Monthly Archives: April 2014
UNISON yesterday warned the ambulance service is on the verge of breaking down and that the consequences for patient safety are dramatic. Tight targets, long hours and the physical demands of the job place an enormous burden on overworked ambulance workers according to a Unison survey released yesterday. The survey of...
WITH a view to possible action against former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, a group of MPs representing both majority and opposition parties have asked Russia’s Prosecutor General to probe the events leading to the break-up of the Soviet Union. In a letter, signed by two MPs from United Russia, two...
FIGURES extracted this week by Freedom of Information requests prove conclusively that the privatisation of the ambulance service is being pushed through by the Tory coalition at breakneck speed. A survey of the ten ambulance trusts in England reveals that seven of them have increased spending on private ambulances since...
NOTORIOUS private security firm G4S, currently under investigation for fraud and three of whose employees are presently in court charged with manslaughter, is being re-considered for re-employment in government business! This is despite three G4S security guards being currently in court charged with the death of Jimmy Mubenga. The...
BANKRUPTED Greece, still up to its neck in debt, is to sell five-year bonds, in the country’s first long-term debt sale since its international bailout started four years ago. Last month, the Greek lender, the Piraeus Bank sold its first bond in more than four years. The bond offered investors...
US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday blamed approval of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem for derailing peace talks with Palestinians, a charge that angered Israeli officials. The Israeli government announced a major expansion of settlement construction in the West Bank last month, just as Washington was trying to...
CULTURE Secretary Maria Miller was sacked by Prime Minister Cameron late on Tuesday night, after Tory MPs and local Tory parties threatened the position of the Tory Party leader. Miller was accused of dragging the party though the mud after Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards had recommended that she...
THE ‘project of political Islam has failed,’ Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad said on Monday, calling for the separation of religion from politics, state television said. Assad’s regime has been battling an uprising that has come to be dominated by Islamists, ranging from moderates to radicals, who want to see Syria...
MARIA MILLER has been forced to resign. After publicly displaying her arrogant determination to defy all the calls for her to go – a stance that was sponsored by her protector Prime Minister Cameron – she has been forced out by the Tory Party, which feared that she could...
As lawyers today present a motion to the US Federal Court demanding Shaker Aamer’s immediate release, he has given an exclusive interview to ITV News in which he condemns the site as a US ‘gulag’ and says that he believes he will be released this year. Detained in Guantanamo Bay...
THE US, UK and Saudi-backed and organised ‘rebels’ who have failed to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, who has the support of the Syrian army and people, have now been handed over high-powered anti-tank weaponry, the likes of which have been withheld from them up till...
RUSSIA is ready for negotiation with the USA, EU and Ukraine, says Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He added that the talks may start in 10 days. South-eastern Ukrainian regions should also take part in negotiation, he stated. ‘The Kiev coup-appointed government hasn’t made any positive steps towards these regions,’ said...
THE South African miners’ trade union Amcu has said it will march to the British embassy this week to hand over a memorandum of demands regarding its protracted strike in the platinum sector. Anglo American Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin, where Amcu has been on a wage strike since...
PALESTINIANS set seven conditions for talks in a ‘stormy’ session with Israel last week. The session of ‘saving the negotiations,’ held in Jerusalem for around eight hours until dawn on Thursday, turned into a session for ‘trading threats’ between the members of the Israeli and Palestinian delegations, despite the presence...
THE Tory work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith yesterday launched yet another vitriolic attack on the unemployed, the sick and disabled. On Sunday he appeared on the BBC Andrew Marr Show to try and defend the cuts to the welfare system and in particular the cuts that have been...
RAIL unions ASLEF, RMT and TSSA have launched a Judicial Review to challenge the government over plans to re-privatise the East Coast railway. The unions called yesterday for the line to be ‘taken over by Directly Operated Railways’ – in other words remain under public ownership. Bill Rogers, Chair of Chingford...
ELEVEN Western and Middle Eastern powers on Thursday warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against holding elections, saying that the vote would have no credibility amid the country’s brutal civil war. In a joint statement, the 11 core members of so-called Friends of Syria urged Assad instead to embrace a plan...
SPEAKING in Japan alongside Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera on Saturday, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel pledged the US’ ‘complete and absolute commitment to the security of Japan’. As proof, the US is to send two ballistic missile defence destroyers to the Sea of Japan. These are to join the...
THE Hampstead-based Royal Free Hospital NHS trust, which will take over Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield and Barnet Hospital this July, has confirmed its plans to sell a huge chunk of the Enfield site. The sell-off is to be dubbed ‘redeveloping health services’, with the NHS to be situated ...
THE Secretary of the Greek government, Panagiotis Baltakos, a close aide for decades of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, has been revealed as the go-between Samaras and the fascist party of Golden Dawn. The number two of the fascist party, Ilias Kasidiaris, speaking in the Vouli (Greek parliament) last Wednesday morning...
THE GMB trade union yesterday declared a massive victory for low-paid Ealing Hospital ancillary workers. The union called off strike action, due from yesterday by 150 GMB members employed by Compass (Medirest) at Ealing NHS Hospital Trust, in London, after members accepted a new offer following talks on Thursday with...
THE furore in the bourgeois press about the lenient treatment handed out to the Tory culture secretary, Maria Miller, who was found guilty of over-claiming expenses in a ‘second homes’ scandal, has once again focused on the unrelenting push by the coalition to introduce state control of the press...
US Secretary of State John Kerry failed on Wednesday to save faltering Middle East peace efforts, after both Israel and Palestinians declined further talks. The Palestinians are angry about Israel’s refusal to release 26 Palestinian prisoners by a weekend deadline, and announced that they were planning to take their...
IMF Managing Director Lagarde has warned that the world economy is ‘too weak for comfort’, and that it could be heading for years of ‘sub-par growth’ as it scrapes along the bottom. Lagarde added that without ‘brave action’ the world could fall into the ‘low growth trap’ of deflation. Lagarde...
‘WE’RE here to hand in our petition with 130,000 signatures calling for legal aid to assist us and allow us to be active at the inquest into our mother’s death,’ Lee Lawrence, the son of Cherry Groce told News Line outside Downing Street yesterday lunchtime. Cherry Groce was shot by...
AHMAD Sa''adat, secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and Marwan al-Barghouthi, member of the Fatah Central Committee, have both called for ending the ‘futile talks’ with Israel. Sa’adat has been in prison for 30 years while Marwan Al-Barghouthi, one the main leaders of the...
NATO’s decision to suspend co-operation with Russia brings the world back to Cold War-style sword swinging, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday. The 28-nation NATO bloc announced on Tuesday it will suspend all practical contacts with Moscow, in a move to put further pressure on Russia following its reunification...
TRAIN drivers’ union ASLEF general secretary Mick Whelan on Monday called for the railways to be taken back into public ownership. Whelan welcomed news that Network Rail plans to invest £38 billion in railway infrastructure over the next five years – but said it’s not enough. He said: ‘We welcome this...
THE death of a 40-year-old woman at Yarl’s Wood on Sunday has once again thrown the spotlight on the privately-run immigration removal centre. According to unconfirmed reports from fellow detainees, the woman shouted out complaining of severe chest pains shortly before suffering a fatal heart attack, only to be offered...
INTERROGATION methods, including ‘dunking suspects in icy water’ and ‘smashing a prisoner’s head against a wall’ are included in a long-awaited US Senate report, aspects of which have come to light. The content of the report, parts of which have already been leaked, show that the CIA used secret ‘black...
On the eve of a crucial vote set for Sunday midnight in the Vouli (Greek parliament) over a new Austerity Measures Bill, the Greek Development Assistant Minister Maximos Kharakopoulos announced his resignation with a long statement citing milk imports as the reason for his action. But he said that he...
SUNDAY night’s meeting between the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov and the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, has shown conclusively the counter-revolutionary nature of the Stalinist bureaucracy and their dread of the working class. In the words of Lavrov they ‘agreed to seek common ground to resolve the situation,’ including...
PROBATION officers and solicitors across England and Wales walked out on a 36-hour strike at noon yesterday and they are staying out until midnight tonight. NAPO, union for Probation and Family Court staff, is fighting the privatisation of 70% of the probation service, while The Justice Alliance, representing solicitors...