The move to restrict exports of the important rare earth metals that China has a 90% monopoly on has provoked Trump to declare a 100% tariff on Chinese exports and other retaliatory measures, reports DYLAN MURPHY
Is the government finally going to remove a silent killer?
HANK ROBERTS welcomes news that asbestos has been judged too dangerous to leave in situ in schools and public buildings, and issues a clarion call to readers to help make sure action is actually taken
MAKING PROGRESS: A conference organised by Barking and Dagenham and Havering Trades Council November last year. This shows delegates holding up placards about the Cape asbestos scandal
[BDHTUC] 
Ben Chacko pays tribute to the author of our much-missed Frosty’s Ramblings column, a champion of the countryside and working-class culture
Giving a personal insight into the Labour Party conference, Sinn Fein MP CHRIS HAZZARD slams the lack of mention of the North of Ireland and the need to take the next steps in the journey from peace to Irish unity
The ferocity with which Labour in power has cracked down on protest within its own ranks and also on the streets is unprecedented — and championing those protests is the only way we can turn this ship around, argues ALAN SIMPSON
ANSELM ELDERGILL is a member of Your Party and he suggests how the new party should reform Britain’s constitution
Trump’s Gaza deal is a transient, self-aggrandising spectacle that barely distracts from the West’s outright complicity in the massacre in Gaza and our slide into warmongering, writes MATT KERR
AT LAST! After more than a century of dissembling, downright lies and cover-ups, the government has admitted that asbestos is too dangerous to be left in schools and public buildings. It must all be removed and cannot be safely managed in situ.
With around 40,000 schools and educational premises, and with government research stating that an estimated 80 per cent contain the deadly asbestos, we know this is a massive task.
One of the people who has led this fight is Sir Stephen Timms MP who, in 2022 as the chair of the all-party parliamentary work and pensions committee, called for all asbestos to be removed from educational buildings within 40 years, starting with the most dangerous first.
More from this author
HANK ROBERTS warns that new research predicts a catastrophic rise in asbestos-related deaths among former pupils and teachers as school buildings deteriorate, bursting the ‘it’s safe if not disturbed’ myth
HANK ROBERTS looks at the Prime Minister's record and concludes Dawn Butler may have had a point this week
HANK ROBERTS writes that his own experience of exposing a headteacher who had misappropriated millions in school funds and then spending almost a decade trying to bring him to justice shows how inherently corrupt the academies system is
In the class war strategy must come before tactics — and that means we must focus on how we are going to fight austerity after Covid-19. HANK ROBERTS prescribes uniting all those who can be united
