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PROTESTERS ARE organising to challenge Britain's biggest arms exhibition, due to be held in London on 9-12 September. More than 600 companies and suppliers have already booked stands at the fair, which is funded by the Ministry of Defence.

WATCHING THE powerful new film Buffalo Soldiers reminded me of the time I worked at the Passport Office in London in the mid-1980s. Once or twice a month I had the job of opening up the Ministry of Defence internal mailbag. Inside were a number of passports that had to be deleted. They were the passports of dead British soldiers. A large number contained letters from army friends or commanding officers explaining their fate. Many were killed in the most horrific ways during military exercises. Others were a result of mundane accidents on military bases. I was always sad cutting off the corners of these passports and stamping them "Cancelled". The needless death of young soldiers is one

UP TO 10,000 members of the PCS union in Jobcentre Plus in London are shortly due to be balloted on industrial action over job cuts. The management has threatened to cut staffing levels by up to 40 percent over the next three years.

OUR STRIKE is showing people's determination and enthusiasm to win something over London weighting, the allowance for living and working in the capital. The selective action we began last week means that up to 1,500 Unison members across London councils are out, most for four weeks. That is a significant escalation on the selective action that has been running over recent months.

LEADERS OF the CWU union have postponed a decision on whether to call strike ballots over the national pay offer and London weighting. But the issue will not go away.

ANTI-WAR activists are preparing a campaign over the summer to end the occupation of Iraq and to bring the government to account for its lies and war crimes. That was the message of a spirited meeting last week which brought together representatives of London Stop the War groups to discuss how to build effective action in the next two months.

TENS OF thousands of people flocked to Hyde Park in London last Saturday as part of the annual lesbian and gay Pride event. The march from the Embankment grew and grew as people joined in along the route. It followed the path taken by the great stop the war marches, and many people on the Pride demonstration took leaflets for September's march against the occupation.

THE GOVERNMENT insists that its foundation hospitals plans have nothing to do with privatisation of the NHS. But the attendance list at a government-sponsored conference on "Foundation Hospitals: The Way Forward" last month tells a different story. The two-day gathering took place at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London, and details were revealed in Private Eye magazine. Delegates paid £816 a head to hear various officials from the Treasury and the health department.

STRIKE ACTION by different groups of workers in London councils continued this week. The battle is over a demand for £4,000 London weighting. Unison announced this week that it is extending future actions wider than the original boroughs targeted.

Criminalised because there's nothing to do AS A youth worker, every day I see first hand how the policies of Tony Blair and David Blunkett are systematically lowering young people's aspirations and hopes. I work on estates in Brent in west London which have a mainly black and Asian population.

LEADERS OF the Communication Workers Union (CWU) faced a key test this week. On Tuesday the union's postal executive was to vote on its response to demands for a strike ballot over London weighting. A press report in advance of the meeting suggested that the union's national leaders were opposed to a ballot because the annual pay negotiations with Royal Mail were "only just beginning".

SOME 1,500 council workers across London walked out on strike on Monday. Most will be out for the next four weeks, in the latest phase of their battle to win an increase in their London weighting allowance. They are demanding a rise to £4,000 a year in the allowance which is meant to cover the extra costs of living and working in the capital. Other groups of public sector workers in London - from teachers to postal workers, firefighters to university workers - face similar fights.