Monthly Archives: June 2014
OVER 220,00 members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) will begin an indefinite strike tomorrow to win pay increases and other benefits demanded in the union’s Living Wage Campaign. The strike was announced last Thursday as the final decision of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of...
THE Prison Officers Association (POA) have condemned a government scheme to form a reserve force for England and Wales to help it respond to a rise in inmate numbers or ‘operational pressures’. ‘We’re appalled by the Prison Service doing this,’ POA general secretary Steve Gillan told News Line...
ISRAELI warplanes continued with their airstrikes on Gaza on Sunday morning, hitting a factory in Rafah. On Friday, an Israeli missile strike on Gaza killed two and wounded two more Palestinians. Another Israeli airstrike hit an open area west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. In addition to...
ISRAELI forces raided Nablus overnight on Wednesday without coordinating with Palestinian Authority security services, say Palestinian officials. According to security coordination protocol which is part of the Oslo Accords, Israel’s military liaison department must notify its Palestinian counterpart when Israeli forces enter Area A. Israeli military vehicles raided the Tunis and...
FORMER drivers, who used to work on the Tesco distribution contract in Doncaster, staged a demonstration yesterday at the Tesco AGM in London, protesting at their ‘unfair dismissals’. The crux of their case is that Eddie Stobart Ltd (ESL) and Tesco had together agreed to make 184 drivers redundant well...
THE Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenko, travelled to Brussels yesterday morning to sign, along with Georgia and Moldova, the ‘partnership’ agreement with the European Union. It was the refusal of the last democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to sign this agreement last November that led to the imperialist-backed, fascist-led coup. Now Poroshenko...
CAMERON’S great achievement thus far has been to use the capitalist slump to push society backwards so that the rich are getting richer and the poor much poorer. A good part of the population is now dependent on ‘food bank’ charities, while hundreds of thousands work on zero hours contracts,...
ISRAELI state forces raided Bethlehem on Tuesday night, detaining Hamas members and Palestinian lawmakers, locals said on Wednesday. Witnesses said that Israeli forces arrested Khalid Tafish and Anwar Zaboun, Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Israeli troops also detained Hamas leaders Ghassan Hirmas and Hasan al-Wirdyan after ransacking their homes,...
PM’S QUESTIONS were yesterday centred on Cameron’s ‘profound apology’ for hiring Coulson as his press officer. Labour leader Miliband opened by saying: ‘For four years the prime minister’s handpicked closest adviser was a criminal and brought disgrace to Downing Street. ‘We now also know that the prime minister wilfully ignored multiple...
PRIME Minister Cameron used his usual tactic at prime minister’s questions yesterday, when asked why he brought a criminal into 10 Downing Street and thereby tainted the government, despite numerous warnings that he should not on any account employ him. Cameron refused to answer the question, and instead referred...
THE Avignon theatre festival and France’s other summer arts festivals may not take place due to a strike threat by stage-hands and other arts-support workers. On Friday unions extended their threat to strike to the end of July. The CGT-Spectacle union also called for a massive strike on 4 July,...
WITH the shelling and bombing of eastern Ukraine still taking place, and with tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees in southern Russia, President Vladimir Putin has proposed that the upper house of the Russian legislature rescind the March 1 resolution allowing him, as head of state, to use...
THE Young Socialists held a very successful meeting, on the evening of the first day of the BMA Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) in Harrogate, to promote their March for Jobs from London starting on August 19th to the TUC Conference in Liverpool. The meeting was attended by 10 doctors, who...
‘NO MORE starving for us and our families!’ elated miners chanted as celebrations broke out across Rustenburg in South Africa, as the country’s longest mining strike ended in victory. The miners are going back to work today after winning their fight against poverty wages. Over 70,000 AMCU miners had...
AN autopsy conducted on Sunday morning has shown that 30-year-old Muhammad Ismail Atallah Tarifi, who was found dead on the roof of a commercial building in Ramallah earlier in the morning, was shot dead by Israeli troops. According to the autopsy, the victim died of a bullet fired from an...
DOCTORS at the British Medical Association’s (BMA) Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) in Harrogate yesterday voted overwhelmingly in opposition to NHS privatisation and cuts. The conference was opened by BMA chair Mark Porter who told delegates: ‘If they want the argument, then we’re up for it. He added: ‘We’ll...
DR MARK Porter, Chair of the British Medical Association Council, opened their annual representatives meeting with a speech that tore into the policies of the Tory-led coalition. Dr Porter began with a rhetorical question: ‘Do we have a government that really gets the NHS?’, before going on to outline exactly...
THE TUC said yesterday that young people not in full-time education are now less likely to be in work than people of other ages and their prospects are declining. TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady commented: ‘Ministers seem keener on kicking struggling youngsters when they’re down and removing the safety net...
THE Kurdistan Region intelligence chief, Lahur Jangi, has said that according to his estimates there were 400 to 450 British nationals in the ranks of the jihadist group, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS). Jangi, who is also the head of the anti-terror forces, said that ISIS...
THE Tory coalition is accelerating its onslaught on the NHS. Every structure that was good in our publicly provided NHS is being destabilised and disintegrated. On the one hand, the £20bn QIPP ‘savings’ drawn up by McKinseys in 2009 (and projected to cut another £30bn in the next five years),...
UK intelligence has been forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance of residents’ Facebook and Google use, says Amnesty International. Amnesty is one of a group of rights organisations that are demanding Britain’s top counter-terrorism official must reveal a secret government policy justifying the mass surveillance of every...
THE Fire Brigades Union has welcomed an offer from the government in Northern Ireland that would allow firefighters to retire at 55 without financial penalty. Firefighters in England and Wales will take part in their 14th strike between 10am and 5pm today over attempts from government to drive through proposals...
LAST Thursday the government announced that it was starting a consultation process on its plans to widen the student loans system in further education to take in 19–23 year olds. The whole concept of dragging young people into incurring massive debts for training courses at FE colleges, or for going...
THE PCS civil servants union yesterday slammed Labour’s new proposal which would see three quarters of unemployed youth thrown off Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) because they do not have a high enough level of education qualifications. A PCS spokesman said: ‘People looking to Labour to offer opposition to this government’s cruel...
THE annual report by the New Policy Institute gives a comprehensive picture of poverty in the UK and graphically re-proves the need for a socialist revolution. It shows that more than half of the 13 million people living in poverty in the UK in 2011/12 were in a working family,...
STAFF at Glyndwr University have overwhelmingly voted in favour of industrial action in a dispute over job losses. 84% of members of the University and College University (UCU), who took part, voted in favour of industrial action. The ballot was well supported by staff, with 57% of those eligible to...
FOLLOWING similar warnings by the King’s Fund and other bodies, the BBC has announced that the NHS in England faces a funding gap of up to £2bn, about 2% of its budget, for the next financial year. The Department of Health has responded that it was ‘confident’...
IMPALA Platinum said on Tuesday that an agreement has been reached with the AMCU trade union on a ‘broad wage offer to end a five-month-long strike but details such as the time-frame and additional benefits are still to be agreed’. Johan Theron a spokesman for Impala platinum said:...
NURSES at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Annual Congress in Liverpool voted by a massive 91% majority against NHS charging yesterday. Delegates at the RCN Congress debated the issue of charging patients for GP visits, an issue which would affect everyone who works in primary health care, and members...
FRANCE''S longest rail strike in years entered its second week on Monday, causing major disruptions in a crucial test for President Francois Hollande’s embattled reformist government. The strike crippled France’s rail network, and disrupted the plans of millions of travellers as the country’s crucial tourist season entered its peak. On Monday, train workers voted...
THE CPI rate of inflation fell to 1.5% in the year to May 2014, down from 1.8% in April, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Falls in transport services’ costs, notably air fares, were the largest reason behind the reduction in the rate. This means that as far...
DISTRICT nurses face ‘extinction’ by 2025 unless the Tory coalition government launches a mass recruitment campaign and funds an extra 10,000 nurses, warned the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) yesterday on the second day of their annual conference. The RCN said in its statement: ‘District nurses are currently “critically endangered”...
THE LONDON Fire Brigade yesterday issued a statement that over the last five years there have been 438 fires in London in factories, sheds and outbuildings resulting in 13 fire deaths and 69 serious injuries. Rogue landlords are renting ‘sheds with beds’ to desperate people who are living on...
THIS week the Tory-led coalition is set to announce yet more changes to the education syllabus, changes designed to further Cameron’s pledge to drive all that is ‘un-British’ out of schools and indoctrinate in children as young as five the ‘morality’ of capitalism – that greed is good. Writing in...
ON Wednesday, 18 June, Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) members will take action in Sydney to draw attention to the safety crisis in stevedoring. The union is stepping up its Waterfront Safety Campaign after the recent death of Anthony Attard, tragically killed in Melbourne last month. The rally will target...
CREDIT ratings agency Fitch on Friday warned South Africa that its credit rating may be lowered following the ongoing five-month platinum strike in the country, despite unions saying a wage deal is on the horizon. Fitch changed the country’s outlook from stable to negative, citing poor economic prospects and rising...
TONY BLAIR, who is understandably opposed to the full transcripts of all of his talks with President Bush being published in the Chilcot Inquiry report into the Iraq war, has told the BBC that his illegal war with Iraq is in no way responsible for the current collapse in...
The UK economy is under threat of collapse from ‘global shocks’, and has no real independence and little room for manoeuvre. This subordination of the UK economy to the world crisis was the main message from the latest report of the Bank of England. The report asks: ‘How have world...
GREEK armed riot police squads once again viciously attacked the women cleaners outside the Finance Ministry in central Athens last Thursday afternoon. Four women cleaners were taken to hospital as well as Tatiana Bolari a press photographer. Marios Lolos, the President of the Greek Press Photographers was also injured in...
ON Thursday night, the captains of British capitalism assembled for a sumptuous banquet at London’s Mansion House to listen to the latest economic plans from Tory chancellor, George Osborne, and the head of the Bank of England, Mark Carney. While trumpeting a marvellous recovery, Osborne was forced to point out...
The devastating closures of the accident and emergency departments at Hammersmith Hospital and Central Middlesex Hospital are set to take place on 10th September, it has been announced. If they are allowed to go ahead, these two closures will soon afterwards be followed by the closures of two other local...
FIREFIGHTERS in England and Wales went out on a 24-hour strike over the massive attacks that are taking place on their pensions. The walk-out, which started at 09:00 yesterday, is the longest strike yet in the three-year dispute and coincides with the start of the World Cup in Brazil. At Euston,...
AN unprecedented attempt to hold the first ever completely secret criminal trial in the UK has been blocked by the Court of Appeal. However the Judges said that the ‘core’ of the terrorism trial could be partly heard in secret but parts must be in public. They said media also should...