Pakistan: Over 300 telecommunication workers and trade unionists arrested
Tuesday, June 14 @ 02:01:29 CDT

Government starts military crackdown as it announces unilateral date for privatisation of Pakistan Telecommunications

Khalid Bhatti, National Organiser of the Trade Union Rights Campaign Pakistan

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Pakistani Government starts crackdown against Telecom trade unionists
Sunday, June 12 @ 00:10:05 CDT

The stakes have been raised sharply in the battle between Pakistan’s telecommunications workers and the Musharraf government over the question of the privatisation of the industry.
Today, paramilitary police arrested 8 trade unionists and activists in Islamabad including Zafar Zaidi, a leader of the Pakistan Telecommunications Union and Tanveer Shah, a member of the Action Committee (which brings together the nine unions in the telecommunications sector) from the headquarters of the Pakistan Telecommunications Company Ltd (PTCL).
Khalid Bhatti, National Organiser Trade Union Rights Campaign Pakistan

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Sri Lankan plantation workers getting organised
Friday, June 10 @ 01:23:31 CDT

On 12 May the Socialist Plantation Workers’ Union (SPWU) opened new offices in the town of Nuwara Eliya, high up in the Sri Lankan ‘hill country’.
A report from Laurence Coates who recently visited Nuwara Eliya in Sri Lanka

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Historic Victory for Pakistan Telecommunications workers
Saturday, June 04 @ 22:09:52 CDT

Yesterday evening, in a massive victory for telecommunications workers in Pakistan the government announced the postponement of the privatisation of Pakistan Telecommunications for an indefinite period. This brought to an end the 10 day long strike of telecom workers.
Report By Rukhsana Manzoor and Aazam Janjua, Trade Union Rights Campaign Pakistan

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''Struggle or death''- Pakistan telecoms workers fight privatisation
Thursday, June 02 @ 01:27:18 CDT

"THIS IS the biggest challenge to President Musharraf of Pakistan from the trade unions on the question of privatisation since he came to power in 1998." These words from Azad Qadri, (a member of the Socialist Movement Pakistan -CWI in Pakistan - and National Deputy Secretary General of the Lions Unity Union), drew a roar of approval from the 6,000 Telecom workers occupying the headquarters of the Pakistan Telecommunications Company Ltd (PTCL). The occupation is part of their national strike against privatisation.
Report By Khalid Bhatti, Socialist Movement Pakistan and Kevin Simpson, CWI

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Pakistan: Indefinite Telecom strike started
Thursday, May 26 @ 18:34:21 CDT

Complete closedown observed all over the country.
Workers refuse to call off the strike: "We will struggle to the end, we refuse to bow down". Four thousand workers storm and occupy company headquarters
Rukhsana Manzoor Secretary Workers Education in the Muthida Labour Federation and TURC-P, Lahore

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Pakistan: Telecoms strike continues despite management manouevres
Monday, May 23 @ 02:14:58 CDT

Negotiations fail, while the movement picks up momentum.
Azad Qadri and Azam Janjuah, PTURC, Islamabad

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China-EU clash over textiles
Monday, May 16 @ 01:28:37 CDT

Growing inter-imperialist tensions between China and the European Union

Per-Åke Westerlund, cwi Sweden.

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Asia: Privatisation's gruesome death toll
Wednesday, May 04 @ 01:49:06 CDT

Sri Lanka and Japan are both reeling from horrific public transport disasters, in each case resulting from the privatisation policies of their governments and the blind chase for profits.

Laurence Coates, CWI, Colombo.

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Upheavals in China
Wednesday, May 04 @ 01:42:06 CDT

Following the upsurge in workers' protests in China and the sharp rise in tension between it and Japan, Peter Taaffe (CWI) has written this major article outlining the main developments in the potential regional colossus and relations between the powers in Asia.

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China: Beijing tries to cool anti-Japan protests
Monday, April 25 @ 05:12:02 CDT

The protests by students and young people in China, and similar protests in South Korea, against Japan’s resurgent militarism, are causing growing apprehension among world political leaders, businessmen and now, it seems, the Chinese regime itself.

Laurence Coates, Taipei

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Taiwan: Two reports from Taiwan by Laurence Coates, CWI
Thursday, April 21 @ 06:19:16 CDT

In the first he speaks to two women leaders of a Filipino workers’ protest group.
The second is a report of a meeting addressed by Laurence at Taipei University.

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China: Brutal police attack on anti-pollution protesters
Monday, April 18 @ 19:41:54 CDT

A brutal police attack on an anti-pollution protest at an industrial park on the outskirts of Dongyang city, Zhejiang province, triggered huge clashes between thousands of protesters and 3,000 riot police.
By Laurence Coates in Taipei

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Three months after tsunami, government inaction fuels the flame of protest
Saturday, April 16 @ 05:31:19 CDT

Peter Taaffe, General Secretary of the Socialist Party (England and Wales) and member of the CWI International Secretariat, recently returned to London from Sri Lanka. He visited some of the areas most devastated by the tsunami and spoke to many whose agony has turned to anger.

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China: Anti-Japan protests erupt in China
Friday, April 15 @ 19:05:27 CDT

Angry anti-Japan protests erupted in several Chinese cities at the weekend, with a crowd of 6,000 mostly students and youth marching on the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, while 3,000 demonstrated outside Japan’s consulate in the southern city of Guangzhou.
By Laurence Coates in Taipei

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Taiwan: Political theatre reveals deepening crisis
Friday, April 15 @ 18:59:57 CDT

A flurry of diplomatic initiatives and counter-initiatives from Taiwan’s sharply divided political establishment – the anti-independence pan-blue bloc and formally pro-independence pan-greens – has shifted the cross-strait issue (i.e. relations with China) into overdrive.
By Laurence Coates in Taipei

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Mass protests shake China
Wednesday, March 23 @ 23:15:09 CST

IN A sensational victory for Chinese workers and international campaigners, ten young workers (the oldest is 23 years old) in Guangdong province, jailed for protesting against pay cuts and medieval conditions at shoe factories owned by Stella International, were freed on New Year’s Eve.
By Laurence Coates

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Thailand: Tsunami carries Thaksin back to power
Friday, February 11 @ 00:37:37 CST

Prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra (pronounced ”Chin-a-what”) and his Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party are on course for a crushing parliamentary majority following the elections in Thailand on Sunday 6 February.
By Laurence Coates, Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna, Stockholm (CWI party in Sweden)

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Obituary: Zhao Ziyang, former leader of China's Communist Party
Wednesday, January 19 @ 05:13:34 CST

Zhao Ziyang, toppled as China's Communist Party (CCP) leader for opposing the military crackdown on the 1989 pro-democracy protests, has died at the age of 85, after suffering a series of strokes.

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Aceh and the tsunami
Friday, January 14 @ 23:39:14 CST

Both the military and corruption sabotage relief work
By Arne Johansson Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (CWI Sweden)
While Aceh on the northern edge of Sumatra has registered nearly two-thirds of the total death toll by the Asian tsunami, the Acehnese so far have received only 30% of UN food deliveries. More than two weeks after the catastrophe many distant villages have not yet been reached by relief workers.

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Aftermath of Tsunami in Sri Lanka
Wednesday, January 12 @ 01:25:30 CST

Good reading in run-up to public meeting next Tuesday in Melbourne (see article below for details of meeting).
This article has comments on the situation, especially in the north and east of Sri Lanka, from Senan, a CWI member from Jaffna, living in London. He includes comments from phone conversations with Siritunga Jayasuriya, Secretary of the United Socialist Party (CWI in Sri Lanka) who had a successful tour of Australia in 2000.

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Indian socialists on Tsunami
Tuesday, January 04 @ 17:42:23 CST

By Jagadish Chandra, New Socialist Alternative (CWI, India)
Tsu-nah-mee means ‘harbour waves’ in Japanese. The monumental tidal wave which hit the countries on the Indian Ocean on December 26, has taken more than 150,000 lives. It has left millions who survived with their lives devastated for decades to come. The worst hit parts of India were Tamil Nadu and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

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Australian response to Tsunami disaster
Monday, January 03 @ 00:52:38 CST

By Stephen Jolly
The massive response from ordinary people in Australia to the disaster has put corporate Australia and the Government to shame.

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Tsunami catastrophe for Sweden
Monday, January 03 @ 00:50:17 CST

The Tsunami has also become the biggest natural catastrophe of our time to affect Sweden. Among the far more than 100,000 killed are at least two thousand western tourists. Many of those, whose attempt to celebrate their Christmas in holiday paradises like Khao Lak and Phuket was turned into a hell, came from the winter cold of the Nordic countries.
By Arne Johansson, Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (CWI, Sweden)

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We interview Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rep on Tsunami
Sunday, January 02 @ 20:14:39 CST

The Indonesian “province” of Aceh on the island of Sumatra is only 155 km from the epicentre of the earthquake.

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Indian Ocean disaster: Global capitalism to blame for scale of tragedy
Sunday, January 02 @ 20:07:38 CST

Excellent and detailed socialist analysis on Tsunami tragedy by SP's international body, the CWI (Committee for a Workers International)


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Tsunamis and warning systems
Sunday, January 02 @ 19:59:55 CST

“We tried to do what we could”
Despite the biblical scale of floods and destruction, the death along the Indian Ocean coastline was no ‘Act of God’.

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Socialist victims of Tsunami
Sunday, January 02 @ 19:51:16 CST

The tragic devastation wreaked by the earthquake and tidal wave in the Indian Ocean has killed tens of thousands of people. In Sri Lanka alone, the death toll has reached 13,000 and is still rising.
A number of members of the United Socialist Party (CWI Sri Lanka) are missing, including comrade Piyatilake, a member of the USP's Central Committee who was living and working in Galle, one of the towns in the South of Sri Lanka to have been hardest hit by the 'Tsunami'. Relatives of other party members have been killed and the homes of many have been destroyed.

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Taiwan’s elections: Chen won't act without Bush
Thursday, December 02 @ 19:43:18 CST

By, Laurence Coates, Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna, Stockholm, Sweden
Ahead of Taiwan's elections on 11 December, Taiwanese socialist Huang Ding-wang who is living abroad gave the following interview to Laurence Coates of Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (CWI Sweden).

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China: Explosion of class struggle sweeps the country
Saturday, November 27 @ 20:00:23 CST

The rapidly changing situation in China is of vital importance to socialists internationally.
By Laurence Coates, Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna, Stockholm, CWI in Sweden.
(The following material was written for discussion at the International Executive Committee meeting of the CWI held in November in order to highlight the social and labour turmoil in China)

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