Issues

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Issue - 1811
Dated - 03 Aug 2002
Round-up

AROUND 40 people demonstrated in north Finchley, north London, last Sunday over the threat to a community centre by Barnet's new Tory council.

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In this issue

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Round-up

AROUND 40 people demonstrated in north Finchley, north London, last Sunday over the threat to a community centre by Barnet's new Tory council.
03 August 2002
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Reviews & Culture

Sunshine State: the darker side of the American Dream

Sunshine State is the new film from the radical film director John Sayles. The "sunshine state" of the title is Florida, and the film tells us much about the realities underlying the American Dream. The "Buccaneer Days" are a marketing ploy dreamt up by the local Chamber of Commerce to exploit the pirate history of Florida.
03 August 2002
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Reviews & Culture

Calypso in London: bittersweet sounds of rebellion

IN 1948 a young black man from Trinidad, Alwyn Roberts, was sitting on the deck of an old troop carrier which had been converted to civilian use. The ship was four days from England. Alwyn started to compose a tune. Although unknown in Britain, he was well known in the calypso tents of Trinidad as Lord Kitchener.
03 August 2002
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Reviews & Culture

Woomera anti-detention protests: a great escape

OVER 1,000 protesters converged on the Woomera detention centre for refugees in the south Australian desert last Easter. This video is an inspiring account of what happened. Woomera is one of six privately run camps used by the Australian government to detain all "illegal entrants".
03 August 2002
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International

Right prepares for new coup attempt

THE ATMOSPHERE in Venezuela today is very much like what it must have been in Chile in the middle of 1973. That was when General Pinochet, backed by the US, organised a coup to crush a democratically elected left wing government.
03 August 2002
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International

‘Glowing’ hope of resistance

IN THE week before the bombing of Gaza City, a delegation of health workers, students and academics from Britain visited the West Bank and Gaza to show solidarity with the Palestinians. Nothing quite prepared our delegation for the everyday oppression. The bombing of civilians and children in Gaza was a consequence of the collective punishment Israel metes out to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
03 August 2002
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Pay battle in north targets two firms

STRIKING RAIL workers in the north of England are continuing their action over pay. The station staff and conductors on Arriva Trains have now been in dispute for seven months.
03 August 2002
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Livingstone vote

MOST PEOPLE know that Labour's national executive voted by 17 votes to 13 last week to block Ken Livingstone's return to the Labour Party. But few realise the full details of who voted which way. The breakdown shows that Blair relied heavily on the ministers and officials he appoints to the committee, but that a handful of union votes also played a key role.
03 August 2002
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New plan is a frame-up

POST OFFICE bosses want to renegotiate the industrial relations framework with the union. Managers have already given three months notice of withdrawing support for the current executive, divisional and area structures.
03 August 2002
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Stop the war

SOME 300 people attended a Stop the War Coalition event in Brockley, south east London, on Wednesday of last week. One activist said he thought it was the largest political event in the borough of Lewisham for at least ten years.
03 August 2002
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Comment

Preaching for peace

HAVE YOU ever given a future Archbishop of Canterbury a lift home from an anti-war event? Perhaps not-unless you were in South Wales some five years ago. There you could have seen bishop Rowan Williams leave a meeting against the bombing of Iraq and calmly accept sharing a car with several Socialist Workers Party members.
03 August 2002
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1,000 in Birmingham meet over pay

THE firefighters' FBU union last week announced that it was going to recall its national conference in Manchester on 12 September in its battle over pay. This conference would start a national strike ballot to fight for basic pay of £30,000 a year.
03 August 2002