Monthly Archives: December 2007
Public sector union UNISON has warned councils in England not to short change workers when they plan their budgets for 2008. ‘Our members won’t settle for a below-inflation pay rise next year,’ said head of local government Heather Wakefield. She was responding to news that councils in England will get a...
CURRENTLY a great deal of propaganda hot air is being expended hailing the action that British forces are taking to ‘liberate’ the town of Musa Qala, in the north of Helmand province, from the Taleban. In fact, the town is in the hands of the Taleban because the British army...
Fire Brigades Union (FBU) General Secretary Matt Wrack says the deaths of four firefighters in Warwickshire has echoed in fire services around the world. The comments were made as the service and the community prepared for the funeral of Darren Yates-Badley last Friday, 7 December. The funerals of John Averis, Ian...
NATO yesterday confirmed that it will maintain its troop contingent in Kosovo to deter the violence that will follow the expected collapse of talks on the Serbian province’s future on December 10. Nato foreign ministers also gave the alliance’s 16,000 troops in Kosovo more leeway to tackle possible unrest. Already,...
THE Greek right-wing government have intensified their ‘reforms programme’ as trade unions are preparing a general strike set for next Wednesday 12 December. Last week the government announced a series of attacks designed to intimidate and terrorise workers. The Electricity Board is to impose a rise of at least seven...
The US Supreme Court addressed a landmark case over the rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees on Wednesday, deliberating on whether the military prison camp’s inmates can challenge their detention in civilian courts. The case, which has drawn attention from rights activists and governments around the world, centres on whether it...
STAFF fighting the imposition of pay cuts and the threat of more sackings – after 25,000-plus job cuts in the last three years – took strike action across the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for the second day running yesterday. Picket lines were mounted at Jobcentres, benefits offices, the...
HAMAS’ Yahya Musa, a deputy in the Palestinian Legislative Council declared yesterday that an Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip was discussed behind the scenes at the recent Annapolis conference. He said: ‘There are many pieces of information and analyses that can push us to say that the invasion has...
There was widespread disruption across Jobcentres, benefits offices, the Pension Service and Child Support Agency (CSA) yesterday. Staff working for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) stayed away from work in massive numbers on the first day of a 48-hour strike over a wage-cutting pay offer. The two day strike...
FACED with loud and strident demands to slash its lending rate, to try and avoid a housing crash and a depression by crashing the pound sterling and letting inflation rip instead, the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee chose to respond by trimming its rate by 0.25 per cent,...
TRADE UNIONISTS and members of socialist groups will be picketing the Sri Lankan High Court in Colombo today. They are demanding the release of the hundreds of political prisoners who have been incarcerated by the Sri Lankan government in recent months. The picket is being organised by the Campaign for Freedom...
JOBCENTRES, benefits offices, the Pension Service and Child Support Agency (CSA) will be hit today as up to 80,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) take strike action. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) faces a two-day strike against the imposition of a below-inflation pay...
Getting Away With Murder, is a powerful indictment of the private security companies ‘operating with impunity’ in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their British government backers. It is a War on Want briefing paper issued on Tuesday to coincide with the second annual conference of the British Association of Private Security...
THERE has been a frenzied hue and cry raging for weeks now over the minor mistakes of Labour cabinet ministers over relatively minor donations to support their internal campaigns for leading positions within their party. The Tory attempt to hunt down Brown and minor political figures such as...
War on Want has condemned the UK private military and security companies (PMSCs), ‘operating with impunity in Iraq’. The charity issued a briefing paper Getting Away With Murder yesterday, to coincide with the second annual conference of the British Association of Private Security Companies (BAPSC). The War on Want briefing...
THE Iranian government has welcomed the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report, to which all the US spying agencies contributed, which states that Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons, pulling the rug from beneath the feet of the make war on Iran brigade, headed by President Bush...
THIS is the period of world revolution. That was the message delivered to the News Line Anniversary Rally attended by 200 youth and workers in east London on Sunday. The rally also commemorated 67 years since the assassination of Leon Trotsky and 90 years since the Russian Revolution. Opening the rally, chairman...
‘If there is still a role for UK Forces in Iraq, those Forces must be capable of doing more than just protecting themselves at Basra Air Station,’ MPs have concluded in a report published yesterday. The House of Commons defence committee report on Iraq adds in its conclusions and recommendations:...
HOSTILITIES have broken out between rival gangs of economists on the eve of the meeting of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) which will decide what to do about its interest rate this Thursday, currently at 5.5 per cent. The Thatcherite monetarists led by Patrick Minford and...
‘We’re getting ready for revolution in Britain as part of the world socialist revolution.’ That was the message delivered by workers revolutionary Party General Secretary, Frank Sweeney, to 200 youth and workers at the News Line Anniversary Rally in London yesterday. ‘This is a decisive rally for our party and...
THE deepening crisis of the world capitalist system is causing alarm in the ruling class in Britain, causing them to revaluate their perspectives. The bile spewing out from the mouths of the capitalist press, the Tories and the bosses against Gordon Brown, one of the most loyal servants ever of...
The cost of being a junior doctor has increased by 80 per cent over the last seven years, figures published by the British Medical Association (BMA) last Friday (30 November, 2007) show. Over the same period, junior doctors’ basic salaries have increased by little more than 20 per cent, and...
The hugely expensive ‘consultation process’ meant to rubber stamp the closure of Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield has backfired, after the majority of returnees ignored the ‘two official options’ and wrote in ‘Keep Chase Farm Hospital Open!’ However, the Strategic Health Authority still plans to proceed with the...
THE chief of the Federal Reserve Bank, Bernanke, has hinted heavily that the developing slow down of the US economy will be met with another interest rate cut, regardless of its impact on the already collapsing US dollar, and the flight out of the dollar into gold. The thought of...