Around the world

AS TONY Blair jetted his way through the Gulf area, meeting Kuwaiti sheikhs, lecturing to British squaddies and kissing Iraqi children in one big photo-opportunity, evidence was growing that he and US president Bush lied […]

Across France in countless villages, towns and cities, French workers from both the private and public sector, students and young people demonstrated in their hundreds of thousands and took strike action on Tuesday 3 June, […]

More than 1 million workers in 18,000 workplaces all over Austria, a third of the entire Austrian workforce, took industrial action on 3 June – the country’s biggest strike since World War Two.

Mass strikes and demonstrations on Tuesday, 3 June, show a hardening mood of combativity and solidarity in the battle against pension reform.

LOW-PAID hospital workers in east London, working for private contractors ISS Mediclean and Medirest have scored a victory in their fight for a living wage.

"THIS is not a happy decision," said Israel’s right-wing prime minister Ariel Sharon last Sunday in Jerusalem. After a six-hour cabinet meeting which divided his Likud and far-right coalition allies, Sharon announced his reluctant acceptance […]

AS STRIKES and demonstrations against public sector cuts sweep France, Germany, and Austria, the mainstream British press’s most prominent mention of this mass movement is in the gossip columns – apparently Madonna is upset because […]

An attack on workers’ pensions by French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has combined with other issues, particularly education decentralisation, to fuel a massive response by workers the length and breadth of France.

Almost two million Peruvian workers and peasants are on indefinite strike, demanding higher wages and lower taxes.

The authorities of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Nigeria, on Tuesday, 27th May 2003, suspended four student activists of the university for one session for leading mass protests against increments in school fees.

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In the name of Liberalisation, the deadly disease of Privatisation has attacked the working class throughout India. It has killed and destroyed 250,000 factories and has thrown 25 million workers and their families into a […]

According to V. K. Gupta, one of the joint secretaries of the National Confederation of Bank Employees, 50 million took part in this historic strike. Some of the veterans of the movement say this was […]

Paris pictures home page.Five pictures on each page.   Photographer: Paul Mattsson   one two three four five six seven eight nine

"WE’RE BRINGING order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. …We’re helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new […]

The streets of Paris resounded to the beat of drums and marching feet, this Sunday (25 May). Music blared. Rail workers ignited red flares filling the air with smoke. It was a riot of colour. […]

THE RULING House of Saud is a rotten feudal monarchy, sitting on fabulous oil wealth and which supports American and British capitalist interests ahead of their own people. But its days could be numbered.

AS THE war against Iraq drew to a close, an opinion poll in Britain found that a majority of people, including those who supported the war, thought it would make the world a more dangerous […]

After the magnificent mobilisation of Tuesday, 13 May, against the government’s proposed pension reform, the biggest trade-union confederation (CFDT), together with the CGC, signed a deal with the right wing government. Will this unholy alliance […]

Following the official revelations of last month concerning the role of the "Italian intelligence services" in Iraq, the last fig leaf of Italy’s inactive participation in the invasion of Iraq has been taken away. Any […]

The International Socialists play an active role in the SSP. We are committed to building the SSP into a mass force with a clear socialist programme. We are also the Scottish section of the worldwide […]

The war in Iraq is the fourth ‘high-tech’ victory for US imperialism and its ‘allies’ in a little over a decade.

GEORGE BUSH’S recently published road map to ending the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and achieving a ’viable Palestinian state’ by 2005, already looks set for failure.

WITH 17 SOCIALIST, Green, health campaigners and left independents elected to the Scottish parliament the political establishment was rocked by the results of the recent Scottish elections.

CLARE SHORT left Blair’s cabinet with a bang. Her resignation speech contained a withering attack on the "control freakery" of the Blairite "clique" at the top of the party and Blair’s "presidential" rule by "diktat". […]

A peaceful protest by several hundred women in Kentau City, southern Kazakhstan, fighting on social issues and against police repression, was brutally attacked and broken up by police, and many of the protesters were arrested. […]

On 13 May, in the late afternoon, 200,000 people (according to the ÖGB, the Austrian trade union federation) marched through the streets of Vienna against the government’s pension ‘reforms’ (the police said "over 100,000" participated).

Some of them are Marxists, and some are simply opposed to the occupation. Whatever the reason, the army doesn’t know how to handle the new phenomenon of young immigrants who refuse to be drafted into […]

TONY BLAIR tries to justify New Labour’s plans for foundation hospitals by harking back to the foundation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948, when working class people finally won access to health care, […]

After just a couple of days of tremendous action, the leadership of the Israeli trade union federation, the Histraduth, called off a general strike on 30 April.

TONY BLAIR hoped his Iraq ’victory’ would help New Labour in the 1 May elections. But rather than a ’Baghdad bounce’, it was more like a ’Baghdad trounce’. New Labour lost votes nationwide due to […]

PUBLICATION OF George Bush’s long-awaited "road map" to end the Israeli/Palestinian conflict was greeted by suicide bombings in Israel by pro-Palestinian Islamists and a massive and bloody invasion by Israeli armed forces into the Gaza […]

IN MAY 2002 24 security workers at Belfast international airport were sacked for going on strike. The events around the sackings have led some of those involved to suspect collaboration between the management and local […]

Tuesday, 6 May, was a historic day for Austria. For the first time in decades the Ã-GB (Austrian trade union federation) called for a national day of action, including strikes. According to the Ã-GB about […]

GEORGE GALLOWAY’S name has been added to the notable list of those who stood against the might of the British political establishment and were subsequently ferociously witch-hunted and smeared.

It seems such a short time ago that Helen Clark and her colleagues in the New Zealand Labour Government were being widely praised for their bold stand against the US-led invasion of Iraq. Only last […]

"A WAR to remake the world" is how Michael Ledeen, a leading neo-conservative associated with the Bush government, described the war on Iraq. Exactly how the world could be remade was succinctly explained by White […]

PUBLICATION OF George Bush’s long-delayed ’road map’ to a Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement and an independent Palestinian state by 2005, was inched forward last week. But only after Palestinian president Yasser Arafat agreed, at the eleventh […]

Toronto has been in the grips of its worst health scare since the polio epidemics of the 1950s. The last few weeks have seen the breakdown of a hospital system compromised by years of neo-liberal […]

April 29 saw up to 3,000 workers attend a morning open-air workplace meeting of the OMV (Austrian oil company) and other companies in Vienna in protest at the government’s attacks on the pension system. This […]

Following a year of political turmoil, the latest attempt to form a stable coalition government in the Netherlands has fallen apart. Alienation from the main establishment parties is marked. At the same time, the Dutch […]

The first round of Presidential elections in Argentina have left former Peronist President Carlos Menem in a run off with the government backed Néstor Kirchner, also a Peronist standing for the Unión de Centro Democrático. […]

On 22nd April, 2003, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the re-election of President Olusegun Obasanjo, the candidate of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for a second term. According to the electoral body, […]

Following its "victory" in Iraq, North American imperialism, headed by the Bush/Rumsfeld duo, wants to use its "triumph" to strengthen its dominant world position. The invasion of Iraq was in the first place for oil […]

Today the ÖGB (Austrian trade union federation) decided to organise "defence-strikes" on Tuesday April 29 in protest against the Peoples Party – Freedom Party (ÖVP-FPÖ) government’s attacks on the pension system. Reflecting the huge popular […]

Amid growing charges of vote rigging Olusegun Obasanjo seems to be on course to be declared winner of Nigeria’s bitterly contested 19 April Presidential election. How stable his rule will be is a very different […]

May 1st will see the second elections to the Scottish parliament. After four years of devolution, extreme disappointment would sum up the mood of working class people towards the inability of the political establishment to […]