Monthly Archives: November 2007
The family of Jean Charles de Menezes on Thursday demanded action be taken to hold individual police officers to account for the killing of an innocent man following the publication of the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s (IPCC’s) Stockwell 1 report. In a statement they said: ‘The report sheds more light...
‘My whole thing is that the students must rise up today,’ said Pakistan opposition leader Imran Khan yesterday. Khan emerged to give a brief news conference after being in hiding since he escaped from house arrest. He added: ‘I am planning that there will be a big students’ demonstration unprecedented since...
TODAY’S picket of 10 Downing Street by the Chagos Islanders and their supporters is a vital one. They are demanding that the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, withdraw the Labour government’s appeal to the House of Lords against the decision of the High Court, that the evicted islanders should be...
Reasons to vote NO to the ‘Deal’. What we will lose if this sell-out deal goes through . . . . • LOST: 40,000 more job losses – agreed at local level through flexibility, productivity and mail centre closures. • LOST: The end of our opposition to ‘ColleagueShare’ – the policy of the union. •...
THE formation of the United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) led by ex-chiefs of the general staff and politicians such as David Owen is a clear break from Britain’s bourgeois parliamentary tradition, and is a move towards a new form of rule in Britain. Since the 1640s, when the New...
In a bid to defuse a developing insurrectionary situation, Pakistan’s military ruler Pervez Musharraf said after chairing a meeting of the National Security Council yesterday: ‘General elections in the country will be held by February 15 next year.’ Musharraf claimed he was ‘committed to holding general elections and the transition...
LIBERATION Tigers repulsed a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) ground operation towards the Northern Forward Defence Line (FDL) positions between Ki’laali and Mukamaalai in the early hours of Wednesday, Irasiah Ilanthirayan, the military spokesman of the Liberation Tigers told TamilNet. The ground operation, launched by the SLA with heavy...
THE decision of the governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King to name and shame the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Darling, as the man responsible for the run on the Northern Rock bank, and by implication for the subsequent share falls of Barclays and other banks, has...
An Oxfordshire coroner yesterday ruled that an Army logistics failure led to the unlawful killing in Iraq of Gordon Gentle, 19, of the Royal Highland Fusiliers (RHF). He was killed by a roadside bomb in Basra in June 2004. Selena Lynch, assistant deputy coroner, said: ‘He died as a result of...
HOLLYWOOD writers took to the picket lines on Monday to begin their first strike against the US film and television industry in nearly two decades after last-ditch talks to avoid a walk-out broke down. Writers in New York were the first to down tools, with several dozen members of...
THE Queen’s Speech yesterday outlined yet more attacks in the coming parliament on workers and youth in Britain by the Brown government, alongside a determination to continue with the imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The new ‘anti-terror’ measures are to include post-charge questioning of suspects, and holding suspects for...
GATE GOURMET has admitted at a Reading employment tribunal, hearing eight of the remaining 70 cases, that it wrongfully dismissed the eight at Heathrow Airport on August 10 2005. The eight had all been off work sick, or on holiday or on compassionate leave when they were sacked. Gate...
Education Secretary Ed Balls yesterday announced plans to compel all 16-18 youth to take part in full-time education or training by 2013. The government plans for large numbers of youth to be coerced into working for nothing on schemes dressed up as ‘modern apprenticeships’. Teaching union NASUWT yesterday gave the lie...
Chief PLO Negotiator Saeb Erekat met with US Assistant Secretary of State David Walsh and American Consul General Jake Wallacey on Sunday. The meeting took place ahead of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’ meeting on Monday with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Erekat on Sunday stressed the need to resolve...
SCHOOLS Secretary and chairman of the Fabian Society Ed Balls, has already made his mark in Britain. Before he became a minister he was part of the Treasury team, headed by Gordon Brown, that sold off a chunk of Britain’s gold reserves for a pittance, aping the ‘jeweller Ratner’ who...
FIFTEEN thousand health workers and trade unionists from schools, local councils and other public services – as well as local residents fighting hospital closures up and down the country – joined the ‘NHS Together’ march to defend the National Health Service, in London on Saturday. There were banners from branches...
GENERAL Pervez Musharraf has carried out his second military coup. The first made him president, and last weekend’s, in his own words, ‘prevented the country from committing suicide’ by indefinitely postponing democratic general elections. President Musharraf decreed the arrest of 500 judges, lawyers, journalists and politicians. He shut down the...
THERE is uproar in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) over the Royal Mail drive to rip up members’ existing terms and conditions, and the collaboration of the CWU leaders with this drive. Royal Mail wants to pave the way for 40,000 more redundancies and scrap the pensions agreement...
With three firefighters still missing presumed dead and one confirmed dead, it emerged yesterday that the sprinkler system was not working in the central area of Friday’s fatal blaze in Warwickshire. The installer of the system into the now gutted vegetable packaging plant in Atherstone on Stour, Sydney Dawson,...
MANY thousands of nurses, midwives, doctors, physiotherapists, domestic staff, porters and technicians from hospitals all over Britain are marching through London to defend the NHS today. The march assembles at Temple Place on the Victoria Embankment from 11am, moving off at 12.30pm to head for the rally...
AT the moment it looks as if a fierce battle is being fought between the Labour government and the opposition parties over the fate of the Metropolitan police chief, Blair. It seems that Premier Brown and Home Secretary Smith support this arrogant and supremely thick-skinned police chief whatever the consequences,...
THE National Health Service is under attack on every side by the government. It is being crippled by funding cuts and privatisation reforms. The latest onslaught is the Darzi Plan for London, which aims to replace NHS GPs and District General Hospitals (DGHs), with privately-owned and run Polyclinics. It...
ON Wednesday the world capitalist crisis deepened after the US Federal Reserve cut its interest rate from 4.75 per cent to 4.50 per cent. Its immediate impact was to send the US stock market upwards by 138 points, but to crash the US dollar. The decision of...
FULL-TIME civil service union officer Andrew Lloyd has issued a response to Permanent Secretary David Bell over the compulsory transfer of support staff to the private sector. This follows the government’s decision to split up the Department for Education and Skills. The department has been split into the Department for Children,...
THE Cousin of Jean Charles de Menezes, Erionaldo da Silva said yesterday: ‘I have spoken to Jean Charles’ mother Maria, in Brazil and she said nothing can bring Charles back. ‘But she is pleased that the jury have found the Metropolitan Police guilty of the charge.’ He was speaking outside the...
Communication Workers Union representatives from across the country yesterday slammed the changes to Royal Mail pensions that their leaders want to sign up to, as they met for the second time in central London. Before going into yesterday’s meeting, Peter Sansum, Cleveland Amal CWU branch, told News Line: ‘It’s absolute...
THE overstretched and undervalued NHS workforce will not accept another below-inflation pay deal next year, trade unions representing over one million health workers have said. This year the remit of the Pay Review Body has been expanded and for the first time evidence is being presented jointly by 14 unions...
‘IN the past those who had the raw material – the coal, the oil and the basic commodities, or the infrastructure – the ports and communications – were the ones that had competitive advantage. ‘Today what matters is who has the ideas, the insights, the skills and the creativity.’ This is...
MEMBERS of the PCS civil service union yesterday voted overwhelmingly in favour of national strike action in a consultative ballot against job cuts, pay cuts and privatisation. At the same time, around 1,800 PCS members walked out of government offices in Runcorn, Sheffield, Darlington and London against the compulsory privatisation...