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HOUSING privatisation plans in Haringey, north London, have been blocked by tenants. A few weeks ago we found out that the council was about to use funds from the council's "ring-fenced homelessness budget" towards a £612,000 consultancy contract.

TEACHERS AT Kingsland School in Hackney, east London, are to ballot for strikes over the sacking of their union rep, Indro Sen. Teachers in four other schools are to hold consultative strike ballots over the same issue.

THOUSANDS OF students were set to join the National Union of Students march for "grants, not fees" in central London on Wednesday this week. Students are angrier this term than I've ever seen them. Higher education is in crisis. The introduction of tuition fees and the abolition of the grant put many people off going to university and stuck the rest of us with an average £15,000 debt.

TEACHERS, school support staff and council workers struck across London last week. Tens of thousands walked out demanding a higher London weighting allowance for the extra costs of living and working in the capital. Thousands demonstrated and they were joined by striking firefighters. Socialist Worker spoke to some of those marching about the day, and how they say the fight going forward.

THE ITALIAN state has arrested 20 activists after the successful European Social Forum in Florence. They have charged with "subversion against state authority". These included Antonino Campenni of the Cobas union national executive, and Francesco Caruso, one of the leaders of the "disobbediente" group. Antonino spoke at a Globalise Resistance meeting in London last year.

ANGER AT low pay exists across the public services. That's why other groups of workers as well as the firefighters are taking action. On Tuesday tens of thousands of teachers and council workers in London struck for a rise in the allowance they get for living in London, with its spiralling housing and transport costs.

CHANCELLOR Gordon Brown constantly argues that the government has made major inroads into tackling child and pensioner poverty. Both claims were demolished by shocking studies published last week.

ON ALL of our demonstrations we chant "Another world is possible". But what does this mean? On one of the anti-capitalist marches in London last year several people arrived with a big home-made banner that said "Overthrow capitalism and replace it with something nicer".

AN EMPLOYMENT tribunal has been hearing shocking allegations of brutal and racist bullying in the British army. Timur Kalayaci had lived all his life in Hackney, east London. Like many people in Hackney he is of Turkish background. He is also a Muslim. He joined the army, believing all the propaganda about serving queen and country, and the image of "equal opportunities" the army has pushed in recent years.

THE TWO-day firefighters' strike last week, and the support it got, rattled the government. Large sections of the capital's tube system shut during the strike when workers took impressive action over health and safety (see below). The strike also transformed the 55,000 members of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU). FBU general secretary Andy Gilchrist told over 600 people at a fundraising gig in west London on Friday of last week that his tour of mass meetings showed a deepening confidence among firefighters that they will win.

THE FIRST joint strike in higher education in the London area was held on Thursday of last week. Two unions, the AUT and Natfhe, represent lecturers in the old universities and the "new" universities (ex polytechnics). They joined with members of two other unions representing support staff, Unison and Amicus, to strike for an increase in the London weighting allowance. The demand is for £4,000 a year.

ANYONE WITH a computer can now access talks on almost every imaginable aspect of socialist history, theory and argument, and much more besides. The fantastic website www.geocities.com/resistancemp3 consists of hundreds of original talks "on topics from anti-capitalism to Zionism by Socialist Workers Party members, Noam Chomsky, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and others". Most of the talks are recordings of speeches at the annual Marxism event organised by the SWP in London each summer. Others are recordings from the media and meetings elsewhere.