Archive for March 2005

5 March 2005

Northern Ireland: Horrific murder enrages local community

THOUSANDS OF people have attended protest vigils in Catholic working-class areas of Belfast over the last two weeks...

5 March 2005

United student campaign attacked in Israel

MEMBERS OF Maavak Socialisti (CWI Israel) and other students at Jerusalem University are facing attacks for standing in elections to the student union leadership...

5 March 2005

International Women's Day: Fighting the system that exploits us

OVER THE last decade, the number of women in the global labour force has increased by 200 million. Now women account for 40% of the workforce...

5 March 2005

Tsunami relief - the failure of capitalism

JIM HENSMAN, a long-time Socialist Party member from Coventry, was visiting family and friends in Sri Lanka when the tsunami hit...

5 March 2005

Protests force government resignation in Lebanon

"PEOPLE POWER", "the cedar revolution", boomed the Western press after mass protests in the Lebanon forced the resignation of the pro-Syrian prime minister Omar Karami and his government...

5 March 2005

Can George Bush's second-term offensive be defeated?

USA feature: SINCE WINNING re-election three months ago, George W Bush has made it very clear that he intends to go on the offensive in his second term...

5 March 2005

Troops out of Iraq

Bring the troops home
Stop the War Coalition demonstration
Saturday 19 March
Assemble 1pm, Hyde Park, London
AT ITS peak, the anti-war movement mobilised tens of millions around the world. Now a new international day of demonstrations is taking place on 19 March against the bloody occupation of Iraq.

5 March 2005

Socialist Party national council report

Travelling back home from the Socialist Party's national council, one of our new, young members said: "I just want to do more to build the Socialist Party because it is the most important thing in my life now"...

5 March 2005

Socialist Party election campaign launched

LAST WEEKEND the Socialist Green Unity Coalition officially launched its general election campaign...

5 March 2005

Can the Tories really win?

RECENT OPINION polls show Michael Howard's Conservative Party just two or three percentage points behind New Labour...

5 March 2005

New Labour - guilty of destroying democratic rights

NEW LABOUR'S anti-terror Bill has scraped through the Commons by just 14 votes and is expected to get a rough ride in the Lords...

5 March 2005

Let's have a decent minimum wage!

"FOR TOO long, poverty pay capped the aspirations and prosperity of far too many hard- working families."...

5 March 2005

UNISON leaders vote not to ballot on NHS pensions

UNISON's Health Service Group Executive (SGE) have voted against running a consultative ballot on pensions amongst its health service members...

5 March 2005

United action to defend pensions

PUBLIC SECTOR workers' anger at the government's attack on their pensions is growing. ...

12 March 2005

Brazil: A bloody week in the countryside

SIX PEOPLE were killed during a bloody week in the countryside in Brazil. It started with the killing of the American missionary Dorothy Stang on 12...

12 March 2005

Bush threatens women's rights

THE RELIGIOUS right in the US has declared war on women and our reproductive rights...

12 March 2005

Lebanon: A new crisis in the Middle East?

ONCE AGAIN the Middle East is in turmoil. As ROBERT BECHERT explains, the 14 February assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri...

12 March 2005

Germany: Challenges, dangers and opportunities

OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT has reached over 5 million, a new all-time high in post-war German history...

12 March 2005

Crisis for republicans in Northern Ireland - political alternative needed

THE NORTHERN Bank robbery in Belfast, Robert McCartney's killing and the attempt to cover it up, and then the allegations about the multi-million pound criminal empire run by the IRA have put the leadership of the repub...

12 March 2005

The real cost of war and occupation

GEORGE BUSH and Tony Blair say the cost of war in Iraq is a price worth paying. But who is paying it?...

12 March 2005

When is a cut not a cut?

THE LABOUR-controlled fire service in London is proposing to cut ten fire engines from central London and close the Manchester Square fire station, near Oxford Street...

12 March 2005

Review: Detention undercover

Ten police officers have been disciplined as a result of the BBC documentary The secret policeman which exposed racist views and practice by trainee police officers last year...

12 March 2005

Oppose Clarke's terror bill

AS WE predicted in last week's editorial of the socialist, New Labour's draconian anti-terror bill got a rough ride in the House of Lords...

12 March 2005

NHS: 'Over performing' but under-funded

THE NATIONAL Health Service will be one of the big issues in this year's general election...

12 March 2005

Pensions: 'We're fighting back'

Fight back is being organised. PUBLIC SECTOR workers are faced with a huge attack on their pension rights, writes 'We're fighting back'.

19 March 2005

Building a new NUT leadership

DELEGATES WILL be gathering at the National Union of Teachers (NUT) annual conference in Gateshead this Easter, buoyed by the union's decision to hold a ballot for a one-day national strike to oppose the attacks on our...

19 March 2005

Good result for Roger Bannister

Results of UNISON General Secretary election declared
Q. What do you think your result in the general secretary election means?
Roger: I THINK it clearly shows the effect of Dave Prentis being the sitting candidate.

19 March 2005

Oppose Clarke's 'hideous experiment'

HOME SECRETARY Charles Clarke's draconian new 'anti-terror' laws have been passed through Parliament after the longest sitting so far this century...

19 March 2005

'Third World Debt' - who gains from Brown's plans?

GORDON BROWN urged activists at Labour's Scottish conference to join the July demonstration demanding global justice at the Edinburgh G8 summit...

19 March 2005

Massive strike in France

IN FRANCE, in one of the biggest trade union mobilisations, one million people took to the streets on 10 March demanding better wages and battling against a longer working week...

19 March 2005

'Scary prospect' of US economic catastrophe

FORBES MAGAZINE'S latest survey of the world's richest individuals puts Microsoft's Bill Gates on top of the list with personal assets of $46.5 billion...

19 March 2005

Bush and the 'democratic revolutions'

FROM THE 'Orange Revolution' in Ukraine to the 'Cedar Revolution' in Lebanon, the authoritarian regimes of the world are forced to reform in the face of US-sponsored "democratic revolts", or so says the Bush a...

19 March 2005

Iraq: occupation and the resistance

TWO YEARS ago, the US regime promised a short war to 'liberate' Iraq - 'operation shock and awe'...

19 March 2005

Iraq: troops out now

TWO YEARS on from the invasion of Iraq, what remains of Bush and Blair's justification of the war?...

19 March 2005

What is socialism?

THE ARTICLE below is a slightly updated extract from the chapter How would socialism work? in the book Socialism in the 21st Century written by Hannah Sell...

19 March 2005

Fight for a better future

NANCY TAAFFE is a part-time library assistant and member of UNISON. She campaigned in favour of strike action against New Labour's attacks...

19 March 2005

Anger turns to action over pensions

LOCAL GOVERNMENT and civil service workers have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action to defend their pensions...

19 March 2005

Why we voted to strike to defend pensions

Local government: TENS OF thousands of public-sector workers have voted to strike to fight the government's attempts to raise their retirement age and make them pay more for an inferior pension...

19 March 2005

Pensions - the socialist future

THE SOCIALIST Party argues in its election manifesto that every person has the right to a living pension, which should be based around a socialist pensions policy achieving the following demands:...

19 March 2005

Pensions attacks: United action can win

"THIS IS the first time in my memory that so many workers in different trade unions have been involved in strike action over the same issue...

19 March 2005

Blair's pensions climbdown

THE THREAT of coordinated strike action by public-sector unions over the issue of pensions on 23 March has forced a major climb-down by the government....