Monthly Archives: August 2016

THE Turkish government warned on Monday that it would carry out more strikes on the previously US-backed Kurdish militia in Syria if it fails to retreat east of the Euphrates. Turkish forces meanwhile pressed on with their operation inside Syria against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), shelling...

DOZENS of people have been killed in Turkish bombardments in Syria since Sunday, as Ankara ramps up its unprecedented offensive against Kurdish fighters and any IS members that get in the way of the Turkish army and its militia allies. Ankara said it had killed 35 Kurdish ‘terrorists’ and insisted...

FAMILIES are being uprooted from their council flats or housing association flats and ‘decanted’ hundreds of miles from their homes as areas of London are ‘socially cleansed’. If families refuse to move then they are kicked out onto the streets. ‘I didn’t have a choice in the matter, I had...

NHS Grampian in Scotland has spent vast amounts of taxpayers’ money on private nurses in the last five years – almost two million pounds in this year alone, an increase in spending of 2,700%! These shocking figures show the health board spent only £70,000 in 2011-12 and more than £1.9...

THE Norfolk and Norwich University Foundation Trust (NNUH) has closed two and half wards, around 68 beds. The closures took place on Monday 15th August, with the Trust stating that this was a temporary measure. Edgefield Urology ward, Cringleford Ward and half of the beds on Holt ward for older...

BLURTING out the truth, the German economy minister, Sigmar Gabriel, has pronounced the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a free trade deal long being negotiated by the US and EU, and billed as the future for both regions, as being effectively dead. Gabriel reported that the deal had been...

THE Minnesota Nurses Association says that on Labor Day, September 5th, nearly 5,000 of its members will walk off their jobs in an open-ended strike against five Allina Health hospitals in the Twin Cities. The union says it filed its required 10-day intent to strike notice early on Friday morning....

THE following speech was given by the former general secretary of the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), dismissed in 2015, and now Vice Chairperson of the Millennium Labour Council, Zwelinzima Vavi to the congress of the Food and Allied Workers Union (FAWU) following its recent decision to...

THE Tories are proceeding with savage cuts to the NHS, with A&Es being scaled back or closed across the country. Just a few examples are that South Tynesiders who would use South Tyneside District Hospital A&E were asked to help deal with the very sick over the bank holiday...

THIRTY-FIVE Syrian civilians have reportedly been killed and 75 others wounded by fresh Turkish artillery and tank fire plus air strikes on Jubb al Kusa, a village south of the city of Jarablus in Syria’s Aleppo province. This offensive is taking place after the Geneva talks between US Secretary of...

THE following speech was given by the former general secretary of the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), dismissed in 2015, and now Vice Chairperson of the Millennium Labour Council, Zwelinzima Vavi to the congress of the Food and Allied Workers Union (FAWU) following its recent decision to...

‘THE TUC must take action including a general strike and be prepared to call out workers to defend our NHS. ‘It is the most precious thing we own in this country and the labour movement must take a lead in defending it,’ President of the Bakers Union...

SECRET plans have been uncovered to cut £23bn from the NHS. Such a cut, if it is allowed to proceed would mean the closure of so many wards, A&Es and entire hospitals that the National Health Service will be completely undermined – the Tories will have collapsed it! There are...

THE following speech was given by the former general secretary of the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), dismissed in 2015, and now Vice Chairperson of the Millennium Labour Council, Zwelinzima Vavi to the congress of the Food and Allied Workers Union (FAWU) following its recent decision to...

THE NHS is, in practice, being steadily and consciously abolished by the Tories as they drive relentlessly to the goal of a fully privatised health service. The most direct consequence of the Tory policy of savage austerity cuts leading to staff shortages, ward and department closures is being felt by...

‘IT IS absolutely outrageous! We demand that they reinstate our full A&E, not only the children’s, to 24-hour A&E,’ Julian Porter told News Line yesterday. Porter, who is one of the Support Stafford Hospital campaigners that occupied the hospital for six months, was responding to the children’s accident and emergency...

THE GENERAL Practitioners Committee has abandoned balloting GPs for industrial action despite being mandated by their own conference to do so. A motion at the Local Medical Committees (LMCs) Conference in May said that the GPC must ballot for industrial action over the increasing workload of GPs. The motion was moved...

LABOUR right winger Owen Smith, in his desire to satisfy the big bosses and the bankers, is going even further than the Tories after the EU referendum result, when the working class and the majority of the middle class dismissed all the threats of doom to come by...

A STRIKE wave is spreading throughout South Africa as concrete workers, Telecom workers and miners are locked into escalating struggles against ruthless employers that are in fact backed up by the ANC government. Male and female workers employed by Mmabatho crushers, which makes concrete products, have been out on...

THESE are fearful times for the leaders of EU capitalism. The fear factor is not just present in Brussels. Admiral Alan West, who once led Britain’s Royal Navy and also served as security adviser to Labour PM Gordon Brown, has just raised the hysteria level with his fears...

PALESTINIAN political factions have denounced Sunday’s Israeli air raids on the besieged Gaza Strip. The Israeli army fired missiles into the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun on Sunday afternoon and evening, injuring at least five Palestinians, after a rocket fired from Gaza fell inside the southern Israeli city...

TORY MP Andrew Bridgen yesterday claimed that Labour MPs who expect Jeremy Corbyn to retain the leadership of the party by winning re-election have been urging the Tories to call a general election. ‘I’ve had very senior Labour MPs come to me and they have begged me to...

GLOBAL union federation IndustriALL has repeated its call for full democracy in Turkey as a crackdown on fundamental rights escalates. It said: ‘In the wake of the failed coup in Turkey on 15 July 2016, a state of emergency was declared, leading to an unacceptable crackdown on democratic rights. IndustriALL...

THE current heir to the Rothschild banking dynasty, Lord Jacob Rothschild, has pronounced that the game is up, the world’s central banks have shot their bolt as far as rescuing world capitalism through manipulating the monetary system is concerned, and he is jumping ship, dumping the dollar and buying...

THE TORY war on the NHS is continuing with thousands of operations to be cancelled and senior doctors diverted from operating theatres under the guise that this will have to be done to stop the NHS from buckling under the strain of the Winter crisis. The savage NHS cuts carried...

CELTIC FANS displayed Palestinian flags in a demonstration against Apartheid Israel last Wednesday night, 17th August, during the Celtic v Hapoel Be’er Sheva match. Campaigners said: ‘This demonstration at Celtic on Wednesday 17 August 2016 could well be an historic moment in the campaign to compel FIFA to treat Apartheid...

FOLLOWING the 15th August aerial bombing of Abs Hospital in Yemen’s Hajjah Governorate, which killed 19 people and injured 24, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has decided to evacuate its staff from the hospitals it supports in Saada and Hajjah governorates in Northern Yemen. Concretely these are Haydan, Razeh,...

FIRE Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack yesterday responded to London mayor Sadiq Khan’s decision to backstab Corbyn and urge Labour voters to ditch him as leader and vote for Owen Smith in the party’s leadership contest. Asked to comment on the BBC, Wrack said: ‘I’m a little bit disappointed...

PALESTINIAN children in Israeli jails are being subjected to torture, and physical and psychological abuse by Israeli officials, says the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs (PCPA). On Saturday, Hiba Masalha, its lawyer, released a report based on the testimonies of a number of Palestinian teens in Israeli custody. It highlights...

A PRIVATISATION and closure plague is being spread rapidly throughout the NHS. United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust has closed its accident and emergency department at Grantham and District Hospital at night. On 17 August, Grantham Hospital A&E was closed from 6.30pm until 9am, and medical staff were redeployed to Lincoln County...

THIS September, students in universities across the country are set to erupt in anger when they return after the £9,000 cap on university tuition fees has been removed. Exeter University has been condemned both by its students’ guild and lecturers’ union after announcing that tuition fees are to increase...

A DEMONSTRABLE increase in homelessness, driven by the cost and availability of housing, has pushed the problem to such a level that a renewed government-wide strategy is needed, the Communities and Local Government (CLG) Select Committee concludes in its report published on Thursday. The House of Commons Committee found that...

CHILD refugees languishing in squalid conditions in camps in Calais without their parents or any family member to look after them urgently need to be brought in to the UK, councillors who have visited the camps said yesterday. Councillors who visited the Calais refugee camp on Thursday have criticised...

THE number of people dying in fire-related incidents in England has seen its biggest percentage increase in 20 years, data published by the Home Office show. Three hundred and three people died in fires in 2015-16, a 15% increase on the previous 12 months. Fire services in Cambridgeshire and Cumbria...

THE MPs’ Communities and Local Government Select Committee has said that homelessness is ‘undoubtedly increasing’ and that the scale is greater than statistics suggest. The Committee considered that homeless people are too often given meaningless and ineffectual advice by councils in England, and urged ministers to back a private members’...

THE National Union of Students (NUS) joined the calls for nationwide student rent strikes yesterday. This September (16/17/18th), activists from UCL Cut the Rent (UCL-CTR), and the Radical Housing Network (RHN) will host a Rentstrike weekend training event; a gathering comprised of a series of workshops centred around the advancement...

LONMIN workers on Tuesday gathered at the Marikana koppie near Nkaneng informal settlement to pay tribute to their 34 colleagues who were gunned down by police on 16 August 2012. Thousands of mine workers gathered around the rocky hill to mark the anniversary of the deadliest protest in South Africa...

AUSTRALIA’S Turnbull Government is backing laws that force Indigenous people into work, not for wages, only welfare. The ACTU (Australian Council of Trade Unions), including Secretary Dave Oliver and Indigenous Officer Kara Keys, joined with affiliate unions and local Indigenous people in Darwin on Tuesday morning to draw attention to...

EXETER University has been condemned both by its students’ guild and lecturers’ union after announcing yesterday that tuition fees are to increase to £9,250 from autumn 2017, with the increase applying to current as well as new students. Toby Gladwin, President, Exeter Students’ Guild, said: ‘The Students’ Guild opposes any...

THE Fatah movement in southern Hebron declared a day of mourning on Wednesday after a 17-year-old Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces who had invaded the al-Fawwar refugee camp. Muhammad Abu Hashhash, 17, died on Tuesday afternoon after succumbing to a live bullet wound to his heart. He was shot...

WORKERS in 23 tea gardens in Habiganj, Bangladesh will go on indefinite strike and block the highways if their demands are not met by today, Wednesday 17th August. In the midst of severe food shortages and having been denied their due wages for 15 straight weeks, the 400 workers at...

RAIL fares are to rise by 1.9% in England, Scotland and Wales it was announced yesterday, with unions, campaigners and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn calling for the entire railway system to be re-nationalised. The rise, determined by July’s Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation measure, will take effect from January....

THE demand for the re-nationalisation of the railways and public transport is becoming unstoppable, as workers and the vast majority of the middle classes find themselves quite literally unable to afford the sky-high ticket prices demanded by the private rail and transport companies. Protests at rail stations in London and...

SPORTS Direct has been forced to pay out £1 million after admitting it was not paying its workers the minimum wage, it was announced yesterday. The deal was struck between Sports Direct, HMRC and the Unite Union, and will grant workers pay dating back to May 2012. Sports Direct were...

THE law firm that has spent ten years representing the Iraqi victims of the brutal imperialist invasion of their country and the subsequent occupation by US and British troops has been forced to close by the Tory government. Yesterday the civil rights firm Public Interest Lawyers announced that it was...