Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Ottoman Empire’s attack on Armenians. On April 24, 1915, several hundred Armenian intellectuals were rounded up, arrested and later executed. This was the start of the Armenian genocide, a bloody massacre which was to last until 1917. Here we republish Alan Woods’ article that covers this tragic episode during the First World War.

The strategy of investment is the core economic policy of Pakistan’s political elite and our domineering intelligentsia. They portray investment as the only means of growth and development, a way to generate employment and to alleviate and poverty. This would be hilarious nonsense were it not so devastating for the working masses.

The Pakistani masses have reacted very negatively to the prospects of becoming an accomplice in the Saudi Monarchy’s brutal aggression against Yemen. This response has shocked Pakistan’s ruling elite, the state’s bosses, the media and the intelligentsia. Even some in the media have dared to reveal the vicious character of the despotic Saudi regime and its atrocious treatment of more than 2.5 million Pakistani immigrant workers banished into slavery and drudgery by these tyrannical monarchs

If the armed struggle, religious fundamentalism, nationalism and other such notions of people’s freedom in Indian occupied Kashmir have failed to deliver any respite to the oppressed masses, the rhetoric of ‘democracy’ and ‘development’ are equally no solution. In reality they are mere deceptions. The PDP’s coalition with BJP is nothing but a blatant betrayal and an insult added to injury for the Kashmiri masses that voted for the PDP in the recent elections, making it the largest party in the Kashmir state assembly.

The crisis in the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has now reached its very peak, with a feud erupting between long-time friends and close allies, former minister Zulfiqar Mirza and the party’s Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari. This struggle marks a bitter fight for the leadership involving Zardari’s and Benazir Bhutto’s own son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who has recently entered the political scene as PPP chairman. The party’s mass roots and support among the working class have been severely undermined by the extreme corruption of the leadership and many years spent in office carrying out pro-imperialist and neo-liberal policies. Here is Lal Khan’s take on these events.

A huge anti-privatisation rally was organised by the All-Pakistan WAPDA Hydro Electric Union of the Water and Power Development Authority in Islamabad on 18th February, 2015. Workers from all over Pakistan gathered in front of the Islamabad Press Club with red flags and banners against privatisation. This was the largest protest WAPDA has organised in recent times and the workers were determined to fight against this latest attack of the state against workers.

Newly released figures show that the Chinese economy in 2014 experienced its lowest economic growth since 1990. Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund downgraded its 2015 growth projection for China from 7.1% to 6.8%. According to the Financial Times, 30 out of China’s 31 provinces had missed their growth targets for 2014 – the only one which didn’t was Tibet, by far the country’s smallest regional economy.

At the beginning of January 500,000 miners in the nationalised coal industry in India went on strike against governmental plans to privatise coal mining. This monumental show of strength in defiance of the Coal Ordnance law is indicative both of the tensions within Indian society and the pressure that is being brought to bear on the leadership of the working class to put up a fight.

Despite all the Keynesian experiments and the monetary stimulus, China has failed to escape the global economic crisis. In 2014 its economic growth dropped to 7.4%, the weakest in 24 years. For the first time in 16 years growth missed the government’s annual target (7.5%).

Some of the most deceitful forms of elections and ‘democracy’ are to be found these days in countries that are suffering direct or indirect military aggression and occupation by world and regional imperialist powers. The elections and governments in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries under imperialist occupation are, in the last analysis, a tragic farce. Indian-controlled Kashmir is no different because it is directly under the boot of the imperialist Indian military – an occupation enforced by the so-called ‘largest democracy’ in the world using one of the largest military deployments on earth and draconian laws like The Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002 (POTA) to infringe the basic

The Progressive Youth Alliance organised a National Marxist (winter) Youth School from 5 to 7 December 2014. The venue was the five thousand year old historical city of Mohenjo Daro. This city excavated in 1922 is the largest amongst all the excavations of the Indus Valley Civilization.

The attack by the Taliban on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Tuesday 16th December 2014 was perhaps the most barbaric and brutal attack carried out by the fundamentalists to date. It was to be the deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan in memory, claiming 141 lives including 132 children. On top of this over 125 people had been injured, predominantly children.

The massacre of 141 people including 132 children by the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban at the Peshawar Army Public School yesterday was probably the most heinous barbarity ever seen even in Pakistan, which has been victim to this scourge for decades now. Hardly a day passes without suicide attacks, terrorist bombing or target killings in this tragic country.

There is such a furore surrounding the movements of Qadri, Imran and most recently the PTI on the television screens and airwaves that ordinary people, who are already suffering from the brutal socioeconomic crisis, are left bewildered. The ongoing vicious cycle of talks and confrontations followed by the resumption of yet more talks, causes even greater despair for people’s already agitated minds and beleaguered souls. Some have come to the conclusion that if they avoided the television talk shows and news bulletins they would be better off. They could live without the stress and boredom the continuous rows and monotonous speeches with no real content or optimism. The bosses of the

Comrade Ali Wazir is a proclaimed supporter of the IMT. His mass popularity and support in this primitive region - the so-called bastion of the Taliban - shows that if the struggle for a socialist revolution is conducted with correct tactics, courage and determination, Marxists can win the support in these extremely hazardous areas, especially amongst the students and the youth.