Click below to read the latest paper of Lal Salaam, Pakistan Section of IMT, in the Urdu language. The latest issue has articles about the plight of workers in lockdown and tasks ahead after this May Day. It also has articles on the crisis of world economy, how a socialist revolution and a planned economy will solve all these crises, the political crisis of federal government and PPP in Sindh, the effect of the pandemic on the plight of women and much more!

The Red Workers’ Front organised an online May Day rally in which workers from all parts of the country expressed their views and condemned government policies, which are leading to more hunger and death for the workers alongside huge bailout packages for the rich and powerful.

Today is the 45th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon. Prior to this denouement, from 30-31 January 1968, 70,000 North Vietnamese soldiers, together with guerrilla fighters of the NLF, launched one of the most daring military campaigns in history. The Tet Offensive was the real turning point in the Vietnam War. In 2008, on its 40th anniversary, Alan Woods analysed the events that led to the Vietnam War and the significance of the Tet Offensive in bringing about the defeat of US imperialism, and drew some parallels with Iraq.

The COVID-19 outbreak that started in Wuhan, China has now affected all the nations of the world. The developed countries, like the USA, Spain, UK and Italy have been hit severely by the spread of the virus. China has been able to control the virus to an extent after three months of lockdown in Wuhan. In India, the first COVID-19 case was detected in January in the Southern state of Kerala.

Indian workers face illegal pay cuts and layoffs at the hands of their unscrupulous bosses, working hand-in-hand with a yellow union. Meanwhile, the regional and central governments are using the COVID-19 crisis as cover to sneak in attacks on the working-class. Defend wages and workers’ rights!

In the last week, over 20,000 workers took to the streets of Bangladesh to demand their wages after clothes factories stopped paying their staff due to a lack of orders. With the global coronavirus pandemic causing fashion retailers such as H&M, Walmart and Tesco to cancel their orders, many workers in Bangladeshi factories have gone up to two months without receiving any income. Now, in defiance of the nationwide lockdown, workers have organised massive protests demanding their money and risking infection to fight the bosses.

Watch our live interview with Adam Pal, the editor of Lal Salaam (the IMT's journal in Pakistan) speaking about the coronavirus pandemic and the political situation in Pakistan and India.

The 73 years that have passed since the transfer of power from British India to the native ruling classes of the Indian subcontinent has not alleviated the dire poverty, misery and exploitation of the vast masses of populace, and in particular the sanitation workers.

Millions of ordinary people in Indian-occupied Kashmir are facing an unprecedented situation amidst the coronavirus lockdown imposed on the whole of India for 21 days. Kashmir was already under a strict curfew and has faced brutal repression since 5 August 2019, when a draconian law was passed by the Modi government changing the status of Jammu and Kashmir as a separate state, dissolving its state assembly by presidential order and relegating it to a union territory directly controlled by the central government.

Today, dozens of health workers were tortured and arrested in Quetta, Pakistan while they were protesting for the provision of personal protective equipment outside the office of the Chief Minister of Balochistan Province in Pakistan.

In the depths of the 2008 crisis, Beijing rescued world capitalism. The fiscal stimulus they carried out was the largest in world history, at over £500bn. Had it not been for this stimulus, and the global demand it created for raw materials and other goods China needed as a result, the financial crisis would have been an all-out depression. The crisis unfolding before our eyes is far more serious than that of ten years ago. Yet this time, China will not be able to rescue the world, let alone its own economy.

Trump's visit to India on 24-25 February saw deadly riots in Delhi in which at least 46 people were killed, while hundreds were injured. Many houses, shops and religious buildings were burnt or destroyed in northeast Delhi during these riots, which continued for more than four days.

The latest outbreak of coronavirus has caused the biggest wave of stock market losses since 2008, wiping $5tn off share values worldwide. Markets are worried that the virus will have a serious impact on an already weak world economy. These fears are not unfounded.

We publish the following documentary about the life of a textile worker, produced by the Red Workers' Front (RWF) in Pakistan. It was shot in an area named 'Sharifpura' in Multan. It represents the life of every worker in the country.

A worker in Lahore was murdered last week by thugs on the payroll of Ravi Autos, following protests against illegal layoffs and low pay. The Red Workers’ Front has issued this statement of solidarity with the workers, and condemnation of this brutal capitalist crime.