Monthly Archives: January 2006
LAST Saturday the Iranian TV, IRINN, broadcast a live news conference by Iran’s President Ahmadinejad with domestic and foreign journalists. In the opening speech, he spoke for some 15 minutes. On the latest developments on Iran’s nuclear case, he laid stress on Iran’s legitimate rights to peaceful nuclear...
YESTERDAY in London, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, met to discuss hauling Iran in front of the Security Council so that it can impose sanctions on the country because its government will not give up its nuclear programme. All of the...
‘Direct government investment is by far the cheapest and best way to build new hospitals,’ said a UNISON spokeswoman yesterday, in response to the crisis at the Royal London and Bart’s hospitals. One thousand doctors have appealed directly to prime minister Blair to allow a £1.1 billion PFI project, to...
THERE were more than 20 locked out Gate Gourmet workers on the picket line yesterday fighting for reinstatement on their original terms and conditions. The airline catering company, Gate Gourmet, sacked more than 700 workers last August and the TGWU leadership has signed a compromise agreement with the company accepting...
LABOUR Party left winger Tony Benn yesterday raised that Tony Blair and David Cameron could serve in each other’s cabinets and the possibility of a Labour Tory coalition government. The ex-Wilson government cabinet minister said that the two leaders had more in common with each other than with their respective...
LOCKED-out Gate Gourmet workers were out campaigning at the weekend for their mass picket next Sunday and their conference in London on Sunday January 29. In Southall on Saturday, they got great support. TGWU member Amarjit Mehan paid £3 for his conference credentials and said: ‘I am appalled at the treatment...
Israel yesterday conceded that the Arab residents of east Jerusalem shall vote in this month’s Palestinian election but said ‘under no circumstances’ would it permit campaigning by resistance group Hamas. Acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, formally submitted the proposals to the Israeli cabinet at its second meeting since prime minister ...
Teamsters union sanitation worker members in the US capital are launching a campaign against Waste Management on Martin Luther King Day, today. Nearly 100 Washington, DC-area sanitation workers, employed by the Temple Hills, Maryland branch of Waste Management, are charging that the profitable company is attempting to reduce the wages...
BRITAIN’S Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has just revealed the policy of the British government on Iraq – or has he? He said that Iran must be persuaded to co-operate over its nuclear programme ‘by peaceful means’. He added for good measure: ‘nobody is talking about invading Iran’, reasoning that ‘Iran...
THE Gate Gourmet workers on strike at Düsseldorf airport continued their picket throughout the year-end holiday season supported by their union, the NGG, their families, friends and hosts of well-wishers, unionists and other activists who continue to visit the strike shelters bringing support and encouragement. On Christmas Eve, 24 December,...
LOCKED-OUT Gate Gourmet workers were campaigning yesterday for their mass picket next Sunday 22nd January between 11am and 1pm and their conference in London on Sunday 29th January. Speaking on the picket line at Heathrow Airport yesterday Parmjit Bains told News Line: ‘We went to five local radio stations this...
The European arm of private US healthcare giant United Health is poised to take over two GP practices in Derbyshire covering 7,500 patients, one in the village of Crestwell and the other in Derby town. North Eastern Derbyshire Primary Care Trust has awarded Alternative Provider of Medical Services (APMS) contracts...
ON TUESDAY Prime Minister Blair began his ‘genuine intellectual debate about the nature of liberty in a modern developed society such as our own.’ To have this thoroughly modern debate he however, had to go back to Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and further. Hobbes opposed the English revolution led by...
The Bank of England kept interest rates on hold at 4.5 per cent yesterday, as latest official figures showed Britain suffered a new record £5.96 billion trade deficit with the rest of the world in November. Surging oil imports were the biggest factor in driving up Britain’s trade deficit much...
THE Blair government is trying to impose ‘far-reaching changes’ to the NHS – without any real consultation with the public. That is the finding of the House of Commons Health Committee, in its report on planned changes to Primary Care Trusts (PCTs). The changes will mean the transfer of services...
GATE Gourmet workers held a successful campaign yesterday for the News Line/Gate Gourmet-Locked-Out Workers Conference on the 29th January. They visited Greenford Council depot and bus depot in the morning, Greenford Postal Sorting Office at lunchtime and the Ealing Hospital in the afternoon. Mr S Singh, a TGWU bus worker from...
Health unions yesterday welcomed MPs’ condemnation of the government’s plans to break up and privatise primary care services. A report published by the House of Commons health select committee yesterday said the ‘perpetual change is ill-judged’ and bad for patient care. MPs express concern that the changes encourage privatisation, warning that...
UKRAINE’S President Viktor Yushchenko was engaged in desperate talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday in Kazakhstan trying to get a better deal for supplies of gas. On Tuesday, the gas crisis in the Ukraine led to the Parliament sacking Yushchenko’s government of Prime Minister Yuri Yekhanurov. A vote of...
BRITISH Airways Terminal 4 workers yesterday gave great support to locked out Gate Gourmet workers campaigning at Heathrow for their conference on Sunday January 29. BA baggage handler and TGWU member, Andy Gregory, said: ‘Management are trying to cut the workforce and change terms and conditions. ‘(TGWU General Secretary) Tony Woodley...
IRISH Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern has told the trade unions it would be ‘reckless’ of them to seek a 10 per cent pay increase for Irish workers. However, Irish workers are in no mood to accept any more cuts in their standard of living, having staged a one-day strike...
PRIME Minister Tony Blair launched the Labour government’s new ‘Respect Action Plan’ yesterday, declaring that he was setting out to overthrow basic democratic rights that have existed for hundreds of years. He said: ‘The real choice, the choice on the street, is not between a criminal law process that protects...
Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov has expressed the hope that tension in relations between Iran and the West in connection with the Iranian nuclear programme will not result in an armed conflict flaring up between them. He said on Monday: ‘I very much hope that it...
LOCKED out Gate Gourmet workers, fighting for reinstatement on their original terms and conditions, had a successful day of campaigning yesterday for their conference in London on Sunday January 29. More than 700 TGWU members were locked out by the airline catering company at Heathrow on August 10 last...
Prime Minister Blair yesterday unveiled his viciously anti-working class ‘Respect Action Plan’ at a press conference. Announcing his ‘ActionPlan’ Blair said: ‘Anti-Social Behaviour law imposed fixed penalty notice fines – instant on-the-spot. This has, bluntly, reversed the burden of proof.’ Blair went on to warn: ‘Now we want to take these...
‘There was chaos on the Underground this morning,’ rail union RMT general secretary Bob Crow said yesterday. Commenting on the 24-hour strike by 4,000 RMT station staff members launched at 6.30pm on Sunday evening, he added: ‘Fifty per cent of 108 stations covered by health and safety regulations were...
THE call by retired General, Sir Michael Rose, for the Prime Minister to be impeached by the Privy Council over the invasion of Iraq by Anglo-American imperialism, is a serious call. It is one thing when lifelong civil servants appointed by the government inquire into its conduct with a view...
A CAMPAIGN team was out fighting for the locked out Gate Gourmet workers conference yesterday. They visited Heathrow Airport and saw British Airways checking staff, baggage handlers and security workers on Terminals 2 and 4. These workers expressed great concern about the sacking of the two BA union reps, and...
IMPRISONED deputy Marwan al-Barghouthi, the secretary of the Fatah movement in the West Bank and the head of its list in the forthcoming legislative elections, has said that the day of elections on 25 January should be considered a day for Jerusalem. Al-Barghouthi stressed the importance of ensuring the success...
THE former Syrian Vice-President, Abdul Halim Khaddam, set himself up as a would-be Quisling for President Bush yesterday, after he called for a ‘popular uprising’ in Syria to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. He made the call from Paris, where he is under the protection of the French government. France is...
THE UK government has signed a ‘Memorandum of understanding’ with Lebanon over the treatment of people who may be deported from the UK to Lebanon. Amnesty International yesterday condemned the policy of striking such deals. This is the third such memorandum – or ‘diplomatic assurance’ – deal announced by the government...
LOCKED-OUT Gate Gourmet workers are campaigning every day for delegations to attend their conference in London on Sunday January 29, whilst at the same time maintaining their daily picket. The more than 700 TGWU members were sacked by the airline catering company on August 10 last year. Speaking to News Line...
‘We anticipate the London Underground strike will be solid as it was last time’, rail union RMT said yesterday. A RMT spokesman told News Line: ‘Claims that our members had kept stations open on New Year’s Eve were rubbish. ‘LUL management mobilised huge resources taking on non-RMT people at increased rates...
On Thursday morning, 29th December 2005, I received a short SMS from Muntasser Abdel Rahim, 26, Medical Relief Society Ambulance driver in Jenin. ‘I’m sorry to tell you the Israelis are making trouble now in Jenin Camp. They are in Motassem’s house’. On Sunday morning, 1st January 2006, a...
LOCKED OUT Gate Gourmet workers picketed the regional Office of the TGWU in Hillingdon near Heathrow Airport yesterday. The airline catering company, which sacked more than 700 TGWU members last August, had declared Friday 6th January to be the final deadline for signing the notorious Compromise Agreement. One of those at...
Norfolk County Fire Service faces savage cuts as a result of the County Council being starved of cash in the Blair government’s 2006/07 local government settlement. Four out of six, two-appliance rural fire stations face losing one appliance each with the loss of 36 firefighter posts, which is...
PRIME Minister Blair, speaking to one of his major supporters, Murdoch’s Sun newspaper yesterday, spelt out that he was not going into early retirement and that he wanted to see his election manifesto put into action before he stood down as Prime Minister. ‘I’m going to see the whole programme...
British Airways (BA) yesterday sacked a second Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) shop steward ‘for his involvement’ in the unofficial strike last August against the locking out of Gate Gourmet catering workers. When Gate Gourmet management locked out more than 700 workers on August 10th last year, more than...
ARIEL Sharon, the arch Zionist Israeli prime minister, who has spent his whole life killing Arabs, is fighting for his life in a Jerusalem hospital after suffering what a doctor described as a ‘significant stroke’. The website of the Ha’aretz newspaper said Sharon was paralysed in half of his body. It...
BRITISH Airways (BA) has sacked a second shop steward who had been charged with organising unofficial secondary strike action at Heathrow on August 11th-12th 2005, in support of the over 700 Gate Gourmet workers who had been locked out and sacked by the management. Last month another employee was sacked...
Locked Out Gate Gourmet workers are calling on all trade unionists to attend their Conference in London on Sunday the 29th of January. More than 700 members of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) were sacked by the airline catering company on the 10th of August. The company and...
US miners’ families’ relief turned to fury yesterday when they heard that only one of 12 trapped miners was alive when their bodies were found in a Tallmansville, West Virginia, coal mine. Families and friends had gathered in local churches to wait for news and had been celebrating since just...
YESTERDAY the new leader of the Tory Party, David Cameron publicly disowned the Tory Party manifesto, written for the last general election, just seven months ago – by himself. Showing the same trademark flexibility in relation to principles as Labour Prime Minister Blair, Cameron, in the twinkling of an eye,...
The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, launched its campaign for the Palestinian elections on Tuesday, in defiance of Israeli attempts to bar the movement from taking part in the vote. Despite the assassination of several Hamas leaders by Israel’s occupation forces, the movement is expected to win a massive vote in...
THERE was a determined picket of locked out Gate Gourmet workers on the Beacon Hill near Heathrow Airport yesterday. It is now nearly five months since the August 10th lock-out by the Gate Gourmet bosses. 760 TGWU members were thrown out of the factory. However, after pledging that every worker would...
Public sector union UNISON yesterday again urged the government to stop the privatisation of the NHS. Commenting on a warning by Audit Commission chairman James Strachan that contracting out NHS services threatened the existence of hospitals and casualty departments, a UNISON spokesman said: ‘He is saying what we’ve been saying...