TALKS FAIL TO END BRAZILIAN SEAMEN'S STRIKE

  Pay talks aimed at ending a
  week-old national seamen's strike collapsed today and the
  strike will continue, a union official said.
      The walkout by Brazil's 40,000 seamen has idled 160 ships
  in various ports, Jorge Luis Leao Franco, a senior official of
  the National Merchant Marine Union, told Reuters.
      The strikers, who are seeking a 275 pct pay increase, have
  rejected offers of a 100 pct raise from the state oil company
  Petrobras and an 80 pct increase from the National Union of
  Maritime Navigation Companies (Syndarma).
      Leao Franco said eight hours of talks in Rio de Janeiro
  with Labor Minister Almir Pazzianotto ended today without
  resolving the dispute.
      He said six ships were idle abroad -- in the Netherlands,
  Spain, Venezuela, France and South Africa.
      Economic analysts said the strike was of major concern to
  the government, which has suspended interest payments on part
  of Brazil's foreign debt following a drastic deterioration in
  the country's trade balance.
      The head of the National Merchant Marine Authority, Murilo
  Rubens Habbema, was quoted today as saying that if the strike
  continued foreign ships could be authorized to transport
  Brazilian exports.
      "Brazil is living through a crisis at the moment and it is
  not conceivable that exports be hit," he told the Gazeta
  Mercantil newspaper.
  

