Yassamine Mather interviews Ali Pichgah a leader of the Iranian oilworkers strikers during the revolutionary period.Ali emphasises the importance of opposing all Imperialist sanctions. Full text of interview at link

How do you evaluate the recent political protests and the role of the working class in them?

The protest against the regime’s rigged elections took such dimensions because the majority of the population are opposed to the absence of political freedoms in Iran. In particular the youth, who constitute a high percentage of the population, feel contempt for the way the religious state interferes in their private lives. People are losing patience and in general opposition to the regime has reached unprecedented levels. I think what is different this time is the terrible economic situation. Inflation above 25%, mass unemployment, the growing gap between rich and the poor ... and from this point of view one can say that the relentless workers’ struggles of the last two years against job losses and poverty, against non-payment of wages, as well as the demonstrations by teachers, nurses and so on against the economic policies of the government, were precursors to the huge demonstrations we saw this summer.

Of course, many of these protests were defensive (wage-earners trying to maintain what little they had), yet the working class has remained the most persistent opposition to the entire regime over the last few years, in the run-up to June 2009. Coincidently we see the continuation of the mass protests of early summer in the unprecedented level of workers’ struggles in recent weeks, the victory of the Iran Khodro workers (where the regime clearly retreated), the revolutionary tactics of Pars Wagon workers (from ransacking the refectory to mounting hunger strikes), workers bringing their families along to demonstrations .
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An important study which illustrates the paucity of US media reports of civilian deaths in Iraq. hence it is hardly shocking that US citizens are unaware tof the true extent of civilian casualties. Full story at related link.

In February of 2007 Associated Press conducted a survey of 1,002 adults across the United States about their perceptions of the war in Iraq. Whilst the respondents accurately estimated the death toll of U.S. soldiers (the median estimate was 2,974 while the actual toll at the time was 3,100), they grossly underestimated the number of Iraqi civilian casualties (the median answer was 9,890 at a time when several estimates put the toll at least 10 times that number and some as high as 50 times that number). ... read full story / add a comment

THE HEALTH Service Executive is examining substantial fees paid by dozens of health service bodies and agencies to employer’s body Ibec. ... read full story / add a comment

Last week a consortium of three companies bought a Sellafield site with a view to a 2016 expansion of
UK nuclear energy provision, this emanates from the *Entente Formidable* fiscal deal between the Heir
to Slitherin' Gordon Brown (pal of Alistair Campbell , currently being investigated for Provence parties
and expenses and best matey of Toxic Blair, who really had to go and is not getting Europe BTW) and
the Gallic Shrimp Premier Sarkozy.

Heres the Contract site which the Irish Times did not make mention of during the sale period :

[] http://www.contractjournal.com/Articles/2009/10/28/7308....html ... read full story / add a comment