Monthly Archives: July 2009
Provocative actions by court officials have angered workers occupying the Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight. Vestas workers said it has made them more determined to win. One of the occupiers Mark Smith told News Line yesterday: ‘We had an event last night. ‘An official from the court was...
BRITISH forces in Afghanistan have, just this month, suffered their highest injury rate since they invaded in 2001, new Ministry of Defence figures show. A total of 57 UK troops were wounded in action in the first two weeks of July, compared with 46 in the whole of June and...
‘FANTASTIC,’ was how Vestas factory occupier Chris Ash responded to the decision at Newport Magistrates Court yesterday to adjourn the wind turbine company’s attempt to evict him and his colleagues. Earlier, over 100 Vestas workers, their families, and supporters defiantly marched to the court on the Isle of Wight, shouting...
SAAD Iqbal Madni, was kidnapped by the CIA while visiting relatives in Indonesia. He was then transited through the British colonial possession of Diego Garcia, one of the Chagos Islands group, on his way to be tortured in Egypt, in the ‘black hole’ of Bagram in Afghanistan and in...
‘MR MADNI was not originally in Afghanistan, he was minding his own business in Indonesia when he was picked up and taken to Afghanistan,' legal charity Reprieve director Clive Stafford Smith told a news conference in central London yesterday. Stafford Smith was announcing that Reprieve is taking a lawsuit against...
NATIONAL strike action by Royal Mail workers is imminent, after management continued to hit out at workers taking part in a series of local London strikes. At East London E3 delivery office, unit rep Vince Micaleff told News Line that his members were furious at the latest provocative actions of...
THIS WEEK hundreds of London delivery offices, and a number of mail centres and other offices and hubs have been taking strike action, after each office and place of work balloted for strike action in opposition to the attacks that are being made on them by both the Royal...
THE CWU Postal National Executive is meeting next Tuesday and is expected to carry a resolution for a national ballot for national strike action against Royal Mail. In doing so, the executive will simply be bowing to the wishes of their membership, who not only want national strike action, they...
BRITAIN’S Foreign Secretary David Miliband told NATO imperialist military chiefs in Brussels yesterday that the strategy in Afghanistan must be geared to ‘an inclusive political settlement’, including those ‘who want Islamic rule locally’. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government has dropped calls for ‘democracy’ and talk of ‘allowing girls to go...
Communication Workers Union (CWU) pickets were out in force on Saturday morning, in the first of the latest strikes against attacks on post workers’ jobs, pay and conditions. There was a barbecue on the picket line at the SE4 delivery office in Brockley, south-east London. Over 20 striking CWU members and...
The Trade Union Congress yesterday expressed ‘serious concerns’ at proposals for private insurance companies to take over the payment of benefits such as unemployment and sickness. This is one of the recommendations of the government-commissioned Insurance Industry Working Group (IIWG) report. The Group is co-chaired by Chancellor Darling and Andrew...
The British Medical Association yesterday repeated concerns about government targets that ‘compromise patient safety’, in the wake of the resignation of United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust chairman David Bowles. Bowles said he was unable to provide unequivocal assurances about hitting government targets without putting emergency patients at risk. A spokesman for the...
ECONOMIC activity declined by 0.8 per cent over the three months to the end of June, a fall of 5.6 per cent in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the past year, according to figures published by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) last Friday. There has been a continuous...
‘THINGS are going well,’ occupying Vestas worker Mark Smith said yesterday. ‘People are in good spirits and we are standing by our call for nationalisation.’ Speaking from inside the occupied Isle of Wight factory, Smith told News Line: ‘We could do with some more food though, they are giving us...
THE University and College Union (UCU) yesterday condemned the decision by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) to reduce funding for university teaching by £65 million. The union said that the new efficiency savings would do irreparable damage to quality and provision in the country. It added that the...
THE ANC government of South Africa has said that it intends to crack down on the township riots and strikes that are sweeping the country. Township residents are demanding new homes, better services, access to clean piped water, electric power, and a future for their children, while workers are...
Ali al-Juburi, secretary general of the Political Council of the Iraqi Resistance, recently gave an interview on ‘negotiations’ with the US. Iraqi newspaper Al-Bayyinah al-Jadidah published a protocol reportedly signed by the US Administration and the Political Council of the Iraqi Resistance. Questions were put by Sa’d Rashid of Al-Sharqiyah...
RMT leader Bob Crow yesterday called for the nationalisation of the occupied Vestas wind turbine factory at Newport, Isle of Wight. In their occupation statement issued on Tuesday, the workers called on the government to nationalise the factory. He said that the ‘brave workers deserve the full support of the whole...
THE Vestas wind turbine factory in the Isle of Wight has been occupied by workers who are determined to fight for their jobs, and faced with closure tomorrow are demanding that the plant be nationalised. The employer has sought to intimidate the workers by saying that if they do not...
Staff, patients and visitors on Tuesday welcomed the latest monthly mass picket by about 30 youth and workers of Chase Farm Hospital, organised by the North-East London Council of Action. Everyone said they are determined to keep this vital local district general hospital open and supported the Council of Action’s...
‘To some people, the Land of the Free doesn’t always seem so free. And America the Beautiful doesn’t look so pretty.’ This is the viewpoint of two Washington-based groups — the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP), and the National Coalition for the Homeless who have have targeted...
Workers occupying the Vestas wind turbine factory in Newport on the Isle of Wight demanded the nationalisation of the plant yesterday. In a defiant statement, they said: ‘As workers at a wind turbine manufacturer, we were confident that as the recession took hold that green or renewable energy would be...
BRITISH capitalism is on the rocks and has started to break apart! This is the significance of the total outstanding government debt of the UK rising to a record £799bn, or 56.6 per cent of UK GDP – the highest since records began in 1974. Borrrowing is shooting upwards. New...
THE capitalist crisis and the massive indebtedness of British capitalism, with its national debt closing fast on its GDP of £1.4 trillion, means that the NHS and the Welfare State are ‘luxuries’ that the bourgeoisie can no longer tolerate. The wolves of the bourgeoisie are already gathering...
Fire Brigades Union (FBU) General Secretary Matt Wrack met fire crews across the East Midlands on Friday, to warn them about twin government threats to cut frontline fire services and to close brigade emergency fire controls. It is part of a 12-month campaign which will involve a lobby of Parliament...
AL JAZEERA TV has been closed down in the West Bank by the Palestine Authority (PA). The action took place after PLO leader Farouk Kaddoumi made allegations, that were reported on Al Jazeera, linking the current acting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas with the assassination of Yasser Arafat, one of...
A total of 64 per cent want all British forces to be withdrawn from Afghanistan ‘as quickly as possible’, with 33 per cent in disagreement, a ComRes poll for the Independent on Sunday revealed yesterday. Some 60 per cent of those polled disagreed that more British troops and resources should...
LAST Saturday thousands of steel workers and their families marched in the North-East to stop the closure of the Redcar Corus plant. The closure will mean 2,000 workers losing their jobs, along with 20,000 workers who depend on the plant in one way or the other. Marchers included workers...
Over four hundred striking Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) postal workers yesterday heard calls for a national strike at a rally in Central Hall, Westminster. Earlier they had marched on Royal Mail head office at Blackfriars shouting (Royal Mail boss) ‘Crozier out!’. A delegation handed in a giant postcard calling...
THE armed forces chiefs have entered politics and are to present the government with a shopping list of purchases that it must make, or else be depicted as the Party that stabs ‘our boys’ in the back. In the face of this military blackmail, Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary has...
OVER 12,000 postal workers are taking strike action today, with thousands more demonstrating against continuing cuts and the executive dictatorship by Royal Mail, while scores more CWU branches ballot for strike action. Since the government and Royal Mail were forced to shelve their plan for part-privatisation they have shown nothing...
The University and College Union (UCU) said yesterday it was furious at the response from the university employers’ organisation over the figures for job losses in higher education. A statement from the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) failed to recognise that staff losing their jobs represented a problem for...
OVER 12,000 postal workers across the UK will be striking today, with thousands more demonstrating against continuing cuts and executive action by Royal Mail. In London, a postcard will be delivered to Royal Mail’s Chief Executive Adam Crozier and Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, followed by a rally in Central...
TAMILNET reports that the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York based media rights group, has slammed the Sri Lankan Government for its anti media policies and accused the current administration of ‘continuing to silence its critics through harassment and threats’ in a press release last Tuesday. Responding...
NINE Vauxhall cars and vans from the 1960s to the present day came to London yesterday for a ‘drive-by’ of parliament ‘to showcase the best in British car manufacturing’. The vehicles, all produced at Vauxhall’s plants in Ellesmere Port and Luton, were driven to the capital by workers from both...
There was another record increase in the unemployment rate to reach 2.38 million in the second quarter of 2009, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The ONS statement said: ‘The unemployment rate was 7.6 per cent for the three months to May 2009, up...
THOUSANDS of postal workers across the UK will be striking and demonstrating on Friday, July 17 against continuing cuts and executive action by Royal Mail. Strike action will take place in London, Edinburgh, Bristol, Darlington, Stoke, Plymouth, Leamington Spa, Norfolk and Essex. Other offices across the UK will...
THE deepening capitalist crisis is creating the conditions for a showdown between Labour and Capital – over who runs this country, and for whose benefit they are running it – of a type that has not been seen since the 17th century. Everywhere trade union leaders are offering wage cuts,...