Solidarity 176, 24 June 2010

Behind the violence in Kyrgyzstan

At the time of writing, the official death toll from the ethnic violence which broke out in the Kyrgyz cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad in the night of 11/12 June stands at over 200. With so many corpses still to be recovered, the real figure is doubtless a lot higher, and possibly as high as 2,000. Some 400,000 Uzbeks, the ethnic minority which has been the target of the violence, have fled from their homes. Around 300,000 are internally displaced within Kyrgyzstan, and the other 100,000 have fled across the border into Uzbekistan. There are contradictory reports about the immediate ‘trigger’ for...

Questions and answers on the deficit, the debt, and the cuts

Q. Are cuts in public services, welfare benefits, and public sector pay, jobs, and pensions unavoidable? Click here to download this article as pdf. A. No. In the first place, there is nothing impossible about the government continuing with a large budget deficit for a while. In the second place, the Trident replacement (maybe £30 billion) could be cut. Military spending (total £37 billion a year) could be reduced. The vast administrative costs of the internal market in the health service and the payments to private contractors under PFI schemes (up to £10 billion a year) could be axed. In the...

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