UPDATE ON TWO HOTSPOTS; The battle against the possible breakup of Canada claimed a new victim at the end of last month. Policy-holders of Canada's biggest insurance company, Sun Life Assurance, have backed a management decision to move its head office and about 1,800 employees from Montreal to Toronto in protest against Quebec province's demands that French be used as the language of business.
The Canadian Government would have preferred the company to stay in Quebec and help fight the provincial separatist government's French-language policies. The government and Quebec business leaders are concerned that the move will encourage what has already become a steady trickle of company head offices from Quebec. Sun Life is the biggest company to move since the Parti Quebecois took office in November 1976.
The company's management said it was concerned that a requirement that companies had to operate mainly in French would make it difficult for it to carry on business. Most of its head office employees were English-speaking and deal with worldwide premiums, with many from Britain.
In Africa, a blitz strike by South African forces 155 miles deep into Southern Angola from South West Africa has sent the United Nations into a frenzy.
The goal of the assault was the principal forward base camp of SWAPO, the Marxist guerrilla forces that want to seize SWA (Namibia) by force. SWAPO has been stepping up its activity lately, striking into SWA from its sanctuary in Angola, murdering tribal authorities, kidnapping young people, destroying property, generally trying to impose a climate of fear and intimidation.
Of course, all of these - nefarious activities have met with the approval of the Communist-Third World dominated United Nations, which favors "wars of liberation" generally and SWAPO in particular. Thus, when the South Africans attacked, Pretoria was universally condemned in the Security Council for "invading" Angola. True to U.N. form there wasn't one word of condemnation of SWAPO's terror tactics. The U.N. will hear more of SWAPO's complaints this week.