Communism

A Belgian court sentenced on Feb. 20 outlawed Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) militant Fehriye Erdal to 15 years in jail and deprived her of civil and political rights for 10 years in absentia for crimes committed in Turkey, including being an accomplice in the 1996 assassination of the former head of the industrial conglomerate Sabancı Holding.

QUITO, Ecuador - With the help of neighbor and host Ecuador, Colombia's government has finally entered into peace talks with the nation's second-largest rebel group, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) or the Army of National Liberation, in Quito.

The Colombian government has opened the first round of peace talks with the ELN rebel group, seeking to end a 53-year conflict that has killed more than 260,000.

BOGOTÁ, Colombia - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has said his government will enter into negotiations for an eventual peace agreement with the nation's second-largest rebel group, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) or the Army of National Liberation, on February 7, just months after the peace agreement signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was ratified.

An Athens prosecutor yesterday brought charges against Panagiota Roupa, a leading member of the Revolutionary Struggle guerrilla group, and a 25-year-old woman, of running a new terrorist organization.

Roupa and the woman were arrested early on Thursday in separate raids in two different suburbs of Athens following months of police surveillance.

A survey on Albanians' perceptions and understanding of the communist era conducted by an independent think tank on behalf of the OSCE office in Tirana has upset representatives of victims of the old regime and prompted calls for the state to do more to condemn the crimes of the communist past.

Germany has detained a suspected member of the outlawed Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) in Hamburg, officials said on Dec. 3.      

The Supreme Court has ordered an investigation into claims by the Greek Communist Party (KKE) on Thursday that the telephones at its central headquarters in Perissos have been wiretapped, as it frequently experiences crossed lines, notably involving the office phones of other parties.

The Communist Party-affiliated labor union, PAME, is organizing a rally in central Athens on Thursday.

The event, to be held in Omonia Square at 10.30 a.m., will be a protest against evaluations and a so-called mobility scheme of forced transfers in the public sector. 

BELGRADE - An illiterate peasant, Mitar Tarabic, who lived in Serbia in the 19th century is believed to have predicted major historic events, like WWI and the rise of Nazis.