the Middle East with points in North America, the Caribbean and South America.
British Airways chief executive Bob Ayling touted the deal as good news for consumers, employees and shareholders.
Not so, said Virgin's Branson
"Given the history of these two airlines and their anti-competitive behavior, it would be hard to believe any rational government, in the interest of consumers, would allow this to go forward."
Branson planned to meet today with British Transport Secretary Sir George Young to voice his opposition.
Virgin said it would object before British and U.S. aviation regulators as well as the U.S. Justice Department — which would have to grant antitrust immunity.
American Airlines and British Airways had been in talks for some time while many other carriers sought similar partnerships by selling seats on one another's flights in code-sharing deals and pooling frequent-flyer programs.
American and British Airways said they had no plans to exchange ownership stakes with one another, and they hoped to keep USAir, the U.S. partner of British
Airways, involved in a way that will strengthen USair's position.
British Airways has a 24.6 percent voting stake in USAir and the joint American Airlines and British Airways statement did not elaborate on the USAir role.
Virgin said American Airlines and British Airways would control 61.29 percent of the traffic between Britain and the United States, with huge shares in key markets. According to Virgin, their market shares would include:
—71 percent of the traffic between London and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
—60 percent of traffic between London and Los Angeles.
—76.5 percent of traffic between London and Miami.
"They're the only game in town in Dallas," said an executive of another international carrier.
The executive, speaking only on condition of anonymity, said the American Airlines and British Airways deal would lead to a regulatory battle because of the monopoly it would give the airlines in major markets.
Virgin said this "trans-Atlantic cartel" would be able to push fares higher because travelers would often have few if any choices about how to fly.
Virgin spokesman Will Whitehorn predicted fares would rise by about 25 percent during the next three years, which is what he said happened after Sir Freddie Laker's budget airline, Skytrain, went bust after British Airways and others started a fare war in the early 1980s.
Laker eventually won millions in court payments from the other airlines.
Virgin has tangled for years with British Airways about charges that the larger carrier engaged in a dirty tricks campaign to harm Virgin's business.
British Airways settled a libel suit and issued a humiliating public apology to Virgin. Shortly thereafter, the British Airways chairman, Lord King, retired early.
American also has had past problems with allegations of anti-competitive behavior.
European Union announces plans to control smuggling of women
VIENNA, Austria — Organized crime traffickers are adding women to the list of goods they can smuggle across borders, causing a rise in the global slave trade.
The Associated Press
As a result, the European Union announced measures today at the conclusion of a two-day conference to combat the illegal trafficking of women, including a witness-protection program for those who testify against their exploiters.
Anita Gradin, the EU commissioner who organized the Vienna gathering, said she will present a more detailed plan of action to the EU's council of ministers and to the European parliament.
Ireland will keep the issue on the political agenda after it assumes the EU's rotating presidency on July 1, said John Byrne, an Irish Justice Department official specializing in immigration issues.
Historically, women slaves have come from Asia, Africa and Latin America. But as economic and social support systems crumbled
"The slave trade in women is growing," said Gradin. "Women are bought and sold like cattle. No part of the world seems exempt."
with the end of Communist regimes, women from central and eastern Europe have headed west, experts at the conference said Monday.
Estimates of the number of women smuggled from developing countries range from 200,000 to 500,000. The women are lured on promises of well-paid jobs, but are then forced into the sex trade.
In Vienna, 80 percent of the dancers in sex clubs come from central and eastern Europe, according to an EU report. In Milan, Italy, 80 percent of prostitutes are foreigners.
Experts say their ranks have grown dramatically in the last five years.
Trafficking in women is less risky than smuggling drugs, trading arms or laundering money since risks are low and profits high, Gradin said.
"Today, it is a global business, creating huge profits for trafficking and crime syndicates," said James Purcell, who directs the International Organization for Migration. "A person can increase his or her annual earnings by up to 20 times simply by crossing a few borders."
Experts said law enforcers are more likely to prosecute these crimes than the trading of women.
Austrian Interior Minister Caspar Einem said law enforcement agencies should work together and go after the assets of criminal networks.
Einem proposed granting women immunity in exchange for their testimony to break up the smuggling rings.
Marco Gramegna, another International Organization for Migration official, said large criminal networks recruit women through advertisements for nannies, language school students, marriage agencies and dancers.
In central and eastern Europe, women often are recruited by friends working in the sex trade. Many come with the consent of their families, Gramema said.
Women from the former Soviet
bloc tend to be young, single and well-educated, he said. Those from developing countries are typically older, married with children and less educated.
Most African women come from Ghana, Nigeria and Morocco; Latin American women come from Brazil, Colombia and the Dominican Republic; and Asian women are from the Philippines and Thailand. In recent years, women from Albania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine are heading West.
When the women arrive in western Europe, the traffickers take their passports. Many are locked up, and physically, sexually and mentally abused, Gradin said. If they escape, the women may be ostracized at home.
Many developing countries don't want to stop the trade because the women send money home to support their families, Gramega said.
Northern Ireland talks off to slow start; debate about U.S. mediator continues
In host countries, the influx feeds xenophobia and fears of uncontrolled borders.
the Associated Press
BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell has yet to take his seat as chairman of Northern Ireland's peace talks; but pro-British Protestants already are calling for his ouster.
Mitchell remained on the outside today as the second day of negotiations opened at the Stormont complex east of Belfast. Pro-British hard-liners threatened to withdraw because they believe Mitchell is biased against them.
Protestant unionists rejected a British and Irish proposal today that Mitchell take over as chairman with talks to follow on defining his role, said Robert McCartney, leader of the United Kingdom Unionist Party.
"Our opposition to Mitchell has absolutely nothing to do with his personal character or his human decency," McCartney said during a break in the talks.
Protestant objections center on what they see as interference by a U.S. administration that is too friendly with the Irish Republican Army's allies. They also have made
pointed references to Mitchell's Roman Catholic faith.
"If he's in, I'm out," the Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of pro-British hardliners, said Monday as the long-delayed talks began.
The aim of the talks is to strike a compromise on governing Northern Ireland — one that will end the violence that has killed 3,200 people in the province since 1969.
Protestants demand that the province remain united with Britain. Catholics want political ties with the Irish Republic. The negotiations involve both governments and Northern Ireland's political parties.
The difficult start to negotiations raised more doubts about hopes for a new IRA cease-fire. Leaders of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political ally, say there won't be a new truce without the assurance of meaningful talks.
Sinn Fein is considered to be one of the most important factions by all concerned, but it is barred from the talks because the IRA has refused to resume a cease-fire it violated with a truck bomb in London in February.
Irish Prime Minister John Bruton
lashed out at Sinn Fein leaders today for refusing to condemn the killing of a police officer in western Ireland. Police say they have ballistic evidence linking Friday's attack to the IRA, although the outlawed organization has denied it.
One Irish man is charged with being an IRA member and with possessing firearms in connection with the officer's death.
"It makes me feel there is an ambiguity in Sinn Fein's attitude still, and I believe the only way that that ambiguity can be removed is if there is a definitive cease-fire and violence is foreworn for good," Bruton told Ireland's RTE radio.
The renewed call for a truce has gone unanswered so far.
Sinn Fein says the British and Irish governments must prod Protestants toward compromise.
So far, the Protestant political bloc — David Trimble's Ulster Unionists, Paisley's Democratic Unionists and the smaller United Kingdom Unionists — are the ones doing the pushing.
Paisley said Monday it was up to Northern Ireland politicians, not the
British or Irish governments, to pick who supervises the discussions. "We own this process," he said. "It is our future and we are not letting the two governments get their dirty hands on it."
However, other pro-British Protestants suggested they could accept Mitchell, who is President Clinton's special envoy and was chosen by Britain and Ireland to chair the talks.
Ken Maginnis of the Ulster Unionist Party, the main Protestant party, said today that Mitchell should be "an impartial arbitrator and facilitator, not a dictator." He indicated that his party was not implacably opposed to Mitchell, but wanted clear ground rules for his role.
Britain says the former U.S. Senate Majority Leader will assume the leadership post only with sufficient consensus among participants.
Prime ministers John Major of Britain and John Bruton of Ireland said they consider Mitchell the best person to implement his commission's central conclusion — that parties should renounce violence at the start of talks.