TAX THE ENERGY GIANTS AND CUT FUEL BILLS

Read the petition to defend Egyptian protesters from Mahella and add your signature

Warehouse and distribution workers in the Unite union at retail giant Argos have overwhelmingly voted to continue with their programme of strike action against below inflation pay

Corporations make billions while our fuel prices rise over 20 percent, writes Sadie Robinson

Support is growing for the People Before Profit Charter, which aims to defend workers’ living standards in the face of looming economic disaster

New figures have revealed the massive subsidies doled out to MPs in the bars of the House of Commons

New Labour ministers are set to put up for sale a public service that is vital to the lives of pensioners and some of the poorest sections of the population

Labour’s defeat in Glasgow East last week was historic

The Iraqi government has withdrawn an order banning eight key union organisers belonging to the powerful Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU)

The US is planning to send tens of thousands of troops to Iraq’s border with Iran in a move that threatens to escalate tensions across the Middle East

One year ago British defence secretary Des Browne was asked if the occupation in Afghanistan had “turned the corner”

On Thursday 24 July Binyam Mohamed turned 30

Stoke day of action | East Midlands |

Environmental activists and trade unionists will demonstrate this Sunday 3 August against the proposed building of a new coal-fired power station by a private company at Kingsnorth in Kent

Politicians and the media continue to call for crackdowns on young people as the way to deal with knife crime

Bus workers at Metroline in north and north west London have voted overwhelmingly to say that they are prepared to go on strike over pay

In the final weeks before the Olympic games begin in Beijing, the Chinese state has cracked down on “undesirables” - human rights activists, migrant workers from western China and the city’s poor

Where the radical left has participated in centre-left governments the results have been universally disastrous

Virgin’s Richard Branson is laying on a three and half hour trip 70 miles up into the stratosphere to the edge of space for the world’s super-rich, where travellers can experience just four to six minutes of weightlessness

Snippets from the week’s news

About 300 members of Women Of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza) marched through the country’s second city Bulawayo yesterday afternoon

Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) of Mahmoud Abbas have launched a crackdown on the Hamas resistance movement in the occupied West Bank

Negotiations aimed at ending Zimbabwe’s political crisis were stalled as Socialist Worker went to press

Chris Bambery reports from Chinciano Terme on what Rifondazione Comunista’s national congress means for the left in Italy

Alex Callinicos examines the ‘development’ provided by the World Trade Organisation

For many people the one thing Gordon Brown had going for him was that he wasn’t Tony Blair

Simon Basketter investigates the serious questions over the use of confessions to convict five men over the “fertiliser bomb” plot

The growth of popular anger against neoliberalism has created an historic opportunity for a new left movement to emerge, writes Andy Zebrowski

There is a wide debate on the left about forming a left coalition to fight elections and neoliberalism

Major events in Poland since the Second World War

To read the newspapers you would think that migrant workers were a new phenomenon – and a problematic one at that

Neil Faulkner looks at how resistance to the Roman empire shaped Hadrian’s rule

In the first part of our new series Megan Trudell looks at the history of working class struggles in the US

Labour’s sick incapacity benefit policy | Karadzic double standards | Union meeting shows mood to fight Brown | Afghan solution can’t be imposed | Can the crisis be solved? | Back Nader in US election | Stop attack on IVF treatment | Bigotry behind Cameron spin | Cash for your job

As the new Dark Knight film is released Sasha Simic looks at the enduring popularity of Batman

The fiftieth anniversary of the musical West Side Story is celebrated by a new stage production, with superb choreography and music that brings this saddest of tales to life

Big names and small share the bill at this Love Music Hate Racism supported festival

An exhibition of cutting-edge 3D street art and graff sculpture, featuring the world’s most groundbreaking and renowned graffiti artists

A day long festival with four entertainment arenas showing live music as well as games, a craft fair and food stalls

CWU’s national conference passed a motion that prepared the ground for a national fight over pensions, office closures and the threat of privatisation

The three year pay deal for NHS workers, agreed in April, is now under such severe strain that there is almost universal agreement across the Unison union that it needs to be reopened

Members of the Unite union at Arrowe Park Hospital and Clatterbridge hospital in Merseyside struck on Friday of last week in response to attempts by managers to impose monthly pay

Around 70 activists from Unison and other unions came to a meeting last week to discuss “Is there a witch-hunt in Unison?”

There are new talks in the local government dispute against Gordon Brown’s pay curbs that saw over half a million people on strike last month

Build support for Karen Reissmann | Harrods workers set to close shop | Pat Carmody wins reinstatement | BBC Worldwide lunch packs punch

Workers in the Unite union at Promens plastic packaging in Beccles, Suffolk, have stepped up their campaign for decent pay as they enter their third week of industrial action

A response from two members of the DWP executive to an article criticising the executive for not voting to strike alongside other public sector workers on 16-17 July and a rejoinder from the authors of the original article

Up to 3,000 members of the PCS civil service workers’ union at the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) struck for three days from Wednesday to Friday of last week over a restructuring that threatens over 100 job cuts, and over other issues

Around 100 London Underground staff at Elephant & Castle, Charing Cross and Lambeth North struck for 24 hours from Sunday evening to demand the reinstatement of a colleague

Around 12,000 maintenance workers at Network Rail struck for a second time last weekend in their fight for the harmonisation of pay and conditions across the company

Strikes have forced bosses at high street giant Argos to improve their 3

The NUT union in Croydon, south London, may ballot for industrial action over plans to reorganise secondary education and introduce academies

Stop the War | SWP meetings | movement events | concerts and benefits