Monthly Archives: February 2017
ISRAELI forces stormed a secondary school in the southern occupied West Bank village of Tuqu on Sunday. Three Palestinian teachers suffered from pepper spray inflammation at the hands of Israeli forces. The soldiers raided the school to to remove posters commemorating 17-year-old Qusay Hassan al-Umour, who was shot...
THIS week sees the return to Athens of the Troika’s ‘bail-out monitors’ to oversee yet another round of austerity cuts designed to crucify the Greek working class and drive them even further into the gutter to keep the European banking system from going bust. For months now, two members of...
‘LET’S be under no illusions this is a catastrophic breach of data protection,’ Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for health told Parliament yesterday afternoon. He was asking an urgent question on the developing scandal surrounding 700,000 patient letters from hospitals to GPs between 2015 and 2016 that were...
THE NHS Bed crisis is a threat to patient safety, doctors have warned as the latest figures were released showing hospitals working at full capacity. Doctors union BMA said: ‘A decade-long drop in overnight hospital beds has created a “mismatch” between supply and demand in the NHS.’ This is one...
LORD Heseltine is notorious for his closure of the mining industry in 1993, as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in the Major Tory government. Now he has answered the call of Tony Blair – the totally discredited former Labour PM, responsible for the imperialist wars in Iraq and...
AFTER Israeli authorities shut down a Palestinian elementary school in the occupied East Jerusalem town of Sur Bahir last Thursday over alleged ‘incitement’ in its study materials, students attended class in the street yesterday and protested against Israel’s decision to close the school. Children who were enrolled at al-Nukhba ...
JEREMY Corbyn MP, leader of the Labour Party, said yesterday on the Stoke-on-Trent Central and Copeland by-elections results that ‘Labour’s victory in Stoke is a decisive rejection of UKIP’s politics of division and dishonesty. But our message was not enough to win through in Copeland. ‘In both campaigns, Labour listened...
MANCHESTER City Council, local trade unions and community groups are coming together in Manchester today, Saturday 25 February, to highlight the devastating effects of cuts in school funding that are putting children’s education at risk. A torch-lit march will leave Castlefield Arena at 5pm, and after arriving at Albert Square,...
STRIKING British Airways mixed fleet cabin crew were outraged yesterday by the announcement of £1.47 billion profits for BA for the last financial year, while they are fighting poverty pay of just £12,000pa and have been offered a measly 6p an hour pay rise. Unite steward Pedro said: ‘It goes...
‘OUR universities must remain places of learning, not academic sweatshops,’ UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt warned yesterday. She was responding to the Tory plan to hike university fees up even further from the current £9,250 a year to £14,000 a year for two-year ‘fast track’ degrees. The proposals would allow...
‘REINSTATE Indro Sen,’ demanded striking lecturers yesterday, in defence of their UCU rep who was unfairly suspended from North West London College in Dollis Hill, Willesden. Maths teacher and union rep Indro Sen was on the picket campaigning for the public meeting which takes place today at 6pm at...
‘LET me be clear, the decision to cancel the Dubs scheme after admitting only 350 lone refugee children shames Britain. It must not stand,’ Labour Alison McGovern MP for Wirral South told the House of Commons yesterday. She was moving the motion on unaccompanied children in Greece and Italy...
ONE of the leaders of Unite, the country’s largest union, yesterday stated that: ‘A line in the sand over further privatisation of the NHS in London needs to be drawn.’ The immediate cause of this declaration is the proposed privatisation plans at King’s College Hospital (KCH) NHS Foundation Trust which...
ISRAELI forces on Wednesday ordered all Palestinian residents of Khirbit Tana, east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, to leave their homes to allow for military drill in that area, a local official said. Aref Hanini, mayor of the nearby town of Beit Furik, said that Israeli forces evicted...
TENS of thousands took part in a National Day of Action organised by South Africa’s National Education Health & Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) against National Treasury and the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) on Wednesday morning, 22nd February 2017. The Day of Action included a joint march with...
VOTERS in both the Stoke-on-Trent and Copeland by-elections go to the polls today to elect new MPs for the seats held by Labour at the last general election. These by-elections have become a crucial battleground with the NHS and its defence the front line issue. During Prime Minister’s Question...
IN what must be the most blinding statement of the obvious, senior members of the Bank of England admitted yesterday that they did not have a clue about the next financial crash, apart from the fact that one was well on the way. This admission came from Gertjan Vlieghe a...
THE TORIES are failing to tackle the acute teacher shortage crisis in schools across England, a committee of MPs said yesterday. The Education Select Committee report says recruitment targets for teaching have been consistently missed and that the teacher shortage crisis is getting worse. Figures last year showed that almost...
NEWLY qualified GPs have been stopped from working for six months due to delays by the privateer Capita’s management of the National Performers List (NPL), which they need to be on to practice. Capita advises applicants to allow 12 weeks to complete the registration process and checks, but GPs who...
TODAY BA mixed fleet cabin crew start another round of four days of strike action against poverty level wages that has meant them relying on second jobs just to survive, and with some reporting that they are forced to sleep in cars between flights because they can’t afford the...
‘IT IS outrageous that London Underground have decided to discriminate against their Night Tube drivers,’ RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said yesterday as the ballot opened for Night Tube drivers to take strike action. Night Tube drivers are been prevented from moving into vacant full-time positions for a...
THE LOCAL Government Association (LGA) yesterday warned that the increase in council tax bills by 5% will do absolutely nothing to halt the continued cuts to local services as councils are pushed ‘perilously close to the financial edge’. Under Tory-imposed rules, all councils may increase the tax by 1.9% in...
‘THE policy of France, that started from day one, to support the terrorists in Syria, is responsible directly for the killings in our country,’ President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview with French media last week. He affirmed that victory in Aleppo is an important step in the way to...
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree ‘On recognition in the Russian Federation of the documents and licence plates of vehicles issued to Ukraine’s citizens and persons without citizenship, who permanently reside in the areas of certain districts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Lugansk regions.’ The Kremlin’s press service says...
FOLLOWING a controversial meeting held last Wednesday between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian and Israeli leaders reacted with condemnation and praise in response to a clear shift in US policy away from backing the two-state solution. Trump responded to a question on Wednesday...
STRIKING British Airways mixed fleet cabin crew at Heathrow Airport welcomed other trade unionists on their Hatton Cross picket line on Saturday, dubbing it ‘Solidarity Saturday’. Matt Ratcliffe, Hillingdon Unison Local Government Branch Secretary, said: ‘We’re here to show solidarity with these striking brothers and sisters in the borough. I...
TODAY is ‘Solidarity Saturday’ when striking British Airways Mixed Fleet cabin crew are being visited by trade unionists and supporters from different trade unions at their strike base at Bedfont Football Club on the perimeter of Heathrow Airport. Yesterday, they began another session of action during which they are...
‘HEADS of the managers responsible must roll,’ the GMB union insisted yesterday after South East Coast Ambulance (SECAmb) Trust claimed that bullying allegations are ‘unsubstantiated and historic’ and that they had been ‘dealt with’. The GMB called for an independent government-led inquiry into South East Coast Ambulance Trust’s alleged bullying....
TORY business secretary Greg Clark emerged from talks in France with General Motors and PSA, the owners of Peugeot, announcing that the talks had been ‘constructive’. This will be of little comfort to the 4,500 workers at the two remaining GM/Vauxhall plants in Luton and Ellesmere Port whose jobs are...
ASLEF drivers have rejected the GTR-TUC proposed ‘resolution’ to the long-running dispute with Southern Railways. ASLEF said: ‘The following question was put to our driver members employed by Southern. Do you accept the proposed agreement on driver only operation and related issues on GTR Southern services?’ • Yes: 317 • No:...
EVERY day brings a new savage attack by this Tory government on the NHS. At the beginning of the week the shock announcement broke that 19 hospitals across the country are earmarked for complete closure. By Thursday, on top of the 19 hospital closures, a further eleven maternity and neonatal...
DOZENS of garment workers and labour leaders are facing unfair or apparently fabricated criminal cases in Bangladesh after wage strikes in December 2016, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday. Arbitrary arrests by the Bangladesh police are growing with each passing day – nine more union organisers were arrested on February...
NHS hospitals and GP surgeries in England and Wales face a massive £635 million hike in their business rates by the May government over the next five years. The country’s biggest hospitals will see their business rates double amid warnings that they will have to find further savings to fill...
FRENCH vehicle maker the PSA Group says it is pushing ahead with a plan to invest in Iran’s auto industry despite an increased anti-Iran rhetoric by the United States under President Donald Trump. PSA Middle East chief Jean-Christophe Quemard said that a hardened US stance against Tehran under Trump could...
THE RMT rail union announced yesterday that guards and drivers on Southern Rail will strike for 24 hours next Wednesday, and Tube drivers will strike on the Central Line from 9pm next Tuesday to 8.59pm on Wednesday. The Southern rail strike is the latest in the on-going disputes over the...
THE NHS is facing its biggest shake up in a generation with 19 hospitals marked for closure, and care from cradle-to-grave put through a wholesale overhaul to plug a £22bn black hole in health service funding using Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs). An analysis of the 44 regional ‘blueprints’ has...
PRESIDENT Trump and the Israeli leader Netanyahu are set to meet in Washington today just as hundreds of US rabbis have signed an open letter to Trump condemning the appointment of David Friedman as the United States’ ambassador to Israel, describing him as an ‘extremist’. The open letter condemns Friedman’s...
''I''M NO HERO,’ insisted 16-year-old Emmanuel Toula after he rescued a child from a burning car set alight during last Saturday night’s youth uprising in the Bobigny suburb of Paris. Nightly youth uprisings and anti-brutality protests have spread in Parisian suburbs since a young black man, identified...
A NEW report by The Resolution Foundation think-tank on pensions and pensioners is nothing more than a clarion call for pensions to be cut and pensioners to be driven down to the same level as those workers forced to survive on benefits or scraping an existence on low wages. Under...
THE Israeli Ambassador to Ireland relayed a warning to the Israeli government on Tuesday that the Irish parliament would soon move to recognise the state of Palestine. It was reported that Zeev Boker warned the Israeli government that Ireland’s recognition of a Palestinian state was fast approaching, owing much to...
SOUTHERN are running the equivalent of a 1,000 trains a year with just a driver and no other member of staff on board, RMT revealed yesterday. The analysis was released by the RMT as the union enters ‘conciliation talks’ with Southern today. RMT guards have organised a series of strikes over...
SURGEONS have been left ‘kicking their heels’ because thousands of operations have been cancelled as a result of a beds shortage during the winter NHS crisis. So warn leaders of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS) and NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts. Surgeons say that delays from...
THE Tory government is set to introduce a new Espionage Act under which its judiciary will be able to jail journalists and ordinary members of the public as spies for revealing information that the government demands be kept a secret. The government’s advisers have recommended a ‘future-proofed’, draconian Act that...
