Monthly Archives: January 2016
‘WE ARE going to win this battle and we will keep our hospital here forever!’ Kaushalya Gussar declared on Friday’s mass picket of Ealing Hospital to stop the closure of the A&E, the Children’s Department and to demand the re-opening of the Maternity Department. Daniella Dzurova, a nurse in the...
‘JUSTICE’ Israeli-style was displayed to the world on Thursday when five Palestinian teenagers were sentenced to 15 years in prison by an Israeli military court on the charge of manslaughter. The case of the five youths, known as the Hares Boys after the occupied West Bank town they come from,...
ISRAELI forces detained Palestinian lawmaker Muhammad Abu Tair and at least 22 others from across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during raids carried out early on Thursday. The head of the Jerusalem Committee for Families of Prisoners, Amjad Abu Asab, said that Abu Tair, member of the...
AT PM’s Questions, in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Labour leader Corbyn raised the issue of the UK’s sale of billions of pounds-worth of bombs, planes and missiles to Saudi Arabia and the role that this weaponry is playing in killing thousands of...
GREEK workers, youth, farmers and professionals are continuing and developing the struggle against the government’s Pensions Bill. On Tuesday night over 5,000 workers and youth participated in a march through Athens called by the trade union section of the Greek Communist Party (KKE). A rally called by the ADEDY, the...
THE Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection regime aimed at GP practices is damaging patient care by diverting resources and GP time away from treating patients, according to a new BMA survey of over 1,900 GP practices in England. Last year the CQC was forced to withdraw part of its assessment...
EIGHTY-NINE people took their own lives in prisons during 2015 as the suicide rate behind bars remained at an alarmingly high level, figures seen by the Howard League for Penal Reform revealed yesterday. A further eight prisoners were killed in apparent homicides during 2015 – the highest number in...
‘FIRE deaths in Merseyside have doubled in the past five years,’ Merseyside firefighters warned yesterday as further savage cuts are planned to their service. Merseyside firefighters warned that the government is playing Russian roulette with people’s lives by imposing huge budget cuts to the fire and rescue service. Les Skarratts,...
ISRAEL''S defence minister has accused Turkey of buying oil from IS, thereby funding its activities. Speaking in Athens, Moshe Yaalon said IS had ‘enjoyed Turkish money for oil for a very, very long period of time’. Turkey denies allowing IS smuggling and the US recently rejected Russian claims that Turkish...
THE Tory government’s flagship Bedroom Tax was delivered a ‘massive blow’ yesterday when Court of Appeal judges declared it to be ‘discriminatory’. The judges’ ruling followed a legal challenge by a domestic violence victim and the family of a disabled teenager. One appeal – brought by a woman identified...
THE Danish parliament has just voted to rob asylum seekers of their valuables – so that they pay for their upkeep. This policy immediately brings to mind the pictures of piles of jewellery taken from concentration camp victims by the Nazis, piled up on benches, just before the victims were...
LENIN wrote ‘The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self Determination’ in July 1916, just months after the Easter Rising in Dublin and just 15 months before the great October Revolution when the working class seized the power in Russia. In it he states: ‘British socialists who do...
THE National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) is preparing to take action, ‘including lunchtime pickets, placard demonstrations, marches and strikes’, to defend workers’ pensions. A statement by NUMSA General Secretary, Irvin Jim, said: ‘The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) on 21 January 2016 submitted the...
TORY plans to merge fire, ambulance and police services are being pushed forward as the Home Office called for ‘shared control rooms’ yesterday. The proposal was met with anger by the Fire Brigades Union and health unions alike. Dave Green, National Officer of the FBU, warned yesterday: ‘These proposals will not...
AT last week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, 100 pharmaceutical companies and private health care companies issued a statement demanding that governments around the world cough up billions of pounds to finance the development of new antibiotic drugs. The need for such drugs has become a major cause for concern...
VICE President Joe Biden said on Saturday that if upcoming negotiations fail and no political solution to the civil war in Syria is possible, the United States is prepared to step in with major military force. ‘We do know it would better if we can reach a political solution but...
THE world capitalist crisis as well as shattering the energy industries – oil, coal and gas – is also decimating world steel production and in particular destroying the British steel industry, and British capitalism. Tata Steel’s giant UK Port Talbot plant, where once 14,000 people worked, lost £1m a day...
FRESH protests over unemployment and poverty in central Tunisia on Thursday raised fears of growing social unrest five years after the country’s revolution was ignited by similar grievances. The discontent spread to several towns in central Tunisia, with demonstrators taking to the streets. Protests and clashes with security forces started...
CONDEMNING the ‘dreadful conditions’ in Grande-Synthe refugee camp near Dunkirk, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told Sky News that up to 3,000 people waiting in makeshift camps in Calais should be processed if they want to come to Britain. The Labour leader said that the Labour Party has been too...
ISRAELI authorities on Thursday razed land and demolished a greenhouse and water well in Beit Ula, a village located northwest of Hebron, according to local sources. Essa Amleh, coordinator of the Anti-Settlement Commission in the village, told WAFA that Israeli troops accompanied by heavy machinery broke into the village and...
THE decision to postpone the 48 hour strike action by junior doctors from 26 January without any attempt by the government to meet the doctors even halfway is rejected by junior doctors who voted by 98% to defend their conditions. We urge all junior doctors and other health workers to...
THE steel industry in the UK faces shut-down, as the capitalist crisis deepens. The demand that the trade unions must organise occupations to halt the sackings and defend jobs is growing, as is the demand that the survival of the steel industry depends on it being nationalised. The destruction of...
THE Tory campaign to give the armed forces of the capitalist state complete immunity from criminal prosecution took another step forward yesterday. PM Cameron issued a blanket denunciation of all legal action taken by the victims and relatives for criminal acts carried out by British military personnel during the Iraq...
THE decision to postpone the 48 hour strike action by junior doctors from 26 January without any attempt by the government to meet the doctors even halfway is rejected by junior doctors who voted by 98% to defend their conditions. We urge all junior doctors and other health workers...
EMPLOYMENT Minister Nick Boles announced on Wednesday evening that the new anti-union legislation will govern industrial action in the fire, health, education, transport, border security and nuclear decommissioning sectors. He declared war on some of the most important sections of the working class, in particular on the Junior Doctors...
THE Israeli army on Wednesday notified the demolition of two houses in Hebron and took measurements of another belonging to the families of three Palestinians suspected of carrying out stabbing attacks against Israeli settlers, according to local sources. Israeli troops stormed the village of Tarusa, southwest of Hebron, and notified...
GMB officers are seeking permission for a strike ballot after pay talks broke down covering 175 GMB members employed as domestics and hostesses by private contractor Aramark at four sites of South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (SLAM). The GMB is seeking a living wage of £10 per hour and...
STUDENT nurses demanded action to defend their bursaries at a Unison student nursing summit held at the union’s headquarters in Euston, central London, yesterday. Sophia Koumi, a King’s College London Students Union vice president, who was involved in organising the Bursary or Bust campaign and march this month, spoke to...
THE World Economic Forum meeting in Davos to celebrate capitalism finds the assembled chief executives, politicians and would-be prophets much more pessimistic and frightened about the prospects for capitalism this year than they were last year, according to a survey. PricewaterhouseCooper’s survey, released ahead of the annual World Economic Forum...
AMNESTY International has accused Apple, Samsung and Sony, among others, of failing to do basic checks to ensure minerals used in their products are not mined by children. In a report into cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it found children as young as seven working in...
A TORY pilot trial extending ambulance response time by two minutes has had lethal consequences, with many more patients suffering heart attacks not making it to hospital in time. GMB, the union which represents ambulance workers, has demanded that the pilot scheme is immediately and permanently ended as it decreases...
THE BMA has suspended next week’s 48-hour junior doctors strike. In a statement, the BMA said: ‘The decision comes as ACAS talks continue this week between the BMA and the government on the junior doctor contract.’ Commenting on the decision to suspend industrial action, BMA junior doctor committee chair Dr...
THE BMA and its Junior Doctors Committee yesterday ‘made the decision to suspend the 48-hour industrial action planned for 26-28 January. We are announcing this today in order to give trusts as much notice as possible so as to avoid disruption to patients. This decision is in line with...
ALMOST none of the 230 Tamil political prisoners currently languishing inside Colombo prisons had command responsibilities in the Tamil Tigers or even contributed to the ‘crimes’ they are accused of. So insists Tamil political prisoner Jeneevan Sivarasa, who was released after being ‘pardoned’ by Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena...
ISRAELI army troops on Sunday shot dead an unidentified Palestinian youth at Huwwara checkpoint, to the south of Nablus, after he allegedly attempted to stab some soldiers with a knife, according to medical sources. The killing of the unidentified youth brings up the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces...
‘OCCUPY the Port Talbot plant and demand that the government renationalise the steel industry immediately,’ Robbie Wheatley, Community union Branch Secretary at Lackenby Bos plant in Teesside, said yesterday. He was speaking to News Line after privateer Tata Steel announced the sack for 1,050 steelworkers in the UK,...
THE slaughter of the British steel industry continued yesterday with the official announcement by Tata Steel that it is to axe a further 1,050 jobs. The axe will fall mainly on the Port Talbot plant where 750 jobs are to go, a further 350 will be cut from the Indian-owned...
LAST week saw the ruling classes of the capitalist world reeling at the prospect of another huge banking crash, with its high priests, the bankers, urging ‘sell everything!’ and with the French bank Societe Generale predicting a ‘global financial ice age’ wiping 75% off share prices. In this crisis...
THE number of struggling families sending their children to school hungry has increased over the past year, according to a poll of almost 900 primary and secondary school teachers. The YouGov survey of 873 teachers in England and Wales for Kellogg’s revealed: • Four in ten teachers say they see children...
SCHOOL classrooms are at bursting point, with half a million pupils squeezed into classrooms with more than 40 in a class. Labour Party analysis highlighted the crisis, where 38,000 children are in classes of over 36 and 15,000 in classes over 40. This is a return to Victorian-style education, where...
THIS week saw a series of announcements from banks and economists about impending doom for capitalism. On Wednesday, the RBS bank advised all its clients to ‘sell everything’ to avoid being wiped out by a stock market crash of epic proportions in 2016. This was followed yesterday by a warning...
The Howard League for Penal Reform has again slammed the Tories’ preferred prisons privateer G4S following the scandal revealed by the BBC Panorama programme on child abuse at Medway Secure Training Centre in Kent on Monday. After the broadcast of the programme, three G4S employees were arrested on Wednesday on...