Monthly Archives: August 2014
WORKERS at South Africa’s construction supplies giant, Form-Scaff, nationally, members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) have downed tools and come out on a protected strike since Monday 25 August 2014. Form-Scaff is South Africa’s market leader in the supply of formwork, supportwork and scaffolding to...
MASSIVE health service cuts being proposed for Northern Ireland ‘will put patients’ lives at risk’, Dr Tom Black said yesterday. Dr Black who is chair of the GPs committee in the British Medical Association (BMA), said he had ‘never seen anything as threatening to health care and patients’ lives’. He...
LAST weekend the French government collapsed as the splits within the cabinet turned into open warfare between President Holland and his finance minister, Arnaud Montebourg. The decisive issue splitting the French socialist government down the middle was over how to deal with the economic collapse of France, a collapse that...
AUSTRALIAN unions AMWU, CFMEU and TCFUA held a rally outside of Ansell’s Australian headquarters on Thursday, following the denial of entry visas to a delegation of Sri Lankan union members. The Australian government denied the visas in an apparent attempt to shield glove and condom maker Ansell from public exposure...
UKRAINIAN President Petro Poroshenko has cancelled a visit to Turkey, citing ‘Russian troop deployments’ in the east of the country. His announcement came as anti-coup fighters took the coast town of Novoazovsk and ‘threatened’ the strategic port city of Mariupol. Bravo for them! Russia however has said that none of...
JOE Morgan from the GMB yesterday morning treated the YS marchers to a hearty breakfast to fuel their journey from Birmingham out to Wolverhampton on Day 10 of the Young Socialists March for Jobs. As the YS marchers left Birmingham City Centre youth joined them by ‘The Bullring’. They shouted:...
IRISH rail unions on Monday warned that the dispute over pay cuts at Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail), which brought the country’s rail network to a standstill for two days, could escalate even further in the weeks ahead. With three further days of strikes planned for September 7th and 8th and...
THE Unison West Midlands Office yesterday morning gave its full support to the Young Socialists’ March for Jobs from London to the TUC Congress in Liverpool, on Day 9 of the march. After teas and coffees, Keith Heron, Regional Manager of West Midlands Unison, told News Line: ‘The way...
MET POLICE chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said yesterday that he backs a call to seize the passports from Britons who go abroad to fight with militants in Syria and Iraq. He also wants ‘something like’ control orders to restrict the movement of terror suspects to be brought back. He said...
ISRAEL, after 50 days of slaughter in which over 2,000 Palestinians were killed, many of them children, tens of thousands wounded and hundreds of thousands made homeless, has agreed to an unconditional ceasefire, dropping its demand that Hamas disarm, while it remains armed to the teeth. It also has...
DAMASCUS – Caretaker Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Moallem, said in Damascus that Syria is prepared to cooperate and coordinate on the regional and international levels to combat terrorism as per Security Council resolution no. 2170 within the framework of respecting Syria’s sovereignty and independence. In a...
Jewish Holocaust survivors from around the world call for justice in Gaza. Forty Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust and 287 descendants of survivors and victims issued a letter this weekend condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza. ‘As Jewish survivors and descendants of survivors and victims of the Nazi genocide we...
MANY thousands of health workers have a chance from today to send a strong message of protest to health secretary Jeremy Hunt over his ‘contemptuous behaviour’ on NHS pay. Unite is balloting its members over strike action in the autumn over the government’s ‘insulting’ pay offer, which was unilaterally...
POURING rain made the Young Socialist marchers even more determined and their chants of ‘Youth demand a future, Youth demand jobs’ even louder on Day 7 of the YS march from London to Liverpool. They were making the 20-mile journey from Rugby to Coventry. On reaching Coventry town centre a...
AFGHANISTAN’S finance minister has said deadlock over the disputed presidential election has cost the economy $5bn, so far. Omar Zakhilwal has said he will have to cut salaries and lay off government workers if the crisis is not resolved by September 2. Foreign investment is at a standstill and government...
NEARLY two years after a preventable fire killed 112 garment workers in Bangladesh, the owner of the Tazreen Fashion factory is out of jail, still in business and accused of cheating and retaliating against 1,600 employees at a separate five-factory complex. Delwar Hossain spent fewer than six months in pre-trial...
Day 6 – As the Young Socialists march from London to Liverpool, made its way into Rugby on Sunday afternoon, Warwickshire Blood Donors NHS gave tremendous support. As the marchers shouted: ‘No privatisation! Defend the NHS, and Stop All Hospital Closures, Occupy Now!’, a big cheer went up from...
LABOUR’S shadow communities minister Hilary Benn has accused the government of unfairness in a letter to council leaders that shows that cuts for richer councils are up to 16 times smaller than poorer councils. Benn’s figures are based on the amount per household that councils are losing between 2010-11 and...
ON Monday the French government effectively collapsed as a direct result of a massive split in the leading ranks of the ruling Socialist Party over the huge crisis in the French economy, itself a reflection of the crisis that is gripping every one of the eurozone countries. The stark economic...
HOME SECRETARY May is set to bring in special measures to deal with British terrorists returning from Syria and Iraq, where they were allowed to go to fight President Assad with the tacit encouragement of her government and its security forces. She wrote in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph: ‘I have toughened...
YOUTH from Northampton joined the Young Socialists March for Jobs as they made their way through the town centre yesterday morning on their way out to Rugby. Day six of the 248-mile march from London to the TUC Congress in Liverpool saw big support from passing motorists while all those...
‘STOP arming Israel!’ ‘Free, free Palestine!’ ‘Lift the siege!’ ‘Boycott!’ shouted over 2,000 workers and youth at a lobby of Downing Street on Saturday. A number of demonstrators carried posters reading ‘Cameron Zionist lackey’ and ‘Stop the killing’ and there were banners from Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War, International...
BRITISH Home Secretary May, driven by the desperate home and foreign policy crisis of British imperialism, is lashing out at basic rights in the UK, at the same time as a civil war has broken out in the Tory Party, and spreading into the army leadership, over...
ON day three of the Young Socialists’ London to Liverpool March for Jobs, the 20 miles from Luton to Bedford received big support ‘en route’. The world had got round from the night before from the radio broadcast where marchers were interviewed on Luton Urban Radio. Cars continually hooted their horns...
RUSSIA has accused Kiev of deliberately holding up the delivery of Russian humanitarian aid to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in eastern Ukraine, according to a new statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry. The ministry says Russia has ordered its 280-lorry aid convoy to proceed, without waiting for further permission....
IMPERIALISM is in disarray. Tens of thousands of Islamist fighters – initially assisted by western governments, such as the UK government, and their secret services, following the overthrow of Gadaffi in Libya, to go to Syria to help with the campaign to smash the secular Baathist regime of...
TURKEY’S spy chief has assured the imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) during a secret meeting last week that the state will press ahead with the peace process to end 30 years of conflict, the Turkish media has reported. The head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation...
THE Arab Organisation for Human Rights (AOHR) on Wednesday called on Britain to stop arming the Israeli terror state after Israel resumed its attacks on the Gaza Strip in violation of the ceasefire. Israeli warplanes bombed civilian targets on Tuesday evening in Gaza, which led to dozens of casualties including...
HAMAS has accused Israel of violating the temporary ceasefire on Tuesday. It’s spokesman Moussa Abu Marzouq said on Wednesday that Israel ‘ended the truce claiming that three rockets hit Israel, which Hamas had no information about’. He added that ‘All options are open now: a new truce, keeping the war...
SUPPORT for the 248-mile Young Socialists March for Jobs from London to the Liverpool TUC Congress grew on its second day, as Bedfordshire firefighters supported the march through Luton. The Young Socialists are demanding the TUC Congress calls an indefinite general strike to bring this rotten government down. The marchers were...
NATIONAL Libyan TV on Monday carried an on-screen ticker reading: ‘The Al-Qa’qa and Al-Sawa’iq militias have targeted Jami’ al-Arusi in Hay al Andalus with four Grad rockets and mortars, and Ghot al-Sha’al (both places in Tripoli) with seven Grad rockets and mortars.’ The Al-Qa’qa and Al-Sawa’iq battalions are anti-Islamist militias...
ON THE first day of the Young Socialists March for Jobs from London to Liverpool, as the marchers made their way through Harrow, on their way to Watford, they received tremendous support from the council workers. On Tuesday, Unison and GMB members and officials greeted the marchers with their delegations,...
THE tactics weaponry and ammunition used in the town of Ferguson, St Louis, by the police and Missouri National Guard, have led to accusations that the police forces of the USA, from the big cities to the smallest towns have, for some reason (usually said to be the...
CONSPICUOUSLY absent at a rally last Saturday to commemorate slain miners on the second anniversary of the Marikana massacre were the African National Congress (ANC) and local North West (NW) government officials. Rally organisers rebuffed both the ANC and local government officials, who did not receive invitations to the event....
‘TUC GET off Your Knees – Call a General Strike!’ rang out as the Young Socialists March for Jobs set off from London to Liverpool yesterday morning. Almost 100 marchers, trade unionists and youth assembled outside TUC Congress House, Great Russell Street in central London for the three-week march, which...
WITH house prices increased by 10.2% (19% in London) in the last 12 months, and with rents at astronomic heights, plus rail fares about to increase by up to 4.5% next year, all talk of an inflation rate in further decline is obviously of a very dubious bourgeois...
SEVENTY thousand people have signed a petition calling for the UK government to send the hospital casualty ship RFA Argus, currently based in Falmouth, to provide medical care to the victims of conflict in Gaza. The campaign is strongly supported by cross-party MPs and the petition has now been...
YOUNG people today are under full scale attack from the Tory-led coalition. They are now fighting back. The Young Socialists are marching from the TUC HQ in London today to the TUC Congress in Liverpool to demand that it calls a general strike to bring down the coalition...
FOUR years after the Israeli military assault on the Mavi Marmara, Turkish relatives of victims express their willingness to join the new aid flotilla that is expected to sail to the Gaza Strip this year. Relatives of the Mavi Marmara victims, who were killed in the Israeli raid in 2010...
A GMB member employed by Amazon in one of its depots fell ill after handling packaging on goods imported into the UK. The member is convinced that the illness is linked to insects carried in the packaging. GMB, the union for staff at Amazon, is calling on the company to conduct...
PRIME Minister Cameron yesterday revealed that he is preparing to send British troops into Iraq again. Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, he warned that Islamic State (IS) fighters already control thousands of square miles of territory. Cameron claimed that if IS extremists are not dealt with now, they will create...
ANGRY workers and youth defied Saturday night’s midnight-5am curfew imposed in Ferguson, Missouri, where unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, was shot dead by police on August 8. Heavily-armed police fired shots, pointed rifles and drove armoured vehicles at protestors as they defied the curfew early yesterday morning. They fired tear gas...
PM Cameron is poised to send British troops into Iraq. This is why he is unwilling to recall Parliament after it rejected his motion to give the government the authority to send British troops into Syria – where they would have been acting as allies of ISIS and...