REAL VICTIM OF BUGGING SCANDAL IS BABAR AHMAD

Around 400 pro-choice protesters staged a loud and lively picket of Tory MP Ann Widdecombe’s anti-abortion meeting in London yesterday

Teachers took strike action at two schools in Camden, north London, today over plans to scrap recruitment and retention (R&R) payments to new teachers

Babar Ahmad is the US's hostage in Britain, his conversations with MP Sadiq Khan have been monitored by police and he faces extradition to the US on trumped up charges

Across Birmingham council workers gathered on Tuesday morning to strike and protest against wage cuts

Over 3,500 strikers attended a lively rally in Birmingham city centre

Single status was sold to council workers across Britain as a deal that would bring equal pay for women

The occupation is crumbling, the country is on the edge of a humanitarian disaster and the Nato alliance is falling apart

A US helicopter gunship has killed 13 Iraqi civilians in the town of Iskandriyah

The sixth Cairo Conference will be a key event for the global anti war movement

Railway track maintenance by Network Rail is so poor that it could be putting passengers’ lives at risk

Esme Choonara meets the residents of one of Britain’s worst tower blocks

Under the guise of removing “red tape” Gordon Brown and David Cameron are competing to scrap rules brought in to stop police using their powers to racially harass black people

Multinational firms have got their eyes on your local doctor’s surgery

Teachers in the NUT union at Pimlico School, central London, struck on Wednesday of last week

Over 200 Respect supporters from across London met last week to finalise the selection of a list of candidates for the London Assembly elections on 1 May and to launch Lindsey German’s campaign for mayor

The list of candidates for May's election

Canvassers were out in force last Sunday in Preston, where Respect supporter Barry Hill is standing in the Tulketh ward in the upcoming by-election

A new counter-terrorism bill currently going through parliament is set to remove juries from some inquests into how people have died

Two weeks ago lurid tabloid headlines proclaimed police raids had freed “child slaves” brought to this country by people traffickers

Socialist Worker ran the headline “Teach Yourself Polish” over two decades ago

There were sighs of relief among Western leaders last week when Egypt finally sealed its border with the Gaza Strip

Comments on the situation in Afghanistan

A Lebanese judge has ordered the arrest of three officers and eight soldiers for gunning down eight people in the southern suburbs of Beirut last week

The instability and chaos in Italy is the product of neoliberal policies and missed opportunities by the left, writes Phil Rushton in Naples

Thousands of people have been taking to the streets in Indonesia in protests over rising food prices

SINCE THE crisis in Kenya erupted six weeks ago there has been a lot of handwringing about the threatened collapse of a haven of “stability” in Africa

The end of the Eastern European regimes in 1989 was not inevitable

Two participants in recent struggles spoke to Socialist Worker

The neoliberal policies unleashed on eastern Europe following the 1989 revolutions are provoking a new wave of resistance, writes Andy Zebrowski

On 6 February 1918 women in Britain first got the vote

Economic growth in India and China is portrayed as a key contributor to climate change, but the problem is mainly caused by the global rich not poor countries, argues Suzanne Jeffery

Beatrice Leal opens our new series on the great revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg with the debate in the German socialist movement before the First World War

Elections show US is as racist as ever | De Beauvoir’s theory beats sexism | Migrants not to blame | Crackdown shows danger in Caracas | Holocaust remembered | Migrants and midwives | Single-sex wards | Unpalatable truths on factory farming | Northern Rock

The new film Juno, about a pregnant teenager in the US, may be winning plaudits but it doesn’t quite feel like real life to Wonu Allison

This new exhibition by the artist Kagan Guner is a political critique of British society

Jose James is making some of the best vocal-led jazz and soul music around at the moment

Following the success of the Left in Vision art show at the Marxism festival last year, Left in Vision 2 is being organised for Marxism 2008

Nahella Ashraf writes that Islamophobia is the last “acceptable” racism in Britain

Shell oil last week unveiled annual profits of over £13 billion but campaigners say this is not being invested in safety for workers

The OILC and RMT unions are fighting against oil workers being “NRBd” (not required back) on platforms in the North Sea

The fight to stop the fascist British National Party (BNP) making gains at this year’s London and local elections had a boost last week

Just a month after the disastrous rail failures at Christmas, Network Rail is proceeding with a reorganisation that will throw the railway industry into a long period of confusion

The Railway Pensions Commission published its final report on Tuesday of last week

Workers in the Unison, Unite, and GMB unions in Aberdeen are balloting over a revised single status offer

Rolling strike action at Argyll and Bute council in Scotland is showing the determination of workers to fight their single status wage deal

Manchester | Preston | Glasgow

Over 80 trade unionists attended the London Organising for Fighting Unions dayschool on Saturday of last week

On one of the coldest nights of January, about 50 people protested in Belfast outside the “Passion for Life” tour organised by Tory MP Ann Widdecombe and other anti-abortion parliamentarians

RMT rail workers’ union representatives on the London Underground have won an argument that has meant that the union’s national executive has declared a dispute with management

More than 90 people attended a dayschool to celebrate the legacy of CLR James in central London last Saturday

Campaigners in Shropshire, West Midlands, won a major victory last week when they stopped the planned closure of 22 primary schools

Teachers in the National Union of Teachers (NUT) are preparing for a ballot for strike action over their below-inflation pay offer

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) in Higher Education (HE) are being balloted about a new negotiating agreement with the employers

Ballot papers are out now for the UCU lecturers’ union national executive committee elections

Strike at Remploy | Aerospace pensions fight | McDonnell calls for new start | Protest to save Rolls Royce jobs | VOA civil service workers strike ballot

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