On April 9 of this year Indonesia held its fourth 'democratic' elections since its independence in 1945. What has been lacking throughout this period had been a genuine labour movement based mass workers' party. This has coloured debate on the left including the question of "boycott". What is required is a return to Lenin and a study of how he dealt with the question in the Tsarist Duma.

After years of guerrilla struggle the Nepalese Maoists agreed to put down their arms, become a parliamentary party, and eventually enter government. Now they have been manoeuvred out of office and there is an urgent need to draw up a balance sheet and decide which way they are going to go.

We have received this interesting letter from a reader in Nepal who highlights the shortcomings of the Prachanda-led Maoists in the light of the latter’s resignation from government.

The recent elections in India have been hailed by the bourgeois media as a turn a way from the left. This is not the case at all. What is true is that the policies of the two main Communist parties have been such that the masses could not identify in them a clear alternative to Congress. The Communist parties paid a dear price for this. Now the task is to learn from this experience and break with class-collaborationist policies.

We provide an update on the situation in the relief camps set up in Swat by the PTUDC. In spite of threats from the authorities the comrades continue with their activities, of both aid and political education.

The Sri Lankan government, along with the bourgeois press, is loudly celebrating the apparent defeat of the Tamil Tigers and their leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran. The government is saying that the long civil war in Sri Lanka that has killed as many as 80,000 people is finally over and that peace and prosperity can finally return to Sri Lanka's people, including its Tamil population. Many Tamils, rightfully, feel that this is not the case - especially in the context of the present world economic crisis ‑ and that their situation in Sri Lanka will not improve.

The plight of the people of war torn Swat/Malakand is a terrible one. They are the innocent victims of the conflict inside the Pakistani state and very little is being done by the authorities to help them. Many families are living out in the open. The PTUDC has organised volunteers and set up camps for those fleeing from the war zone. They need financial aid and we appeal to you to help.

The plight of people in the Swat/Malakand region of Pakistan has recently hit the headlines, presented as another example of Taliban activity. In reality sections of the state has long sponsored these activities. Now those who are suffering are the ordinary workers and peasants. The Marxists have set up camps to help in the relief operations, but what is ultimately required is the overthrow of the rotten regime itself.

In 42 towns and cities across Pakistan the PTUDC organised a series of rallies, marches and meetings to celebrate May Day. Here we provide a general report and plenty of pictures that provide flavour of the events that took place.

Twenty five years have passed since more than 3000 innocent people of the minority Sikh community were brutally massacred, their properties burnt down, ransacked and looted and their women gang raped by the mob in Delhi and elsewhere in India, during the anti-Sikh pogrom of November 1984. Many of those responsible still hold important political positions. The tactic of "Divide and Rule" is still kept in reserve by the Indian ruling class, as this case shows.

The throwing of shoes at political leaders has become very fashionable lately as this report reveals. In some cases so concerned have the organisers of rallies become that they have forced the participants to remove their shoes and leave them outside!

The workers at this important oil refinery in Pakistan have set up a union and are demanding, among other things, that the temporary staff be given permanent contracts.

The media make out that the Taliban have genuine mass support in Pakistan, but in this article we see how they are actually promoted by forces within the state that see them as a useful instrument in terrorising the local people and as a means of maintaining their own corrupt rule. And we shouldn’t forget the role of US imperialism in promoting them in the first place!