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LAST YEAR some 15,000 people from Iraq fled to Britain and applied for asylum. At last count, only 700 had received refugee status. In early March the Home Office deported to Spain an Iraqi family that had come to this country in 1999.

Parliament is not nearly democratic enough. We need a revolution to get genuine control, writes Paul Foot

UP TO 500,000 workers demonstrated in Madrid in Spain last Saturday against the right wing government's attacks on workers' rights. The demonstration is a continuation of a struggle that included a general strike in June. Spanish leader Jose Maria Aznar is a key ally of Blair in Europe.

IT WAS not just in London that people took to the streets to protest against war last weekend. Other demonstrations around the world included 5,000 marching in Washington in the US, 50,000 in Madrid in Spain and 3,000 in Athens in Greece. In Rome in Italy 100,000 took part in a demonstration which had a major anti-war theme.

TWO MEN, a nurse and a travel journalist, and their relationships with two women, a dancer and a bullfighter, who are both in a coma. Talk To Her, a new film by Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, uses that unlikely storyline to reveal a lot about sexuality in Spain today. The characters are sensitively drawn, especially male nurse Benigno and his obsessive and one-sided relationship with the dancer.

THE SPANISH government this week won a parliamentary vote to make the Basque nationalist political party Batasuna illegal. Batasuna is the political wing of the ETA armed group. We spoke to INAKI ORTIZ of Socialist Worker's sister paper in Spain, En Lucha.

THE CITY of Seville in southern Spain was shut down on the eve of the European leaders' summit there last week. A general strike of workers saw militant pickets defy the law and shut down major industrial and transport centres. Most shops, bars and restaurants were also closed down for the day.

SEVILLE IN Spain sees the two different faces of Europe this week. Tony Blair and other European leaders are meeting to force through even tougher legislation to victimise those seeking refuge from war and famine. Blair is at the heart of a right wing axis. Downing Street has leapt in to dub right wing French president Jacques Chirac "a man we can work with", as he plans huge tax cuts for the rich and an assault on French workers.

UP TO 200,000 people demonstrated in the Spanish city of Seville last Sunday against government attacks on unemployment benefits and workers' rights. The protest was the biggest seen since 1979 in the Andalucia region in the south of Spain.

THE EUROPEAN Social Forum will be a massive gathering of activists from many different movements. It will be held in the Italian city of Florence from 7 to 10 November this year. The alliance between Tony Blair, Spanish leader Aznar and Italian prime minister Berlusconi aims to drive Europe further to the right.

Mussolini fan sits by Silvio More news on people who are part of Tony Blair's club in his axis with Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and Spain's leader Jose Maria Aznar. A leading light in Berlusconi's government is his Minister for Italians Overseas.

Tony Blair has formed an unholy alliance with the two most right wing leaders in Europe to drive through an assault on workers' rights across Europe. Blair's friends-Spain's leader Jose Maria Aznar and Italy's Silvio Berlusconi – want to push through privatisation, deregulation, more flexibility and attacks on trade unions.