Archive for February 2005

5 February 2005

World Social Forum: Lula's betrayal of poor sparks anger

"LULA TRAITOR", "Lula your place is in Davos"*. These were just some of the chants on the 3,000 strong protest which greeted Brazilian...

5 February 2005

Russia's 'cotton revolution' shakes Putin

FOLLOWING THE 'orange revolution' in the Ukraine, Russia has been hit by what has been termed the 'cotton revolution' ('cotton' refers to the poor quality clothing worn by many pensioners)...

5 February 2005

After the tsunami: Victims treated like beggars

AS WE arrived back in the eastern part of Sri Lanka, a graveyard silence greeted us - scores of eyes tired of crying for their kith and kin taken by the killer tsunami...

5 February 2005

The Holocaust - who was to blame?

The sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz has produced a plethora of TV and radio documentaries, newspaper features and statements from leading politicians. All of these rightly express revulsion and condemnation of the most evil and barbaric regime in history.

5 February 2005

Lib Dems declare war on voluntary sector

OVER 200 people marched through the centre of Liverpool on 26 January in protest at the biggest attack on the voluntary sector the city has seen...

5 February 2005

Action now to stop the pay cuts!

Coventry 'single status' battle: "YOU'RE TAKING my mortgage off me" shouted one bin worker at a Tory councillor before the last Coventry council meeting...

5 February 2005

All out to defend pensions!

AN EXPLOSION of anger has swept the public sector against New Labour's plans to cut back on pension rights. Many of the major unions are making plans to ballot their members for strike action against the government attacks, particularly the raising of the retirement age.

5 February 2005

All out to defend pensions

UNISON's NATIONAL industrial action committee has decided to conduct a strike ballot of local government members...

5 February 2005

The great pensions robbery

THE PENSION rights of the majority of the British workforce are under attack.
Unless you're a judge, an MP or a fat cat chief executive of a FTSE 100 company then the chances are that you've either had your pension rights cut or are facing an attack on those entitlements.

5 February 2005

 Balloting against the occupation

On 29 January, on the day before the elections in occupied Iraq, ISR and Socialist Students in London organised a protest outside Aegis Defence Services Ltd...

5 February 2005

Teachers are fighting back

Sacked for being sick: TEACHERS AT Newton High School in St. Helens have asked their union to ballot them for one day's strike action in protest at the way in which one of their colleagues has been treated under new sickness policies imposed by the council.

5 February 2005

Oppose Clarke's dictatorial plans

THE LABOUR government is prepared to erode civil liberties using the excuse of "fighting terrorism". Since 11 September 2001 the British government has used this to bring in measures that could potentially be used not just against terrorists but also to repress the rights of others who oppose the government's policies.

5 February 2005

Nothing resolved by Iraqi elections

BUSH AND Blair have been quick to hail the elections in Iraq as a "victory for democracy" and a vindication of their brutal occupation of Iraq, but this was largely for public consumption...

5 February 2005

Iraq: No end to nightmare

'THE FIRST free vote for fifty years.' That's how the media described the Iraqi elections. But how can a vote be 'free' when the whole country is under military occupation by foreign imperialist powers? This so-called free vote involved circumventing barbed wire, road blocks, tanks and armed soldiers, and risking death, in many cases to end up voting for anonymous candidates.

12 February 2005

Scottish Socialist Party: Clear socialist alternative needed

THE SCOTTISH Socialist Party (SSP) conference meets this weekend in the aftermath of Tommy Sheridan's resignation as SSP convener...

12 February 2005

Slovakia: Multinational victimises trade unionists

JOZEF KRNCAN has been made redundant twice by Austrian based multinational Neusiedler/Mondi...

12 February 2005

Northern Ireland decommissioning crisis: The failure of sectarian politics

THE IRA announced on 2 February that it had withdrawn its offer to complete the process of arms decommissioning in Northern Ireland...

12 February 2005

Socialism can 'make poverty history'

TENS OF thousands of people, many of them young, filled Trafalgar Square on 3 February...

12 February 2005

Huge crowd cheers Chavez's radical speech at World Social Forum 2005

THE ANTI-GLOBALISATION World Social Forum (WSF) met last week in Porto Alegre, Brazil...

12 February 2005

Iraq - mobilise to withdraw the troops

THEY ARE counting the votes in Iraq but the body count is still rising. As we go to press, early results of the partial Iraqi election are beginning...

12 February 2005

May Day Greetings

The Socialist prints May Day greetings from socialists, trade unions, youth and student organisations, from around the world...

12 February 2005

Financing the fightback

"IT'S ALRIGHT, I can afford it", said a pensioner putting £10 into our collecting tin in support of our petition to defend pensions...

12 February 2005

UNISON general secretary election: Prentis attacks the opposition

Socialist Party member Roger Bannister is standing in the election for general secretary of UNISON...

12 February 2005

Left victory in firefighters' union

LEFT-WING candidate Matt Wrack has won a bitterly fought contest for the assistant general secretary position in the Fire Brigades Union (FBU)...

12 February 2005

Longbridge workers still fighting to defend jobs

THERE ARE growing fears that up to half of the workforce at Birmingham's Longbridge car factory could be made redundant as part of a possible joint venture with the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC)...

12 February 2005

Immigration policy: Labour apes the Tories - again

NEW LABOUR and the Tories are at war, each fighting to prove that they are the "toughest" party on migration to the UK...

12 February 2005

Crisis time in Welsh hospitals

ON MONDAY 7 February, all the acute hospitals in south-east Wales were placed on red alert, due to serious pressure...

12 February 2005

Bolsover protesters win round one of toxic waste battle

"WE'VE WON the first round but need to carry on until this toxic site is cleaned."...

12 February 2005

Incapacity benefit: New Labour hits the poor and vulnerable

THE GOVERNMENT'S own survey showed last year that only 0.3% of the Incapacity Benefit paid in the UK is fraudulently claimed...

12 February 2005

NUT leadership wriggle over pension action

THE GOAL of those of us on the Left in the National Union of Teachers (NUT) fighting to save teachers' pensions was to get a national ballot of teachers to join in with a one-day public sector strike...

12 February 2005

Time to make a stand on pensions

HUGE anger is building up against New Labour's attacks on pensions. Socialist Party members in the unions have been arguing for over 18 months -...

12 February 2005

Defend pensions: All out on 23 March

OVER one million workers could be on strike next month. New Labour have decided to cut their pension rights because they are 'living...

19 February 2005

Coventry council: Single status - poisoned chalice

HUNDREDS OF angry council workers lobbied Coventry council on 8 February...

19 February 2005

Not just "harmless fun"

THE STATEMENT below, from the Socialist Students Society at De Montfort University (DMU) in Leicester, shows their angry response to their local Students' Union Executive, who had decided to hold a 'Miss DMU contest' at...

19 February 2005

Stop the deportation of Mansoor Hassan

ON 9 February, there was a successful lobby of the Home Office against the threat to deport Pakistani journalist Mansoor Hassan...

19 February 2005

Arthur Miller: Death of a dissenter

Arthur Miller, the American playwright, died on 9 February, aged 89, having battled with cancer, pneumonia and a heart condition...

19 February 2005

Malcolm X: "They called me the angriest Negro in America"

MALCOLM X was assassinated forty years ago, on 21 February 1965. HUGH CAFFREY looks back at Malcolm's life and legacy...

19 February 2005

Political questioning at SSP conference

THE 2005 Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) conference was held last weekend, following Tommy Sheridan's resignation as party leader in November 2004...

19 February 2005

Pakistan: Deepening crisis in Baluchistan province

THE PROVINCE of Baluchistan in Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan, has recently suffered from flooding, causing hundreds of deaths...

19 February 2005

G8 summit Gleneagles: protest against world poverty

THE G8 (Group of Eight), who are holding a summit in Gleneagles in Scotland this July, brings together the leaders of eight of the world's richest nations: USA, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada a...

19 February 2005

Iraq's post-election problems grow

IN CONTRAST to claims by George Bush and Tony Blair, the most likely outcome of the Iraq elections will be to fuel opposition to the occupation and exacerbate divisions between the various ethnic and r...

19 February 2005

Iraq: end this bloody occupation

GEORGE BUSH congratulated Iraqi voters for "setting their country on the path of democracy and freedom." 38 years earlier his presidential predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, proclaimed elections in South...

19 February 2005

NATFHE votes to ballot on pensions strike

ON 11 FEBRUARY the national executive council of NATFHE decided with only one vote against to ballot members for strike action on 14 April, in opposition to the government's attack on pensions...

19 February 2005

Strike To Defend Pensions

PUBLIC SECTOR workers have been angrily responding to the government's attacks on their pensions....

26 February 2005

Israeli/Palestinian conflict: A road to peace or to further conflict?

WITH ISRAELI cabinet agreement to remove Jewish settlers from Gaza by August 2005 and the release of 500 Palestinian prisoners, hopes of an end to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict have been rekindled...

26 February 2005

Scottish Socialist Party conference report

PHILIP STOTT of International Socialists (CWI Scotland) continues his report of the 2005 Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) conference which took place on 12 and 13 February...

26 February 2005

No to fire service cuts

FIREFIGHTERS AND local residents in Barnsley have been campaigning to stop the closure of two major fire stations and the halving of fire appliances in others...

26 February 2005

Lecturers strike over pay

THOUSANDS OF lecturers are taking strike action on 24 February and 1 March because management are refusing to implement a national pay deal...

26 February 2005

Young workers: fight for your rights at work

"ARE YOU a young worker fed up with low pay, bullying bosses, long hours and unsafe working conditions?" asks the socialist youth organisation International Socialist Resistance (ISR)...

26 February 2005

Fight low pay

THE NATIONAL minimum wage, introduced in 1999 at the very low level of £3.60 an hour, has not done anything to eliminate the scandal of poverty pay...

26 February 2005

Russian pensioners put pressure on Putin

ON 12 February, nearly 300 demonstrations took place in 77 regions across Russia...

26 February 2005

France: 24-hour general strike in the making

A NEW wave of militancy is sweeping France as school students and workers take action against the attacks of the right-wing Raffarin government...

26 February 2005

Pensions: Our strength can stop this robbery

TUC day of action - reports: THE TUC undoubtedly saw their day of action on pensions on 18 February as a way of 'letting off steam' on the pensions issue...

26 February 2005

Pensions - force the government to retreat

IT LOOKS increasingly likely that up to one and a half million public-sector workers will take strike action on 23 March, in the biggest strike for over 20 years...

26 February 2005

Hands off our pensions

THE SCENE is now set for a massive strike movement by workers in the public services. ...