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OVER 400 people packed into a snap meeting in central London called by the Socialist Workers Party on Friday of last week to discuss the aftermath of the destruction of the World Trade Centre. Similar meetings were to take place across Britain this week.

ALMOST ALL media commentators now agree that the world, including Britain, is heading for a sharp recession. Only the most barmy of pro-capitalist pundits dare deny that the recession Socialist Worker has warned of over recent months is gathering pace. "Hi-Tech Industries In Meltdown", "Output Falls At Its Fastest Rate For A Decade", "Fear Grips Investors" were just some of the headlines last week. All New Labour's talk of "no more boom and bust" has evaporated as quickly as Marconi's share price.

Britain has one of the highest levels of mixed race relationships in the Western world. The number of mixed race people is growing. Half of "Caribbean" children have one white parent. According to the 1991 census, mixed race people formed 10 percent of the black population.

TRADE UNION leaders this week expressed what millions of workers in Britain feel-anger at Tony Blair's drive to privatise public services. New Labour ministers were making noises designed to head off this growing opposition. But Blair has made clear he still plans to press ahead. The only thing that will stop him is action.

The big powers at the UN conference also pushed aside calls for them to apologise for the slave trade. The British government led the pack. Britain was at the forefront of the slave trade in the 18th century.

Firsat Yildiz fled to Britain from Turkey in fear of his life. He hoped to find sanctuary from violence and terror. Last weekend he was murdered. At the age of 22 he bled to death in a Glasgow park.

OUTRAGE has greeted sentences passed on anti-capitalist protesters who demonstrated in the Swedish city of Gothenburg in June. Luigino "Gigi" Longo, a 43 year old trade unionist and socialist living in Norway, and Jonas Enander both received sentences of two and a half years. Paul Robinson, a UNISON union member from Britain, was also imprisoned, for a year.

TRAFFIC JAMS are at record levels despite the pledge by deputy prime minister John Prescott to cut car use. Government figures show drivers travelled an average 187.5 more miles last year than in 1999. Road traffic also increased by 1 percent last year.

"THE WORST is yet to come." They were the words of a City economist as British manufacturing industry was officially declared to be in recession. Figures released this week showed the biggest fall in manufacturing output for a decade.

PROTESTS COULD "kill off" the government's Private Finance Initiative (PFI). That is the fear of John Gains, chief executive of construction firm John Mowlem. The giant firm is a key player in PFI projects in hospitals, schools, councils and transport around Britain.

YOU KNOW something's up when the Daily Mail invokes support for an argument from the Commission for Racial Equality, which it has been campaigning to abolish. The Mail did just that last week when it attacked a high court ruling overturning a 15-year ban on US black separatist Louis Farrakhan entering Britain.

"SOLDIERS BROKE into a house, hit one person several times in the body with the rifle butt, shot rubber bullets at a girl at point blank range, and threw a young man through a window."