Monthly Archives: April 2009
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired at least 2,600 Multi-Barrel Rocket Launcher (MBRL) rockets, more than 1,000 artillery shells and at least 2,000 heavy mortar shells from 6.00pm Monday till 11.00am Tuesday, LTTE officials in Vanni told TamilNet. Most of the shells fired by the SLA hit civilian shelters in...
LDV, the Birmingham van factory said yesterday it would continue to look for funding until 6 May when it is due to formally go into administration, terminating the jobs of 900 workers. On November 15, LDV announced a 10 per cent cut in the workforce. In March, buy-out plans were...
HUNGER striker Parameswaran Subramaniyan, is continuing his hunger strike for the 23rd day outside Parliament, surrounded by more than a thousand Tamil workers and youth, vociferously demanding that Gordon Brown and the British Parliament broker a permanent ceasefire in Sri Lanka. Doctors looking after Subramaniyan say that his...
THE Obama Administration cannot use state secrecy doctrine to block Binyam Mohamed’s litigation against aviation company, Jeppesen Dataplan, a US Federal Court ruled yesterday. The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal rejected the Administration’s invocation of state secrets privilege and instructed the District Court to proceed with the case. The...
‘WE WILL be picketing Ford Bridgend once we get the go-ahead from Tony Woodley,’ Visteon Enfield Unite Convenor Kevin Nolan told News Line yesterday. Speaking on the Enfield picket line, he said: ‘We are still in good spirits. There is an all-branch appeal. The branch at Bridgend have donated £10,000. ‘Myself...
TAMILNET reports ‘mad shelling’ yesterday morning by the Sri Lanka Army into civilian areas in Mu’l’livaaykkaal north, forcing everyone into the bunkers. Several civilians have been killed. The wounded are left to die as people are not able to move out of the bunkers due to the unprecedented...
CURRENTLY the UK and US supported Sri Lankan army is mounting an all-out assault on the besieged Tamil Tiger forces and the over 100,000 Tamil people that they are defending in the Vanni region. Despite the fact that the Rajapakse military police regime has given an assurance to the ‘international...
THE Health and Safety Executive has served two Improvement Notices on Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service in the aftermath of the deaths of two firefighters at Harrow Court, Stevenage. The HSE have said there will be no prosecution over the deaths, but did carry out an inspection on 23,...
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) yesterday warned that Royal Mail were planning sacking between eight and twenty per cent of the workforce, with London taking the heaviest cull. The union stated that the service was under threat and that staff would be downgraded to being a part time workforce. Dave...
The Communication Workers Union yesterday warned that planned job cuts by Royal Mail will threaten services and downgrade staff to a part-time workforce. Plans seen by the CWU show cuts of between eight and 20 per cent across the country with London hit the hardest. Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary,...
The All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils (APPG-T) said it has received credible information that Sri Lankan government forces are preparing for a final onslaught on the ‘Safe Zone’ by air, sea and land. In an appeal to the UK government, the MPs warned on Sunday: ‘This will result in...
APRIL 21 saw the 175th anniversary of the Grand Demonstration of 1834 when over 100,000 marched from Copenhagen Fields in London to Parliament to demand the release of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. This was the first mass trade union protest, a key moment in the determined fight to obtain the...
Unite joint general secretary Tony Woodley is due to visit the sacked workers at all three Visteon factories this week. The Unite convenor at the occupied Belfast factory, John McGuire, told News Line yesterday: ‘Tony Woodley says he is meeting (Ford Europe CEO John) Fleming on Monday and that he...
TWO of the Brown government’s big business backers Lord Digby Jones, the ex-CBI boss and Richard Branson, the Thatcherite businessman have unsurprisingly turned-coat. No doubt they support the government’s pay freeze for Royal Mail workers, which is obviously a wage cut, but they are filled with rage at the idea...
In the face of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis and in response to the calls made by the UN, EU, the governments of the US, India and others, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has announced a unilateral ceasefire. ‘All of the LTTE’s offensive military operations will cease with immediate effect’,...
‘We are not going to give up!’, declared the comrades of 23-year-old Parameswaran Subramaniyan who after 18 days on hunger strike is too weak to talk. British Tamil Students vowed yesterday to continue their fight against the genocidal Sri Lankan regime. Student leader Nila said: ‘I think the MPs have not...
A legal attempt to remove workers from the Visteon plant in west Belfast was yesterday adjourned at the High Court for the second time in a week on Friday. Administrators KPMG are seeking an eviction order to take possession of the plant which has been occupied since March 31, when...
THE German and French ruling classes are aghast that the worldwide financial collapse and deepening slump has resulted in an eruption of the class struggle, at such an intensity, and with so little room for manoeuvre, that they are suddenly being confronted by revolution. The spectre of revolution is now...
The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) branded the efficiency savings announced in Wednesday’s budget as spending cuts which would damage services and lead to job cuts. Civil and public services have already been hit by spending cuts in real terms and ‘efficiency savings’ which have lead to over 80,000...
US IMPERIALISM is now beating the war drums as far as military intervention into Pakistan is concerned, with its leading officials ‘warning the world’ that the Taleban is now less than 50 miles from Islamabad and advancing all the time. Leading the pack of the professional prophets of imminent doom...
‘WE will not let Chase Farm Hospital close, and we are calling a massive march though Enfield on Saturday June 6 to keep our hospital open’ said North East London Council of Action Secretary, Bill Rogers, yesterday. He said in a statement: ‘Enfield Council is not appealing against the...
The University and College Union (UCU) yesterday warned that higher education could be brought to a standstill as the union announced that it is balloting its members in higher education over job cuts across the sector. The union said the employers’ refusal to act as the crisis over jobs deteriorated...
CHANCELLOR Darling began his budget speech yesterday on a note of contrived optimism saying that ‘today’s budget will take Britain through the most serious global economic turmoil for over 60 years.’ He was speaking on a day when government statistics revealed that its borrowing for the last...
Chancellor Alistair Darling announced £15bn public sector ‘efficiency savings’ and slave labour schemes for youth in yesterday’s Budget. This came as the latest figures showed a huge 177,000 increase in unemployment, bringing the jobless total to 2.1 million, in the first three months of this year. Darling said public sector borrowing...
TENS of thousands of Gazans are still homeless and without basic services such as piped drinking water three months after the 18 January ceasefire, warns a coalition of international aid agencies. The warning regarding the crisis in Gaza came in a statement issued on Monday by 23 members...
THE legal attempt to remove sacked workers occupying the Visteon factory in west Belfast has been adjourned until Friday. ‘Whatever happens on Friday we won’t be leaving the factory,’ one of the occupiers told News Line yesterday. ‘Unite refused to represent us in the court yesterday, so we had to get...
ADDRESSING the Scottish TUC yesterday, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber was desperate to show that the addition of another million unemployed in the next year, as forecast by the Labour government, and the bosses, will cost the taxpayer £8.1 billion and represents spending at £250 a second. His plea to...
SACKED Visteon workers at the Enfield and Basildon plants yesterday demanded their union leadership take action to win their struggle. At the Enfield plant, Unite member Matt Goldsmith said: ‘We’re still here picketing. We’ve no news. ‘We are not getting any feedback from the national union. I’m disappointed. ‘We’ve paid into the...
ON THE eve of today’s Budget, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber warned that if the number of Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) claimants increases by one million over the next 12 months, ‘it will cost taxpayers more than £250 a second’ or £8.1bn. Addressing the Scottish TUC Congress in Perth,...
DOZENS of delegates walked out of a United Nations conference on racism after Mahmud Ahmadinezhad, Iran's president, correctly described the Israeli cabinet as a ‘racist government’. The summit had already been badly undermined by a boycott by the United States and some of its major allies over concerns that it...
THE Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) warned that further spending cuts will damage services and jeopardise the delivery of government policies as it responded to budget speculation that the government will cut spending by £15 billion. The Chancellor has already announced £5 billion of so-called ‘efficiency savings’ across civil...
DESPITE all the government statements against leaking government information before it is to go before the House of Commons, the Treasury was at it yesterday leaking some of what the Chancellor will announce tomorrow. Having handed out tens, if not hundreds of billions to the bankers, for everyone else it...
SIPTU General President Jack O’Connor has called for a Social Dividend to tackle the lack of adequate occupational pension coverage in return for trade union co-operation in tackling the economic crisis. In a major policy speech delivered in Limerick at the weekend, in advance of the resumption of talks on...
‘Stop killing Tamils! Brown wake up! Rajapakse – terrorist!’ shouted tens of thousands of Tamils holding a sit-down protest in the road opposite Parliament yesterday. This was as student Parameswaran Subramaniyan continued his hunger strike against the genocide of Tamils. At midday they held one minute’s silence. Kumar Visvalingham of British Tamil...
‘Ceasefire Now! Stop the Genocide! Tamil Tigers – Freedom Fighters!’ shouted Tamils demonstrating in support of brave hunger striker Parameswaran Subramaniyan yesterday. Around 1,000 were gathered at the side of Parliament Square. Jana Pratheepan of British Tamil Students told News Line: ‘Parameswaran is still on hunger strike. ‘He is determined to...
Research carried out by the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) indicates that second-level schools will lose an average of 2.6 temporary and part-time teachers in September 2009. All three main teachers unions in Ireland have backed a campaign of industrial action which will involve widespread disruption in schools in...
‘OUR time and patience is running out. The country is in a mess and we look to the Government to come up with serious solutions, not to waste time in childish venom.’ This is the plea that Unison leader Dave Prentis made to PM Brown at the UNISON Health Conference...
A COACHLOAD of sacked workers from Stead McAlpin and J H Birtwistle factories, formerly owned by John Lewis, yesterday lobbied the John Lewis Partnership headquarters in London. The factories in Carlisle and Rossendale, Lancashire, were both sold off to Apex Textiles in 2007. Workers were sacked at both factories on April...
‘PRAMESH gets weaker every day but his spirits are high,’ 18-year-old student Janani Paramsothy, told News Line yesterday on the 24-hour picket on the edge of Westminster Green opposite the Houses of Parliament yesterday. She was speaking about brave young Tamil Parameswaran Subramaniyan, who has been on hunger strike for...
CENTRAL Intelligence Agency employees who tortured people in the Guantanamo Bay and Bagram Bay US concentration camps as terrorist suspects held without charge or trial have been amnestied by the President, Barak Obama. The Amnesty was declared after a campaign by the US Civil Liberties Union forced the release of...
The TUC has joined forces with the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), EEF the manufacturers’ organisation, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and The Work Foundation to call on the Brown government to introduce ‘a temporary short-time working scheme across the UK’ in next week’s Budget. The organisations have jointly...
THE US administration has let it be known that it intends to force GM, formerly the world’s number one motor car manufacturer, into bankruptcy because it has given up on its bosses being able to force any more major concessions out of its US workforce. Last month it sacked...
TAMILNET reports that yesterday, at 6.50am the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) intensified its offensive aimed at dividing the so-called Safety Zone into two. With fire support provided by the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) helicopter gunships are attempting to break the defensive lines of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam...