Monthly Archives: July 2006
LATE last week, a leading Israeli minister said that the only people left in southern Lebanon were connected to Hezbollah, giving the Israeli military the green light to step up their attack on the Lebanese civilian population. The minister was announcing a change in Israeli policy. It was...
‘MY TOWN has been demolished. Children are still under rubble. Families are still under rubble,’ said Najid Faqih, from Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, as she stood outside Downing Street last Friday evening. ‘Are they terrorist targets?’ Najid asked. ‘I wonder who is the terrorist in the Middle East?’ She added: ‘We...
Parents of sixteen families incarcerated at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) are on hunger strike over their appalling conditions. Meanwhile, Anne Owers, Chief Inspector of Prisons, is still expressing severe concerns about the detention of children at Yarl’s Wood IRC. In her latest report on the centre published last...
THE deepening capitalist crisis has seen the breakdown of the decisive Doha Round of World Trade Organisation talks, with the United States refusing and unable to satisfy the demands of its Japanese and EU rivals. The ‘total globalisation’ perspective of the Blair-Brown leadership of the Labour government has been destroyed....
Hezbollah fighters yesterday repulsed sporadic attempts by Israeli forces to control the town of Bint Jubayl two miles inside south Lebanon. A number of Israeli troops around the town retreated towards the Israeli border and the frontier village of Marun al-Ra’s after heavy fighting with Hezbollah fighters, local police said. Hezbollah...
BRITISH Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) chief negotiator Pete James bought his ticket yesterday for the Gate Gourmet locked-out workers anniversary rally in Southall on Sunday 20th of August. He said: ‘I wish you well and agree that your victory will be important for all airport workers.’ Asked about the BMi...
BUS workers and hospital workers supported the Gate Gourmet locked-out workers in west London yesterday and pledged to come to their first anniversary march and rally in Southall on Sunday August 20th. At Westbourne Park bus garage near Paddington, bus driver Faton Shala told News Line: ‘I support these workers,...
A SHOCKED Zionist government was yesterday seeking to regroup after the military reverses that it has suffered on the ground at the hands of Hezbollah, including the loss of 13 soldiers with over 20 wounded in the village of Bint Jubayl. It was seeking to regroup around the shameful Rome...
THE Israeli Cabinet decided yesterday it was not going to wage a ground war in Lebanon in the face of the disastrous reverses at the hand of ferocious resistance by Hezbollah fighters. Shaken by the number of casualties it has taken, the Israeli Cabinet said it was limiting operations...
SADDAM HUSSEIN, the legal Iraqi president, was dragged from his hospital bed where he was being forcibly fed after a 17 day hunger strike and taken to court, despite the fact that his defence lawyers were boycotting it. The hunger strike and boycott began after three of Saddam’s lawyers were...
Hezbollah fighters yesterday inflicted heavy casualties on Israeli forces in fierce fighting in the town of Bint Jubayl two miles north of the Lebanese border with Israel. Thirteen Israeli soldiers were killed and twelve wounded as the battle for the town raged for a third day. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said ‘violent...
THE Israeli military have never been prepared to allow their activities in southern Lebanon to be observed, monitored, and charted by UN observers. That is why the history of the presence of the UN observers in southern Lebanon, before Israel was run out of the Lebanon in 2000, was punctuated...
MORE than 40 people picketed Horseferry Road Magistrates’ Court yesterday to demand the release of Talha Ahsan and the repeal of the extradition treaty signed by the Blair government with the United States. Addressing the picket, Mr Ahsan, Talha’s father, was distraught and broke down in tears. ‘I want at least...
TRADE unionists and Hounslow local people yesterday supported the Gate Gourmet locked-out workers and bought tickets for their first anniversary march and rally in Southall on Sunday 20th of August. On Hounslow High Street, Equity member Alan Mitchell told News Line: ‘Gate Gourmet will regret its actions. ‘The fact that...
Yesterday fighting in the Lebanon was continuing in Bint Jebayl with Israeli tanks and troops in the town. However, the Israeli Army admitted it did not control the town, which is just two miles from the Israeli border. Meanwhile, Israeli bombs were showering down on the city of Sidon, killing...
BUSH is trying to establish his ‘New Middle East’ on the bones of thousands of dead and injured Lebanese and Palestinian men, women and children. Even the Middle East’s chief feudalist, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, has warned Bush that there must be an immediate ceasefire or the entire region...
HASAN Fadlallah, Hezbollah member of the Lebanese Chamber of Deputies for the Bint Jubayl constituency, said on Monday morning that ‘the Israeli Army is now implementing a US decision to build the so-called new Middle East. ‘Rice is coming to Lebanon to dictate terms and conditions’. He added that ‘no...
Hezbollah resistance fighters killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded seventeen others as a massive Israeli invasion force was halted on the outskirts of Bint Jbail two miles from the border with Israel. An Israeli Apache attack helicopter was also shot down with both pilots killed and several others badly injured. Bint...
CHEMIST giant Boots wants to breach the NHS system by bringing GPs and consultants into its stores as part of an alleged drive to bring the NHS onto the high street. What is actually happening is that the multi-billion monopoly is finding yet another way to add to its profits...
THE UAW President Ron Gettelfinger has made a submission to the Congressional Roundtable on the Crisis in the US Auto Industry. He told the Commission: ‘In the past few years, numerous auto parts suppliers, including Delphi, Tower Automotive, Collins & Aikman and Meridian, have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and...
‘We need an end to the privatisation of the NHS,’ a UNISON spokeswoman told News Line yesterday. She was responding to government backing for the giant Boots drugs manufacturer’s moves to install GP surgeries and consultant-run health super-clinics in its High Street chemist stores. The UNISON spokeswoman added: ‘This is a...
Tens of thousands of people across the UK took part last Saturday in demonstrations against the murderous Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. Eleven rallies were organised by groups such as Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, British Muslim Initiative as well as Lebanese...
THE British army went into Helmand province in Afghanistan like lions, with their officers explaining that they were going to take on the Taleban, and in the first week or so, as their forces built up, boasted that they were going to take the Taleban apart. This was the exact...
‘DEFEND Council Housing! Kick Blair out!’ shouted more than 100 tenants, youth and trade unionists as they marched through the Aylesbury Estate in south London yesterday. ‘Kick out the privateers! No private landlords!’, ‘No more lies! Stop the demolition!’, ‘Keep council housing! Keep council tenancies!’, they continued. The march was...
HEZBOLLAH forces have battled Israel to standstill. After over four days of fierce fighting, Israeli forces were still struggling to take control of the Lebanese village of Maroun Al-Ras. At least six Israeli commandos and three Hezbollah fighters have died in the battle for the village which is less than a...
Lebanese Defence Minister Elias Murr yesterday pledged that the Lebanese army will stand and fight against an Israeli invasion. Murr warned: ‘The Lebanese army will resist and defend the country and prove that it is an army worthy of respect. ‘The balance of forces is changing and if there is...
‘BLAIR says let Israel get on with its attacks and Woodley our TGWU general secretary says nothing’, Gate Gourmet locked out worker Mussarat Saeed said yesterday. The Gate Gourmet workers are joining today’s march in London against the Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Speaking on their weekly picket of...
THERE is not the slightest doubt about it – Hezbollah’s military action in the Shabaa Farms area of the disputed border with Israel, showed the Palestinian masses in the Gaza Strip that they were not alone, and took some of the murderous Israeli pressure off them, after Palestinian fighters...
YESTERDAY saw US landing craft from a US aircraft carrier taking off US citizens and others, who had to wade through the sea to board the craft, so urgent is the task of rescuing them from the Israeli bombing. As well as the US effort, there were at least six...
Tanks and troops of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) invaded the central Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank city of Nablus early Wednesday killing at least nine Palestinians, flattening a building of the Palestinian Preventive Security forces and detaining more than 150 security men. The IOF invaded the Mughazi...
GATE GOURMET locked out workers joined the Amicus and TGWU campaign to save Peugeot jobs at the International Motor Show in Docklands, east London yesterday and sold a ticket for their anniversary rally in Southall on the 20th of August. Roger Maddison, Amicus national officer for the motor industry, told...
‘The Royal Mail employee shares scheme shouldn’t be shelved, it should be scrapped altogether,’ Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) London Regional Secretary John Denton told News Line yesterday. He was responding to the news that the Department for Trade and Industry has held off from a decision on whether to allow...
PRIME Minister Blair made clear yesterday that the Labour government is not calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on the Lebanon. Instead, Blair is backing Israel’s demands for the release of its two captured soldiers as a pre-condition for calling a halt to its warplanes bombing residential districts...
Trade unions yesterday slammed Labour’s privatisation policy in response to MPs’ criticism of the system of NHS charges. MPs on the House of Commons Health Committee said the system was ‘a mess’ and called for an end to car parking and patient telephone charges and a review of prescription...
With the encouragement of Bush and Blair, Israel continued its murderous air, land and sea bombardments on Lebanon yesterday, striking central Beirut for the first time. A truck in al-Ashrafiya district in central Beirut was struck by fire from an Israeli warship. More than 55 people were killed in south Lebanon, raising...
THE opposition Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) has launched a campaign of ‘civil resistance’, after more than one million Mexicans rallied on Sunday to denounce ballot rigging in Mexico’s presidential election. Millions of supporters of PRD candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are demanding a vote-by-vote recount, after it was announced...
Lebanese President Emile Lahud has vowed to stand by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah. As Israeli jets continued their murderous air strikes on the stricken country, Lahud pledged to a mass rally: ‘Rest assured Lebanon will not remove Sayyed Nasrallah. ‘He, the resistance and the national army achieved liberation for...
Trade unions yesterday slammed Labour’s privatisation policy in response to MPs’ criticism of the system of NHS charges. MPs on the House of Commons Health Committee said the system was ‘a mess’ and called for an end to car parking and patient telephone charges and a review of prescription...
THE House of Commons Select Committee on Health published a report yesterday that set out to legitimise charging for healthcare within the National Health Service (NHS), with Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs backing the Labour government’s privatisation plans. There is a wave of anger sweeping through the working class...
Syrian governorates on Monday witnessed huge mass demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance in the face of continued savage Israeli aggressions against them, reports the Syrian News Agency SANA. Intellectual, economic, popular and religious figures in addition to popular organisations, vocational syndicates and unions participated in the...
THE decision of the Crown Prosecution Service that no individual will be charged over the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes, but that the office of the Commissioner of Police would be charged with an offence under Section 3 and Section 33 of the Health and Safety Act 1974,...
NABIH BERRI, the Speaker of the Lebanese Chamber of Deputies, has condemned the role of the United Nations in the Lebanon after an Israeli massacre of villagers in Marwahin. Addressing a news conference in Beirut on 16 July he said the following. ‘In Srifa, Dibbin, Ziddin, the bridges,...
‘We waited a year and now they tell us this. It’s a shame,’ said Alex Pereira, the cousin of the young Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes. Pereira was giving the family’s response at a press conference yesterday in Camden, north London, to the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service...