Briefly...

CLASHES between police, troops and groups of workers and students continued in the Peruvian town of Lima yesterday. Since trouble began last week, three students have been shot dead by police. In the south-west Peruvian town of Puno the chief of the civil guard has been dismissed in an effort to placate rioters after a series of violent clashes.

GENERAL C. Monie yesterday made nationwide radio appeal to Argentina's 'silent majority' to help his regime deal with urban guerrillas. This came after nearly two weeks of sporadic fighting between troops and groups of workers and students.

AUSTRALIAN oil companies will make a new offer to striking refinery workers today after a week-long stoppage in which oil and petrol supplies to four states have virtually ground to a halt. A fluttering of hawks and doves in Saigon WHILE NIXON continues his campaign to alternatively bomb and cajole the North Vietnamese into coming to terms with South Vietnam, evidence is mounting that the Saigon regime is under political pressure from 'doves' and The survival of the Thieu regime hangs increasingly on its ability to win victories against the North Vietnamese on the battlefield.

The large Catholic population, many of whom fled from the north 25 years ago, has lined up with the Buddhists in a hard-line coalition aimed at keeping a political balonet in Thieu's back.

While the hawks begin to organize, even Thieu has accused the French government of promoting a 'third force' in Saigon acceptable to Hanoi.

Both France and the USSR have at various times been instrumental in opening doors in Indo-China for diplomatic exchanges to take place.

Thieu's announcement that the French WeLC 'encouraging a group of South Vietnamese politicians who might be willing to compromise with Hanoi follows a period of widespread unrest among opposition MPs at the President's strong-arm tactics in rushing an emergency powers decree through the Senate.

Some senators claimed they had been openly terrorized by Thieu's security agents from attending the vote on the new measures.

The new emergency powers will make it even riskier for opposition elements to speak out and look like assuaging the Catholic-Buddhist alliance, at any rate for the time being.

But opposition is clearly growing and even army generals who favour a ceasefire and talks with the north have put about petitions calling for Thieu's resignation.

The Quang Tri offensive, carried out in the face of only token North Vietnamese resistance, will almost certainly achieve the aim hoped for by Thieu and Nixon of restoring Saigon's credibility and increasing its bargaining power in Paris next week.

Yesterday South Vietnamese troops were in control of all but the heavily fortified citadel at the heart of Quang Tri city occupied two months ago by Hanoi troops.

Hanoi .. continued its artillery and rocket bombardment of Hué yesterday in the heaviest blitz on the city since the Tet offensive. Observers say the pressure Above: messmer, specially picked by Pompidou (below right) 'hawks'. on Hué is to discourage Saigon offensives.

While plans for a Korean detente went ahead yesterday in line with Nixon's strategy of withdrawing troops from Vietnam but maintaining America's south-east Asian ring of steel, the President announced that the US has no plan to reduce its 43,000 force in South Korea. President Thieu Schiller goes-Moves against the dollar A FURTHER severe tightening of West German exchange regulations now seems certain to follow the resignation of Economics Minister Karl Schiller. An announcement giving effect to the resignation is anticipated in Bonn today. Castro ends six-week eastern tour CUBA'S Fidel Castrol has flown out of Moscow after ten days of meetings, banquets and visits in which Soviet leaders treated him as an honoured guest.

His stay climaxed a six-week tour of East European countries in which he gave the full supPeking orders ten Boeing planes CHINA is expected to buy ten Boeing 707 jets in a £60m deal to be concluded next month. Chinese pilots may be trained in WROUND THE WORLD Pompidou preparing for major class PRESIDENT Pompidou is tooling up the forces of repression and forming a new, tough team for the big class battles due in France this autumn.

This is the meaning of the sacking of Jacques Chaban-Delmas and the selection of hard-line Gaullist Pierre Messmer for Prime Minister.

The deepening economic crisis sets the stage for an upsurge of the working class on the scale of the General Strike of May-June 1968. When workers return from their summer holidays, they will find every item in their budget affected by soaring prices.

A real cut in their standard of living will have taken place behind their backs. The class feeling against the employers and the Gaullist state, only held in check by the Communist Party and the trade union bureaucracy with phoney slogans like a 1,000 franc „minimum wage per month, will explode into a 'hot autumn'.

Pompidou, learning from the mistakes made by de Gaulle in May 1968, when he was Prime Minister, wants a governmental team prepared for action to smash back at the working class-something de Gaulle had not achieved in ten years' rule.

He wants a Frime Minister whom he can trust completely to carry through such a policy. Messmer is ideally suited for the task. A long-standing Gaullist who came up through the army, he was selected by the General to build up France's independent nuclear striking forces.

Since 1971 he has held the post of Minister of Colonies, but his real power derives from the fact that he heads a movement dedicated to preserving Gaullist purity called 'Presence de Gaullism'. It is a tight-knit movement stop-at-nothing politicians having close ties with military and police circles.

A man with his record can give the forces of repression the unity of purpose and confidence which they need to go into battle. At the same time, he gives the vacillating petty boat edie the ron that the strong state is back and under firm control.

The ditching of Chaban-Delmas is no surprise, only the timing was. The former Prime Minister's once popular, healthy, sportsmanlike image was much • tarnished by the revelations Schiller, one of the chief architects of the Washington currency realignment talks of last December, bitterly opposes the measures which the Brandt coalition has already been forced to take to halt the flood of unwanted dollars into the Frankfurt money market.

Schiller feels that such report of his personality and popularity to the bureaucracy.

Castro, who rushed to support the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, is increasingly dependent upon East European aid. The Soviet bureaucracy will insist on more the US and an order for jumbo jets may follow. The French are also hoping to sell planes to China, including Concorde. of the methods he used to avoid paying any income tax, despite his large fortune. He can also be made the scapegoat for other scandals affecting Gaullist politicians in the past year.

Pompidou has timed the move to have the new government in position before the next phase of the currency crisis and at a time when workers are beginning to . disperse for holidays. Many factories will, in fact, be wholly or partly closed during the next two months.

Instead of preparing the working class to face the tremendous dangers which loom ahead the Communist Party, assisted by the Socialist Party and the trade unions, is striving to disarm it.

The new governmental agreement between the two parties is intended to prevent the strength of the strictions threaten the free movement of capital throughout western Europe and could lead rapidly to a savage trade war. But Bonn's hand has been forced by the Swiss. Already, on Tuesday, Geneva announced the imposition of an 8 per cent surcharge on all dollar purchases by Swiss firms.

detailed control of the Cuban economy as part of the price.

Castro's antics during this tour and his prostration before the parasitic bureaucracies in these countries should put paid to any remaining illusions that he can play a revolutionary role in Latin America.

Foreign Minister Mau

mann is at present in l is expected to include in his talks with Chou working class from finding expressions. Instead it is fed with a stream of illusions, notably that its problems can be solved through elections.

The 'left' parties thus co-operate with Pompidou in holding back the working class instead warning against the great dangers which it faces from the Bonapartist state. 'L'Humanité the CP daily, in the past few days has hardly mentioned the world crisis of capitalism. There is no call for preparation for the autumn struggles. Expositions of the new programme, which fill its pages, show how reasonable and moderate it is.

Marchais and Mitterand, now united in an electoral pact, are at one in declaring that the change of government represents the 'bankruptcy' of the 'ice Schu'eking and Concorde En-lai.

regime. Once again they lose no opportunity to disarm the working class.

In reality, it expresses the determination of Pompidou, on behalf of the ruling class, to settle accounts with the working class.

The dangerous situation opening up in France makes it imperative that the working class should demand that its leaders and organizations mobilize every ounce of strength for a decisive battle against the regime.

What is required is preparation to throw back the government's offensive on programme of socialist demands based on the formation of a Social Democratic - Communist Party government to take the power. Only in this way can the Stalinists and reformists be exposed and a new leadership built.

Now a new decree has been issued requiring that all loans raised abroad by Swiss companies or individuals must be approved by the Swiss national bank.

In future all banks will be obliged to deposit minimum reserves related to their increases in foreign currency holdings. The minimum reserves can run as high as 90 per cent of these increases.

With France already operating tight controls on dollar imports, the Swiss and German moves are certain to intensify speculation against the weaker European currencies, notably the Italian lira.

But all European bankers and governments must be awaiting with some apprehension the publication of the American halfyearly balance of payments Even a slight worsening of the American external deficit would certainly prove a fatal blow at Europe's already tottering currency system.