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By Colin Foster
On Tuesday 6 January, the Labour Party readmitted London mayor Ken Livingstone to membership. He had been expelled in 2000, when he ran against Labour for mayor and won, after being denied the Labour nomination despite being the majority choice of Labour Party members and trade unions in London.
Is this a triumph for the left? Or a sell-out by the previously "red" Ken? Neither.
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Alan Clarke, NUS National Executive (personal capacity) and Campaign for Free Education co-chair
As Solidarity goes to press, the Government is preparing to publish a detailed final version of its plan for Higher Education student funding.
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By Michaela Collins
Just before Xmas I passed a television camera crew going up my street. I felt a little frisson of interest and went on about my business. Next day I was a little more excited when the pictures aired on the lunchtime news and the camera lingered on my window. Well, Andy Warhol, it was only 15 seconds, whatever!
The news item was about an elderly couple who were found dead, one from hypothermia, after their gas had been cut off. I detail my reaction to the news because it highlights a certain ambivalence about privacy and publicity, and it is this ambivalence that is played on by policy-makers and private utilities.
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Meeting to discuss and plan action against the Civil Contingencies Bill.
Saturday 17 January, 11am, Friends Meeting House, Manchester. A day of discussion with concerned individuals and organisations.
Organised by Manchester Social Forum
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This month the Hutton Report on the Government's dossier for going to war in Iraq will be published. This month or next, Parliament will vote on the Government's plans to have students charged extra "top-up" fees for selected courses, or for posher universities.
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By Lucy Clement
The dubious accolade of topping Google's UK chart in 2003 went to Prince Charles. His name was the website's most searched-for term of the year. When the newspapers were banned from printing the allegation that dare not speak its name, the nation temporarily abandoned its searches for Britney and Beckham and tried to find out what the fuss was all about.
You might well ask why anyone would care what Charles did or didn't do with his valet. I suspect a lot of people bothered to try and find out because they were told they weren't allowed to know, and therefore thought there might be something worth knowing. The only detailed version of the story I saw was on an Italian gossip site, although the Popbitch email apparently had most of it, albeit in coded form.
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6.30-9pm, Thursday 22 January, The Other Cinema, 11 Rupert Street, London W1
To raise money for union organisers at the Centro de Apoyo al Trabajador in Mexico, No Sweat has organised a special screening of Ken Loach's film Bread and Roses (2000) on 22 January at the Other Cinema in London.
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Crackdown in Argentina
On 20 December 2003, the second anniversary of the popular uprising in 2001 that brought down the government of Fernando de la Rúa, 50,000 people demonstrated in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires.
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No Sweat steering group
Meets on Saturday 17 January, 12-4 pm, at University London Union, Malet Street, Euston, London. All activists welcome.
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By Mick Duncan
Chinese prison officials have refused a request by the families of jailed Liaoyang union activists Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang to grant Yao and Xiao medical parole for severe health problems.
Family members recently visited the two men in Liaoning Province's Lingyuan County No. 2 Prison, and found them in alarming physical condition. Yao has previously been sent to the prison hospital after losing consciousness twice due to a heart condition. He is also suffering from hearing loss and partial paralysis. Xiao is suffering from pleurisy and is almost entirely blind.
