Asia & the Pacific

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and United States President Donald Trump met at a historic summit in Singapore on June 12 that concluded with a joint statement. Those who want peace and denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula have welcomed the success of the summit. Though the end of the war has not been declared, a decisive step towards complete denuclearisation and an end to mutual hostilities has been taken.

The leaders of 10 progressive and left-wing Pakistani parties have agreed to form an alliance.

The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Centre, which  formed a new coalition government after winning elections late last year, now plan to unify the two parties.

Soldiers armed with live and rubber bullets attacked the peaceful pro-democracy Red Shirt protests in the centre of Bangkok on April 10. At least 12 people, including a Japanese Reuters reporter, have been shot dead.

Ben Peterson is an activist with the socialist youth organisation Resistance and the Socialist Alliance who spent four-and-half-months in Nepal last year.

John Martinkus HT Lee died on July 26. I only knew HT for the last six years of his life, but the circumstances of our meeting in the final days before the 1999 independence ballot in East Timor meant that we formed a strong friendship. HT

"There will be no surrender. We will fight to the last drop of blood", says DAVID ALEX, one of the most wanted men in East Timor. At war for 20 years, Alex has killed more Indonesian soldiers than he cares to remember. He is regional commander of the