THREE DAYS of militant protests last week forced the Bolivian government to expel a multinational water company from the country. A general strike shut down the financial capital of Santa Cruz. At the same time Indian residents of the town of El Alto blocked all the roads leading to La Paz, the administrative capital.
ALAN MILBURN used a speech last Sunday to unveil a new assault on social housing. He wants the "right to buy policy", introduced in the 1980s for council houses, extended to housing association tenants. With council housing already being taken out of public control through ALMO schemes and sell-offs to housing associations, this would make life even harder for people who cannot afford to buy or afford private rents.
Youth jail’s history of abuse AN INQUIRY into the racist murder of Zahid Mubarek at Feltham Young Offenders Institution has revealed more abuse at the youth jail. The inquiry heard how warders handcuffed a prisoner, believed to be a foreign national, to his cell bars, pulled down his trousers and smeared black boot polish onto his buttocks.
JUST WHEN I thought it could not get any worse, I got news this week of another cover-up in the case of my brother, who is threatened with extradition to the US under trumped up "terrorism charges". The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) announced on Monday a decision to formally discipline just one of the several Anti-Terrorist Branch police officers who arrested Babar on 2 December 2003.
The great power failure Despite claims that occupation forces would rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure, a US army officer admitted last week that electricity supply has fallen well below its level prior to the invasion. Major General Thomas Bostwick reported power plants have a generating capacity of just 3,500 to 3,600 megawatts, far less than the 4,400 figure prior to the fall of Baghdad. Most of the country has just three hours of electricity a day. Electricity supply has fallen since December of last year. Blackouts are a daily reality of occupation life.
I RECENTLY walked from a hotel room in central Dallas about two miles to the book repository where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot JFK. The journey took about 30 minutes and in total I passed less than ten people on the street. Here was one of America’s gleaming cities with a dense concentration of skyscrapers—most over 60 storeys tall—and the streets below are eerily empty on Saturday at midday.
Over 150 people attended an election day school organised by Respect, the Unity Coalition last Saturday.
Ali Fadhil, the Iraqi who made the documentary about the US assault on Fallujah shown last week on Channel 4, has delayed leaving Britain so that he can speak at the Stop the War Coalition student teach-in on 2 February. For more details of the teach-in see page 10.
Workers defiant despite ruling JOURNALISTS IN the NUJ union at the Enfield Advertiser in north London were balloting this week about taking further strike action against management cuts. The ten members struck for a day two weeks ago. Owners Trinity Mirror obtained a high court ruling to stop the workers from taking further action and forcing them to reballot. The ballot was set to close on Thursday of this week.There will be an NUJ Left conference on Saturday 12 February in Manchester. Phone 07801789297 for more details.
ACTIVISTS IN the PCS civil service workers union in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) were set to meet on Friday of this week to discuss a new pay offer in our long running dispute. Some 90,000 workers struck for a total of six days last year against poverty pay and a discriminatory appraisal system.
SOCIAL WORKERS in Liverpool’s families and children department went back to work on Tuesday of last week after a heroic four month all-out strike was ended by regional officials in the Unison union. Before the dispute ended, we warned that the Liberal Democrat controlled council was intent on victimising us.
