Solidarity 206, 1 June 2011

There are escalating attacks on Iraqi union leaders and activists in the Kurdish area of Northern Iraq and in Baghdad. In Kirkuk, management of the Northern [State-owned] Oil Company, punitively transferred Jamal Abdul-Jabbar, President of the Oil and Gas Union, to a remote location in retaliation after he led a major walkout in defense of contract workers and for better conditions and safe work environment. • More: uslaboragainstwar.org and www.labourstart.org .

Oussama, of Ligue de la Gauche Ouvrière (LGO, Workers’ Left League) in Tunisia, spoke to Ed Maltby. At its first meeting, the Haute Instance — the body overseeing Tunisia’s first open election — decided to put back the provisional date of 24 July. This was for a purely technical and logistical reason. The new [provisional] date is 16 October. The League were for moving back the date. There are other parties still in favour of 24 July, like Ennahda [Islamist party], and the Progressive Democratic Party, who are still contesting the decision. These parties are ready for the elections. They have...

The main political lines in the four-month-old mobilisations to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh are becoming blurred. The opposition front which has led protests in the capital, Sanaa, demanding Saleh steps down, is led by secular leftists, Baathists, Nasserites and Islamists. Saleh is too weak to use the kind of systematic violence currently employed by the Syrian regime, but his forces have resorted to bursts of killing — splintering his support and hardening the resolve of the young protesters. Yemen’s neighbours have become increasingly alarmed at the chaos on their borders, and have...

The latest austerity measures by the Pasok government were fully expected. This recipe for dealing with the Greek debt, under the guidance of the IMF and the European Union (EU), is the main cause of the problem. Called neoliberalism, it is a well-known failure. But every time the measures fail to give the expected result they insist on an even more harsh application of the same logic. It is like a doctor who insists on increasing the dose of a failing cure. It is torture without end for the Greek people! The new austerity programme is 50 billion euros in cuts by 2015. According to the IMF and...

More than 200 delegates gathered at the TUC Disability Conference on 25-26 May. It followed much campaigning by disabled people against the savage effect of cuts. Disabled workers are more likely to work in the public rather than the private sector, so the massive public sector job cuts will have a devastating effect. Together with benefit cuts and housing cuts, this will drive many disabled people out of work and into poverty. Examples include cuts to: • Remploy and other supported employment • NHS provision eg. mental health services face losing 6,300 staff, a quarter of the total •...

24 June is the deadline for Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) to respond to the Labour Party's official review of its structure, conducted by Peter Hain. It is also the deadline for CLPs to submit a rule-change proposal (they can choose to do that, or put in a "contemporary" motion by 16 September, which has to refer to recent events, i.e., in effect, events in August). It is the deadline for them to elect delegates to Labour Party conference 2011, though some CLPs did that at their annual general meetings in February. These deadlines come at a time when there are openings in the Labour Party...

In 1996 Joao Havelange retired as President of FIFA. Sepp Blatter, a Swiss lawyer and Havelange's chosen successor defeated the reform candidate Lennart Johannson (a Swedish truck magnate). Johannson had stood on a platform of transparency, accountability and greater recognition within FIFA for European pre-eminence. Blatter did the rounds in the heart of Johannson's support in Europe and Africa, blatantly electioneering under the guise of official business with Havelange at his side. He won 111-80 in the first round of voting and there was no need for a second round. Havelenge's authoritarian...

For the first time, I think, in 45 years of political conflicts with the AWL and its forerunners, the Socialist Party (formerly Militant) has explicitly polemicised against us. Debate on Libya : 1. Martyn Hudson: Libyan rebels fight for life 2. Sean Matgamna: Why we should not denounce intervention in Libya 3. Barry Finger: Libya and the no-fly zone: precedents for socialists 4. Dan Katz: The Left, slipping towards Qaddafi? 5. Sean Matgamna: The battle for democracy in the Arab Revolution 6. Barry Finger: Once again on "Stop the Bombing" 7. Peter Taaffe: Libya, the no-fly zone, AWL and the...