Iraq Follow

John Rees of the Stop the War Coalition speaks to the crowd at the rally before more than 50,000 people marched on the Stop the War Coalition 'Time to Go' demonstration against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for Tony Blair to go. The demonstration was in Manchester outside the venue of the Labour Party conference on Saturday 23 September 2006.

Nahella Ashraf, chair of Manchester Stop the War, speaks to the crowd at the rally after more than 50,000 people marched on the Stop the War Coalition 'Time to Go' demonstration against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for Tony Blair to go. The demonstration was in Manchester outside the venue of the Labour Party conference on Saturday 23 September 2006.

Dr Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, speaks to the crowd at the rally after more than 50,000 people marched on the Stop the War Coalition 'Time to Go' demonstration against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for Tony Blair to go. The demonstration was in Manchester outside the venue of the Labour Party conference on Saturday 23 September 2006.

As Socialist Worker went to press on Tuesday of this week, the Turkish parliament was set to vote on sending troops to Lebanon as part of the United Nations (UN) force.

Tony Blair’s grip on political power is lurching deeper into crisis this week as the deaths of British soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq increase.

Iraqi resistance growing At the start of August, the press carried reports of a significant decline in US casualties in Iraq. This was combined with announcements from US officials that the military situation was improving.

Black Watch was the play that took the Edinburgh festival by storm.

The anti-war movement, in all its power and dynamism, is set to converge on Manchester for a national demonstration on 23 September.

Saadi Youssef is one of Iraq’s best known poets. His work is renowned throughout the Middle East and beyond. He has translated numerous writers into Arabic, including George Orwell, Federico Garcia Lorca and Walt Whitman. Saadi fled Iraq in 1979 after Saddam Hussein tightened his hold on power. He now lives just outside London.

I am being shown around what is left of the Liban Lait plant by Deeb Mounzer, a mechanical engineer and one of the union reps at the factory.

‘We really kicked off our preparations with our own demonstration in Preston a couple of weeks ago.

"The Arab people now consider Hizbollah to be heroes because they are confronting the enemy Israel and protecting their land... Even if Hizbollah were destroyed, another Hizbollah would emerge within a year or two somewhere else - maybe in Jordan, in Syria, in Egypt or in Iraq."