As Colombia approaches presidential elections next year, the US decision to decertify the country in the war on drugs plays into the hands of its allies on the political right, writes NICK MacWILLIAM

Sometimes a shuttle flies out
And gives a poor woman a clout,
There she’ll lie bleeding,
But no-one is heeding,
Oh how can we carry her out?
Eleven years ago the GFTU decided to visit the Vietnamese trade union movement and forge new ties with a country that meant so much to so many trade unionists in the 1960s and 1970s.
Exchanges followed. Of particular interest to the Vietnamese trade unions at a time of fast expansion and mass construction sites was British health and safety legislation.



