News
Every nuclear sub is a threat
OVER 100 Russian sailors were trapped in a sunken nuclear submarine as Socialist Worker went to press. The accident which sent the sub to the bottom of the Barents Sea underlines just how dangerous...
Fraudsters that Blair will let into the NHS
OBSERVER journalist Nick Cohen last week exposed the rotten record of the US private health outfit hoping to cash in on new Labour's drive to privatise more of the NHS. In May HCA took over the...
Driven to suicide in 'Dickensian' jail
PHILLIP GRIFFIN was just 17 when he died. He was the latest young person to take his own life while locked up in the hell of Britain's young offenders' institutions. Conditions are so bad that last...
Blair's Britain
* KEVIN Renshaw hanged himself after being made redundant from the factory where he had worked for 23 years. He and 250 other workers were made redundant in June. Friends say he was depressed at the ...

Inside the system
Hague's taste
WILLIAM Hague's claim that he drank 14 pints of beer a day in his youth received much publicity. The same interview also revealed an expensive taste in clothes. The total cost of his suit, tie...
Comment
Witch-hunts whipped up by the affluent
"SALEM-ON-SEA." That was the image that came to mind last week as a crowd rampaged through the Portsmouth suburb of Paulsgrove, driving innocent people on a supposed list of alleged paedophiles ...

How the hysteria erupted
THE PAULSGROVE estate in Portsmouth has been at the centre of the furore around sexual abuse of children over the last fortnight. Five families have been driven off the estate after demonstrators false...

Letters
Labour activists leave in droves
BOB THOMSON, former treasurer of the Scottish Labour Party, summed up the feelings of thousands of traditional Labour...

Reality behind the American dream
PRESS COVERAGE of the US Democratic Party convention was dominated by the speeches of president Bill Clinton and presidential candidate Al Gore. But as Clinton was speaking, outside the convention...

Inside the beast
McDONALD'S IS a symbol of global capitalism. The ruthless corporation now has 27,000 outlets in 119 countries. It is also hell to work in. Socialist Worker spoke to a McDonald's worker ...
Should Jubilee 2000 continue after this year?
THE LEADERS of the rich G8 countries failed to cancel any Third World debt at their summit in Okinawa last month. They have not delivered even a tenth of the pathetic promises about debt cancellation ...
Why do people abuse children?
IT HAS been hard to find any rational debate amid all the recent press hysteria about paedophilia. Any sexual abuse of children is utterly horrific. But papers like the News of the World have deliberately...

Relentless fighter for a better world
Trotsky had dedicated his whole life to the fight against inequality and oppression, and for international socialism. In February 1940, just months before his murder, he wrote: "If I had to begin all ...

'Empire of terrorists'
JOSEPH LIEBERMAN, Al Gore's Democratic vice-presidential candidate, this week attacked the US film industry for corrupting children. "There is still too much violence, too much sex, too much ...
Much more than 'flower power'
THE MEDIA image of the 1960s is all hippies and students. These images leave out the huge general strike which shook France in May 1968, the radicalisation that spilt over to workers, and the rebirth...
Mumia's defiant voice
MUMIA ABU-Jamal has lived the last 18 years on death row in the US for a crime he didn't commit. For many people, being locked in a tiny cell for 23 hours every day would mean certain depression. But...
Rodents, love and an island
A CROP of new videos are out this week which are definitely worth looking out for: RATCATCHER is set against the background of the bins strike in the 1970s in Glasgow and focuses on the dreams of ...

SWP news
Other workplace sales included 15 at the social services HQ in Sheffield, 7 at Seacroft Hospital in Leeds, and 6 at both Westbourne Park bus garage in west London and the social services office in Leicesteri...

Africa bled dry by the bankers
HUNDREDS OF millions of people across the globe are suffering because of the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. That is why protesters will confront the IMF and World Bank...

Oxford post strike victory
The unofficial strike, whichspread rapidly from one office to another, was a response to management's union-busting and bullying. At first Royal Mail bosses took a hard line and refused to make any ...
'We've won!'
WYCOMBE District Council tenants have trashed plans for the privatisation of 7,150 properties with a 51.6 percent no vote in our ballot result announced last week. The result was achieved despite a ...
Taxi drivers
AROUND 90 taxi drivers in Coventry staged a three-hour strike on Wednesday of last week in protest against the lack of parking space for taxis. One driver was given a parking ticket outside the train...
PCS
CIVIL SERVANTS in the Employment Service, members of the PCS union, have voted to accept a pay offer of 3 percent. The vote was 5,971 for and 2,200 against the pay deal. Union leaders strongly ...
Buses
OVER 800 bus drivers in the north east of England walked out on strike in their third solid one-day strike over pay on Friday of last week. The drivers are fighting their Arriva bosses' lousy 3.1 percent...
Foframe
THE 11 strikers at the Foframe plant in Huntingdon have been threatened with the sack by their fat cat boss. They started their action over pay on 3 May after their boss, Benjamin Perl, offered them ...
Press action
SOME 270 members of the MSF union at Oxford University Press (OUP) are set to take all-out strike action from Tuesday of next week. They are defending the senior convenor, who has been victimised and...
Strike halts aircraft plant
AROUND 300 engineering workers went on strike for two days last week at the Bellhouse Hartwell factory in Westhoughton near Bolton. Production at the factory was stopped for over four days by their...
Refuse workers
REFUSE WORKERS in Hackney, east London, have voted overwhelmingly for strike action against job losses caused by the privatisation of the refuse service. The private firm Serviceteam has threatened ...
Anti-racism
OVER 50 people turned out to a lively anti-racist demonstration in Birmingham last Saturday. It was called by the Jhumat family, who were victims of a savage racist attack. The protesters marched ...

Teachers warned exam meant chaos
The Scottish Qualifications Authority, the quango responsible for administering the exams, announced this week that it was re-checking the results of 147,000 pupils who have just sat their end of school...
'Stop killng our people'
OVER 150 building workers gathered beneath the steps of St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London last week. They held a minute's silence in memory of all those workers who have been killed on building...

Resistance to racist terror
KURDISH refugees have been forced to flee Hull, East Yorkshire, and return toKent after a series of racist attacks. The attacks included the stabbing of a 19 year old. He was hospitalised after being...
Civilian targets in Iraq, Kosovo
US AND British planes killed two civilians and wounded 19 when they bombed the southern Iraqi city of Samawa on Friday of last week. The bombs hit the main food distribution centre. US missiles ...