General Strike

Striking managers at the state oil monopoly will be fired and prosecuted, President Hugo Chavez said, vowing to break the work stoppage. Participation of dissident managers at PDVSA, in the general strike has cut exports from the world's fifth-largest oil exporter to a trickle. "We will start a cleansing in PDVSA," Chavez said during his weekly television show. "Those who didn't show up for work ... well, they will be fired."

President Hugo Chavez's government fired the leaders of an oil industry shutdown in a bid Thursday to break an 11-day general strike that has crippled Venezuela's petroleum exports. In a defiant response, oil industry strikers said they would not return to work until Chavez resigned. The strike has halted exports from the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, better known as PDVSA. Venezuela is the world's No. 5 petroleum exporter and supplies more than 10% of U.S. oil imports.

As Venezuelans braced for yet another nationwide strike today, the country remained deeply divided. Grim-faced opposition leaders refused to say how long the protest would go on but made clear they hoped it would lead to the resignation of controversial President Hugo Chavez. Chavez dismissed the planned protest, the fourth in a year, calling it an illegal attack on the government.

In 1999, the longshore union shut down West Coast ports for a day in solidarity with anti-globalization protesters at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. Now, with the owners locking out the dockworkers, globalization may give the workers an advantage that has frightening implications beyond the labor-management bargaining table. Harry Bridges has to be laughing in his grave.

Pickets clashed with police, Madrid's subway ran with fewer cars, and hundreds of flights were canceled at the capital's airport as unions staged Spain's first general strike in eight years. The unions are protesting cuts in unemployment benefits. Their nationwide protest is aimed at embarrassing conservative Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar as he prepares to host a European Union summit today in Seville.

The government said Saturday that soldiers killed 35 Maoist rebels who launched a string of violent attacks across the kingdom in an effort to enforce their five-day general strike. Devendra Raj Kandel, the junior home affairs minister, said soldiers shot and killed 18 rebels Saturday in Khotang district, about 150 miles east of Katmandu, Nepal's capital. Earlier, a Defense Ministry spokesman said troops had killed 17 rebels since Friday evening in various parts of Nepal.

One of the world's largest oil refineries virtually shut down and industries and businesses closed Tuesday during a general strike that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez tried to keep off radio and TV. Strikers at the headquarters of Venezuela's state oil monopoly clashed with dozens of Chavez supporters before 500 police officers used tear gas to separate the two sides. One group of strike supporters severely beat at least six pro-government protesters.

Italian unions announced a one-day general strike for April 16 to denounce government plans for labor reform, but Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi shrugged off the planned protest and vowed to press ahead. The showdown with the big three unions, which together represent about 12 million people, is shaping up to be the worst labor dispute in Italy in 20 years and could stunt the country's fragile economic recovery.

Two gunmen on a motorcycle killed a key advisor to Italy's government outside his home in Bologna in what Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi denounced as an act of political "terrorism.. Marco Biagi, an economist and consultant to Labor Minister Roberto Maroni, was an author and promoter of labor reforms that have angered Italy's leftist opposition and prompted major unions to threaten a general strike for next month.

Rebel calls for a nationwide strike shut down much of Nepal for a second day as business owners closed their shops and bus drivers stayed off the streets, fearing violence. The Himalayan kingdom's Maoist rebels called for a general strike Friday and Saturday to celebrate the sixth anniversary of an insurgency that has flared since they abandoned a cease-fire last fall. Many bus and taxi drivers refused to take passengers, and thousands of people were stranded in the capital, Katmandu.