Monthly Archives: July 2015
THE BMA yesterday responded angrily to health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s ‘wholesale attack’ on doctors and the threat to impose seven-day working for consultants without extra payment for weekends. Hunt had the gall to blame consultants for patients’ deaths, saying 15 per cent more patients died if they entered...
JUST days after Chancellor Osborne unveiled his second budget plans to put the whole burden of the capitalist crisis onto the backs of the working class, the youth, the sick and on millions of ordinary families, the new anti-union laws have been published that prove that, to carry out...
THERE has been a 500% increase in the number of people in Ireland who declared bankruptcy in 2014. More than one person was declared bankrupt every day, on average, in Ireland last year, according to the Courts Service Annual Report for 2014. The report shows that 448 people were made...
GREEK public sector workers launched a 24-hour national strike yesterday against the SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left)- ANEL coalition government’s new austerity accord as dictated by the EU-ECB troika, which was however opposed by the IMF. They were joined by local government workers as well as transport and...
THE Canadian Federation of Students, its member unions and allies will step up the fight for accessible education in Newfoundland and Labrador against a 30 per cent tuition and residence fee hike for students attending Memorial University. Students demonstrated outside Gushue Hall last Thursday, where Memorial University’s Board of Regents...
IRAN took a calculated risk yesterday when it reached an agreement with the US and its allies that it would allow extensive and exhaustive inspections of its nuclear facilities so that they could be sure that it was not developing nuclear weaponry. Iran has always insisted that it did not...
AT A STORMY packed meeting of some 300 delegates on Monday the Greek Public Workers Confederation ADEDY decided to call a national 24-hour strike for today against the barbaric austerity measures agreement accepted by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras at Brussels. There has been not even a word of protest from...
THE TRADE Union Bill, to be outlined tomorrow in parliament by the Tory government, is designed to railroad through legislation which will make it virtually impossible to strike legally. Mick Whelan, general secretary of ASLEF, the train drivers’ union, condemned the Tory government’s plans. He said: ‘As a trade union...
THE announcement by the acting Labour leader, Harriet Harman, during an interview with the BBC on Sunday, that the Labour Party would be fully supporting the Tory attacks on benefits, has brought into sharp relief the deepening split within the ranks of reformism. Harman told the Sunday Politics programme that...
ON average 1,000 refugees are now arriving on the Greek islands every day creating an unprecedented emergency for Greece and other countries, the UN refugee agency reported last Friday. UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) said that since the beginning of the year, a staggering 77,100 people had arrived...
EARLIER on Monday the Greek Prime Minister and SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) leader Alexis Tsipras fully submitted to the Eurozone leaders’ diktats to impose what is widely called a ‘monstrous’ austerity agreement which would transform Greece into a EU protectorate. Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos, the leader of...
A SUMMIT of all European Union members planned yesterday was cancelled to allow the Eurozone Finance Ministers to resume their talks held to decide the future of Greece. The marathon talks on Saturday had ended without agreement and Eurogroup leader Jeroen Dijsselbloem described negotiations as ‘very difficult’. He...
A EUROGROUP (eurozone’s finance ministers) marathon meeting on Greece ended on midnight Saturday without a decision as the French and German ministers fell out. The German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble stated that the Greek government’s proposals for a third bail-out of austerity was inadequate and that there was no trust...
CHRISTINA McAnea, Unison National Secretary for Health, has written to Tory Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt about the proposed transfer of Primary Care Support services from NHS England to the Capita privateer She wrote: ‘I am writing to you on behalf of Unison to express our grave concern and disappointment at...
THE GREEK government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in a treacherous U-turn has turned the landslide ‘NO’ to austerity vote in last Sunday’s referendum, into a ‘YES’ to the EC-IMF-ECB troika diktats. Tsipras’ SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government, with the exception of Energy and Industry minister Panayiotis Lafazanis, submitted a barbaric programme...
THE immediate response of the leaders of the trade unions representing public sector workers to the wage-cutting programme outlined by Osborne in this week’s budget illustrates just how prostrate and impotent they are in the face of this weak but desperate Tory government. On Wednesday, Osborne announced that public...
Statement by the Revolutionary Marxist League Greek section of the International Committee of the 4th International TODAY, Wednesday 8 July, the Greek Finance Minister Efklides Tsakalotos applied to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) asking for a three-year ‘loan or programme’. The funds required were not stated. This is a treacherous and...
THE STRIKING Tube workers brought London to a standstill yesterday, and every London worker and commuter must give them their full support against the attempt to impose night working and also the mass closure of ticket offices, along with major staff reductions, without any proper discussion, and without a...
THE Greek government’s spokesperson Gavriil Sakelarides stated yesterday morning that ‘he was optimistic of a deal’ with the European Commission by this Sunday. He said that the Greek government’s proposals to the EC were to be tabled later on the day. But Sakelarides did not claim any hope for a...
THIRTEEN million families will lose an average of £260 each year because of Osborne’s cuts to working-age benefits, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said. In a briefing on Wednesday’s Tory Budget, IFS director Paul Johnson said it was ‘regressive’ and had taken ‘much more’ from the poor than...
A SENIOR Iranian official says a final deal with the P5+1 group of countries over Tehran’s nuclear programme will be achieved should the six world powers stop raising ‘excessive demands’. ‘A win-win agreement in the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group is reachable if the opposite side steers...
CHANCELLOR Osborne’s first Tory government budget hammers the poor, the youth and the working class while lowering Corporation Tax and pledging to NATO an increase in defence spending to 2%. The budget holds public sector workers to 1% below-inflation wage ‘rises’ for the next four years, a policy that will...
THE Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke at the European Parliament on Wednesday morning stating that he was seeking an ‘honourable compromise’ with the European leaders. He repeated his claim that the overwhelming ‘NO’ of the Greek people in last Sunday’s referendum against EC-IMF-ECB austerity ‘doesn’t mean a rupture’. Tsipras...
CHANCELLOR Osborne launched his vicious class war budget yesterday, signalling massive Tory attacks on the working class, with the young and the poor his main target. Tax credits are to be withdrawn from the neediest households, while housing benefit for under-21s is to be abolished and five million youth are...
THE Israeli navy on Tuesday arrested six Palestinian fishermen while sailing off the coast of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). PCHR said a number of Israeli naval boats opened fire at fishing boats from a distance before they sailed...
GREEK Prime Minister and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras initiated a meeting of all the political parties’ leaders in Athens on Monday. A ‘joint statement’, issued after the meeting signed by Tsipras and the conservative and social democratic leaders but not by the Greek Communist Party, says that ‘the referendum decision...
UNISON’s Barnet branch members will be taking strike action on budget day, today, as part of their ongoing battle against the rampant privatisation of local council services. Unison said: ‘The famously intrepid branch is reaching more than one million social media users with their message. Their latest industrial action will...
AN international human rights group on Monday released details of the interrogation and assault of a Palestinian teenager during his arrest in June by Israeli forces in East Jerusalem. Muhammad Mustafa, 15, from al-Issawiya was detained during a house raid on June 15, Defence for Children reported. He was taken...
AFTER a request by Prime Minister Tsipras, the Greek President Prokopios Pavlopoulos convened, Monday afternoon 6th of July, a meeting of the Political Leaders of the parties represented in the Greek Parliament. Attending were Prime Minister Tsipras; the transitional Leader of New Democracy and leader of the Opposition, Evangelos Meimarakis;...
A RECORD 137,000 people made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe in the first half of 2015, most of them fleeing war, conflict and persecution, the United Nations said Wednesday. ‘Europe is living through a maritime refugee crisis of historic proportions,’ the UN refugee agency warned in a...
ON Sunday the Greek working class, youth and rural poor delivered a hammer blow to bankers and the capitalist system when it defied all the predictions of a close run referendum by voting overwhelmingly to reject the dictatorship of austerity imposed by the Troika – the EU, the European...
‘MY BABY Victoria was born at Ealing Hospital and is one month old today,’ said mother Gleisa Lima outside the hospital yesterday morning. She joined the West London Council of Action’s daily picket to defend Ealing Hospital. Last Wednesday, the hospital management carried out the orders of the Tory...
THE National Union of Teachers (NUT) on Saturday published: ‘Exam Factories? The impact of accountability measures on children and young people.’ This research demonstrates the negative impact on children and young people in England of the current range of accountability measures in schools. These include Ofsted inspections, floor standards and...
IN a savage attack that will cost workers hundreds of pounds a week, Chancellor Osborne has said he will use Wednesday’s Budget to announce a clamp down on ‘taxpayer-funded subsidies’ for ‘higher earners’ living in social housing. Also almost one in four civil servants is facing the sack under radical...
CHANCELLOR Osborne’s second budget this year will be his first for a Tory government with an overall majority and he intends to use it to make savage welfare cuts to make up for ‘lost time’, during the five years of coalition with the Lib Dems. On Sunday he said he...
SOME 3,000 mostly young people marched to the European Commission offices in Athens on Thursday evening calling for a ‘NO’-‘OXI’ vote in Sunday’s referendum. A protester climbed up to the balcony of the EC offices and hung a banner stating ‘NO to EC, IMF, ECB’ signed by ANTARSYA the anti-capitalist...
ECONOMIC Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema says his party will lay criminal charges against Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, Lonmin directors and Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa for allegedly conspiring to kill Marikana workers. Malema said on Thursday his party believes Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa influenced police to shoot striking Lonmin...
TORY Defence Minister, Michael Fallon, with the full support of Cameron and leading members of the Labour Party, is calling for Britain to start bombing ISIS positions in Syria. Having been badly defeated in 2012 over his plans to join in a military attack on Syria to overthrow president Assad,...
‘DEFEND Ealing Hospital! Don’t let it close!’ rang out through the streets of Southall on Wednesday afternoon, as up to 500 workers and youth marched to their local hospital on the day their Maternity Department was shut. They demanded that the maternity department is immediately reopened so that women living...
HUNDREDS of workers and youth demonstrated in front of the Greek Business Association (SEV) building in Athens on Wednesday afternoon demanding that firms pay workers’ wages and stop bullying staff to vote ‘YES’ in next Sunday’s referendum. Delegations of ETER (radio technicians) and PEMEN (seafarers) trade union federations participated. In...
THE PCS union, which represents JobCentre workers, yesterday denounced as ‘appalling’ planned savage cuts to social security for sick and disabled people. It was commenting on a leaked Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) paper written before the general election in May, which reveals plans to axe the work-related activity...
GREECE’S Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras offered new concessions to the country’s creditors in a letter that was received by them last Tuesday. In the words of the ERT Greek TV station, he completely ‘caved-in’ to the EU’s bankers and bosses. On the same Tuesday and then again on Wednesday, the...
OVER 500 workers and youth marched to Ealing Hospital yesterday on the day that its Maternity Unit was closed, pledging that they would battle to see that it was reopened. Local residents, trade unionists, students and youth marched through the streets of Southall shouting, ‘Defend Ealing Maternity, No More...