World

By Max Lane In Indonesia during June and July, polemics raged between supporters and opponents of the country's most famous and widely read novelist, Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The polemic was sparked by the announcement that the Philippines-based

By Sujatha Fernandes Twenty-five schoolchildren and 15 other people were killed when Sri Lankan Pucara planes bombed the Nagerkoil Central School in the Jaffna peninsula on Friday, September 22. Nearly 100 others were injured, most of them

The US government has given vital assistance to the French government so that the current round of nuclear tests in the South Pacific can go ahead, according to a report in the New Scientist. Despite vague statements critical of the tests, the US has

Chiapas: the end of 'the end of history' Australian MIKE LEACH visited Mexico and Chiapas earlier this year. He reports on the ongoing struggle. A crowd of 500 Mexican protesters faces the federal army in the remote tropical jungle of southern

By Assaf Adiv You always see them in groups. At the end of the day, silent, holding nylon bags containing their suppers — usually a loaf of cheap bread. After a day's work, they gather around local stores drinking bottles of beer, their only

Amnesty International is demanding the immediate and unconditional release of Antonio Batisda De Macedo — a rubber tappers' leader arrested on September 20 and the first prisoner of conscience adopted in Brazil for over a decade. "Antonio Macedo's

The generals' elections in Russia By Boris Kagarlitsky MOSCOW — Every time Russian television announces the formation of a new candidates' slate for the December parliamentary elections, viewers find themselves wondering: which well-known

By Eva Cheng The alleged rape of a 12-year-old Japanese girl by three US soldiers on September 4 in Okinawa has produced a public outcry against US bases in Japan. Three US soldiers were reported to have arrest warrants issued against them on

French commandos seized the Greenpeace yacht Vega with 21 of the original inhabitants of Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls — the sites of the current round of French nuclear weapons tests — as it attempted to land on Moruroa to demand the return of

By Barbara Meyer Mumia Abu-Jamal, an African American journalist imprisoned on death row in Pennsylvania since 1982, was denied a retrial at the conclusion of a Post-Conviction Relief Appeal (PCRA) hearing on September 14 by Judge Albert Sabo,

By Norm Dixon Nurses from five major hospitals and 14 clinics in and around Johannesburg have agreed to suspend their militant strike action. Nurses at Soweto's Baragwanath Hospital — South Africa's largest — led a walkout on September 4

British Labour: what's new and what isn't TONY BENN has been one of the most important figures of progressive politics in postwar Britain. He became a member of parliament under the government of Clement Attlee, and is likely to remain one under Tony