The modern railway network turns 200 this month and is currently one of the greenest forms of transport. But unless focus shifts from profits to people, Britain won’t benefit from it, argue ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
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Marking International Women’s Day as refugees
Tens of thousands of exiled Saharawi women live in refugee camps in Algeria – but their hopes of achieving justice, peace and returning to their homeland remain undiminished, writes DANIELLE SMITH
ZHANG HE highlights pressure coming from the global South for a more multilateral approach to global governance and a more equitable world order
A joint statement from Derby Indian Workers’ Association and Vox Feminarum/Women’s Voices
Employment lawyer ALICE BOWMAN warns ‘day one rights’ include an undefined ‘initial period’ and the zero-hours contract fixes create baffling fixed-term loopholes. If the Bill doesn’t work properly and deliver, Labour is doomed
The protests against the US presidential visit are over, but the public probably doesn’t know that new US nuclear bombs are now stationed here, putting us all in danger — we have to raise awareness and get them out, writes CND’s KATE HUDSON
In a speech to the 12th Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, SEVIM DAGDELEN warns of a growing historical revisionism to whitewash Germany and Japan’s role in WWII as part of a return to a cold war strategy from the West — but multipolarity will win out
“WE ONLY wish to have the right to exist, to decide our future and to return to our country to live freely without fear.”
These words have been ringing in my ears ever since I heard them uttered by Fatimetu Malainin, a Saharawi woman who was born in refugee camps in south-west Algeria where she has grown up. Now 27 years old, she is married with a second child on the way and teaches music to children in an after-school programme in Boujdour camp, where she also lives. The camp is one of five that currently house nearly 200,000 Saharawi refugees.
This year, along with tens of thousands of other Saharawi women, Fatimetu will once again be celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8 in the harsh desert camps of her exile. For some of the women, it will be their 49th year. Despite all the time that has passed, they still hold on to the hope of achieving justice and peace and returning to their homeland.
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JOE GILL welcomes a helpful, if incomplete, guide to the the native and Islamic struggles against imperial and colonial powers in north Africa
