Trade unions need to step up and force a turn in the policies of the labour movement to effectively confront the far-right threat, argues NICK WRIGHT
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When Yuri Gagarin gave Britain’s ruling class a headache
MAT COWARD recalls the occasion when the first man in space paid a visit to our shores in 1961
A crowd of people at Heathrow Airport, who had waited to see Major Yuri Gagarin (centre) the first man in space, as he arrived at the airport to fly home after a four day visit to the country, July 15, 1961
As the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish civil war is marked, Teesside campaigners will gather to remember the local men and women who stood against fascism, explains TONY FOX
Whatever differences exist among international sympathisers of the Bolivarian revolution about its current trajectory, they should unite against the imperialist power that is the source of an enforced retreat, argues ROGER D HARRIS
Washington’s inability to subjugate Iran is an example of how it is trying to preserve a regional order that no longer exists, argues RAMZY BAROUD
US financial instability is exposing the limits of a dollar-dominated global economy — and giving the Global South a historic chance to build an alternative, says MURAD QURESHI
Deprivation is a fundamental factor in criminal behaviour that must be addressed but, KENNY MacASKILL argues, there needs to a major rethink in sentencing to tackle overcrowding
YURI GAGARIN, the first human to travel into outer space, was born on March 9 1934, so let’s celebrate his birthday by remembering the time he embarrassed a British Tory government simply by being charming.
The Soviet Union’s achievement in April 1961, in sending a crewed spaceship into orbit and bringing it safely back to Earth, was greeted worldwide as the start of a new scientific and historic epoch. Humankind had entered the space age, and as the cosmonaut at the centre of it, Gagarin, this humble, smiling son of a carpenter and a farmer, overnight became the word’s biggest celebrity.
He was sent on a celebratory world tour, which reached Britain in July. This was a political headache for the British government; the cold war meant that Britain, as an ally of the US, was reluctant to give a hero’s welcome to a representative of the enemy. It was particularly embarrassing to do so at a time when the US’s own space programme was struggling, and failing, to catch up with the USSR’s.
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