Asia

The whole world has been rocked by the news of the slaughter in Andijan, where demonstrators were shot down in cold blood by the security forces of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov. George Bush has a lot to say about regime change in Iraq and democracy in the Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus, but has maintained a deafening silence about the regime of terror of his good friend President Karimov.

On March 28 2004 in Tashkent terrorists blew up an apartment block and shot dead three policemen. The following day a suicide bomber killed herself and 18 other people at a local market. But this wave of terrorist attacks was not widely reported in the Russian press because it did not threaten the hated regime of Islam Karimov. On the contrary, it strengthened his leadership, giving him an excuse to step his persecution of anybody who crossed his path.

The revolutionary process, which has gripped one republic after another in the CIS, is gradually stealing upon the outposts of reaction. While before “strong” leaders were inclined to explain the problems of their unlucky colleagues in terms of their softness and intellectual complexes, we now see that Uzbek President Karimov finds himself in a crisis, and he is one of the most ruthless leaders in the CIS, who has driven the opposition into the underground and its leaders into prisons or emigration.

The Musharraf regime wants to privatise Pakistan Steel Mills, the largest industrial complex in the country. The workers at the plant have started a struggle against the privatisation attempt. Discontent among the workers is increasing day by day, and there is now a mood and desire to unite all the trade unions on a single point agenda: “unite to fight and fight to win”. Read the article on the PTUDC website.

Dozens of journalists have been beaten and detained in Islamabad, with police charging the journalists in Lahore. The journalists have staged a sit-in outside Governor House in Karachi, as countrywide rallies were held in Pakistan called by the PFUJ to observe International Press Freedom Day.

The working class in Pakistan is on the move after decades of inactivity. The Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign (PTUDC) organized for May Day on a national level. There was widespread participation of workers, trade union leaders, political activists and youth in the May Day events in 26 different cities. We present here a detailed report of the events.

After three and a half years of US occupation, peace, stability, and freedom are restricted in the presidential enclave behind huge concrete blocks in Kabul. Here is where Mr. Karzai resides. American mercenaries guard him, advised or dictated to, whatever you may call it, by American diplomats and instructed by the State Department in Washington.

Recent nationalist, anti-Japanese demonstrations have brought to the surface many contradictions within Chinese society and also between China and its main rivals. The authorities have tolerated these demonstrations, as they do not threaten the regime as such. It shows how far the so-called Chinese Communist Party has degenerated in its ever-growing embrace of capitalism and all the monstrosities that go with it.

The arrest, and subsequent release, of comrade Manzoor, the Marxist MP in Pakistan, together with other MPs and thousands of PPP workers and activists was covered by the main TV channels and newspapers in the country. The masses will not forget who the real opponents of the regime are.

The arrest, and subsequent release, of comrade Manzoor, the Marxist MP in Pakistan, together with other MPs and thousands of PPP workers and activists was covered by the main TV channels and newspapers in the country. The masses will not forget who the real opponents of the regime are.

The coverage of last week’s events in Kyrgyzstan in the western media is, as one might expect, superficial and misleading. There is no attempt to lay bare what interests are involved, and what the role of the big powers is. Suddenly, without any explanation, Kyrgyzstan’s “tulip revolution” joins Georgia’s “rose revolution” and Ukraine’s orange one. The reader is invited to take solace from the bare assertion that democracy always triumphs in the end, Good defeats Bad, Light over Darkness and so on. In other words, we have no serious explanation of what is happening.