Issues Follow Follow

"SUPERBUG SWEEPS Hospitals". "Sharp Rise In Superbug Deaths". These were just some of the headlines in the papers last week. The spark was a study in the British Medical Journal showing hospital deaths from the "superbug" MRSA had risen. MRSA is a bacterium resistant to key antibiotics.

BREAKING national conditions and fire cover standards. A "pay as you go" fire service. That's what the 160 pages of the Bain review into the fire service, published this week, amounts to. Talks between fire service employers and the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) are scheduled for early January. But Prescott says he will impose Bain's assault anyway.

THE GOVERNMENT sent out a clear message this week that nobody should rely on the state pension to look after them in old age. The pensions green paper was published after Socialist Worker went to press, but statements in advance had set out some key elements.

BILLIONS OF people around the world want peace. Opinion polls show the majority of people in every country apart from the US are against war on Iraq. Yet George Bush is out for blood. Bush has already rubbished the dossier on weapons that Iraq produced. He's ready to order the thousands of US troops in the Gulf state of Qatar to kill and maim ordinary people in Iraq.

A THREAT to jobs provoked an unofficial walkout by some 390 Rolls-Royce workers in Bristol on Thursday of last week. Workers in the combustion section, who are not known for their militancy, downed tools after their management announced 10 percent would lose their jobs in the next four months.

MILLIONS OF people will be brought face to face with the transport crisis under New Labour in the coming week. Going to visit friends and family over the Christmas period will be a nightmare for many.

A 500-strong demonstration marched on RAF Fairford last Saturday, and demanded entry to the base to conduct an inspection for weapons of mass destruction. The Gloucestershire Weapons Inspectors led the march through the village of Fairford.

TWO DISGUSTING attacks this week brought home the reality of what the "racial problem" is in Britain. It isn't the failure of immigrants and refugees to "fit in". It's the racism and violence they face.

THE MEHMETI family have won the right to stay in Britain after a ten-month campaign to stop them being sent back to Kosovo. Thousands of people in Bristol backed the campaign - trade unionists, community groups, political groups and even the local Evening Post newspaper. The adjudicator in the case said that given "the level of community ties and huge local support for them remaining, and given their particular difficulties, the balance is in favour of the family remaining in the UK". Jo Benefield

A MOB rioted around parliament on Monday night. Rioters hurled fireworks and scaled the gates of the House of Commons. The crowd burned an effigy of Tony Blair, sat in the road, climbed traffic lights and tried to smash their way through police lines. Imagine the uproar if this had been an anti-war protest, a May Day march, a group of strikers or Asian youth defending themselves in Bradford, Oldham or Burnley.

THE GMB union has suspended strikes by 6,000 gas safety engineers. Bosses offered workers at Transco, the privatised monopoly that runs the gas pipeline network, a pay rise of just 3 percent. This was conditional on changes to hours, allowances and sick pay that would have cancelled out the pay rise.

THE GOVERNMENT is sending a naval task force to the Gulf to prepare for a murderous attack on Iraq. The fleet includes a submarine, a destroyer and an aircraft carrier. Officially the ships are heading for a training event off Malaysia. But one senior official called the exercise "a very convenient cover".