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Monthly Archives: December 2009

NEWS LINE sends its revolutionary greetings for 2010 to the working class and the poor of the planet. We especially greet the insurgent masses of Palestine and Iraq, and the revolutionary peoples of Venezuela and Bolivia, as well as the workers of Greece, whose uprising against savage government...
AT the same time as Mahmud Abbas is declaring that he will stop the eruption of a Third Intifada, the Egyptian government has actively joined Israel, the US and the UK in strengthening the siege of Gaza. A year after Israel’s illegal war left Gaza in ruins, with 1,400 Gazans...
The British Medical Association (BMA) has today unveiled a set of New Year’s resolutions for politicians to help them protect the future of the National Health Service (NHS). Top of the list is a resolution calling on politicians to stop wasting taxpayers’ money on unnecessary and expensive commercial sector solutions...
Public sector union Unison yesterday condemned government plans to incorporate donations from charities into NHS budgets. It is estimated the move will deprive cash-strapped NHS trusts of millions of pounds. The Charities Commission, which regulates charities, said the accounting move, due to come into force in April was meant to...
SO, ONCE again, at the cost of some Rs 12 billion of public funds, we have to face a Presidential election. Two equally bloody, corrupt and  parasitic Capitalist Alliances have come forward for the contest, represented by Mahinda Rajapakse and Sarath Fonseka. This Presidential campaign is going to be a bitter...
Hamas prime minister in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniya appealed to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday evening, to halt the construction of the ‘fence of death’, an underground steel separation wall on the Sinai border. Hamas recently referred to it as ‘a disaster to the Palestinian people.’ In a speech...
FOR some days now, Minister Jowell has been campaigning in the cabinet to stop Gordon Brown being verbally beastly to the Tories, by bringing up the fact that they are an integral part of the capitalist ruling class, from the playing fields of Eton onwards. At the same time, the...
‘In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians,’ rang out at the mass demonstration of thousands of mainly young people opposite the Israeli embassy in London yesterday. ‘Free Gaza Now! Free Gaza Now!’ they chanted. The demonstration was called to mark the first anniversary of the launch of the...
IN the middle of the Labour Party’s general election campaign, a section of the Labour cabinet led by Mandelson, Jowell and others is breaking ranks to show solidarity with the Tories. Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell has said that the general election campaign must not be turned into a ‘hideous’...
At least 20,000 Palestinians turned out for the afternoon funeral processions of three Nablus men assassinated by undercover Israeli forces during the early hours of Saturday morning. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, his minister of the interior, security forces chiefs, and several other Palestinian leaders travelled to Nablus to attend the...
MANDELSON’S decision to lop £398m from the higher education budget, and to bring in third class tuition, will see thousands of workers in higher education sacked, and universities closed, as well as driving higher education into the arms of big business and private financing, which...
WORLD powers betrayed the besieged Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip by failing to end the Israeli blockade of the territory in the wake of last winter’s Israeli bombing blitz. That is the verdict of 16 human rights and international aid groups in a hard-hitting new report. The groups sponsoring the...
A ‘Christmas kick in the teeth’ for both staff and students is how the University and College Union (UCU) described yesterday’s slashing £398m of government cuts to university funding. Government funding is to fall from £7.81bn this year to £7.29bn for 2010-11 and university Vice-Chancellors are already talking...
‘Tony Blair and Gordon Brown should be tried as war criminals,’ Peter Brierley, whose son Shaun was killed in Iraq in 2003, told a press conference on Monday. Military families who have loved ones who have died or are currently serving in Afghanistan, together with former soldiers, had travelled from...
A POLL by the BMA and Doctors.net.uk shows that doctors are concerned about the role of private companies in the NHS. Eight out of ten doctors are concerned about private companies profiting from the NHS, the poll to be published today shows. The online poll was commissioned by the BMA...
The CIA had at least two ‘black sites’ in Lithuania where they tortured illegally held victims of ‘extraordinary rendition’, a Lithuanian parliamentary inquiry has found. A parliamentary inquiry was launched following US media reports in November that Lithuania, Poland and Romania hosted CIA ‘black sites’. The Lithuanian parliamentary committee reported yesterday...
CARS hooted and people waved to Santa Claus on the Chase Farm Christmas picket, organised by the North-East London Council of Action yesterday. There was tremendous support for the picket and the calls to occupy the hospital to stop the closure of the Accident and Emergency, Maternity and Paediatrics departments. Paulette...
Eurotunnel closed its shuttle car service to new arrivals yesterday, saying it was at ‘saturation point’, as travellers struggled to find alternative ways of reaching France as Eurostar services remained suspended. Passengers were told to go home, with Eurotunnel citing ‘severe technical problems’. The announcement came mid-morning as Eurostar launched a...
THE collapse of the Eurotunnel rail service, at the hands of a normal European winter, with no service for four days, and passengers left to deal with it on their own, has been a huge shock to people living on both sides of the Channel. Passengers were either cut off...
LAST Friday the new AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka issued a statement on the Senate Healthcare Bill being sponsored by President Obama. He said: ‘The labour movement has been fighting for healthcare for nearly 100 years and we are not about to stop fighting now, when it really matters. ‘But for this...
IN one corner of Salah Samouni’s modest living room hangs a ‘martyr poster’ – a customary honor printed for those killed in all Israeli attacks, in the West Bank and Gaza over the years. On the Samouni poster, the 29 faces stare back from eternity, from Muhammad Helmi Samouni, age...
‘THIS puts another nail in the coffin of the British government’s attempts to cover up its role’ in Binyam Mohamed’s treatment, Clive Stafford Smith, director of legal charity, Reprieve said yesterday. He was referring to a recently declassified Washington district court document that accepted ‘credible’ evidence that Binyam was tortured...
A FEW weeks ago President Obama announced 30,000 extra US troops for Afghanistan. Now the US has given its full support to President Karzai of Afghanistan and his cabinet, despite the fact that he was elected in a completely rigged election and that his cabinet members face allegations of extreme...
A spokesman for the men holding Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit captive in Gaza said yesterday that no deadline had been imposed on a potential prisoner exchange. The comments came as Israeli cabinet ministers held an emergency meeting reported to be addressing a prisoner swap. Egyptian intelligence director Omar Suleiman who is...
By DINA ROVITHAKI, President of the ‘stage’ workers’ trade union at the Institute for Agricultural Development and member of the National Co-ordinating Committee of ‘stage’ workers. THE ‘stage’ programmes in Greece were created by the European Union (EU) as training and work experience programmes. These 18-month-long-at-a-time programmes, accepted registered unemployed up to...
THE UK’s public sector net borrowing hit a record high of £20.3 billion in November, official figures show. The figure was the highest for any month since records began in 1993, while the public sector net debt was £844.5bn, up to November, or 60.2% of Gross Domestic Product. It is...
THOUSANDS of Greek workers and students took part in rallies and demonstrations last Thursday in a one-day general strike called by several trade unions against the policies of the social-democratic government. The strike was boycotted by the GSEE (Greek TUC), who support the government. In a despicable statement the GSEE...
A retired police constable and a police staff member have been arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice after claims that evidence was hidden from the Stephen Lawrence murder inquiry. An Independent Police Complaints Commission statement issued yesterday said: ‘The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is investigating concerns...
THE government’s changes to research funding threaten the future of science in Britain, leading experts are warning. According to Professor Donald Braben, Honorary Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, virtually every major scientific discovery ever made would not have survived the current REF regime with its emphasis on...
‘It is a disgraceful day for democracy’, Unite joint general secretaries Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley declared after a High Court judge ruled the British Airways strike ballot was invalid. The ruling meant the 12-day strike by BA cabin crew due to commence next Tuesday 22nd December, that followed a...
THE decision by a Judge in chambers to rule the BA strike action illegal is a major blow at the legal right to strike. It was also a brazen attempt to rescue an employer who was determined to act the dictator and impose new terms and conditions on BA cabin...
‘AFTER falling for two successive months, today’s rise in youth unemployment is disappointing,’ said TUC leader Brendan Barber. Paul Kenny GMB General Secretary commented: ‘It will be a bleak Christmas in the households of the unemployed and of those who have lost their jobs in this bankers’ recession.’ The number...
‘Suspend – not stop indefinitely – suspend your imposition. This strike will be off,’ Unite transport union leader Tony Woodley pledged yesterday. He was speaking as British Airways went to the High Court, to try and get the judiciary to declare strike action by BA cabin crew illegal. The dispute was...
COMMENTING on the rise in unemployment figures, Dave Prentis, General Secretary of Unison said: ‘Being out of work at Christmas is particularly tough, especially for families. And despite Government efforts to help get young people into work, it is clear that more needs to be done to prevent a...
HUNDREDS of students and lecturers demonstrated outside the meeting of the Board of Governors of London Metropolitan University on Tuesday night, demanding: ‘RESIGN NOW!’ Calling the demonstration, the UCU warned: ‘This is now a matter of survival – the government has threatened to close London Metropolitan University if they don’t go.  ‘Bring banners,...
British Airways yesterday initiated legal action in a bid to stop the 12-day strike from December 22, announced by the Unite union. Refusing negotiations, BA bosses have declared a ‘fight to the death’ after 14,000 Unite cabin crew members voted 92.5 per cent for a strike. The BA share...
BA managers were yesterday pledging a ‘fight to the death’ with the Unite trade union and its members to force through cuts in wages, pensions and jobs. They want less cabin crew looking after passengers; they want an inferior pension scheme; they want thousands of redundancies; they want a two-year...
A US-based group has independently verified the authenticity of the Channel-4 video in October showing the murder of Tamil Tiger prisoners by Sri Lankan troops. The Times has also reported that its own independent analysis of the Channel-4 broadcast video, showing Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers summarily executing...
British Airways cabin crew have voted by a massive 92.5 per cent, in an over 80 per cent turnout, in favour of strike action over the imposition of 1,700 job cuts, a two per cent pay freeze and changes to staff contracts. Announcing the strike vote, Unite assistant general secretary...
YESTERDAY the United States Secretary of Defence and Secretary of State, Gates and Clinton, threatened Iran with extreme sanctions if it insisted on its right to develop its nuclear technology, and warned South American states, such as Venezuela and Bolivia who are both threatened by the establishment of seven...
‘The Iranian nation and government will always stand by the resistance and the oppressed Palestinian people,’ Iran’s President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has reiterated. Ahmadinejad met with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mishaal on Sunday in the Iranian capital Tehran. Hamas is the Palestinian resistance movement that was elected to power in the Occupied...
Israeli police used force to break up a demonstration in East Jerusalem on Friday against the eviction of a Palestinian family from their home. Twenty-one Israeli peace activists were arrested and police said several police officers were lightly injured, when police used tear gas and force to break up the...

Put Blair On Trial!

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THE Fern Britton interview with Tony Blair on the BBC yesterday, squashed all of the notions that are being peddled that Blair was just a George Bush poodle, as far as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were concerned. He was in fact Bush’s partner, a junior partner it is...
‘Tony Blair should be going to the Hague Tribunal after what he has said,’ Rose Gentle of Military families Against the War, whose son was killed in Iraq, told News Line yesterday. She alleges: ‘All we were told was a lot of lies, he lied to parliament as well. ‘He even...
ATHENS – For the fifth consecutive day last Thursday, the Athens city centre remained closed to traffic as riot police sealed it off to contain workers’ and school and university students’ marches and rallies. Despite a court’s decision early this week declaring their strike illegal short-contract workers of the...