Introduction: In June this year, Shahrukh Jatoi the son of a Sindhi feudal landlord, was handed the death penalty after being found guilty of shooting dead university student Shahzeb Khan last December. The case raised furore all over Pakistan as it was a clear example of the corruption and cronyism that exists within Paksitani society. As Khan's father said: “This is the brutal reign of the feudals. They don’t spare anyone.”. Despite being found guilty and sentenced to death Jatoi was pardoned last week after paying Khan's family a sum of 350 million Rs ($3.3m).

The killing of five Indian military personnel in firing across the line-of-control (LOC)  in Kashmir has once again laid bare the underlying tensions and the ongoing crisis that have become a festering wound for the people of Kashmir for the last sixty six years.

The maiden speech by the third time prime minister, Mian Nawaz Sharif, was no different from the ones we have heard from the rulers of this tragic land ever since its creation.

“In terms of the numbers killed, the anti-PKI massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the twentieth century". (CIA study in 1968)

On July the 1^st at Mavalankar Hall, New Delhi, a historic convention was held. At this convention, leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India, the All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) agreed on the text of a declaration, an alternative policy platform, with which they will approach “all democratic parties and mass organisations” in the lead up to next year’s Lok Sabha elections.

In this period of world economic crisis, Indonesia has been hailed as a miracle economy, registering a solid 6% annual growth for the past few years amid a sputtering world economy. However, despite this impressive growth, Indonesia cannot escape from the clutches of austerity that is gripping the whole world.

Over the past few weeks Indian politics has been rife with talk of a new electoral front being built to challenge the political hegemony of the currently ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), led by the Congress Party, and its rival National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP). But, what does this discussion actually represent?

Since the 2008 financial crisis there has been no respite for world capitalism. Its crisis has been deepening on a daily basis. The European Union, the world second largest economy is back in recession. Stocks and bonds have fallen sharply across world capitals.

Just hours before the beginning of the peace talks between the Taliban and the US delegation in Qatar the mercurial Afghan President Karzai suspended talks on a long-term security deal to keep US troops in Afghanistan after NATO leaves in 2014.

Imran Khan’s Tsunami that was supposed to sweep across the political landscape of Pakistan failed to materialise. As the election results started to pour in, the heightened hopes of the supporters of the PTI were dashed. In a period where ideological politics was forced into oblivion by the forces of finance capital and the betrayal of the opportunist leaders of the PPP at the helm there was a yawning vacuum for the rise of a new political formation that could challenge the status quo.

There is immense euphoria mainly in the Pakistani media, the political superstructure, “civil society” and the political outfits serving as umbrella organisations for diverse NGO’s on the appointment of Dr. Abdul Maalik as the chief minister of Baluchistan by Nawaz Sharif. What lies behind this euphoria?

Although the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) bagged more seats in the May 2013 election compared to the 1997 elections the impact of last month’s defeat is far greater. This undoubtedly will have profound repercussions as PPP activists may succumb to pessimism. Questions over the PPP’s future haunt its supporters. The chattering classes are incestuously debating the PPP defeat, albeit superficially.

Most of the elitist actors at the helm of the political edifice personify the social, moral, ethical, and cultural decay through which the country is passing presently

The WAPDA workers union, the largest organized force in Pakistan is have a referendum in two days. The comrades of the PTUDC are intervening in the referendum with a revolutionary programme. Here we provide our readers with the English translation of their main leaflet. WAPDA  - Water & Power Distribution Authority – is a key department in Pakistan, responsible for the generation, transmission and distribution of Power in whole country.

The situation in Nepal is rapidly deteriorating. The living forces of the revolution are witnessing the withering away of a process that abolished one of the worst symbols of feudalism in the world, the monarchy. The hopes of millions of Nepalis have been put on hold. As yet there has been no meaningful land reform, poverty is still a major problem and the country’s economy is being taken over by foreign capitalists; all this with the former insurgency leaders in the government!