Monthly Archives: December 2007
BY THE NEWS LINE EDITORIAL BOARD THE NEWS LINE Editorial Board sends its revolutionary New Year’s greetings for the year 2008 to the workers and poor of the world and to the struggling oppressed nations. In particular, we salute the workers of Iraq who have defeated the efforts of the imperialist...
Palestinian fighters killed two Israeli settlers near the West Bank city of Hebron last Friday morning. Palestinians in a speeding car opened fire at three Israeli hikers near the Israeli settlement of Telem, close to the Palestinian village of Beit Kahil, killing two of them. The armed wing of Islamic Jihad,...
On January 11, 2008 it will be six years since the US authorities first transported ‘war on terror’ detainees to the military prison at the naval camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, said Amnesty International yesterday. ‘Half a decade on and not a single detainee has yet been put on trial. ‘The only trials...
At least thirty people were killed as President Musharraf yesterday called out the army to restore order in the cities as violent protests spread across Pakistan in the wake of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination on Thursday. The army was out in Hyderabad and Karachi with orders to shoot demonstrators on sight...
BRENDAN Barber the TUC general secretary in his New Year message confesses that he has two ‘big worries’ for the year 2008. He said ‘2008 may be a rocky year. After a decade of steady economic growth and stability, prospects for the economy are distinctly uncertain. The full...
TURKEY praised the United States on Wednesday for providing intelligence in support of attacks against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, as it confirmed its third such air strike in 10 days. ‘Things are going on well at the moment. Intelligence is being shared’ between the two NATO allies, Anatolia news...
AT 6.16pm local time yesterday evening the Pakistani military assassinated Benazir Bhutto, putting a bloody end to the notion that there can be some bourgeois democratic reform in Pakistan. The same military apparatus hung Bhutto’s father Zulfikar Bhutto, the leader of the populist Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), in 1979, after...
Yesterday, at 6.16pm local time (13.16 GMT), Pakistan Peoples Party leader Benazir Bhutto died in Rawalpindi General Hospital after being shot in the neck and chest. Bhutto’s assailant had reached her car as she was getting into it following an open air rally in the garrison town. After letting off...
The British Medical Association (BMA) yesterday repeated its concerns that the government is out to privatise GP surgeries. A spokeswoman told News Line: ‘The BMA is very concerned that plans outlined by Lord Darzi may turn out to be a way of introducing further private sector providers into the NHS. ‘We...
THE NEWS that top-level British diplomatic efforts are continuing in Afghanistan to try to prevent the expulsion from the country of two senior foreign officials – one employed by the EU and the other by the UN – by the Karzai government, proves the point that a stampede...
‘It is beyond callous, and can only be seen as malicious discrimination. It is an unabashed attempt to eliminate the black population of New Orleans,’ said Kali Akuno of the Coalition to Stop the Demolition. Akuno was speaking after New Orleans City Council voted on Thursday to demolish 4,500...
TONY BLAIR, his hands still dripping with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and with financial scandals swirling all round him, from the alleged sale of honours, to the decision to halt the prosecution of corrupt business relations with Saudi Arabia, has just joined the...
THERE was widespread condemnation following East Sussex PCTs’ decision last Thursday to transfer consultant-led Maternity services from Eastbourne District General Hospital to a single site at Hastings. A joint committee of East Sussex Downs and Weald PCT and Hastings and Rother PCT voted by 16 votes to three for the...
THE TUC has urged workers to ‘Shop a Scrooge’ this Christmas. It’s message is dial the National Minimum Wage helpline – 0845 6000 678, and help to put a stop to unscrupulous bosses not paying the minimum wage this Christmas. TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: ‘There should be no...
WORKERS at BAA’s seven airports across the UK have voted for strike action to defend their final salary pension scheme. Results of the secret strike ballots by employees of Spanish-owned BAA at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Southampton, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen were announced today at a news conference in London. BAA airport...
NEWS LINE sends its greetings and full support to the British Airports Authority workers who have decided to take strike action at seven major airports to defend their final salary pension schemes. The British employers have declared war on final salary pensions and up till now with the help of...
AMBULANCE crews in south-east Wales are staging a four-week, unofficial overtime ban to highlight how much the ambulance service now relies on their willingness to work overtime because of the shortage of staff. Paramedics, who say they will work to contract until January 16, say they are worried that...
THE BMA yesterday condemned the Brown government for putting the drive to reach its political targets before patient healthcare. ‘We are being bullied so that the Prime Minister can tick a box next to a politically driven target. ‘This is without regard for the damage this could do in the...
THE Glasgow Reporting Centre at Brand Street was shut down on Tuesday morning as ‘No Borders’ activists and others opposed to the forced removal of refugees staged a protest against dawn raids in Scotland. Protesters blockaded the bases of Immigration Enforcement Officers in simultaneous actions across Britain, stopping them from...
PRIME Minister Gordon Brown justified pay cuts for workers in the public services and the billions handed over by the Treasury to the bankrupt Northern Rock bank at his monthly press conference yesterday. He declared: ‘The interest rate has been able to come down because inflation is low. . ....
‘tHis deal is wrong for workers in both countries’, the Canadian Labour Congress and Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, said calling on their governments to immediately halt the talks, for a free trade deal. ‘By following the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) model, the governments of Canada and South...
In Zimbabwe the police still torture while a political solution to the country’s crisis is being sought, says Amnesty International. The Zimbabwean government continues to beat and torture political opponents and human rights defenders, despite the ongoing mediation process being facilitated by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), the human...
TEN members of the Palestinian resistance movement, members of the Al-Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad, were killed in missile attacks by Israeli warplanes in the Gaza Strip and by a special Zionist death squad operating near Jenin in the West Bank on Monday and Tuesday. The BBC reported, without comment,...
‘A painful adjustment faces the global banking sector over the next few months as losses are revealed and new capital is raised to repair bank balance sheets,’ Bank of England governor Mervyn King warned yesterday. Answering questions from MPs on the House of Commons Treasury committee on the Northern Rock...
Detainees at Campsfield immigration detention and removal centre near Oxford rose up yesterday morning after an African detainee was beaten and dragged out of his cell in the early hours. Bob Hughes from the Campaign to Close Campsfield reported: ‘I have just had a call (5.37am) from a detainee in...
DOZENS of Turkish planes bombed supposed PKK bases in northern Iraq on Sunday, killing villagers, damaging infrastructure and forcing villagers to flee, local Iraqi officials confirmed yesterday. Turkey’s general staff said its warplanes had hit the ‘regions of Zap, Hakurk and Avasin as well as the Qandil mountains’ – known...
THE Sri Lankan military intelligence unit took into custody twenty five young men in the country’s western province, (Colombo, Gampaha) on February 5 2005 – twenty of them are Sinhala youths, others are from the plantation areas. They were all branded as pro-LTTE supporters in the south. They were trade union...
THE Ernst and Young Item Club, whose computer model of the economy is the same as the Treasury’s, said last Friday that banking regulations that have been in place for a number of years must be suspended by governments, or the capitalist world and Britain faces a future that...
PALESTINIAN Prime Minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniya on Friday called on the participants in the Paris meeting of the donor states to stand by the Palestinian people and bring about an end to the occupation rather than focusing merely on economic and humanitarian actions. In a statement following...
ON STRIKE writers of US daytime TV dramas, short stories and online serials are set to host a special picket event, Daytime United, in Hollywood today. With strong support from the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), an all-star cast of actors from popular daytime dramas, along with...
Greek workers staged last Wednesday the biggest general strike in history against the proposed ‘reforms’ on pensions planned by the right-wing government of prime minister Kostas Karamanlis. The strike was called by the GSEE (Greek TUC) and the ADEDY (public sector workers federation) and proved to be literally total. Large factories,...
YESTERDAY the South African president Thabo Mbeki said that the acrimony in the African National Congress, the mainly black ruling party in South Africa, is the worst he has seen in his 50 years in the party. Mbeki is facing a challenge for the ANC leadership by the party’s...
Campaigners in Sussex yesterday said they will continue their fight to keep fully functioning district general hospitals in both Eastbourne and Hastings. This followed the recommendation by East Sussex Downs and Weald and Hastings and Rother Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) chief executive Nick Yeo that a single consultant-led maternity unit...
Two thousand members of Newham UNISON held a one-day strike yesterday in defence of their sacked Branch Chair, Michael Gavan. Gavan told News Line: ‘I was sacked on 21st November and we are campaigning for my reinstatement. ‘We had a very good turn out today. People were on the picket lines at...
THE Police Federation has demanded that the Home Secretary resign after her refusal to backdate their 2.5 per cent pay award, and has decided on a national ballot to demand the right to strike. The police are angry with the present Labour Party Home Secretary. She regards the...
Employers should accept the outcome of the federal election and immediately stop trying to push workers onto individual contracts, known as ‘Australian Work-place Agreements’ (AWAs), say Australia’s trade unions. The Australian Workers Union claimed that mining giant BHP Billiton was offering workers in western Queensland a bonus of 10,000 Australian...
PRIME Minister Brown told MPs in the House of Commons yesterday that British forces are ‘winning the battle against the insurgency’ in Afghanistan. Using more brave words he added that Britain and its coalition partners were ‘isolating and eliminating the leadership of the Taleban, not negotiating with them’. Brown was...
Government plans to introduce a new type of GP practice involving the commercial sector could leave patients in deprived areas with a second class service, warns the British Medical Association (BMA) GP’s Committee. In a letter to health minister Lord Darzi, published yesterday, GPs Committee (GPC) chairman Dr Laurence Buckman...
Haringey, Barnet and Enfield Primary Care Trusts agreed yesterday that Option One will be carried out in relation to Chase Farm Hospital – that is the closure of its A&E, Maternity and Paediatric units. Bill Rogers, the Secretary of the North East London Council of Action, told News Line: ‘This...
UP to 1.5 million fixed rate mortgage holders are going to have to renegotiate their mortgages in the New Year. Many of them are already finding that mortgage interest rates have shot up so much that they cannot afford what is on offer. Now they are being told by the banks...
The Global Campaign for Education on Tuesday launched its Global School Report. The report, looking at 178 countries – from Haiti to Norway found the world off track to meet education goals, with 72 million still out of school and 774 million illiterate adults. The Campaign said: ‘The world is far...
LIKE a thief in the night Prime Minister Brown sneaked into Basra airport on Saturday night to tell British troops that their period of being the occupier of southern Iraq, even if it was in name alone, was over. In fact, in two weeks time they will be permanently ...
Palestinians on Sunday celebrated the 20th anniversary of the First Intifada, the popular uprising that rocked the Israeli regime to its foundations. The Intifada uprising began with mass protests in Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on December 9, 1987 after an Israeli military vehicle ran over a group...
Price inflation of goods leaving UK factories reached its highest rate in 16 years, driven higher by petrol and food costs, official figures published yesterday showed. Annual output price inflation reached 4.5 per cent in November, up from 3.8 per cent the previous month, according to the Office for...