Global briefs
CANADA: Around 1400 steelworkers in Labrador City, have been on strike against the Iron Ore Company of Canada since mid- July, after management refused to budge from its insistence on concessions amounting to about $7 per hour. The company is owned by virulently anti-union mining giant Rio Tinto. "Rio Tinto wants to strip health care and pensions, freeze wages and introduce a form of psychological profiling of workers on which to base discipline", union spokesman Yvon Clement said in announcing the strike. The strike in the tiny one-industry town of 9000 has had a ripple effect, for example forcing the Sparrows Point mill near Baltimore to contract with Russia for delivery of pelletised iron. Rio Tinto is the target of a global union protest network over its treatment of workers around the world.* * * BRITAIN: Tony Blair has tried to downplay his lies about Iraq's weapons as his government prepares to go to the polls seeking a third term. Admitting his decision to go to war with Iraq had "eroded trust in the government", Blair called on the growing numbers in the Labour Party who oppose him to unite for the elections. So desperate is he that he set out a ten-point third term "manifesto", promising to "provide affordable child care for all", increase law and order measures and deal with the pensions crisis.* * * FRANCE: The future of the Perrier mineral water manufacturer in France is in doubt again after parent company Nestli rejected a compromise with union leaders over job cuts, saying it did not go far enough. Leaders of the CGT union at Perrier's plant in Vergeze, in southern France, had decided to lift their veto on Nestli's plans to cut 1047 jobs. But Nestli refused to accept the compromise unless the union also agreed to help implement its program of voluntary job cuts. Union leaders accused the company of trying to sabotage a deal. "This is just more blackmail and more threats", said Vergeze CGT official Jean- Paul Franc. "It's not acceptable."* * * NIGERIA: The rebel Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, fighting for autonomy of the oil-producing southern delta, has issued a communiqui telling oil companies to shut production and withdraw staff ahead of an "all-out war on the Nigerian state". That threat helped crude oil prices in New York to breach $50 a barrel for the first time in history. The communiqui singled out Royal Dutch Shell Group and Italy's Agip for what it said was collaboration "in acts of genocide against our people". Shell, with government backing, has a long history of suppression in Nigeria and widespread violations of human rights. Agip and Shell have both denied being in collusion with the military, which fired on rebel positions earlier this month using helicopter gunships.