Page 4A

The Castlegar. Sun

Wed

nesday, December 5, 1990

Local couple adopts Romanian baby

By FRANK DERBY

for adopti th

‘Sun staff writer

A very special immigrant has
arrived in our fair city - his namo
is Alexander and he is four months
old. Alexander is the adopted son

+ of Tom and Cindy Mairs and be '

comes from Romania.

“We saw the situation in:

Romania on the news and then
featured on 20/20 and we decided
we had to do it, we had to adopt
one of those children,” said Cindy.

The Mairs wrote to the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, The
Romanian Embassy in Ottawa,
BCTV, and Sonya Paterson, head
‘of the Romanian Orphan Relief
Group. Foreign Affairs passed
them on to the Canadian
A dor to R

rocess
is actually done here a Canada
and then the forms are trahs-lated
there in Romania, The second
thing was they could forget going
through Ottawa and do it on their
own but they needed to make
contacts and arrangements for their
stay over there, and in particular
they needed n good interpreter.

On Oct,.21 the Mairs flew from
Castlegar to Calgary to Frankfust,
Germany and finally on to
Bucharest, capitol of Romania -
total time about 14 hours. It was
only as they were landing that it
began to feel real and Tom tumed
to Cindy and said,"Oh my gosh,
we're in Romania - definitely too
late to tum back now.”.

‘co. They were met at the airport by

never called back, and Paterson
was helpful but her help was
going to add to their costs,

“We went through all the

and got nowhere,” said Tom. “We
corresponded regularly from
February to August and nothing
was happening.”

Then the Mairs got the break
they were looking for. A friend
had clipped a story for them from
the Trail Times that told of Brent
and Barbara Mason. They had
done what the Mairs were trying
to do and right there at

SUN STAFF PHOTO / Frank Derby

+ Family portrait Cindy, Tom and Alexander Mairs.

the end of the article was an offer
of-assistance, The Masons were
holding an open house in Nelson
fot anyone interested in adopting

ian child and the Mairs

Turner ret

urned

as board chairman

By BARBARA TANDORY
“Sun staff writer

re-election in order to pursue
different political careers.
- Doreen Smecher, who until the

Two new faces app
around the Castlegar school board
table, but in a familiar by now
routine, the new board returned
Gordon Tumer to the head of the
table at a special inaugural
meeting Monday night.

“1m going to be very good

«» this year,” said Tumer, an-English
instructor at Selkirk College. *-

But he reminded his fellow
trustees that they have “an option”
under the new School Act to
select a mew chainnan in a year's
time.

“You have the option; if you
don’t like your chairman, you can
boot him out.”

He also the board

cipal election sat
on both the school board and city
council, has decided to keep her
council seat only. And Ed
Conroy, also a 1 trustee,

jumped at the opportunity to get
some first hand information,

“That was the best thing we
did,” said Tom. We leamed a lot
from them and got so excited that
we went out and booked our
tickets without even having our
assports,”

There were two things in
particular that required

he Cazan, the man they
iad hired on the recommendation
of the Masons to be their
interpreter. “He was a blessing,”
said Cindy. “ He's the best. With
his help we got everything done
and had formally adopted Alex in
13 days. After talking to other
couples, from what we heard it
seems you can generally count on
4-5 weeks.”

Alexander was the first child
they saw. It's not that they made a
snap decision, but every time they
saw another child they kept com-
paring him or her to the first one.

“We went back to see him a
couple of times because the first
time he was all bundled up and
asleep.” said Tom. “I think it was
the third time we saw him, he
smiled at me and that was it.”

The Mairs chose the name
Alexander because Alexandria was
the city he was bom in. Alexandria
is the capitol of the Teleorman
District and has a population of
about a quarter million. Many of
the foreigners they met,from all
over Europe as well as from
Canada and the States tended to
stay in Bucharest and that may

First of all, adoption in

have ccztri to. the delays

Romania was previously unheard
of and so the Romanian govern-
ment bas no forms and no process

others were encoun-tering. Then
too, Cazan was experienced and
knew his way around the system,

having assisted with nine previous
adoptions,

lexander was not an orphan,
in fact very few of the children
available, for adoption are
orphans, With severe economic
problems, a general Jack of birth
control and with. abortion being
illegal until next January, the
orphanage system is used as a

lized form of ab

two cats, Sandy and Rusty have
made. a quick adjustment to the
now child in their presence.

Tom and Cindy stay in contact
with the Masons and a network of

: five or six couples who have

already adopted or intend to adopt
a Romanian child, Like the
Masons in Nelson. they ‘are
offering to help anyone in the
Ci area who is seriously

Because of this the Mairs re-
quired the: consent of the birth
mother, They met with her in a
small town about two and a half
hours outside of Bucharest. She
was about thirty although she
looked much older. She was very
poor and in the week that they had |
contact with her the Mairs noted

considering going the route that
they chose.

Cindy added,""Bven if adopting
is not the way people choose to
help, there are other needs and
other ways of providing assis-
tance to these unfortunate
children in Romania. They, are
generally well cared for by

ds but there is a

that she had not d any of
her clothes, She had four other
children, was separated and was
living with another man, the
father of Alexander. When he
leamed that she was pregnant he
told ber to choose between him
and the child and so plans were
made to give the infant to the
orphanage.

The Mairs are thrilled to have
started their family with Alex, as
are their parents and friends.
Even their dog Moxy and their

great need for clothes and
especially diapers. They also need
food - powdered milk, formula,
pablum and cereal, things that are
very basic and won't spoil.”

‘If anyone is interested in
making such a contribution [not
medicines and not money] they
can send it care of:

Gheorghe and Monica Cazan
77349 Bucuresti

Tincani Bl. Z19 Apt. 59
Sect. 6 Romania

DEC. 11/90

Attend a

FREE
Introductory Seminar

ON HOW TO ACQUIRE REAL ESTATE
WITH NO MONEY DOWN

EAGLES HALL 1505 BAY ST., TRAIL

7:00 P.M.

FOR RESERVATIONS CALL 365-7564

has left the board to avoid a
conflict of interest after being
chosen the NDP i in the

- Rossland. ‘Trail riding earlier this
year,

The newly elected Baker and
Horswill have joined four
incumbent trustees — Tony
Gugiieimi, Bili Hadikin, Evelyn
Voykin and Mickey Kinakin —
on the seven-member member
board of School District No. 9.

Bill Hadikin.was elected vice-

- ans Giclicini

trustees to seek the positions of

jan and vice-chairman that
come up for election annually
during the board’s three-year
term.

Joanne Baker and Bonnie
Horswill are the two new tmustees,
replacing two former board
members who chose not to seek

Another record
season expected

VICTORIA _— British
Columbia's ski industry is =a

who was nominated for the same
position.
And as a first order of

_ business, the pew board passed a

motion authorizing trustee
renumeration for the year 1990-
91, set at $7,500 for chairman,
$6,250 for vice-chairman and
$5,000 for trustees.

Turner, for the third time
running, informed the board he
wished to take a $500 cut in his
stipend, bringing it down to the
level of trustees’s $7,000
annually.

At the last regular meeting in

for another

Tourism Minister Cliff Michael
said today.

“Capital investments in ski lift,

and at

in B.C. are dto

» the school board
voted approval for an additional
upwards adjustment of their
stipends, to become effective in
February. And Tun:er said the

“exceed $44.9 million this year,”
> be said.

‘“Major projects are underway
at Big White, Blackcomb, ‘silver
Star, Fernie Snow Valley and
Grouse Mountain. As well,

, private investment to the village
‘ areas in related projects such as
accommodation facilities is
amounting to millions of dollars.
‘For example, Whistler Resort
-/xecorded over $44 million in
building permits again this year,

= mostly for new accommodation.

(“This exciting outlook builds

jon last. year’s successful ski
© season, which finished on a
" positive note (despite the late
arrival of snow,” Michael said.
. 0s Last year: B.C.’s major alpine
‘ski resorts posted record levels of
usiness revenues for the fourth
season ‘in a row, despite a 5-per-
cent. -\decrease in = skier
volumes.’

would bring his annual
stipend to approximately $7,700 a
year.

The school board’s next regular
meeting is Dec. i7.

Decking the. hall

Santa's little helpers, Brad Spender and Bruno
Tassone were caught on the roof at City Hall.

SUN STAFF PHOTO/ Nancy Ungley

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WORLDWATCH

“WEDNESDAY, ‘December 5,:1990

Channel breakthrough equivalent to landing on the moon

Maurice Weaver
The Daily Telegraph

DOVER-On the grey weekend
morning ‘that they joined our
island to the Continent, a woman
phoned Radio Kent and said it
was a tragic day for Britain. A
reporter from the New. York
Times surveying attitudes to the
Chunnel in Dover's shopping

+ centre reported with awe that an

average passer-by in Fifth Avenue
would probably have shown more
interest; while ‘at the under-sea
site of the. breakthrough, toasts
were drunk in champagne to what
was termed the tunnellers’
equivalent of landing on the
Moon.

With such mixed emotions did
Great Britain become a Isad-spur
off Calais. They had burrowed
beneath the 21-mile strait that had
kept us special, or at least
different, for 8,000 years, by-
passed Churchill's ‘‘tank trap’
and brought us face to face,

without using boat, plane or
swimming trunks.

The. newly opened tunnel,

Mrs Thatcher had ‘planned
enthusiastically to be there to
shake bands with Provident

brought the VIP party out of the
tunnel hardly matched the forests
of raised stove-pipe hats the great

which now runs t Cheriton

and the’ French terminal at .

Sangatte, near Calais, will
eventually be the service tunnel. It
will be the smallest of three
tunnels but, being the first, was
the most difficult.

Work is now pressing ahead on
two railway tunnels: which will
flank it, and these are scheduled
for completion in mid-1991.

As great moments of history
go, the breakthrough - or
“*Percement 1990"', as the French
would have it - was anti-

fiat would have surely matched
those of Stanley and Livingstone,
Reagan and Gorbachev. But she is
unseated, and he devcloped a
diplomatic cold.

The down-beat mood of the
occasion was hardly helped by
security considerations at
Cheriton, site of the English

railway i like Brunel
knew. Grandiloquence was out of
favour.

Anyway, said one employee
from the Chunnel offices, it was .
not the same as the old-fashioned
days. This tunnel was driven not
by the sweat of men's brows but
by gigantic machines,

The th, closer to the

terminal, which were such that the
public was kept well away. There
‘were no tumultuous scenes to echo
the Opening of the great civil

climactic.

There were lots of mining
executives to be seen on
television, their pallid faced
flushed with champers at the

~ subterranean party, and there was

a media reception ‘topside as
from

in vain for excitement and
jb it did

ing to
Victorian endeavour. One man
waving his hard hat on the front of
the’ “‘man-mover"’ tramcar which

Canada's economy officially into

OTTAWA, Reuter - After seven
years of robust growth, Canada’s

grimly or exub

on your view, with our identity as
New Europeans.

Some said it made Britain no
longer an island, though that is
technology playing tricks with the
dictionary. But there was no
denying the symbolism of the
moment when it became possible
to pass from land to France

But
not feel like the great event of our
age they said it was.
Perhaps this was ‘because

has ially slipped
into recession, according to

Friday. .
Stati Canada rep d

ig at
‘Westminster - manoeuvres which
were arguably of rather less long-
term political significance than the
tunnel link - had robbed the

gross domestic product, a wide
measure of economic activity, fell
for the second consecutive quarter
—_ the generally accepted

of its p players.

Agreement
out of reach

Los Angeles Times
BRUSSELS, Belgium - As
representatives of 107 nations
arrived here Sunday to begin the
final meetings in four years of
ambitious talks aimed at

Many of the countries resisting
agreement in these areas are part
of the heavily indebted developing
world. Unless the accord being
sought here offers these countries
their

down international trade barriers,
agreement remained well out of

Teach, :
“Over thé "weekend; delegates beld ‘

‘fltitty‘of behind-the-scenes'*

«discussions in advance of the

official start of the talks Monday.
Also on hand were a number of
U.S. lawmakers and
representatives of virtually every

U.S. Trade Representative Carla
A. Hills told reporters that she
saw no signs of a breakthrough in
agriculture, the single most
difficult area to resolve.

The talks began in 1986 in Punta
del Este, Uruguay, as an effort to
revamp the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade, an

ional trading

that was becoming frayed under
mounting pressures for
protectionism. A major goal of
current negotiations is to expand
the limits of the 43-year-old
GATT accord to cover a host of
businesses and issues that have
become vital to worldwide trade
in recent years.

The United States has
encountered stiff resistance from
the 12 countries of the European
Community over the U.S. demand
for sharp cuts in worldwide

to
economies by selling more of their
farm products worldwide, they
will bave little incentive to agree
to other parts of the deal. ©

~) Negotiations in-all-areas have :

been © badly affected by
agriculture,"” ‘Hills said. “We are
at a stalemate.’”

However, . EC Trade
Cc it Frans Andri

countered: “The whole world is
asking the European Community
to make concessions in
agriculture. ... What is the world
Prepared to give in retum?’
Meanwhile, the United States has
come under sharp criticism for
insisting that all countries must
lower their barriers to services
before they can enjoy most-
favored-nation status - a condition
that protects exporters against

‘ion. That guarantee is a
basic principal ‘underlying
intemational trade rules.
The United States notes that its
own market for services is the
easiest in the world for foreign
competitors to enter and says that
it must have leverage to force
other countries to open their
markets as well. But other nations
Say that the United States is asking
too much, and this conflict has
thrown the negotiations into
disarray.

in i an

farmers say that heavy s

trade accord here

have made it p ble for
f.

to cap
much of the world market, despite
the fact that they are less efficient
in many ways than their U.S.
counterparts.
Just as important, opening up
trade in agriculture is crucial to
drawing developing countries into
the ultimate agreement.
The United States hopes to win
xt from these
that would allow U.S. services -
such businesses as airlines and
shipping, insurance, banks and
entertainment - more access to
their markets. °
The United States also wants
greater proesien & for copyrights
and trademarks. Officials estimate
that U.S. Sanpete lose $60
billion a year to overseas
i 5. tbat sell BY

could mean a huge bonanza of
more than $4 trillion to the world
economy over the next decade,
Hills says.

“It is beyond m:

ofa
In the Heth to September period
the at an

French coast than the British
because they had harder terrain to
tunnel through, took place 135ft
below the sea bed and a further
195 feet below the waves which
have put so many gastronomic
systems into reverse. A
bydrophobe’s prayer was

account.In the second quarter
output also declined 1.2 percent.
"The decline in economic
activity under way since the spring
has been focused most sharply on

‘\except that a hand

answered and an cconomist’s

dream come true; but it was a
technological triumph marked by
a technological fanfare.

‘We saw on big-screen TV is
claustrophobic tunnel with a gre
rock face and a miner called
Graham Fagg wearing a hard hat
and an orange sweatshirt going at
it like a demon with an air drill.

Then a jagged man-sized hole

appeared, as though we were

watching a TV movie about bank
robbers breaking into a vault,
through
and shook the miner's hand.
When the hole got bigger, flake
by rocky flake, Mr Fagg’s bottom

through it and he was
pictured being hugged by a
French miner called Philippe

strong currency and the slowdown
south of the border, the agency
said.

Economists say Canada, the
smallest economy of the group of
seven industri d nations,

Canada said in a statement.

The agency painted a grim
economic picture for Canada,
saying corporate profits have been
falling for six consecutive quarters
while high interest rates are
making it difficult to finance new
ts to the United

annualized, compound r rate of 1.0

States | have also stalled in recent
of Canada’s

percent, after taking i into

should get back on track by the
middle of next year. They
believe Canada will be able to
avoid the kind of painful, 18-
month recession that took root in
1981 which sent interest rates and
unemployment soaring to double
digit levels.

This time around Canadian
companies, economists contend,

Cozette.

M Cozette, asked suspiciously
“What is your name,’’ perbaps
fearing it might be an

attack by d

Hussein. Mr Fagg said: ‘‘Nice to
meet you, Philippe. Are you'a
driver?"’ This deviation from the
script was too much’ for the
Frenchman, who responded with
something nasal but inaudible,
forcing Mr Fagg to resort to the
frantic sign language that is the
traditional method of
communication between these
two nations. Mr Fagg also said, as
rosbifs do when. surrounded by
froggies, ‘‘Vive la France’’, and
everyone laughed.

’ With such dialogue is history

recession

have kept tight controls on
inventories and costs and are in a
better position to weather the
downturn. aI

"I think the thing that I’ve seen
in both Canada and the United
States is that inventories have not ;
run over,” said economist John
Clinkard at the Canadian Imperial
Bank of Commerce, one of the
country’s largest banks.

. Forecasters, however, say a
Persian Gulf waz ‘or a protracted
slowdown in the United States
could make the recession that
much longer and more

One murder call an hour for homicide squad

The Daily Telegraph
New York - Even for New
York’s hard-bitten Homicide
Squad detectives, this was
something horrible. In one seven-
hour period this weekend they
were getting one murder call an
hour.
A 15-year-old girl, Barlyn
Johnson, was fatally shot in the

stomach by muggers | who wanted 4

‘ber sheepskin coat. ““'" *~~
On a nearby street 16-year-old
. Nicholas Best died trying to resist
muggers demanding a leather
jacket wom by a companion.

In the same  berovgh
businessman Joseph Fusco, 54,
died trying to protect his
gitlfriend’s mink coat.

Dixe Adams, 17, was shot
three times as he was buying
crack on a Brooklyn street.

In the Bronx, a 19-year-old
youth was shot and killed and
another youth wounded when an

Now the

The Daily Telegraph

Every moming, hundreds of
people gather outside the German
embassy in Moscow. They gossip
about visa regulations, citizenship,
exchange.rates and possible work
in the West.

These are the fortunate few
who have been granted a foreign
travel passport, under present
regulations.

But some time early i in the New
Year, everyone will enjoy the Fant
to go abroad. The floodg: will

argument broke out during a
showing of the new horror film,

ery.

"'This is worse than the Old
West,’’ said a resident of Mr
Fusco’s street as the
businessman's body was placed in
a body bag in the driveway of his
home.

By Monday, the year’s tally of
‘murders in’ New York City had
‘Fisen above 2,000, @ grim new
record. Each of the last séveral
years has seen a new record for
murders in New York. Last year,
there were 1,905.

The 1990 total could be
considerably higher. Police expect
at least another 150 killings before
the month is out. December has a

easy availability of cheap
“*Saturday night specials’’ and
machine pistols.

In his State of the Judiciary
message, New York's Chief
Judge, Sol Wachtler, warned
Monday that the children of drug
addicts are threatening to
overwhelm a judicial system
already under siege from drug-
related crime.

He said that since 1985, crack-
cocaine had produced 467,000
children of addicted parents - a
population nearly equal to that of
the city of Seattle.

"What we are living with in

New York today is not a cyclical
rise and fall in the rate of crime,”
the Chief Judge added. ‘‘The fear
is deeper and more pervasive than
at any time in memory.’’.

In partial response to the murder
emergency, Mayor David Dinkins
appears to have won agreement on
a dlrs 450 million tax deal that will
enable the city to hire thousards of

police.He is prop

to extend for another four years
the ‘‘emergency’* 10 per cent
surcharge on New York City
personal income tax, the levy New
Yorkers pay on top of federal and
State income taxes.

Oldest emigrant heads for Canada

Reuter - Id Maria

for
high numbers of murders and
street robberies. Police blame the
soaring murder rate partly on the
desperation of young crack-
cocaine addicts and partly to the

Russians

y
Venus Gomes Da Silva Rozario,
Hong Kong’s oldest emigrant,
headed for a new life in Canada
Friday.

Personal secretary to seven

general managers at Hong Kong’s
prestigious Peninsula Hotel, she
was driven to the airport in a Rolls
Royce for a free business class
flight to Vancouver where she
will be met by her son.

really are coming

historical i with its
western a uble It would be the
first country to feel the impact.

“The coming wave of

gov has app
commissioner for een wenaice
but the 10 billion zlotys (500,000

from the East might soon become
our most serious policy problem,”
says Poland's interior minister,
Krzysztof Kozlowski.

Several . thousand illegal
immigrants have already entered
Poland. The fear is that the trickle
will turn into a flood and that
Poland will be unable to cope.

i and Bul

at last be opened.

The Soviet Union could deluge
Europe with cheap labour, as
millions escape poverty and the
threat of civil war, Some will be

y
that the civilized ba nations of the
world could duck this opportunity
(of) an economic renaissance that
sould last wer into the 21st
century,’ she sai
Others have: Sridices the $4
trillion | estimate ‘as wildly

optimistic. However, almost «
everyone agrees that the benefits.

would be significant, particularly
akens,

_ as the world economy we:

Moreover, these negotiations are
the first test: of international
economic relations in the post-
Cold War era, when the world’s
nations will not be bound together
so 20 tightly by fears of threats to

Smoke addicts hiding in aircraft

Reuter - Some passengers aboard :
Canadian: airlines are so hard up‘

for a smoke they are hiding in i

and even’ di
‘necting smoke detectors, the’
‘Transport Safety Board of Canada’
said Monday.
‘The board

more than 330 cases‘of illegal
smoking in the bart 15, months

board fires,
"These

highly qualified, part of a brain
drain that could damage the Soviet
economy. Most will be unskilled,
unable to speak foreign languages,
unused to Westem ways

Visions of hordes of starving
Russians making their way on foot
across the land border with
Finland this: winter may be far-
fetched. That particular frontier is
still heavily guarded by KGB
border troops.

But thousands will save for rail
tickets‘to the West. They will not
be. proud about the work they can
find. If they retum home, they will
be able to live like kings on
foreign currency earnings. Their
numbers could swell to millions.

In Moscow, Western embassies
will bear the brunt of the
onslaught. They are already

don't realize that they canbe

those on board at risk,”

putting =
it said.The board said there have ‘ _
have *

been'cases Where

13) g at the limit, sifting
throagh bh dreds of of

gaciping on public lawns: ia
temperatures approaching freezing,
have become a common sight in
Polish citics.

Gypsy children with placards in
Polish beg in subways. The more
enterprising refugees head for
towns in western Poland where
they, cross the Oder River into
Germany.

Poles fear that, if conditions in
the Soviet Union continue to
deteriorate, they will face a flood
similar to the one of 1917 after the
Bolshevik coup.

Though not a signatory to the
1951 Geneva convention on
refugees, Poland will find it
awkward to tum away refugees. A
million Poles found shelter in the
West in the last decade of
communist rule.

In addition to more than a
million Soviet citizens recognised
as Poles in their Soviet passports,
many more can wheel out a
grandfather in the pre-war Polish
civil service, produce birth
i from Polish Catholic

i or find sp among

appli a year. G
now face the embarrassing task of

gone into washrooms znd disabled ©
smoke detectors: or® flushed
ously in an attempt to get

continu
rid: ‘of! the smoke. Constant”

vand\the ch
increasing the possibility ‘of on-

from people

telatives deported to Poland from
the Soviet Union after 1945. In
Polish ins the

in whose name they

‘right to travel for so long.

language of the Church.

ight y
“. Poland, which has a 1,244-km

border with the’ Soviet Union and

AG:

recession, is more than one million
and likely to double soon. The

in: Poland,
wien has been hit by a deep

pounds) all d this year has
been spent.

“It is easy to talk about human
rights, give residence permits,
shelter and subsistence money
when you are dealing with dozens
or hundreds of refugees,” says Mr
Kozlowski. “But if the Soviet
Union blows up, we will soon

countries and people from the
Balkan states trying to reach
Germany.

Alarm bells are also sowading
in Austria, where newspapers
speak of an invasion by “millions
of Russians”,

Last week the mayor of Vienna
called an urgent meeting with
counterparts in Budapest and
Prague. They appealed to “all
cities, regions, countries and

have of th ds, and
the chance that the | ‘West takes
them in is negligibl le.”

In C

inter or
especially to the West, to show
humanitarian solidarity and

predict that millions of Soviet
citizens may flee famine and civil
war before winter is out. President
Vaclav Havel said on returning
from the Paris summit on
Buropean security last week that
central and, eventually, West
Europe could be overrun. He talks
of up to 50 million Russians trying
to escape hunger. The Prime
Minister, Marian Calfa, raised the
issue with his Soviet opposite
number, Nikolai Ryzbkov, during
a recent visit.

The Czechs describe the influx
as “a catastrophe waiting to

One source close to Mr Havel
as a a big influx would jeopardise
akia’s

reform p
“It’s bad enough trying to help
ourselves, I hate to think what
would happen if the Russians
came here too.”
The government is pinning its
on new: Soviet measures to
charge hard currency for trips
abroad. But if law and order broke
down in the Soviet republics,
many people could walk across
the bo:

Czechoslovakia, known in the
19th century as the of

to accept refugees in
numbers which the central
European capitals will be unable
to handle.

The mayors recalled that the
Soviet Committee for Social
Affairs in Moscow found that
three million Soviet citizens
wanted to flee. The newspaper
had said 80 million citizens eamed
less than the minimum wage and
that four million were homeless.

"Up to seven million people
want to come,” said the mayors.
“Two million Russians, a million
ethnic Germans living in the
Soviet Union, a million
Ukzainians, 100,000 persons from
the Baltic states, half a million
Poles, 300,06G Rumanians,
100,000 Buigarians, 100, 000
Turks and a miiiion Yu;

The mayors said the social ‘and
organisational structures of their
countries were already strained to.
the limit, especially in’ housing,
the labour market, commerce ond
public safety. :

Council of Burope has agreed to.
hold a special conference on
Buropean refugee problem °

January 26, the Austrian foreign ;

minister, Alois Mock said. ‘All the
Bast ‘would

Burope”, is already coping with
immigrants from Third World

attend, as well as representatives.
of the United States and C