Monthly Archives: October 2015
A STRIKE wave is continuing in Egypt as workers battle the El-Sisi regime, determined to improve their wages and conditions. Protests by workers at government-run factories are demanding the release of a 10 per cent bonus that the Finance Ministry decided to disburse only to state agencies rather than public...
SINCE the election of the Tory-led coalition government in 2010, young people have been hammered into the ground to the extent that they face the ‘worst economic future’ for generations. This is the finding of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), a public body set up to promote equality...
AFTER 13 long years languishing in Guantánamo Bay concentration camp without trial or charge, Shaker Aamer is finally free! A plane carrying Shaker Aamer touched down at Biggin Hill airfield in Kent yesterday at 1pm. On arrival Shaker was met by British officials and detectives before being taken straight to...
‘SAVE our hospital! Defend the NHS!’ shouted up to 50 local residents and health workers who braved the pouring rain to join a mass picket of Ealing Hospital yesterday morning. The lively picket began at 7am and demanded that Ealing Maternity Department is immediately re-opened and that the A&E...
THE number of people who have died, been assaulted or injured themselves in prison has risen to its highest level for a decade, figures seen by the Howard League for Penal Reform revealed yesterday. Statistics published by the Ministry of Justice show that 267 people died in prisons in England...
OVER 4,000 junior doctors and their supporters staged a three-hour mass rally outside the City Art Gallery in the centre of Leeds on Wednesday night. The rally was against the imposition of unsafe new contracts and to demand the defence of the NHS against the Tories. ‘Not fair, not safe,’...
A VERY senior US official, Michael Froman, has warned Britain against leaving the 28-nation European Union saying such a move would cost London economically. Froman is no blagger. He is the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and is President Obama’s principal advisor, negotiator and spokesperson on international trade and investment...
AMNESTY International said Israeli forces – using intentional lethal force without justification – must end the pattern of unlawful killings carried out against Palestinians. Based on the findings of an ongoing research trip to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the organisation documented in depth at least four incidents in...
THE US has changed policy on Iraq and Syria overnight, and will now allow US ground troops to assault targets in both countries and its airforce to bomb both countries, especially the cities of Raqqa in Syria and Ramadi in Iraq. There is no doubt as to what has brought...
ANOTHER major accident happened in a Chittagong shipbreaking yard in Bangladesh last week, this time killing three workers. This latest accident took place on Tuesday, 20th October in S. R. Corporation, one of the major shipbreaking companies in Bangladesh. In the process of dismantling a ship, the S. R....
THE US has indicated that it intends the imminent deployment of troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria, without holding a vote in Congress. US Defence Secretary Ash Carter told the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday: ‘We won’t hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks...
ISRAELI forces opened fired with live ammunition on a protest in Hebron yesterday hitting at least ten Palestinians. The ‘rally of anger’ erupted into fierce clashes as Palestinians demanded the release of the bodies of 11 people shot dead in Hebron earlier this month. The march was called by Palestinian...
THE government has been dealt a blow in the House of Lords after the Lords voted to delay tax credit cuts, until an independent analysis is made of them, and compensation paid to those affected. The Cameron government is down, and screaming about the unelected House of Lords seeking to...
MONDAY was New Zealand’s Labour Day, an annual public holiday falling on the 4th Monday of October, commemorating the struggle for an eight-hour working day. On Labour Day government offices and many businesses close, while street parades and protest marches take place, voicing the importance of the struggle for...
Libyan Free Press – EDITORIAL STATEMENT – OCTOBER (2015), marks the four-year anniversary of the disappearance of Libya’s leader, Muammar Gadaffi, and the decline into chaos of one of Africa’s greatest nations. The position of this network is (and always was) that brother Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, born the...
PM Cameron is facing a direct legal challenge over a new version of the ministerial code which has been produced and which omits a previous reference to UK ministers being bound by International Law. On behalf of ‘Rights Watch’, lawyers are demanding that the previous version be reinstated,...
‘EVERY day counts,’ Jean-Claude Junker, President of the European Commission said. ‘Otherwise we will soon see families in cold rivers in the Balkans perish miserably.’ He was speaking at an emergency summit in Brussels on Sunday. However, rather then tackle the refugee crisis by offering the millions of people fleeing...
THE TORY plan to cut Working and Child Tax Credits has succeeded in splitting the Tory party and creating divisions even in the Tory cabinet itself, meaning that the government has managed to undermine itself. Under government proposals, the income threshold for Working Tax Credits – £6,420 – will be...
AHEAD of today’s debate in the House of Lords, shadow chancellor John McDonnell said that Labour would ‘co-operate’ in future efforts to review the Tax Credit Bill, if Osborne U-turned to drop his proposed cuts in Tax Credits. In fact the government faces defeat in the House of Lords...
THOUSANDS of South African students marched to the Union Buildings in the South African capital Pretoria, where they were met by riot police and volleys of stun grenades. While the police clashed with thousands of students, the student leadership had a meeting with President Zuma, where they protested at...
THE Tories this week pushed through parliament their plans for ‘English votes for English laws’ under which only English MPs would have the right to vote on laws which the Speaker of the House of Commons determines to affect only England. At a stroke, the Tories have torn up the...
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi on Thursday that he is convinced that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is ready for dialogue with the opposition. ‘The Syrian conflict was caused by not only the fight against militants and terrorist aggression, although...
THE US has reacted with fury to Russia’s ‘interference’ in the Middle East, that is, its invitation to President Assad to visit Moscow, and its current position that only the Syrian people can decide who is to govern Syria, definitely not the USA or the UK. This US anger has...
THE National Union of Teachers has condemned the wholesale forced academisation of state-run education measures contained in the Tory government’s Education and Adoption Bill. Kevin Courtney, Deputy General Secretary of the NUT, also denounced Education Secretary Morgan’s attacks and accusations against those in their community who campaign against academisation, including...
HOMELESS charity Shelter yesterday condemned the practice of ‘out-of (London)-borough placements’ as ‘unacceptable’. This came as Labour-run Luton Borough Council, Bedfordshire, is considering legal action against Labour-run Waltham Forest Borough Council in north east London over the transfer of homeless families. Shelter chief executive Campbell Robb told the BBC:...
SYRIAN President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks on the improving situation in Syria in Moscow on Tuesday. The talks were a victory in themselves, since the situation in Syria is now secure enough to allow Assad to travel to Moscow without fear of the consequences. ...
FIONA GODLEE, editor of The BMJ, has written to Health Secretary Hunt, accusing him of misrepresenting an academic article on deaths of patients admitted to hospitals at weekends. Godlee said Hunt misrepresented the findings of the article, published in The BMJ in September 2015, and asked him to clarify statements...
SYRIAN President Bashar Assad visited Moscow on Tuesday to extend thanks to the Russian authorities and people for helping to preserve the unity and independence of Syria. Assad arrived in Moscow on Tuesday, his first trip abroad since the western backed Islamist offensive hit Syria in 2011. Meanwhile, Iraqi...
A GENERAL strike took place on Tuesday in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of al-Issawiya in protest at the latest Israeli ‘security fences’ dividing Palestinian neighbourhoods and communities and which have already been responsible for the death of a sick Palestinian woman. Schools and businesses were closed and public transportation was brought...
‘ONE day longer, one day stronger,’ chanted about 150 members and supporters of the United Steelworkers union last Sunday. They were holding a rally to mark over a year-long lockout at Sherwin Alumina in Gregory, Texas, which is owned by Swiss commodities Glencore. The union represents about 450 Sherwin Alumina...
THE shutdown of the steel industry continued yesterday without a single call from the trade unions for action to stop the closures and defend the jobs that are going down like ninepins, bringing ruin to thousands of working class families. Tata Steel yesterday morning announced another 1,200 sackings at its...
‘THE time for talking is over, we need action’ Paul McBean, the Community union leader exclaimed as Tata Steel announced 1,200 job losses at its plants in Scunthorpe and Lanarkshire. Nine hundred jobs will go at the firm’s plant in Scunthorpe. The remaining 270 will go in Scotland. Industry...
FOUR Palestinians were shot and injured on Sunday, while many others, including students, suffocated during renewed clashes with Israeli army forces in the Hebron area. Four Palestinians were shot and injured with rubber-coated steel bullets, and another was struck with a stun grenade shrapnel, whereas many others suffocated due to...
TODAY sees the start of a three-day visit to Britain by the Chinese president Xi Jinping, a visit that has seen the British ruling class roll out the red carpet, all the better to grovel before him on. Included in the itinerary is a programme of meetings with Treasury officials...
‘IT is no good simply talking about violent extremism, we need to confront all extremism, we need to recognise that the poison of extremism is corrupting young minds and we need to stop it right where it starts,’ Tory PM Cameron said yesterday. Trade unionists, socialists, human rights organisations and...
‘TORY MPs could lose their seats at the next General Election if they support George Osborne’s tax credit cuts,’ said Seema Malhotra MP, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. She added yesterday: ‘These MPs face a clear choice on Tuesday – they can either join the many families and...
NHS! NHS! NHS! chanted 20,000 junior doctors, medical students, health workers and supporters as they marched in central London on Saturday. ‘The BMA is balloting for industrial action,’ BMA junior doctors committee chair Johann Malawana told a mass rally in Pall Mall to cheers before the march set off for...
20,000 junior doctors, medical students, health workers and supporters marched in central London yesterday. As well there were well attended marches in Belfast and Nottingham. This is the beginning of the eruption of a giant mass movement in the UK determined to defeat attempts to impose contracts and to defend...
THE Palestinian Mission in London reported yesterday that ‘In the past year Israeli government forces have further intensified their provocations and attack against Al-Aqsa mosque compound by allowing Israeli extremist settlers free reign to storm the Holy site in an attempt to change its status quo. ‘According to the Islamic...
THOUSANDS of junior doctors will take to the streets of London today in protest at the imposed changes to their contracts. The rally today in Waterloo Place follows the BMA’s decision not to re-enter negotiations over fears for patient and doctor safety. This decision was made after it became clear...
YESTERDAY the Tory business secretary, Sajid Javid, convened an emergency summit meeting in Rotherham on the dramatic collapse of the UK steel industry. From the outset Javid was at pains to tell those attending the summit – including steel unions, bosses and ministers – that the Tories are helpless in...
ISRAELI authorities on Thursday handed the families of two Palestinian suspects – whom Israel accused of being involved in an attack against Israeli soldiers – notices to demolish their homes in the town of Silwad to the east of Ramallah. Local sources informed Palestinian news agency WAFA that army soldiers...
ASLEF has submitted its evidence on the government’s Trade Union Bill to the House of Commons Public Bill Committee. Introducing its evidence Aslef leader Mick Whelan said: ‘We say it’s hypocritical of the government to try to reduce red tape for business while trying to strangle trade unions with regulation....
