The suffering of the people of Pakistan is largely unknown in the West. Yesterday Malala Yousafzai was brutally shot by gunmen as she was returning home from school. Masked assassins stepped onto a bus filled with terrified children, identified her, and shot her at point blank range in the head and neck. A veil of silence has been carefully drawn over the number of people killed every day by American drones and Taliban murders. But recently a small corner of the curtain was raised as the result of this particularly appalling event.

“The worst monsoon-related floods in recent memory": this is how he U.N. has described the recent calamity in Pakistan. The mighty Indus River, once the cradle of one of history’s earliest civilizations has devastated the land to which it gave birth. The irresistible force of the floods has washed away the ancient ruins that had stood there for thousands of years.

The split between the US generals and politicians could not have come at a worse time. The sacking of McChrystal just at the beginning of the fighting season could disrupt the entire counter-insurgency campaign, which was already going badly. The fact is that a military victory is out of the question. The greatest military power in the world is now overstretched in the region.

Consumer boycotts have been raised as a way of putting pressure on the Zionist Israeli authorities to cease their inhumane treatment of the Palestinian people and grant them their own state. History shows that such boycotts don’t actually achieve anything concrete. But recently we have witnessed another type of boycott, a workers’ boycott, carried out by dockers and transport workers who have refused to handle Israeli goods. That is much more of a threat to the Israeli government.

Since the Israeli attack on the flotilla that was attempting to get supplies into Gaza a couple of weeks there have been attempts by Israeli sources to falsify what really happened, but this is easily exposed for what it is, as this article points out. Also worth noting is the workers’ boycott of Israeli goods organised by Swedish and Norwegian dockers.

In the middle of the night of the 31st of May, 64 km off the coast, Israeli commandos rappelled down from helicopters onto the 6 ship flotilla. Activists say they boarded the ships firing. The Israeli government decided to use deadly force to maintain their blockade of the Gaza strip, provoking waves of protest. These events have exposed the policy of Israeli imperialism to the masses everywhere: Gaza is a ghetto, kept in starvation conditions, and no one may interfere. This will have effects across the world, even in Israel itself.

After eight years of war in Afghanistan, the inability of Western imperialism to quell the insurgency has entered into a period of crisis. Cracks and divisions within the central government are becoming more and more critical as the military and political situation becomes ever more unstable. Major conflicts within Afghanistan’s Western-backed ruling clique were first brought to a head in August during the presidential elections. The accusations of fraud have left Karzai’s grip on power extremely strained and have left Karzai wondering whether the NATO mission is more hindrance than help.

Five years ago Kurmanbek Bakiyev came to power in Kyrgyzstan on the back of the so-called Tulip Revolution, only to slavishly follow the dictates of imperialism and enrich himself and his entourage at the expense of the working people. Now the workers and poor have had enough and have risen up once more. Here Isa Al-Jaza'iri looks at the background to the tumultuous events taking place.

The authors of this article share a growing concern for the direction the Palestinian solidarity movement has been taking. Isa Al-Jaza'iri's mother was kicked out of her home in Haifa at gunpoint in 1948, along with her entire family. Alex Grant's grandfather wore his Star of David patch at Mauthausen concentration camp. However, they believe their respective backgrounds are irrelevant in as much as this is an issue for the world working class. They defend the position that only a working class perspective can end the oppression of the Palestinian people while providing a future for the Israeli population.

The Canadian occupation of Afghanistan is on its last legs. After eight years, the Canadian state and the corporate media have failed in their attempt to convince ordinary Canadians of the benevolence of Canadian imperialism. Despite all of the feel-good stories of Canadian soldiers opening up Tim Hortons and playing pick-up hockey in Kandahar, Canadians have become fed up with the nasty truths coming out of Afghanistan—from propping up the corrupt Karzai government that legalized rape, to the ever-growing number of bodies coming back to Canada. Richard Colvin’s testimony, admitting that Canadian soldiers were complicit in the torture of prisoners (with the knowledge of the Prime Minister’s Office), is the finishing touch.