Monthly Archives: April 2018
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has told Russia to ‘get ready’ for a missile strike on Syria in response to the completely fictitious ‘chemical attack’ in Douma. French President Macron has announced that France will join the US attack, but Germany has said that it will not participate in military...
NUMSA leader Irvin Jim commemorates 25 years since anti-apartheid campaigner Chris Hani’s death in the following article: ON 10 April 1993, Chris Hani was assassinated for his unwavering commitment to the total liberation of workers from the chains of capitalist exploitation. ‘Nithi sixole kanjani amabhunu abulale uChris Hani? Ayangcangazela amabhunu abulale uChris...
THIS week a headline in one of the bourgeois papers declared ‘Europe Grinds to a Halt’ and for once the hyperbole was justified as a wave of strikes by public sector workers engulfed France and Germany effectively closing down airports and transport in both countries. In Germany, Ver.di, the biggest...
THE TORY Cabinet was in an emergency session yesterday evening with PM May meeting resistance from fellow Tory cabinet members over joining France and giving full support to Trump’s projected strike on Syria. There was resistance from cabinet members to May’s plan to shut Parliament out of the decision...
Children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) are not getting the support they need and are at risk of being permanently excluded from school because of funding cuts! This was the conclusion of an NEU (National Education Union) survey out on Tuesday at its ATL (Association of Teachers...
IT is becoming clearer that PM May intends that UK land, air and naval forces will take part in the Franco-American strike against Syria that is now just hours away. She is however so nervous of the prospect, that she is not willing to recall parliament to give MPs...
The BMA has secured more than £200,000 in back pay for junior doctors, after their rotas failed to provide sufficient rest. It has now warned that trusts must address staffing shortfalls to ensure patient and doctor safety. A banding appeal launched by the BMA and doctors at Cambridge University Hospitals...
SAFETY has been compromised for the residents of Merseyside in Liverpool, as years of savage cuts to the fire services have left it unable to respond to emergency incidents in the way that it used to, a new report warns. Fresh cuts have been announced that state that firestations will...
RUSSIA will take all political, diplomatic and military retaliatory measures if necessary should the United States deliver a strike on Syria, Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) Defence Committee Chairman and former Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Airborne Troops Vladimir Shamanov said yesterday. ‘The politics of double standards have hit...
‘WE HAVE a lot of options militarily,’ US President Trump said yesterday banging the war drums against Syria, adding that a response would be decided ‘shortly’. Trump also spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron late on Monday, and both leaders expressed a desire for a ‘firm response’ to the...
ISRAELI Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Sunday there were ‘no innocent people’ in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip after ten days of protests and clashes left 30 Palestinians dead. ‘There are no innocent people in the Gaza Strip,’ Lieberman told Israel’s public radio. ‘Everyone’s connected to Hamas, everyone gets a salary from...
DEUTSCHE Bank, the largest and most important bank in Europe, sacked its British born chief executive John Cryan after just three years in the job, a sacking that marks the latest stage in a terminal crisis that is gripping not just Deutsche but every other bank throughout the world....
‘ANY military interference in Syria conducted under far-fetched or fabricated pretexts’ would be ‘absolutely unacceptable’ and could lead to ‘dire consequences,’ warned Russia yesterday. Moscow was responding to threats from the US President Trump that Russia will play ‘a big price’ for the fabricated ‘chemical attack’ in Douma. Russia...
A DEMONSTRATION on Saturday of over 2,000 people shouted their support for Palestine in solidarity with the ‘Great March of Return’ in Gaza and condemned the Israeli killing of marchers. They demanded an end to the siege of Gaza and that the British government stop arming the Israeli...
THE Syrian government has denied the terrorist claims, that were expected, that Syria has launched a chemical attack on its own city of Douma, in Eastern Ghouta, killing 70 people. In fact, any gas attack was self-inflicted, and was predicted by both Syrian and Russian experts. They said that...
TWENTY-NINE Palestinian civilians have been killed and 3,000 wounded by Israeli snipers and tanks firing at unarmed demonstrators near the Gaza border over the past fortnight. This figure includes the ten Palestinians, two of them teenagers, who were killed last Friday with 1,000 injured! However, Israeli minister for military...
EIGHT hundred students of nursing and other health care courses were told last Friday that loan instalments expected this week will be reduced or withheld entirely due to overpayment errors, the government has confirmed for the first time. The students have been told they will not receive full loan payments...
SYRIAN Presidential Political and Media Advisor Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban has said that the liberation of Eastern Ghouta has shown that the Syrian state triumphs in any battle it leads. In an interview with the Syrian TV channel on Wednesday evening, Shaaban added that the Syrian state has its...
LETHAL force was used again yesterday against unarmed Palestinians demonstrating on the Gaza border as Israeli forces open fired, killing two Palestinians. Thousands of protesters gathered near the border fence east of Khan Yunis, part of a six-week rally dubbed the ‘Great March of Return’ which began last Friday. Over...
THE UNITED States, Britain and France have been setting up new outposts in northeastern Syria, despite the opposition of the Damascus government to any uninvited foreign military presence on sovereign Syrian territory. British forces are operating without the permission of the UK parliament. Officials from a coalition of Arab...
MILLIONS of workers, as of yesterday, have been hit for six. The amount that comes out of their wages in pension contributions now triples from 1% to 3%. This massive hike in contributions began yesterday, the start of the new tax year. Rebecca Goldring, a tax manager at accountancy...
NEW car sales in Britain plunged in March by 15.7% compared to the same period last year, a massive drop that spells out the collapse not just of the motor industry but the entire manufacturing industry in the country. Until now the vast numbers of new cars on the...
TEACHER strikes and massive demonstrations of teachers, parents and students are spreading across the United States ‘like wildfire’. In Oklahoma City, at the state Capitol on Tuesday, thousands of people gathered, chanting and carrying signs with slogans including: ‘Don’t make me use my TEACHER voice’ and ‘STRAIGHT OUTTA SUPPLIES’. Over...
‘TODAY, Scotland Yard and the British government are refusing to communicate with us, no answer, the telephones are switched off. And that brings us to the very sad conclusions, why is this happening here?’ Alexander Yakovenko, the Russian Ambassador to the UK, said yesterday. He was speaking at a...
‘The South African Federation of Trade Unions lowers its flags in honour of Comrade Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, one of the great revolutionary icons of the struggle for freedom and democracy.’ SAFTU’s tribute continued: ‘Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela-Mandela was a tireless fighter against apartheid. ‘Although thrust into the spotlight partly as a result of...
TORY Foreign Secretary Johnson was yesterday accused of having ‘lied’ and of ‘misleading the British public’ by claiming that Porton Down had identified Russia as the source of the nerve agent used to poison the former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said yesterday:...
ON Tuesday evening, Gary Aitkenhead, chief executive of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down, announced, concerning the materials used to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal, ‘We were able to identify it as Novichok, to identify that it was military-grade nerve agent.’ Aitkenhead added: ‘It is...
HUNDREDS of cancer operations were cancelled during the NHS winter crisis, meaning that for some patients, by the time they are treated, their cancer may have spread. More than 530 lifesaving procedures were cancelled by the NHS due to bed shortages despite Tory PM May insisting that it was...
THE ANNUAL Conferences of the two main teachers unions, the National Education Union (NEU) and the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), held over the Easter weekend, have voted for strike action to end low pay. The NEU Conference in Brighton instructed the union...
TRAIN drivers and other workers at the French state railway SNFC began three months of rolling stoppages on Monday evening, as trade unions push back against President Emmanuel Macron’s Thatcherite ‘labour reforms’. The waste collection, electricity and energy sectors have also taken strike decisions, while French pensioners, students and...
LAST Friday the UK and US governments combined at a meeting of the UN Security Council to veto a draft statement calling for an investigation into the murder of 17 unarmed Palestinians and the wounding of 1,500 men, women and children by the Israeli army. Earlier on Friday, a peaceful...
A BMA analysis shows that winter pressures will extend right through summer. The NHS can expect to see performance this summer as poor as that seen in recent winters, as so-called ‘winter pressures’ extend right through the year, according to new analysis from the British Medical Association. The health service...
GREEK riot police attacked last Friday, with tear gas, a 3,000-strong Athens march of teachers and university students who were demanding the staffing of schools with teachers on permanent contracts and full labour rights. The riot police attack took place near the official residence of the Greek Prime Minister Alexis...