Asia and the Pacific

Debate blocked at Australian Education Union “briefing” on sellout deal in Victoria

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 04:42:51 GMT

At an AEU meeting, officials declared out of order a resolution opposing their agreement with the state Labor government.

Prominent New Zealand entertainer Lynda Topp denounces government’s military budget

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 03:46:24 GMT

The speech by one of the country’s foremost entertainers fiercely denounced government cuts to the arts budget amid soaring military spending.

Sri Lankan police arrest Tamil rapper under draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 03:39:36 GMT

The World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party condemn the arrest of Sangeethsan Ganeskumar—a blatant attack on freedom of expression—and demand his immediate and unconditional release.

Australia: Gold mining company handed meagre fine for worker’s amputation

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 01:39:49 GMT

A 23-year-old labourer’s arm was ripped off by a drilling machine at the Cadia East mine near Orange, New South Wales. Almost three years later, the company was fined just $750,000.

Australia: Poor communities hit by largest diphtheria outbreak on record

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:49:58 GMT

Most cases have occurred in the Northern Territory, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, among the poorest and most oppressed layers of the Australian population, the hardest hit.

The Philippines engulfed in acute political and constitutional crisis

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:39:29 GMT

The Senate standoff in the Philippines has spiraled into a constitutional crisis that Marcos is exploiting to expand his presidential powers and tear up the 1987 charter restraints.

Vote No to AEU-Labor sellout! Build independent rank-and-file committees! Fund education not war!

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 03:33:54 GMT

The Committee for Public Education urges educators and workers to join the meeting to discuss how to develop the fight against the sellout deal between the Australian Education Union and the Victorian state Labor government, and the underlying austerity and war agenda of the federal Labor government.

Australian unions celebrate real wage cut for 3 million workers

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 03:31:22 GMT

The Fair Work Commission admitted that the meagre 4.75 percent increase to award wages would not “be sufficient to close the real wage gap entirely.”

Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:19:00 GMT

South Korea: Kakao platform workers to strike over wages and bonuses; India: Maharashtra women workers rally in Mumbai to demand government status; Punjab state-operated service centre employees still on strike; Australia: 400 INPEX LNG production workers walk out in NT for higher pay; Adelaide nurses and midwives strike for better wages.

Turkish CHP leader Özel’s Newsweek article: How to fight for democratic rights and against imperialism

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 17:53:56 GMT

Özel’s article is not a defense of democratic rights. It is a letter of assurance from a bourgeois party to the imperialist powers.

Australia: Queensland teachers in arbitration straitjacket, facing long pay freeze

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 04:29:11 GMT

After reluctantly calling a second statewide stoppage in November to head off teachers’ discontent, the QTU leadership shut down further industrial action and effectively joined hands with the state government to refer the dispute to compulsory arbitration.

Sri Lankan apparel company ELPHIS LANKA locks out workers for taking action demanding job security

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 01:52:26 GMT

Workers launched their struggle spontaneously, while the Ceylon Mercantile, Industrial and General Workers Union (CMU) has taken no action to defend hundreds of jobs.

Workers and youth oppose Iran war and Labor’s austerity measures at meetings in Australia and NZ

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 05:23:55 GMT

“Workers should unite to fight. Workers are oppressed, but without them, the capitalists have no wealth.”

Victorian teachers oppose Australian Education Union/Labor deal on wages and conditions

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 03:17:07 GMT

After years of mounting anger over worsening conditions and real pay cuts, and a 98 percent vote for industrial action, many educators view the agreement as another betrayal.

Sri Lanka receives further IMF loan installments and demands for escalating austerity

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 03:13:49 GMT

To impose the brutal measures demanded by the IMF, Sri Lanka’s government, backed by every section of the ruling elite, is preparing autocratic forms of rule.

Philippine workers hit as Iran war continues

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 01:43:10 GMT

Surging fuel and fertilizer prices are leading to a food crisis in the Philippines as crop yields decline.

The criminalization of the Noida worker protests: How India’s authorities are seeking to stamp out worker opposition through state repression

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 01:40:57 GMT

Almost two months on, hundreds of workers remain in jail on trumped-up charges of violence and disorderly conduct, while labour activists whom the authorities claim instigated the protests are being held without charge under the draconian National Security Act.

The right-wing politics of New Zealand’s Opportunity Party

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 02:53:40 GMT

The Opportunity Party’s claim to be neither left- nor right-wing is a fraud; backed by sections of the capitalist class, it aims to protect the wealth of the super-rich while maintaining New Zealand’s imperialist alliance with the US.

Australian Labor government trying to appease big business over limited budget tax changes

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 02:05:26 GMT

A furious campaign by business leaders and the corporate media against the minor tax adjustments has demonstrated the refusal by Australia’s billionaires and their global partners to accept even the slightest inroads into their profits and fortunes.

SEP (Australia) meetings oppose Iran war and austerity offensive against working class

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 05:48:38 GMT

The final meeting in the series will be held Saturday June 6 at the University of Newcastle and online.

Australian government echoes US threats against China

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 05:06:05 GMT

The Labor government and the fascistic Trump administration were as one at the forum in their denunciations of China and their plans for a further military build-up.

Workers and students in northern Sri Lanka oppose the US-Israeli war against Iran

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 04:56:19 GMT

Opposition to the war is growing among workers and youth, who face soaring living costs and worsening social conditions.

US Secretary of War again targets China at Shangri-La Dialogue

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 04:54:08 GMT

Far from being a force for stability and peace, as Hegseth claimed, the US is on a global military rampage in open violation of international law and without any mandate from the UN or the US Congress.

Australia: Bondi terrorist was on ASIO radar in 2022

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 05:02:25 GMT

The information that has dripped out over the past six months has indicated far more intensive and longstanding contact between the intelligence agency and the terrorists than first admitted.

New Zealand budget deepens austerity to make workers pay for war

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 03:50:23 GMT

The budget starves public healthcare and cuts education and welfare, while pouring money into prisons and the military.

Australia: Victorian education support staff speak out against AEU-Labor sellout

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 03:08:49 GMT

“If members can’t ask questions or raise concerns without being censored, what sort of democracy is that? The union clearly works for the government not for us.”

Sri Lankan court case continues over violent attack on SEP members

Sat, 30 May 2026 03:45:56 GMT

The defence lawyer attempted to portray the SEP as an NGO dependent on foreign funding and suggested that the complaint was motivated by efforts to obtain overseas funds.

Australian unions endorse Labor’s war and austerity budget

Sat, 30 May 2026 03:28:50 GMT

The unions’ endorsement of Labor’s budget is a clear statement that they stand ready to enforce the brutal cuts to social spending, jobs and wages demanded by the federal government and the corporate elite it represents.

Australia: Victoria’s Labor government oversees police state raids against anti-war protesters

Sat, 30 May 2026 03:20:16 GMT

The political logic underlying these operations is suppression of all opposition amid mounting attacks on social conditions and expanding imperialist violence.

Students protest against New Zealand budget cuts

Sat, 30 May 2026 03:05:31 GMT

Members of the IYSSE spoke with students in Wellington who opposed the increase in student fees and other attacks, and the diversion of billions of dollars to the military.

Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific

Sat, 30 May 2026 01:37:04 GMT

1.2 million Indian chemists and pharmaceutical distributers hold one-day national strike; Australia: Early childhood educators threaten national walkout; Australian Capital Territory public school teachers strike for better pay and conditions.

West Bengal’s BJP government seeks to stamp Hindu-supremacist rule on India’s fourth largest state

Fri, 29 May 2026 23:08:41 GMT

The new BJP government in West Bengal is using communalism, repression and anti-poor demolition drives to divide workers and impose the burden of economic crisis, now aggravated by the Iran war, on the working class.

ISIS-linked families return to Australia, but mother and child blocked

Fri, 29 May 2026 04:10:09 GMT

One mother was barred from re-entry by an arbitrary Labor government exclusion order, violating the fundamental democratic rights of citizenship.

As economic crisis worsens, Sri Lanka’s opposition leader urges talks for another IMF program

Fri, 29 May 2026 04:05:00 GMT

Sri Lanka’s opposition parties, including the SJB, are signaling that they are ready to join hands with the JVP government to suppress workers’ struggles.

New Zealand government introduces anti-transgender legislation

Fri, 29 May 2026 03:59:56 GMT

The far-right coalition government is seeking to narrowly define the words “woman” and “man” in order to demonise and discriminate against transgender people.

Australian High Court to hear limited challenge to Melbourne public housing tower demolitions

Fri, 29 May 2026 03:22:29 GMT

Even if the case succeeds, it will not stop the state Labor government’s criminal wrecking operation; just require Homes Victoria to hold a consultation process.

WSWS speaks to Australian disability advocate Megan Spindler-Smith on Labor’s NDIS cuts

Thu, 28 May 2026 05:32:00 GMT

“If you don’t get access to support at the right age, during pivotal periods of mental and physical development, it can have long-term effects, including increased psychosocial disability and mental health challenges.”

Tony Abbott to become Australian Liberal Party president in further lurch to right

Thu, 28 May 2026 05:13:43 GMT

Abbott’s ascendancy signals that the Liberals are moving towards an openly far-right pitch, in a bid to stem their existential crisis and to compete with the fascistic One Nation.

Mine disaster exposes grim reality facing Chinese workers

Thu, 28 May 2026 04:50:53 GMT

The high death toll at the Liushenyu mine and widespread public outrage on social media has meant the tragedy could not simply be hushed up locally. A more sophisticated top-level cover-up is now underway.

Communist Party Marxist - Kenya defends counter-revolutionary Maoist strategy against Trotskyism—Part 4

Wed, 27 May 2026 18:06:01 GMT

This five-part series examines the politics of the Communist Party Marxist-Kenya, its defence of the Stalinist-Maoist theory of the National Democratic Revolution and its opposition to Trotskyism.

Mine disaster in China: Another tragedy in the global industrial slaughterhouse

Wed, 27 May 2026 05:10:44 GMT

The mine explosion is another graphic example of the dangers facing miners and other workers around the world as their lives and health are subordinated to the rapacious corporate drive for profit.

Australia: NT laws to permit police interrogation of children without legal guardian

Wed, 27 May 2026 05:09:37 GMT

These laws are the latest escalation in a bipartisan offensive to essentially criminalise the poverty, chronic housing shortages and lack of secure employment that Australian capitalism has inflicted upon many working people, particularly Indigenous people.

Measles outbreak in Bangladesh kills over 500 children

Wed, 27 May 2026 05:02:19 GMT

The death and suffering of children from a preventable disease is a political indictment of policies that have prioritised profits over universal public health.

Report reveals impact of Australian school crisis on principals

Wed, 27 May 2026 04:25:44 GMT

An Australian Catholic University report on the well-being of school principals points to intolerable conditions.

Nepal’s RSP government shifts Iran war burden onto working people

Tue, 26 May 2026 04:42:55 GMT

As prices soar, driving thousands into poverty, the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) government is revealing itself to be just as reactionary as the more established bourgeois parties that it displaced.

Japan and the Philippines to deepen military collaboration against China

Tue, 26 May 2026 04:24:36 GMT

Under the cover of collaboration and so-called “collective self-defense,” Tokyo is building military networks in the Indo-Pacific through agreements with nations like the Philippines.

Vote No to the Australian Education Union/Labor sell-out deal! Build independent rank-and-file committees in every school!

Tue, 26 May 2026 04:14:38 GMT

The proposed AEU agreement in the state of Victoria amounts to a further real pay cut, does nothing to address crushing workloads or class sizes and strips educators of the right to strike until 2030.

Beef Season 2: “The people in charge have made it impossible for us”

Tue, 26 May 2026 04:02:17 GMT

Series creator, co-director and co-writer Lee Sung Jin makes the pressures of capitalism and class society a persistent theme and source of crises in the series.

China: 82 workers dead in catastrophic mine explosion

Mon, 25 May 2026 04:30:58 GMT

Rescue operations were hampered by the fact that blueprints of the mine provided by the company did not correspond to the actual underground layout, forcing rescuers to improvise.

Rising unemployment in Australia points to Iran war’s deepening impact

Mon, 25 May 2026 03:01:12 GMT

These results provide an indication of the worsening price being paid by working-class households, and especially young people, for the criminal US-Israeli war on Iran.