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AN ALLIANCE of two major unions, and support from the mid-level leaders of major political parties, has come together to increase the power of workers fighting against privatisation.

I RECENTLY walked from a hotel room in central Dallas about two miles to the book repository where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot JFK. The journey took about 30 minutes and in total I passed less than ten people on the street. Here was one of America’s gleaming cities with a dense concentration of skyscrapers—most over 60 storeys tall—and the streets below are eerily empty on Saturday at midday.

ON CHRISTMAS Day, the Indonesian military announced that it had killed 18 Acehnese guerillas. It was a paltry accomplishment by its own brutal standards. In the time since martial law was imposed on Aceh in May 2003, the army has admitted to having killed 3,216 Acehnese. Amnesty International reports a litany of atrocities in the same period—torture, extra-judicial killings, "rape and other forms of sexual violence".

A GREAT battle in southern Italy in 71BC pitted an army of privileged citizen soldiers, commanded by a corrupt millionaire, against an army of slaves and rural labourers led by an escaped gladiator called Spartacus. It was the climax of the greatest slave revolt in antiquity.

THE AGENDA for the third Cairo Conference, which takes place from 24-27 March in the Egyptian capital, has just been finalised. The International Campaign Against US Aggression has organised the conference against war and globalisation. The aim of the third Cairo Conference is to encourage much wider participation.

Over 150 people attended an election day school organised by Respect, the Unity Coalition last Saturday.

"Any appearance of a permanent occupation of Iraq will both undermine domestic support here in the US and play directly into the hands of those in the Middle East who—however wrongly—suspect us of imperial design." So spoke James Baker last week in a speech at Rice University in Houston.

Ali Fadhil, the Iraqi who made the documentary about the US assault on Fallujah shown last week on Channel 4, has delayed leaving Britain so that he can speak at the Stop the War Coalition student teach-in on 2 February. For more details of the teach-in see page 10.

HARRY COHEN, Labour MP for Leyton and Wanstead, told a Stop the War meeting last week, "15 February contributed to the unravelling of the policies to justify war—19 March can be just as effective." He was speaking at a rally in Waltham Forest, east London, alongside Sami Ramadani, an Iraqi refugee who teaches sociology at London Metropolitan University.

Workers defiant despite ruling JOURNALISTS IN the NUJ union at the Enfield Advertiser in north London were balloting this week about taking further strike action against management cuts. The ten members struck for a day two weeks ago. Owners Trinity Mirror obtained a high court ruling to stop the workers from taking further action and forcing them to reballot. The ballot was set to close on Thursday of this week.There will be an NUJ Left conference on Saturday 12 February in Manchester. Phone 07801789297 for more details.

In the winter of 1921 the Russian socialist leader Lenin made a trip to a new art school. The art school had a progressive and experimental curriculum, where questions of art and design were annexed to the needs of the Soviet state. A student told Lenin that they were trying to figure out how art and politics could be linked.

ACTIVISTS IN the PCS civil service workers union in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) were set to meet on Friday of this week to discuss a new pay offer in our long running dispute. Some 90,000 workers struck for a total of six days last year against poverty pay and a discriminatory appraisal system.