Monthly Archives: February 2006
THE architects of the Common Market, the forerunner of the European Union, freely admitted that they were seeking to carry out peacefully what Adolf Hitler had sought to do through war, unite Europe. They argued that it was either this or see the emergence of a new European war in...
LOCKED-out Gate Gourmet workers have vowed to ‘fight until we win our jobs back’ and defeat attempts by their union leadership to sell-out their struggle at Heathrow. Around 150 Gate Gourmet workers, locked out since August 10 last year, were joined by civil servants, postal workers, council workers and other...
GATE GOURMET locked out workers were back on the hill yesterday after their successful mass picket on Sunday. Lakhinder Saran said: ‘Our mass picket was a great success and we are looking forward to our march through Hounslow on March 25th. ‘We are going to give the German Gate Gourmet strikers...
THE GMB trade union Central Executive Council (CEC) yesterday gave the go-ahead for an official national strike ballot of members employed by Wal-Mart owned ASDA in its distribution depots. This followed the company’s failure at talks at Dartford on Thursday last week to remove the threat by ASDA to terminate...
THERE can be only one gainer from a civil war in Iraq, that will lead to the breaking up of the country into three or more statelets in conflict with each other. That gainer will be the present US and UK occupying powers, who currently are losing their war against...
ABD-AL HADI al-Darraji, a leader of the militant Al-Sadr trend in Iraq has revealed that Representatives of Al-Sadr trend and the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) held a meeting at Abu-Hanifah al-Nu’man Mosque in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, on Saturday. They held the meeting to discuss the developments...
AROUND 150 locked-out Gate Gourmet workers and their supporters – including members of the PCS, CWU, UNISON and Amicus trade unions – staged a mass picket on Beacon Hill roundabout at Heathrow yesterday. There was hot tea and lots of food, including sweets donated by Gate Gourmet strikers in Germany,...
The Tories are demanding the Cabinet Office state whether or not Culture Minister Tessa Jowell has breached the ministerial code of conduct over her husband’s dealings with Italian prime minister Sergio Berlusconi. Tory Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, Theresa May, has written to Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell...
GATE Gourmet locked-out workers are holding their monthly mass picket at the Beacon Roundabout, Beacon Road, near Heathrow Airport, Terminal Four from 11am to 1pm this Sunday. A delegation of the locked out workers got a great reception at Greenford Bus Garage yesterday. TGWU member GS Gill said: ‘I will definitely...
The Israel military yesterday continued its terror attacks on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This followed a declaration by Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, broadcast by Israeli Radio yesterday. This followed a declaration by Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, broadcast by Israeli Radio yesterday. In a speech on Thursday...
BLAIR came clean on at least one issue at his monthly press conference and that was where his loyalties lie. They definitely do not lie with the Labour Party. He revealed that he is determined to get his education bill through and establish an education market, even if it splits...
THE recently aired videotape on satellite TV channels showing some British soldiers assaulting a number of unarmed citizens has stirred strong reactions among citizens in Maysan province, Iraq. Many people remembered the incident which took place in 2004 in the centre of Al-Amarah, and told the Al Mada...
GATE Gourmet locked-out workers are calling on all their supporters to join them at their monthly mass picket on the hill at the Beacon Roundabout, Beacon Road, near Heathrow Airport Terminal Four this Sunday from 11am to 1pm. They spoke enthusiastically yesterday about their intervention at the TUC General Council...
The Blair government yesterday came under fire from MPs and human rights organisation Amnesty International over the so-called ‘war on terror’. In its annual human rights report, the Foreign Affairs Committee states: • ‘We conclude that the continued use of Guantanamo Bay as a detention centre outside all legal regimes diminishes...
“WE conclude that the government has a duty to enquire into the allegations of extraordinary rendition and black sites under the Convention against Torture, and to make clear to the USA that any extraordinary rendition to states where suspects may be tortured is completely unacceptable’, the House of Commons...
ON the brink of the third anniversary of the Anglo-US invasion of Iraq, the US based Human Rights First organisation has released a report which shows that ninety-eight prisoners have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since August 2002. The organisation says a report to be published...
LOCKED out Gate Gourmet workers from Heathrow received a warm welcome at Dusseldorf Airport yesterday morning when they were met by Gate Gourmet strikers and supporters from Dusseldorf. They joined the Dusseldorf picket line with a large number of the strikers welcoming the delegation from Heathrow. On the picket line...
OVER 2000 workers rallied in San Francisco for the kickoff of the ‘National Hotel Workers Rising Campaign’ on February 15. Chanting ‘Si Se Puede’ (Yes We Can) a crowd of over 2000 union members and community supporters at San Francisco’s Parc 55 Hotel launched a national campaign...
THE Syrian newspaper Al Thawra has attacked US ‘interference’, and its announcement that it is going to fund the Syrian ‘opposition’ to President Assad and the Syrian Ba’ath party. In an article by Muhammad Khayr al-Jammali headlined ‘Dirty interference’, Al Thawra states: ‘ “Dirty interference” is not a new...
LABOUR’S Minister for Communities and Local Government, David Milliband, yesterday addressed the National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) Annual Conference called ‘Empowerment not abandonment’. He started by laying down the standard New Labour smokescreen saying: ‘We face a critical choice as a country. We can build on progress over the last...
‘WE want to know if the TUC agrees with what the T&G has done to us,’ Gate Gourmet locked-out worker Sharanjit Grewal said yesterday. Speaking on the hill at Heathrow Airport, opposite Terminal Four, Sharanjit told News Line that a delegation is lobbying today’s TUC General Council meeting in...
THE Council Tax is set to rise by four per cent on average this year, more than double the government’s current rate of inflation figure of 1.9 per cent. In fact, seven out of ten councils are planning rises of between 3.1 per cent and five per cent. The...
‘The whole thing is a mess,’ Alex Pereira, the cousin of Jean Charles de Menezes told News Line yesterday. He was responding to reports that the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has failed to identify Special Branch officers who allegedly doctored evidence. Pereira added: ‘I no longer believe we are going...
Amid mounting Israeli restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement, President Mahmud Abbas on Saturday sponsored the swearing in of the new Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Abbas, the Fatah party president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), told the new PLC on Saturday that ‘after consultations’ Hamas will be...
THE Israeli cabinet announced yesterday that it has decided to impose a range of punitive sanctions against the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). The sanctions follow the inauguration of a Hamas government in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the declaration by acting Israeli premier Ehud Olmert that...
DEFENCE Secretary John Reid yesterday appealed to people to be very slow to condemn British troops for the atrocities being committed in Iraq. He said that this was because the circumstances they fight in are the most difficult in history because their enemy, the terrorist, is unconstrained...
AROUND 75 rank-n-file members of the United Auto Workers demonstrated outside the historic Flint East Delphi plant on February 16, 2006. Workers from Saginaw, Flint and Detroit came out in force to denounce the closing of the Spark Plug & Oil Filter production in Flint and to protest the concessions...
Gate Gourmet locked-out workers are campaigning for their monthly mass picket next Sunday from 11am to 1pm at the Beacon roundabout, Beacon Road, near Heathrow Terminal 4, whilst also maintaining their daily picket. Lakhinder Saran spoke enthusiastically to News Line yesterday about last Friday’s support received from the Hounslow...
‘IF we sign the compromise deal we cut off our hands – the company sacked us in five minutes and the union signed the compromise deal in half-an-hour – we can’t sign.’ Gate Gourmet locked-out worker Parmjit Baines was addressing the packed Annual General Meeting of the Hounslow Unison local...
YESTERDAY British Gas raised its gas and electricity prices by a massive 22 per cent, on top of a 14 per cent mark-up imposed last September. The 17 million British Gas customers are facing huge bills and many will have to decide whether they are going to ‘eat...
GMB trade union members demonstrated yesterday against the union-busting propaganda for Asda Wal-Mart being supplied by public relations company Portland PR, which was set up by ex-Downing Street deputy press secretary Tim Allen. News of the ex-New Labour spin doctor’s ‘services’ to the anti-union employer came out in an industrial...
GATE Gourmet locked-out workers are taking their fight for reinstatement into the trade union movement and visiting Transport and General Workers Union and other union branches to gather support. The locked-out workers are refusing to accept the Compromise Agreement signed by TGWU leaders, which accepts 150 compulsory redundancies and massive...
THE leadership of the FBU ignominiously collapsed at yesterday’s FBU recall conference, held to decide on industrial action to defend the final salary pensions of its membership. The collapse came when the NEC withdrew its resolution for a strike action ballot, after the Labour government revised its proposals...
THE United States must bring all prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay to an independent trial or release them, the United Nations has said in a report. The 54-page report, summarising an investigation by five UN experts, on Thursday called on the US government ‘to close down the Guantanamo...
the deaths of a hundreds of New Orleans residents and the suffering of so many thousands more people could have been avoided, an inquiry into the Hurricane Katrina disaster has concluded. A US Congressional report, by a Republican-dominated committee from the House of Representatives, spreads the blame on everyone from...
PRESIDENTIAL candidate, Rene Preval, has condemned the ‘gigantic fraud’ during last week’s elections in Haiti, where an insurrection is taking place by his poverty-stricken supporters. Boxes of what appeared to be partly burned ballot papers marked for Preval were discovered in a dump on the outskirts of the capital, Port...
THE education policies imposed by Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government are depriving many young people of the opportunity of going into Higher Education and others are forced out of the university courses by huge debts and poverty. This was exposed yesterday when figures were published by the Universities and Colleges...
Gate Gourmet locked out workers are calling on all trade unionists to act in their support. The TGWU members are fighting for reinstatement on their original terms and conditions and are demanding that the union restores their hardship payments, which it stopped on 6th January 2006. Speaking on the picket line...
‘WE will not be numbered, tagged and fingerprinted.’ That was the message from hundreds of demonstrators outside parliament on Monday against the government’s plans to introduce biometric ID cards over the next two years. There was real anger as MPs prepared to vote on the bill, with demonstrators declaring that they...
THOUSANDS of workers marched to the European Parliament in opposition to the infamous Bolkestein Directive, to lobby a four-day debate of MEPs, in Strasbourg yesterday. The Directive, tabled by the European Commission (EC) in January 2004, proposes a ‘free market’ in services throughout the European Union (EU). The services it covers...
The United States government is torturing inmates at its Guantanamo Bay concentration camp on the tip of Cuba, and it should be shut down. That is the finding of a United Nations investigation into the camp where hundreds of detainees have been held without charge or trial for four years. The...