World

International news briefs Sri Lankan left demonstrates against the war COLOMBO — On May 25, 3000 people participating in a demonstration called by the People's Liberation Front, the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP) and the Muslim United Liberation

Kurdish refugees in Turkey need help The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees has called on the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to cease its stalling on granting refugee status to thousands of people who have fled from Iraqi

The following is abridged from a speech on the situation in Mindanao presented by the chairperson of the Philippines Socialist Party of Labour (SPP), SONNY MELENCIO, at a public forum in Manila on May 18 organised by the SPP and sponsored by various

The following speech by SHEMAL ALI from the Worker Communist Party of Iraq (WCPI) was presented to the 120 participants at the May Day toast at the Granville Town Hall on May 6, jointly sponsored by the Sydney west branch of the Democratic Socialist

Letter from Ethiopia I hesitate to attempt an analysis of the hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea, but, from the day the conflict began two years ago, I have watched with growing horror the waste of tens of thousands of young lives only nine

PAKISTAN: Military capitulates on blasphemy law On May 17, Pakistan's military ruler General Pervaiz Musharraf announced that he was withdrawing his plan to amend the controversial blasphemy law. His announcement came after conservative clerics

EAST TIMOR: Fretilin conference plans for the future From May 15 to 20, the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) held a conference in Dili, East Timor. It was the first Fretilin conference in East Timor since the end of the

ZIMBABWE: Can the MDC solve the crisis? The popular trade union-backed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) poses the greatest threat that President Robert Mugabe's corrupt and authoritarian Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF)

Behind the coup in Fiji is a retreat by sections of the Melanesian Fijian elite to the tried and tested divide-and-rule tactic of chauvinist scaremongering. Late on May 25, the Great Council of Chiefs (GCC) announced the result of three days of

JAKARTA — A group of fifty pro-integration East Timorese carried out a vicious attack on the office of East Timor solidarity group Solidamor on May 24 here. The gang, which according to an eyewitness was accompanied by a group of Indonesian

SOUTH AFRICA: Students killed at uni protest Police killed one student and injured scores during a protest at the University of Durban-Westville (UDW) in Durban on May 14. Witnesses believe that another student was also killed. Students were

CZECH REPUBLIC: Communist Party's velvet return A spectre haunted last November's celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the "velvet revolution". After years on the margins, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) had suddenly doubled