World

  • International news briefs

    Spratly talks in stalemate China and Vietnam's April 9-11 negotiations in Beijing over the disputed ownership of the Spratly Islands ended in stalemate. Tension rose again after Beijing set up an oil rig in March which Vietnam strongly protested

  • London march for social justice

    London march for social justiceLONDON Around 10,000 people marched here on April 12 to call for social justice and to expose the anti-working class pro-big business policies of John Major's Conservatives, the Liberal

  • Russian rail scheme threatens wilderness

    MOSCOW — Want to make a pile in post-Soviet Russia? Now that privatisation is mostly complete, the readiest ways of having big roubles drop into your lap belong to the past. But riches can still be yours. The Russian

  • Kinshasa paralysed by general strike

    Kinshasa paralysed by general strikeMillions heeded the call by the moderate opposition to turn the Zaire capital into a ville morte (dead city) on April 14 and 15. Workers, shopkeepers, market vendors, students and even the

  • Russia's Communist Youth: where to now?

    Swept from the scene in 1991 along with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Communist League of Youth (in its Russian abbreviation, Komsomol), was later reconstituted as a political youth group aligned with the Communist Party of the Russian

  • 'Odd couple' in South African water privatisation plan

    'Odd couple' in South African water privatisation planThe Congress of South African Trade Unions has hit out at moves to privatise parts of South Africa's water supply, saying it would "never be acceptable". A surprising

  • Whaling foe faces extradition

    Whaling foe faces extradition Paul Watson, president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and long-time proponent of direct-action environmentalism, was seized on April 2 by Netherlands police acting on behalf of the Norwegian government.

  • Letter from the US: If you don't fight, you'll never know

    SAN FRANCISCO — On March 25, at the beginning of what turned out to be my last shift as an operator at the Unocal oil refinery in northern California, the forewoman told my crew to collect our personal belongings at the end

  • Sri Lankan left leader arrested

    General secretary Vickramabahu "Bahu" Karunarathne and two other members of the New Sama Samaja Party (NSSP) have been detained by police in connection with an arms cache police claim to have discovered in a building housing the Health Workers Trade

  • Mobutu's days numbered as rebels take key cities

    "We're advancing, we're heading for Kinshasa. That is our objective ... this is the time for Mobutu to go", declared rebel leader Laurent Kabila on April 8 before a crowd of 50,000 cheering supporters in Mbuji-Mayi, the capital of

  • Heat rises across Taiwan Strait

    In an act of defiance towards Beijing, Taipei test-fired two US-made surface-to-sea missiles on April 1, two days after China's President Jiang Zeming offered Taipei leaders a vice-presidential position in exchange for their

  • Moving protest in Indonesian courtroom

    Moving protest in Indonesian courtroom On April 7, members of the Struggle Alliance for Democracy and Human Rights (APDHAM) entered the courtroom where Dita Sari and Coen Pontoh were being tried. It was the day on which they would read their