Monthly Archives: October 2012
ON 27th October the Minister of Education and South African Communist Party General Secretary, Blade Nzimande, along with Cosatu and National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) leaders Frans Baleni, Sidumo Dlamini and Zwelinzima Vavi led 1,000 Cosatu members to a Rustenburg stadium rally to begin the ‘Reclaim Lonmin’ campaign. Supporting...
PROPOSALS for mass sackings and closures of local A&E and Maternity units were revealed at a south London press conference on Monday. The government-appointed Trust Special Administrator Matthew Kershaw for South East London Healthcare NHS Trust (SLHT) announced that his ‘draft recommendations on resolving fundamental financial problems’ at SLHT had...
IN A devastating report published yesterday on the NHS crisis, the Public Accounts Committee of MPs revealed that 34 NHS trusts are broke. The report – ‘Department of Health: Securing the future financial sustainability of the NHS’ – reveals that the NHS put to one side a £2bn surplus, while...
PROPOSALS for mass sackings and closures of local A&E and Maternity units were yesterday revealed at a press conference called by the government-appointed administrator for South East London Healthcare NHS Trust (SLHT). Trust Special Administrator Matthew Kershaw announced that his ‘draft recommendations on resolving fundamental financial problems’ at SLHT had...
More than 200 workers and youth got massive support from residents and shoppers as they marched through east London on Sunday, to a rally at Queen Mary University to celebrate the 43rd Anniversary of the daily News Line and to mark the 72nd anniversary of the assassination of Leon...
TORY attempts to convince the working class, the middle class and the poor that the ‘recovery’ has begun and things are looking better, are having the opposite effect to that which the spin doctors and soothsayers who serve the Tory leadership intend. In fact, the harsh truths of daily life,...
A POWERFUL car bomb exploded in Damascus on Friday, on the first day of the Syrian cease-fire, killing five people and injuring 32. Thus was spelt out the truth about the Syrian war. This is that the imperialist powers and their allies Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia who are arming...
‘WE want justice now!’ shouted over six hundred taking part in the United Friends and Families annual procession from Trafalgar Square to Downing Street on Saturday. As they reached Downing Street, marchers chanted ‘Who killed our loved ones – the police! ‘Who killed our loved ones – the state! ‘Who are the...
UP TO 200 WRP and YS members and supporters marched through East London yesterday on the 43rd anniversary of the News Line daily newspaper and the 72nd anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky. Among the slogans they shouted were: ‘No cuts no closures – Kick the coalition out! TUC...
THE Guardian newspaper reported yesterday that, ‘Britain has rebuffed US pleas to use military bases in the UK to support the build-up of forces in the Gulf, citing secret legal advice which states that any pre-emptive strike on Iran could be in breach of international law.’ The US wanted permission...
HEALTH trade union members in Bristol will be protesting outside the Bristol Royal Infirmary on Tuesday, 30 October against plans by the South West Pay, Terms and Conditions Consortium to cut pay. Several hundred health workers will be demonstrating from 7.00am-9.30am on Tuesday. Union members are appalled by the actions of...
AIN Sokhna Port workers and DP World have reached an agreement to resume work in the Egyptian port, which has been shut down for 14 days. Speaking on Thursday, workers’ representatives said a compromise had been reached with management and the port will reopen. ‘The workers will be subjected to an...
AN influential group of MPs have finally admitted publicly what everyone already knows – that the invasion of Afghanistan by NATO troops, led by the US and British governments, has been an unmitigated disaster and a huge defeat for the imperialist powers. The MPs in the International Development Committee have...
OVER a hundred Libyans living in Britain demonstrated outside Downing Street on Wednesday demanding that the bloody assault on Bani Walid be stopped. One of their leaflets appealed to ‘human conscience’ saying: ‘The people of Bani Walid are calling you “save us”. ‘Bani Walid is continuously under ferocious attack by criminal...
PCS civil servants union general secretary Mark Serwotka yesterday slammed Work and Pensions secretary Duncan Smith’s speech attacking youth, families and the unemployed. Serwotka said: ‘No one chooses a life on benefits; there are 4.5 million people out of work or looking for a permanent or full-time job, but only...
THE Unite union yesterday vowed to fight the closures of Ford plants in Southampton and Dagenham. The notice of mass sackings came as prime minister Cameron was trying to claim the UK recession is over. Ford announced the end of production of the renowned Transit van at its plant in...
FORD is planning to close its plant in Southampton which makes the Transit van and employs 500 workers. A meeting between Ford’s management and unions is scheduled for today, when the company are reportedly ready to announce the closure. The company issued a statement yesterday saying it was ‘premature to discuss’...
THE US motorcar giants GM and Ford were rescued from bankruptcy by President Obama who ‘nationalised’ them, so that the US taxpayer could get them back on their feet through billions of dollars of financial support, supplemented by a programme of plant closures and wage and benefit cuts...
THE UN-Arab League Special Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi said yesterday that the Syrian government had agreed to call a truce on the Eid al-Adha holidays. ‘After the visit I made to Damascus, there is agreement from the Syrian government for a ceasefire during the Eid,’ Brahimi told reporters...
‘TIME to care for those who care’ or face the prospect of massive industrial unrest is the message behind UNISON’s evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body (NHS PRB) submitted on Monday 22 October. Nurses, midwives, cooks, cleaners, paramedics and health care assistants are among the 450,000 NHS...
PALESTINIAN voters in the West Bank have delivered a blow to the Fatah movement in local elections which saw Fatah winning two-fifths of the seats contested, while Hamas did not stand. Lists led by Fatah rebels won control of four of the 11 major towns. In a fifth, independents...
‘DISABLED people and their families are struggling to make ends meet and feel increasingly nervous about the future’, warned Disability UK on Monday. ‘Crucial decisions to come on the support disabled people receive can put this right. We call on the Government to act urgently to arrest disabled people’s slide...
GPs are angry that the government intends to impose changes to their contracts. There are huge implications in the Department of Health’s proposed imposed changes, the BMA doctors’ union warned yesterday. Dr Laurence Buckman, Chair of the BMA’s GP committee, said: ‘The implications of the government’s new proposals for general practice...
ISRAELI naval forces used stun guns when they boarded a Finnish ship which was attempting to break the sea blockade of Gaza on Saturday, the Israeli press has reported. They intercepted the ship after all attempts to prevent its entry to Gaza were exhausted, and brought it to the...
The call by the general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, Chris Kitchen, for the investigation into the police cover-up over the Hillsborough disaster to be widened to include police actions during the miners’ strike in 1984 throws the spotlight on the role of the state and the...
CHRIS KITCHEN, leader of the NUM, demanded an inquiry yesterday into South Yorkshire Police over their manipulation of evidence against miners charged following the ‘Battle of Orgreave’ during the miners’ strike of 1984-85. Speaking ahead of last night’s BBC Inside Out programme, Kitchen told News Line: ‘There is clear...
STATEMENT of the Ergatiki Antistasi (Workers Resistance), newspaper of the Revolutionary Marxist League (RML), Greek Section of the International Committee of the Fourth International. FOR AN INDEFINITE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE, FOR THE OVERTHROW OF GOVERNMENT, AUSTERITY ACCORDS, TROIKA AND CAPITALISM! From Ireland and Britain to Lithuania, and from Portugal and Spain...
SATURDAY’S mass marches in London, Glasgow and Belfast were marches to bring down the coalition, regardless of the intentions of their TUC organisers who favour saving capitalism with less harsh cuts than those carried out by the Tory-led coalition. Marchers made it very clear that they wanted a general strike...
500,000 angry workers, trade unionists and youth marched in London, Glasgow and Belfast against the Tory-LibDem Coalition government and its cuts and privatisation programme on Saturday. There were hundreds of thousands on the London demonstration, with flags banners and massive baloons, including one from the NUT saying ‘Education Cuts Never...
CAPITALISM is a worldwide system dominating the whole planet, in which there is no national solution to the problems brought about by the latest and deepest ever world crisis of the capitalist system. It is a world crisis that requires a world revolution to put an end to capitalism. This...
CHANTING ‘It’s their crisis – the solution is uprising!’; ‘Down with the government and the troika of the EC-IMF-ECB. The time has come for their overthrow!’; and ‘Permanent strike!’ over 120,000 workers, youth and students, professionals and shop-keepers demonstrated in Athens last Thursday afternoon as part of a...
UP TO half a million (450,000) disabled people and their families – including children and disabled adults living on their own – will be worse off under Universal Credit. This is the finding of an inquiry led by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and supported by The Children’s Society, Citizens Advice...
STRIKE leaders at Gold Fields KDC West operations in Carletonville, Northwest province, South Africa, said yesterday that their industrial action will not end until their wage demands are met. They also said miners are ready to march to the Union Buildings, in Pretoria, next month. At least 8,500 workers at the...
AT the same moment as France and Germany were being given a Nobel prize for keeping the peace in Europe, ie not going to war with each other for the last 60 years, the two countries were in fact squaring up to each other over the future of the...
THE COALITION government has intervened to veto a decision by a three-judge tribunal, that 27 letters by the Prince of Wales advocating his policies to ministers of the last Labour government should be made public. The judges found that his subjects had the right to know how...
PRESS TV has launched a Facebook petition to save the news channel across Europe after European satellite provider Eutelsat SA stopped the broadcast of several Iranian satellite channels on the order of the European Commission. In a blatant violation of freedom of speech, the company ordered media services company, Arqiva,...
HALF a million disabled people and their families are set to lose thousands of pounds a year under the government’s proposed Universal Credit, a report says. The Children’s Society, Citizens Advice and Disability Rights UK say 100,000 households with children could have incomes reduced by between £28 and £58 a...
EVIDENCE collected by Human Rights Watch indicts Misrata-based militias for the execution of dozens of detainees following the capture and murder of Muammar Gadaffi one year ago. The 50-page report details the final hours of Muammar Gadaffi’s life and the circumstances under which he was killed. Hours before his death,...
THERE are currently 270 food banks across the UK where poverty-stricken workers and youth are directed to get subsistence amounts of food. As the capitalist crisis deepens, the number of food banks increases, and continues to do so. A record number of people have received emergency food from the UK food...
THE ITUC global union federation has urged the IMF not to let the EC-ECB-IMF troika dictate destructive austerity policies. Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the ITUC stated on Monday: ‘The annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank confirmed what the ITUC and trade unions around the world have been...
THE NUMBER of people seeking emergency food aid in the UK has doubled in the past six months, the largest organiser of food banks reported yesterday. The Trussell Trust, which operates 172 food banks and has a further 91 under development, said 110,000 adults and children were referred to...
THE revolutionary strikes that have been shaking the South African mine owners were a highly organised affair to promote the cause of nationalisation of the country’s mines and overthrow the current leadership structures, the general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Frans Baleni, said on Friday condemning...
A REPORT issued yesterday by the civil rights group Amnesty describes the proposed Justice and Security Bill as being straight out of a Franz Kafka novel – and with very good reason. This Bill, being pushed through and due to come before the Lords in a couple of weeks, extends...