Monthly Archives: September 2008
Academies are private companies and will be in charge of education in local areas, the Labour government makes clear in its document Building Schools for the Future. The move to Academies is designed to smash free state education, replacing it with the lowest ‘Victorian variety’ of charitable schools. The document...
METROBUS and First Centrewest Buses stopped throughout London yesterday. Metrobus is out for 24 hours while First Centrewest Buses are stopped for 48 hours. Strike ballots are now also being held in most other London bus companies in similar disputes over pay. The busworkers union Unite submitted a London-wide...
PM Brown has rejected out of hand the trade union demand for a Windfall Tax on the oil, gas and energy companies, that are making billions of profits, so as to alleviate the plight of workers, the poor, and the pensioners. Many of these will not be able...
ON 31st July 2008 the Independent Reconfiguration Panel (IRP) produced their report on the future of health services in Barnet, Enfield and Haringey. In it they completely back the proposals of the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey (BEH) Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) to close Chase Farm Hospital as an acute District...
ADMIRAL Mullen the US chief of the general staff has stated that he is not convinced that the US is winning the war in Afghanistan, and believes that the US ‘is running out of time’ there. However he considers that it is a war that can be won. His way...
TUC delegates at their Congress in Brighton yesterday voted unanimously for Motion 23, Asylum Seekers and Employment to launch a campaign to secure the right of asylum seekers ‘to seek employment while their application for refugee status is considered’. Mover Helen Connor, of EIS, said: ‘Underpinning this week is our...
TUC Delegates passed Motion Seven on EU Attacks on Trade Union Rights yesterday, which the TUC General Council supported with reservations. The Fire Brigades Union moved an amendment over the effects of the Civil Contingencies Act, exposing how this anti-terror law is being used to attack trade unions. This...
‘FORCE this British government to carry out the rightful decision to return us back to our beautiful islands and put an end to these years of misery that our families have had to bear.’ So said Hengride Permal, chair of the Chagos Islands Community Association, when she opened a 100-strong...
‘FORCE this British government to carry out the rightful decision to return us back to our beautiful islands and put an end to these years of misery that our families have had to bear.’ So said Hengride Permal, chair of the Chagos Islands Community Association, when she opened a 100-strong...
THE European Commission stated yesterday that the UK, Germany and Spain, key members of the EU, with Germany being the world’s biggest exporter, are ‘to fall’ into recession this year. The Commission also downgraded its outlook for eurozone growth again, and said that the bloc would grow by 1.3% this...
By Irish political journalist JOHN COULTER STORMONT stands on the brink of collapse – a political dilemma the North has not faced since 2002 when the British Government suspended the parliament amid allegations of a republican spy ring at the Assembly buildings. The North is about to enter its most troublesome...
THE number of civilian deaths admitted to by US and NATO forces as a result of airstrikes in Afghanistan is just the tip of an iceberg, says a report just published by Human Rights Watch. In a report published on Monday, the New York-based organisation said that ‘continuing tragedies,...
DELEGATES to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) yesterday voted overwhelmingly to demand the re-nationalisation of public utilities, in opposition to the TUC leadership’s ‘reservations’. TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber introduced the emergency debate on the economy, which included the General Council’s statement on the economy that called for taxing the...
THE nationalisation of the Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac mortgage finance companies by the ultra right wing Bush administration is a forced admission of the complete bankruptcy of the capitalist system and the private ownership of the means of production. The established bourgeois theory is that capitalism equals the survival...
THE trial of 49 trade unionists before an emergency court, for alleged involvement in the violent protests of 6 April 2008 in the Egyptian city of Mahalla against rising prices, has just resumed. Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Egyptian authorities to stop trying individuals before special emergency courts...
EARLIER this week the News Line stated that it would not be enough to adopt a programme at the current TUC Congress, but that there would also have to be action decided on and called to carry out that programme. We added that the current dominant leadership of the TUC...
THE TUC Congress in Brighton was divided yesterday over an amendment to Composite Motion 15: Public Sector Pay, which called on the General Council ‘to organise days of strike action, including a major national demonstration, against the government’s pay policy’. The composite motion had merely called for ‘days of action’...
CIVIL service union PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka yesterday announced that the union will be balloting 270,000 members across the civil and public services on a programme of national industrial action over the government’s policy to ‘cap’ public sector pay below inflation. Serwotka said: ‘The strike ballot will commence on...
ON the eve of the TUC Congress, the TUC leader, Brendan Barber, has issued a call to the Brown government to tax the rich. There is as much chance of Brown carrying out this policy as there was of the energy companies agreeing to Brown’s requests that they should rebate...
‘The SCO (Shanghai Co-operation Organisation) countries face common threats in the form of America and NATO’, says the Iranian newspaper Resalat. Full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation include Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan and India have observer status, and Iran attended the SCO’s recent...
ADDRESSING the bosses of the Scottish CBI, Prime Minister Gordon Brown assured them that his government will not be giving workers, the poor and the elderly any one-off payment, to help with the fuel bills that have rocketed up by 30 per cent this year. The...
The Prison Officers Association is calling for a series of one-day general strikes to force the repeal of the anti-union laws. Its motion on Trade Union Freedom to next week’s TUC Congress in Brighton declares: ‘Congress places on record its appreciation to all those academic lawyers and MPs who sought...
The French post office union federations, CGT, SUD-PTT, CFDT, FO, CFTC and CGC, have called on postal workers nationally to strike and demonstrate on Tuesday, September 23 against the privatisation of La Poste. The announced transformation of the public service into a public company (société anonyme) from January 2010,...
THE Bank of England (BoE) Monetary Policy Committee decided yesterday to make no change in its base interest rate and to leave it at 5.00 per cent. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) reacted by declaring that it was ‘a depressing decision. With the slowdown now biting and recession on the...
Husam Khadir, a former member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, who was recently released from the prisons of the occupation, has called for national unity. He said: ‘All prisoners regardless of their affiliations call on the political leaders to restore unity and accord among the various stripes and factions and...
‘People will not accept the loss of Chase Farm Hospital and will continue to fight to keep it open through occupation if necessary,’ north London consultant surgeon Anna Athow told News Line yesterday. Athow, a member of the North East London Council of Action, was commenting on the recommendation of...
THE pound fell to an exchange rate of $1.77 yesterday, its lowest level for two-and-a-half years. In June sterling was trading at $2, but its exchange rate has dropped by 10 per cent against the dollar in the past month. The pound has also fallen against the euro to its...
The Brown government has so far this year handed over more than £200bn to cash-strapped banks, it was claimed by a leading Swiss banker yesterday. UK banks have been queueing up to swap dodgy mortgage debt for Treasury bonds. Bank of England Governor Mervyn King originally anticipated that the Special Liquidity...
The National Union of Students (NUS) yesterday published a ‘groundbreaking’ report which highlights the faults of the university funding system in unprecedented detail. In ‘Broke and Broken: A Critique of the Higher Education Funding System’, NUS demonstrates the unfairness and lack of sustainability in the current system, and argues that...
THE Russian government said yesterday there had been a ‘responsible’ outcome to Monday’s European Union summit called to discuss the recent fighting between Russia and Georgia. It regretted the EU’s condemnation of Russia’s actions as ‘disproportionate’. The EU agreed to suspend talks on a strategic pact with Russia until troops...
Amnesty International has called on the British government to hand over to Guantanamo Bay prisoner Binyam Mohammed’s lawyers, vital information it holds on him. Binyam Mohamed is a former UK resident imprisoned in the US concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, and the information might help prove that he has been...
In a bid to prop up the banks and construction industry, prime minister Brown and chancellor Darling yesterday promoted a £1.6bn housing rescue package. This included a year’s freeze on charging stamp duty on properties priced below £175,000, at a cost of £600m to the Treasury. Other measures are interest-free five...
An adviser to the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has urged Palestinian youth to begin a third intifada and popular strike to force the international community to re-evaluate their position on Israel and strengthen the Palestinian negotiating position. Former presidential adviser Basam Abu-Sharif sent a statement to the Ma’an news...
‘We look forward to see what the government’s economic recovery strategy is,’ a TUC spokesman told News Line yesterday. ‘Any measures that ease the pressure on hard-pressed homeowners will be welcomed by the TUC.’ The Labour Party conference is due to open in Manchester on Saturday September 20, two days earlier...
YESTERDAY’S reports on the state of the economy reveal more about the catastrophe gripping British capitalism, part of the world crisis. • The Bank of England reported that the number of new mortgages approved for buying homes fell in July to 33,000, down a huge 71 per cent on the...
In comments published yesterday, prime minister Brown called for a ‘root and branch’ review of the EU and NATO’s relations with Moscow to prevent further ‘Russian aggression’. This was despite efforts by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to ease tensions with Europe in a phone conversation with Brown on Saturday. Medvedev...
Unidentified armed men arriving on a motorcycle hurled a hand grenade on Friday around 5:30am on the house of a Muslim teacher in Ea’raavoor police division in Batticaloa district, sources in Ea’raavoor said, according to TamilNet. No one was injured but the front part of the house was...
THE Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, which has been closed for the past five months, was opened for two days at the weekend, on the eve of Ramadan. On Saturday, nearly 2,000 people left Gaza and 900 entered the besieged Palestinian territory from Egypt. Among those leaving...