Solidarity 098, 7 September 2006

Middle East politics after the Lebanon war

By John O’Mahony A. For socialists in Britain, what are the most important political issues in relation to the situation in the Middle East after the Israeli-Hizbullah war? B. • To oppose any American-British attack on Iran. • To give solidarity to the beleagured Iraqi workers’ movement, and those fighting for secularism and women’s rights in Iraq. • To reject and oppose both Jewish and Arab chauvinist approaches to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. • To oppose and fight the Islamophobia that threatens all Muslims, and those who “look like” Muslims, with victimisation by the state and by...

Students and workers against Thai coup

By Paul Hampton Students and workers have taken to the streets of Bangkok in protest at the military coup on 19 September, despite universal indifference from “democratic” bourgeois governments around the world. On Tuesday 19 September, the elected government of billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra was deposed by a military coup, apparently with the backing of the “constitutional” monarchy. Three days after the coup, on Friday 22 September, a few hundred young people, calling themselves the “19 September Network” demonstrated in one of Bangkok’s busiest shopping areas. They were joined by some...

Solidarity with migrant workers

By Stan Crooke In May 2004 ten more states joined the European Union. Eight of these were the so-called “A8” states from ex-Stalinist Eastern Europe. Since then, around 470,000 workers from the A8 states have entered the UK workforce. Although some of the tabloids have responded by whipping up more anti-immigration and anti-foreigner prejudices, employers and the government have generally welcomed their arrival. And it’s easy to see why. 43% of the A8 nationals now working in the UK are aged between 18 and 24. 39% of them are aged between 25 and 34. 82% of them have no dependants. 97% of them...

Iraq: US/UK occupation creates “wasteland” - Down with the “resistance”! Up with the workers!

by Colin Foster On 29 August, oil pipeline workers in Basra and in Nassiriyah, in southern Iraq, announced victory in their 48-hour strike of 22-23 August, which stopped oil supplies from the south to central Iraq. The General Union of Oil Employees said that the strikers had won their demands: 1. Wages must be paid in due time. 2. Overtime work must be paid 3. Increase workers’ allowances 4. Ambulances at workplaces to transfer sick workers to hospital when needed. Union leader Hassan Jumaa said that the oil ministry was discussing a pay rise and restoration of the profit-sharing bonuses...

Mobilise to save the NHS

The biggest privatisation so far of any part of the NHS is now underway. The Blair government intends to transfer £3.5 billion worth of contracts from the publicly owned NHS Logistics, which organises the provision of half a million product lines, to DHL, a privately-owned German distribution company. What can anyone do about it? As we go to press a number of junior Government ministers have resigned because Blair refuses to let go of political power. Even if Gordon Brown soon takes the place of Blair as Prime Minister, the relentless New Labour drive to privatise the NHS will go on. Brown and...

Don’t mourn organise! Rebuild the SSP!

By Elaine Jones, Dumfries and Galloway SSP Saturday 2 September saw the launch of Tommy Sheridan’s new organisation Solidarity — Scotland’s Socialist Movement (sic). This new organisation has been set up not because of serious political differences, but because of personal differences over Tommy’s court case, in which he successfully sued the News of the World. The SWP and the Socialist Party are opportunistically backing Sheridan in the hope of being able to create more space for recruitment and for their own pet projects (Respect and the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party) in Scotland. For...

Pornography and free speech

We oppose the government’s decision to make the possession of so-called “violent porn” an offence. We do not oppose it because we like images that degrade women. Or because we are uncritical of violent imagery of all kinds (although not all depictions of violent sexual acts are also depictions of non-consensual acts — sado-masochistic sex for instance). Nor do we oppose this law because we are indifferent to the safety of the people involved in pornography production. Those people should have the protection of the law against injury and coercion. Sex work is very dangerous — although it is...

UN troops in Sudan?

Fighting is intensifying in Darfur, the western province of Sudan. The conflict began in 2003. Rebel groups demanding more autonomy for the area began attacking government targets. And the the Islamist-military government launched a brutal military campaign flanked by pro-government militias, the janjaweed. More than two million people have fled their homes and many tens of thousands have been killed. Those who escaped the violence are now living in camps across Darfur. 200,000 refugees have crossed the border into Chad. The African Union (AU) brokered a peace deal in May 2006, but it was...

Sarkozy fosters war of the generations

By Joan Trevor The French media, apparently, is dumbing down, becoming more like the US and UK, an obsession with celebrity and image — the French call this “pipolisation” — is growing. This suits and doesn’t suit those politicians jockeying to be their parties’ candidate in the 2007 presidential elections. When you are plug-ugly, like Nicolas Sarkozy, president of the right-wing government party the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), it means you have got to work the crowd like never before. And that is what he has been doing throughout the summer. In July he broke with publishing tradition...

NHS Logistics: strike against “biggest ever privatisation”

by Nick Holden “The government will today announce completion of the NHS’s biggest ever privatisation”, (Guardian 5 September). If the deal goes ahead, £3.7 billion worth of contracts will be transferred from the publicly owned NHS Logistics to German distribution company DHL and its Texas-based partner Novation. The provision of 500,000 product lines need by the NHS, including everything from bandages and syringes to hip implants and ambulances, will be removed from public control and put into the hands of profit-hungry multinational corporations. The Department of Health claims that the new...

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