Editorial

March 28 in Britain saw more than one million public sector workers striking to defend their pension rights. In a show of defiance against Blair’s latest attack on their conditions, pickets were mounted and rallies were held up and down the country.

 

France

Unions join fight

“The executive (government) is in tatters, the ministers squabble, the (parliamentary) majority is rent by divisions”. The quotation is not from one of the leaders of the mass movement against the CPE (First Employment Contract) that has shaken France over the last few weeks.

 

Palestine

Lawyer condemns British involvement

Piers Mostyn spoke to Daniel Machover, London-based lawyer for PFLP leader Ahmed Sa’adat about the murky background to Israeli Defence Force storming of Jericho prison - a tale that implicates Britain with Israel in long term human rights abuses.

 

Obituary

Slobodan Milosevic died during his trial at the UN’s International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague. He was 64. He stood accused of war crimes in Bosnia- Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo. Whatever the legitimacy of the victors justice represented by the Tribunal, a poor substitute for a true international court, there is no doubt of his guilt. The evidence is overwhelming. He was the butcher of the Balkans. Geoff Ryan and Alan Thornett look at his history in the Balkans.

 

1926 - The General Strike

When five million workers struck in solidarity

The political questions raised by the General Strike, over the extent to which reformist trade union leaders are willing or able to confront and challenge the power of the capitalist state, have not yet been resolved in the British labour movement. John Docherty and Harry Sloan sum up the issues.