Asia

On the surface, the conflict that has erupted in Bangladesh is over the make-up of the caretaker government that according to the constitution is supposed to run the country in the three months up to a general election. The conflict apparently is between two bourgeois fronts. But underlying this political crisis is the extreme poverty of the masses who have reached the limits of human endurance.

Peace has broken down completely in the country of Muhammad Younis, the Nobel Peace prize-winner for the year 2006. The New Year started in Bangladesh with riots, strikes, political unrest, turmoil, confusion and disorder. After weeks of street violence, which has taken 40 lives, the President of Bangladesh, Iajuddin Ahmed, has been forced to step down from his post appointing Fakhruddin as the head of a state in total disarray.

The All-Pakistan Labour Conference was held in Rawalpindi on December 19, 2006, bringing together some 500 delegates from unions and workers' associations from all across Pakistan. The goal of the conference was to unite the working class under one banner and to offer a solution to the problems and misery of the people in the struggle for socialism.

From a position of enormous strength, controlling 75% of Nepalese territory, the Maoists have agreed to form a coalition government, integrate their guerrilla forces into the bourgeois army, and limit their goal to achieving some kind of Republic in the future. But this will not solve any of the fundamental economic and social problems facing the Nepalese masses.

Successful conference organised jointly by the PTUDC and the Sindh Employees Alliance was held in Karachi on November 25. The event was held in protest at the banning of trade union in education, against the Labour Unions and Industrial Relations Ordinance (IRO) 2002 and to work towards unity of all sectors concerned.

The comrades of The Struggle are celebrating the 89th anniversary of the Russian Revolution in nearly all the cities of Pakistan, under the title: “The 89th anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the Latin American Revolution of Today.” Here we publish the invitation card for the programme in Lahore to be held at the Kisan Hall on November 7, at 3pm. They have also published a special edition of their paper of which we provide here the front page.

In April 2006 the stage was set in Nepal for a revolution that could have not only done away with the centuries old monarchy, but also swept capitalism aside, laying the foundations of a socialist society.  However, due to the bankruptcy of the so-called Communist Parties this did not happen and the revolution in April did not fulfil its tasks.

"US imperialism faces not only a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Iraqi resistance, but faces the threat of a mass movement, which could explode at any time, in the United States itself." This is the editorial of the Autumn 2006 issue of the Asian Marxist Review.

Up until recently, while Iraq was viewed as a quagmire, Afghanistan was seen as a relatively successful part of George Bush’s “War on Terror.” Now, even this silver lining is beginning to disappear.

The Sind Employees’ Alliance, a joint body of teachers’ organizations, which has been involved in a long struggle for the right to represent teachers, has officially offered its unconditional support for the PTUDC. Read the report on the PTUDC website.

The Jammu Kashmir National Students' Federation (the JKNSF), a Marxist organization of students in Kashmir, organized a protest against the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA) for its brutal policies towards the people affected by last years' earthquake.