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CAMPAIGNERS in east London have stepped up their fight to defend trade union rights and to stop a massive privatisation scheme. Over 40 people met on Thursday of last week to plan the campaign for the full reinstatement of Unison branch secretary Phil Billows (pictured right) at the Barts and Royal London NHS Trust.

IRELAND IS the only country in Europe that is to vote on the Nice treaty agreed by European Union leaders at their summit at the end of 2000. Though people here have already rejected the treaty in a vote once, the government is coming back with it again.

FORTY JOURNALISTS at EMAP Healthcare/PSM in London last week launched the first strike in national magazines for over a decade. The successful one-day action over pay follows a series of strikes by journalists in local and regional newspapers.

TORY-CONTROLLED Westminster council has thrown down a major challenge to the Unison public sector workers' union. It was trying to use anti-union laws, introduced by Margaret Thatcher's Tory governments but kept by New Labour, to stop our strike action against privatisation.

"ANOTHER WORLD is possible" was the feeling in the air last Saturday as a festival against privatisation, racism and war gathered on the grassy slopes by the sea in Whitstable, Kent. Hundreds came to listen to music from local bands and performers.

PARENTS AND children were subjected to disgusting intimidation last week as education managers forced through a nursery closure in Hackney, east London. Officials of the Learning Trust, which now runs education in the borough, believed that an occupation was planned at St John's nursery. On Thursday of last week they did everything possible to stop parents getting into the facility.

OVER 250 social workers in Leeds went on strike to demand higher wages on Wednesday of last week. The workers were demanding better pay rates and faster progression up the pay scale.

THE ANNUAL Burston school strike rally was held in Diss in Norfolk last Sunday. It celebrates Britain's longest school strike, which took place in 1914. Between 400 and 500 people attended the event. It was a bigger and younger audience than in previous years.

VICTORY. That's the verdict of low paid health workers in Scotland after they took nine days of unofficial strike action. "We are over the moon with the outcome. This is a victory for all low paid workers in the NHS," said hospital porter and Unison union shop steward Bobby Reed.

TWO MEN, a nurse and a travel journalist, and their relationships with two women, a dancer and a bullfighter, who are both in a coma. Talk To Her, a new film by Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, uses that unlikely storyline to reveal a lot about sexuality in Spain today. The characters are sensitively drawn, especially male nurse Benigno and his obsessive and one-sided relationship with the dancer.

SOME 150 people from across the area around Halifax turned out to a public meeting of Calderdale Against the War on Wednesday of last week. They heard Alice Mahon MP, John Rees of the Stop the War Coalition, and local Labour councillor Mohammed Najib declare their opposition to war on Iraq and their support for Palestine.

PRESSURE FROM tenants, trade unionists, councillors and MPs is rattling the government in the fight for the future of council housing. Deputy prime minister John Prescott has announced a review on "the way forward for housing capital finance". Campaign organisation Defend Council Housing says: