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BIG BUSINESS is already trying to use the drive to war to attack workers fighting to defend their conditions and public services. The London Evening Standard last week ran a page of smears against tube workers, who have voted by more than two to one for strikes to win a 4 percent pay claim.

OVER 1,000 people gathered in London last Saturday for an anti-capitalist conference organised by Globalise Resistance. Throughout the day the main venue, the former Hammersmith Palais, was a throng of people, debate and discussion.

ROYAL MAIL management have begun formal disciplinary procedures against CWU union rep Mark Dolan from north London. A worker made a complaint against Mark after he had overheard a discussion about the World Trade Centre suicide attacks. When Mark tried to settle the matter amicably, the same worker then made a further complaint, this time of harassment.

UNION reps from London CWU branches in BT were due to meet this week to discuss backing a call for action against the company. BT has terminated the contracts of 79 engineers who were on two-year contracts early. There are fears there could be more job cuts.

THE STRIKE for safety by hundreds of civil servants in the PCS union in west London is set to turn into a national dispute. The strikers, in Brent and Lambeth in London, entered their fifth week of indefinite strike on Monday of this week.

OVER 400 people packed into an organising meeting in central London on Tuesday of last week to launch the Stop the War Coalition. The meeting followed the 2,000-strong rally in central London the week before.

A MAJOR conference in London this weekend will bring activists together to discuss how to build the movement against capitalism and war. Anti-capitalist group Globalise Resistance had called the counter-conference to coincide with the planned demonstrations against the IMF/World Bank meeting in Washington.

SOCIALIST Worker supporters report a big increase in sales as large numbers of people look for arguments against Bush's war drive. Last Saturday saw large street sales-85 in Brixton in south London, 232 in Birmingham, 307 in Manchester, 28 in Guildford, 50 in Hove, and many others. They helped to create a visible opposition to the war as local anti-war coalitions started to take shape.

A NEW crisis is gathering in Hackney council in east London. Stephen Byers, the Secretary of State for Local Government, has given the Labour-run council a deadline to ram through even harsher measures than it originally planned.

LONDON Underground could come to a halt on Friday 12 October and the following Friday. Results were due this week in ballots by both RMT and ASLEF union members in a dispute over pay.

MORE THAN 70 media workers packed a meeting in central London on Monday and adopted this statement:

SOME 200 people joined a protest against threatened PFI privatisation at east London's giant Royal London Hospital on Wednesday of last week. UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis addressed the rally against the proposed PFI scheme to redevelop the hospital.