World

Pervomayskoye: Yeltsin wrote off hostages' lives By Renfrey Clarke MOSCOW — In his ghost-written autobiography, Russian President Boris Yeltsin recounts how as a child he lost two fingers from his left hand. Finding a grenade in the forest, he

Five hundred garment workers in Bangladesh have been sacked, five women raped and three women killed because of their campaign for the right to one day's holiday each week. Since July 25, 1995, the National Garment Workers' Federation of Bangladesh

By Norm Dixon A general strike by the Congress of South African Trade Unions was narrowly averted after talks with African National Congress government ministers. The 24-hour strike, scheduled for January 16, was suspended by COSATU's leaders after

André Brie is a National Executive member of Germany's Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), formed from the ashes of the former ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). During a January visit to Australia, he addressed public

By Norm Dixon The Pan Africanist Congress has been thrown into turmoil by the resignation of general secretary Maxwell Nemadzivhanani. The PAC, long considered South Africa's second most significant liberation movement after the African National

Canadian businesses to ignore Cuba blockade The Canadian government has stepped up measures to prevent Washington from interfering in its trade with Cuba. On January 18, Canadian foreign minister Andre Ouellet ordered Canadian firms, including US

West Papuan leader: 'OPM has overwhelming support' By Norm Dixon The daring January 10 raid by guerillas of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) has provided fresh evidence that the long struggle of the West Papuan people against Indonesian occupation is

By Eva Cheng Every dollar of economic activity officially registered by Japan in 1990 has hidden unaccounted costs to the environment worth of at least $2.50, an international conference in Tokyo was told late last year. The Japan Centre for Economic

Two prominent members of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) will challenge party leader and former president Daniel Ortega for the party's presidential nomination, the Sandinista newspaper Barricada reported on January 6. Human rights

By Renfrey Clarke MOSCOW — For Josef Stalin in 1931 to have blown up the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, just up the Moscow River from the Kremlin, was a crime. But for Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov to have ordered the cathedral rebuilt in 1995 was

Since 1985, the Indian government has been implementing a neo-liberal economic program opening up industry and agriculture to competition. This has generated enormous profits for some and equally enormous costs for the poor, particularly women. Job

By Eva Cheng Both rural and urban women in Japan are fighting for the right to work as the five-year-old recession and the "trade liberalisation" agenda under GATT and APEC hit them increasingly hard. Though official unemployment remained around 3%