Asia

Environmental crises are causing death, destruction and deprivation on a colossal scale in India. The capitalist system is directly to blame for this catastrophe, which dwarfs even the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since late August, protests in Inner Mongolia, a province under the state of the People’s Republic of China, have been reported in multiple cities, including Tongliao, Hulunbuir, Provincial Capital Hohhot, and many prefectures and smaller towns. These protests erupted in response to a new language education policy that the Provisional Government has announced over the summer, which would lower the proportion of instructions in the Mongolian and Korean languages in favour of Mandarin Chinese to a level that many ethnic Mongols view as unacceptable.

Almost daily protests have been raging in Thailand for over a month. They are growing in size and audacity. Dozens of school children demanding democracy have become tens of thousands of protestors challenging the foundations of Thai society. If the government doesn’t respond by September, they say, things will escalate. The Thai establishment is like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

On 30 July, Ex-Taiwanese president and former KMT chairman Lee Teng-hui died. Despite being a lifelong KMT bureaucrat, the series of political changes under his presidency in the 1990s earned him praise from bourgeois liberals and a nickname of “Mr. Democracy.” The fact remains that, after the democratic reforms of the 1990s, the KMT still exists as a major party in Taiwan. We take this opportunity to consider how it managed to transform from an apparatus of a dictatorial party-state into a party adapted to a bourgeois democratic system.

A year ago today, the Indian government led by the right-wing Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) revoked the special status of India’s only Muslim-majority state of Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir by abrogating Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, and divided the state into two federally controlled Union Territories. What is the situation today?

Comrade Amin arrived at his home in Karachi in the early morning of 1 August, following 18 days in confinement, after being abducted on 14 July by the Rangers (a paramilitary organisation in Pakistan). His release was only possible due to our international campaign, and solidarity from comrades and sympathisers of the IMT across the whole world. Amin's family and all the comrades in Pakistan are

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International solidarity is flooding in as people all around the world are demanding the release of Mohammad Amin. Comrade Amin was abducted by the Pakistan Rangers on 14 July 2020 in Karachi and his whereabouts are still unknown. His home was raided by the Rangers who forcefully entered his house without any legal permission. Originally published by the Pakistan Trade Union Solidarity Campaign.

Comrade Muhammad Amin, an active member of the Progressive Youth Alliance in Karachi, was abducted from his home in the Shah Faisal Colony in Karachi by the Rangers (a paramilitary force in Pakistan) on 14 July. To this day no one knows his whereabouts, not even the police and high court in Pakistan.

As the economic crisis in Pakistan heads for a catastrophe, with millions being thrown into extreme poverty and death due to hunger and deprivation, state repression is also reaching unprecedented levels. Every avenue for expressing dissent and anger is being strangled. Progressive Youth Alliance activist, Comrade Amin, is one of many people abducted by the brutal state. Release Amin!

We are very excited to announce that dozens of important articles from marxist.com are newly available in the Vietnamese language! This very important addition to our website will make our revolutionary ideas available to an entirely new audience.

The Central Trade Unions (CTUs), comprising 16 unions, called for protests all over India on 3 July, which took place throughout the country. Nearly 100,000 demonstrations occurred in all the states of India including Puducherry, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Odisha and Maharashtra. In these demonstrations, protestors agitated outside their union offices, in plants, and on streets and roads. This strike was accompanied by a coal workers’ strike against privatisation, lasting three days from 2-4 July.

Police brutality and intimidation, particularly against Muslims and lower castes, has been rampant in India for decades. Under prime minister Modi’s COVID-19 lockdown, it is getting even worse. Several cases have been making headlines in recent months. In the context of the global movement against racism and police brutality, ignited after the murder of black American George Floyd, Marxists vigorously raise the demand to end police brutality but explain that it is impossible without a fight against the capitalist system itself.