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The army AT LEAST 140,000 US troops will remain in Iraq after 30 June. Right wing US columnist Jed Babbin recently admitted, \"If they are not subjected to the law and authority of the new Iraq provisional government, how can they be anything other than an occupation force?\"

Sonic Nurse Sonic Youth

RAIL AND London Underground workers are set to stage a one-day strike, called by their RMT union. Over 7,500 signallers, station staff and maintenance workers at rail infrastructure company Network Rail are due to strike for 24 hours from 6.30pm on Tuesday.

Kill and cover up TWO MISSILES fired by US warplanes killed 22 Iraqis in Fallujah last Saturday. Fallujah was the scene of fierce resistance to the occupation of Iraq earlier this year. US forces were forced to withdraw from the city and give control to the \"Fallujah brigade\" made up of Iraqi troops.

MARXISM 2004 starts in two weeks time. It is the biggest festival of socialist ideas in Europe. Over 200 different meetings, forums and debates will take place on everything from \"Iraq: war and resistance\" to \"Life after capitalism\", from \"What sort of democracy do we want?\" to \"Islam, secularism and socialism\".

KEPT IN the dark and fed bullshit. That's exactly how mushroom pickers working in Britain felt after a ruling over their pay by the High Court in London last week. These workers, like many in the agriculture industry, suffer low pay and long hours. They were pleased with a decision from the Agricultural Workers Board to increase their pay this October.

THE OFFICIAL US commission into the 9/11 attacks has delivered a devastating blow to the lies that launched the war on Iraq. Last week the commission ruled out any link between Iraq and Al Qaida. The commission is a mainstream body made up of establishment US politicians. But it found there was \"no credible evidence that Iraq and Al Qaida cooperated on attacks against the United States\".

FIREFIGHTERS AND control staff have picked themselves up from a year of knockbacks by voting for a fresh strike ballot over huge attacks on their conditions. Delegates to the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) conference in Southport last week voted by 27,349 to 24,353 against effectively caving in to the employers' demands.

SOCIALIST WORKER sellers in Brent, north west London, took to the streets last week to follow up a successful campaign for Respect. Simon reports, \"On Thursday we did a stall at two sites of an FE college. People were keen on the Socialist Worker election coverage.

THE NATIONAL Union of Students (NUS) held an extraordinary conference in Leeds last week to discuss reform of its democratic structures. It was attended by just over 300 delegates-a large proportion of whom were full time sabbatical officers. The conference was called against the backdrop of a severe financial crisis. The NUS has an annual budget deficit of £500,000.

THE firefighters' FBU union struck a major blow against Tony Blair last week. It came just days after Labour suffered its worst election result since 1918. That was also the year the FBU affiliated to the Labour Party. The FBU ended that affiliation last week by 35,105 to 14,611 on a card vote.

THE CWU postal and telecom workers' union conference had a good spirit about it, particularly in the postal section. A year of sharp struggle has given the members new confidence. Although there are big challenges ahead, there is a sense of new beginnings and a determination to relaunch the union with greater rank and file control and involvement.