The latest news coming in from Pakistan indicates how tense the situation has become. Spontaneous protest rallies broke out yesterday, continuing today, sparked off by increased transport costs, but also against the long power cuts the people have to endure. The police have responded in some cases by firing on the protestors.

In an area heavily dominated by the presence of Taliban forces, the Marxists in Pakistan organized a meeting of the PTUDC, with the participation of several important trade union leaders, with guest speaker Lal Khan, the editor of the Asian Marxist Review, speaking on the world crisis of capitalism and how it affects the South Asian subcontinent.

In a Taliban dominated area of Pakistan a Marxist lawyer has defeated the candidate of the Islamic fundamentalists. In spite of a Fatwa being issued against him, comrade Ahad stood firmly on the ideas of revolutionary socialism and won the position of President of the Malakand District Bar Association.

The Annual convention of Unemployed Youth Movement, BNT (Berozgar Naujawan Tehreek), was held on Sunday, January 17, 2010, in which 70 youngsters from all over the district participated with full devotion and revolutionary enthusiasm.

As a result of the great struggle and pressure of PTCL workers, a referendum is being conducted. The management wants to use this referendum to ensnare and divide the workers, but the workers have to use this democratic process to organize and unite in the struggle for their rights. If the privatization of PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited) is retracted then workers from all over the country will follow their footsteps and end privatizations in their own institutions. We publish here a leaflet by the PTUDC which was distributed throughout Pakistan.

The crisis in Pakistan is becoming more complex and severe. Corruption is not the cause of failure of this system, rather it is the fundamental necessity and creation of this system. The class contradictions are also expressing itself in the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. The country is moving to an inevitable social explosion.

The battle for universal health access for every Pakistani can only be won through joining it with the struggle for a socialist transformation of the society. So it is time for the doctors and nurses to join the struggle because now it’s the struggle to save the medical and healthcare system as well.

After years of military dictatorships followed by sham democracy, the situation in Pakistan has reached such a point that the masses are yearning for radical change. Their suffering is immense as the people at the top continue to enrich themselves at the expensive of the workers and peasants, collaborating with imperialism as it rides rough-shod over the people of Pakistan. Everything is moving to an inevitable revolutionary explosion.

The Unemployment Youth Movement (BNT) was recently set up in the district of Rahim Yar Khan in Pakistan. Here we provide a brief report.

Over the weekend the Pakistani Marxists held a cadre school as part of their work of building the framework of the Marxist Tendency in Pakistan. Here we provide a brief report and some pictures.

Bolshevik day, as the anniversary of the Russian revolution is known here, was celebrated with great enthusiasm across Pakistan in 30 cities in which large numbers of workers, peasants and youth participated. Here we provide reports and pictures sent in by the comrades locally.

Workers at the Steel Mills in Karachi have taken up the struggle once again for decent wages and proper contracts for the daily wage workers. In spite of attempts to stifle their struggle, the workers are determined to achieve their demands.

The sitting minister for privatisation, Naveed Qamar, has announced 12% ownership shares to half a million workers in the privatisation of 80 nationally owned institutions. Deceiving the working class into becoming owners is a condemnable conspiracy to paralyse the workers and to drive them away from the class struggle, which is the only path to their emancipation.

The workers of PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunications Corporation Limited) have been protesting and staging a sit-in at PTCL Headquarter, Islamabad, for the last 12 days on the issue of the fulfillment of the commitments made to them by the management. Their protest has been brutally supressed by the state and management.

On August 14^th, 2009 when the ruling classes were celebrating Independence Day the unemployed youth movement held protests throughout the country under the main slogan “jab tak janta bhooki hay, yeh azadi jhooti hay” which means ‘While the people are hungry, there is no real independence!’