– CBS World News Roundup – August 1, 1994 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection
News for this first day of August in 1994 was another mixed bag of days, hopeful and nervous.
Hopeful, since the Peacekeeping force in Rwanda was including U.S. troops and the blood-letting had eased. Now refugees were being convinced by neighboring countries to return home – everything, they assured the shattered and traumatized refugees, was going to be okay. Very few were willing to take aid workers up on the offer and go back home. Only time would offer proof that it was once again safe. At the moment, the refugees were weathering health threats – with 50,000 dead from Cholera, the new concern was an outbreak of Dysentery sweeping through the refugee camps in Zaire. Seems one part of the world just couldn’t catch a break.
Nervous too was the Military regime in Haiti, where the UN had just approved U.S. invasion plans for the Caribbean island. Reaction from the coup leaders was swift, but the people on the island weren’t too concerned one way or the other, since Haiti was, as many characterized it, the Western Hemisphere‘s most destitute and fear-struck country.
Meanwhile, in the Middle East, PLO Leader Yasser Arafat demanded that Israel immediately enter talks on Jerusalem’s future, now that it has reconfirmed Jordan’s control of Muslim shrines – Israel said no.
Trade Sanctions were getting ready to break out between the U.S., Canada and Japan in October if the Japanese did not give the U.S. companies access to government telecommunications and medical equipment markets. Japan was threatening to retaliate. Talks were continuing.
And as days go, so went the world on this crazy August 1st in 1994 as reported by The CBS World News Roundup.
