Monthly Archives: November 2011
THE news that the coalition government is preparing to deploy ground-to-air missiles at next year’s London Olympic games has been greeted with amused bafflement in the bourgeois media. The claim that these missiles are there to deter would-be terrorists from crashing planes into the Olympic stadium is not to be taken...
Last Wednesday November 9th, 21 protesters left Zuccotti Park, the centre of the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York and set off down the highway. Several of the marchers wore uniforms of the American Revolution. The march hopes to arrive in Washington DC on November 23, the day Congress will...
Home Secretary Theresa May came under renewed pressure to resign yesterday, after former head of the UK Border Force Brodie Clark rebutted her claim that he had relaxed immigration controls beyond what she had agreed to in a trial. Following May’s accusations earlier this month, Clark resigned, saying his position...
Strike day leaflets and posters will be landing in Unison branch offices during this week, Unison has announced. The materials being posted directly to branches are: • Strike to defend your pension leaflet (stock number 3077); • Take action to defend your pension generic poster (stock number 3078); • Why we’re on strike...
all members of the House of Commons Culture Committee were tailed by journalists or private investigators employed by the News of the World, it was alleged yesterday. On the opening day of the Leveson Inquiry into the ‘culture, practices and ethics of the press’ it emerged that all members of...
THE bourgeois media is currently working overtime publicising the ‘bad news’ about the British capitalist economy. Everybody now knows that youth unemployment (the 16-24 age group) is expected to reach one million when the figures are published tomorrow. It is now also common knowledge that the Bank of England will cut...
Circle Health, the privateer which was handed control of Hinchingbrooke District General Hospital in Cambridgeshire last week, has admitted that patient care could suffer as a result of its policies. In its ‘share prospectus’, which was published in June, the privateer admitted that its ambition to further expand into the...
The Tory cabinet office minister, Francis Maude, made a fantastical offer to the TUC and leaders of the public sector unions last Friday when he announced in the bourgeois press that he would sanction a 15-minute token strike on November 30 with no loss of pay. November 30 is the...
COSATU has announced it is to strike on 1st December 2011 for better train service in Western Cape. In a statement the Confederation of South African Trade Unions said: ‘COSATU has continued its negotiations with Metrorail on the level of the train services in the Western Cape, under the auspices...
‘We are the 99 per cent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent,’ says an Occupy Wall Street website inviting people to tell their stories. It adds: ‘We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. ‘We are...
Enfield Council has condemned health secretary Andrew Lansley’s authorisation of the closure of Chase Farm Hospital A&E, Maternity and Paediatrics departments. It has also declared its willingness to seek a judicial review, if Lansley does not withdraw the authorisation Enfield Council Leader, Cllr Doug Taylor, said: ‘I believe Andrew Lansley’s decision...
THE unelected and EU-imposed Greek ‘interim’ PM, Papademos, a former vice-president of the European Central Bank who played a major part in getting Greece into the single currency and who is not even an MP, was sworn in yesterday as the Greek Prime Minister along with the personnel of...
Public sector union Unison yesterday warned that Circle Healthcare’s takeover of Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgshire could lead to a second Southern Cross crisis. Unison head of health Christina McAnea said: ‘Circle made losses of over £27m last year and recently floated on the stock market. They look less and less...
THE European Union is being broken on the rocks of the deepening crisis of the world capitalist order. The leaders of France and Germany are desperately planning an eviction from the eurozone of Greece and other states that cannot resolve their debt crises, and moving to a political union of...
Over 10,000 students and a number of trade unionists took part in a protest through central London yesterday against £9,000 fees, education cuts and privatisation. Many were angered by the huge police presence and the threat of baton rounds (rubber bullets) being used, against the march organised by the National...
Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) made the following address to the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, District Six Museum, Cape Town, November 6th, 2011. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine is an international people’s tribunal created in response to the international community’s...
THE PCS civil servants trade union yesterday rightly condemned the coalition government’s plans to force the long-term unemployed, and unemployed youth, to do manual work, which will, in fact, be slave labour with no wages paid, or else lose their benefits and be forced to live...
Over 10,000 students and a number of trade unionists marched through central London yesterday against £9,000 fees, education cuts and privatisation. The protest was organised by the National Campaign Against Cuts and Fees.’ Many were angered by the huge police presence and the threat of baton rounds (rubber bullets) being used....
in a notice to members, the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) explains why the government’s pensions offer is bad news for all members. The union says: ‘In this PCS guide to separating the fact from the fiction in the government’s pensions offer on 2 November 2011, we test direct...
‘We are determined to proceed with our march today and defeat the government’, said the National Campaign Against Cuts and Fees (NCACF). The Committee added: ‘Far from viewing last year’s student revolt as a failure, we are determined to block the cuts and privatisation agenda before it becomes a...
THAT the times are really changing was rammed home once again yesterday. People are angrily reacting to the news that 4,000 highly trained police officers are to be used today to confront an estimated 10,000 students as they march to the city demanding their rights. The Metropolitan Police will have permission...
Public sector union Unison yesterday hit back at Treasury Secretary, Danny Alexander’s, call for strike-breakers for the November 30th national pensions strike. Unison gave an angry response to his plan to write to 2.5 million union members calling on them to strike-break on November 30 and his claim that only...
The Israeli army and intelligence agencies’ websites were offline on Sunday, two days after hacker group Anonymous warned it would ‘strike back’ in retaliation for Israel’s capture of Gaza-bound ships on Friday. Anonymous, a network of online activists who have attacked government and financial websites around the world, released a...
Just one week after a demonstration in London by the United Families and Friends Campaign against deaths in police custody has come the shocking revelation that the body of one of the most high profile victims of these deaths has been discovered in a mortuary ten years after his...
MERKEL, Sarkozy and Cameron are all united on one central issue, the Greek workers must not have the slightest ‘democratic’ say over the draconian austerity programme that the EU and the IMF are imposing on Greece. This programme is to rescue the international bankers and bosses, and to maintain the...
An e-petition supporting, Babar Ahmad, a young computer worker from Tooting, held for seven years without charge as an alleged terrorism suspect, has reached the level required for a parliamentary debate. His supporters said on Friday: ‘The Free Babar Ahmad Campaign is pleased to announce that over 100,000 people have...
THE Greek government of Prime Minister Yiorghos Papandreou won the confidence vote in the Vouli (Greek parliament) with a margin of just three last Friday midnight. However, the condition is that he forms a new coalition government, not necessarily with him at the helm. This outcome was demanded by the Finance...
Treasury Secretary, Liberal Democrat Danny Alexander yesterday appealed for workers to scab on the November 30 public sector pensions strike. He told the Andrew Marr show: ‘I don’t want these strikes to go ahead.’ He claimed: ‘I think that the government’s been negotiating hard for the last eight months with the...
Campaigners have expressed concern that a new admissions code requires state schools in England to prioritise children from Armed Forces families, as well as children of schools staff. Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘Everyone has a right to fair admissions but once you start putting...
THE Greek government of Prime Minister Yiorghos Papandreou was set to be defeated in a confidence vote in the Vouli (Greek parliament) on Friday midnight. The government’s parliamentary majority of four has drained away in the last two days. Thousands of Greek workers and youth were demonstrating outside the Vouli...
ON the very day that the public sector union Unison announced a massive vote in favour of strike action to defend pensions, the leadership of the unions signalled their willingness to sell the struggle out and cave in to the coalition government’s determination to drive their members’ pensions below...
The University and College Union (UCU) published a report yesterday warning that one in four university staff say they have been bullied at work and that more and more staff (now 81%) are finding their job stressful. The statement said: ‘A survey of UCU members working at UK universities revealed...
IN A situation where their NTC proteges are not even sitting securely in the saddle in Libya, the UK and the US ruling classes are actively preparing for their next military foray against Syria and Iran. The coalition government’s cuts agenda, and the UK financial crisis, is obviously not being...
Riot police fired tear gas at young protesters in Oakland, California, on Wednesday night after the port city was shut down in protest against ‘corporate greed’. The youth defended themselves by lighting a fire and throwing stones and bottles. Trade unionists joined students and youth from the Occupy Oakland movement on...
PREMIER Papandreou told the Greek parliament yesterday that he was now adopting a ‘national position’ and was discussing with the right-wing New Democratic Party which was now prepared ‘to vote for the new loan agreement’. He described his referendum proposal as ‘a beneficial shock’ but added...
THE fact that Papandreou has had to sack the Greek Military General Staff at the same time as he has angered Sarkozy and Merkel with his announcement of a referendum on the EU’s austerity programme for the Greek workers and poor is no surprise. Papandreou has tried might and main...
Medical students from low-income backgrounds are graduating over £13,000 more in debt than their better off peers, says a new report from the BMA. The results from the survey also indicate that the number of students from the lowest income brackets in medical school has declined in the past 12...
THE Papandreou government sacked Greece’s military chiefs en masse late on Tuesday night, following a shock announcement of a referendum on the EU austerity package which sent financial markets into meltdown. Papandreou faces a confidence vote in parliament tomorrow and his move against the heads of the army, navy and...
the TUC declared yesterday that there has been no ‘real progress’ in pensions talks with the government and the ‘unions remain firmly committed to continuing their preparations for the planned day of action on November 30.’ The Tory-LibDem Coalition government’s pensions onslaught involves a huge increase in contributions, as...
SEVENTY-ONE former Southern Cross Care Homes in the UK were being transferred to new operator Four Seasons on Monday (31 October 2011). These are the final wave of the total of 139 Southern Cross care homes transferring to Four Seasons Healthcare across the UK by 31st October 2011, said the...
TWO students began a high court battle against the government yesterday challenging the rise in tuition fees as unlawful as it breaches the equality act. Sam Jacobs from Public Interest Lawyers, who are representing the students, said: ‘We are challenging the government over the equality act. ‘They are in breach of...
A REFERENDUM has been called by the Pasok Prime Minister, Papandreou, on the austerity programme that the EU bosses and bankers have been seeking to force onto the Greek working class, youth and peasantry. Papandreou, on Monday, told a meeting of his governing Socialist Party that the Greek people would...
FOLLOWING Greek Prime Minister Yiorghos Papandreou’s calling of a referendum on the EU austerity programme, angry workers have called for his immediate resignation and for an immediate general election. Nikos Panousis, a civil servants trade union leader at the Interior Ministry, said: ‘we want the government out now, we...
A fighter from the armed wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine was killed on Sunday, and another critically injured, as Israel launched an air strike on the Gaza Strip hours after a ceasefire truce was agreed upon by Gaza militants. Medical spokesman in the Gaza Strip,...