SOLOMON HUGHES recommends Sunjeev Sahota’s recent novel set in a trade union election campaign for its fresh approach to what unites and divides workers, but wishes the union backdrop was truer to life
RIGHT at the moment when the Open Arms rescuers began transferring the first person onto a rigid-hull inflatable boat (Rhib), the back of the refugees’ deflating rubber vessel tore apart, dropping 118 people into the Mediterranean.
“Thank god everyone had already been given a life jacket,” says David Llado, the search-and-rescue (SAR) co-ordinator for the Spanish non-government organisation’s eponymous ship.
“Because even with them, five people drowned. And then, later, a six-month-old baby boy that we were able to recover through CPR also died while we were waiting for a medical evacuation.”
This time it is joined by famed Amazon union organiser Chris Smalls and the new vessel, the Handala, will carry baby formula for Gaza’s starving children just weeks after Israeli forces abducted the Madleen’s crew in international waters, reports ANA VRACAR



