{OCDE REVUE DE PRESSE/OECD PRESS REVIEW} •••• April 15

{OCDE REVUE DE PRESSE/OECD PRESS REVIEW}
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April 15 Avril 1991
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LE TEMPS - Région parisienne: Ciel
changeant avec une alternance
d’éclaircies et de passages nuageux.
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SG/PRB/D(91)72
AFP: LE MONDE EN BREF
TEHERAN - Trois mille réfugiés kurdes ont péri au cours des 4 derniers
jours de froid et de faim, avant d’arriver à la frontière iranienne, a
indiqué dimanche le quotidien KAYHAN.
WASHINGTON - Les troupes américaines occupant le sud de l’Irak ont commencé dimanche à se retirer vers la zone démilitarisée tracée par les
Nations Unies entre l’Irak et le Koweït et emmènent avec eux les réfugiés
irakiens.
JERUSALEM - Le Premier ministre israélien Yitzhak Shamir propose aux
Palestiniens des territoires occupés un statut de "gouvernement autonome
avec des ministres", dans une interview publiée par le quotidien
AL-HAMISHMAR (opposition de gauche). Les Palestiniens géreront leurs
affaires eux-mêmes sauf en ce qui concerne la défense et la diplomatie, a
ajouté M. Shamir.
MOSCOU - Le président Mikhaïl Gorbatchev a quitté dimanche Moscou pour
Tokyo, où il se rend en visite officielle de 4 jours.
TBILISSI (URSS) - Zviad Gamsakhourdia est devenu dimanche le 1er
président de la république de Géorgie, après un vote du parlement géorgien
qui doit être suivi le mois prochain d’un scrutin au suffrage universel.
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REFUGEES IN POST-WAR IRAQ
HERALD TRIBUNE: US forces withdraws to buffer zone
WASHINGTON - "The remaining US military forces inside Iraq began
withdrawing from occupied territory Sunday to a thin buffer zone along the
country’s border with Kuwait, according to US military officials. Defense
Secretary Dick Cheney said most of the troops would be out of Iraq within
days... The US Central Command said in a statement that allied forces
would ’continue to protect and provide humanitarian assistance to refugees
in the demilitarized zone. Central Command officials said other refugees
in the region now occupied by allied troops would be invited to move into
the demilitarized zone for assistance and protection... The withdrawal
from Iraq follows the formal approval Thursday of the permanent United
Nations cease-fire treaty, which established the demilitarized zone along
the Iraq-Kuwait border. The first members of a 1,440-member UN
peacekeeping force arrived in Kuwait on Saturday."
FINANCIAL TIMES: Massive relief airdrops for Kurds
"... In spite of the setting up of buffer zone in the south, the Iraqi
military was yesterday continuing its attacks on Kurdish rebel-held
northern areas a day after President Saddam Hussein told refugees they had
nothing to fear if they returned to their homes. The Iraqi leader, making
one of his rare public appearances since the onset of the Gulf crisis,
visited the Kurdish town of Irbil near the Turkish border at the weekend
and repeated his amnesty offer... In south-east Turkey yesterday a massive
relief airdrop by US, UK and French aircraft was continuing. Two UK
Chinook helicopters made their first drops near Semdinli, the most
easterly point on the border where bad roads have hampered efforts to
reach thousands of refugees... The US is also deploying 16 helicopters at
a base near the border to ferry emergency aid to beleaguered refugees
stuck in deteriorating weather in the snow-capped mountains. The first of
the 3,500 US soldiers arrived at a port in southern Turkey yesterday
aboard 3 warships. Meanwhile at Van, a Soviet transport aircraft carrying
EC food and medical aid also arrived over the weekend."
INAUGURATION DE LA BERD ET L’AIDE A L’EST
LA TRIBUNE: 25 ans pour atteindre l’objectif
LONDRES - "Décidée en novembre 1989, la BERD entre en fonction
aujourd’hui sous le regard des principaux chefs d’Etat mondiaux. Un
calendrier record pour une institution aussi complexe. Elle est pour le
moment dotée d’une équipe de 160 personnes qui devrait dépasser 200 à la
fin de l’année. A la fois banque de développement et banque d’affaires,
incitatrice au modèle de l’économie de marché et catalyseur de démocratie,
la BERD est tout sauf une structure simple. Par certains côtés, elle est
comparable à l’idée gaulliste de ’l’administration de mission’, destinée à
disparaître une fois sa tâche accomplie. D’ici 25 ans, de l’aveu même de
son président désigné, Jacques Attali... Parmi les 1ères réalisations qui
pourraient voir le jour, citons la privatisation des télécommunications,
la dépollution de la Baltique, la valorisation du Danube, la réforme de la
Sécurité sociale en Pologne, l’aide à la création de PME..."
THE ECONOMIST: It would not need inventing
LONDON - "If the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development did
not exist, it would not need inventing. Several bureaucracies with equally
long names stand ready to help Eastern Europe make the journey from
communism to capitalism. Its establishment raised expectations of freeflowing western capital that cannot and should not be fulfilled... The
mission is noble; the institution that hopes to lead it is all too
fallible. Jacques Attali, the bank’s first president, conceived it as the
prophet of free markets in Eastern Europe, a new Marshall Plan, perhaps
even the embryo of a united Europe. The bank’s 41 owners - governments and
some pan-European institutions - brought Mr Attali back to earth. Its
biggest shareholder, America, insisted that it devote 60% of its resources
to Eastern Europe’s undeveloped private sector, leaving the IMF and the
World Bank to worry about the big issues of public policy and government
infrastructure. Rather, the European Bank should act as merchant banker to
Eastern Europe, investing its capital in private, or about-to-be-private,
ventures, and drawing into the region billions more of western ecus. To
enforce their will, the shareholders have saddled Mr Attali’s bank with 23
highly paid full-time directors who will consume one-quarter of the bank’s
budget. The World Bank, a far bigger institution, has just 22."
HERALD TRIBUNE: Japan to back down on aid
TOKYO - "Japanese officials say the government is unlikely to follow
through on a pledge by Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu to provide $500
million to Poland, as well as new loans to Egypt, because those countries
are being allowed to abandon existing debt obligations. The Japanese have
been bitterly criticizing President George Bush’s plan to forgive billions
of dollars of the official debt of Poland and Egypt. Officials in Japan’s
Finance Ministry and its Export-Import Bank, one of the agencies intended
to handle Japan’s loans to developing countries, say the Japanese would
take the same stance toward other countries that seek debt forgiveness.
This is the latest sign of a deepening rift between Washington and Tokyo
over foreign-aid issues, an area in which Japan is growing more assertive.
The 2 countries are at odds over a fundamental point in the strategy for
dealing with the debt crisis: how big a role politics should be allowed to
play in making these economic judgments, and whose political standards
should be applied. When Mr Kaifu pledged the aid to Poland during a visit
to Eastern Europe last year, he surprised his own Finance Ministry and
many members of his government. With the reversal, it now appears that the
formidable Finance Ministry has reasserted itself."
OECD ECONOMIES
Germany
FINANCIAL TIMES: New chief for Treuhand
BERLIN - "Mrs Birgit Breuel, a disciple of economic liberalism, this
weekend took on one of the most daunting economic assignments Germany has
to offer. The 53-year-old Christian Democratic (CDU) economics official
was chosen to succeed the late Detlev Rohwedder, assassinated by
terrorists earlier this month, as president of the Treuhand agency for the
privatisation of east German companies. Mrs Breuel had served since last
October as the Treuhand board member responsible for its regional
offices."
Norway
FINANCIAL TIMES: Tax system reform
OSLO - "Norway, which has one of the world’s highest tax levels,
yesterday announced a comprehensive reform to stream-line the existing
80-year-old regime and stimulate investment. The minority Labour
Government said personal taxation would be cut by a net NKr2.4bn by 1992,
the top rate falling from 57.8% at present to 48.8%."
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