A grassroots upsurge has swept the US over the past few weeks, its sudden eruption marked by huge marches last weekend on the East Coast and by smaller, broadly based protests across the length and breadth of the country. These protests have popped the lid off a widespread, simmering popular discontent in the USA and given it focus.

The attack by the Taliban on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Tuesday 16th December 2014 was perhaps the most barbaric and brutal attack carried out by the fundamentalists to date. Now more than ever, it is vital to highlight the courageous work of the Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign and to ask for concrete solidarity for those fighting imperialism and fundamentalism in Pakistan.

The massacre of 141 people including 132 children by the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban at the Peshawar Army Public School yesterday was probably the most heinous barbarity ever seen even in Pakistan, which has been victim to this scourge for decades now. Hardly a day passes without suicide attacks, terrorist bombing or target killings in this tragic country.