The Tories introduced the 50% strike ballot threshold to make industrial action harder. MATT WRACK argues that a Labour government has no justification for leaving it on the statute book
IN 1990, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded its neighbour Kuwait. The war was a quick victory, with fatalities on both sides in the hundreds. However, Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait was grim: resisting Kuwaitis were imprisoned and tortured. Up to 600 Kuwaiti prisoners were killed by the Iraqi occupiers.
But the news was dominated by one story that turned out to be untrue. From 1990 on, many newspapers reported invading Iraqi troops had looted Kuwait’s hospitals; the invaders supposedly took away incubators, leaving between 90 and 300 premature babies to die on the floor.
This terrible crime was reported in every top newspaper, was the subject of hearings in US congress and was referred to by many politicians. Those who raised doubts about the story were attacked by newspapers like the Telegraph.
GAVIN O’TOOLE recommends a methodical unmasking of the US media’s complicity in the Israeli genocide, that should be a template for what’s needed to bring Britain’s corporate media to book
DIANE ABBOTT exposes Keir Starmer's doublespeak on Britain’s involvement in the Iran war but takes heart from the growing organisation of the opposition to it
For those in the West, hunger is often just the familiar feeling of a growling stomach between meals — in Gaza, it has become a strategic weapon of slow, systematic and deadly destruction, writes MARC VANDEPITTE
With foreign media banned from Gaza, Palestinians themselves have reversed most of zionism’s century-long propaganda gains in just two years — this is why Israel has killed 270 journalists since October 2023, explains RAMZY BAROUD


