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THE RICH are still sitting on their hoards of wealth after chancellor Gordon Brown's budget on Wednesday. Britain's richest 200 people were worth £69.3 billion in 1997. They are now worth £102.6 billion. Yet one in three children in Britain are still living below the poverty line after five years of New Labour government.

THE FIRING is Richard MacSween's first novel. It explores the emotions and to some extent the politics surrounding those mistakenly identified as sex offenders. A wave of hysteria about paedophilia swept Britain last year following the murder of eight year old Sarah Payne, ignited by the News of the World's "name and shame" campaign.

HENRY KISSINGER is a notorious war criminal. But top British bosses are determined to welcome him to London despite a storm of protest. He has been invited to address the Institute of Directors convention next Wednesday.

Yasser Arafat's story mirrors that of the Palestinian people. He was born in 1929 into a middle class Palestinian family and spent his early years in Jerusalem which, like the rest of Palestine, was then under British rule. Jews and Arabs had long lived in Palestine, but tensions were increasing as the Zionist movement, which wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine, grew in strength.

THE NAZI British National Party is standing 50 candidates in the local elections on 2 May. This is double the number of candidates it has ever stood before in a local election.

THOUSANDS OF people across Britain have taken to the streets to show their anger against Israel's military onslaught against Palestine. In London hundreds gathered outside the Israeli embassy, the US embassy and Downing Street nearly every day last week.

The British media has absolutely sickening priorities. Newspapers have filled page after page with "tributes" to the Queen Mother. The TV and radio programmes at first ditched part of their schedules. There has even been a ridiculous spat over the BBC's "loyalty" to the royal family because a news presenter wore a burgundy tie instead of a black one.

Tony Blair planned to jet off to Texas this week to meet US president George Bush and prepare for a new war against Iraq. Such a war would unleash death and destruction on an even greater scale than the murder and chaos the US and Britain are still inflicting on Afghanistan. The US is already building up its troop levels in the Gulf region on an unprecedented scale.

A major challenge faces every anti-fascist and anti-racist. Nazis from Nick Griffin's British National Party are desperate to secure a breakthrough in the local council elections on 2 May. They want to emulate their counterparts in Europe, where Nazis have won seats in council and European parliamentary elections.

THE peasantry is a major social class in large parts of the world. Peasants are not simply farmers. Farming in Britain and other advanced capitalist countries is a capitalist enterprise. Most of agriculture is dominated by large landowners who run major businesses, employing workers just as the owners of factories and multinationals do.

Twenty years ago this week the Falklands War began. During 74 days of conflict 255 British servicemen and around 800 Argentinians were killed. Most of the Argentinian dead were young conscripts. Thousands were injured. Those who were there write of "the ballooned faces of badly burned men" and of the "screams in the night in the dormitories acting as refuges for the wounded". The suffering has continued since.

This year's May Day looks set to offer anti-war and anti-privatisation activists across Britain a chance to take to the streets. The Greater London Trades Union Congress organises a march in London every year. Now trade unions have joined forces with Globalise Resistance to unite the labour movement and anti-capitalist activists.