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<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+4"></FONT><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+4">Events
of November 1997</FONT></FONT></FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">Anne
D. Baylon</FONT></FONT></FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER><HR WIDTH="100%"></CENTER>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">CENTRAL
EUROPE</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Czech
Republic</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Oct. 29, reported in
NY Times, Nov. 9</B> A Gypsy exodus toward England and the port of Dover
focuses attention on the plight of the Gypsies, who suffer discrimination
and lack of employment, schooling, and social opportunities in the Czech
Republic. In an unusual move, President Václav Havel, who has been
lecturing the Czech people about tolerance at home, attends a cabinet
meeting held by Prime Minister Václav Klaus, during which a
long-delayed plan to improve the social and economic situation of the
Gypsies is adopted. Seven to twelve million Gypsies live in Europe.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 30</B> Prime
Minister Václav Klaus and his government resign over a financial
scandal in which they are accused of having received money, held in a
Swiss bank account, in exchange for insider deals during the privatization
process of the Czech economy. A proponent of a free market, Mr. Klaus had
been in office for the past five years.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Hungary</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 16</B> With a
turnout of 51 percent of the eligible voters--which makes the vote barely
valid--Hungarians approve by referendum their country's entry into NATO.
Since the NATO membership option was offered to Hungary in 1995, however,
popular support has been volatile. Hungarian attitudes to NATO became
negative in 1996 when U.S. troops arrived in southern Hungary to set up a
base for operations in Bosnia. Hungarians said that they did not want
another occupying force on their land, and the idea of neutrality also has
had some appeal.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Poland</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>NY Times, Nov. 2</B>
Poland's coal miners used to be the "aristocracy" of workers,
earning five times as much as other workers. But mines, located in
southern Poland's Silesia, have become inefficient and environmentally
unsafe, polluting the Vistula River, the country's main waterway, and
causing a burden on Poland's booming economy. New Finance Minister Leszek
Balcerowicz has stressed the need for restructuring the mines, which may
cause 80,000 miners to lose their jobs in coming years. There are
currently 275,000 miners, against 416,000 seven years ago.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1"></FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">EASTERN
EUROPE</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Azerbaijan</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 12</B> In Baku,
President Heydar Aliyev opens the new 870-mile pipeline that allows the
first direct flow of crude oil from the Caspian Sea to the West through
Russia and terminates at the Black Sea port of Novorossisk. Together,
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan own the world's third-biggest
reserves of oil, after the Persian Gulf and Siberia. But in order to avoid
relying on Russia, which has restricted the flow of the region's oil and
natural gas in the past, Azerbaijan is expected to decide next October on
a Turkish route for a larger pipeline to the West.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Kazakhstan</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 8</B> President
Nursultan Nazarbayev shifts Kazakhstan's capital from mountain-ringed
Almaty to Akmola, a quiet town located 750 miles north in the middle of a
wind-blown steppe whose winter lasts almost 300 days a year. According to
Mr. Nazarbayev, Akmola is more centrally located as a transportation hub.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Russia</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>NY Times, Nov. 4</B>
Kaliningrad, a Russian outpost between Poland and Lithuania that was
supposed to become a special economic zone for Russia in Hong Kong's style
but has since floundered, is quickly becoming the center for the "world's
fastest moving epidemic of AIDS." Fueled by poverty, unemployment (50
percent for the young), and drug abuse, the disease is finding its way
into Russia through truck routes over which merchandise is transported
from Kaliningrad (a giant warehouse where goods are cheaper than in
Russia) through Belarus and Ukraine to the south and St. Petersburg to the
north.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 5</B> At
the urging of Anatoly Chubais and his team of economic reformers,
President Boris Yeltsin removes Boris Berezovsky, one of Russia's richest
oil and media businessman, from his position as Deputy Secretary of the
National Security Council. Mr. Berezovsky is among the wealthy business
leaders who helped Mr. Yeltsin defeat his Communist opponent in the 1996
presidential elections but who are said to have profited from the sale of
lucrative state assets.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 12</B> The
legislature of the Volga River region passes the first law making it legal
to buy and sell land freely. Although the 1993 Constitution guaranteed the
right to buy and sell land, Russia was until now without laws to regulate
how it should be done. The move is supported by President Yeltsin but
disapproved by the federal Parliament, which wants to restrict private
ownership of land.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 14</B> Parliament
orders an investigation into a $90,000 publishing advance (for a book on
the history of privatization) to First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly
Chubais, Russia's economic reformer, and to each of his four co-authors
after finding out that the publisher, Segodnya Press, is owned by
Oneksimbank, which recently won a hotly contested series of auctions of
state property. At the time of the auction, Mr. Chubais had heralded the
deal as a model of the government's new fair play because the highest
bidder had won.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 15</B> As the
scandal over the book payment grows, President Boris Yeltsin fires two of
Mr. Chubais's close allies. Mr. Chubais, who had promised to lead the
fight against corruption in the Russian government, offers to resign but
his offer is rejected. Mr. Chubais has insisted that the scandal is "part
of a smear campaign by business tycoons who are disgruntled by his
free-market policies."</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 19</B> Hoping to
defuse the scandal, President Yeltsin proposes to Parliament to strip Mr.
Chubais of his second post of Finance Minister. The proposal would keep
Mr. Chubais in government but would give the appearance of reducing his
power. Parliament responds by voting unanimously to dismiss Mr. Chubais
from all cabinet posts.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 20</B> In an
effort to mollify the Parliament, President Yeltsin strips Mr. Chubais of
his Finance Minister's post but leaves him in charge of the economy. As
part of a broader move to eliminate dual posts in the cabinet, the other
key reformer, First Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, loses his job as
Energy Minister.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 24</B> President
Yeltsin, who needs to win approval for the 1998 budget, offers "an
olive branch" to his critics in Parliament by criticizing his own
government and ordering it to defend its record at a special meeting on
Dec. 1, although he makes no mention of cabinet changes. Parliament had
hoped that Mr. Chubais would be dismissed from the cabinet altogether and
has shown its disappointment by postponing debate on the budget until
early December.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 26</B> The
current economic crisis in Asia has prompted Russia to quietly seek
American support for a larger program of Western assistance (about $5
billion). The move is in response to the withdrawal by foreign investors
of money invested in new markets and in particular in Russia's treasury
bill market. So far, the Central Bank has been using up its reserves to
maintain the value of the ruble but it will not have enough reserves if
Russian investors get panicked and start buying dollars.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 27</B> About
43,000 Russians have died in 1997 from drinking low-quality vodka.
According to the Interior Ministry, "one of every two bottles (in
Russia) is produced illegally."</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Russia/Ukraine</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 16</B> In order
to end a trade battle between Russia and Ukraine, the presidents of the
two countries, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma, cancel the value-added tax
on each other's imports.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">THE
FORMER YUGOSLAVIA</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Bosnia</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>NY Times, Nov. 12</B>
According to witness reports and previously secret court documents, Muslim
soldiers killed scores of ethnic Bosnian Serb civilians who had remained
in Sarajevo when the fighting with the Serbs over the city broke out in
1992. The scale of atrocities does not compare, however, with the Bosnian
Serbs' "ethnic cleansing campaign"; also, some Muslim war
criminals have been tried secretly by their own army.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>NY Times, Nov. 16</B>
Although Muslims say that they want to rebuild "a multi-ethnic
Bosnia," they do not plan to have large numbers of minorities
resettling in Bosnia. As a result, they are undermining current
resettlement projects of ethnic Croats in Bosnia by refusing to restore
utilities or keeping a blind eye to killings perpetrated by Muslim
militants.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 23</B> Bosnian
Serbs vote in parliamentary elections that may influence the power
struggle between Radovan Karadzic, their wartime leader, and President
Biljana Plavsic, who is supported by the West. Since many refugees are
voting abroad, results will not be known until December 10.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>NY Times, Nov. 25</B>
While the Dayton agreement envisioned Bosnia as one country with one
government, the country has been partitioned into a Serbian republic and a
Muslim-Croat Federation, with the principal ethnic groups--Muslims, Serbs,
and Croats--controlling their cultural institutions. As a result, Bosnia's
school students, who were exposed to the same set of history books under
Communism, are now "segregated into ethnically distinct
classrooms and being taught different versions of history, art and
language."</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><B><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">NY Times, Nov. 28</FONT></FONT></B><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">According
to Western and Bosnian officials, over 200 Iranian intelligence agents are
mounting operations in Bosnia and have infiltrated the American program
that trains the Bosnian army to deter attack by the Serbs. Their goal is
to turn Bosnia's Muslim leaders against the West.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>NY Times, Nov. 30</B>
The European Commission (the executive body of the EU) has uncovered
evidence that the Bosnian federal treasury is being defrauded of tens of
millions of dollars per year by two schemes. One, operated by Bosnian
Muslim officials, diverts funds meant for the central Bosnian government
to Muslim-only programs; the other, run by Bosnian Croat and Serb gangs in
the trucking industry, moves goods from Croatia into Bosnia's black market
without paying custom duties or sales taxes to Bosnia.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Croatia</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 5</B> A group of
journalists calls for an end to the government's hold on HRT, Croatia's
state television and the sole source of news for most Croats, claiming
that it is "a mouthpiece for President Franjo Tudjman."</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 21</B> Two
officials of an organization in Croatia sponsored by financier George
Soros are convicted by a Croatian court of tax evasion. The Soros
Foundation calls the ruling "politically motivated." Over the
past five years, the foundation has given $30 million to independent
cultural and human rights organizations in Croatia often critical of
President Franjo Tudjman.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Serbia</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>NY Times, Nov. 9</B>
Zoran Todorovic, a close aide of President Slobodan Milosevic and his
wife, is killed as part of a struggle within Serbia's inner circles for
control over the country's state-run industries and black markets. As a
reward for helping Mr. Milosevic rise to power, Mr. Todorovic had received
a monopoly over all oil imports into Yugoslavia. Three top associates of
the President and a dozen of their lieutenants have been killed in recent
months.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 27</B> In two
days of ethnic violence, ethnic Albanian separatists attack a police
station in the Serbian southern province of Kosovo. Ethnic Albanians make
up 90 percent of Kosovo's 1.9 million residents.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Slovenia</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 23</B> Voters in
the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia re-elect their President, Milan
Kucan, to a second five-year term. A former Communist and a lawyer who ran
as an independent, Mr. Kucan says that one of Slovenia's main goals for
the next five years is to gain membership in the European Union.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">WESTERN
EUROPE/EASTERN EUROPE</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Canada</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 3</B> Having
decided to dispose of its stock of anti-personnel land mines (except for
1,500 that will be used for training purposes), Canada blows up its last
mine. More than 100 countries are expected to sign the worldwide ban on
the weapons next month in Ottawa. In order to become binding, the document
will need ratification by 40 countries.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">France</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 4</B> Just as
they did last year at the same time, French truckers go on strike,
blocking highways and disrupting freight shipments across Europe. The
strike causes countries from Portugal to Poland to feel "hostage"
to the labor dispute and puts pressure on Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to
end it.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 7</B> A wage
accord is reached between the largest union and the striking truck
drivers, allowing traffic to resume across Europe.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Germany</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 4</B> Touching
off a fierce debate throughout Germany about fringe groups and the
country's Nazi past, a German cable television station broadcasts homemade
videotapes that show troops in Eastern Germany ready to join U.N. forces
in the Balkans raising Nazi straight-arm salutes, making disparaging
comments about Jews, and singing music by far-right bands.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Italy</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>NY Times, Nov. 24</B>
Long considered a prime entry point for illegal immigrants into Europe,
Italy is struggling to feed, clothe, and process new arrivals from the
Third World at a time when it must meet the Schengen accord agreements
that call for the suppression of passport checks at the borders of
European countries. Under Italian law, most illegal immigrants have 15
days to leave the country, which gives them the equivalent of a transit
visa to other European destinations. The law has led to complaints by
Schengen partners that Italy is acting as a sieve.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">NATO
Expansion</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 22</B> While the
decision to invite Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic into NATO must
be approved by a two-thirds majority in the U.S. Senate and by the
legislatures of the 15 other NATO members in order to take effect,
Hungarian President Arpad Goncz, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski,
and Czech President Václav Havel publish reasons for their
country's entry into NATO in "Transitions," a Prague-based
monthly magazine. All warn against American isolationism, which Polish
President Kwasniewski calls "an anachronism," stress their
ability to pay their way, and downplay Russia's opposition to NATO
expansion.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Turkey</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 23</B> Before the
Constitutional Court, ex-Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan denies charges
that his Welfare Party intends to undermine Turkey's secular principles
and turn it into an Islamic state. At stake is a potential five-year ban
of Mr. Erbakan's party and of his own political activity. Military
commanders favor the ban but some prominent civilians argue that it might
do more harm than good since the ban might be construed as a violation of
political freedom.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">United
Nations</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>NY Times, Nov. 2</B>
The U.N. anti-corruption office that was created three years ago to fight
fraud releases its annual report, revealing "a pattern of sloppy
management" in which the award of contracts and disbursing of money
does not follow financial regulations or accepted accounting rules.
According to the report, the procurement area (contracts for catering,
food purchases, and air charter services) is a target for abuse while
overseas "deals involving friends and relatives" flourish.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 12</B> Showing
its eagerness to move on reform, the U.N. General Assembly approves a
package of administrative reforms proposed by Secretary General Kofi
Annan. The approved measures include the creation of a cabinet to advise
the Secretary General and coordinate the various U.N. departments and
agencies, the re-establishment of a Department of Disarmament Affairs in
New York (the work is currently done in Geneva), and the establishment of
an international crime center in Vienna to combine work done by U.N.
agencies on narcotics and crime prevention.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Nov. 14</B> U.N.
Secretary General Kofi Annan sharply criticizes the U.S. Congress for
voting on Nov. 13 against a plan negotiated with the White House that
would have paid the U.N. over $1 billion in back dues. The U.S. is
responsible for 60 percent of all unpaid U.N. debts. According to Mr.
Annan, Congress's action will push the U.N. into its most serious
financial crisis at a time when Washington is asking the Security Council
to support American policy in Iraq.</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"></FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P></P>
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<FONT COLOR="#083250"><FONT SIZE="-2">Copyright @ Center for Strategic
Decision Research 1998</FONT></FONT> <BR><FONT COLOR="#083250"><FONT SIZE="-2">Strategic Decision Press</FONT></FONT>
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