Monthly Archives: December 2016
STRIKING train drivers brought the Southern rail network to a halt yesterday in their dispute over safety. Members of the Aslef union walked out for 48 hours at one minute to midnight Monday. A further 24-hour strike is set for Friday. On the early morning Selhurst, southeast London, picket line...
SOUTHERN rail yesterday lost its appeal to attempt to ban the Southern rail drivers’ strike, so the two day strike has gone ahead. The strike began at one minute past midnight last night and will continue until 11.59pm on Wednesday bringing Southern rail to a complete halt. This is Southern’s...
BRITISH capitalism in the 21st century cannot guarantee even the most basic pre-requisites for life if you are not wealthy. This is the stark message delivered over the weekend by an energy industry insider who spelt out that communities in the near future could be split between those who can...
THE Israeli Supreme Court was scheduled to hold a hearing on Sunday to discuss the case of two hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners Anas Shadid, 20, and Ahmad Abu Farah, 29, who have been on hunger strike for 80 and 79 days respectively. Chairman of the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) Qaddura Faris...
PRESIDENT Assad had an interview with the Syrian newspaper al-Watan last Wednesday and we are pleased to be be able to publish some extracts from that interview. Question: Mr. President, can we start with Aleppo? The army is advancing quickly in the eastern neighbourhoods of Aleppo. But there are American...
THE Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has said a new report that calls for Staffordshire Fire and Rescue to be merged with the police is a threat to the independence of the service. Entitled Is there a case for full integration?, the report was commissioned jointly by the Staffordshire Police and...
A COLLISION between Italy and the European Union over a bailout of Italy’s collapsed banking system is getting closer by the day. It is threatening not just the EU banks but the union itself, and the world, seeing that Italy is the EU’s third economic power. Also, an EU...
DESPERATE for trade after Brexit, and for access to Middle East oil, bankrupt capitalist Britain is desperately licking the boots of Arab feudalists, while it is arming them to the teeth, and giving them every assistance in their struggle to crush pro-democracy movements that are attempting drag the Gulf...
THE UN human rights office has finally admitted that foreign-backed terrorist bands are blocking civilians from fleeing eastern parts of the Syrian city of Aleppo to the safe and secure government-held sector. ‘Some of the civilians who are attempting to flee are reportedly being blocked by armed opposition...
SOME 15,000 workers, youth and students marched through the Athens city centre last Thursday morning in two different demonstrations as part of the one-day general strike called by the GSEE (Greek TUC). At the port of Piraeus, seafarers are continuing their strike, now for over a week, against tax hikes...
AN Indianapolis trade union leader has been receiving threats after US president-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter to attack him on Wednesday night. Trump twice tweeted about United Steelworkers Local 1999 and its president, Chuck Jones on Wednesday, saying Jones has done a ‘terrible job’ representing workers and that the...
AMNESTY International has warned that the human rights records of Persian Gulf Arab states must not be ‘swept under the carpet’ during the upcoming meeting of (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain. In a report released on Monday, Amnesty noted that human rights are notably absent from the agenda of...
THE DEAL, struck between unions and Tata Steel, which guarantees no compulsory redundancies at Port Talbot for five years and accepts the end of the British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS) has been ‘welcomed’ by the GMB, Unite and Community unions. The deal now has to be put to the steel...
THE announcement that Tata Steel has reached an agreement with the steel trade union leaders that will ‘save’ the industry has been greeted as a huge victory by the Labour Party and the trade union bureaucrats. Closer examination of the deal reveals that in reality Tata have given virtually nothing...
THERE is no doubt that the 44 STPs (Sustainability and Transformation Plans) that were prepared in secret are in fact part of one Tory plan to smash the NHS and privatise its remnants. Yesterday, health chiefs in North West London published their plan for cutting £500m of care, cynically called...
EALING and Charing Cross District General Hospitals are to have their Accident and Emergency Departments closed under the North West London Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), which was published yesterday. The plan is one of 44 STPs being created across the UK, breaking up the NHS, closing A&Es and maternity...
TENS of thousands of residents of the UNESCO world heritage site of Sur are among an estimated half a million people forced out of their homes as a result of a brutal crackdown by Turkish authorities over the past year which may amount to collective punishment, said Amnesty International...
KEIR Starmer, Labour Shadow Secretary of State for Leaving the EU, will, today in the House of Commons, open a debate for Labour on a motion calling for the government to publish its plan for Brexit before Article 50 is invoked. Labour knows full well that May will not do...
THE concluding statement of Fatah’s seventh congress on Sunday night declared the Palestinian people have the right to popular resistance to end the Israeli occupation of their land and determine their future. The statement, read at the conclusion of six days of Fatah congress held at the Muqata, the presidential...
RAIL union RMT said yesterday it will fight Transport Secretary Chris Grayling’s plans to privatise Network Rail. The RMT lobbied a major speech on rail policy by Grayling at the Policy Exchange in Central London at 6.30pm yesterday evening. The RMT assembled outside the venue from 6pm to make the...
PRESIDENT-ELECT Donald Trump may be touting his deal with heating and ventilation systems manufacurer Carrier as a triumph for working-class Americans, but Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is hearing none of it. ‘Today, about 1,000 Carrier workers and their families should be rejoicing,’ Sanders wrote in a Thursday op-ed for...
THE SYRIAN government forces are on the cusp of victory! They have liberated the majority of eastern Aleppo and are driving the terrorist forces out. Syrian troops seized control of Qadi Askar and Karm al-Qaterji yesterday morning, hours after Karm Myassar and Karm al-Tahan were retaken. The key district...
THE defeat for the Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, in Sunday’s referendum to change the Italian constitution and concentrate the political power in his hands in order to carry out EU dictated ‘reforms’ was even more decisive than predicted. In a large turnout Renzi was humiliated with 60% voting against...
THOUSANDS of patients are being put at risk of major strokes because the NHS is failing to give them critical surgery in time, a Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) national audit has revealed. Every year around 50,000 people in the UK suffer from a transient ischaemic attack (TIA). The episodes,...
THE European Union is like a huge powder magazine that started to smoulder even before the Brexit vote in the UK on June 23rd, and is now about to be blown apart as its inner contradictions become white hot and completely unbearable. Yesterday, Italians voted in a referendum called by...
THE LEADERS of a new trade union federation as an alternative to the Congress for South African Trade Unions (COSATU) have targeted the last weekend of March next year for its official launch. Four names – the South African Council of Trade Unions (SACTU), Progressive Workers’ Federation of SA (PROWFESA),...
SOUTHERN rail owner Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) yesterday launched a legal bid to stop ASLEF’s strike action. GTR issued proceedings at the High Court to seek an injunction to declare illegal ASLEF’s planned Southern drivers’ strikes for the run-up to Christmas (a 48-hour strike on 13-14 December and a 24-hour...
AS TEMPERATURES plummet and the cold weather sets in, homeless charity Shelter calculated that over a quarter of a million people will wake up this Xmas homeless. This includes thousands of people sleeping rough – 160 have died on the streets of London this year alone. The quarter of a...
THE Syrian Army and popular forces captured a strategic region in the southern parts of eastern Aleppo on Wednesday to continue their high speed advances that herald a complete clampdown on terrorists in the war-ravaged city. Army troops and popular forces earned sweeping victories over the terrorists in 16 districts...
BLAIR, the universally hated and reviled ex-Labour prime minister, was thrown a lifeline in his quest to resurrect his political career as an anti-Brexit ‘insurgent’ on Wednesday. Labour MPs turned out en masse to ensure the overwhelming defeat of a motion calling for him to be held to account...
PALESTINIAN prisoner Kifah Hattab, 53, entered the eighth day of a hunger strike on Wednesday in the latest of a series of hunger strikes launched by the prisoner who has demanded to be considered a prisoner of war in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention, according to a statement...
LABOUR leader Corbyn absented himself from the vote on Wednesday night when Labour and Tory MPs voted down an SNP motion condemning the misleading of parliament by former PM Blair, in order to join the US in invading Iraq. Along with Corbyn, Diane Abbott and John McDonnell were also...
SLEEP-deprived junior doctors, subjected to an ever increasing heavy workload, are losing out on vital training and this, in turn, is impacting patient care, a survey by the General Medical Council (GMC) revealed yesterday. The 2016 national training survey, asked 55,000 junior doctors about the conditions they face in the...
RBS, still over 70% state-owned, is the worst prepared of the UK’s biggest banks to cope with the next financial crisis, a crisis which is very rapidly developing. his is the finding of the Bank of England (BoE) stress test. However, RBS is not alone. It failed the stress test...
TORY Health Secretary Hunt’s announ-cement yesterday that there are to be 1,000 nurse apprentices in hospitals was condemned by health professionals and unions yesterday. Rehana Azam, GMB National Secretary, said of the apprentice nurses plan: ‘This is another example of the Tory government trying to squeeze cheap labour out of...
‘RETURN the bodies of slain Palestinians!’ Bethlehem students unions demanded of Israel, adding that ‘withholding bodies is a war crime.’ Three student unions from universities in the southern occupied West Bank district of Bethlehem announced earlier in the week that they would be ‘launching activities’ in support of Palestinian...