Month: January 2003

It’s official. Six years of a New Labour government and four years of the Scottish Parliament has made little or no difference to the lives of millions of working class people in Scotland.

The Dutch general election results (22 January) were a bitter disappointment for many members and supporters of the Socialist Party, a broad Left party, which had been tipped to make a historic electoral breakthrough. Instead […]

Monday’s (27 January) general elections in Israel saw Ariel Sharon’s Likud party double its vote to 37 seats. The Labour Party (which is the traditional party of the Israeli capitalists) plunged to an all time […]

"Ole, ole, ole, Lula… Lula… Lula", chanted a vast crowd that engulfed the Sunset Park in Porto Alegre on Friday afternoon, last week.

What does Kim Jong Il’s defiance mean for the Bush military doctrine? Can these events lead to yet another US military intervention? Offensiv takes a closer look at the Korean crisis.

The second elections to the Scottish Parliament take place on May 1st 2003. May Day is the traditional day of celebration and commemoration for the international workers and socialist movement. But the first four years […]

FOR MOST of the 1990s the capitalists believed that in globalisation and the neo-liberal economic model, they had discovered a new elixir of life for their system. Exaggerated claims were made that new technologies had […]

Last December’s negotiations between the existing EU members and the candidate countries for enlargement drew to a close at the Copenhagen summit. The 10 countries invited to join in May 2004 are Cyprus, the Czech […]

ON 14 January an estimated 70,000 Turkish Cypriots – one-quarter of the northern Cypriot population – marched through divided Nicosia in support of a United Nations (UN) plan to re-unify the divided island.

On 19 January 10,000 people demonstrated in a national anti-war demonstration in Brussels. The collaboration of the Belgian government, by allowing US troops and military transports to use the Antwerp harbour, and the international aspect […]

The World Social Forum is a meeting place for all kinds of organisations that fight against neo-liberalism, including environmentalists, trade unionists, and others who wants to go further and seek an alternative, "another world", according […]

In January the Scottish Executive attempted to put an amendment – the abolition of Section 19 – through parliament which would have made it easier to to close fire stations in Scotland. It would have […]

MATTHEW RICHARDSON from Lincoln reports how, led by a fire tender and carrying a coffin to symbolise the demise of the fire service, 200 firefighters and supporters marched through the centre of Lincoln.

"It was the only genuinely anti-war amendment. Both the SNP and the Liberal-Democrat amendments would have given the sanction to the UN Security Council to go to war. The Security Council is dominated by the […]

On the 20 February, Saken Zhanusov and Rustem Zhanusov were sentenced to 3 years in Kazakhstan’s notorious prisons. Their comrade Ramil Mingazov, for reasons of health, was ordered to pay a large fine.

On 18 January, the growing anti-war movement in the US took another important step forward when a crowd estimated at over 200,000 braved the cold and marched on the Naval Yard in Washington DC. The […]

"Say hey, say ho, say George Bush has got to go". In the biggest demonstration so far in Sweden, 5-6 000 marched against the US war against Iraq in Gothenburg on 18 January.

War on Iraq.

Canada’s 40-year old system of socialised medicine is under threat. Powerful private corporations have lobbied heavily for entry into what they see as an untapped, lucrative market. Ontario’s conservative government has been hungrily looking for […]

Members and supporters of the Socialist Party (Australian section of the CWI) joined with the Victorian Peace Network to hold a protest outside the outside the Army Recruiting Office in Bourke St, Melbourne on 17 […]

ON 5 November 1956 British and French paratroops occupied Egypt’s Port Said at the entrance to the Suez Canal.

"This movement today, not Tony Blair, is speaking for the British people," declared Aslef member Andrew Murray, opening the Stop the War national conference. 800 activists came from local coalitions, political parties, trade unions and […]

A special congress of the Lagos State chapter of the National Conscience Party (NCP) was held in Lagos on Monday, 6 January 2003. The main purpose of the congress was to elect party candidates for […]

CWI group campaigns against war.

The December 27th General election in Kenya resulted in a massive defeat of the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and the rise to power of the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) which brought together sixteen opposition […]

In the light of Hans Blix and the weapons inspectors’ report that there is no "smoking gun", conclusive evidence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, the prospect of an immediate war against Iraq […]

A document made public last Tuesday by a British student group ’Campaign against Sanctions on Iraq’ revealed that as many as 500,000 people in Iraq could suffer injuries and require medical treatment if the United […]

The Steel and Engineering Workers’ Union of Nigeria (SEWUN) picketed the Nexans’ Kabelmetal factory in Lagos on Friday 10 January 2003 to demand the reinstatement of Rufus Olusesan, a member of the Democratic Socialist Movement, […]

There were delegates representing many different sectors including women, students, youth, farmers, fisher folk, tribal rights activists, daliths (’untouchables’) and trade unionists. Peace/ anti-nuclear and environmental activists were also present. The Left parties also present […]

The so called ’Truth Commisson’ in Sweden investigating the state’s secret political registers has exposed the widespread use of secret police spying on communists, socialists and workers in struggle.

Even over Christmas and on New Year’s Day, there have been demonstrations of protest, with blockades, in a number of factories of the Fiat group (like Termini Imerese and Mirafiori).

The recent decision by the New Zealand government to offer covert military support for a US-led assault on Iraq has provided the final confirmation of what many people in this country have known for a […]

Towards the end of December 2002, CWI comrades in the CIS heard that the case of well known worker activists in Karaganda, Kazakhstan facing serious court charges (see previous reports) is coming to a conclusion. […]

With the city plunging into fiscal crisis and facing the threat of bankruptcy, budget and services cuts are announced on an almost daily basis.

Only two months after the swearing in of the Red-Green government, that had been re-elected to office only by the narrowest of margins, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) threatened his resignation. Speaking to the Executive of […]

The registration of the National Conscience Party (NCP) and twenty-one other political parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) represents a major victory for the Nigerian working people in their struggle for democratic rights […]