The Socialist 9 December 2009

Bail out our jobs, not greedy bankers

Corus steel closure: 'Bail out our jobs, not greedy bankers'

Nationalise Corus Steel

Youth Fight for Jobs campaigners speak out on Corus closure

Socialist nationalisation - the only way to save manufacturing jobs and end the bank bonus scandal

Teesside steel: No trust in big business 'solutions'

End the war in Afghanistan

Climate change summit: Coming up short in Copenhagen

Free the Tamil boat people

Fight the political witch-hunt in Unison

Fast news

Youth Fight for Jobs organises demo in Barking

New Labour gift wraps Tyne and Wear Metro

Stoke Axiom workers escalate the action

Save jobs at Borders

Twinings workers fight job losses

Management bullying? Surely not...

Uniting to stop cuts at Sussex

Starting Socialist Students at a Coventry sixth form

No to student civic service

Northampton protest against student loan delays

The legacy of Charles Darwin

Solidarity with striking South African miners

Scotland: The national question and the general election

English Defence League show themselves up

Christmas 2009 donation appeal

A present that can last all year - a subscription to The Socialist

Previous issues, etc

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Free the Tamil boat people

AS PART of an international day of action, Tamil Solidarity organised a protest outside the Indonesian embassy in London on Friday.

Manny Thain

A letter was handed to an embassy official, highlighting the plight of Tamil refugees, whose boat was intercepted by the Indonesian navy on 11 October - with the collusion of the Australian government - and is now moored in Merak harbour, Indonesia. The 254 refugees include elderly people, young children and pregnant women. They have inadequate food, water and medical attention. The refugees want humanitarian aid. And they want to continue on to Australia where they hope they will be able to live in relative security.

In Indonesia, a foreign office representative said that access to the UNHCR will only be allowed once the refugees have been verified. The refugees would have to leave the boat for verification. They have refused for fear that they will be held in detention or forced to return to Sri Lanka, from where they fled war, prison camps and repression. So the standoff will continue.