Basic HTML Version
8
The
PLAIN TRUTH
January
1972
after earning their degrees in 1970. About 40 percent contin–
ued their studies and the rest were still out of work six
months after graduation.
Another trend shows tbat the West German Government
is
getting employment inquiries from British workers at the
rate of 1000 a month. This intensilies the "brain drain," as
Britain loses sorne of its best graduates and skilled workers to
the energetic West German market. In addition, nearly 5,000
firms went bankrupt in 1970 as compared to 2,800 a decade
ago.
At the beginning of 1970, Britain was still the world's
third Jargest trading nation.
It
is likely that by the end of
1971, Japan will catch up with Britain and even take over
third place. Germany has already ousted the British from sec–
ond place, and several other nations are threatening to over–
take the sluggish, strike-prone British industry.
•
Underdeveloped Nations Form
New Trading Bloc
The frighteoing spectre of trade war has caused concecn
among heads of state around the world. Talk of retaliation
and the forming of trading blocs is in the news almost daily.
But now a new complication in world trade is emerging for
the world's developed nations.
In a recent meeting in Lima, Peru, a group of 77 of the
world's poorest nations have united in a common front to
obtain a better price for their raw materials. In their "Deda–
ration of Lima," these nations are urging that "continuing
dwindling of prices for raw materials be stopped, and when–
ever possible they should rise. Undue price fluctuations for
these products should be eliminated."
These underdeveloped nations have noted the success of
the world's oil-producing couotries in obtaining concessions
from oil companies and the developed nations. The declara–
tion states that "while prices for industrial products continue
to rise, the prices for raw materials are lower each year, or at
best remain stagnant." The final resolution on raw materials
also asks developed nations to discourage the substitution of
raw materials by synthetic products.
This 25,000 word document reflects the aspirations of
1.6 billion of the world's most impoverished people. It is to
be presented at the upcoming United Nations Conference on
trade and development in Santiago, Chile, in April.
The increased cost of raw materials would be especially
felt in the United States. Coupled with chronically high
wages, it would make America even less able to compete in
world markets.
•
New Friendship: Soviet Union and lraq
Soviet presence is once again being felt in another sec–
tion of the Middle East. For years, Moscow has supplied
Egypt and other Arab nations with billions of dollars in mili–
tary hardware and has had cordial relations with most of
them.
Now Soviet technicians are soon to arrive in oil-rich Iraq
and begin work on a canal to link the Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers. The plan is to restore fertility to the desert lands of
central Iraq. Russia w.ill supply equipment and experts for
the project, worth some 20 million dollars. They are plaoning
to cut a 25-mile canal across the plain of ancieot Mesopo–
tamia, which has become a parched land because of neglect
and inefficient farming.
Iraq hopes to complete this project
in
about four years
and see fields of greeo where once there was a dry, brown
plain.
The price Iraq is paying for the creation of this revital–
ized agricultura! laod has not been made public. But it is well–
known the Soviet Union usually has sorne kind of strings
attached to its services, as Cuba and other nations have found
out.
Of course, Soviet penetration of Iraq has been going on
for sorne time. An agreement signed in Moscow, July 4, 1969
between Iraq aod the Soviet Union obliges the latter to "pre–
pare and put into operation" the oil fields of North Rumaila.
The North Rumaila field is to
be
ready for operation by
the first quarter of 1972. "The Soviet-Iraqi agreement," ac–
cording to oil expert George Stockiog, "constitutes the most
significant development in the recent history of the Middle
East Oil industry ...
lt mafkJ
RmJia's
fint
footho/d
m
an
important Middle East oil-prodttcillg
com1try."
•
ltalian Economy in Trouble
Italy may be undergoing its worst industrial stagnation
since World War U. This factor, compounded with growing
social unrest, especiaJiy over the presidential election, is con–
tributing to what promises to be a long winter of discontent in
ltaly.
Industrial output for 1971 may eod up 3 to 4 percent
below the 1970 level. Industry is slogging along at about 75
percent of capacity. Labor costs are soaring while profits
shriok.
Ecooomic
expansion this year will
be
very dose to zero
- the only Common Market nation to register no economic
expaosion. Government economists had been counting on a 6
percent growth rate.
As many as 1 million persons are presently unemployed,
reptesenting roughly 5 percent of the labor force. Sorne of the
privately owned industrial giants, such as Fíat, Zanussi, and
Pirelli, have reduced working hours for their workers.
To most visitors and tourists, Italy seems to radiate an
aura of coofidence and carefree existence. But peering beneath
the outward Italian flamboyance, one sees a oation gripped by
serious economic, política! and religious tensions.
For example, the bitter confrontation between con–
servative Roman Catholics and their liberal opponents over
Italy's new divorce laws is severely disrupting the nation's
social adhesion.
The government has been hamstrung by a power
struggJe within the Christian Democratic Party, which seems
unable to stem the economic woes of the nation.
Increasing numbers of ltalians are yearning for a strong
De Gaulle-image leader to bring the nation out of its dol–
drums - sometbing that sluggish Italían-style democracy
is
seemiogly incapable of doing.