Danube River declared safe for navigation
The Danube River, Europe’s second-longest waterway, has been declared safefor traffic for the first time since 1999 when NATO forces destroyed three bridges in the Yugoslav section of the river. Debris from the bridges and unexploded munitions had forced the closure of large segments of the river.
The closure has cost the shipping industry an estimated $400 million, a loss which has mainly affected Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine. A major cleanup effort has cleared the main channel of the river, allowing the Danube Commission to designate the river safe for traffic. The European Union have agreed to pay the approximately $25 million of cleanup costs.
The Danube, however, is not completely free for traffic. The Yugoslav, government constructed a pontoon bridge to temporarily replace one of the bridges. The bridge is currently raised to let ships through only on weekends. The EU has negotiated more frequent openings of the bridge, but it will continue to delay travel for the next two years while a permanent replacement bridge is constructed.
Flower-wielding woman charged with threatening Prince Charles
Alina Lebedeva, a 16-year-old Latvian girl, wrote a letter of apology to Prince Charles on Nov. 26 for smacking him with carnations while he was visiting Lativia’s capitol Riga in protest of Britain’s war involvement in Afghanistan.
On Nov. 8, Charles was preening in front of Latvian crowds when Lebedeva broke through the crowd and thwacked his cheek with three red carnations. Within seconds she was grabbed out of the crowd by the presidential guard and taken to the department of naitonal security, strip-searched, cross-examined, and charged under statute number 87 of the criminal code: threatening the health or life of a foreign dignitary. This offence carries a maximum sentence of 15 years under Latvian law.
“If I’d wanted to endanger his life clearly I wouldn’t have hit him in the face with a bunch of carnations. I deliberately chose flowers rather than rotten eggs … because I felt it was a more humane way of making a statement. More polite,” Lebedeva said after the incident.
Lebedeva was conditionally released from jail after three days and remains under official surveillance with a court order that she has to report every evening to the main police station in her home town of Daugavpils.
Lebedeva’s actions would possibly have become the most prominent anti-war gesture since the campaign in Afghanistan began, had she remembered to shout out her message of protest in the excitement of the moment.
“The idea was to protest against the bombing of civilians in Afghanistan and Britain’s role in the war as America’s main ally. They are the aggressors. It’s all very well claiming to be fighting a campaign against terrorists, but if that’s what’s happening then terrorists should be targeted, not the innocent population,” Lebedeva said.
However, as she was being pushed into a police car she shouted to bystanders that she was against the “imperialist war in Afghanistan” and was also opposed to Latvia’s attempts to join NATO.
Her state-appointed lawyer, Alexander Laivinish, has publically stated his view of the case, “things would have been much easier if she’d agreed to say she hated Charles for what he did to Diana, or because she was offended by his baldness.”
Lebedeva’s political convictions grew out of the environment of her impoverished hometown, Daugavpils, where unemployment and depression have soared after numerous factory closures. She is also an active supporter of the National Bolsheviks - more anarchist than communist, the party campaigns for the rights of Latvia’s ethnic Russian minority and opposes U.S. imperialism. Lebedeva has repeatedly stated, however, that she acted independently.
Budget cuts in Minnesota state
agencies
Last week, the government warned state agencies to prepare for a five to ten percent reduction in state allocations for the 2003 fiscal year.
In the first four months of the 2001-2002 fiscal year, state revenues have already fallen 178 million dollars short of projections and unemployment is currently twice last year’s level.
The state will determine whether it will have enough money to fulfill its biennial budget promises after the Dec. 4 revenue forecast.
However, the state is asking agencies to assess their budgets for possible cuts now.
Tanzania receives debt relief
The International Monetary Fund and World Bank granted Tanzania $3 billion in debt relief after a four-year effort by Tanzania. This makes Tanzania the fourth country to be granted debt relief out of 36 countries that have petitioned for it.
As a result of the relief package, Dar es Salaam’s interest payments will fall from $193 to $116 million a year by next fiscal year. The Bank predicts that the debt repayment should be down to $87 million a year by 2010. In total, Tanzania’s external debt will drop by 54 percent.
Half of the funds for debt relief will be provided by the Bank, IMF, and other multilateral creditors. Individual countries and companies will cover the rest.
The debt relief is an aspect of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, (HIPC) initiative. The three other countries to benefit from this have been Mozambique, Bolivia, and Uganda.
The HIPC program requires countries to fulfill two requirements in addition to the requirements they met to receive the loans in the first place: countries must continue Bank and IMF economic policies for at least three years, and they must draw up a poverty reduction strategy proposal and implement it, along with institutional reforms, for a full year.
In 2000, Tanzania implemented its poverty reduction strategy and since then the country has worked on achieving universal free primary education and a wide-ranging program of immunization against measles and diptheria.
