NEWSBITES

WHILE CHANCELLOR Gordon Brown is busy telling us that rises in workers' pay will only drive up inflation, the bosses own Institute of Management report admits that company directors pay has leapt by more than 10% in past year-that's three times the rate of inflation.

LEVELS OF radioactivity in Irish Sea shellfish near the Sellafield discharge point are forty two times higher than 'accepted' European standards for food contamination after a nuclear accident.

FOLLOWING ON from the fall of Suharto in Indonesia, thousands of Zimbabwean students turned out to denounce the eighteen year rule of President Robert Mugabe by chanting: 'Suharto, Mugabe, Indonesia, Zimbabwe!'

AFTER THE LOW Pay Commission recommended a minimum wage of £3.20 per hour for under 21s and £3.60 for older wage slaves, CBI president Sir Colin Marshall reckoned this was an 'acceptable' rate - incidentally, he earns a mere £265,000 a year.

MORE ON Sellafield - a house in nearby Seascale had to be 'decontaminated' after it was covered in droppings from radioactive pigeons. According to Nuclear physicist Dr Gerald Kirchner of the University of Bremen, the birds were heavily contaminated with plutonium and a variety of other radioactive substances.

IN MAY, after a 3,000 strong rally in Prague against the effects of the world economy on the environment, demonstrators fought with the police, smashed shop windows and wrecked the McDonalds in Wenceslas Square.

BRIGHTON'S LOCAL Federation of Small Businesses hit the nail on the head when posters advertising a meeting to promote the New Deal slave labour scheme said, 'Have you ever thought how profitable your business would be if you didn't pay out wages?'

AND WHILE we're on the subject of slavery, did you know that almost one million women workers in this country earn less than £2.25 an hour?

The United Nations Children's Fund estimates that 5 to 6,000 Iraqi children under 5 years old die every month as a direct result of the US-led trade embargo on Iraq.

Pie in the Sky? Pie in the Face!

After the cheering aquatic attack on John Prescott and the pastry in the mushes of Bill Gates, Microsoft multimillionaire and John Peppar of Proctor and Gamble, that nasty little turncoat and ex-anarchist Dany 'the Red' (now very pale pink) Cohn-Bendit, got a tasty tarte of Chantilly cream square in the old boat race. Dany 'sell-out' Cohn-Bendit, the only libertarian to have sold out in the March 22nd Movement at Nanterre University, which had a key role in May 1968 in France, now praises the market economy. On the occasion of an anniversary celebration of May 68 at Nanterre University, Cohn-Bendit was meant to deliver a lecture on Political engagement in the year 2000. A member of the CNT at Nanterre leapt into action. As for other sell-out merchants like Alain Geismar, ex-Maoist student leader and in the same sell-out racket, he was too afraid to honour his appointment!

The struggle continues...with Suharto gone and the new boss Habibie trying to keep a firm grip on the situation in Indonesia, poor peasants occupied a new golf course built solely for the wealthy, and started growing crops in an attempt to reclaim land for the landless. They blocked all roads to the site demanding compensation for environmental damage caused to farms by oilfields. Meanwhile some of the 10,000 striking workers from the KASOGI International Ogarto Oilfield factory blocked the main road to Surabaya (the east Java capital) with tree branches to the site.

OK, so we know we keep on telling you it's Labour/Tory, same old story, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee parties which only serve to represent the left and right factions of the boss class as they screw the working class. But, down in Hackney, these factions are now well and truly united in an unofficial coalition against the "neo-leftist" Lib Dems and so vote together at every debate. One "independent" councillor forced to resign from the Labour Party now sits with the Tories in order to vote with Labour. Confused? We're not!

On June 26th teenage prisoners rioted at a show piece Group 4 "children's prison" in Rochester , Kent. They caused thousands of pounds worth of damage to the quaintly named Medway secure Training centre. £ screws were also injured during the inmates rebellion.