Asia

By the Socialist Party of Malaysia

August 13, 2009 -- Pulau Pinang, Malaysia -- PSM -- Today was the moment of truth for Kampung Buah Pala villagers. It was the third time that their homes have faced demolition. But it was the first time that the local villagers outnumbered the outsiders who were the majority during the previous attempt on August 4. Today, when the police, the developer and the bailiff came, the villagers did not have the luxury of the presence of state assemblymen, MPs, the state government representative or even lawyers. Only a handful of Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM, Parti Sosialis Malaysia) members and Hindraf [a civil rights organisation] supporters were with the villagers.

By Farooq Tariq

On August 9, 2009, Tariq Mehmood, a human rights activists and general secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan (LPP) in the Toba Tek Singh district issued a press release to the journalists in Toba Tek Singh. He alleged that eight Christian women were raped by Muslim fanatics in an attack on Korian village in Gojra Tehsil on July 28 attack. He also alleged that 40 women are still missing and no clue is yet found about their whereabouts. He condemned this atrocious and horrific act and demanded the government to probe the case. More than 60 houses were burnt by fanatics in the village on the accusation of blasphemy. This act led to another attack on Gojra Christian community and nine people were burnt alive.

By Jon Dillingham

Thanh Nien -- August 10, 2009, was the first Orange Day organised in Vietnam –- not only to be remembered by victims of Agent Orange but to mark Vietnam's common pain. Those responsible for exposing Vietnamese citizens and US troops to toxic defoliants kept silent about known health implications, a review of documents finds.

US chemical companies that made Agent Orange and the government and military authorities who ordered its spraying on Vietnam knew the human health toll it could take, according to official and unofficial documents detailing the history of the deadly defoliant.

A review of the documents related to the use of Agent Orange –- a dioxin-laden herbicide -– in Vietnam, including decades-old declassified papers from the companies that manufactured it and the government and military that used it, provides compelling evidence that those in charge also concealed evidence of the devastating effects it could have on people.

[See also South Korea: Graphic photos, video -- Ssangyong sit-in workers' appeal: `Our lives are at stake'.]

By Young-su Won

August 6, 2009 -- After days of harsh and inhumane assaults by riot police and company thugs on striking workers occupying the Ssangyong Motor plant in Pyeongtaek, near Seoul, the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU) and management reached an agreement: the union accepted part of the company’s redundancy proposal, saving about half the strikers’ jobs, while the rest will apply for voluntary retirement or unpaid long-term leave, or accept another job with the spin-off company.

By Norm Dixon

August 6 and August 9 mark the anniversaries of the US atomic-bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. In Hiroshima, an estimated 80,000 people were killed in a split second. Some 13 square kilometres of the city were obliterated. By December, at least another 70,000 people had died from radiation and injuries.

Three days after Hiroshima's destruction, the US dropped an A-bomb on Nagasaki, resulting in the deaths of at least 70,000 people before the year was out.

Since 1945, tens of thousands more residents of the two cities have continued to suffer and die from radiation-induced cancers, birth defects and still births.

A tiny group of US rulers met secretly in Washington and callously ordered this indiscriminate annihilation of civilian populations. They gave no explicit warnings. They rejected all alternatives, preferring to inflict the most extreme human carnage possible. They ordered and had carried out the two worst single terror acts in human history.

Urgent appeal by the Korean Metal Workers Union and Korean Confederation of Trade Unions

By S. Arutchelvan

August 1, 2009 -- Parti Sosialis Malaysia -- The 40,000-strong mobilisation today in Kuala Lumpur and the thousands who did not make it because of police roadblocks gave a very clear and precise message to Malaysia's Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak: repeal the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA).

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See also the statement by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, ``Call to Action: Stop Police Suppression against the Striking workers of Ssangyong Motors!''

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Scroll down for earlier coverage.

Urgent Appeal: Ssangyong Motor workers’ lives in danger! Solidarity urgent!

Monday, August 3, 2009

Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU)

inter@metal.nodong.org

Dear friends,

We urgently request your solidarity regarding Ssangyong Motor Workers’ dispute. It is urgent for the Korean government to step up and play a role toward a peaceful settlement!

Our union members’ lives are in danger.

July 4, 2009 -- Green Left Weekly -- By Dominggus Oktavianus, Ulfa Ilyas and Rudi Hartono, translated by Data Brainanta

More than 2500 people from the Volunteers of People’s Struggle for the Liberation of Motherland (SPARTAN) held a festive anti-neoliberalism protest in front of the National Election Commission on July 1 in Jakarta.  The multi-sector coalition, initiated by the People’s Democratic Party (PRD) to intervene in the 2009 election, held similar protests involving more than 1200 people in Makassar on the island of Sulawesi. Hundreds rallied in Surabaya, Medan, Lampung, and protests occurred in 11 other cities.

June 19, 2009 -- Mericio Juvinal dos Reis, or Akara as he is commonly known, is the executive director of Luta Hamutuk, a non-government organisation based in Dili, East Timor. Akara was a featured guest at the World at a Crossroads conference, hosted by Green Left Weekly, held in Sydney in April 2009. Vannessa Hearman spoke with Akara about East TImor’s ongoing struggle for genuine self-determination and development.

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East Timor won its independence formally in 2002, after a long and bloody struggle against Indonesian occupation from 1975 to 1999. In 1999, a United Nations-sponsored referendum was held, in which the Timorese people voted to be independent from Indonesia.

Luta Hamutuk was set up in 2005 by a group of young activists, including Akara. Akara had been involved in pro-independence activities as a student in Indonesia. He was a member of the Timorese Socialist Party but left in 2003.

By George Katsiaficas