Two weeks after South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s (윤석열) shocking attempt at placing the country under martial law – which was defeated after 6 hours – the South Korean National Assembly finally voted to impeach him on Saturday 14 December.

The Philippines was ravaged by the sixth typhoon of the month in November, but no one from the ruling class is putting any meaningful effort into alleviating the disaster for the masses. Instead, they are preoccupied with another storm: the rancorous political fracas between former allies President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. (also known as ‘BBM’) and Vice President Sara Duterte.

The Revolutionary Communist Party has been founded. This party will smash all obstacles to become a leading force in the masses’ struggle against the rotten Pakistani regime and imperialism.

Protests have rocked the Georgian capital of Tbilisi for eight days straight, with angry crowds surrounding the parliament building, bearing Jersualem Cross and EU flags and hurling fireworks at police lines. The opposition at the head of the movement denies the legitimacy of the ‘pro-Russian’ Georgian Dream regime. Meanwhile, western politicians lavish praise on the protestors and threaten sanctions, seeing an opportunity to drag Georgia firmly under their sphere of influence – all (naturally) in the name of upholding ‘democracy’.

A spectacular political whirlwind has taken place in South Korea, where the President suddenly declared martial law in the name of “defending the country from pro-North Korean forces,” only to be forced to roll it back in a matter of hours. Why did this extraordinary move turn into a farce so quickly, and what forces has this unleashed in the crisis-ridden country?

We have received the following letter from a group of young communists in Azerbaijan, which we are delighted to republish here and have no doubt will be of great interest to our readers, as it gives a very interesting insight into the present situation in that country.

On 14 October, thousands of students at the Punjab Group of Colleges (PGC) protested in Lahore. The students came out in protest after an incident in which a female student was raped by a security guard at Campus 10 of Punjab College Lahore, according to the protesters. Thousands of students from dozens of campuses of PGC Lahore were joined by students from several other colleges and universities in cities across Punjab and beyond.

After only three years in power, Japan’s former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (岸田 文雄) announced that he was resigning his post on 14 August. The resulting leadership contest for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the end nominated ex-Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba (石破 茂) as the country’s new Prime Minister. Now, the new PM has called a snap general election in October to consolidate his position.

Since 9 September 1,500 Samsung workers at a huge plant in Chennai, India (representing 75 percent of the workforce) have been on strike. They are organised under the banner of the CITU (Centre of Indian Trade Unions), which is affiliated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM). Their core demand for union recognition is being fought bitterly by the bosses and state government. There have been several arrests, including of the national leader of the CITU. Still, the workers are holding their ground. 

Two weeks ago, the US Department of Commerce put forward a bill proposing to ban car parts and software linked to China or Russia. The White House held a press briefing and published a fact sheet justifying this, with implications that this was a measure to prevent terrorist attacks. The irony of such measures coming so soon after the US-sanctioned Israeli terror attack that was carried out using technological sabotage appears to have been lost on them.

After the dramatic fall of the Hasina dictatorship – the so-called ‘Bangla Spring Revolution’ – the mass of people in Bangladesh started to dream once again for their promised happiness. Little did they know how far they are from the promised ‘happy ever after’ fairytale.

As the world reels between escalating wars and economic stagnation, the Chinese masses are also suffering from the consequences of these developments.

‘Marxist-leaning president wins Sri Lanka’s elections’: this is how the result of the country’s presidential elections on the weekend have been reported in the international press. The headlines are incorrect, but the facts are sensational enough.

Two years ago, the world bore witness to extraordinary events in Sri Lanka. On 9 July 2022, the Sri Lankan masses swept aside the heavy cordon of police outside the presidential palace as if it was little more than a cobweb. To the astonishment of the world, Gotabaya Rajapaksa had to flee in a panic.

In the past weeks, the ruling party of Vietnam, the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) experienced a sudden change of leadership after the death of its aging General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng on 19 July. Trọng had been the de facto supreme leader of the country for 13 years, and oversaw a process of concentrating power in the state and in his person, not unlike the process in China around Xi Jinping. What is the significance of this post being passed on to Tô Lâm, the President? How will all this affect the perspectives of Vietnam and its class struggle moving forward?