World

  • Medicines for Bougainville on 'peace ship'

    Australians concerned about the deteriorating health and human rights situation on the besieged island of Bougainville have formed a network to gather vital supplies and ship them there. A three-year military blockade of

  • Financial meltdown threatens Japanese banks

    The plunge in the Tokyo stock market has dealt the banking sector some of the hardest blows. Banks' stock prices have fallen roughly twice as much as the average. Bank shares have fallen 28% in April alone. Shares in the

  • The slow break-up of Czecho-Slovakia

    PRAGUE - Czecho-Slovakia is slowly disintegrating under the impact of contrary forces. In Slovakia, there is a radicalisation against the restoration of capitalism. On the other hand, there is a growing willingness of the Czech

  • Bulgarian dissidents again on the outer

    Vaclav Havel, Czechoslovakia's former dissident turned president, once told a reporter it was possible he could again become a dissident. For Dimitrina Petrova and her friends, founding members of Bulgaria's most famous opposition

  • Russian women bear unemployment burden

    MOSCOW - As the Russian economy crumbles, unemployment is making a big comeback. And to an even greater extent than in the west, the first to suffer are women. According to research by the Union of

  • Dacca diary

    By John R. Hallam Mishka and I entered Bangladesh from the north at Haldibari. Haldibari is a little-used entry point, one of only two between Bangladesh and India. We had been invited to Dacca by people from the Bangladesh Interreligious

  • Indonesian group challenges Keating on human rights

    On April 14, INFIGHT, the Indonesian Front for the Defence of Human Rights, issued the following open letter to Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating as he began his visit to Indonesia. This marks the first visit by an Australian Prime Minister

  • Police implicated in Mexican kidnapping

    MEXICO CITY - Investigations into the case of disappeared left activist Jose Ramon Garcia are uncovering a trail of responsibility and police spying that could become a major scandal. Garcia, a leader in the Cuautla, Morelos

  • Swedes changing their minds on EC

    In June 1991 the Swedish Parliament authorised the government to apply for membership in the European Community. Only the Green Party and the Left Party were unanimously against this decision. Since membership of the EC means

  • The legacy of Chernobyl

    By John R. Hallam At 1.46 on the morning of April 26, 1986, the shift supervisor of the Chernobyl-4 reactor — part of the massive reactor complex close to Kiev, capital of the Ukraine — pressed a button in a routine end to what was supposed

  • Nuclear safety fears in Asia

    Following the recent nuclear power station accident at Sosnovyi Bor near Saint Petersburg in Russia, global confidence in nuclear power continues to decline, as do the number of power stations being built. Yet in Asia, the

  • British left counts the cost of Labour's loss

    Most of Britain's relatively large but deeply divided left campaigned hard for a Labour victory in the April 9 election, even though they opposed Neil Kinnock's "consensus politics" and "new realism". The