Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou is meeting Xi Jinping, the president of China, in Singapore on Saturday. Although Taiwan and China have very close economic ties, with Taiwanese capitalists investing massively in mainland China, and many unofficial meetings taking place, as well as many lucrative contracts being signed, this will be the first ever meeting between leaders of the two countries, a historic meeting indeed.

Japanese society is in a deep crisis. After decades of economic stagnation, the political elite is making desperate attempts to revive the economy, at the same time as attempting to whip up anti-Chinese nationalist sentiment to shore up support. Yet, the recent mass movement against the reinterpretation of the so called “pacifist clause” show that the political system is reaching its limits.

As the din goes on of the media-based politics that the moneyed political elite so adores, and the petit-bourgeois hordes scramble in an orgy of lobbying the pseudo “experts” of the different factions, the oppressed masses in the depths of society look on with a passive indifference.

In the early hours of 1 October 1965 a group of "progressive army officers" kidnapped and brutally murdered six army generals, apparently in preparation for a coup. At the time, they were alleged to be in sympathy with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). In reality, the “30 September Movement” was a provocation orchestrated by the anti-communist General Suharto to justify a coup against the Indonesian leader Sukarno, with the active support of the US and British secret services.

True to its cause of serving the interests of rotten Pakistani capitalism, the current PML (N) regime has unleashed aggressive neoliberal policies—making the rich even richer and the oppressed imperilled to a fierce socioeconomic onslaught—with impunity.

The PTUDC organized a historic labour convention in the industrial city of Sialkot on Sunday the 13 of September. Sialkot is famous for exporting sports goods and surgical instruments to all over the world. Footballs used in the world cup and other important events are manufactured here by the poor, skilled labourers of Sialkot who work under very difficult conditions.

On Saturday 5 September, whilst the Pakistani ruling class celebrated a war and praised its general, the  workers in the Badar 313 factory near Gujranwala were suffering the hellish conditions of capitalism

We received this interview from a supporter who has worked in China in the recent period. It highlights the terrible conditions that many Chinese workers face today.

The General Strike called by the ten largest central trade unions CTU’s on Tuesday, September 2 was a tumultuous success. The trade union and communist leaders who had anticipated a maximum of one hundred million workers participating in the strike were flabbergasted at the sight of more than 150 million coming out on a total one-day general strike that paralyzed India

The call for the strike issued jointly by ten trade unions along with their affiliates is for the rightful demands of the workers.

A three-day strike by workers of the Forward Gear in Sialkot, Punjab has ended in victory as they have won their demands. The workers have won around 15% increment in their salaries, all sacked workers reinstated, and management has accepted their union Forward Gear Workers’ Union CBA as the true representative of workers in the company. During the three days of the strike hundreds of workers took part and achieved a total work stoppage. This is an important victory for workers in the Pakistani trade union movement and important lessons can be drawn from it.

A Marxist Summer School took place in Rawalakot, Kashmir from 8 to 10 August. More than 250 comrades from across Pakistan and Kashmir travelled rough roads in harsh economic conditions to attend the school.

While the masses have been toiling and trying their utmost to come to terms with heat, dust, humidity, unrelenting power outages, price hikes, poverty etc., the elite has been busy hurling accusations and counter allegations against each other in a theatre of the absurd. This has become almost a summer ritual which takes place every year.

August 14^th and 15^th are celebrated as the days of independence of Pakistan and India from direct British imperialist rule. It is celebrated with great pomp and fervour, prompted by the state and the corporate media. The official historians of the ruling classes both in India and Pakistan have their own interpretations of the struggle for independence, suiting the interests of their bosses. However, this independence came about in the midst of a traumatic partition of the Subcontinent into two truncated states, Pakistan and India, accompanied by a communal holocaust. A frenzy of madness and a ferocious campaign of murder were unleashed on a religious and ethnic

The world economy is tottering. This week it has been buffeted by two extremely turbulent financial storms - Greece and, suddenly, China, the world’s second largest economy. Globally, the system is extremely unbalanced, with massive wealth accumulating in tiny handfuls whilst the billioned masses must keep borrowing from these billionaires to make ends meet. This top heavy, blind and irrational system cannot stand on its own feet and the nation states are buckling under the weight. The sudden stock market collapse in China has been so vast that even the mighty Chinese government is incapable of controlling it.