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Pablo Neruda, the famous poet and politician, was born in July 1904. In celebration of his centenary year we are now reproducing these extracts from Adam Feinstein’s biography of Neruda, along with Neruda’s poem on the death of Stalin, which we were unable to include, due to lack to space, in the last issue of … [Read more…]

Last year’s plummeting share prices have caused thousands of people to be deprived of all or part of the occupational pensions they expected to receive on retirement. This, among other things, has caused the government to set up under Adair Turner, former CBI chief, a commission to investigate the pensions situation and to come up … [Read more…]

()As we go to print, Viktor Yushchenko has claimed victory in the re-run for the Ukrainian presidential elections held on December 26, 2004. On the other hand, Viktor Yanukovich, declared the winner in the last elections, annulled by the Ukrainian supreme court, has refused to concede defeat, claiming that there were huge violations and that … [Read more…]

In their thousands, the delegates started arriving at the Harare International Conference Centre (HICC) on Wednesday, 1st Dec, with high expectations that the Congress will address their uppermost concerns, ranging from progress on the land acquisition and resettlement programme to economic turnaround and job creation, extra resources for new farmers to ensure the productive use … [Read more…]

David Blunkett has taken a leading role in making it almost impossible for people, especially those from the oppressed and super-exploited countries, to be allowed to settle in Britain. He has now had to resign ostensibly because he facilitated a visa allowing a Filipino domestic servant indefinite leave to remain in the country – ironic! … [Read more…]

On the 22 November 2004, the revisionist daily paper, the Morning Star, published an article by a leading member of the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), Kate Hudson, who is also the Chairwoman of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). The article starts by announcing that the re-election of President Bush in the USA was a … [Read more…]

Dribs and drabs of news come out of Nigeria which build up to a country in turmoil, but a turmoil of which little is known. In October this year, Nigerian trade unions called a general strike, which brought Nigeria’s major cities to a halt for the four days the strike had been scheduled to last. … [Read more…]

28 September 2004 marked the fourth anniversary of the Al-aqsa Intifada. These have been four years of unprecedented violence, cruelty and repression unleashed by the fascist state of Israel on the Palestinian people; equally they have been four years of truly heroic resistance by the Palestinian people which has won them the admiration of progressive … [Read more…]

At the end of July, journalist and writer Paul Foot died of a heart attack at the age of 66. His obituaries appeared in many leading bourgeois dailies. Socialist News, the vacuous bi-monthly sheet of the near extinct Socialist Labour Party (SLP) of Arthur Scargill, also honoured Paul Foot in its September/October 2004 issue in … [Read more…]

It is with great sorrow that Lalkar learned of the death of Ray Stevenson, the Associate Editor of North Star Compass and Executive member of the International Council for Friendship and Solidarity with Soviet People. He passed away after a long illness on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 in Toronto at the St. Michael’s Hospital. He … [Read more…]