ARGENTINA: On Christmas Eve Susana Lugones became the fortieth journalist 10 disappear in Argentina since military coup in March 1976. 29 others are dead, 70 are in prison and 400 in exile. Thousands of journalists from all over the world are being Invited to cover the World Cup in Argentina this summer. IRAN: On 9 und 10 January police opened fire on a demonstration, killing more than 100 and wounding 500, -was against the banning of religious ceremonies BOLIVIA: President Banzer, the military dictator who recently promised elections in July, has now said that "If the people wish there will be no clections.' What worries him is the furry of growing strength from ihe left parties and the hunger strike of four hundred people demanding a genuine amnesty for political prisoners Baazer's fake amnesty announced at Christmas.
AUSTRALIA: One of the more obscure aspects of the recent clection campaign was the arrival of a boatload of Vietnamese refugees, just in time to give campaign a boost. Labour spokespeople have pointed out that 29 such boars have arrived since the end of the Vietnam war and that there i some profiteering racket behind it. CANADA: The publication of the wartime diaries of William Mackenzie King. the then Canadian STETHSLEE provides a revealing insight of the qualities needed lo run a capitalist country. He obsessively affectionate to his irish terrier. When it died he sang hymns over its corpse and reassured himself that would be reunited in the next world. When he received the Order of Merit he wrote that the little creature deserved an than I do." In 1947 Mackenie governmental crisis writes RICHARD CARVER.
possibility of participation at ministerial level had recedod even before the Carter administration made its typically clumsy intervention to denounce this non-democratic party leadership or the Christian Democrat party had rejected requests from the Communsis (PCI) to go one abstentions"
PCI has kept the right-wing minority in power since June 1976.
The PCI now awkward dilentina. On the one hand it desperately wants consummate its strategy of the "historle compromise coter government alongside the major capitalist party. On tbe austerity, law and order, and they DEICT LATOSEL Christian Democratic rule trouble now it will Small By the time you read this, Italy will probably be without a government. There's nothing so sensational about that. Cynics might say that it hasn't really had one for thirly years. But the difference with this Italy's thirty-seventh since 1944 — is that people are now seriously talking about the entry of the Communist Party into government, It looks as tbough the undone all its years work DE Communist attitude towards the country's problems. So the most likely. outcome is an extension of last summer's ords. ruling name to a programme which included an extension of police powers of surveillance, grealer governent control over the 'government mass modia, incrensed selectiwhereby the vity in education, and cuts in wages STRIKES Taces an One of the conditions the to Christion Democrats have now and with the PCI is that it becomes a true pany or wovenment not a "party of struggle. transformation was completed a long time ago, but as a token a iL union leaders have used the much past few days to clamp down have on militant opposition to the the Italian ruling 'responsible governmental accThen the PCI put its Government's and social spending.
bare shown file.
COUROUOILOUE Fiat in That exceutive demanded that abead on 18 January. good faith PC trade decided to abslain. embarrassment po- increased licy. A planned national strike austerity has been called off in lavour of sporadic local actions, and even on Lhis off the strike. itself less Just to This has provoked angry reactions from tbe rank and Assemblies in the country's two larpest cor plants -Turin and Alla employers Romeo in Milan - rejected the instruction and are the strike delegates were understandably embarrassed and al Alta's Their of demands" was only power. followed him, after another, factory councils and gional federacions of l Cl-dominated union can our against the decision to call pile on the agony, this was Tollowed Immediately by the simultaneous pubheal bosses' ion of economic policy documents trom and the Confiodustria, the TECTATIO esscotials the two documents identical. Only the vocbulary is different: the employers talk about reducing Jabour casts" altilo the unions prefer a responsible restriction Both are agreed on the need adequare, if weinspicine, suc "mobility of labour' Workers have a be able to move from one lactors 10 another say the unions, though the more likely prospect is tha they will move from their factory onto the dole queue The unions also back the demands for higher purchase rax and a further cut In public spending.
This is "Eurocommunism' in action. It is a brile ironic that while the British Communist Party routines dercunces wage controls their Italian comrades are putting forward a policy that makes the Social Contract and its successors look mild by comparison.
trendy. They jumped one way