Read these 2 reports written by Laurence Coates, a CWI member who is currently in Taipei. In the first he speaks to two women leaders of a Filipino workers’ protest group. The second is a report of a meeting addressed by Laurence at Taipei University.

A brutal police attack on an anti-pollution protest at an industrial park on the outskirts of Dongyang city, Zhejiang province, triggered huge clashes between thousands of protesters and 3,000 riot police.
By Laurence Coates in Taipei

A profile of Joe Higgins TD (MP) and the Socialist Party in the Sunday Business Post (Ireland) 17 April 2005 By Alison O’Connor. When Joe Higgins rises to his feet in Dáil Eireann, there is usually an air of expectancy. The majority of his 165 colleagues would probably claim that the Socialist Party TD’s politics [...]

Peter Taaffe, General Secretary of the Socialist Party (England and Wales) and member of the CWI International Secretariat, recently returned to London from Sri Lanka. He visited some of the areas most devastated by the tsunami and spoke to many whose agony has turned to anger.

Since this article was written, the leadership of Sinn Fein, showing the continued pressure they are under, especially since the local and general election campaign in Northern Ireland had been set, called a press conference on 6 April where Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams made the unprecedented call for the IRA to give up the [...]

Angry anti-Japan protests erupted in several Chinese cities at the weekend, with a crowd of 6,000 mostly students and youth marching on the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, while 3,000 demonstrated outside Japan?s consulate in the southern city of Guangzhou.
By Laurence Coates in Taipei

By Karl Debbaut, CWI
Pope John Paul II died Saturday 2 April - the first ever Polish pope and first non-Italian since 1523. Millions of people who identify with the Catholicism will mourn for Karol Jozef Wojtyla. His public popularity can be explained by his use of modern technology allowing him to speak to more people, [...]

A flurry of diplomatic initiatives and counter-initiatives from Taiwan?s sharply divided political establishment ? the anti-independence pan-blue bloc and formally pro-independence pan-greens ? has shifted the cross-strait issue (i.e. relations with China) into overdrive.
By Laurence Coates in Taipei

This Wednesday, April 20th, at 7.30pm at the Union Club Hotel, 164 Gore St, Fitzroy the Northern Suburbs branch of the Socialist Party (Melbourne) is hosting a public meeting on the raid with Stephen Jolly SP Cllr as the main speaker. Please come along to discuss this and what the lessons are for the future. [...]

By Stephen Jolly
The last week has been one of the most intense of recent times in the Yarra City Council area. It’s not every week that the Mayor, myself, and Yarra Council are on the TV news, the Age, all the radio stations, and the local media over not one but two main stories. The [...]