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THE ATTACK on Afghanistan has provoked a wave of anger against the US and Britain across the Middle East. As the first bombs fell, protests erupted in Palestine, Syria, Egypt and many other countries.

SAUDI ARABIA is at the centre of US policies in both the Middle East and Central Asia. This Western ally, one of the world's biggest oil producers, is ruled by the royal family-and there is no democracy whatever. The US and Britain armed Saudi Arabia, and used it as the key military base in the war against Iraq.

THERE IS no such thing as a "clean war" or "precision bombing". The same US and British generals who now say they are using "smart weapons" in Afghanistan were only two weeks ago telling the media they were "resigned to civilian casualties".

"BLACK WEDNESDAY". That was the Mirror's banner headline last week as the scale of the job cuts sweeping Britain became clear. Behind the figures lie workers whose lives will be devastated as they are thrown on the dole. Thousands more workers will be terrified that they too could be caught in the jobs cull.

ELECTRICIANS who were sacked for taking unofficial action were right to strike, an employment tribunal said last week. The ruling is a boost for the 250 electricians who worked for Britain's biggest electrical contractor, Balfour Kilpatrick, on the Pfizer site in Kent. They struck for seven and a half weeks over health and safety in April last year.

BOMBING THE weak and starving. That's George Bush and Tony Blair's plan for Afghanistan. And in a sickening hoax they claim to be helping the ordinary people there. On Monday the US and British governments made sure pictures were beamed around the world of bags of wheat emblazoned with "USA" going to Afghanistan. But that cynical display is much too little and much too late.

MARK THOMAS, the comedian and activist who was so successful with his Channel 4 programmes, is on a tour which will take his establishment-poking talent to nearly 50 towns and cities across Britain. Go for a defiant, intensely moving, incredibly powerful and hugely funny evening.

TONY BLAIR is thinking of using the din of war drums to smuggle in a decision to allow a dangerous new nuclear plant to start operating. The Mox plant at British Nuclear Fuel's (BNFL) Sellafield site in Cumbria has been mothballed since it was built in 1996 because of safety fears.

THOUSANDS of workers across Britain and the US are facing the prospect of redundancy in the aftermath of the events in the United States. Aerospace industry and airline bosses have been at the forefront of sacking thousands of workers.

FROM THE channel that brought us the sensationalist fly on the wall documentaries Jamaican ER and Lagos Airport we now have How Racist is Britain? The four-part series has been screened in the run-up to Black History Month in October.

BOSSES around the world are using the crisis caused by the destruction of the World Trade Centre to push through massive job cuts and make even more profits. Around 100,000 jobs were cut in the US and British airline and aviation industries in days.

DIDN'T YOU feel sorry for Stella Rimington, that selfless public servant, who has been ostracised by the British establishment for telling us about her struggle to preserve freedom and democracy against the forces of darkness? The Guardian last week tried to hook us on its serialisation of Rimington's MI5 memoirs of how she "tracked, trailed, bugged and burgled some of the most ruthless spies, drug-runners, subversives and terrorists of her generation". Rimington was the first woman to head MI5 and the first security service chief to be named in public.