Monthly Archives: February 2012
Although vicious austerity measures were voted for by a 199–74 majority in the Vouli (parliament) on Sunday night, the Greek ‘bailout’ is still not a done deal. The furious reaction of hundreds of thousands of Greek workers and youth alarmed the bankers who, since the vote, have made it...
BRITAIN’S credit-worthiness has a ‘negative outlook’ Moody’s ratings agency declared late on Monday night, shortly after the markets closed in the US. In the first move by the ratings agency against sterling, Moody’s warned that it considers there’s a 30 per cent chance of the UK losing its AAA rating. Moody’s...
‘Israel is implementing a strategy of Judaisation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,’ Professor Raquel Rolnik, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, has concluded. She was speaking in Jerusalem on Sunday afternoon at the end of a two week visit to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Professor Rolnik...
The findings of a survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development confirm what every worker and young person in the country already knows, that unemployment is set to rise even higher in the immediate future as private sector employers prepare to ‘push the redundancy button’. This survey of...
Policy Matters Ohio has released a report showing the impact of the $1.8 billion cuts to local education budgets across Ohio, reports the Ohio Association of Public School Employees. It quotes from the group’s press release: ‘Most districts are cutting courses, reducing staff or raising student fees ‘The state budget reduced...
Hundreds of thousands of workers, youth and self-employed people staged a colossal rally last Sunday night in Athens outside the Vouli (Greek parliament) against the EC-IMF bailout imposed on Greece. Workers demanded the overthrow of the coalition government of banker Lucas Papademos. The rally was called by the GSEE (Greek...
FIVE journalists at the Sun newspaper have been arrested by detectives investigating allegations of corrupt payments to the police and other ‘public servants’. A Surrey Police officer, a member of the armed forces and a Ministry of Defence employee were also arrested. The arrests come after News Corporation, the American parent...
A You Gov poll commissioned by Unison reveals that the majority (62 per cent) of the public do not trust the government to handle the NHS. A Unison statement said: ‘There has been consistent public opposition to GPs using private companies to provide NHS services. A You Gov poll by...
TENS of thousands of workers and youth participated in the mass rallies and marches throughout Greece last Friday and Saturday as part of the two-day general strike called by the GSEE (Greek TUC) and the ADEDY (public sectors unions). In Athens over 40,000 workers on Friday and some 20,000...
The Fire Brigades Union says the government’s pension proposals are ‘unacceptable’ and are consulting fire crews with a recommendation there is a rapid move to prepare a strike ballot. The union says it is committed to further dialogue and called on the government to address the issues raised and evidence...
ATHENS – Greek workers and youth are on the road to an uprising! Mass rallies and demonstrations are taking place throughout Greece as part of the Friday and Saturday two-day general strike called by the GSEE (Greek TUC) and ADEDY (public sector trades unions federation) against the barbaric austerity measures...
MASSES of workers and youth clashed with the state forces in the Greek capital Athens yesterday, on the first day of a 48-hour general strike by all of the main trade unions. The masses are furious that after the EU-appointed Greek government leaders (Quislings) accepted the massive austerity programme to...
Mark Grossman, Washington’s chief envoy to Afghanistan, met Taliban leaders in Qatar as part of US efforts to bring the insurgents to the negotiating table, a senior Afghan official said on Wednesday. The talks between the Taliban and Marc Grossman came in late January, after he met Afghan President Hamid...
The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee yesterday voted to increase its Quantitative Easing (printing money) programme by £50bn to a total of £325bn, and to maintain the Bank Rate at 0.5 per cent. In a statement the Bank warned: ‘In the United Kingdom, the underlying pace of recovery slowed...
PLANNING for military intervention by the imperialist powers into Syria, to overthrow the regime of president Assad, was stepped up this week with growing demands in Washington for a ‘coalition of the willing’ to be formed to actively arm and give military support to the counter-revolutionary Free Syrian Army. The...
The GSEE (Greek TUC) and ADEDY (public sector unions) yesterday called a 48-hour strike for today and Saturday in protest at a savage government austerity programme drafted earlier in the day. In a statement, the two union federations said they would also stage three days of protest rallies around the...
the Centre for Trade Union and Workers’ Services (CTUWS) issued the following rallying call ahead of Egypt’s General Strike called for tomorrow, Saturday 11th February: ‘One year has passed after the revolution and the blood of the Egyptians is still running in the streets . . . ‘One year has passed...
There is an underground bunker in the South Hebron Hills, camouflaged by bracken and heavy sacks, where a tiny Palestinian village is sheltering a secret. Building quietly at night and securing backing from foreign governments, experts are working to share this secret with communities across the area. The illicit activity? Renewable...
LONDON’S doctors are to march through London to the TUC’s ‘Save Our NHS Rally’ at Central Halls Westminster on Wednesday March 7th. The London Regional Assembly of the BMA meeting on Tuesday night, with 120 members present, expressed its support for the TUC’s All Together for the NHS Campaign, which...
ARGENTINA is to raise the UK militarisation of the Malvinas Islands (Falklands) at the United Nations. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner made the announcement at a meeting of MPs, senior officials, and veterans of the 1982 war, on the approach of its 30th anniversary, on...
porters, theatre technicians, catering, cleaning and other NHS support workers, employed by private contractor Carillion at Great Western Hospital in Swindon, have voted by 97.3% for strike action. The 150 GMB members are staging a rally outside the hospital at lunchtime today and union officials are to meet with Shop...
RUSSIAN Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is in Syria for talks with President Bashar al-Assad. He was cheered by tens of thousands of pro-Assad crowds who lined the streets as he arrived in Damascus. The visit comes after Russia and China vetoed a Western-backed UN resolution designed to repeat...
Disabled People will be protesting outside the DWP offices, Caxton House, 6-12 Tothill Street, London SW1 from 2.00pm next Monday, February 13. Disabled People Against the Cuts (DPAC) said on Monday: ‘The government’s ill-thought through plans to scrap the Independent Living Fund (ILF) from 2015 will not only wreck disabled...
‘the BILL remains fundamentally flawed and should be withdrawn,’ the BMA doctors’ union said yesterday. ‘Amendments amounting to little more than minor tweaking have not done enough to address the underlying problems with the Health and Social Care Bill,’ the BMA stated, ahead of its return to the House of...
There was no cheer for the British bourgeoisie on Monday when three separate reports from the Institute of Chartered accountants and the accountancy group Ernst and Young, revealed that the economy is entering what is termed a ‘double-dip’ recession. According to bourgeois economists, an ordinary recession is when the economy...
PROTESTERS rallied across the West Bank on Saturday, criticizing government policies that have lead to a rise in living costs. In Hebron, hundreds marched from the Hebron municipality headquarters to the ministry of economy building, at a rally organized by leftist groups. Demonstrations were also held in Bethlehem, Nablus and...
‘We are preparing for a huge battle,’ said the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) at the weekend. In an extensive statement, SAMWU said: ‘Our struggle for a living wage continues as we prepare for another round of wage negotiations. ‘We had to call off our strike last year as we...
US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta believes there is a ‘strong likelihood’ that Israel will strike Iran’s nuclear installations this spring, the Washington Post said in an editorial on Thursday. When asked about the opinion piece by reporters travelling with him to a NATO meeting in Brussels, Panetta said he would...
YESTERDAY, the Labour Party leader Miliband wrote in the Observer that ‘Everyone who loves the NHS must fight to defeat this health bill. This misguided bid to impose a free-for-all market on our health service must be stopped.’ What has happened is that Miliband has been hugely embarrassed and isolated...
THE PASSAGE of a ‘Right to Work’ bill, which promotes cheap labour and denies basic representation to workers in the state of Indiana, has been met with anger by the unions involved. After a protracted battle, Indiana on Wednesday elected to make union dues optional for workers in union jobs....
The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), the UK’s largest medical Royal College, yesterday wrote to Prime Minister Cameron calling for the complete withdrawal of the Health and Social Care Bill. The College announced its decision in the wake of the amendments to the Bill laid down in the House...
LABOUR leader Miliband has once again revealed the absolute bankruptcy of reformism. In a speech made yesterday he denied that there were laws governing the capitalist crisis, and put the greatest-ever crisis of the capitalist system down to bad behaviour, urging that the crisis could be resolved by ‘responsible...
DOZENS of people threw shoes and stones at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s convoy as it entered the Gaza Strip on Thursday. Many of those were family members of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons. They also hit the vehicles with signs bearing slogans accusing Ban of refusing to meet...
An Islamabad-based human rights charity called on Wednesday on Pakistan’s Government to demand the adoption of a UN resolution requiring that the USA stops carrying out drone strikes in its country. In a letter to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari, the Foundation for Fundamental Rights...
Disability Rights UK, representing over 500 organisations across the country, and the Child Poverty Action Group, yesterday condemned MPs for overturning House of Lords amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill. The government won seven key votes by majorities of around 80 votes in the House of Commons on Wednesday, reinstating...
‘It is essential that the Health Bill is scrapped. Unison is completely opposed to the Health Bill. We are right behind the doctors who wrote that letter.’ A Unison spokeswoman was responding to a powerful letter denouncing the Health Bill, ‘Fragmenting the NHS’, written by 365 doctors, which appeared in...
A report from the director of US national intelligence, James Clapper, issued last Tuesday signalled that imperialism’s war preparations against Iran have reached the point of open war. In his annual ‘worldwide threat assessment’ Clapper warned that Iran was preparing to launch attacks against America and American interests, citing an...
A state of permanent revolution has gripped Egypt as two million workers have joined Egypt’s Federation of Independent Trade Unions in the last year. Egyptian workers are demanding decent jobs, pay and conditions, none of which can be provided by the army or the Muslim Brotherhood. Ben Moxham, the policy officer...
PARENTS of two young girls killed on an Essex level crossing in 2005 accused Network Rail of a cover-up yesterday, after the rail privateer admitted three health and safety breaches. Olivia Bazlinton, 14, and Charlotte Thompson, 13, were hit by a train at Elsenham station footpath crossing on December 3rd...
FOUR hundred Occupy Oakland protesters were arrested following clashes with police in the Northern California city last Sunday. Across the US and Europe occupy protesters responded by taking to the streets in defence of the Oakland occupiers. The mass arrests in Oakland, described by police as the largest in city history,...
MONDAY’S’ summit meeting of the European Union leaders took place under siege conditions in Brussels as the city was paralysed by a general strike that halted all road, rail and air transport. The strike, called against massive government cuts of 11.3 billion euros, acted as a grim warning to the...