Iraq Follow

ONE OF the biggest talking points of the past few months has concerned where the war on Iraq leaves relations between Europe and the US. Many people on the left have been speculating that the European Union (EU) can, under French and German leadership, emerge as a counterweight to the US.

THE GUARDIAN has called its new book on the war against Iraq The War We Could Not Stop. The title reflects the desire of millions of people to stop the war and their anger when the mightiest military power in the world unleashed its devastation on a poor and oppressed people.

BECHTEL, THE biggest vulture to have got its claws into Iraq since the invasion, planned to be in London on Friday this week. It wanted to hand out a few scraps to British firms linked to government projects here. Bechtel is a byword for ruthless privatisation. The US government has given it the principal contract, worth $680 million, to "reconstruct" Iraq.

United against US OVER 10,000 Shia and Sunni Muslims marched through Baghdad on Monday to oppose the US occupation. US snipers overlooked the demonstration from rooftops as protesters chanted against the new US governor in Iraq, Paul Bremer, and his plans for a delayed Iraqi government in the future.

THE devastating bomb attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco shattered 75 lives, and with them the great lie at the heart of George Bush's "war on terror". We were told the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq would "make the world a safer place". The US government, and Blair, have all but abandoned the pretence that invading Iraq was about weapons of mass destruction. Instead, Bush says Saddam Hussein was a key player in the 11 September 2001 attacks.

PROTESTS AGAINST the G8 summit of the world's most powerful countries in Evian, France, will begin next week. George Bush will be jetting in for the summit, fresh from the slaughter in Iraq. Evian is not just a chance to protest to demonstrate against the warmongers. It brings together the people who impose brutal capitalist polices across the globe.

"I BELIEVE the documents are a forgery by someone who had no familiarity with the inner workings of the Iraqi intelligence service." With those words a "highly regarded expert" blew a gaping hole in the smear campaign against anti-war MP George Galloway on Sunday. The expert had examined thousands of official papers captured from the Iraqi regime by Western intelligence agencies in the 1991 Gulf War.

NEW LABOUR laid into George Galloway last week, suspending him from the party for daring to speak out against the war on Iraq. The leadership want to shut him up. They know one effect of suspension is to rule him out of being nominated for a safe Labour seat in Glasgow. Their treatment of Galloway is in stark contrast to those who have certainly "brought the party into disrepute".

SOME 3,000 people took to the streets of the Afghan capital, Kabul, last week in the first demonstration against the US military occupation of their country. The protest took place just weeks after the world's media began broadcasting scenes of similar protests in Iraq. US forces have remained in Afghanistan since the end of the one-sided war there 18 months ago.

BLUR HAVE just released their new album, Think Tank. The band's lead singer, Damon Albarn, was one of the most outspoken opponents of the war against Iraq. To many, his stand is even more remarkable given his close connection to New Labour just eight years ago.

AROUND 140 nursery nurses in Kirklees, West Yorkshire, started a five-day strike on Monday. The strikers, who are members of the Unison union, have already taken four days of action and have now stepped up their campaign to win a pay regrading. Jill Hinchliffe, a nursery nurse shop steward, said, "We are determined to win our fight. We have been underpaid for years and they thought we would just put up with it because we cared about the future of the children. But that is the reason that this fight is so important because it is a scandal that so much of the education system relies on low-paid women. There was no shortage of money for the war in Iraq. That money should have been used to p

OVER 400 people packed into Friends Meeting House in central Manchester on Friday of last week for a Stop the War Coalition rally on the occupation of Iraq.