Monthly Archives: April 2019
DEPUTY Labour leader Tom Watson and Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer, along with union leaders, are pushing for a second referendum in a move against party leader Jeremy Corbyn. They are calling for a lobby of Labour’s NEC today to force the executive to take up their position. Watson urged...
THE PROPORTION of UK adults on low incomes who face hunger has almost doubled since 2004, with the unemployed and disabled particularly vulnerable, says the British Medical Journal (BMJ). Survey data published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health shows that those who are unemployed or disabled are...
US-sponsored and Kurdish-led militants from the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have opened fire for the second straight day at people protesting against their atrocious activities and demanding their withdrawal from Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr. Local sources, requesting not to be named, told Syria’s official news agency SANA...
LAST week the National Audit Office launched an investigation into the Home Office’s decision in 2014, when Theresa May was Home Secretary, to accuse 34,000 international students of cheating an English language test. Now, whistleblowers employed at the Dublin Cessation Team (DCT), the Home Office unit responsible for determining which...
THE TORIES face a ‘historic defeat’ in Thursday’s local elections, with a top Tory polling expert predicting they are on course to lose over 800 out of their 4,682 seats. Tory peer and poll analyst, Robert Haywood, placed the blame for this election wipe-out on May and her government’s failure...
THE BRITISH Medical Association (BMA) and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) have sought to repudiate the claims by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) that they approved the ‘fit notes’ that the Tory government is using to deny people Employment Support Allowance (ESA) benefits. Today, the House...
‘THE cost of removing dangerous flammable cladding must not fall onto a building’s residents,’ the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has said. ‘The government must fund residents’ removal costs until those responsible can be held accountable.’ Almost two years on from the Grenfell Tower fire, the same flammable cladding covers a total...
RAISING the flag for Palestine 5,400 metres above sea level, following six days and 100 kilometres of walking and climbing mountains, 27 Palestinian men and women reached the base of Mount Everest, last week. Climb for Palestine, the organisers of the trip, posted on its Facebook page, ‘We are 12...
ADDRESSING a national meeting of the leaders of Palestinian political factions in Gaza City on Saturday, Ismail Haniyah, the head of the Hamas political bureau, stressed that Hamas would make use of all its potential and capabilities to confront the American scheme, calling for unity among all Palestinian parties...
HUNDREDS of train workers rallied in Euston yesterday to mark three years of the guards strike, the longest in modern history, which has begun to drive the privateers back over their attempts to make trains Driver Only Operated (DOO) – a move which puts passengers’ lives at risk. On the...
OVER 50% of local authorities in England and Wales cannot provide publicly funded legal advice on housing issues, the Law Society warned yesterday as it revealed details of ‘legal aid deserts’ across the country. New data published by the Society shows that over half of all local authorities in England...
ON THURSDAY evening French president Emmanuel Macron finally made a public address outlining his response to the revolutionary uprising of workers, youth and the rural poor against his plans to impose ‘reforms’ on the French economy. This address followed a month of ‘consultation’ by Macron across the country allegedly to...
SOME of the youngest protesters ever rose up yesterday in the ‘march of the four-year-olds!’ where over 200 parents accompanied an army of children demanded the Tory plans to force kids to take a test in their first week of school are defeated. The baseline assessment tests are hated by...
WITH WAVES of strike action currently under way across UK airports, hundreds of workers are set to join a mass protest at Heathrow tomorrow, Saturday, to demand that all 90,000 employees receive at least the London Living Wage. ‘We call on Heathrow to honour its commitments and ensure thousands of...
ANALYSIS by the GMB union of figures in the national Skills for Care database reveals that care workers employed in the private sector are three-times more likely to be on zero-hours contracts than workers in the public sector. Not only do zero-hours contracts run through the private sector social care...
THE NUMBER of homeless people dying on the streets of England has dramatically increased by 25% over five years, while the sheer scale of rough sleeping has increased by 165%, charities warned yesterday. They point to savage cuts to homelessless support services at the hands of this Tory government amounting...
‘THERE is only one decision! No Extradition!’ shouted supporters of Julian Assange outside London’s Supreme Court in Parliament Square yesterday. Nellie Arequipa was with her friends from Ecuador and told News Line: ‘We are here to show our support for Julian Assange. He has shown us the real situation with...
The largest private sector strike in the USA in years ended in victory last week, with more than 30,000 Stop & Shop supermarket workers achieving an improved contract at the end of their 10-day strike, while the company lost millions of dollars. More than 30,000 Stop & Shop supermarket employees...
The secretary general of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, delivered a defiant speech in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Monday, 22nd April 2019. In his speech, delivered during a ceremony to mark the 34th anniversary of establishing Imam Mahdi Scouts, Nasrallah emphasised that Israel is a greedy enemy. The...
34,000 FOREIGN students have had their visas cancelled and over 1,000 have been kicked out of the country as a result of the racist ‘hostile environment’ regime imposed by Theresa May while she was Home Secretary in 2014. When the scandal of the Windrush generation broke last year, charities that...
TEACHERS have instructed their trade union’s executive to consider calling action, ‘up to and including strike action’ against the Tory government’s attacks on their pay. The National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) Conference held in Belfast in the north of Ireland on Saturday, Sunday and Monday,...
THERESA May returned from her Easter break to face Tory MPs united in demanding her resignation. Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, met May to tell her that Tory MPs are demanding the date for her resignation. Earlier on the BBC, Nigel Evans who sits on the 1922 executive...
SURREY County Council has announced shocking plans to shut three fire stations at night, axe 70 firefighters’ jobs and halve the fire cover at four other stations, putting Surrey residents’ lives in serious jeopardy. How will vulnerable residents of Surrey be able to sleep at night knowing that there is...
STEPHEN Smith, an extremely ill 64-year-old man, who the government’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had declared ‘fit-for-work’ has sadly died. Smith was left starving and unable to stand, but was still deemed ‘fit to find work’ and his benefits slashed. He was left with just £67 a week Jobseeker’s...
THE SOUTH African Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) says it is ‘wary of armed intruders accessing mines where its members work.’ AMCU has documented four such incidents, with the latest reportedly last Thursday at Kloof Mine outside Westonaria, where its members arrested a man who was allegedly found...
BOTH junior doctors and seniors are facing serious burn out because of lack of staff, overwork and stress, and this has created a serious mental health crisis within the profession, a new BMA report has revealed. The BMA said: ‘Doctors’ and medical students’ wellbeing is being placed at enormous risk.’ A...
THE WORKERS and small farmers of Ukraine dealt a crushing blow to the right-wing oligarchs and to the EU and US imperialism when they voted by over 70% to throw out former president Petro Poroshenko in favour of Volodymyr Zelenskiy, an actor and comedian. Such is the hatred for Poroshenko...
TWO TEACHING unions have strongly criticised a minimum wage internship for teachers run by Stranmillis University College in Belfast. The NASUWT said the scheme should be suspended immediately, while the Ulster Teachers’ Union (UTU) called it ‘ludicrous’. The college is offering two ‘graduate internships’ at Dundonald Primary School in Belfast. They are...
THE Coordinator of Justice 4 Grenfell Yvette Williams demanded yesterday, ‘Where were the bell-tolls for Grenfell?’ She contrased the bell tolls and the rush of billionaires to pledge billions of francs to rebuild the Notre Dame Cathedral to the way that the Grenfell fire had been treated. ‘The fire at Notre...
CHILDREN locked up in the UK are subjected to horrific pain, inhuman and degrading treatment, cruel restraining techniques and solitary confinement, a damning report released by a parliamentary committee has highlighted. And these methods are all legal and condoned by the government! The UK Parliament’s Human Rights Committee found that:...
PATIENTS from other countries are failing to get the urgent cancer treatment they need, because of upfront fees. These fees are ‘deterring immigrants from seeking NHS care’ On March 29, EU ‘leaving day,’ workers demonstrated in London showing their disgust at May’s parliamentary betrayal. The BMA says charging regulations for overseas...
IRANIAN Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has travelled to Ankara to hold talks with Turkish officials on bilateral ties, the restoration of peace in Syria, and the latest developments in North Africa. That was announced by Zarif upon arrival in the Turkish capital, Ankara, which is his second visit to...
THE Standing Committee for Youth Justice and the UK Parliament’s Human Rights Committee yesterday indicted the British government for inflicting pain on young people as a matter of policy. ‘Staff in Youth Offender Institutions (YOIs), but in no other children’s institutions, can deliberately inflict pain on child inmates,’ it stated. ‘(The)...
THIS YEAR an estimated 4,677 people a night are sleeping rough on the streets of Britain, a figure that has increased for the past seven consecutive years. In 2017, nearly 600 rough sleepers died on the streets of England and Wales up from 482 the year before. The housing and homeless...
‘ALMOST a decade of Conservative education cuts has left our children’s future in a perilous state,’ says the GMB trade union. It has responded to a Sutton Trust report that two thirds of primary schools are cutting teaching assistants. Rehana Azam, GMB National Secretary, said: ‘When underfunded schools are desperately trying...
THE MAY government has dropped its key NHS ‘safe staffing’ measure. This means that nurse staffing fill rate data are no longer being published. This change is an attack on patient safety. The ‘safe staffing measure’ was seen as an important measure for improving safety. It has been replaced on government websites...
DOMESTICALLY-BUILT fighter jets will be on display for the first time during Iran’s National Army Day parade taking place today. The deputy commander of the Iranian Army’s Air Force announced that the Kowsar and Saeqeh bombers, built in Iran, will star in the annual military parade, which marks the National Army...
AN ARTICLE in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph revealed that a series of behind-the-scenes meetings has been taking place between members of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet and leading bosses of the big banks. These meetings are designed to ‘build bridges’ between the left-reformists around Corbyn and the bankers and financiers in the...
PARENTS found out yesterday if their child got into the primary school of their choice, while at their annual conference, the National Education Union (NEU) warned of a growing schools places crisis. Last year about one-in-10 families missed out on their first choice of school. Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the...
THE HIGH Speed 2 (HS2) contractor has ‘ratted on overtime agreements’ the Unite union alleged yesterday. Unite, which represents construction workers building the line, expressed anger and dismay after commitments to ensure that workers on the HS2 project would receive the correct overtime rates were reneged on. Last month, Unite exposed...
A SOLDIER who shot dead a 15-year-old boy in Derry, in the north of Ireland in July 1972 is to be charged with murder. Daniel Hegarty was shot twice in the head during the largest single operation by the British army in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The Public Prosecution Service...
THUGS, allegedly supplied by a labour contractor at Netherlands-based global confectioner Perfetti Van Melle’s factory in Gazipur, Bangladesh, launched an organised attack on union members at work last week. Management stood by as over 20 goons, allegedly organised by labour and services provider Rahat Corporation, entered the factory and sought...
FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron was forced to cancel his important address to the French nation on Monday night, after a massive fire erupted at the historic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris at 6.00pm Monday, destroying priceless French treasures as well as the roof of the historic Cathedral and its...
MAHAD Egal, Jamie Murray and their two young children, who survived the Grenfell Tower fire, like so many others have still not been permanently re-housed by the council, and not only have they spent the last two years in temporary accommodation they now face eviction! Kensington and Chelsea Council claim...
THOUSANDS of ‘Extinction Rebellion’ protesters blocked key areas of central London yesterday demanding action from the government on the ‘climate and ecological emergency’. Traffic was halted and roads blocked at Marble Arch, Oxford Circus, Parliament Square, Piccadilly Circus and Waterloo Bridge. On Waterloo Bridge one of the protesters, Lizzie Tyler, told...