Monthly Archives: November 2012
LORD JUSTICE Leveson yesterday called for tougher press self-regulation backed by legislation. Announcing the publication of his report at a news conference which took no questions, Leveson said the press had ‘wreaked havoc in the lives of innocent people’ for many decades. He said the proposals in his report will protect...
AT the present time, the main events in the Ukrainian political life are concentrated in the Ukrainian capital Kiev. After the finishing of vote counting at the recent general elections the right-wing opposition had tried to use the ‘Moscow scenario’ of street mobilisations, which were mainly directed on achieving...
THE High Court has today heard, in the case of R (Serdar Mohammed) v Secretary of State for Defence, that British forces passed hundreds of prisoners to the Afghan Secret Service (the NDS – National Directorate of Security) despite clear evidence of torture. In the weight of the evidence...
Local AFL-CIO leaders and trade unionists from across the United States were in Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday to ask members of Congress to get rid of tax cuts for the top two per cent and say no to cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The lobby fly-in...
HOSPITAL doctors in Scotland have voted to take strike action against the government’s attacks on the Scottish NHS Pension Scheme. However, the BMA Council, met after the result was announced and claimed the majority was too low, and even that it would be illegal to call action based on the...
20,000 people took part in last Saturday’s march in Dublin organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions. The aim of the protest was to highlight the impact of the Government’s policies of austerity and cuts. The President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions joined in calls for a general...
THE Leveson report into media standards has been given to Prime Minister David Cameron ahead of its official publication today. The PM and deputy PM are set to meet to discuss the government response to recommendations on press regulation and are believed to have differences over the issue. Cameron told MPs...
Over 2,000 bus drivers from nine garages across north London will take 24-hour strike action from 3am today following Arriva North’s decision not to award workers a percentage pay increase this year despite massive profits. DB Group which owns Arriva PLC made £853.6 million in profit before tax in the...
YOUNG Socialist editor Paul Lepper yesterday slammed the figures produced by the government for its welfare to work programme. He said: ‘These figures expose the complete failure of the government to provide youth with any kind of future but slavery. ‘The plan of this scheme is to force young unemployed...
THE final proof that British capitalism is beached on the rocks has arrived. The situation is so grave, and the reputation of UK bankers so toxic, that the coalition cannot trust one of their own with the job of Bank of England Governor to succeed the current holder Mervyn King. They...
LEWISHAM reverberated, last Saturday to a 15,000 strong demonstration of opposition to the closure of the Accident and Emergency, and Maternity Services at Lewisham Hospital. Nurses, doctors, other workers, community groups and thousands and thousands of local residents, including whole families, marched, taking more than an hour to move half...
Thousands of Bangladeshi workers erupted onto the streets of the capital Dhaka yesterday in fury at the fire on Saturday at a garment factory that left over 123 dead and 150 injured. The factory in the industrial section of the city is owned by Tazreen Fashions Limited, a subsidiary of...
THE Turkish privately-owned, mass-circulation daily Hurriyet, on 23 November, discussed the issue ‘Are the Patriots Harbingers of a War in Syria?’ It stated: ‘Turkey first became familiar with Patriot batteries during the Gulf War of 1991. ‘Turkey did not enter that war despite then President Turgut Ozal’s aspirations to the contrary....
PROPOSALS to ‘save £3 billion’ by transferring NHS services onto the web to end the overcrowding of GP surgeries have been condemned by charities helping people suffering from long-term health conditions. Health chiefs say that moving services online would save the NHS £3 billion and that every one per...
A MASS demonstration of around 25,000 people from all over Britain and other countries marched in support of Palestine from Downing Street through central London to the Israeli Embassy in Kensington on Saturday. Banners on the march included: the Turkish and Kurdish Community Centre banner, which said: ‘Israel Out of...
PRESIDENT MURSI of Egypt has followed up his successful negotiation of the end of the current round of Israel’s war with Gaza – which won him great praise and support from President Obama – to reveal that he is indeed Mubarak with a beard, by making himself the...
CALLING for cut fire appliances and jobs to be restored, South West Region Fire Brigades Union has warned fire and rescue services won’t be able to cope if floods are more widespread. In a statement on Friday, South West FBU said that following hectic nights rescuing flood victims,...
THE ceasefire has taken hold in and around Gaza after a week of cross-border violence between Israel and Palestinian militants that killed more than 160 Palestinians and five Israelis, and wounded over 1,200 Palestinians. Gaza City’s streets were dark and deserted in the minutes after the truce took effect at...
THE CBI bosses organisation said yesterday that UK manufacturers expect to reduce output over the next three months, driving another nail into the coffin of Tory growth propaganda. It’s statement said that: ‘Business confidence continues to be undermined by uncertainty over events in Europe and the fast approaching US...
MARK EASTON, the chief executive of the Chase Farm and Barnet NHS Trust, quit yesterday after it was made public that the trust intended to sack hundreds of administrative workers. The trust statement made clear that he was pushed out in a crisis move, with no replacement ready. It said: ‘As...
ISMAIL Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister in Gaza, has saluted the Palestinian people for their steadfastness in the harsh battle. ‘They have become the pride of all free men in the world’, he said. ‘During Operation Cast Lead, the white flag was never raised, and in Operation Pillar of Defence,...
MORE THAN 25,000 students from universities and colleges all over the country marched through London against the Tory-LibDem Coalition government’s attacks on education on Wednesday. There were scores of banners and placards, including from UCU, Edinburgh College, Keele University, Northumbria Students Against Cuts, Cardiff University Students Union, University of East...
A REPORT published yesterday by the public spending watchdog the National Audit Office reveals the massive amount of money the Tory-led coalition is prepared to spend in order to completely privatise schools. The NAO reports that the government has spent £8.3 billion on its drive to turn schools into academies;...
GAZA prime minister Ismail Haniya has hailed the Egyptian-brokered truce agreement between the Palestinian resistance and Israel as a triumph for the Palestinian people. He said in a press release late on Wednesday evening: ‘We congratulate our people on this victory after the Palestinian people and their valiant resistance proved...
MORE THAN 25,000 students marched through London yesterday against the Tory led Coalition’s £9000 tuition fees and its plans to privatise education. Marchers proudly declared their solidarity with the Palestinian masses. ‘In our thousands, in our millions, We are all Palestinians!’ rang out from thousands of marchers with the...
UP to 100,000 students marched through London yesterday to protest against £9,000-a-year tuition fees, and the way that the Tory-LibDem coalition is turning back the clock to make higher education the preserve of the sons and daughters of the rich, quite beyond the reach of the mass of...
EX-DOWNING Street communications chief Andy Coulson and ex-News International executive Rebekah Brooks have been charged in connection with payments to police and public officials. This is the full CPS statement made by Alison Levitt QC, Principal Legal Advisor to the Director of Public Prosecutions. ‘This statement is made in the...
THE School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) was occupied yesterday in solidarity with the Palestinian masses of Gaza who are under murderous attack by Israel. News Line spoke to a member of the SOAS occupation Marienna Pope-Weidemann who said: ‘The occupation rose out of the huge...
WITH its recognition of the Syrian ‘opposition’ as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, the UK has joined France, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in order to mount the big push to overthrow the Syrian government and establish an anti-Iranian puppet regime in Damascus, in preparation for the...
EGYPTIAN university students marched from Cairo University to Tahrir Square in mid-afternoon Monday, to mark the anniversary of the last year’s Mohamed Mahmoud Street clashes – one of the decisive battles in Egypt’s ongoing revolutionary struggle. Around 47 protesters were killed during four days of street clashes last November in...
BRITISH capitalism is ‘at war’ Cameron told the bosses yesterday, an ‘economic war’ which requires the state to rip up the rule book, strip off the thin veneer of democracy and get down to the task of having it out with the working class. This was the message Cameron delivered to...
THE Irish State may need to contemplate becoming an employer of last resort to tackle unemployment, says the ICTU General Secretary David Begg. Addressing the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union conference in Portlaoise, Begg said the Government's 2.25 billion euros stimulus programme was welcome but was not enough to...
‘ISRAEL is the one who started this when they assassinated (commander of Hamas’ military wing) Ahmed Jabari. Hamas didn’t start the issue,’ Hamas political leader Khaled Mishaal, told reporters in Cairo yesterday. And in an airstrike which targeted Gaza’s media tower yesterday, leading Hamas commander Ramez Harb was killed, bringing...
BARNET and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust has issued staff with a ‘consultation paper regarding administration review, emergency and planned care’, notifying them of mass sackings ahead. This is the first shot in the battle to downsize Chase Farm Hospital to a shell of what it is now, getting rid...
OVER 50,000 students, youth and workers marched through the Athens city centre last Saturday to the American Embassy and then to the Israeli Embassy. They were commemorating in truly revolutionary and internationalist spirit, the 39th anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic uprising against the military junta in 1973, and supporting the...
‘STOP the killing, stop the crime! Free, free Palestine! Israel is a terror state!’, over 2,000 protesters shouted at a picket of the Israeli embassy in west London on Saturday, following on from the same number on Thursday night. Speakers from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War...
The Technical Engineering and Electrical Union is to contact ‘like-minded unions’ to seek ‘international legal opinion regarding the possibility of mounting a successful legal challenge declaring the Anglo Irish debt odious and illegitimate and, in so doing, prevent its repayment, and in particular, the repayment of 3.1bn euros on...
EGYPT will continue to support Gaza against the attacks from the Israeli armed forces, President Mohamed Mursi reiterated yesterday as Israeli airstrikes continued on the Palestinian coastal enclave. Hamas retaliated with rockets landing in Tel Aviv, and three in the Jerusalem area. No Israelis were injured. Hundreds of Egyptian protesters converged...
‘FREE, free Palestine! Israel is a terror state!’, over 2,000 protesters chanted at a picket of the Israeli embassy in west London on Thursday night. They chanted: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! Zionism is terrorism! We are all Palestinians!’ The huge response to the emergency picket...
EX-Special Boat Service operative Ashdown can recognise a major defeat when it stares him in the face, and refuses to go away. He has called on the UK to quit Afghanistan at once, echoing the remarks of Bismark who, referring to the calls for intervention into the Balkans, said that...
HAMAS yesterday vowed to avenge the deaths of its fighters and civilians in the Gaza Strip as Israel launched a full-scale attack on Gaza, killing 13 and injuring over 100 in 24 hours. Hamas officials said yesterday they were preparing for the worst as Israeli tanks massed on their border. ‘The...
JORDAN announced on Tuesday it would raise fuel prices, including a 53 per cent hike on cooking gas, sparking nationwide protests in which two policemen were lightly wounded and a courthouse torched, police and state television said. ‘Trade and Industry Minister Hatem al-Halwani decided to adjust the price of fuel,...
THE murderous, cowardly missile attack by Israel on Gaza, which killed Ahmed al-Jaabari along with 10 other Palestinians including two children, was a long-planned attack aimed at driving back the revolutionary forces in the area. This is the first step in a carefully laid strategy to invade Gaza and attempt to...
YESTERDAY millions of workers across Europe took strike action against the austerity programmes of ‘their’ bosses, bankers and governments. These programmes are creating millions of unemployed – with up to 25 per cent of workers now out of work and 50 per cent of youth – and with wages...
IN response to an appeal by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), a large-scale strike action took place across Europe yesterday. The ETUC statement launching it said: ‘The aim of this European day of action and solidarity is to call upon Europe’s leaders to demonstrate their determination to really get...