The World - News from Feb. 8, 1989

Thousands of ethnic Albanian workers kept factories at a standstill in Yugoslavia’s troubled Kosovo province. The strikes and sit-ins, fueled by a Serbian-inspired purge of local Albanian leaders, erupted last week. The unrest has spread to the biggest industrial plants in the province, where tension has grown increasingly acute since nationalist riots in 1981. Serbia, the largest of Yugoslavia’s six republics, is waging a campaign to restore its political control of Kosovo--a province where ethnic Albanians heavily outnumber Serbs and other Slavs. It was granted autonomy in 1974.