College teachers threaten strike after Palestinian Authority fails to respond

RAMALLAH [MENL] -- Instructors at Palestinian colleages and preparatory schools are again threatening to strike.

The teachers said pledges by the Palestinian Authority to improve their salaries and conditions have not been fulfilled. On Wednesday, the teachers held a warning strike to press for the demands.

Union representatives said the PA has ignored a committee that determined that salaries and benefits of teachers should be improved. They said they have been waiting for a year for the PA to respond to the committee.

PA officials said the problem of Palestinian higher education is being addressed in reforms drafted by a committee led by PA International Cooperation and Planning Minister Nabil Shaath. The reforms call for a merger of many institutions and increased international aid.

The teachers said no additional funds for their salaries are allocated in the PA's $1.36 billion budget for 2000 passed last week by the Palestinian Legislative Council.

In an unrelated development, the first of what Palestinian journalists said could be a series of local newspapers has appeared on newsstands. Called the Hebron Times, the weekly, aligned with the Hamas movement, aims to cover news in the southern West Bank and serve as a forum for criticism of the PA.

"We recognize we are not living in a journalism's fantasy land," editor Khaled Amayreh said. "However, we will try to criticize all the morbid aspects of the contemporary Palestinian life, without provocation and without libeling anybody, and at the same time without suffocating the truth."

Amayreh said the Palestinian press is heavily censored by the PA. This includes such subjects as PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, his family, PA financial affairs, and security coordination with Israel.

"We will not shun these subjects; we will try to cover them from a different angle," Amayreh said.