On April 18, 2008, three days following the surprising victory of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) for representation in that country's Constitutional Assembly, the chairman of the party, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, known by his nom du guerre, PRACHANDA, granted Regenerate Film's documentary team this unprecedented interview at 6 am.
By Reihana Mohideen
The Wall Street crisis seems light years away from the side streets of Manila’s urban poor slums. For the labouring masses in the Philippines the capitalist system has been in crisis for some time now, unable to deliver life’s basic necessities: jobs and a living wage; affordable quality healthcare and education; and food security.
According to official National Statistics Office data poverty levels have increased between 2003 and 2006, and 2008 is expected to be the worst year since the 1998 Asian economic crisis. Between April 2007 and April 2008 the labour force grew by only 81,000, while the number of unemployed rose by 249,000, i.e. triple the increase in the labour force. In 2008 the number of employed persons fell by 168,000 and there was no employment generation in April of this year. Jobs were being lost at a time when prices and inflation were skyrocketing.
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
-- Langston Hughes, 1951
By Kavita Krishnan
`A Maoist Vision for a New Nepal' -- MP3 recordings of a talk by Nepal's Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Daha
September 3, 2008 -- In his first interview since he became Nepal's prime minister, Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) chairperson Pushpa Kamal Dahal ``Prachanda'' spoke to Rabindra Mishra of BBC's Nepali Service about the strategies of his new government.
BBC: In the past Maoist leaders had vowed not to keep any private property. They handed over their private properties to the party. Now, what will you do to your salary that you will be drawing as prime minister?
That (money) will go to the country and the people. It will be deposited in the party treasury. Except some amount for the general upkeep, the salary will be deposited in the party treasury.
Then, how can one be assured of the right to private property under your government when you are yourself are not keeping private property?
By Giles Ji Ungpakorn
September 2, 2008, Bangkok -- For the past two or more years, especially since the September 2006 coup, Thai society has been hypnotised into forgetting about the real social and political issues. Instead, the whole of society and, most tragically, the social movements have been entranced by a fight between two factions of the Thai ruling class.
On the one side are the deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his disbanded Thai Rak Thai Party, its successor the Peoples Power Party government of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej. Opposing them are a loose collection of authoritarian royalists comprising the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the pro-coup royalist military, the pro-coup judiciary and the Democrat Party. The authoritarian royalists are not a unified body. They only share a collective interest in wiping out Thaksin’s party.
By the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation
August 18, 2008 -- The communally and politically motivated May 26 decision of the Congress Party-People's Democratic Party (PDP) government of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to transfer forest land [in Muslim-majority Kashmir] to the Hindu Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) [for use as a pilgrimage site near a sacred Hindu cave] is having costly repercussions, with the added danger that it may emerge as a communal [flashpoint] nationally.
The land transfer, taken in the context of irresponsible official remarks recommending changes in the demography and “culture” of the region as a “solution” to the Kashmir “problem”, was like a spark to the tinderbox of pent-up resentment in the Kashmir Valley. Lives were lost when police opened fire on protesters; the PDP tried to distance itself from its ministers’ decision in favour of the land transfer by pulling out of the government; and the government on July 1 was belatedly forced to roll back the land transfer decision.
The landslide victory by Justice Party leader Anwar Ibrahim in the August 26 Permatang Pauh by-election is welcomed in this commentary by Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, the first federal parliamentarian of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM), as a "marker of the massive change" and another development that will open up democratic space in Malaysia.
By Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj
The
by-election results in Permatang Pauh, a semi-rural constituency in the
northern state of Penang, is yet another marker of the massive change
that is taking place in Malaysian politics. Usually by-elections are
won handsomely by the Barisan National (BN) government because the BN
will approve millions of ringgit in development projects, deploy all
its main leaders in the campaign and use the subservient media to the
fullest. This was attempted in Permatang Pauh this time around.
The Vietnam Update will be held at University House, Australian National
University on 6-7 November 2008. The 2008 Vietnam Update addresses the
topic of labour in Vietnam.
Vietnam is one of the world's fastest growing economies and has undergone
a remarkable transformation over the last two decades from a poor, mostly
agricultural country to a new centre of global industrial production.
However, for three years in a row, factories throughout the country have
been hit by waves of strikes. Complaints about low wages, harsh conditions
and the high cost of living have come to the fore in labour disputes.
Industrial unrest has increased in 2008, a year of soaring inflation and
slowing growth. Below the surface, rarely manifested in the strikes, are
diverse concerns about inadequate social infrastructure for migrant
workers, the quality of the workforce, the representation of worker's
interests, the unregulated informal sector, and the social and cultural
costs of Vietnam's rapid metamorphosis into a globalised industrial
society.
The 2008 Vietnam Update takes up the timely issue of labour in Vietnam. It
will explore the theme of labour broadly, including Vietnam's position in
regional labour markets; everyday working conditions and experiences; the