Solidarity 056, 13 August 2004

By Vicki Morris On 25 August many Parisians will mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the capital, a significant moment in the defeat of the Axis Powers in the Second World War. On 25 August 1944, overwhelmingly, Parisians cheered the arrival into Paris of the French 2nd Armoured Division in the vanguard of the Allied forces. Ever since the Normandy landings in June, Parisian workers had staged strikes, anticipating the end of the fascist Vichy regime and of German occupation, and from 19 August there was a local rising. The liberation of France had been achieved by Allied forces and...

In late July, police in Beijing expelled from the capital around 80 laid-off workers from one of China's largest military-industrial complexes, who were demanding their jobs back. The workers, sacked by the Inner Mongolia North Heavy Industries Group Corp. Ltd. (NORHEINCO), had been petitioning the central government. In recent years around 7,000 workers have lost their jobs at the factory. Most of the retrenched workers cannot obtain even the government's "minimum living allowance", leaving them and their families virtually destitute. Since the first week in May, they have gathered every day...

The trade deal struck by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) last week is "a blueprint for deeper trade liberalisation that will not deliver poverty reduction to the poorest countries," according to the World Development Movement (WDM). Reports in the press hailed the deal as breathing life back into the Doha "development" round following the collapse of trade talks in Cancun, Mexico last September. But while some concessions to poorer countries were made, the overall agreement strengthens the world neo-liberal economic order, and it will not tackle the pressing issues facing workers around the...

By Max Lane On 22 July, more than 300 people gathered in Jakarta to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People's Democratic Party (PRD). Keynote speakers were Dita Sari and Yusuf Lakaseng, the current chairperson of the PRD's central leadership council. Dita Sari reminded people: "One decade ago was the age of dictatorship by a military and crony capitalist elite that buried the people's political freedoms. This was the 'New Order', which came to power over the corpses of one million left-thinking human beings, as well as exile, torture and the suppression of left progressive...

Nazi thugs gain Any thoughts that the BNP might be in retreat should be completely dismissed. In a Dagenham council by-election on 15 July the BNP got 31% of the vote. This gave them more than the Tories, Lib-Dems and Greens put together. The BNP put out leaflets claiming that the Barking campus of the University of East London (soon to be closed, this massive building has a swimming pool, halls of residence, etc) is to be turned into a home for asylum seekers. The election was held on the same day that a BBC documentary about the BNP was broadcast. The programme showed BNP leader Nick Griffin...

Paul Foot, who has died at the age of 66, was one of Britain's best known socialists. A member of what is now the SWP for 43 years, he became widely known for "muckraking" books about miscarriages of justice such as Who Killed Hanratty (1971), for his association with Private Eye, and for his columns in the Daily Mirror and the Guardian. In the film "Time Bandits" John Cleese plays a boyish upper class Robin Hood - Paul Foot in voice and manner. It cannot but have been a deliberate take-off of Foot and it is accurate to a T. Born in Palestine in 1937, where his father was serving, he was of...

Earlier this year the Metropolitan Police announced a re-examination of more than 100 murders in England and Wales which, they suspect, have been 'honour killings'. Cathy Nugent looks at this chilling phenomenon, and reviews a new novel which examines the effects of honour killing on a Pakistani community. The UK police inquiry follows the headline-making conviction of Abdalla Yones, a Kurdish Muslim, for the murder of his 16-year-old daughter Heshu, after she formed a relationship with a man of whom he disapproved. The murder was an example of what a global and, it is said, a rising...

Nadeem Aslam's Maps for Lost Lovers is a skilful evocation of the lives of a Pakistani immigrant community in a northern English town at the end of the 1990s. This is the kind of "deprived community" Robin Cook has recently been touring in an effort to convince Muslims that New Labour really has done something for the poor. That claim is not convincing. Certainly this town - which the original migrant community renamed Dasht-e-Tanhaii, to mean "The Wilderness of Loneliness" or "The Desert of Solitude" - is a very desolate place. It offers a miserable, lonely life for many of these working...

Every day the smooth-faced pundits forecast on the box. The miners' strike is lost, they say, and Scargill's on the rocks Lies, defamation, misinformation, this is the testing time He kept faith with the men who elected him, and that is a major crime. The Media, Ewan McColl By Mick Duncan The limits of the "free press" under capitalism were graphically shown up during the miners' strike. It is impossible to describe how polarised political life was during the strike. It was a time for taking sides. For the most part the media threw its weight behind the Government, and the Government's use of...

Beginning August: After South Wales NUM is fined £50,000 the NUM calls on the TUC and the rest of the trade union movement for solidarity action. Nothing happens. The movement begins to go into retreat, although the miners would remain, fundamentally, solid until November. There was nothing inevitable about this: many groups of workers had their own battles to fight, battles which could have turned into support for the miners, but either these were not seriously fought or the Government intervened to ensure that they were settled quickly. 8 August: 50p a week trade union levy in support of NUM...