China has written to diplomats and UN officials urging them not to attend a Geneva event today where the Dalai Lama will speak, reasserting that it opposes his appearance at all venues due to his “separatist activities”.

Indian author Neel Mukherjee’s will be in Bantry on Thursday to read from his Booker-listed

Ray Ryan explores the links between a Canadian astronaut, former US president John F Kennedy, and a boy who grew up to tell tales of Cork City’s northside.

Like Stalin, Putin has nurtured a climate of fear and lawlessness, in which those who rally behind the Kremlin feel a duty to eliminate the leader’s opponents however they can, says Nina L Khrushcheva

Users of blogs and internet chat rooms will be required to register their names with operators and promise in writing to avoid challenging the communist political system.

Mary Elise Sarotte

The US government secretly financed a social network in Cuba to stir political unrest and undermine the country’s communist government, investigations reveal.

China’s Communist rulers announced an easing of its controversial one-child policy as part of a raft of sweeping pledges including the abolition of its “re-education” labour camps and loosening controls on the economy.

The Communist secret police knew when the late Pope John Paul II liked to shave, how many suitcases he owned, and what card games he played and with whom, decades before he was appointed pontiff.

Lost dentures, loose eyeball among sick-day excuses

AS an aesthetic trend, industrial styling is certainly working its shift.

The United States and Japan have offered new talks with North Korea to resolve the increasingly dangerous stand-off over its nuclear and missile programmes, but said the reclusive communist government first must lower tensions and honour previous agreements.

Cyprus’s finance minister resigned yesterday after concluding a €10bn bailout deal with international lenders in which the country slashed its dominant banking sector and hit depositors with losses.

Thousands of Czechs have rallied in protest against the government’s policies and austerity cuts and other policies on the 23rd anniversary of the Velvet Revolution.

Between 1958 and 1961, some 36 million Chinese people starved to death because of Mao’s obsessive and dishonest Great Leap Forward, finds Neil Robinson

Chinese writer Mo Yan has today been named the winner of the Nobel Prize in literature.

Chinese prosecutors are charging the wife of former Chinese politician Bo Xilai and a family aide with the murder of a British businessman.

The spokesman for Greece's extremist far-right Golden Dawn party caused an uproar today when he physically assaulted two left-wing deputies on live television during a morning political show.

Activists have called for Taoiseach Enda Kenny to challenge the Chinese government over human rights abuses during his visit to the country next week.

Activists have called for Taoiseach Enda Kenny to challenge the Chinese government over human rights abuses during his visit to the country next week.

SATURDAY

Greece’s new government was hit by its first general strike today as thousands opposed to cuts marched through Athens.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is facing a crucial confidence vote in parliament today a day after he backed down from his bid to put a new European debt deal to a referendum.

A MAN injured in Greek anti-austerity protests died yesterday as hundreds of Communist unionists battled anarchists throwing firebombs for control of a key Athens square.

Greece has “exhausted” its ability to pay more taxes to cover budget gaps, its deputy prime minister declared today, adding that he himself cannot pay a new emergency tax without selling property.

A CHINESE bishop ordained without papal approval has been excommunicated from the Catholic Church, the Vatican said on Saturday, bringing relations between the Vatican and Beijing to a new low.

China is drawing up a four-year plan to improve the country's human rights record, but it will probably focus on improving living standards rather than granting greater freedoms.

Jack Lynch believed China needed and wanted friends in the West but was not willing to make allies.

A man flung himself from the balcony of the Romanian parliament chamber today, apparently in protest over government austerity measures.

Globalisation could “go into reverse”, harming economies around the world, unless China acts to correct dangerous trade imbalances, British Prime Minister David Cameron warned today.

China has formally signed up for the climate accord agreed at the Copenhagen summit.

Hungary’s parliament has approved a bill making Holocaust denial punishable by up to three years in prison, but the measure may be unconstitutional.

Members of a Communist-backed trade union blockaded the Athens stock market today to protest at government austerity measures aimed at tackling Greece’s debt crisis.

A strike by civil servants today grounded all flights and shut down public services across Greece, as labour unions mounted their first major challenge to austerity measures in the debt-plagued country.

IT’S LESS than a year since Aravind Adiga won the Man Booker Prize.

FORMER minister Conor Cruise O’Brien’s forthright style saw him accused of many things during his long and distinguished career but few would have blamed him of facilitating communist infiltration in RTÉ.

A Chinese newspaper has blasted Guns N' Roses for naming their new album 'Chinese Democracy' - accusing the rockers of belittling their nation.

Five Tibet activists were taken away by Chinese security agents today after protesting during the Olympic Games, hours after a Christian activist was detained on his way to a church service in Beijing attended by US President George Bush.

US president George Bush told China bluntly today that America was strongly opposed to the way the communist government repressed its people.

Former Polish leader Lech Walesa today finished giving evidence in the trial of the country’s ex-military ruler General Wojciech Jaruzelski for his part in the murder of 44 protesters in 1970.

Communist rebels in the southern Philippines have attacked a jail compound with mortar shells and small-arms fire in a bid to free a detained comrade.

CHINA demanded that the Dalai Lama prove he does not support Tibetan independence and disruption of the Beijing Olympics during the latest round of talks with the spiritual leader’s representatives, state media reported yesterday.