Editorial

Reconstruction in Iraq is still to happen: billions of dollars of Iraqi money have been stolen and squandered mainly by US Contractors, or have simply disappeared. Channel 4 Dispatches reports that more than $20 billion of Iraqi money, held by the UN during the sanctions programme, is unaccounted for, with little to show in reconstruction – corruption and fraud flourish on an unimaginable scale.

 

Britain

Labour’s post-comprehensive school system

Richard Hatcher looks at the total destruction of comprehensive education by New Labour. He argues that the only way to defeat the new Education Bill is to unite parents, teachers and children in a mass movement to stop the Academies and Trusts today and to build for a radical comprehensive education system tomorrow.

 

Britain

The resignation in March of the National Health Service Chief Executive Sir Nigel Crisp, and his ‘early retirement’ – at age 54 – to a seat in the House of Lords, marks a crisis point and highlights New Labour’s neo-liberal strategy for the NHS. Here John Lister, Information Director, London Health Emergency, exposes Blair’s attempts to privatise much of the NHS.

 

Britain

Socialist Outlook on the Cartoons

The publication by the right-wing Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and later other European newspapers, of cartoons that among other things, depicted the prophet Mohammed as a suicide bomber, was a racist attack on Muslim communities. It was a provocation against people already angry over Bush and Blair’s ‘war on terror’, the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the construction of the monstrous wall.

 

Climate Change

Phil Thornhill, of the Campaign against Climate Change argues that an international treaty is the only way to save the planet from global warming.

 

Climate Change

Recent rejections by government of planning applications for wind farms in Cumbria, along with yet another energy review have led many to believe that New Labour, faced with soaring energy costs and a need to be seen to respond to global warming, will take the nuclear option. Here Phil Ward reiterates the dangers in such an approach.

 

Climate Change

The huge territory and population of China reveals the importance of it fighting against global environmental destruction. China is now the greatest coal burning country in the world, and as a result accounts for 15.1 per cent of the world’s total sulphur dioxide and 9.6 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions. Here Liu Yufan discusses the way rapid modernisation has created impressive material wealth, but at the expense of the environment.

 

Climate Change

This is an edited version of the document on climate change discussed at the ISG Conference in April. It was presented to the International Committee of the Fourth International, but not voted on, pending further discussions.

 

Climate Change

The following motion from the recent meeting of the International Committee of the Fourth International in Amsterdam was voted on and passed.

 

World Politics

Amancay Colque assesses the impact of the election of Morales in Bolivia.

 

World Politics

Stuart Piper and Andrew Kennedy ask what challenges the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela faces and pose tasks for socialists and the workers’ movement in Britain.

 

World Politics

Roland Rance looks at the growth of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement and argues that their recent victory reflects the failure of secular nationalist and socialist forces in the Arab world to provide an alternative leadership and direction to the Palestinian people.

 

History/Theory

If the war is over and Sinn Fein’s only remaining political goal is to help govern a statelet they spent 25 years trying to destroy by military means, David Coen asks, What now are the prospects for republicanism and socialism in Ireland?

 

Review

Good Night & Good Luck (dir. George Clooney, 2005) - Syriana (dir. Stephen Gaghan, 2005)

The past five years have seen a raft of polemical documentaries making headlines. Alongside these have been some unusually political Hollywood films. Two of these have just hit British screens, Good Night & Good Luck and Syriana, both starring George Clooney.

 

Review

Revolutionary History, Vol 9 No. 1 ‘The Russian revolution of 1905: Change Through Struggle’,

This collection of articles and extracts brought together in a commemorative volume by Revolutionary History breathes new life into an oft-forgotten but crucial chapter in the history of revolutionary politics.