Recent public faction fighting in the ALP has seen support for the party federally plummet to new time lows. Coming after a period of time when the government has been under attack for the AWB and not too recently the federal ALP was leading the government on a two party preferred basis, this only goes [...]

Hundreds hear the socialist case at CWI meetings.
On Saturday, 25 March, the Word Social Forum (WSF), in Karachi, Pakistan, started with some 5,000 to 8,000 present.
By CWI reporters in Karachi

Millions of workers and youth took to the streets on Tuesday March 28 as a ?day of action? saw new mass protests and strikes throughout France against the government. At the time of writing (Early afternoon Tuesday 28th March) it was clear that these protests have been much bigger than the 1.5 million who demonstrated [...]

For the past four months workers have been asking ‘what?s the next step in the campaign against Howard’s IR laws?’. After much debate finally the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) have called another mass nation wide rally on June 28.
By Anthony Main, Socialist Party National Organiser

Saturday 18 March saw a million and half protesters take to the streets through France in protest against the new CPE ? the ?youth employment contact?. In Paris alone, up to 400,000 participated. Below is the translation of a statement distributed over the past week by Gauche révolutionnaire, the CWI section in France.

By SP Cllr Stephen Jolly
The Council meeting tonight was dominated by some bread and butter issues concerning the lives of local residents. One issue was the threatened closure of the Collingwood Community Information Centre.

The Federal Government?s new anti worker industrial relations regime will begin next week after Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews unveiled the ?WorkChoices? regulations over the weekend.
UNITE, Melbourne

Labor State Governments have been re-elected in South Australia and Tasmania yesterday.
The uneasy economic upturn (that a section of workers has benefited from by working long hours and getting into debt) has been enough to see incumbants re-elected - whether it is the Coalition federally or ALP in the States.

The statement by the US ambassador to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad that the Iraq invasion had opened up a ‘Pandora’s Box of sectarian conflict’, has focused attention on the prospect of a slide towards open civil war in Iraq. Is this the most likely development in Iraq? And, therefore, is it light-minded to call for the [...]

To great fanfare, using the annual ten-day gathering of the National People?s Congress as their stage, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have launched a package of rural policies with the expressed aim of building a ?new socialist countryside?.
By Vincent Kolo, CWI corrospondent in China