Monthly Archives: August 2011
IT HAS not taken long for the hyenas of the giant oil companies to descend on Libya’s oil and gas resources intent on both carving up the country’s wealth while at the same time excluding their competitors. First off the block was the Italian oil company ENI, which on Monday...
LIBYAN Government forces are firing Russian-made rockets and howitzers on counter-revolutionary ‘rebels’ and their Western commanders and forcing them back. Meanwhile, NATO bombers are clearing the way for an assault on the city of Sirte. Despite claiming that its puppet ‘NTC’ is now in control of most of Libya, NATO ...
TEAMSTERS General President Jim Hoffa addressed the hundreds of Teamster women gathered in New York City on Saturday for the second day of the 2011 Teamsters Women’s Conference. As New York braced for the impact of Hurricane Irene, Hoffa called on Teamster women to stand up to another powerful force...
NATO has blatantly overstepped its UN resolution mandate in Libya by engaging in offensive military support to the Libyan rebels beyond the UN mandate, said a Ugandan commentary on Saturday. The commentary by Henry Zakumumpa, entitled ‘Oil clearly written all over NATO’s intervention in Libya’, published by The Daily Monitor...
THE capitalist economy of Europe took a decisive step over the brink into the abyss of collapse with the news that the euro debt crisis has entered a new phase. The plans for a European wide bail-out of the bankrupt state economies of Greece, Portugal and Ireland – along with...
A LABOUR MP said yesterday that British soldiers led the counter-revolutionary ‘rebel’ advance on Tripoli last week. In an interview with the Russia Today television station, Barry Gardiner, Labour MP for Brent North said that NATO has acted ‘effectively as the strike force for the rebel cause’. He said:...
Doctors in Tripoli said yesterday that they were ‘overwhelmed’ with casualties as the fighting in Libya continued to rage yesterday, with NATO continuing its bombing. ‘We have patients with gunshot wounds to the neck, the chest, the abdomen, in the upper and lower extremities,’ one English-speaking doctor said. The Libyan...
A march of 3,000 clothing workers organised by the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) brought the town of Newcastle to a halt last Friday. The workers, who were protesting against poverty wages and exploitation, handed memoranda to the Newcastle Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the...
Public sector union Unison and the TUC have called a candle-lit vigil outside parliament at 9.30pm on September 7th, as the Health and Social Care Bill goes through its Third Reading. They have also called upon activists to organise protests and vigils outside hospitals across the country. Unite the Union, London...
THE news that the Tory Home Secretary, Theresa May, has issued a blanket ban on all marches and rallies in five London boroughs represents a fundamental attack on the democratic rights of the working class. Ostensibly, the ban has been introduced because of the plans by the far-right English Defence...
The battle for Libya continued yesterday with government forces launching bold counter-attacks on the counter-revolutionary ‘rats’ in the wake of Thursday night's call to arms from Muammar Gadaffi. Government forces exchanged artillery fire with forces led by UK and French special forces during heavy fighting at Bin Jawad, 60 miles...
As forces loyal to the Libyan revolution and its leader Colonel Gadaffi continue to fight on against the NATO-led onslaught on Tripoli, the imperialist nations and their hangers-on have rushed forward to ‘recognise’ the rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC) as the ‘legitimate’ government of Libya. More than 40 governments around...
TRIPOLI – Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi on Thursday evening appealed to people in Tripoli to capture and kill the ‘rats, street by street, house by house’, in a short audio address aired on pro-Gadaffi Al-Urubah TV. He said: ‘The fight against the enemies, the rats. We will defeat them, God...
The news that yet another person has died after a confrontation with the police brings the total of deaths arising out of such incidents to a staggering three in eight days that have involved the use of Taser stun guns and pepper spray. The latest incident involved a 53-year-old HGV...
WELWYN and Hatfield Keep NHS Public campaign called a picket to stop the imminent closure of the A&E and the Maternity services at the QEII Hospital in Welwyn Garden City on Wednesday. Secretary of the Welwyn and Hatfield Keep NHS Public campaign, Barry Cross, said: ‘We need to get people...
Fierce fighting continued in the Libya capital yesterday as government forces remained in control of large areas of Tripoli, holding off SAS-led mercenaries and counter-revolutionaries from the airport and the centre and south of the city. Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim confirmed Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadaffi ‘is alive and well’...
LIBYAN government and civilian forces are dealing deadly blows to the NATO-backed counter-revolutionary ‘rebels’ and mercenaries holed up in Tripoli and other areas of the country. Following a call from Colonel Muammar Gadaffi ‘to clear the city of Tripoli and eliminate the criminals, traitors and rats’ yesterday morning, government...
CRISPIN Blunt, the justice minister, announced yesterday that instructions were being issued to the courts to the effect that unemployed offenders sentenced to the new community payback scheme would be forced to work for eight hours a day in ‘community service’ and on the fifth day they should be...
‘ACROSS the US, at town halls, fundraisers, and forums in over 150 congressional districts, jobless Americans are uniting with workers, students, and other citizens over the August recess to demand politicians create the good jobs we need to put America back to work’, says the Service Employees International Union...
ON MONDAY the bourgeois press proclaimed the rag-bag of mercenaries and brigands who make up the so-called ‘rebels’ had crushed the forces loyal to the Libyan revolution and its leader Colonel Gadaffi, had conquered the capital Tripoli and arrested two of his sons. This fiction lasted until Tuesday when it...
BRITISH soldiers are set to be sent to Libya it has emerged, with Downing Street repeatedly refusing to rule out deploying ground troops as ‘peacekeepers’. Although a spokesman for prime minister Cameron claimed yesterday that a deployment is ‘unlikely at this stage’, British military and intelligence officers have already...
THE Egyptian Cabinet has approved new legislation on trade union freedoms, consenting to pass the law within days. The new legislation would eliminate many of the constraints imposed on workers’ unions under Law No 35 (1976), which outlined the structural and electoral regulations of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF)...
THE policy of the Tory-led coalition to slash housing benefit for the unemployed and low income families will result in hundreds of thousands being forced out of council and social housing. This was the finding of an in-depth study carried out by Cambridge University into the effects of the government’s...
HEAVY fighting continues in many areas of Tripoli today, especially around the compound of Libyan leader Col Muammar Gadaffi, as soldiers and armed civilians deal blow after blow against the NATO-backed counter-revolutionary ‘rebels’. As NATO declared that its cowardly bombing raids over Libya will continue until all pro-Gadaffi forces...
LIBYAN government spokesman Dr Moussa Ibrahim told the world’s press yesterday: ‘We are here to sincerely, as always, appeal for an immediate ceasefire, an immediate halt to NATO’s aggression against our nation’. At a Tripoli press conference attended by international journalists he called for ‘all parties to sit down and...
ON Saturday, Colonel Gadaffi stated that the counter-revolutionary groups that had tried to rise up in a number of areas in Tripoli had been crushed, while Libyan state TV proved that the airport had not been occupied as the counter-revolutionary forces had claimed, despite the very heavy NATO air...
JAILED Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouthi has warned that a US veto of the Palestinian bid to join the UN would be tantamount to ‘terrorism’ and would wreck ties with Washington. In an interview conducted through several of his lawyers, Barghouthi, an influential leader with widespread support among the Palestinian public,...
Changes to public sector pensions could mean doctors paying over £200,000 more over the course of their careers for a worse deal on retirement, research commissioned by the BMA showed yesterday. The BMA commissioned actuaries to examine the potential impact of Department of Health proposals to increase the amount NHS...
‘We are prepared to occupy before any closures are implemented,’ said North East London Council of Action Secretary Bill Rogers yesterday. Commenting on news that the Independent Reconfiguration Panel is recommending that the A&E, Emergency Paediatric and consultant-led maternity departments at Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield, north London, are closed,...
THE Independent Reconfiguration Panel, set up to cut and close the NHS, has once again recommended to Health Secretary Lansley that the closure of Chase Farm’s 24-hour Accident and Emergency department, Emergency Paediatrics and its consultant-led 24-hour maternity departments goes ahead, and that it ceases being a District General...
ISRAEL has rejected a US request to apologise to Turkey over its 2010 commando raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that killed nine Turkish activists, Israeli media reported on Wednesday. Israel’s two main radio stations said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday...
The GMB trade union is holding a demonstration in Sheffield and a rally in Wakefield today, to defend 4,000 Remploy jobs. The GMB warned yesterday that 54 Remploy factories are under threat of closure if the government stops public funding in April 2013 ,and if these proposals go ahead...
AFTER record A-Level results, hundreds of thousands of students will be refused university places this year because of the coalition’s savage cuts policy. After being forced to compete for UCAS qualification points they will be condemned to join the growing army of the unemployed, which now includes almost one million...
TRADE unions slammed the government’s mass sackings and cuts to services as being directly responsible for the shocking unemployment figures released yesterday. These showed that unemployment has soared in the three months to June by 38,000 to a total of 2.49 million across the UK. The numbers on JobSeekers Allowance also...
CAMERON and the coalition are currently conducting a ruthless campaign against youth. This is ruling class justice at its most hideous, red in tooth and claw as it seeks to crush a threat to its bankrupt system. Zero tolerance is the battle cry. However it is a class policy and...
PATIENTS, staff and local residents joined the North-East London Council of Action monthly picket of Chase Farm Hospital yesterday, and agreed with the call to occupy the hospital to stop the closure. There was big support from cars and lorries, tooting their horns and waving from their vehicles as they...
EGYPTIAN labour activists are keenly anticipating a new law on labour syndicates, a draft of which has apparently been completed and which could be enacted within weeks. It is hoped the law will free workers’ syndicates from state control and so improve the working conditions of Egyptian labourers, which deteriorated...
RAIL commuters were protesting at Waterloo Station in London yesterday after they heard that ticket price rises of between 8% and 13% are to be imposed next year. This follows the release of the latest inflation figures, showing the CPI rate of inflation for July rising from 4.2%...
MPs have released a letter from journalist Clive Goodman, jailed for phone hacking, alleging senior News of the World figures knew what was going on. Former royal editor Goodman wrote the letter to News International as he appealed against his dismissal in 2007. The House of Commons Culture Select Committee, which...
HOME Secretary Theresa May yesterday announced plans for a National Crime Agency, training more riot police and area curfews. In a speech to an audience of journalists, police chiefs, and rank and file police representatives she said that ‘when faced with an unprecedented situation, the immediate police response was not...
By Alida Alisis BACK in March, almost a year after the government had promised to end what Nick Clegg called the ‘shameful practice’ of locking up asylum seeking families in conditions known to harm their mental health, Barnardo’s stunned children’s advocates by revealing that it had agreed to work with...
HARROW Unison local government branch has launched a campaign against Harrow Council’s plans to increase its charges for its Meals on Wheels service by over £2,000 a year. Unison said it ‘is outraged and appalled at the frightening changes being considered by Harrow Council to its Meals on Wheels (MoW)...
THE ‘master’, Cameron, and his well-trained ‘Labour servant’, Miliband, yesterday stood shoulder to shoulder once again, condemning the masses of youth who took to the streets during the recent youth uprising against bankrupt capitalism, and the life that it is offering them. The duo played the ‘hard cop-soft-cop’ game. Cameron...
THE Tory leadership publicly lambasted what it termed the police chiefs’ ‘wrong tactics’ for dealing with the youth uprising, during the special sitting of the House of Commons last Thursday. The police chiefs, instead of immediately flooding the areas with police stormtroopers, completely underestimated the situation, and were merely observing...
Prime minister Cameron’s ‘zero tolerance’ attack on youth comes as government cuts are decimating youth services. Unite the union announced at the weekend that youth workers employed by Oxfordshire county council will begin a series of one-day walkouts from Tuesday 23 August over job cuts and service closures. The union said:...