THE Communist Party of Vietnam hosted the 18th International Meeting of the Communist and Workers' Parties, which was held for the first time in a socialist country, from October 28-30. The theme of the meeting was, “Capitalist crisis and imperialist offensive - strategy and tactics of the communist and workers’ parties in struggle for peace, workers’ and peoples’ rights, socialism.” M A Baby, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and head of the international department attended the meeting.

IT has been evident for some time that India has been slowly but surely veering away from the principles of non-alignment that defined its foreign policy for more than four decades after independence. The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi's decision to skip the important NAM summit in Venezuela is only a stark illustration of this reality. Previous UPA and NDA governments had started the process of downgrading the movement founded by the leaders of anti-colonial struggle like Jawaharlal Nehru, Achmed Sukarno, Khwame Nkrumah and Gamel Abdel Nasser.

PRIME Minister Shinzo Abe and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have further consolidated their political gains after the latest round of elections to the upper house of the Diet, held in the third week of July. The LDP will now have the brute majority in both the lower and upper house that will help the government to pass controversial legislation relating to the constitution and other important issues. Though the upper house is not as powerful as the lower house, it has the power to block legislation.

IN the second week of September, North Korea carried out its fifth nuclear test. The last two tests have been in quick succession. The latest nuclear test, the most powerful so far, coincided with the country's 68th independence day celebrations. It was conducted in the underground testing facility of Punggye-ri in the northeast of the country. The magnitude of the blast has been estimated at between 10 and 20 kilotons, much higher than the test in 2013 which was estimated to be between 6-7 kilotons. Pyongyang has claimed that the latest test was that of a hydrogen bomb.

THE Thai army junta which calls itself the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) that seized power from a democratically elected government on May 2014 now seems intent to permanently convert electoral politics in the country into a farce. In the first week of August, Thais were told to vote in a referendum that in effect sought to curtail their democratic rights.