Global briefs
JAPAN: Amid rowdy scenes, Japan's ruling coalition rammed a bill through parliament cutting pension benefits and raising premiums. The changes will be in stages beginning in October and continuing until 2017. Opinion polls show widespread public opposition to the new measures. The opposition boycotted the vote. Pensions look set to be a hot issue in parliamentary elections next month.* * * RUSSIA: Russia is conducting military manoeuvres involving the airlift of troops and weapons to the East. They coincide with joint US-Japanese war games in which several hundred US marines are being airlifted from Okinawa to Hokkaido, the nearest Japanese island to the Russian coast. In the course of a 21-day exercise codenamed "Mobility-2004" the Russian armed forces are to move 800 troops and 100 pieces of armour by air across nine of its time-zones — from Europe to the Far Eastern coast — to be able to repel acts of aggression and defend sea lanes in the region. Russia has simultaneously launched a large-scale logistics training exercise in its south-west. This involves a total of 2800 troops, more than 50 transport aircraft and over 650 pieces of hardware. The military exercises are in line a new military strategy which calls for rapid redeployment of mobile units to capture "strategic initiative" in the event of military threat to the country. Until now the Russian armed forces have relied only on mobilisation of reservists to boost their combat ability to war level.* * * IRAN: The International Atomic Energy Agency has admitted it wrongly reported that Iran had withheld information about imports of parts for potentially weapons-related machinery. Iran is likely to question the UN Agency's investigations into a program which, according to the USA, is aimed at developing weapons. Iran has denied US allegations of nuclear weapons development and stated that it only developed nuclear-powered stations.* * * SOUTH KOREA: The Asian World Economic Forum began in Seoul on June 13. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions organised a number of actions including a people's assembly and culture festival in Dongkuk University on the Sunday and later a demonstration to Shilla Hotel, where the WEF was meeting. There the crowd swelled to an estimated 10,000 people. Thousands of riot police were on the spot, using buses to block the way to the conference location. The police launched a violent attack on the protestors as they got closer to the hotel, injuring several protestors.* * * HAITI: More than 5000 supporters of ousted President Jean- Bertrand Aristide marched through Haiti's capital on Friday last week, many of them wearing T-shirts and caps with photos of Aristide. They chanted "George Bush kidnapped Aristide", and "Mobilise for Aristide to return!" They accused US agents of kidnapping him. Aristide was removed from Haiti last February and has been granted temporary asylum in South Africa. Protestors called for his return and demanded that he be allowed to serve out his term.