Issue: 2089
Dated: 23 Feb 2008
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Workers at the Ghazl el-Mahalla textile mill in Egypt staged a mass demonstration last Sunday, calling for the end of the US-backed regime of Hosni Mubarak.
Respect campaigners gained creditable results in two council by-elections in Waltham Forest, east London, and Preston on Thursday of last week.
Supporters of former Guantanamo prisoners Omar Deghayes and Jamil el-Banna protested outside their hearing on Thursday of last week. The Spanish government is trying to extradite them on terror charges. Both men have suffered severely in Guantanamo Bay and their supporters say they are medically unfit to stand trial
A report by the Competition Commission last week helped highlight the power of the major supermarkets, but offered little to challenge their domination.
The government is set to announce the development of ten new "eco-towns", which it says will help fight the danger of climate chaos.
As recession looms and Gordon Brown continues to put his faith in the "free market", hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of losing their homes.
Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling’s decision to nationalise the struggling Northern Rock bank last weekend ensures the government’s humiliation over the issue is almost complete.
London Midland pensions fight Train drivers in the Aslef union at the Bletchley depot of London Midland are set to strike on Thursday and Friday of next week after the breakdown of talks over pensions.
Further education lecturers in the UCU union have launched a new campaign – Our Schools, Our Colleges, Our Communities, Our Unions.
UCU union members are currently being balloted over new national negotiating structures in the higher education sector. The ballot ends on Monday of next week.
Lecturers at Keele University have voted for a one day strike on Thursday of this week over job cuts and restructuring.
Over 140 workers at leisure centres in Wigan are set to strike over changes to pay.
Postal workers in Oakham, Leicestershire, walked out in defence of a sacked colleague on Wednesday of last week and are now set to ballot for official strike action.
Thousands of offshore workers in the oil industry have voted for a new amalgamated trade union.
Disabled workers in York and Merseyside struck on Wednesday and Thursday of last week in the fight to save threatened Remploy factories.
Campaigners and health workers in Manchester are continuing to fight for the reinstatement of leading trade unionist and psychiatric nurse Karen Reissmann.
Two days of wildcat strike action by refuse workers in Brighton has won concessions.
Management at one of the biggest health service organisations in Britain, the Newcastle North Tyneside and Northumberland mental health NHS trust, is going to extraordinary measures to sack respected union activist and psychiatric nurse Yunus Bakhsh.
Anti-fascist activists are mobilising for the Unite Against Fascism (UAF) national conference, which is to take place on Saturday 1 March at the TUC Congress House in central London.
Teachers meet to plan action over low pay Around 250,000 teachers in the NUT union are preparing for a strike ballot beginning on 28 February over pay. Union members are mobilising to get the biggest possible vote out.
Bosses will be lobbying MPs furiously this week in a bid to scupper a private member’s bill enforcing the rights of temporary workers. They may not need to put much effort in as the government is likely to reject the plans.
Over 200 delegates met in London to hear peace campaigners from five continents discuss strategies for a nuclear weapon-free world last Saturday.
There were two lively protests against Tory MP Ann Widdecombe’s anti-abortion tour last week.
Victimised union rep Eddie Fleming was officially sacked last week.
The PCS civil service workers’ union has called a two day strike of over 80,000 members in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in a long-running battle over pay.
The agreement by Premier League chairmen to pursue a proposal to extend the football league season to 39 games from 38 has provoked outrage. The extra games would be played at venues around the world, with cities bidding for the right to stage them.
New Labour has again turned to the courts to defend its public sector pay curbs.
The battle for equal and fair pay in local government is coming to a head in Birmingham council.
Leeds Angry refuse and street cleansing workers in Leeds are to demonstrate on Wednesday of next week against Leeds council’s proposal to take up to £6,000 each year from their pay packets.
There are just three weeks to go until the international day of action against the "war on terror".
The government was forced this week to release an initial draft of the infamous "dodgy dossier" that was used to justify the 2003 attack on Iraq.
George Bush visited five African countries last week to promote the alleged benefits of US aid. But at the same time the charity Save the Children has issued a report that exposes the truth behind his boasts.
4.4% – The portion of Iraq’s national budget that is being spent on reconstruction12,000 – The number of Iraq’s 34,000 doctors that have now fled into exile54% – The proportion of Iraq’s population living on less than 50p a day. Some 15 percent of the country lives in "extreme poverty"75% – The proportion of Iraqi children that have no school place4 million – The number of Iraqi refugees – the largest refugee crisis in the Middle East since the fall of Palestine in 194840% – The unemployment rate in Iraq. Inflation is runnin
Barclays bank tried to claim that it was being hit by the global economic credit crunch when it announced this week that its annual profits had fallen.
The US, Britain, France, Germany and Italy have rushed to recognise last Sunday’s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia made by the parliament in Kosovo.
A wave of strikes and occupations is sweeping the Gulf state of Bahrain. In the latest strike construction workers downed tools and refused to leave their labour camp.
In a blow to US-backed dictators the world over, voters in Pakistan have decisively rejected the country’s president Pervez Musharraf and his crackdown on the county’s democratic institutions.
Civil rights campaigners have welcomed last week’s decision by the appeal court to overturn the convictions of five young Muslims who were jailed under anti-terrorism laws simply for downloading material from the internet.
Film director Steven Spielberg has won wide praise for his decision to withdraw as artistic adviser to the 2008 Olympics in protest at China’s role in the Darfur conflict.
The fifth anniversary of the great anti-war march of 15 February 2003 was celebrated by the anti-war movement last week, as a high point of a truly unique mass movement that brought millions of people into political activity and ultimately led to the downfall of Tony Blair.
Talk of a "new Cold War" between Russia and the West seems to be getting more strident by the week.
The government’s culture secretary Andy Burnham last week launched a high profile initiative aimed at encouraging children to get more involved in the creative arts.
When I heard last month about the government’s plans to give police more powers to stop and search, my mind flicked back to the early 1980s and all that happened in the days running up to the riots in south London on 10 and 11 April 1981 that we call the Brixton Uprising.
My new book, The Dirty South, which is out in April, deals with issues around young people today. It’s set in Brixton and deals with gun crime, alienation, peer pressure, and demonisation.
At the 1907 conference of the Second International (the organisation of European socialist parties) Rosa Luxemburg helped write a resolution committing each party to opposing its own government in a time of war.
Control is about the life of Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division, as the band shot to fame in the late 1970s. It chronicles his turbulent relationship with his wife Deborah.
This exhibition celebrates the life and work of photographer George Rodger on the centenary of his birth.
Following the success of the new film There Will Be Blood, Penguin have released the classic novel which inspired it.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about this book from psychologist and media personality Oliver James is the title.
Paul Robeson was a fighter against war and oppression, a supporter of the Communist Party and much more.
This government is capable of sending tanks to Heathrow to avert a supposed terrorist threat, but when an international criminal turns up, don’t expect the police to arrest him.
Even as Northern Rock is rescued by the state, we are repeatedly told that nationalised companies are the epitome of failure.
"It’s like going back to the 1970s," says a BBC commentator discussing the Northern Rock nationalisation, to a backdrop of pictures of militant shop stewards, rubbish piling up in the streets and people wearing flared trousers.
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