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A spirited march of 5,000 people took place in Ottawa, the hastily chosen site of the slimmed down summit of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, on Saturday of last week.

In three weeks time tens of thousands of people are planning to join major protests in the Belgian capital, Brussels. The protests will focus anger at the job losses mounting right across Europe as global recession bites. And they will also voice fury at European leaders' backing for the US-led war on Afghanistan.

Workers at the world's biggest fish and chip shop chain, Harry Ramsden's, went on an eight-hour strike two weeks ago for better pay and conditions. The strike involved 40 workers at Harry Ramsden's in Guiseley, near Bradford. The workers are members of the TGWU union. They held a lively picket line outside the restaurant holding placards saying, "We want a batter contract."

Over 350 people joined a march in Edinburgh against privatisation on Saturday of last week. There was a strong delegation of over 100 postal workers, a group of medical secretaries who have just won a major battle against low pay, civil servants and others.

Journalists at the Independent newspapers were celebrating an astonishing vote in their fight for union rights. A whopping 99.6 percent of journalists at the Independent and Independent on Sunday newspapers voted yes to union recognition in a ballot. Eighty percent of all staff eligible to vote turned out.

Workers at a south coast factory are furious at the company's plans for compulsory redundancies, and also at their AEEU union leaders' pathetic response. BOC Edwards in Shoreham-by-Sea is part of the major BOC company. The factory employs some 700 workers, mostly AEEU members.

BT has thrown down the gauntlet to its workers' CWU union. BT completed its termination of the contracts of 279 London engineering workers last week. BT plans to close its FirstCall division next March, where over 1,000 permanent BT staff have been redeployed after cuts elsewhere in the company.

Around 160,000 postal workers will soon start a strike ballot over pay. The CWU union's deputy general secretary, John Keggie, announced the move at an anti-privatisation rally in Edinburgh on Saturday. Basic starting pay for a delivery postal worker is as little as £145.66 per week before tax. The top basic pay is £242.76 before tax outside London. Even with the maximum inner London allowances, the basic pay is a maximum of £291.58 a week before tax.

Thousands of students have demonstrated for free education across Britain over the last two weeks. The National Union of Students (NUS) has organised regional rallies to call on the government to reintroduce grants.

Supporters of the Socialist Alliance have been out campaigning on the streets of Ipswich in the run-up to the parliamentary by-election which was to take place on Thursday of this week. It is the first by-election of Labour's second term. Local campaigner and former builder Peter Leech is standing for the Socialist Alliance. Peter's campaign has centred round opposing the war in Afghanistan.

Backstage staff at the Royal Shakespeare Company, based in London, have voted to take strike action at Christmas. The workers, members of the BECTU union, voted by nine to one in favour of strikes.

The opposition to the Nazi British National Party (BNP) in Oldham, in Greater Manchester, stepped up last week with the launch of the Coalition Against Racism.