Workers are revolting despite restrictions on strike action

 Written by: Ned K. on 24 September 2025

 

Reports in mainstream news bulletins and social media show that workers across a wide range of industries are taking matters into their own hands through industrial action. 

Currently industrial action in the form of bans and/or strike action is taking place at Fonterra (makers of Bega cheese), public service workers in NSW and SA, nurses and support services workers in public hospitals in SA, security guards in Victoria and teacher support staff in Queensland, Ikea distribution center workers, to name a few. To top it off, the ABC and social media reported that the workers employed by animal care "not for profit" RSPCA went on strike in Lonsdale in Adelaide for the first time. A spokesperson for the workers on ABC said that the RSPCA showed more respect for its budget surplus than the workers who care for the animals.

A common theme of the industrial action is demands for higher wages and safe staffing levels and safe workloads. These two aspects of workers' demands are a reaction to the large corporations and their subservient governments' relentless drive to extract more surplus value from workers by reducing the real value of wages and "increasing productivity" (unsafe workload and lower staffing levels).

In some struggles, workers have conducted long campaigns to reverse privatization of services and have successfully won direct employment by governments after years of governments handing over the running of public services such as hospitals to private foreign owned multinationals like Downer Group and Danish owned ISS.

These collective actions are the tip of the iceberg of the feeling of millions of workers across Australia. The ruling class relies on its governments to contain struggle and isolate workers through repressive industrial laws which only allow "protected industrial action" during an enterprise bargaining period. 

Despite these restrictions, more and more workers are taking action. They learn more through taking collective action for a few hours or a day than they learn in all the drawn-out negotiations with employers and tri-partite "productivity" talk fests of governments, big business and the ACTU leaders.

From their struggles, workers' leaders emerge and workers in workplaces not taking action observe and learn what is possible,

DARE TO STRUGGLE, DARE TO WIN!

Adelaide rally in support of Palestinians calls for action not words by Australian government

Written by: Ned K. on 28 September 2025

 

On Sunday 28 September, about 1500 people rallied and marched through city streets in support of Palestinian people's struggle against the Zionist state of Israel.

This rally was a "warm-up" to the National Day of Action for a Free Palestine on Sunday 12 October 2025.

The 1500 people included many Middle Eastern Australians from Palestine and nearby countries and a larger number of young people, some with children, an indication of widening support for the Palestinian people.

The main speaker was a Palestinian health worker in Adelaide, accompanied by her children and her father. Her father carried two signs supporting the flotilla headed towards Gaza with food, clothing and medical supplies. His daughter told the crowd assembled that her father had fled his Palestinian homeland as a very small child 77 years ago and that he had never given up hope that he and his family would return to a Palestine and the end of the Zionist state of Israel which was formed in the year he fled as a child refugee with his family.

His daughter also explained that her brother was on one of the ships in the Flotilla which was being targeted by Israeli Defense Force drones even while still in international waters!

Another speaker from Adelaide University student activist group read out the latest news from Italy and Germany. 

A general strike in Italy locking down all the Italian ports as well as major industries in 80 cities and towns across the country.  

While in Germany an estimated 100,000 people took to the streets to demand action by western governments, not just words against the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

The convenor of AFOPA also spoke and pointed out that it was the resilience of Palestinians and world-wide support for Palestinians that had forced some western governments, including the Australian government, to take the lowest common denominator "action" of verbal recognition of a Palestinian state, a state with so many qualifications and restrictions. He and other speakers said the latest move by these governments was all about how to control the mass movement against Israel and how to maintain the Zionist state of Israel under the guise of verbal recognition of a state of Palestine that would be more like a barbed wire prison than a free Palestine.

FREE, FREE PALESTINE and SANCTION ISRAEL NOW was the people's response in support of the speakers.

People then marched in high spirits through the sunny streets of Adelaide in Spring with a spring in their steps!

Tuvalu: global warming forces diplomatic reappraisal

 Written by: (Contributed) on 18 September 2025

 

(Above: Tuvalu and Funafuti.  Credit: www.travelsvenue.com)

A major diplomatic statement from the Pacific Island country of Tuvalu has highlighted serious concerns for US-led foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific region, with implications for Australia. It also casts a long shadow on recent high-level diplomatic meetings between Australia and Japan. The recent diplomatic statement, concerning the inevitability of Tuvalu eventually switching its allegiance to China and away from Taiwan, has shown how the egional balance of forces is turning away from traditional US-led hegemonic positions; the very real threat of 'real-war scenarios' is quite apparent.

In early September, former Tuvalu three-time prime minister, Bikenibeu Paeniu, issued a high-level diplomatic statement concerning the country's allegiance to Taiwan. As a former Tuvalu ambassador to Taipei, the statement can be regarded as the outcome of a serious assessment and highly credible. Issued on the eve of the recent Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) it obviously caused raised eyebrows, particularly as it stated the 'tiny country had suffered from its increasingly isolated diplomatic position, and should not be expected to maintain its stance when the rest of the world had fallen into line on the issue'. (1) Taiwan's diplomatic stance, in the face of the universally accepted One China policy at the United Nations, has placed the country alongside only ten other countries; most are virtually insignificant.

Tuvalu, composed of three reef islands and six atolls, nevertheless, remains of huge strategic importance to US-led defence and security provision in Oceania and the wider Indo-Pacific region. Placed midway between Pine Gap, in Central Australia, and the US Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii, it has been noted as 'an essential player in regional security initiatives … near critical trade routes'. (2) Tuvalu, however, has become increasingly encircled by neighbouring Pacific Island countries (PICs) with strong diplomatic links with Beijing in recent times; the problem has been assessed by the intelligence services as being of medium to high-level alerts for Chinese involvement inside foreign political systems. (3)

Since gaining its independence in October, 1978, Tuvalu has been an active member of the British Commonwealth, with strong diplomatic links to Canberra. In fact, the recent Falepili (Good Neighbour) Union Treaty between the two countries, has enabled citizens of Tuvalu to settle in Australia. (4)

The issue which has come to dominate Tuvalu's political dialogues in recent times has been the ever-pressing problem of global warming and rising sea-levels: its estimated 11,000 citizens have already experienced two islets disappearing beneath the sea, with more to follow in due course. (5) With official government commentary noting that 'our islands are only 3-4 metres above sea-level', the situation has become increasingly fraught. Reliable estimates have established, for example, that by 2050 about half of the capital, Funafuti, home to more than half the country's population, will 'be flooded by tidal waters'. (6)

Tuvalu is, therefore, faced with a desperate race against time, while decision-makers in Canberra and elsewhere remain in a state of denial about climate change and global warming. For those concerned, the issue is nothing other than a political football, pursued without serious and wider considerations, as in the case of Tuvalu.

Tuvalu, in recent times, for example, has received an offer from China to build sea-wall fortifications around the country to prevent rising sea-levels claiming more of the landmass, in exchange for a diplomatic switch to Beijing from Taipei. China has already gained a wealth of experience, elsewhere in the South China Seas, with similar programs; they are regarded by the US as a serious challenge to regional hegemonic positions.

The recent high-level diplomatic meetings between Australia and Japan, had questions surrounding the fate of Tuvalu, and other PICs lurking in the shadows; it was not, however, an official agenda item. While the US-Japan alliance has been upgraded to that of a global alliance, Japan in recent times has been seriously affected by economic and political uncertainty. (7) Its economy has remained stagnant for decades, and while the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has virtually ruled the country since 1955, it has recently been forced into a minority government position in both parliamentary houses; its prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, was forced to recently resign 'in order to avoid splitting the long dominant LPD'. (8) The writing would appear on the wall for Japan.  

In fact, it was not coincidental, therefore, that Ishiba resigned immediately following what was regarded as a successful high-level diplomatic meeting between Australia and Japan with defence and foreign ministers. (9) An official diplomatic statement following the meeting noted 'Japan and China faced geopolitical challenges in the Pacific region'. (10)

Japan, nevertheless, has become increasingly unstable and faces the rise of a far-right Sanseito Party, which has surged to third place by running a popularist Japanese First platform with all the hallmarks of a US-type MAGA campaign. It will, ultimately, lead to an increased political polarisation in Japanese society with far-reaching implications for the LDP and its allies.  In fact, a recent US high-level diplomatic statement has already noted that 'it was up to Australia, New Zealand and the US to keep fighting to win hearts and minds in the region', without even paying reference to Japan. (11) Diplomatic silence?

The Trump presidential administration and the Pentagon appear to have already planned and foisted greater diplomatic and military responsibilities upon Australia:

                                         We need an independent foreign policy!  

1.     'Inevitable' Tuvalu will switch from Taiwan to China, Australian, 11 September 2025.
2.     Tuvalu and its strategic military significance, Website: mexicohistorico.com; and, Map of the World, Peter Projection, Actual Size.
3.     Winded, dined and hectored on Xi's diplomatic conveyor belt, The Weekend Australian, 13-14 September 2024.
4.     See: Australian visa a bittersweet golden ticket to Tuvaluans, Australian, 1 October 2025.
5.     Ibid.
6.     Ibid.
7.     The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
8.     Japanese PM quits after just 11 months, Australian, 8 September 2025.
9.     Ministers' meeting reinforces ties and friendship with Japan, The Weekend Australian, 6-7 September 2025.
10.   Ibid.
11.   'Relentless' China to 'use all avenues', Australian, 17 September 2025.

 

The uphill struggle to protect NSW’s Koalas

Written by: Leo A. on

 

On August 9, NSW Premier Chris Minns announced the establishment of the Georges River Koala National Park, covering a bit over nine square kilometres of koala habitat in south-west Sydney. In addition to Koalas, other threatened species found in this area include the Greater Glider and Gang-gang Cockatoo. 

And yet, as you read this, forests within the proposed borders of the national park are still being torn down by industrial logging machines. It gets worse: Minns is currently facing pressure from the logging industry to reduce the size of the park so they can keep logging these forests indefinitely. This would be devastating, for threatened species like Koalas and Greater Gliders, and for the future of New South Wales’ forests. It is also in vast contrast to the positive, proven results of environmental policies implemented in socialist states, such as the Soviet Union under the Stalin administration. (1)

 

It should be noted that the Australian forest industry’s “key trading partners”, according to the federal government, are the United States, Japan, China, Indonesia and New Zealand. Just as foreign powers exploit Australia’s metal and fossil fuel resources, so too do they create an incentive for the continued destruction of our vulnerable ecosystems.  

 

While environmental organisations such as the Wilderness Society are aware of the role of the logging industry in influencing environmental policy, they currently seem generally unaware of the role of foreign exploitation. The importance of the struggle for true Australian independence needs to become more widely understood, as well as a more class-conscious approach to environmental awareness.

 

(1) See Brain, Stephen Song of the Forest: Russian Forestry and Stalinist Environmentalism 1905-1953, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011

We have strength to stop Israel’s participation in cycling’s Tour Down Under

Written by: Louisa L. on 16 September 2025

 

The international working class and its allies are best able to fight Israel by fighting on our own lands.  

Greek dockworkers banned arms shipments to Israel. Italian dockworkers have threatened to shut down all European shipping if the 44-country Global Sumud Flotilla is unable to access Palestine. An Italian general strike is due on September 22.

Here, numerous protests have targeted the arms industry, and called for sanctions against Israel. The double standards that see Russia sanctioned over an inter-imperialist war harming both Russians and Ukrainians – yet allowing Israel to commit genocide sanction free – is high ground from which to launch our own attacks.

Israel armed apartheid South Africa, despite UN sanctions. What Israel was unable to do was break the worldwide cultural boycott of South Africa and white supremacist Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). 

Sport is culture. In 1969, Australians protested against pro-apartheid South African golfer Gary Player. In 1971, against police violence, huge protests marked every Springboks’ rugby match. It was the last racist Springbok’s tour to Australia. 

The night before protests at the Australian Open in 1974, a green at Sydney’s elitist Australian Golf Club was dug up, and others spraypainted, ‘Player won’t play here again!’ He didn’t.

Nelson Mandella highlighted the importance of the worldwide sporting boycotts in breaking the spirit of apartheid. 

100,000 plus protesters stop the Vuelta

Israel Premier Tech road cycling team is funded and founded by Canadian Israeli property billionaire Sylvan Adams, who lives in Tel Aviv. 
Each January, Adelaide’s Tour Down Under is cycling’s first world tour event. Israel Premier Tech (IPT) has participated in every Tour since the team’s inception. It was met with pro-Palestine protests in 2024 and 2025. In 2026, the team’s participation must be stopped!

We will be in good company. Protests marked every major international race, and every stage of the Giro d’Italia. During the Tour de France, race officials shamefully ensured 3000 km of roads were cleaned of slogans, and protesters censored from all coverage. 

Coverage and protests exploded during the Vuelta a Espania. IPT was forced to remove the team name from jerseys.

In heroic Basque heartland, the Vuelta was cut short and no stage prize was awarded. Next, an individual time trial was halved in length. 

Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote on X: “Great job to Sylvan and Israel’s cycling team for not giving in to hate and intimidation. You make Israel proud!”  

Then, the final stage in Madrid was stopped with 50 km to go, with presentations cancelled. 100,000 protested in the capital. 

Despite disappointment, winner Jonas Vingegaard supported the right to protest saying, “People do it for a reason. It’s horrible what’s happening currently and I think those protesting do so here, because they need a forum to be heard.”

Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez said, “Our respect and recognition for the athletes and our admiration for the Spanish people who are mobilising for just causes like Palestine. Spain today shines as an example and as a source of pride, an example to an international community where it sees Spain taking a step forward in the defence of human rights.” 

Rider opposition grows

In the 2024 Tour de France, winner Tadej Pogacar unfurled a Palestinian flag on the final podium. He’s been outspoken in support of Palestine.

A riders’ only Vuelta chat was leaked, calling on the Israel team to withdraw.

In recent years team leaders Jakob Fulsang and Alessandro de Marchi quit. Both said they were relieved not to be riding under Israel’s name.

De Marchi, who rode in 2021-22, called on the UCI to “show that as a cycling world we care about human rights and international law violations”.

“We need to see real action from our governing body to position the cycling world on the right side and to show awareness of what's going on in Gaza,” he said.

The most recent team leader, Derek Gee, is trying to exit his contract. IPT is demanding he stay. 

Road cycling podcaster George Hill, wrote, “The team’s association with the state of Israel is brand-washing currently soiling the whole sport.” Other corporate brands are being damaged.

All capitalist mass spectator sport has dirty hands, because it uses and often damages or destroys athletes. It’s the circuses to keep us quiet. But above all, it’s run to boost profits. Other corporations are unlikely to accept Israel’s contamination of their brands much longer. 

Strengthened by the massive victory by Spanish, Basque and other peoples, we have the forces to stop Israel’s participation in the Tour Down Under. It’s time to organise!

US company to profit from Ghost Shark contract

Written by: Nick G. on 15 September 2025

 

(US Navy telling Conroy and Marles all about the Ghost Shark.  Credit: www.sofx.com) 

On September 10, US agents of influence Richard Marles and Pat Conroy announced a $1.7 billion spend on extra-large autonomous undersea vehicles – known as the Ghost Shark – for the Royal Australian Navy.

The government’s announcement emphasised that the prime contractor, Anduril Australia, was part of “Australia’s defence industry” and that the investment reflected “the Albanese Government’s unwavering commitment to supporting Australian innovation, backing Australian workers and building a defence future made in Australia.”

It also sounded very patriotic and a triumph for Australia.

What it didn’t say is that Anduril is a private US company, unlisted on the Australian Stock Exchange, and that the profits from its operations here will go straight into the pockets of its US owners.

Anduril was created in 2017 with seed funding from the venture capitalist Founders Fund whose leader is the far-right activist Peter Thiel. Thiel was also one of the founders of the notorious data mining company Palantir, which provides software support for government surveillance technologies including facial recognition tools used by militaries and police forces. 

Anduril opened a wholly-owned Australian subsidiary in 2022, poaching David Goodrich, a key Defence Department advisor on Australian Defence Force contracts. He had led and negotiated 35 major transactions over an eight-year period for the ADF with multinational armaments companies including Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Airbus. 

In 2024 it recruited Rear Admiral Peter Quinn as its vice-President of Strategy. Quinn was the Head of Navy Capability for five years. His responsibility in that role was to identify the needs and requirements of Navy’s future capabilities and to plan for, develop and deliver them to the fleet.

It is true that the Ghost Shark is Australian-designed and will be built by Australian workers. 

Compared to the nuclear-powered Virginnia class submarines designed to sit off the coast of China, it is also more suited to Australia’s coastal defence - or perhaps, more accurately, to supporting US aggression in our immediate region.

In the words of Anduril’s US CEO, Brian Schimpf, “The Australian Defence Force has long punched above its weight and been in the vanguard of regional security in the Indo-Pacific region, a role they will be asked to play more and more in the coming decades.”

“Asked to play…told to play,” it all depends on how you view the US stranglehold on Australia, and the subservience of our political leaders.

But the Ghost Shark also has limited endurance and is reliant on guidance by ultra-low frequency radio waves of the type sent out from the North West Cape base. This base can be easily destroyed in the event of a conflict. 

Former submariner and SA Senator Rex Patrick has questioned the price of the contract, describing it as “Ghost money - where there’s more stealth in the budget than there is in the capability. But the $1.7B deal will be music to Trump’s ears.”

This announcement, together with 12 billion to be spent on upgrading the Henderson naval facility in WA for Us and UK submarines, represents the theft of better schools, a functioning health care system, improved regional roads and many other basic services needed by our communities.

Louder voices need to be raised for genuine anti-imperialist independence and socialism.

 

US-Chinese rivalry in Micronesia

 Written by: (Contributed) on 11 September 2025

 

(Source: www.deritszalkmaar.nl)

The vast Micronesian area of the Indo-Pacific region is rapidly becoming a potential flashpoint in Cold War hostilities between the US and China. As China has emerged as a serious competitor, the traditional regional hegemonic position of the US has been challenged. The US has responded with defensive positions and preparations for 'real war scenarios'. A number of defence and security considerations pushed by the US have also been played-out through regional proxies, including Taiwan.

A recent defence and security assessment issued by Canberra noted that Micronesia was an important consideration as 'it is an important strategic access where the interests of China, Japan, Taiwan and the US, as well as several South-east Asian countries, intersect. Micronesia's strategic significance is rising'. (1) Cold War diplomatic rivalries have also created serious considerations for the forthcoming Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in Honiara where China has questioned the validity of a 33-year old communique 'granting Taiwan special development partner status'. (2)  

Following high-level diplomatic talks, the PIF chose to not invite all 21 dialogue partners to their September meeting as a means of resolving the impasse.

Behind the Cold War diplomatic stand-off between the US and China a few inconvenient matters continue to cause the US serious concern. It has been noted, for example, that the US, 'has only a small diplomatic footprint in the Pacific and relies on the PIF to build rapport with individual leaders'. (3) The US, as a PIF dialogue partner, has also been excluded from the forthcoming meeting, thereby reducing its regional diplomatic standing still further.

China, by contrast, now has ten embassies in the Pacific and it has been noted it 'doesn't need the PIF meeting … they are already in Honiara'. (4) The links between the Solomon Islands and China have been noted to be particularly strong.

The diplomatic status of Taiwan amongst Pacific Island nations has continued to haunt US regional considerations. To date, only three Pacific Island states now recognise Taipei: Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and Palau.  

It is, however, the Micronesian area of the Pacific which has caused the US serious concerns; the vast area is composed of thousands of small islands and landmasses, some of which have been used to host sensitive US military facilities, including Guam which is a hub for 'US interests' and linked on an arc from Pine Gap swinging from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to Micronesia. Many of the islands, furthermore, remain of strategic significance with the US Island Chain Theory, designed to restrict China's access and egress from the area.

Palau, likewise, remains of vital strategic significance to US-led regional defence and security provision; it hosts 'a high-frequency radar system … to detect air and surface targets'. (5) It is also highly strategic for regional US-led military planning with 'its place in the first island chain'. (6)

The Marshall Islands host the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile site which has a space surveillance system with a capacity to track satellites, primarily in low orbit. (7) Wake Island, which remains US territory north of the Marshall Islands, has hosted what is regarded as critical military bases for the A2AD system. (8)

In recent years the US have been quietly 'bolstering their defences and building infrastructure for more effective operations. This includes refurbishing World War Two airfields on Tinian near Saipan and Peleliu. It's expanding the airfield on Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia'. (9)

Many of the sensitive US military facilities rely upon Taiwan; the American Institute based in Taipei, has nearly five hundred US diplomatic personnel, on official temporary leave from the State Department in Washington. (10) It is, therefore, significant to note recent US defence budget allocations toward some of the countries still diplomatically recognising Taiwan.

Last year the US allocated $7.1 billion for defence and security facilities over the next two decades; the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Marshall Islands and Palau were linked into a highly strategic US-led military agreement. (11) While the FSM recognises China, its links with Beijing have become increasingly strained and high-level diplomatic talks have taken place in Taipei in recent times about switching allegiance, 'following frustrations with China'. (12)

Palau was also provided with a separate defence and security allocation for new projects and various upgrades for existing facilities, including a 'tactical over-the-horizon radar' system; the $118 million facility swings on an arc to Taipei which then swings through Wake Island and the Marshall Islands covering the whole of Micronesia. (13) References to asymmetric warfare techniques and sophisticated US military equipment used in the recent annual Taiwanese Han Kuang military and civil defence exercises are best viewed in that light. (14)

The same arc also swings through northern Australia and may well also reveal links into the US-led network; three bases at Australia's 'top end' have facilities for rapid deployment elsewhere in the region. (15)  

1.     Micronesia's strategic significance is rising, The Weekend Australian, 23/24 August 2025.
2.     How Beijing turned Pacific forum into hot ticket, The Weekend Australian, 23/24 August 2025.
3.     Ibid.
4.     Ibid.
5.     US v. China, Japan Forward: Politics and Security, Rieko Hayakawa and Jennifer L. Anson, 14 February 2020.
6.     Agreement with Micronesia nations gives US military access, locks out China, Stars and Stripes, 21 March 2024.
7.     US v. China, op.cit., 14 February 2020.
8.     Ibid.
9.     Micronesia's strategic significance is rising, op.cit., Australian, 23/24 August 2025.
10.   Beijing keeps a wary eye on new US Taipei outpost, Australian, 18 June 2018.
11.   Stars and Stripes, op.cit., 21 March 2024.
12.   Pacific's Micronesia in talks to switch ties from Beijing to Taiwan, Reuters, 10 March 2023.
13.   US proposes new defence site in Palau, The Pacific Island Times, 21 May 2024.
14.   Taiwan launches largest drills, Australian, 10 July 2025.
15.   See Wikipedia: RAAF Base Scherger; and, 'Ghost' RAAF Base, Australian, 27 August 2017.

Message from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Burma on the 86th anniversary of its founding

 Written by: Communist Party of Burma on 15 September 2025

 

More information is coming to light about the people's war in Burma. Together with the Burmese People's Liberation Army under the leadership of the Communist Party of Burma, armies representing various minority nationalities are also confronting the Burmese miliary regime. The Communist Party of Burma celebrated its 86th anniversary on August 25 and the Central Committee released the following statement - eds.

 

Message from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Burma on the 86th anniversary of its founding

 August 15, 2025

Today marks the 86th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Burma.

Today, I am happy to join the commemoration with the commanders and soldiers of the People's Liberation Army who are fighting in armed struggle from various parts of the Communist Party of Burma. I pay tribute to all the comrades. I would like to say that I bow my head and pay my respects to all the comrades who have fallen in the struggle for the people and the party since the establishment of the party.

The party's history has seen ups and downs, both as an underground party and as an armed struggle party. Today, the party is struggling in both forms, both as an underground party and as an armed struggle party.

In 1990, the Communist Party of Burma (CBP) fought the People's Democratic Revolution in Burma as an underground party. While preparing for armed struggle as an underground party, it faced the rising tide of the popular anti-military revolution in 2021, known as the Spring Revolution.

With the tide of this revolution, the People's Liberation Army, the armed wing of the party, was able to re-establish itself and enter the struggle. This achievement will be recorded in history as a great event of great pride and joy in the history of the party.

We must honour and praise the comrades who have worked tirelessly to establish and fight as the People's Liberation Army, and we must also recognize and thank all the friends and allies who have worked hard and provided assistance in all aspects of our efforts to establish the People's Liberation Army.

The current situation in Burma is that it is still under the rule of the military junta, and the majority of the people, various political forces, and various ethnic armed groups are overwhelmingly engaged in armed struggle against this military junta's rule.

The people's democratic armed revolution that has been going on since 2021 has been going on for four years, and in these four years, we have gained a lot of revolutionary experience, both good and bad, and we have reached a certain maturity. During these four years, the armed resistance of the revolutionary forces has achieved great victories. Especially during the 1027 (One Zero Year) campaign, when the ethnic armed forces and the democratic revolutionary forces were able to fight together, we achieved many victories. The success of capturing some cities and many military positions and seizing a large amount of weapons and ammunition has brought great support and benefits to the democratic revolution. The People's Liberation Army has gained combat experience during the 1027 (One Zero Year) campaign, and has also acquired weapons and ammunition, expanded and built troops. The victory in the Battle of Kan Daung has already proven that we have the ability to expand and attack in many regions. We must continue to build on this foundation and strive to develop further.

Today, the enemy has been able to rebuild its strength and regain some territory. Since August 1, 2025, the new military junta of Min Aung Hlaing has been formed, continuing to hold elections under the 2008 constitution, and has been trying to establish a new government. On the one hand, it has expanded its military operations to gain territory where elections can be held, and on the other hand, it is trying to regain some towns through dialogue. However, due to the discontent of the generals who were removed due to new factions during the establishment of the new generation of military junta of Min Aung Hlaing, the unity within the military junta has been weakened. On the other hand, it has forcibly recruited young people who are dissatisfied with the military coup in 2021 and have anti-military junta sentiments, and since the enemy is conducting operations using troops composed of mostly new recruits, the enemy’s operations are inactive operations. We are in a situation where they are having poor operations and are using a lot of air support to capture a position.

So today's situation is that the enemy is attacking in some places, and the revolutionary forces are on the defensive in some places. Looking at the whole country, the war front is wide and the enemy is still attacking in some places and on the defensive in others. The revolutionary forces are still able to continue to fight battles that can capture enemy positions by combining guerrilla warfare and mobile warfare.

Although the progress of this armed revolution has been uneven and has fluctuated, the fighting spirit of the revolutionary forces in various places is high and they are striving to continue to achieve victories. I am also happy to see that they are trying to reduce the effectiveness of the enemy's air superiority and to make greater use of their powerful fighting methods to further destroy the enemy.

The People's Liberation Army is also fighting in these military conditions, so it can be said that they are facing and overcoming similar situations. I am also happy to see that they are trying to best prepare for these changes in the situation and respond to the enemy in the best possible way before entering the battle.

The 50th anniversary of the Communist Party of Burma was celebrated in 1989, when the North-Eastern Party Central Committee was dissolved and the Party Central Committee was based in the (101) Military Region. I remember that the Party Chairman Thakin Ba Thein Tin celebrated the Party’s birthday in Panwa, where he was, and Comrade Htun Ka Kan Paing Ti, who was with the newly formed troops, celebrated it. At that time, the Chairman gave a speech commemorating the (50) anniversary. I remember that in his speech, “The 50-year history of the Communist Party of Burma is a history of successive generations of marching and fighting in a system of one army and one army to raise the banner of the proletarian party and the flag of the people’s democratic armed struggle.” However, within the next (1) year, due to the need to act in accordance with the great changes in the situation, the Party’s branch was dissolved, and the Party Central Committee was transformed into an underground party. Our branch was not in a position to implement what the Chairman had said.

The current party's People's Liberation Army is now able to establish itself locally and has been able to gain and organize the support of the people in the areas where it is based. Therefore, I believe and hope that the next generation will be able to proudly raise the flag of the party's armed resistance, as Chairman Thakin Ba Thein Tin said, and will continue to raise it high, he concluded.

............................

See also our January 2025 report on developments in Burma.

We welcome the call for a climate-based and more independent foreign policy.

Written by: Nick G. on September 8, 2025

 

The Australian Army, Navy and Airforce – collectively the Australian Defence Force – constitute the core of the ruling class machinery of state.

Institutionally, they will never forego that role. They have been deployed time and again to serve the interests of whichever imperialism has the dominant position of influence within the Australian ruling class. At times they have been used to break strikes and deployed against the Australian working class in the direct interest of Australia’s monopoly capitalists. 

But contradiction exists within everything. Individuals with a “defence force” background can sometimes break ranks with the ideology and policies that determine the official view of the Department of Defence and the ADF.

(This is written when Trump, the chieftain of US imperialism, has at least had the honesty to drop the doublespeak inherent in the name “Department of Defense” and rename it the “Department of War”.)

One such departure from the official rhetoric came with the foundation of the Australian Climate Security Leaders Group headed by former head of the ADF, retired Admiral Chris Barrie. The ACSLG has an executive drawn from the military and includes Ian Dunlop, former Chair of the Australian Coal Association. 
It has issued several policy documents, the latest last week under the heading A Climate-First Foreign Policy for Australia: Human Security in the Age of Climate Disruption.

The ACSLG equates inaction over global warming with Australian foreign policy, stating that Australia is “almost totally unprepared” for the former, and has instead “put all its eggs in the AUKUS basket and a closer alignment with the USA’s erratic security stance. This risks Australia being dragged into a war with China on the losing side.”

It says that “In the context of Trump#2 and geopolitical upheaval, Australia’s current security frame — “America first, Earth last” — needs to be abandoned.”
Retired Admiral Chris Barrie, formerly a supporter of the AUKUS arrangements, declares that he has now changed his mind, declaring that “AUKUS and confrontation with China are not the only choice…Since retiring as Chief of the Defence Force, I have participated in many war game exercises focused on conflict with China, and in every case the American side lost.”

It is not just that we would be on the losing side in an American war with China, but that we are currently losing capitalism’s destructive war on nature.
Barrie says that average global warming of 1.5°C, predicted to occur by 2040, has already been reached with all of the accompanying unprecedented wild weathers, and “catastrophic damage to our terrestrial and marine ecosystems”. Any further rise, inevitable under present policy directions, will lead to a “climate refugee inflow of a scale that we simply cannot image. Think millions of people.”

The ACSLG acknowledges that fossil fuel companies have created the climate crisis and warns that “Big oil and gas are backtracking on reduction commitments fast, and planning increased production to 2050.” It calls for leadership to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and the fossil fuel economy, but warns that the Australian government “is supporting and expanding dirty coal and gas, and does not want to talk about climate impacts…while the opposition lives in a dark space between delay and denial.”

The call for a climate-based foreign policy is not the only sign of disaffection with our subservience to the US within the defence community. Kym Bergmann, editor of the online Asia Pacific Defence Reporter says in his most recent podcast, “If Australia ever wanted to send a Minister to the United States who is the best at licking the boots of the Americans it is definitely Minister for Defence Richard Marles who has never, ever been able to conceal his overwhelming enthusiasm for everything the US does, I believe to the detriment of Australia’s strategic interests.”

As a Party, we have our own take on climate change and the environmental crisis. 

We believe that capitalism and its current form imperialism have given rise to the irreversible destruction of the environment and global warming in particular. Imperialism is based on constant growth and expansion of profit at all costs before the needs of people and the environment.

While we support all calls for the rapid decarbonisation of Australia’s economy, we must go further than the views of the ACSLG and call for capitalism to be overthrown and a socialist society established. Only this will make it possible for humans to be able to live in an environment that is sustainable long-term. Only this will break capital’s cancerous need for the further accumulation of capital.

The Party and the working class must exercise leadership in protecting the environment and ensure that a socialist society works not to “conquer” nature, but to co-exist with it, restoring the balance between humanity and nature.

It is not a question of our tailing behind progressive bourgeois opinion of the ACSLG type, but of welcoming that opinion and trying to draw it closer to our own.

The expanding united front against US imperialism can accommodate a variety of opinions, but struggle for the leading influence of a socialist and anti-imperialist perspective is required.

 

NT Government approves illegally built US fuel tanks

 Written by: Nick G. on September 6 2025

 

US imperialism can act illegally, with impunity, in Australia aided and abetted by the national traitor class of politicians, public servants and their big business backers.

This is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the decision by the NT Government, and corresponding silence from Canberra, to exempt 11 massive US military fuel tanks built unlawfully on Darwin Harbour from needing occupancy certification.

The US fuel tank facility was announced in 2021 by the NT Environment Protection Authority.

The US government gave the contract for building and managing the fuel storage facility to US company Crowley Maritime Corporation, a privately-owned multinational based in Florida.

NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner issued a media release on 18 January 2022 announcing works commencing. He must have known, but chose to ignore, the fact that the project had not obtained occupancy certification, granted by a building certifier to show that a proposed structure has complied with all regulations.

Despite the construction by the US on Australia soil being illegal, it was allowed to proceed. 

Opposition came from the Larrakia traditional owners who raised concerns that unfiltered test water from the project was being discharged into Darwin Harbour without a valid Waste Discharge License from the Northern Territory EPA. They were joined by the Environment Centre NT and the NT Greens in expressing concerns about the lack of an Environmental Impact Statement and the fact that the tanks were not designed to withstand a category-three cyclone.

On September4, the NT's Minister for Lands, Planning and Environment, Josh Burgoyne, announced that he had approved the tanks for operation, after they were signed off by an “independent” engineer hired by Crowley.

The US has capriciously and illegally built above-ground storage for military fuels which would inevitably be targeted by Chinese missiles in the event of the war being planned by the US with China.

This is in marked contrast to the WW2 planning. When 11 above-ground fuel tanks were bombed and destroyed by the Japanese, the Australian government commissioned the building of undergound storage tunnels below the cliffs on the Darwin waterfront.

What will be the cost to Darwin residents if the illegal US storage tanks are hit by missiles?

Finally, how much outrage (entirely justifiable) would have arisen if the Chinese operators of Darwin’s port had illegally constructed fuel storage tanks as part of their preparation for war?

The culture of national subservience to US imperialism is fully exposed in the waiving of prosecutions against a US multinational that has acted illegally.

It underscores the need for a genuinely anti-imperialist policy achieved by the defeat of  the US empire loyalists combined with opposition to the growth of Chinese social-imperialism.

Independence from both US and China is in the interests of Australia

Written by: Ned K. on September 6 2025

 

The recent accepted invitation of a number of countries' heads of state (including Russia, North Korea and Iran) to China's commemoration of the defeat of Japan in China in 1945 and the huge military parade in Beijing has made headlines in all the mainstream capitalist media in Australia. 

The media concentrated not on the commemoration of the defeat of Japanese fascism by anti-imperialist forces in China (which, incidentally tied down a million Japanese troops who could otherwise have headed towards Australia), but on the military might of China on display and the fact that former state ALP Premiers Daniel Andrews and Bob Carr were invited and attended the commemoration.

Daniel Andrews received the most attention by the capitalist media, led as usual by the Murdoch Press, because he appeared in a group photo which included Chinese, Russian, Iranian and North Korean leaders, which the Murdoch Press called "dictators".

When quizzed in federal parliament about the presence of Daniel Andrews in the photo and at the military parade in Beijing, Prime Minster Albanese distanced himself from both Carr and Andrews’ presence and made it clear that "his government" would never be seen in the same photo with the likes of Putin or North Korean leaders.

When interviewed by the 7.30 Report on ABC, Bob Carr said that he saw nothing wrong with being in China for the commemoration and that China was Australia's main trading partner.

Daniel Andrews did not appear on TV but made it clear that he had a business consultancy and a lot of business with business entities in China.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan defended Daniel Andrews attendance and said how important were the economic relations between China and Victoria.

In the background of the media frenzy was a post by Trump on social media saying that the whole event in Beijing was meant to be China amplifying its military might and power for the US to see.

A day or so later, Albanese is reported to be in a hook up with the US and European powers discussing commitment to military support for Ukraine if/when the war in Ukraine ends.

Lunchtime Politics:

So what is going on here?

As some workers in their lunch break said to me. "What the f....k are our politicians doing? Both Labor PM and Liberals are so tied up with the Yanks, while other parts of Labor and people like Twiggy Forrest are feathering their own business interests by hooking up with China which is overtaking the US!"

Then one of the workers added " Yeah and look at our self-defense compared with the military parade in Beijing! And all our governments do for self-defense is handover Australia to the military needs of the Yanks! We'll become a target if there's a war between the US and China"

Another worker rounded off the discussion by saying " We need to be Switzerland. What I mean is - be independent of both of them."

That was the end of the lunch break, ending on what was a thoughtful note