Monthly Archives: February 2011
At a press conference last Friday the Greek Finance Minister Yiorghos Papakonstantinou announced the main points of the revised IMF-EC Accord that calls for immediate extensive privatisations, education, health and welfare cuts, wage and pensions reductions, spread of ‘flexible’ working conditions and mass sackings. At the centre of Papakonstantinou’s programme...
DESPITE all of the hurrahs coming from the manic bourgeois media, the imperialist powers have a very big problem with Libya, and the Libyan revolution, through which the Libyan people took control over their country from UK and US imperialism in 1969. The problem is that Colonel Gadaffi is still...
Campaigners against cuts at the southwest London hospital have warned that St George’s Hospital, Tooting, could be taken over by a private company as it faces making ‘savings’ of £55m this year as a result of the government’s £20bn NHS cuts programme. Public sector union Unison has warned that...
The UN Security Council has voted unanimously to impose sanctions on Colonel Gadaffi and the Libyan authorities. Security Council members on Saturday night voted for an arms embargo and asset freeze while referring Gadaffi to the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity, despite strong initial oppostion to this...
Fresh Israeli strikes bombed several sites in the Gaza Strip early Thursday, leaving at least 16 people injured – two in a critical condition, witnesses and Palestinian security officials said. Separately, two other Palestinians were wounded by Israeli gunfire in Beit Lahiya. And in yet another attack, Israeli drones targeted the...
THE Chief Executive of the NHS, Sir David Nicholson, had a stark message for hospitals when he told the BBC yesterday that they would either ‘change or die’ in the immediate period ahead. Nicholson, who takes over as the man responsible for overseeing the Tory coalition plans to transfer 80%...
TENS of thousands of Iraqis marched on government buildings and clashed with security forces in cities across Iraq yesterday, in the largest and most violent anti-government protests since the revolutionary wave began in north Africa. In two northern Iraqi cities, security forces trying to push back crowds opened fire,...
NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson yesterday warned that many hospitals will face closure in the ‘new world’ of funding cuts and privatisation. Nicholson told the BBC: ‘Most hospitals will be able to survive and thrive in the new world. But undoubtedly there will be those that will find it...
WORKERS in Greece staged the biggest march of recent years in Athens on Wednesday, against the government of Prime Minister Yiorghos Papandreou which carries out the class war policies of the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission. But as the truly colossal march reached Syntagma square in front...
LOSSES AT the state owned Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) were twice as bad as expected, at £1.13bn and much bigger than the £950 million in bonuses that it had paid out to its investment banking arm, Global Banking and Markets (GBM). The state supported bank remained in crisis...
IN AMERICA the 45,000-member Southern Central Federation of Labor, the local chapter of the AFL-CIO for the Madison and Southern Central Wisconsin area, has voted to make preparations for a general strike. The press release reads as follows: Around 10:50pm Wisconsin Time on February 21st the South Central Federation of...
Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has been overseeing ‘war games’ in preparation for a General Strike this summer. Following orders from the Cabinet Office a special unit has been war-gaming in great detail, in preparation for launching strike-breaking actions at prisons, schools, hospitals, railway stations, bus depots and...
WE print excerpts of Colonel Gadaffi’s speech to the Libyan people made last Tuesday evening to rally them against the internal counter-revolutionary forces and their UK and US backers. I SALUTE you oh courageous people, I salute you oh Al-Fateh youth, national youths, Al-Fatimiyah youths, the youths of challenge,...
FIRST of all Prime Minister Cameron wrote that the entire public sector, local government, the NHS and education were to be taken over by the private sector – an announcement calculated to anger every worker in the country. Now this has been followed up by a media briefing that...
FALSE ECONOMY, the anti-cuts campaign website revealed today that more than 50,000 NHS staff posts are set for the axe, destroying government claims that the NHS is in safe hands. Health secretary Andrew Lansley said in April 2010 of possible NHS job cuts under Labour: ‘They will cut the...
WHILE Cameron is in Kuwait seeking to sell more rubber bullets, poison gas and a variety of war machines to the British-trained Gulf monarchies, the Libyan leader, Colonel Gadaffi, remains in Tripoli, fighting for Libyan independence, and making a fool of the British Foreign Secretary Hague,who announced...
While hundreds of fishermen from Maathakal were staging a silent protest on Monday morning in front of the Indian consulate in Jaffna, Sri Lankan military intelligence brought a group of their men, numbering around 100, posing as fishermen, said TamilNet. The group marched from Naga Vihara Buddhist temple through Palaali...
National Union of Students President Aaron Porter has quit, driven out by the fury of his members after he accused them of violence during the mass student uprisings in November. Porter said yesterday he will not be seeking a second term as President in NUS elections being held in April,...
Trade unions yesterday reacted angrily to prime minister Cameron’s declaration of war on the public sector. Writing in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Cameron said the government will soon be introducing ‘our Open Public Services White Paper’. He said that ‘the grip of state control will be released’ adding: ‘We will create...
Tory prime minister, David Cameron, has finally come clean about the coalition plans for destroying the welfare state and the entire public sector. Yesterday, he announced that in two weeks the coalition would produce a white paper, entitled ‘Open Public Services’, which spells out for the first time the government’s...
HAMAS is ready to meet with Fatah central committee member Nabil Sha’th in Gaza to discuss Palestinian reconciliation, Hamas leader Atallah Abu As-Sabeh said last Friday. Abu As-Sabeh said that ‘We welcome Sha'th, let us continue reconciliation where we left off.’ He added that the central committee leaders were contradicting...
NOW is the time to build the WRP and the Young Socialists into the leadership of the working class and the student youth for the organisation of the British socialist revolution. There is no reformist way out of the capitalist crisis for either the working class, the middle...
TENS of thousands of flag-waving Egyptians massed into Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday to celebrate the fall of strongman Hosni Mubarak and to pressure the new military rulers to deliver on reform pledges. Crowds swelled to over a million after Friday prayers in Tahrir Square – the focal point of...
Dramatic events are unfolding in Athens as the 287 immigrant workers’ hunger strike completes four weeks today, Monday, 21 February. Four hunger strikers have been taken to hospital already. Last Friday, at a press conference Dr Thanasis Karambelis, part of the medical team which examined the hunger strikers, stated that they...
The PCS union and Citizens Advice yesterday slammed government plans to claw back £60m from hundreds of thousands of benefit claimants who are expected to face fines of at least £50 for ‘preventable’ errors in their claims. The government expects to levy civil penalties of between £50 and £300 in...
London doctors have made it clear they are opposed to the government’s plan to slash and privatise the NHS – and want action to defend it. This was confirmed by a motion carried, with just three against, at a 200-strong BMA London Regional Assembly meeting on Thursday evening, 17th February,...
THE Tory-led coalition lie, that the NHS is safe in their hands, has been exploded by the announcement that over 1,630 frontline jobs are to be axed at major London hospitals. The propaganda, repeated ad nauseam by Cameron and Clegg, that the NHS has been ringfenced from the cuts and...
‘This is a terrible day for patients in London, who have found out they stand to lose nearly 1,000 health workers,’ said public sector union Unison general secretary Dave Prentis on Thursday. He was commenting on the news that Kingston Hospital NHS Trust is set to cut 486 posts over...
A ‘UNIVERSAL Credit’ is to be introduced in 2013, to replace all existing benefits. Cameron’s Welfare Bill includes sanctions for those turning down jobs and a cap on benefits paid to a single family. The universal credit will see existing out-of-work and in-work entitlements, such as Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support...
PARENTS, charities and medical professionals have spoken out in opposition to the closure of four specialist children’s heart units, which were proposed on Wednesday. The ‘Safe and Sustainable’ review of children’s heart surgery recommended that over a third of units in England, including London, should stop operating. The report claimed patient...
‘Long-term unemployment has doubled, not because of a sudden increase in work-shy scroungers, but as an inevitable result of economic policies based on cuts that destroy growth,’ insisted TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber yesterday. Commenting on the just-published Welfare Reform Bill, Barber continued: ‘Just as conjurors divert your attention when...
IN his letter to Chancellor Osborne, the Bank of England governor Kings asks: ‘Why has inflation moved away from the target?’ His answer is: ‘three factors can account for the current high level of inflation: the rise in VAT relative to a year ago, the continuing consequences of the fall...
ABOUT 2,000 Greek public transport workers took part in a magnificent demonstration last Tuesday afternoon in Athens, against the government’s Transport Bill which slashes wages and pensions, imposes ‘flexible’ working conditions and will lead to the sacking of some 1,500 workers, opening the door to privatisation in the very...
PARENTS yesterday spoke out in opposition to the closure of four specialist children’s heart units. The ‘Safe and Sustainable’ review of children’s heart surgery recommended that over a third of units in England, including London, should stop operating. The report claimed patient safety and care would be improved if resources...
AROUND 500 workers and labour activists congregated outside the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) on Monday to demand the federation’s dissolution. Protesters gathered at 4.00pm and chanted slogans calling for the right to conduct peaceful labour strikes, the trial of ETUF leaders, and the right to establish independent unions. ‘The...
YESTERDAY’S inflation rate figures for January are not a shock, in fact, they are an understatement of what the real inflation rate is, as far as the cost of the basic necessities that working class families spend their hard-earned wages on, and the unemployed and the disabled their pittance...
At Iraq’s state-owned North Oil Company (NOC) on Saturday a demonstration of 300 day workers warned they would go on strike if their work conditions did not improve, threatening oil production – the lifeline of the country’s economy. ‘We are demonstrating peacefully for our rights, but if the management of...
‘WE’RE having a good picket today,’ said Bill Rogers, secretary of the North-East London Council of Action, outside Chase Farm Hospital yesterday. The Council of Action is leading the fight to stop the planned closure of the north London hospital’s Accident and Emergency, Maternity and Paediatrics departments. Rogers added: ‘We are...
FIGURES released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) yesterday reveal soaring inflation, with the government’s preferred CPI rate hitting 4 per cent in January and the RPI up to 5.1 per cent. This represents a huge 0.3 per cent increase in both indexes since December but still hides the...
THE chief PLO negotiator has presented his resignation to the Palestinian president and PLO leadership, officials in Ramallah announced Saturday. Saeb Erekat resigned because of his responsibility for a series of disclosures, PLO secretary-general Yasser Abed Rabbo said. Erekat, who has been at the centre of negotiations since 1991, said he...
TORY prime minister, David Cameron, launched a desperate attempt yesterday to try and convince an incredulous public that his ‘Big Society’ policy is something other than a front for the slash and burn cuts of the coalition. In a major speech Cameron asserted that the ‘Big Society’ is his mission...
PRIME Minister Cameron explained to an audience of ‘social entrepreneurs’ in London yesterday that the ‘Big Society’ means ‘opening up’ public services to being taken over by charities. Cameron said he wanted to make it easier for people to ‘volunteer’. He said: ‘I hope that local authorities will be able to...
Campaigners have slammed government plans to proceed with moving people off incapacity benefit and onto the dole. The government plans to move all incapacity benefit claimants onto the new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). The main changes which ESA has brought in compared to the previous system are: (a) A tighter...
MUBARAK has gone, while the revolution that removed him, at the cost of hundreds of dead, is continuing to develop. Workers and the middle class yesterday resisted the attempts of Mubarak’s military chiefs to empty Tahrir Square, to get workers back to work, and get the government that was...