THE MURDER of an Asian taxi driver in Oldham led to an anti-racist demonstration last Saturday through the town centre. Israr Hussain was stabbed to death after picking up a fare two weeks ago. A white man is wanted for questioning. The police have finally logged it as a "racist incident".
AROUND 30 people joined the Anti Nazi League leafleting campaign in the Mixenden ward in Halifax last Sunday and they received a good response. The BNP Nazis are standing a candidate in a council by-election on Thursday 23 January. Some residents said our leaflets were "brilliant" and offered to get some copied for friends and colleagues. Some said they were shocked and frightened when BNP materials came through their doors.
NORWICH BUS services ground to a halt last Sunday as bus drivers in the TGWU union started a seven-day strike. We are protesting against our bosses, First Bus, tearing up an agreement. The strike is hitting services hard. The 350 drivers have struck solidly. The picket lines are vibrant and confident.
A MAJOR public meeting is planed to support the "Anti-racist Three"-Unison union branch officers in Hackney, east London, who have been suspended by their council management. The attack by the New Labour council has set up a very important battle over racism and union rights.
SOME 400 delegates gathered in Ramallah on 27 December for the World Social Forum on Palestine. Encircled by Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints, Ramallah feels distant from Bethlehem and Jerusalem, let alone the world beyond the West Bank.
HYDERABAD IS a city that is held up as a Third World high-tech success story by champions of globalisation. A myriad of multinational firms have settled here to take advantage of Indian workers' skills. But this week Hyderabad has been home to something very different-the Asian Social Forum (ASF).
THOUSANDS OF activists across the world are making 15 February an international day of demonstrations against war on Iraq. They are doing so as US military analysts tell of a "near unstoppable momentum towards war" by late February.
A SERIES of announcements by health secretary Alan Milburn over the holiday period signals a major new government drive to privatise the NHS. If New Labour's plans go ahead private firms could take over the running of NHS hospitals.
LAST YEAR could leave no one in any doubt about where the New Labour government is going. It began with Tony Blair in February denouncing public sector workers who oppose privatisation as "wreckers". It ended with the whole government mounting a vicious propaganda campaign against the firefighters and their union.
DICK CHENEY, US vice- president and warmonger, has stepped in personally to sabotage a deal on drugs drawn up by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The proposals to make cheap drugs available to poor countries faced with medical emergencies were accepted by all the other 144 countries involved in the negotiations.
MARIO O'BRIEN Clarke, a soldier from the Deepcut army barracks in Surrey, was shot dead in Hackney, east London, on Boxing Day. Clarke was the fifth soldier from the barracks to die in suspicious circumstances since 1995.
