World

  • 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

  • US expands war machine around starving North Korea

    Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party on April 17 rounded up enough votes in parliament to pass legislation forcing the landowners in Okinawa to renew leases of the 12 US bases when they expire on May 14. More than 3000 landowners

  • Another nuclear accident in Japan

    Another nuclear accident in JapanYet another nuclear accident struck Japan on April 14, and the nuclear operating authority once again failed to report it to the central government immediately for possibly crucial emergency

  • US-European truce on Cuba embargo

    After 50 hours of negotiations, on April 11 the US and the European Union reached a tentative agreement on the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996, known as "Helms- Burton". The EU is suspending until October 15 a complaint it brought

  • Pro-Megawati rally in Jakarta

    Between 10,000 and 15,000 PDI supporters massed on the streets of Jakarta outside the parliament on April 15, demanding that the elected leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), Megawati Sukarnoputri, be allowed to participate in the May 29

  • 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

  • International news briefs

    McCops On March 21, the Detroit Police Department opened "community work stations" inside 30 of the city's McDonald's fast food joints. A Detroit PD spokesperson described the arrangement as "a partnership of sorts" and said that cops will be

  • The National Front in action

    PARIS — It is certainly not exaggeration or scaremongering to call the National Front (FN) fascist. Of course, given France's experience of Nazi occupation, the FN hotly rejects the label. But its leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen,

  • Russian labour ponders results of day of protest

    MOSCOW — Millions of workers across Russia struck and demonstrated on March 27 in one of the greatest outpourings of labour protest in the country's history. The key demand was for the prompt payment of spiralling wage debts.