News from around the world

Three leftist parties, Awami Party Pakistan, Labour Party Pakistan and Worker’s Party Pakistan, will formally merge into a new party called the Awami Workers Party on November 11 as a first step towards building an alternative to the status quo which has brought Pakistani state and society to the brink of collapse. This was stated by leaders of the three parties at a press conference held on Friday at the Islamabad Hotel.

On 11 October 2012 in Joymanirhat, Bhurungamari, Bangladesh Krishok Federation and Bangladesh Kishani Sabha organized a mourn and protest rally demanding immediate punishment to the killers of Abdul Karim who was the President of Bangladesh Krishok Federation Bhurungamari Sub-district Committee and the Central Committee Member of the same. Thousands of people took part in the procession to the street and paraded almost 4 kilometres long distance.

In late July 2012 San Francisco Superior Court Judge Curtis E.A. Karnow imposed $243,279.50 in punitive attorney fees against Socialist Action National Secretary Jeff Mackler and five other plaintiffs, who, two years earlier, had filed a law suit against the state of California challenging important provisions of Proposition 14, the new and infamous “Top Two” election law.

On a cool, damp Saturday afternoon, on the front steps of Toronto’s Old
City Hall, nearly one hundred people gathered to demand "Reproductive
Justice: Equal Access Now!"

Japanese civic movements held a press conference and released a statement on territorial conflicts between Japan, China, and Korea on Friday, September 28. The statement was initiated by a small number of activists of peace movement, intellgentsia, media people, and lawyers.

Good news from Gilgit. We just got the confirmed reports that Baba Jan, federal youth secretary Labour Party Pakistan and chief organiser Progressive Youth Front Gilgit, has been released after nearly a year in jail. His bail was accepted on Saturday in the last of the cases registered against him.

The Revolutionary Socialists Movement affirms its complete rejection of all attacks on religious sites and symbols, whether Muslim or Christian. They strengthen sectarian tendencies and polarisation; breaking the ranks of the majority of the masses of workersand peasants, the poor and the oppressed. Such attacks weaken the masses’ struggles, their unity and the development of their consciousness and self-organisation in the battle against the gang of exploiters and investors which govern and control the livelihoods and fates of millions.

Labour Party Pakistan is calling a nationwide strike on Saturday 15 September in all factories and institutions against the killings of 289 in Karachi textile factory and 25 in Lahore shoe factory during the last 24 hours. Labour Qaumi Movement and National Trade Union Federation have announced full support for the call.

Last year, human rights activist Baba Jan Hunzai spoke out as an advocate for the former residents of Hunza Valley, whose homes were swept away by the lake formed after a 2010 land slide blocked the flow of the Hunza River.

Socialist Resistance leader Dave Packer died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage at the age of sixty five. His funeral took place on Friday 20 July, attended by 100 people and opened by his partner of almost 30 years Jane Kelly.