VIJAY PRASHAD looks at the web of militias and drug-trafficking gangs that emerged in the Sweida region through the Syrian civil war, and how they relate to recent clashes and Israel’s intervention
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John Boyd, 1934-2024
Tony Donaghey remembers a lifelong campaigner who fought tirelessly against the EU and for the right of nations to self-determination, with a fundamental belief in what ordinary working people could achieve by themselves
by Roger D Harris and John Perry
VINCE MILLS says Scottish Labour has adopted better positions than its Westminster counterpart — but unless it starts to fight for them that will count for nothing
Labour MSP CAROL MOCHAN calls for Britain to follow France’s lead and recognise the Palestinian state as part of efforts to end this war
A Chilean court ruled that funds were illegally taken by the dictator to accumulate family wealth that is now disputed among his heirs, writes PABLO MERIGUET
The shock suspension of socialist MPs and Diane Abbott’s re-suspension reveals a leadership intent on crushing internal debate — but MERCEDES VILLALBA MSP warns against surrendering party democracy without a fight
DEMOCRAT, internationalist and peace campaigner John Boyd has passed away at the age of 89. Boyd was active in the Connolly Association in the 1970s and was influenced by Desmond Greaves, editor of the Irish Democrat.
Greaves invited Boyd to write about the deindustrialisation of Britain under Tory leader Margaret Thatcher and her then ardent support for this country’s membership of the then Common Market. Boyd went on to contribute a regular column in the Irish Democrat on the subject.
Following the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, which massively centralised power within the European Union in 1992, he helped found the Campaign Against Euro-Federalism (CAEF), which sought to win British labour and trade union opinion to oppose supranational EU integration.
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