Why private sector workers should support the strike

This piece of mine appears in The Week/The First Post.

Neil Clark: Pension cuts are all a ploy to reduce costs so that more public services can be privatised



WHOSE side are you on in Britain's biggest industrial dispute since the 1920s?



The public sector trade unions, who are leading Wednesday's national strike of up to 2.6m workers, say they are fighting to maintain the living standards of their members, who are being hit with wage freezes, cuts to their pensions and a higher cost of living.


Prime Minister David Cameron says that far from being hard done by, many public sector workers will still receive pensions "far, far better" than ones in the private sector.


You can read the whole of the article here.

Craig Murray on Fox, Werrity and Gould and the questions which must be answered

Top class investigative blogging from Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan.

Take a look at this.  Then this.  And then this.

It’s good that, after all Craig's digging, the MSM are now asking questions about the Fox/Werrity/Gould meetings.

The neocon elite doesn’t want ordinary people to find out what they’re up to behind the scenes- so bravo to Craig for his persistence.

HAT TIP: John Edwards.
 

The Trial of George W. Bush and Tony Blair for Crimes Against the Peace

Happening now in Malaysia. Let’s hope one day in the US and Britain too.

UPDATE: Bush and Blair have been found guilty.


The charge is proven beyond reasonable doubt. The accused are found guilty. The Tribunal orders that the names of the 2 convicted criminals be included in the war register of the KL War Crimes Commission. And the findings of this Tribunal be publicised to all nations who are signatories of the Rome Statue.

Kauto's star lights up Haydock

There’s been some emotional days in National Hunt racing over the past few years.


Best Mate’s third Gold Cup win. Denman’s heroic victory in the 2009 Hennessy, which I wrote about here.
 
But yesterday’s wonderful performance by veteran chaser Kauto Star, to land the Betfair Chase for the fourth time was right up there. What a sensational, front-running performance. National Hunt racing doesn’t get any better than this.

Syria needs mediation, not a push into all-out civil war

Syria is on the verge of civil war and the Arab League foolishly appears to have decided to egg it on. Where common sense dictates that Arab governments should seek to mediate between the regime and its opponents, they have chosen instead to humiliate Syria's rulers…

You can read the whole of Jonathan Steele's excellent piece on the situation in Syria, and why the US and its allies are making the situation worse, here.

Meanwhile, Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague is to meet with Syrian rebels in London. What a surprise. More on this here.

If you lived in Iran, wouldn't you want a nuclear bomb?

Imagine, for a moment, that you are an Iranian mullah. Sitting crosslegged on your Persian rug in Tehran, sipping a cup of chai, you glance up at the map of the Middle East on the wall. It is a disturbing image: your country, the Islamic Republic of Iran, is surrounded on all sides by virulent enemies and regional rivals, both nuclear and non-nuclear.



The map makes it clear: Iran is, literally, encircled by the United States and its allies.


If that wasn't worrying enough, your country seems to be under (covert) attack…


Wouldn't it be rational for Iran – geographically encircled, politically isolated, feeling threatened – to want its own arsenal of nukes, for defensive and deterrent purposes?


You can read the whole of Mehdi Hasan’s brilliant Guardian article on the threat posed to Iran, here.

The vulture hedge funds poised to swoop on Africa's poorest countries

The Guardian reports:

Twenty-six hedge funds are demanding over £1bn debt repayments from Africa's poorest countries - more than twice the International Red Cross budget for Africa this year. They are using legal loopholes around the world, including the Channel Island of Jersey.



And who exactly are these vultures? Check this out. And this. But as Greg Palast says, we should not forget the economic ‘restructuring' that made all this possible:


I think the focus on Grossman and his fellow carrion chewers is distracting. The destruction of Bosnia's power-pylon industry was the direct consequence of privatising it, bringing the free market to socialist Yugoslavia and Brankovic to power over its debts, allowing him to buy and sell debt securities on the deregulated world financial market.


It was the privatisation of Congo's state cobalt mine and the looting of its riches, all at the behest of the World Bank, IMF and privateers, that drained Congo's treasury.