Nationalism

They wear black-vested uniforms and rally for the fatherland. Their red and white striped armbands remind many here of the fascist thugs who did the Nazis' dirty work in wartime Hungary. Formed last year, the Hungarian Guard is the latest specimen of right-wing nationalism to make a comeback in Eastern Europe. Its appearance has alarmed the government, minority advocates and even a California congressman with Hungarian ties.

Venezuelan armed forces occupied 32 sugar plantations Thursday, the latest in a wave of takeovers that some say is a bid by President Hugo Chavez to regain political momentum and reverse his recent slide in the polls. The farms in Lara state were taken over by army units at the request of the Chavez government's National Land Institute, or INTI. The institute in recent years has handled the takeover of thousands of acres of farmland and turned them over to worker cooperatives.

As Chinese nationalism flares across cyberspace, the government is growing concerned that passions could spill over into the real world, and that anger directed against foreigners could turn inward. Critics contend that Beijing has had a role in fanning the xenophobic sentiment to counter international condemnation of its crackdown on Tibetan rioters, but now Chinese officials appear to be trying to rein in the vitriol.

Advancing his policy of taking over major foreign companies, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday that he would nationalize Spanish-owned Banco Venezuela, the country's third-largest financial institution. Chavez said during an afternoon telecast that he was seizing the bank because its owner, Banco Santander, was planning to sell it anyway. The Spanish concern, which acquired the bank in 1996, had not issued a formal comment by Thursday evening.

Hundreds of former militiamen from the Balkan wars regrouped outside a church in central Serbia on Saturday, promising to fight together as a paramilitary unit once more if Kosovo breaks away from the government in Belgrade. Authorities detained 27 people, all wearing T-shirts with symbols of the disbanded Unit for Special Operations. The former commander and several members of the unit are on trial for the 2003 assassination of Serbia's reformist Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.

When Spanish schoolchildren sing their national anthem, they particularly love the line about Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his "white rear end." OK, so those aren't the real lyrics. Because there aren't any. Spain is one of the few countries that have a wordless national anthem. Popular culture, including the bawdy ballad that children famously sing to the anthem's melody, has tried to fill the void.

Russian ultranationalists chanting slogans against foreign immigrants and Jews marched through a deserted area of the capital Sunday in a carefully controlled display that managed to avoid the violence and arrests of last year's National Unity Day observance.

The Croats are tanned, the Swedes pink, the Poles the color of powder. They hoist the flags of their nations and trundle like tiny, sweating armies beneath the sun. The beer comes in big cups, and the boats on the River Spree glide past with music and accents of Italian, French and German. The World Cup is at once a symbol of globalization and an ode to patriotism.

An outspoken politician whose mother's house was burned to the ground after he criticized Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a controversial war shrine warned Tuesday that increasing intimidation by right-wing extremists was casting a chill over free speech in Japan. "There is less freedom than before to express one's feelings," said Koichi Kato, a onetime senior member of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP.

For those who view Japan's swelling nationalism through suspicious eyes, there is plenty of evidence that the World War II loser is straining at its pacifist shackles. New Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has vowed to rewrite Japan's war-renouncing constitution. He yearns for a robust role in world affairs, and has even mused about the possibility of a pre-emptive military strike against North Korean missile sites.