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Two anniversaries, one catastrophe
Palestinians across the world tomorrow mark the 60th anniversary of the Nakba – “the day of catastrophe”. Only hours before, on the evening of May 14, 1948, a group of Zionist Jews declared themselves the independent government of a Jewish state, excluding Palestinians who had lived on the land since time immemorial. They are two very different anniversaries.

Will Hutton's fantasy world
I wonder what Will Hutton, writer on economic affairs, chief executive of the Work Foundation and former editor-in-chief of The Observer thought at breakfast this morning as he scanned today’s financial headlines, where the talk is all gloom and doom? Just two days ago, in Sunday’s Observer, Hutton argued that the US economy was showing the world the way forward, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Burma: the roll call of shame
As the world watches with horror at the actions of the military junta that rules Myanmar (Burma) with an iron fist, the generals are not the only ones to bear the blame for the suffering of millions of people who are victims of Cyclone Nargis. The international roll call of shame is a long one.

The momentum of 1968
The season of celebration of the tumultuous events of 1968 continues in London tomorrow. A World to Win’s new publication 1968 Revolution, analysing the worldwide impact and lessons of those times will be on sale there for the first time.

India's farmers resist GM
The Coalition for a GM-free India, representing hundreds of farmers’ unions, environmental and women’s organisations and organic farming groups from 15 Indian states, this week marched in Delhi against the sale and distribution of genetically-modified (GM) crops and seeds. In particular, they are opposed to an experimental type of Bt brinjal (aubergine) recently approved for large-scale field trials.

Point of no return
The crisis within New Labour shows no signs of abating as MPs stare electoral oblivion in the face come the next election. In fact, matters are getting worse. Wendy Alexander, its leader in Scotland, has broken ranks with Gordon Brown’s position on an independence referendum in a bid to steal some votes from the nationalists, while opponents of the abolition of the 10p tax rate are resuming their campaign. These are further indications that New Labour has reached and passed the point of no return. It seems inconceivable they can win the next general election – whatever Brown does.

Every little helps
Amidst the kerfuffle of Gordon Brown’s humble pie about his “mistakes” over the abolition of the 10p tax rate, and anxiety to help those who face difficulties as a result of rising prices, we should bear in mind a few home truths about the true relation between New Labour and corporate taxpayers.

R.I.P. New Labour
The humiliating results for New Labour at last week’s local and London elections amount to much more than just a swing to the Tories by people fed up with government policies. The scale of the defeat is a measure of the break-up of a party that once fondly imagined it would rule for decades.

A global car crash
Any lingering doubts about the trend towards recession were swept away last night as the world’s vehicle makers announced their April results. Falling off a cliff would sum it up. General Motors sales fell 23%, Ford 19%, and Chrysler nearly 30%. And to make matters worse for the manufacturers, the effect of spiralling fuel prices has shifted sales from high-profit trucks and gas-guzzling SUVs to more fuel-efficient but less profitable models. The idea that a US recession wouldn’t affect the rest of the world also took a beating as Toyota dropped 5% and Nissan 2%.

How to make the right to vote count
May Day is international workers’ day, when the labour movement celebrates its social and economic achievements. Winning the right to vote is undoubtedly one of the landmark successes in the history of workers’ struggles against the employing classes and the state. So it is more than a little ironic that May Day in England and Wales coincides with local elections which the majority of the electorate will simply boycott.

Profiting from the food crisis
The world’s major governments are sitting on their hands while the world’s poor face starvation from soaring food prices. This is the stark conclusion to be drawn from the fact that the United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) has so far received only £9 million towards closing a £380m funding gap, despite all the fine words from London, Washington and other capitals.

Nadine Gordimer and Gaza's dismay
This year Israel is marking the 60th anniversary of its declaration of independence in May 1948, which for the Palestinians immediately became a continuing disaster. Yesterday, for example, Israeli shells killed four children and their mother at their home in Ezbet Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. Now former anti-apartheid activist and Nobel-prize winning author Nadine Gordimer is accused of lending her support to the oppression of Palestinians by joining in “Israel at 60” events. Gaza lecturer Dr Haider Eid, has written Gordimer an open letter.

Coastal peoples hit by climate change
There is serious doubt whether the majority of people who rely on fishing and other coastal activities for their livelihood can survive the impact of climate change. Millions of coastal refugees could be forced to move inland, at a time when the interiors of continents are becoming hotter and drier.

Debt crisis behind Grangemouth strike
Members of the Unite trade union at Grangemouth are set for the first strike at an oil refinery for 73 years over pension rights. The dispute brings the potential impact of declining production of oil into sharp focus. The threat of a major impact on availability of fuel in Scotland and the North of England has driven already record prices higher and triggered panic buying as supplies from the North Sea oil and gas field are cut off.

Form alliance to defeat government
Today’s strike by teachers, college lecturers and civil servants is an important challenge to the low pay and privatisation agenda that this government is inflicting on workers in the public services. It is the first national strike by teachers in the National Union of Teachers (NUT) for 21 years. For many lecturers in the University and College Union (UCU) and for civil servants in the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) it is the first time that they too have taken industrial action.

New Labour's tame copper
Sir Ian Blair, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is New Labour’s favourite copper. Ministers can always rely on him to back the government when others are reluctant to do so. In fact, when it comes to plans to extend pre-trial detention to 42 days, Blair is about the only supporter of substance that they can wheel out.

America's judicial murder machine
As the campaign between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party presidential ticket comes to a head, it would be well to note that they both support the death penalty just when the gruesome American prison system is gearing up for a slaughter of the mentally ill, people of colour and Hispanics from a poor or working class background, not to mention the downright innocent.

Another 'fix' for debt junkies
The true nature of New Labour doesn’t come clearer than this. If you are a low earner, New Labour says you should pay more tax. But if you are a banker, government hand-outs are the order of the day. So prime minister Brown is “standing firm” over the abolition of the 10% tax band, which reduces the incomes of five million people, while his chancellor is today helping out the major banks to the tune of £50 billion.

The real costs of the price of oil
The price of a barrel of oil reached and passed $115 yesterday. It has doubled in a year. As the price of oil goes up so must everything else, as everything that is produced, distributed and consumed depends on it in some way. The higher the price of oil goes, the deeper will be the global economic slump.

Climate change hits water cycle
Global warming has already brought about significant changes to what is known as the hydrological cycle, warns an authoritative new report on climate change and water. The International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) stark assessment comes as the major economic powers refuse to take action to cut carbon emissions and, in Britain’s case, are actually allowing them to rise.

Italy at the crossroads
The election of billionaire Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister of Italy for the third time brings together an extreme right-wing coalition at a time of severe economic problems for the country, even before the global credit crunch hits home. These conditions are certain to create a nationalist-racist, authoritarian regime and, at the same time, deepen the crisis of a decrepit and corrupt Italian parliamentary state.

The German student revolt
Forty years ago today, students demonstrated in Berlin following the attempted assassination of their revolutionary leader, Rudi Dutschke. After narrowly surviving the attack, he and his family later took refuge in Britain, only to be expelled by the Heath government as “undesirable aliens” in 1971.

Meltdown hits New Labour
The turmoil in global financial markets is now reflecting itself as paralysis and confusion in the minds and actions of politicians, amid opposition from bankers to their plans for more regulation. Most significantly, the crisis is also finding a strong echo in the opinions of voters, especially in Britain where confidence in the Brown government has plunged to a record low.

Food prices revolt grows
Governments across the globe are being shaken by mass protests, as people take to the streets demanding lower food prices. According to the World Bank, increases in global wheat prices reached 181% over the 36 months leading up to February 2008, and overall global food prices increased by 83%. The UN says the price of rice has soared by 75% in just two months.

IMF predicts the unpredictable
Headline reports of the stark admissions, predictions and warnings in the two latest reports from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) literally overshadow the impact of the developing financial and economic crisis on the world’s population. A third report, also released this week, for the weekend spring meetings of the central bankers and finance ministers has been almost universally ignored.

Housing market misery
The morbid concern over the sharp fall in house prices in March not only expresses middle-class obsession with property values. It is also graphically illustrates how the market economy in housing results in gross distortions. In human misery terms, it means growing numbers of repossessions, more homelessness, overcrowding, extortionate rents and children denied the space to grow up or do their homework.

Help - I could lose my seat!
If some New Labour MPs are suddenly concerned about how Gordon Brown’s tax changes benefit the well off at the expense of low earners, it is not because for the most part they have suddenly developed a political conscience. Their real worry - panic is probably a better expression - is about whether they can retain their seats, along with their comfortable, expenses-paid, two-house, lifestyle, at the next general election.

Put this Olympic torch out!
Former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq no doubt summed up many people’s feelings after a protester tried to grab the Olympic flame from her yesterday. She valued the Olympic ideals but also condemned the “despicable” nature of the Chinese government’s role in Tibet. The Chinese Olympic organisers may well have lost control of the script for the flame, but they are still in charge of China and will get on with murdering Buddhist monks in Tibet and killing and jailing dissidents at home.

Martin Luther King's unfinished business
Martin Luther King, who was assassinated 40 years ago today in Memphis, where he was supporting a strike of low-paid municipal workers, is more often than not characterised as leader of the civil rights movement in the United States and man driven solely by religion. But King was much, much more than that and by the end of his life was advocating change of a revolutionary character, challenging the power of American capitalism.

Carbon emissions deadline looms
Carbon emissions have to peak before 2015 to have any impact on climate change, according to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in Bangkok this week, where it discussed mitigation measures. It would take a reduction in average annual growth rates of less than 0.12%, to achieve this target, the IPCC report claims.

Out of control
Some people you meet have a touching faith in global capitalism, although they would never put it like that. They believe that the authorities are more or less always in control of affairs and they will always be able to “manage the crisis” to avoid disaster. The assumptions behind this are that a) capitalism is a rational system that follows a predictable logic b) they have all the answers up their sleeves. Of course, if you add a) and b) together, there is no chance of challenging, let alone defeating, the economic system.

Speculation feeds rice price crisis
Across Asia, sudden stratospheric increases in rice prices have prompted countries to ban exports amid fears that shortages could provoke food riots following street protests in Jakarta, capital of Indonesia. World prices for rice, the staple food of about 2.5 billion Asian people, have almost doubled since the beginning of the year, joining those of wheat, corn and other agricultural commodities which have surged since the end of 2006.

Unions should act on asylum rights
The sinister underside of New Labour’s racist, dehumanising immigration policy came to light at a trade union and community conference over the weekend. It is a Kafkaesque world of state-organised disappearances, unlimited detention, rapid expulsions, exploitation and destitution designed to divide communties and win cheap votes at election time.

Send for Dr Who!
Regulate! Regulate! Regulate! This is the cry heard with increasing stridency on both sides of the Atlantic as the global financial crisis continues to take its toll on both bankers and ordinary people’s lives. This sounds plausible enough, even mildly anti-capitalist. But in truth, regulation is a non-starter when it comes to dealing with the depth and breadth of the meltdown.

An Anglo-French nuclear nightmare
The very concept of a “nuclear renaissance” is such an assault on the senses that it seems that only a madman could come up with it. Yet today Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will agree to build a new generation of Anglo-French nuclear power stations, with the aim of becoming the world’s largest exporters of nuclear technology.

Credit chain breaks at weakest link
Hedge funds are not just investment opportunities open only to wealthy individuals. They also apparently come in the shape of Iceland. Now, pardon the pun, Iceland’s finances are in meltdown and it could be the first country to fall victim of a global credit crunch that shows no signs of abating.

The hidden unholy alliance
The backlash from senior religious figures against the human fertilisation and embryology Bill before parliament should not be allowed to obscure their medieval, anti-science viewpoint on the one hand and the government’s close connection with biotech corporations on the other.

No security against climate change
New Labour’s characterisation of climate change as a “security threat”, second only to terrorism in the pecking order, indicates how the state intends to respond to the results of global warming. And we’re not talking drastic cuts in carbon emissions here but a huge increase in the powers of the state over ordinary people.

Iraq: America's nightmare
Exactly five years ago, US and British forces embarked on an illegal pre-emptive war on Iraq with the stated aim of bringing “freedom and democracy” to the country. Instead, they have destroyed Iraq, turning it into a country of mutually hostile ghettoes, presiding over the deaths of over one million Iraqis, driving more than two million into exile, with another 1.9 million internally displaced.

Policies for a crisis without precedent
The global financial crisis, which this weekend claimed the giant investment bank Bear Stearns and led to a hysterical response on world stock markets, has no precedent. Comparisons with the Wall Street crash of 1929 or even the “bankers’ panic” of 1907 don’t even begin to get near the essence of the crisis.

Tibet: Brown puts trade before human rights
While China is desperate to present a benign image to the world in anticipation of the summer Olympics, the brutal crackdown on Tibetans determined to defend their language, religion and culture, betrays the real nature of the authoritarian regime in Beijing.

Prayers as 'the great unwinding' claims another casualty
Guests on last night’s Newsnight (BBC2) talked about a ‘crumbling house of cards built by the capitalist financial system’. They weren’t talking about our book A House of Cards, from fantasy finance to global crash but they might as well have been. Instead, they were discussing the latest bankruptcy of a major financial group.

E.ON calls the tune
Alistair Darling’s failure to keep his pledge to put “sustainability at the heart of his budget” may have disappointed campaign groups like Friends of the Earth, but they shouldn’t really be surprised. Earlier this week, the government’s new Committee on Climate Change met for the first time – and got an object lesson in just how effective they are likely to be.

Goldsmith's allegiance to the state
As we approach the fifth anniversary of the occupation of Iraq, it is indeed ironic that the man who now tells us that an oath of allegiance to the state by young people would enhance respect for authority and engender a stronger sense of citizenship, is the same person who in 2003 helped facilitate the illegal invasion.

The surveillance Olympics
If gold medals were awarded for surveillance, then Britain will win a hatful at the 2012 Games. The Metropolitan Police hopes to use no fewer than 500,000 CCTV cameras to police the 2012 Olympics Games in London.

Clegg sounds the alarm bells
Media pundits made fun of the Liberal Democrats’ new leader, Nick Clegg, when he split his party over the European Union treaty referendum vote. But over the weekend, he defied predictions of disaster by winning over spring conference delegates with a sweeping condemnation of “establishment politics” in a bid to position himself for the outcome of the next general election.

American dream in tatters
The first fall in US household wealth in five years reveals the growing impact of a financial and economic crisis that will be felt by every person on the planet. World prices for oil – now over $100 dollars for a barrel of crude, gold nearing $1000 an ounce, food driven skywards by demand for biofuel, and many other basic commodities are spiralling, whilst the warning signs of recession, including declining retail sales are appearing everywhere.

Shelter strike for the homeless
The charity Shelter was founded in 1966 in response to the television play Cathy Come Home. The powerful drama brought to a head widespread anger about Britain’s housing crisis. Now the play’s director, Ken Loach, is backing a series of strikes by Shelter workers – the first took place yesterday – over plans to make them work longer hours for the same pay.

A profit-and-loss government
You can’t argue that this government hasn’t got its priorities clear. New Labour commits up to £100 billion to propping up the failed Northern Rock bank in a desperate bid to keep the financial system intact but won’t spend relatively smaller sums to maintain disabled workers’ jobs or keep post offices open. In these cases, “commercial considerations” come first, second and last above those of the community at large.

The railroading begins
With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama facing a crucial day in their campaign to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, organised labour is having its day in the limelight. With no viable or independent alternative on the horizon, US union leaders still hitch their wagon to the Democratic Party in the hope that they will have some influence when and if their nominee occupies the White House.

A murderous smokescreen
The Israelis have done this so many times before that it’s hard to find the appropriate words to describe their latest murderous onslaught in occupied Palestine. More than 100 Palestinians dead in Gaza, including many women and children, is just the cold statistic of a military action that cannot hide a deep political crisis inside Israel itself.

New drugs 'strategy', same result
Another week, another government “10-year strategy” aimed at grabbing the tabloid headlines with get-tough policies that might even pull in a few votes. Sounds cynical? It’s not when you examine the facts. The latest “war on drugs” strategy is much like the last one, which even had a “Drugs Czar” in charge for a time.

'More like Mafia than democracy'
As Russia moves towards its coronation – sorry, presidential election – this Sunday, the clampdown on the autocracy’s political opponents continues to tighten. The outcome is already decided, as President Putin has anointed Dimitry Medvedev as his successor. But just to make sure, the authorities have been using every trick in the book to clamp down on freedom of expression, assembly and association.

Making money out of unhappiness
Global drug corporations have been making make millions out of people’s unhappiness. Now it turns out that the drugs don’t work and the 40 million people taking anti-depressants like Prozac and Seroxat, and the doctors prescribing them, may have been duped.

Global food crisis grows
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is warning that it will be forced to abandon millions of people to starvation, as sharp increases in food prices eat into its funds. International market prices for wheat, corn, soya beans and dozens of other commodities have doubled or trebled in recent years.

Heathrow eco-vandalism
The government’s plans to expand Heathrow Airport have succeeded in one respect. They have created a veritable mass movement in opposition to the proposed third runway and new terminals. Local people, campaign groups, environmental organisations, direct action activists, local councils and MPs from all political parties have united against New Labour’s eco-vandalism.

Crime and punishment
Perhaps it could be a two-part question set for those taking a “citizenship test” to prove that they know about British values before getting a passport (or an ID card). How big is the prison population and what distinguishes the country’s record in jailing people? Answer: the prison population in England and Wales has risen to a record high of 82,006 - 21 places short of capacity; nowhere in Western Europe jails more of its population than England and Wales, where about 147 people per 100,000 are in prison.

Debt tsunami builds
The emergency legislation to allow a temporary period of public ownership of what now seems are the most worthless parts of Northern Rock, is increasingly looking like a finger plugging a hole in the dyke (or levee for American readers) as the global financial system continues to haemorrhage on debt.

Cuba at the crossroads
The chorus from the White House and Downing Street was entirely predictable (and so hypocritical). On hearing about the retirement of Fidel Castro as the president of Cuba, those pre-eminent world leaders and exemplary champions of human rights, George Bush and Gordon Brown, said that they now hoped that the island state would now move “towards democracy”. It was enough to make you throw up!

A 21st century Balkan powder keg
Birth should be a happy event. But the declaration of a new state in Kosovo, which according to the United Nations is still part of Serbia, could spin dangerously out of control. Both the majority Kosovan Albanians and the ethnic Serb minority have become parties to 19th-century style Balkans manoeuvres, with Western Europe on one side and Russia and Serb nationalists on the other.

Darling going down with the ship
“Floundering - SS Corporate Globalisation taking on heavy water – pumps failing.” That was the essence of the emergency message relayed to the world yesterday by chancellor Alistair Darling as he announced public ownership of failed bank Northern Rock following failure to strike a deal with venture capitalists led by Sir Richard Branson. His was the equivalent of announcing "don't panic" to passengers on the Titanic.

Bird flu good for business
One thing is certain when bird flu strikes in developing countries: small poultry keepers will suffer to the advantage of major producers. That is exactly what has happened in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, where local people have had their livelihood destroyed, enabling the corporations to assume ever-increasing dominance.

The judges hit back
The Appeal Court’s decision to strike out the convictions of five young Muslim men is part of a continuing struggle between the government and the judiciary over the rule of law. Now into its sixth major piece of anti-terror legislation, New Labour has trampled over the long struggle for rights and has attempted to bypass ancient and contemporary legal rights as well as the independence of the judiciary.

Non-doms have their way
The government’s ignominious retreat over modest proposals for taxing super-rich, non-domiciled foreigners – the so-called “non-doms” – is a further sign of New Labour’s confusion and decline as the party favoured by big business. After a decade of helping to turn London in particular into the playground of the rich, the government is losing its touch to such an extent that there are clear indications that business is turning back to the Tories.

Crucifying the Archbishop
A World to Win’s editors are not for any religion or the supremacy of one “belief system” over another. But we can see how those who want to find a peg on which to hang all their prejudices have chosen the Archbishop of Canterbury’s thoughts about the rights of minorities. Rowan Williams has become a punch bag for reactionaries and fake liberals of all kinds following his considered remarks about sharia law and minority communities.

Staring at 'economic calamity'
The world’s financial ministers are all in a dither, and it is not surprising. At the weekend meeting of the G7 – the world’s richest economies – ministers took a few steps towards acknowledging the scale of the economic unravelling that is both cause and consequence of the global credit crunch. Then most did a sharp about turn, rejecting America’s call for a global reflationary package and claiming things could be contained.

A week of intolerance
Another bad week for civil liberties and human rights in Britain, courtesy of the New Labour government and their supporters around the country. A mixture of anti-working class, anti-Islamic and plain anti-democratic measures all add to the authoritarian and intolerant atmosphere that is the hallmark of this grim government.

Democrats tried and trusted
Lest anyone gets too excited about the prospect of the first woman or the first black person entering the White House as president, it is well to remember what the Democratic Party is all about. Probably the oldest capitalist party in the world, tracing its roots back to the late 18th century, the Democrats represent absolutely no threat to the corporate and financial power centres that dominate politics in the United States.

The nightmare Olympics
The Beijing government is struggling to hide the truth about how ordinary people in China are paying for this summer’s Olympic Games by muzzling the Internet and arresting outspoken journalists and critics. At the same time, ordinary people in villages throughout the country, even around Beijing itself, are paying heavily for the staging of the Games.

The lives of others
The bugging of MP Sadiq Khan’s conversations with a constituent in prison shows once more that Britain is a fully-fledged surveillance state and also that the New Labour government has created a monster it has no effective control over. The secret state within the state has its own agenda about how to protect “national interests” – and the government will always be at least one step behind.

When corporations rule the world
Google’s owners are not the only ones troubled by Microsoft’s unsolicited bid for rival search engine Yahoo. No less than the right-leaning, pro-business Daily Telegraph believes that Microsoft’s move is yet further evidence that corporations have become more powerful than governments. The Telegraph has discovered what many have known for a long time – that corporate-driven globalisation is at odds with what are considered to be the norms of a parliamentary democratic state.

Poverty not tribalism behind Kenya's crisis
Political leaders in the West expressing pious shock at the terrible events in Kenya are achieving new pinnacles of hypocrisy since for decades they have ignored the country’s growing crisis. They continued to support Mwai Kibaki’s rapacious and corrupt regime in return for Kenya’s full participation in the global market economy. The subjection of this formerly peaceful country of 40 ethnic groups to the requirements of capitalist globalisation, rather than “tribalism”, has driven on the current ethnic violence and social breakdown.

Free Parvez Kambaksh!
A World to Win calls on its supporters to oppose the death sentence passed on a 23-year-old journalism student in Afghanistan for daring to read and distribute material from the Internet. The conviction of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, passed and confirmed by Afghan Islamic courts and the Afghan Senate, has sparked a campaign by a revolutionary organisation, Left Radicals of Afghanistan, against the Karzai government and the country’s ruling Ulema Council.

Millions in mortgage crisis
The thing about capitalism is that it appears to solve problems only to recreate them in a new, more dramatic form. Take housing, for example. Until recently it seemed that everyone could buy a home, watch its value rise and borrow against the property to buy consumer goods to keep the economy moving. Now up to two million households in Britain and a similar number in the United States face a struggle to retain their homes as the economic and financial crisis takes its toll.

Global warming not a priority for business, survey confirms
As the talks on a new climate change treaty to replace the Kyoto accord reached a crisis point in Bali last month, the United States representatives were actually booed by the delegates of more than 180 other countries. The Bush administration’s dogged refusal to accept any binding targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the main cause of global warming, had simply exhausted everybody else’s patience.

IMF rearranges deckchairs on sinking ship
Make no mistake, the global capitalist elites know they are in a major crisis and are stumbling around trying to find a way out. The call by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, for countries to spend their way out of recession is perhaps the most dramatic expression of the panic now gripping policy makers. Another cut in US interest rates is also expected to add to the sense of turmoil.

A rogue financial system
To describe Jérôme Kerviel, the man who allegedly wiped out a year’s profits for the French bank Société Générale by making the wrong call on which way stock markets would move, as a “rogue trader” is convenient but entirely superficial. Kerviel was, after all, only engaged in what traders all over the world are doing every minute of the day in New York, London, Frankfurt, Tokyo and other major financial centres.

Threat to Amazon grows
The news of a huge rise in the rate of deforestation of the vast Amazon rainforest is one of the most serious indications yet that governments are standing more or less idly by as the conditions for climate change worsen. While they may wring their hands in concern, they are essentially taking on the role of spectators as global warming continues its acceleration.

Seize the initiative
“Bloodbath in share prices”, “the dark 1970s”, “panic and desperation” – just some of the headlines littering newspaper pages and websites in response to the turmoil in the financial markets. While yesterday’s dramatic rate cut by the US Federal Reserve gave shares a small boost, nothing is resolved. Far from it.

Fear and panic greet Davos elite
The fear and panic stalking the world’s stock markets is the surest expression that a global economic recession is under way with the potential to become a catastrophic, full-scale slump. What shape this will take is impossible to predict, but it would clearly involve the destruction of capital and assets on an unprecedented scale throughout the global capitalist economy.

War crimes in Gaza
The Israelis are not the first to practice collective punishment against a subjugated people. In 1857, the British slaughtered thousands indiscriminately after putting down an uprising in India, while American troops destroyed entire villages in Vietnam if they suspected a sympathiser of the National Liberation Front had lived there.

Terror from the air
In case you thought that British withdrawal from Basra means that the suffering of Iraq and Afghanistan is coming to an end, think again. A report issued yesterday by U.S. Central Air Forces Combined Air Operations Center shows that last year the US military carried out five times more air strikes than in 2006.

Who is the real Luddite?
When you hear Sir David King (ex-government chief scientific advisor) accusing green activists of being Luddites, it reminds you of those 19th century mill owner magistrates intent on punishing poor weavers for destroying private property. The cottage artisans who tried to defend their jobs were persecuted on behalf of a system that threw people onto the scrap heap just to keep profits levels high.

Banks’ losses threaten action on climate change
Despite Government loans and guarantees in the region of £55billion and the sale of a choice part of its assets to J P Morgan, (perhaps coincidentally the first of Tony Blair’s private sector income streams), Northern Rock’s problems are not easing. It isn’t making enough to repay the penal interest rates charged by the Bank of England. Plans for a state takeover – nationalisation – are well-advanced.

'Nano' fears spark campaigns
There is a growing movement against the unbridled and mostly secret use of nanomaterials in products when they have not been subjected to vigorous and open scientific testing. The Soil Association and the Consumer Association have both launched initiatives aimed at alerting the public to the dangers.

Coup plotters still at it
The revelation that Britain and NATO considered staging a coup in Italy in 1976 to prevent the Communist Party (PCI) from forming a government fits with what is already known about a whole series of actions by the state intended to destabilise that country and maintain the status quo. These merged with the aims of a long-term operation throughout Western Europe put together by the US and Britain at the end of World War II.

Nuclear power - the case for decomissioning New Labour
The government’s commitment to nuclear power has everything to do with servitude to the global energy companies and nothing to do with tackling climate change. New Labour has accepted a financial model which will leave the British people paying the price in every way.

Blair's new 'job' is fitting
New Labour and money – don’t they just make a perfect fit! Former prime minister Tony Blair is taking a part-time advisory post with a US bank at a modest £500,000 a year while work and pensions secretary Peter Hain is about to own up to £100,000 in previously undeclared donations towards his deputy leadership campaign. Apparently most of these came from big business.

The year of the bailiff
The extent to which we are cajoled, enticed, seduced and even tricked into spending more than we have – especially over the end-of-year holiday period – is revealed through startling figures. A poll conducted by the Norwich Union found that 73% people who responded said they would run out of money by today – several weeks before their next pay day at the end of the month.

New Labour wants pay cuts
It was ever thus. When the capitalist economic system plunges into crisis, the burdens are expected to be carried by those who have to work for a wage. That is the real significance of chancellor Alistair Darling’s plan announced today to impose three-year pay deals on over 5.5 million public sector workers.

The bishop as pawn
The term “Uncle Tom” has for a long time been a way of denouncing people of colour who ingratiate themselves with the white ruling classes. Well, the Right Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester for the established Church of England, certainly fits the bill. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, the bishop claims that immigration and multi-culturalism are threatening Britain’s so-called Christian heritage. He claims that that some Muslim communities are “no-go areas” for people of other faiths.

The system’s broke – and Larry can’t fix it
Any lingering doubts that the global financial crisis of 2007 would presage a deep, worldwide recession evaporated as 2008 opened for business with a quick-fire salvo of bad news for the economy. US manufacturing slumped to its lowest since April 2003, and global manufacturing growth slipped closer to negative territory – contraction – adding to fears that the US recession is spreading.

Corporate interests and Kenya's crisis
Kenya has been Africa’s fastest-growing economy, a key ally in the Bush-Blair-Brown “war against terror” and was considered a stable place for investment and tourism. Until now the country has been considered a stable hub” for transnationals like Barclays, British American Tobacco, Diageo and Unilever. Now there are indications of a breakdown of the economic model of development and the pseudo-democracy that Kenya represented.

Sick plan for the NHS
So Gordon Brown has come up with a novel plan to cut health spending – let the sick treat themselves and also decline to help those who are deemed not to have looked after themselves properly. Welcome to the 60th anniversary of the National Heath Service, New Labour style.

A turbulent 2008 beckons
The coming year is certain to be one of the most turbulent for a generation in terms of economic, social and political instability, particularly in Britain. While they undoubtedly present themselves as dangers and threats to people’s jobs and livelihoods, the new conditions also open up the possibility of shaping the future in a way that reflects the aspirations of the powerless majority.

The other Bethlehem story
The Palestinians of Bethlehem, which according to the Gospels is the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth, have waited and struggled a long time for their freedom. Rulers down the ages have included the Romans, Persians, Crusaders, Ottomans, Egyptians, British, Jordanians and, to date, the Israelis who captured the town in 1967.

Cultural apartheid
Disbelief all around has greeted the announcement that the Arts Council of England (ACE) is axing a fifth of the organisations it helps to fund. And it is not simply the loss of financial support that has angered arts practitioners, but the way in which the cuts have been made. The Arts Council only gave arts bodies 18 working days to lodge an appeal, after sending them a letter last week – what a nice Christmas present! Some are being forced to issue redundancy letters to staff because the cuts could mean they are trading while insolvent.

The Afghan debacle
Gordon Brown claims that recent fighting at Musa Qala is a turning point in the six-year war against the Taleban in Afghanistan. The truth is that British and NATO operations in the country have been an unmitigated debacle and a suicide mission for many of the troops involved.

'Road map' with no destination
Environment secretary Hilary Benn and other ministers gathered at the Bali climate talks fell over themselves in the rush to declare the conference a resounding success. The reality is somewhat different. All that was agreed at Bali was to hold talks about more talks with the hope that one day there will be a firm agreement to cut carbon emissions.

Time to cook Electrolux
The closure announced today of the Electrolux cooker factory in County Durham with the loss of 500 jobs is an opportunity for the trade unions to reject the profit and loss approach of the global corporations and mount a worldwide campaign against the decision. The early signs are not hopeful.

Central bankers go for broke
The unprecedented intervention in the financial markets by the world’s five largest central banks is the most dramatic illustration yet of the scale of the credit crisis. Already, doubts are surfacing about how effective the decision to pump billions into money markets will be because the underlying problems remain.

Police anger mounts
Apart from Sir Ian Blair, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is there any other copper who likes this government? Not many, judging by the angry reaction from the men and women in blue to New Labour’s decision to reduce their pay award.

March on Wall Street
The jailing of press baron Conrad Black for defrauding shareholders has captured the headlines this morning. But Black’s $32 million theft is simply the tip of an iceberg of what may be viewed as an entirely criminal situation in the world of business and finance. And Black’s six and a half years in jail will perhaps seem small to the millions of people around the world who are imprisoned by debt for their entire lives.

Consumerism from cradle to grave
Not so long ago, I was amazed to find that my neighbour’s six-year-old boy knew more brand names than I did, as he swept around identifying every gadget in my flat, from Dell, HP, to Sony. I shouldn’t have been surprised at all. The average 10-year-old is now aware of between 300 and 400 different brands. Young people are exposed to about 10,000 TV adverts per year, as well as pop-ups on the Internet.

Basic rights reduced to a lottery
For this government, civil liberties are something to be subjected to a kind of lottery. You draw a number out of the hat and that becomes the number of days you can detain someone without charge on the suspicion of committing a terror offence. The rules are fixed, however, by comparison with the real game of chance. Under New Labour’s National Security Lottery Rules, the number chosen must always result in a longer period of detention than is already the case.

Who killed Sajida Khan?
As the World Bank plans its launch of a new carbon fund at the United Nations climate conference in Bali, activists worldwide will pay tribute to the woman who spent her last breath resisting one of its most controversial projects. Sajida Khan won the struggle against the project when the Bank pulled out of the toxic South African landfill. But sadly, Khan passed away on 15 July 2007 in her Durban home.

The emperor has no clothes
In the four months since the advent of the credit crunch in the global financial markets caught Northern Rock with its pants down, the chorus of ritual assurances about the soundness of the economic fundamentals has given way to doom-laden panic. A recent “emperor-has-no-clothes” statement from former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers opened the floodgates on admissions about the depth and breadth of the worsening crisis, together with dire predictions and warnings about its damaging effects.

Miners in challenge to ANC
Not a lot has changed for South Africa’s 500,000 miners since the end of apartheid. Most days, a miner is killed as he labours in unsafe conditions to extract precious metals for sale by the mining corporations. Today, members of the 270,000-strong Miners Union of South Africa stage a 24-hour strike against the rising death toll. Some 201 miners have been killed in accidents so far this year, compared with 199 for the whole of 2006.

Stalemate in Venezuela
The narrow 51%-49% defeat for Hugo Chavez in a referendum on the constitution is a potentially dangerous moment for Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution. Emboldened by their victory, the anti-Chavez movement will undoubtedly look to the United States for support in yet another attempt to overthrow the president.

“Fire-storm” warning for global economy
A World to Win’s view of the capitalist economy is often pooh-poohed by those who tell us that the system is unchallengeable. We are often told that we exaggerate the instability of the world economy. But over the last few days, one financial expert after another is outdoing us in predicting extreme crisis and break-down to come. Warnings are flying thick and fast as the credit crunch is conducted throughout the world economy via the global financial system.

Planetary emergency appeal
In the run up to the December crisis meeting on global warming, a call has gone out to world governments meeting in Bali to make a global energy and economic transition without delay in order to save the planet and its inhabitants from disaster. Signatories to the call say a “systemic shift” is needed just to stabilise the planet’s climate.

Dangerous and unpredictable times
The crisis of the Brown government has a self-destructive logic, taking us into politically uncharted and dangerous waters. There is heady and unpredictable mix of a government in melt down, state administrative systems in turmoil, a deepening banking and financial crisis and senior figures in the armed services denouncing the prime minister for his indifference.

Two states no solution for Palestinians
Palestinian leaders meeting the Israelis in Annapolis, Maryland, today will be offered nothing. Instead, they will be asked to sacrifice the right of Palestinian refugees to return, to abandon Palestinians living inside Israel’s 1948 borders and to forget about the aspirations of the Palestinians living in Jerusalem and Gaza. Failed preliminary talks over many weeks mean that all those attending the US-sponsored conference know in advance that no genuine gains can be made.

Writers' strike holds firm
Today is high-noon in the three-week long stand-off between screen writers belonging to the Writers Guild of America and the big studio conglomerates which dominate US cinema and television screens. Leaders of the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are resuming negotiations after powerful strike action by WGA members.

Crying for Argentina
In the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, the poor – many of them street children - scurry ahead of municipal lorries collecting in well-off areas. They are searching for glass, paper, cardboard, scraps of food - anything that can be reused. They also pick through rubbish dumps in search of food. But as political tensions rise throughout the country, the city’s right-wing mayor, businessman Mauricio Macri, has decided to curb their activities.

Put New Labour in the post
The government’s refusal to accept responsibility for the loss of personal and financial records of 25 million people is absolutely typical. Blaming some “junior official” acting alone is simply an excuse to avoid the fact that ten years of New Labour have created the conditions for what happened at Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

Climate report passes the buck
Even vetting by the US government could not prevent the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from opening its synthesis report with the stark statement that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal". The United Nations agency has, however, once again passed on identifying the main cause and fails to come up with any solutions to climate change that might challenge the status quo.

Sarkozy’s ‘Thatcher moment’
The outcome of the strike movement sweeping France is being monitored closely by The Economist and other voices of the market economy. “Let battle commence”, they urged (15 November). “Can Nicolas Sarkozy be a French Margaret Thatcher?” asked Les Echos, a business newspaper. “Is Sarkozy ready for a long trial of strength with the unions à la Thatcher?” mused Le Parisien, in a reference to the class conflict that shook Britain between 1982 and 1986.

Bankers the priority for New Labour
When it comes to bailing out bankers, the New Labour government’s coffers are deep, as shown by the vast amounts of taxpayers’ money used in the futile bid to save Northern Rock. Contrast this with the treatment meted out to people claiming disability benefits and spending cuts imposed on climate change agencies as well as the body that reviews miscarriages of justice, and you get the picture about where priorities lie.

Co-op FC a winner
At first sight, it might seem like an idea for a new comedy. A football website buys a controlling interest in a serious football club, promising the 20,000 fans who have each put up £35, not only joint ownership, but an equal say in team selection, player transfers and the running of the club. “Own the club and pick the team”, says the website.

Lost for words in the digital age
In what may be a shock for those who believe that the digital age has made class struggle so last century, household names from TV and Hollywood are picketing and rallying in support of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) on both sides of America. Spirits are running high as rallies bring together writers and performers against the corporate studios that dominate TV, DVD, film and Internet entertainment.

The great unravelling
“Housing market faces big slowdown” reports the Financial Times, while today’s Daily Telegraph main headline is “Fastest rise in food prices for 14 years”. These are not unrelated stories but are further indications of the great unravelling that is occurring in the major capitalist economies and financial system.

Big business backing Democrats
Just as in the 1990s, big business in the United States is lining up behind the Democratic Party ahead of next year’s presidential elections. The Republicans under Bush are now so discredited that the corporations are looking for another horse to back. They don’t have to worry. In fact, the Democrats are queuing up to take their money...

Police above the law
The refusal of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair to quit over the killing – or, more precisely, execution - of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station in 2005 verifies one thing above all: the capitalist state and its institutions consider themselves above the rest of society and see no reason why they should be made accountable for their actions.

Everyone's a 'suspect'
Just in case you thought New Labour’s planned new anti-terror laws were bad enough, pay attention to what the European Union is cooking up. This undemocratic, bureaucratic organisation is bringing forward a raft of measures that add to the growth of a European-wide authoritarian state.

Ten days that shook the world
Ninety years ago today, a remarkable series of events began in Russia that would change the course of the 20th century. The first anti-capitalist, workers’ revolution in history was set in motion.

New Labour plays race card
Targeting immigrant workers is becoming the number one priority for governments from Italy, to Switzerland and Britain.

Citigroup's 'assets' bonfire
When the world’s largest bank has to ask its chief executive and chairman to go because up to $11 billion of its assets are actually not worth the paper they are printed on, you know that the global financial crisis has entered deeper into the unknown.

Energy firms cash in on fuel poverty
As winter looms, many millions of people in Britain are preparing for a winter of shivering cold in badly insulated homes that they can’t afford to heat. And the poorer people are, the more likely they are to be penalised in terms of fuel costs and insulation. Four million UK households live in fuel poverty, says Energywatch, and pre-pay meters are a major contributing factor.

Protecting the powerful
Campaigners are surprised and even shocked that the Competition Commission has ignored mounting evidence about how the big four supermarkets crush competitors, force local shops to close and squeeze suppliers dry. But they shouldn’t be, because the commission’s primary function is to protect the oligopoly that exists in food retailing, with Tesco’s 30% share of the market (plus £3bn in annual profits) growing by the day.

Gold soars: $ crashes
The price of gold and other precious metals is fast approaching record levels. The continued weakening of the dollar against other currencies – the lowest ever against the euro, together with spiralling prices for oil and other key commodities point to a deepening crisis for the global economy.

Saudi Arabia: an inconvenient truth
So, according to a New Labour foreign office minister, Britain and Saudi Arabia’s feudal absolute monarchy should work more closely together on the basis of “shared values”. Kim Howells declined to elaborate whether these might include routine torture, imprisonment without trial, amputations, beheadings, stoning, endemic corruption, discrimination against women and gay people as well as support for those who attack Shia Muslims on the basis that they are not “true believers”. Amnesty International says that at least 124 people have been executed in Saudi so far this year, the majority by beheading.

Renewables target ditched
On the day scientists announced that the Earth’s ability to soak up carbon emissions has dramatically declined, while at the same time we are seeing an acceleration in the rise of atmospheric carbon levels, it was revealed that the government is about to ditch a commitment to expand renewable energy generation.

Simply not sustainable
Twenty years ago, a commission convened by the United Nations put forward the concept of “sustainable development” as a way that capitalism, growth and protection of the environment could live in perfect harmony. The World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission) called its report Our Common Future. Yesterday the UN’s Environment Programme (UNEP) had to admit failure as it painted a bleak picture in an assessment of the two decades since the original report.

Let them eat cake
In the popular imagination, Queen Marie Antoinette is believed to have sparked the French Revolution when she said of the starving poor, “Let them eat cake”. True or not, the price of food is again a dangerous political issue. Warning signs are coming from around the world that food price increases will cause major social unrest in the poorest as well as the richest nations.

Global push for rice ‘suicide seed’
The seed industry will do whatever it takes to stop farmers saving seeds. The only way it can make big money from seeds is to force farmers to buy from seed companies every year. With rice, one of the world’s most important crops, it is no wonder that there is a relentless push for a hybrid variety that is essentially sterile. Suicide seeds, so to speak. At the heart of this race for hybrid rice are the transnational corporations as well as the Chinese government, according to a new assessment by GRAIN, which promotes sustainable development and agricultural biodiversity based on people’s control of genetic resources and local knowledge.

Free Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine
October is Black History month and it should be a time to celebrate the achievements of black heroes during the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. And yet in Haiti, the small country that did more than any other to defeat slavery, a notable human rights campaigner, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, has vanished since August 12.

IMF paralysed as crisis grows
The mass of red covering the trading screens of stock markets from Asia to Europe this morning confirms that attempts to wish away the credit crisis by marking up share prices in the last few weeks has come to grief. Adding to the uncertainty was the total failure of the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting in Washington to offer anything but platitudes.

Empty gestures in the face of climate change
Latest warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show the extent of damage already done to our planet through the excesses of global capitalism. The IPCC have confirmed that it is now very unlikely (which means they are 90% certain) that the rise in average global temperatures can be kept below 2⁰C.

Underwater imperialism
The results of melting ice caps may terrify the rest of us but for the oil corporations and their client governments there is a silver lining – the opportunity to drill for deposits previously inaccessible below the permafrost. This summer’s Arctic ice cover was the thinnest ever recorded. Researchers say there could be ice-free Arctic summers by 2040.

No fun being young in Brown's Britain
A conference at the TUC today will hear that there are 3.8 million children in Britain living in poverty, 100,000 more than last year. Ending child poverty in a generation was Gordon Brown’s own special pledge as Chancellor, but last week’s spending review put just an extra 50p in the pocket of the poorest parents.

A crisis of leadership
The sudden resignation of the Lib Dem leader Menzies Campbell is another indication of the turmoil at the top of British politics as the main parties struggle to occupy the same small piece of territory – the so-called “middle ground”. While all parties claim to have the interests of the “whole nation” at heart, all they are really interested in is garnering the votes of a few crucial voters in key marginal seats who determine the outcome of general elections.

Writing on the wall for China's leaders
One thing is certain as the Chinese Communist Party gathers in Beijing for its 17th Congress – a political earthquake is inevitable that will in time sweep the delegates away. The political and social contradictions in the country are glaring and unbearable, starting with the name of the organisation under whose banner the delegates meet.

50 years of nuclear cover-ups
Fifty years ago this week, scientists at Windscale nuclear fuel plant in Cumbria finally brought under control a fire in a stack of fuel rods that had been raging for days. By then the fire had already pumped out an estimated 20,000 curies of radioactive iodine, plutonium, caesium and polonium, sending a toxic cloud over the north of England and Ireland. It was an accident waiting to happen and occurred as a direct result of speeding up production of tritium needed for Britain’s nuclear bomb. Warnings that production methods were unsafe were ignored by a government desperate to stay in the arms race.

Brown delivers the message
The leaders of the CWU postal workers’ union have waited and waited for the intervention of the government in their pay and jobs dispute with Royal Mail. Yesterday it arrived. But it was not what the CWU leadership wanted to hear. New Labour broke its silence – and came down firmly on the side of the employers.

Israel's harsh 'realities on the ground'
Creating “realities on the ground” is the speciality of the Israeli government. This week Israel has implemented a major land-grab around four Palestinian West Bank villages, precisely in order to create “realities” that will be the starting point for the talks to be held in Maryland in November.

Next stop Iran
One door closes another opens. Having failed abysmally to achieve their objectives in Iraq, the British government is preparing to move on to Iran. British troops may be preparing to leave Iraq – although not for some time – but they will stay in the Middle East. The reason is not hard to fathom.

Running to stand still
So Gordon Brown’s plans to cut and run before the storm of the economic crisis turns into a hurricane have fallen victim to New Labour’s own arrogance and grubby desire for perpetual political power. The self-appointed Leader of The Party of All People (PAP) thought he just had to think the word election and the voters would be overwhelmed with joy.

South African workers fight back
As 3,000 miners emerged from three days underground at the Harmony mine at Elandsrand, it was clear that behind the growing number of accidents and deaths in South African mines is the desperate drive for profit. To take advantage of the current high gold price, the global mining corporations have pushed the pace of deeper mining; miners say an attempt to sink a 2.2 mile deep shaft miles was to blame for this latest incident.

How to fight the export of jobs
In the end, it doesn’t matter whether a firm has a Quaker tradition with close links to the local community. The bottom line is entirely about profit margins under conditions of global competition, as Cadbury Schweppes showed yesterday by announcing the switching of its chocolate production to Poland.

Midnight of a surveillance society
In the week that new laws requiring phone companies to keep records of ALL calls and make them available to a range of agencies came into force in Britain, a report from the United States gives a chilling account of the destruction of civil liberties in that other great “democracy”.

Britain’s very own sub-prime housing crisis
The credit crunch in the global financial system is now beginning to interact with the British housing market. Lax credit conditions that allowed prices to spiral are drawing to an end and many home owners are staring at sharp increases in their mortgage repayments. Record outstanding debts of £1,400 billion and low savings rates all weigh heavily on the property market. Experts are warning of a dramatic fall in house prices ahead.

Biofuels increase emissions - and profits
Straight from a most unlikely source comes news of another eco-scandal. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has exposed the fact that the European Commission is colluding with renewable energy corporations and investors. The aim is to ensure that environmental standards are not allowed to interfere with profitability and investment opportunities in biofuel production.

Birth of a nation
The struggle for self-determination in Africa and against corporate exploitation has taken a new, but little known turn. Tuareg nomads from the Sahara joined together last week to announce the foundation of the Tumoujgha Republic. They will go down in history as the first national liberation movement to announce a new state and constitution via an Internet blog. A World to Win welcomes this historic move by the Tuareg to assert their right to existence.

China fears Burma uprising
While the Buddhist monks and people of Burma heroically defy bullets and batons to continue to march against the military junta, no one should be surprised that world leaders sit on their hands and/or offer up crocodile tears. Some, like the Chinese regime, have a lot to lose in Burma – and we’re not just talking about trade in oil, gas and timber. Beijing’s Stalinist rulers in particular are terrified that the mass movement in Burma could easily spread to China itself and unseat the corrupt bureaucracy ruling the country.

Climate change window closing
World leaders are preparing to abandon whole areas of the planet to climate change. That’s the implication from speeches at the one-day (!) gathering at the United Nations to discuss the impact of global warming and the prospects for a post-Kyoto treaty.

One Nation, One Party under Our Leader
A serious question: What do you get if you put together a nationalist-patriotic, socially conservative, free market, business-worshipping, authoritarian, religious political leader? Answer: a highly dangerous, heady political cocktail with echoes in 20th century history. Who needs the Tory Party, or even the far-right British National Party when you have the Brown movement?

Beijing the key to Burma protests
All eyes are on how Beijing will react as Burma’s Buddhist monks lead waves of protests against the country’s dictatorship. It is the biggest movement Burma has seen since people rose against the junta in 1988 when 3,000 people were gunned down. Burma’s military junta is utterly dependent on the Chinese regime, which is ruthlessly exploiting the country’s oil and gas reserves.

Dollar collapse looms
Northern Rock’s problems are a mere blip by comparison with the crisis now emerging on the other side of the Atlantic, where the fall in the value of the once almighty dollar threatens to bring down not just the American economy but the entire global trading system with it.

Union turkeys vote for Christmas
Like turkeys voting for Christmas, the trade union leaders have given up their existing voting rights at Labour’s annual conference. Barely a voice was raised as they offered Gordon Brown what even Tony Blair could not achieve – total control of the party machine.

Immigration and the race card
The Liberal Democrats’ call for a selective amnesty for immigrants in Britain without legal rights will have no impact on a government determined to play the race card at every opportunity. It may be “absurd”, as Lib Dem’s Nick Clegg said, to deport an estimated 500,000 “illegals” at £10,000 a time, but then New Labour is that type of government.

Government joins the panic
Desperate times, desperate measures. That’s the only explanation for New Labour’s emergency decision to underwrite every last penny of depositors’ money in Northern Rock – and do the same if any other lender looks like going belly up.

Northern Rock storm blows confidence away
The financial storm battering the Northern Rock expresses not just the unravelling of the last 30 years of credit-led expansion but also a growing loss of confidence in both politicians and bankers. Every supposedly reassuring statement and action by chief executive Adam Applegarth, the Bank of England and Chancellor Alistair Darling has had the opposite effect.

Endless brute force
Last night US president Bush announced a plan for withdrawing a paltry 5,700 troops from Iraq by Christmas, and more next summer – “the more successful we are, the more American troops can return home", he said. But even as he spoke, it became clearer than ever that the only end game for Bush and his co-thinkers Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney is yet another war.

Banks pile up 'distressed debt'
The cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, Oscar Wilde once wrote. Today, many cynical bankers don’t even know the price of things, let alone their value as the financial crisis takes its toll.

Anger with New Labour boils over
The TUC’s decision to co-ordinate strike action over public sector pay expresses not so much their desire to confront New Labour but the seething discontent among rank-and-file trade unionists whose living standards and conditions have been eroded by government policies. Their restlessness is also aimed at a compliant trade union leadership who, in the main, have allowed this to take place without a shot being fired.

Reality comes calling at the TUC
Those who inhabit a world of illusions and fantasy can get a nasty shock when reality comes calling. So after Gordon Brown addressed the TUC yesterday, union leaders staggered out into the sunlight to confess that all was not how they thought it was or should be.

Set fair for hot air in Brighton
The TUC Congress in Brighton this week will hear some angry words and even some heartfelt speeches on the themes of vulnerable workers, trade union rights (or the lack of them), poverty, social housing, casualisation, employment rights, globalisation and other issues. But everyone knows that the words spoken at Congress carry little weight and hardly any influence anywhere.

US confronted by double crisis
The warnings about the dangerous state of the global economy are flying thick and fast. Earlier this week, a senior banker told City financiers that capital markets had suffered a heart attack over the summer. “If we stay stuck,” Hans-Jörg Rudloff, chairman of Barclays Capital said, “the patient will die”.

Cream for the rich, cake for the rest
While the media assault on the RMT union continues – even though Tube maintenance workers have suspended their strike – news comes of how well some people are doing when it comes to pensions. Tube and other workers affected by bankrupt companies are rightly concerned whether they will actually get a pension but top directors are sitting pretty.

Tube workers defy 'brutal' logic
The RMT rail union may have suspended the strike by a group of Tube maintenance workers while it considers a fresh offer, but not before enduring hysterical press and political attacks. What angered the London media and politicians from Ken Livingstone to Gordon Brown, was the fact that a group of workers rejected soothing words and actually dared to take action that was more than just a gesture.

Dream factory turns on Bush
US President Bush’s surprise secret visit to Iraq yesterday was a desperate attempt to rally support for an enterprise that is ending in humiliation and defeat. The deep fissures that the invasion and occupation has created in American society itself are now being reflected right in the heart of the US dream factory itself – Hollywood.

Things can only get worse
In 1997, New Labour’s election theme tune was Things Can Only Get Better. If Gordon Brown is thinking of calling a snap general election it is because the government knows that severe economic and political turbulence lies ahead and that things can only get worse.

Katrina's victims still paying the price
Two years ago, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. Today, many of its people are still suffering. They are the victims of government bureaucracy, racism, corruption and indifference. A report by the Institute for Southern Studies catalogues the shocking conditions faced by the poor of the city, who were overwhelmingly the hurricane’s victims.

Profit mono-culture food threat
Transnational corporations, seeking profitable solutions to a post-oil world, are driving a change of land use that will outstrip all previous agricultural revolutions. It will bring billions of acres of land into new mono-cultures, pushing the planet’s water and soil resources beyond their limit. If allowed to continue, it will further intensify social inequality, hunger and global warming and inevitably lead to wars over land and water.

Targeting young people
The shooting last week of 11-year-old Rhys Jones has become a signal for the Conservative leader David Cameron to talk about “anarchy in the UK”, while another Tory Simon Heffer blames “welfarism” and “Marxism” for the present ills of society. But the essential underlying cause of youth disenfranchisement and estrangement are ignored by all the major parties in their search for “law-and-order” votes.

Opposing the new EU treaty
The gathering storm over the new European Union treaty, focused on the growing demands for a referendum, raises deep issues about the nation-state and its place in the globalised market economy. At the heart of the proposed treaty is the further development of the EU as a regional bloc better able to compete in increasingly tough capitalist market conditions.

Middle East war danger grows
The failure of the US occupation in Iraq carries with it the threat of a pre-emptive war in the Middle East sponsored by Washington and launched with the support of the Israeli government. Evidence is mounting of a desperate, cornered White House that is not prepared to quit Iraq with its tail between its legs.

UN throws in towel on climate change
The United Nations is preparing to throw in the towel on achieving further cuts in the emission of greenhouse gases by the world’s industralised nations. Instead, it plans to rely on already discredited carbon trading and offsetting schemes. The cat was let out of the bag by the UN official leading negotiations for a new convention to follow on from the Kyoto treaty, which ends in 2012.

September 11 - the real conspiracy
The real conspiracy over the September 11 attacks on the United States involves a determination by the authorities to cover up a report into the mismanagement, lack of analysis, bungling and infighting between the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. That much is clear from the small section of the report by the inspector of the CIA, John L. Helgerson that was declassified last night.

Putin rehabilitates Stalin
There are few families in Russia today untouched by the horrors of the Stalin period. Nearly everyone has a story to tell about a relative who suffered in the forced collectivisation and the purges that consumed up to 20 million people. So when Vladimir Putin, the ex-KGB man who is now president of Russia, sanctions a rewriting of history that eulogises Stalin and glosses over his regime’s crimes, it amounts to a warning to opponents of today’s Kremlin.

Composting the state
The Camp for Climate Action at Heathrow brought activists, local communities and others opposed to the building of a new runway at the airport, together in an inspiring, united way. The political support of local MP John McDonnell was also important, especially in dealing with the state. This enclave of democracy and self-organisation surrounded by surveillance cameras and massive searchlights, police horses and vans was a shining example of self-sacrifice and utopianism.

In the eye of a cyclone
For those who believe that some sort of regulatory control of global capitalism is a way to curb corporate and financial power, the events of the last few weeks are salutary. The international financial system generated by globalisation since the 1970s patently transcends the powers of nation states, as the failure of the central banks to turn the tide amply testifies.

The global pyramid scam
After a week of attempts by central banks to resuscitate global financial markets by injecting cash, the contagion continues to spread around the world, driving stock markets sharply lower. As is the fate of all pyramid-selling scams, the global economic structures built upon an addiction to credit and its inseparable opposite debt, are unwinding fast with devastating impact.

Canada joins terror witch-hunt
As the police use anti-terror laws to harass climate protesters at the Heathrow climate camp, governments around the world are making copycat versions of Britain’s detention and secret trials powers. Canada is not usually viewed as an authoritarian state, but Stephen Harper’s right-wing government, elected in January 2006, is pushing through legislation based closely on the provisions enacted into British law under New Labour.

Targeting the climate camp
The lurid media headlines aimed at the climate action camp, combined with systematic police harassment, just about sum up the state of Britain today. Anything that disturbs the status quo and challenges corporate assumptions about the environment or anything else is regarded as intolerable and dangerous.

A universe of fantasy finance
The turmoil in the world’s financial and stock markets that erupted at the end of last week prompted a panic release of funds into the system from the leading central banks. But their actions only add to the underlying cause of this crisis.

Iraqi unions threaten 'mutiny' over oil law
The struggle over future control of Iraq’s oil is coming to a head, with parliament deeply divided over American proposals designed to benefit the major corporations and the country’s trade unionists vowing to resist any foreign takeover. It adds to the deepening crisis engulfing the US-UK four-year occupation of Iraq.

Postal leaders duck the fight
Postal workers start another series of actions today which are scheduled to last on and off for two weeks. But there is a real danger that the leaders of the Communication Workers Union are frittering away the energy and determination of their members instead of mounting a serious challenge to Royal Mail’s job cuts and below-inflation pay rise.

The sweatshop Olympics
There will be celebrations in China today to mark the one-year countdown to the start of the 2008 Olympic Games. But it will be business as usual for the hundreds of thousands of workers slaving away in factories making products associated with the games. Research into four of the factories supplying goods under licence for the Beijing Olympics has revealed massive labour rights abuses, including child labour, forced overtime, workers being instructed to lie about wages and conditions to outside inspectors, poor health and safety conditions, excessive hours of work and employers falsifying employment records.

Painful times for borrowers
Those driven into insolvency as they try to keep a roof over their heads will take little comfort from the knowledge that they are the victims of a crisis that is spreading rapidly throughout the world’s financial markets. More than 100,000 people in the UK will be declared insolvent during 2007.

‘We are living in the stone age’
Three headlines from a country in the fourth year of foreign occupation: ‘Armed robots to go to war in Iraq’; ‘Power cuts worsen as grid collapses’; ‘ US soldier sentenced to 110 years’. Three indictments of the American-British invasion of 2003 that has brought untold suffering and misery to the Iraqi people.

A business friendly climate Bill
The Climate Change Bill is, above all, business friendly. In fact, it is so weak that a Commons committee this week published a damning indictment of the Bill, criticising all of its key proposals and accusing it of incoherence.

London's firefighters oppose 12-hour day
London’s firefighters are gearing up to resist unilateral changes to their shift system by employers who are determined to impose the government’s cost-cutting “modernisation” agenda on the service. A staggering 98.5% of firefighters are opposed to the plans to compel them to work a system of 12-hour shifts and strike action is a distinct possibility if current negotiations break down.

Conscience and global poverty
If conscience alone could abolish world poverty, it would have happened many times over by now. Countless millions, especially in countries like Britain, have a sense of what is right and wrong. They are deeply concerned about disease, ill health, starvation and low wages in developing countries. They donate, they do voluntary work, they sign petitions, they go on marches, join vigils and pray for the poor of the world. And still the world is one of gross inequalities, at home and abroad.

Kick Israeli match into touch
When it comes to trade boycotts, countries like the United States decide them on the basis of pure politics. Cuba and Iran – boycott. Israel, Saudi Arabia – sell them as many weapons as you can. But when trade unions and campaign groups propose a boycott in support of Palestinian rights, they are accused of “playing politics” and even, outrageously, of anti-Semitism.

Brown sings Bush's praises
Those are those who convinced themselves that New Labour’s close relationship with the most reactionary White House in history was restricted to Tony Blair and that once he was gone, normal service would be resumed (whatever that might be). Gordon Brown’s flattering comments about president Bush show, however, an unbroken continuity.

Global financial hurricane starts to blow
Turmoil on the world’s stock markets, induced by yesterday’s sharp falls in New York, is directly connected to a crisis at the heart of the global banking system. The implications for the everyday lives of ordinary working people in every country are enormous in terms of jobs, housing and living standards.

Greenwash
A report by top scientists published yesterday in the magazine Nature, confirms that extreme weather events, including floods in the northern hemisphere, will become commonplace as a result of climate change.

Rail passengers pay the price
If you thought rail fares were high now, wait until the transport secretary Ruth Kelly is finished with you. Yesterday she announced plans to expand the rail network – and passengers are going to pay through the nose for much-needed improvements.

Tale of a catastrophe foretold
Welcome to the weather of the 21st century. That’s the message from the floods that have overwhelmed whole areas of the West of England, leaving hundreds of thousands without power, without water and with damaged homes. And the government, despite many warnings, is totally unprepared for the consequences of a Hurricane Katrina-New Orleans type of event.

New Labour puts unions out to grass
What Tony Blair started, Gordon Brown will finish. And that includes winding up what remains of democratic procedures inside the New Labour party. The principal victims will be the trade unions, whose substantial voice at the annual conference will be reduced to a whisper.

The BBC, bread and circuses
The admission by the BBC that its programmes are not always what they appear to be raises important issues about perception, image and reality and the role of the mass media in manipulating and distorting their relationship.

Picking up the bill for Tube firm collapse
When Gordon Brown set out to part-privatise London’s Underground system in 2001, he was implementing a New Labour strategy designed to transfer capital from the state to the corporations. With the collapse of the Metronet consortium charged with upgrading most of the network, the state (i.e. the taxpayers) will now step in to pick up the pieces.

Business as usual in Burma
This week Amnesty International, Saferworld and other NGOs pointed to a breach of the EU arms embargo on Burma (Myanmar) by the Indian government. Their report demands that the EU “stand by its obligations” and urges the Indian government to stop the transfer of a military helicopter to the dictatorship.

The inequality indictment
If you wanted evidence to draw up an indictment of corporate power and the global market economy, you need look no further than the reports on inequality in Britain published today by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). While you’re about it, there is plenty of material for a charge sheet against successive governments as well. In the dog-eat-dog globalised market economy, the story is a simple one: the rich have obviously got a lot richer and the average worker has got relatively poorer.

A global war on rights
The global “war on terror” has truly become the global war of terror against people’s human rights. In Australia, a terror suspect freed on bail is immediately held on spurious immigration charges; in Britain, a senior police officer calls for indefinite detention of suspects; in Germany, the interior minister suggests target killing of terror suspects; in the Philippines, new anti-terror laws come into force today.

Peak oil - peak madness
The sharp rise in the price of oil to almost $80 a barrel, coupled with evidence that production is nearing or is already at its peak, is a dangerous indicator of the unsustainability of the global market economy. As oil runs out, the corporations are expanding production as if there was no tomorrow, with dire consequences for the rest of us.

London NHS review smokescreen
Radical proposals for revamping the capital’s health services intended to meet the needs of Londoners, include far more than the widely-reported intention to move the majority of care from old-style general hospitals to polyclinics and urgent care centres closer to people’s homes. Few would argue with the need for more and better services provided through community-based facilities designed to overcome inequality, complemented by an integrated network of specialist hospitals. But...

Democracy, revolution and British values
The Brown government wants to "reinvigorate our democracy" through a series of changes to the constitution. But proposals in The Governance of Britain published by New Labour last week are superficial and essentially aimed at trying to restore public support for a failing process by "renewing our trust in our democratic institutions".

How the war was spun
Alastair Campbell’s diaries will earn him piles of money but the former Downing Street spin doctor is still playing fast and loose with the truth about the preparations for the attack on Iraq. Key entries for the days leading up to the infamous autumn 2002 dossier, with its false claims about weapons of mass destruction (WMD), are omitted from his diaries.

Taking a leaf out of the Stasi's book
In former East Germany, the hated Stasi – or state security police – just about had one half of the population spying on the other. While that is now the stuff of films like Other People’s Lives, the spirit of the Stasi lives on the shape of one Admiral Sir Alan West, who is a security minister in the Brown government of “all the talents”.

Flood victims abandoned
From Mount Everest to Hull, the evidence of climate change is before our very eyes, as well as in the homes of thousands of people in the north of England. Yet the British government sees nothing and hears nothing, with its response to the floods little better than the White House’s inaction when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005.

Labour – ‘the natural party of business’
This is one of those moments in history when the clouds of confusion begin to lift and it becomes easy to see how the land lies. Blowing away the clouds is John Hutton, the man in charge of the newly created Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. According to Hutton, Tory Leader David Cameron’s alleged weak support for business provides “a major opportunity for Labour” because “we want to be the natural party of business”.

Palestine: One state the only solution
Two new books published this week by Palestinian writers offer a way forward for those currently locked in struggle in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Both argue the need for a democratic, secular state on all the land currently occupied by Israel. In his book, One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, Ali Abunimah, the Palestinian-American writer and co-founder of the Electronic Intifada website, argues that the "conventional wisdom" of the two-state, land-for-peace equation needs to be rethought.

How corporations avoid tax
The news that Saga and the AA, the private equity businesses that are merging, paid no corporation tax last year highlights the fact that global business has turned avoidance into an international art. A shadowy world of tax havens and creative accounting means that the burden of funding the state falls increasingly on the shoulders of working people.

Terrorism and 'our way of life'
The near-miss terror attacks in London and Glasgow reveal the futility of the government’s policies and methods, which all lead in one direction – towards full-scale, authoritarian rule. For, in the end, the government’s aim of “defeating terrorism” will require a police state apparatus on an immense and permanent scale.

Agrofuel market madness
Hundreds of thousands of acres of land, whether in the UK or elsewhere on the planet, will be needed to feed a giant bio-ethanol plant to be opened near Hull by a joint company set up by BP and Associated British Foods. The company claims fuel production is separate from food production and "the impact on food prices is likely to be negligible". But production of bio-ethanol and biodiesel, from vegetable oils such as soya or palm, is already having an impact on the cost of food and on the environment.

GlobalTorture.com
You might have imagined that recent media exposure of the CIA’s worldwide programme of torture and rendition flights has curbed what the European Parliament has called illegal acts, massive violation of fundamental human rights and contempt for the rule of law. But in fact the CIA has simply moved its operations from Poland and Romania to other countries and continues to work closely with repressive regimes around the world, including those in North Africa.

Welcome to Brown's corporate state
Gordon Brown, who becomes prime minister today, may have a different style to Tony Blair, but the substance of New Labour remains the same. In fact, Brown’s politics are in many respects more explicit than Blair’s when it comes to promoting corporate-driven globalisation as the answer to everything.

More sinister than cuckoo
Jack Nicholson shot to fame in the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The mental hospital was itself a metaphor for state authorities. For many people Milos Forman’s film brought to light the cruel imprisonment of mentally ill people and the horrors of electro convulsive treatment (ECT).

Financial 'Katrina' begins to blow
For some days now, banks and finance houses have been watching the unfolding crisis at major investment bank Bear Stearns, as it tries to limit the fallout from the failure of two of its hedge funds.

Post strike and globalisation
At the heart of the looming confrontation between Royal Mail management and New Labour on one side and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) on the other, is the nature of public services in a period of free-market globalisation.

Honours, lingerie and liberties
Joseph Corre, co-founder of the lingerie company Agent Provocateur, turns down an official honour because of the war in Iraq and the government’s attacks on human rights in Britain. In doing so he shames Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, who was only too pleased to accept an award from the Blair regime.

Global cities - divided cities
Global Cities, the new exhibition at Tate Modern, raises big questions about the future of humanity.

Climate change makes you sick
As predicted, a rise in temperatures is causing a surge in cases of dengue fever. There are signs that climate change, combined with rapid urbanisation, could make 2007 the worst ever year for this low-profile serious health risk.

Coming to a field near you: Zombie and Exorcist seeds
A new crop of genetic engineering technologies are being promoted as a solution to the unwanted spread of transgenes from genetically-modified (GM) plants. In practice, these technologies will allow the transnationals to tighten their grip on proprietary seeds and further restrict the rights of farmers.

Oil men warm to plans for recycling climate victims
The Yes Men, masters at corporate identity theft who once posed as the World Trade Organisation on the world stage, have pulled off another triumph. Posing as representatives of Exxon-Mobil and the National Petroleum Council( NPC), yesterday they presented a product with a difference to 300 oil industry representatives in Calgary, Alberta.

Double standards over Israel boycott
The denial of education, of work, of any possibility of a future lies behind the communal fighting raging in Gaza today.

Climate change takes its toll in Asia
As torrential rains continue to sweep across South China and Bangladesh, Sir David King, the UK government's chief scientist told a committee of MPs that global warming has already altered the climate and the country will have to prepare for extreme weather such as heat waves and "torrential downpours".

Google bowls a googly
Google, the world’s most used internet search engine has been rated ‘hostile to privacy’ and placed bottom of the pile of Internet based service companies, whilst other big names like AOL, Apple and Yahoo! are identified as companies with policies and techniques that pose substantial threats to privacy.

Rendition: lies and their liars
Who would you rather believe when it comes to "extraordinary rendition" – the British government and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) or the respected human rights body, the Council of Europe (CoE)? New Labour’s denial that British airports were used by the CIA for refuelling en route to torture camps is worthless.

G8 all talk on climate change
Pressure on the G8 to act now on climate change has failed. The world’s richest countries are not committed to a single target to reduce emissions as a result of yesterday’s announcement. While there was talk of the need for “for strong and early action” to tackle climate change through a "substantial global emissions reduction", the only serious target agreed was that more talks would be held.

40 years in an Israeli jail
Forty years ago this week, Israel launched an unprovoked attack on Egypt and Syria. By 10 June, Israeli forces captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, along with the Sinai and the Golan Heights. At the end of the war Israel had succeeded in almost doubling the amount of territory it controlled. Today, the misery of the Palestinians continues as they live in what is effectively a prison camp with Israeli guards.

Taking liberties with our rights
Director Chris Atkins says he wanted to achieve two things in making Taking Liberties: To make people laugh, and to make them angry. This powerful indictment of the assault on human rights and civil liberties by the New Labour government achieves both and more.

Missile shield and oil supplies
The threat by Russian president Vladimir Putin to target Western Europe with nuclear missiles underlines a growing international instability, which increasingly revolves around the availability and supply of energy for the global economy.

Unions face up to globalisation
It’s been a long time coming, but there are signs that sections of the trade union movement in Britain are prepared to take an internationalist approach to the challenges posed by the advance of corporate-driven globalisation. Until now, the unions have generally taken a nationalist, keep-our-jobs British, view.

Climate change: rhetoric and reality
Two statements, one in Washington and the other in Stansted, yesterday restated the gap between rhetoric on climate change and doing something about it.

Poor Milburn
If there was any doubt about the direction of travel that New Labourites are taking as Blair departs, Hazel Blears and Alan Milburn give us a clear view. Former health secretary Milburn has been recruited by PepsiCo to join its ‘nutritional advisory board’ in the UK along with Blair’s PR advisor Philip Gould.

Another day, another atrocity
Can you imagine a situation where a third of the members of the House of Commons are illegally seized and transferred, say, to France where they were held without trial? Sounds a bit far fetched, doesn't it but that is exactly the situation in occupied Palestine.

Sheehan slams Democrats over Iraq
Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq, has ended her anti-war campaign that galvanised America on a bitter note – but not before striking a telling blow against the Democratic Party.

The state: evolution and revolution
The trailing of plans for draconian new police powers, ostensibly required to pursue the “fight against terrorism”, brings into sharp focus important questions: what is the nature of this state and how should we oppose the rapid slide towards full-scale authoritarian rule?

Reid gives judges marching orders
If the judges don’t do what we tell them, we’ll declare a state of emergency and detain people without trial to get our way. No, this is not Putin’s Russia or the generals’ regime in Burma. This is Britain 2007 under New Labour.

Private sector gets nuclear button
One thing is certain in the government’s white paper – energy production will remain in the hands of the private sector and be subject to the laws of the capitalist market. Trade and industry secretary Alistair Darling has thrown up his hands in the face of future uncertainty, using this as the excuse to leave all major decisions with companies who he says “are best placed to weigh up and manage the complex range of interrelated factors affecting the economics of energy investments”.

Soap opera provocation
Street protests in Venezuela for and against the closing down of a popular right-wing television channel are revealing the tensions in the country under the government of President Hugo Chavez. Radio Caracas Television, a private network, is due to go off the air this Sunday because the state is refusing to renew its licence. RCT, together with three other networks, backed the 2002 coup against Chavez, which temporarily saw him lose power.

Another right bites the dust
One by one, the rights of ordinary citizens are being eroded by the state. Today it is turn of the right to object to having a nuclear power station or a new airport on your doorstep.

Hodge: following the BNP's lead
Will New Labour MPs and ministers say and do anything in a bid to get re-elected, even if they sound like the far-right British National Party? The answer is an obvious "yes", judging by the notorious outburst by industry minister Margaret Hodge on immigrants and housing.

Planetary emergency warnings mount
New scientific evidence of the multiple mounting effects of global warming had little visible impact on the 2,000 representatives of 166 countries at two weeks of United Nations talks in Bonn now drawing to a close.

McDonnell should seize the moment
So it’s just not just the British monarchy that enshrines the feudal, hereditary principle of succession. New Labour has now joined the anti-democratic club by blocking the nomination of left-wing candidate John McDonnell and allowing Gordon Brown to be crowned Our Great Leader unchallenged.

G8 crackdown under way
Two related stories from the world of global capitalism: 1) the G8 has failed to deliver pledges on aid made at Gleneagles summit in 2005 (surprise, surprise); 2) German police have launched a massive crackdown on activists in advance of next month’s G8 in the Baltic sea resort of Heiligendamm.

Corporate man heads for No.10
If you want to understand what New Labour in general, and Gordon Brown in particular, is all about, you need look no further than the so-called private finance initiative (PFI). A report from the Commons public accounts committee (PAC) today confirms that PFI is simply a government licence to print money at the taxpayer’s expense.

Private equity vultures
It really doesn’t matter to the investors what commodity a company produces, just so long as there’s a profit to be made. These days the big money is generating profits from a new kind of commodity – the companies themselves.

Profiting from 'green' business
It is hard for consumers and employees to evaluate the truth of claims that companies make about their green credentials. For example, Tesco, which says it is eco-friendly, is sending CDs and DVDs on a 1,400 mile trip to exploit a tax loophole.

Jobless victims of Blair's oil war
On the day that Prime Minister Blair announces his departure from office, let us take note of the trail of despair he leaves behind, not least for the families of those who have lost their loved ones in Iraq.

Pakistan's struggle for democracy
When it comes to attacks on human rights in Pakistan, ruling politicians in Britain and the United States invariably look the other way. Even the suspension by President (and General) Pervez Musharraf of the country’s top judge, passes without comment in Washington and London. After all, Pakistan is an ally in the "war on terror" and is a useful place to torture alleged suspects before delivering them to US and British agencies.

Union leaders have a choice
If, as seems probable, Gordon Brown is crowned as the next leader of New Labour without a contest, much of the responsibility will lie with the leaders of the major trade unions. They have deliberately cold-shouldered the challenge of MP John McDonnell in favour of Brown, who is the principal architect of New Labour’s reactionary policies.

Political crossroads in France and Britain
The decisive victory of the right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy in Sunday's French presidential elections and the crushing defeat for New Labour in last week’s elections in Britain may not appear to have much connection. But both mark the end of an era and signal periods of political and social upheaval.

Gambling with the future of humanity
Measures to cut harmful emissions over the next three decades will determine the future of the planet. That’s the stark statement in today’s third report of the UN international panel on climate change (IPCC).

A very British press freedom
UN World Press Freedom Day is an occasion to remember the journalists who are in prison or who were killed while in pursuit of their stories, or to criticise governments which exert direct state control over the media. Today should also be a day to recognise that in countries like Britain, where nominal press freedom exists, media control is exercised just as effectively but in more subtle ways