Monthly Archives: May 2019
OVER 500 parents and children held an angry protest outside Downing Street demanding an increase in funding for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). After handing in their petition to Downing Street they held a lively march to Parliament Square for a rally. One of the campaigners, Roanna Brewer...
THE IFJ (International Federation of Journalists) has welcomed news that the ‘illegal’ search warrants issued against two journalists are to be quashed. Following two days in court, Lord Chief Justice Morgan decided on Wednesday that he is ‘minded to quash’ the search warrants linked to the documentary film No Stone...
WE ARE now reaching the moment of truth in the struggle to carry out the result of the 2016 referendum which instructed Parliament that the UK must leave the EU. We have seen Labour’s right wing demanding that there must be a second referendum, and seen political spivs like Alastair...
THE COUNCIL responsible for Grenfell Tower made multimillion-pound property deals while cutting costs to the tower’s restoration, it has emerged. Seventy-two people died when a fire destroyed the tower block in west London, on 14 June 2017. An investigation has found the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) made £129m...
ISRAEL has arrested some 16,500 Palestinian children since the outbreak of the Second Intifada (uprising) in late-2000, a study says. Abdul-Naser Farwana, a Palestinian ex-prisoner and researcher at the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission, said in a 26-page study that during the first decade of the 21st century, (2000-2010), at...
A POLICE raid of the Belfast homes and office of two investigative journalists will be challenged as part of a judicial review that started at the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast last Tuesday morning and is scheduled to run for three days. NUJ members Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey...
THERE is not the slightest doubt that the Labour Party was absolutely correct to expel Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former ‘spin doctor’, for voting for the Liberal Democrats in the recent European elections. He got his just desserts after a career of peddling lies for Blair, including the WMD lies...
FORMER Blair spin doctor Alastair Campbell has been expelled from the Labour Party after he revealed that he voted for the Liberal Democrats in the European elections. Campbell said he was ‘sad and disappointed’ to receive an email expelling him from the party. The Remain supporter tweeted that he is particularly...
The POA (Prison Officers Association) is backing labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his Shadow Cabinet ‘to come through the setback of the EU elections as Labour are the only party that can provide a Brexit that protects and enhances workers’ rights.’ In a statement yesterday, the POA said: ‘Insecurity at...
MEMBERS of the University and College Union (UCU) at Nottingham College began balloting for industrial action yesterday as part of a row over new contracts which the college is threatening to impose on staff. The proposals would leave over 80 staff more than £1,000 worse off, and comes despite them...
USA SENATOR Bernie Sanders, who is seeking the Democratic Party nomination for the 2020 presidential election, is gaining the support of nurses, teachers and McDonald’s fast food workers. Last Wednesday, Sanders introduced the Workplace Democracy Bill, for a new law that would protect workers from being fired for trade union...
TROUBLE is brewing at Eskom’s Kusile Power Station in South Africa, following the mass dismissal of hundreds of outsourced workers after protests threatened operations at the station. However, according to a community group, the Waya Waya Community Movement, 500 workers employed by a company contracted by Eskom to provide security...
THE Sudanese Alliance for Freedom and Change has launched a two-day revolutionary nationwide strike to force the still ruling military council to transfer power to a people’s authority. The action was launched after talks with the Transitional Military Council (TMC) broke down. Sudan’s ruling generals – who set up the...
THE CLAMOUR from senior Labour figures, including deputy leader Tom Watson, shadow chancellor John McDonnell and shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry, for Labour to openly adopt a clearly Remain position and for a second referendum has intensified after the party won just 14% of the vote in EU elections. Unite...
NAIM Qassim, deputy secretary general of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement, has underlined the continued resistance against the US and Israel will never surrender. ‘The only way to liberate a territory is resistance, and today this issue is not only limited to Palestine but includes Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the...
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has called a general election for June 30 following the heavy defeat in last Sunday’s Euro elections of his SYRIZA (Coalition of the Left) party by the right wing New Democracy party. SYRIZA got 23%, compared to 33% for New Democracy. Turn-out was about 56%,...
PRESIDENT Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma have visited one of the ‘tunnels of death’ which were dug by terrorists in Jobar neighbourhood, but which have now been transformed into a place of art and creativity by 18 Syrian artists who have made dozens of sculptures and paintings on...
THE Palestinian Authority’s Detained and Ex-Detainees Commission has said that the Palestinian political prisoners in the Israeli prison of Etzion, near Bethlehem city in the occupied West Bank, have been suffering unbearable conditions, particularly with regard to the meals they get for the break of their daily Ramadan fast. According...
THE EU elections have shattered both the Labour and the Tory parties. With a national turnout of 37%, Labour got 13.6 of the vote, the Tories 9.0%, the LibDems 21.4%, UKIP 3,4%, and the just-formed Brexit Party 33.5%. The breakaway group Change UK got 3.7% of the vote and has now...
LABOUR Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Shadow Attorney General Shami Chakrabarti yesterday called for uniting with ‘moderate’ Tory MPs to stop a no-deal Brexit ‘by any means necessary’ – a position echoed by Tory Chancellor Philip Hammond. Appearing on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, McDonnell said: ‘I think the next...
Thousands of demonstrators rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday against moves by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to secure immunity from prosecution on fraud and bribery charges in the coming months. Saturday’s demonstrations were the first held by opposition parties since Netanyahu’s election victory five months ago. Organisers said that tens...
AN OFFICIAL at Syria’s Foreign and Expatriates Ministry affirmed at the weekend that all shouting and untrue, fabricated news about the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian army in Kabani town in Lattakia countryside are a prelude of the western lie and hypocrisy choir to start threats against...
AT LEAST nine Yemenis were killed late last week as Saudi-led military aircraft carried out a string of airstrikes against an area in Yemen’s south western province of Ta’izz. Local sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that the warplanes had struck a petroleum derivatives...
THE PATHETIC political collapse of PM May is the result of the massive hostility of the UK working class to her ripping up the result of the 2016 EU referendum, whose instruction from the electorate was that the UK must leave the EU. May desperately tried to do the opposite,...
THE US senate has unveiled a draft bill that would authorise Washington to modernise its nuclear weapon arsenal, in a move to counter China’s growing influence around the globe. The Senate Armed Services Committee unveiled the $750-billion proposal on Thursday, admitting that America’s ‘margin of military supremacy has eroded and...
FOLLOWING Theresa May’s resignation speech, in which the Prime Minister spoke of her response to the Grenfell Tower Fire, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) issued the following statement. Matt Wrack, FBU general secretary, said: ‘Many of the underlying issues at Grenfell were due to unsafe conditions that had been allowed...
THE main Shia opposition group in Bahrain has warned that the ruling Al Khalifah regime there is ‘contributing to the liquidation of the Palestinian cause’ with its plan to ‘host’ a conference supporting US President Trump’s ‘alleged proposal for peace’ between the Israeli regime and Palestine. In its statement condemning...
PM MAY yesterday morning announced she was resigning as Tory leader and Prime Minister in two weeks on June 7. May said that the process of electing a new leader would begin the following week and until then she would carry on as PM. The Tories want a peaceful breathing...
PM MAY’S Brexit Withdrawal Bill will not be published or debated until early June, the government said yesterday as she came under more pressure from her MPs to resign at once. Downing Street has announced that just- resigned Andrea Leadsom will be replaced by Treasury minister Mel Stride. Standing in for...
THE BMA has condemned the ‘cruel, vindictive and abusive’ behaviour exposed by Panorama at the private Whorlton Hall hospital. Responding to last night’s Panorama programme, which uncovered widespread abuse of patients at Whorlton Hall specialist hospital in County Durham, Dr Ivan Camphor, BMA community care committee chair, said: ‘The behaviour...
ASSURANCES about the future job security of Royal Mail managers are being sought by Unite, Britain and Ireland’s largest union, following the company’s ‘poor’ financial statement this week. Unite, which represents 6,000 managers, has written to Royal Mail’s chief executive Rico Back expressing its concerns, as the company announced a...
THE leaders of Russia, France and Germany have underscored the need to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, stressing their commitment to boosting trade ties with the Islamic Republic despite the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the accord. The Kremlin said in a statement that Russian President Vladimir Putin,...
ON WEDNESDAY the General Assembly of the United Nations delivered a stunning vote which overwhelmingly condemned the continuing occupation of the Chagos Islands. By 116 votes to 6 the nations of the UN voted to support a motion demanding that Britain leaves the Chagos Island chain within a deadline of...
TWO HUNDRED and nine economists have signed a public statement supporting Medicare for All, said the National Nurses United union on Tuesday. The letter called the current health care system ‘exorbitant and wasteful’ and asserts that ‘the time is now to create a universal, single-payer, Medicare for All health care...
THE TORIES ‘must bring British Steel into public ownership’, Unite said after the devastating announcement that the industry fell into liquidation yesterday morning. Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said: ‘Despite today’s announcement to place British Steel into official receivership, Unite will continue to engage all parties in the fight...
A HIGH–RANKING member of the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, said yesterday that the Palestinian nation vigorously rejects US President Donald Trump’s controversial proposal for ‘peace’ between the Israeli regime and Palestinians, dubbed ‘the deal of the century.’ ‘We will not accept solutions that violate our rights … The deal of...
‘Nothing Left in the Cupboards: Austerity, Welfare Cuts, and the Right to Food in the UK,’ is the title of a devastating 115-page Human Rights Watch report released on Monday. ‘The way the UK government has handled its reduction in welfare spending has left parents unable to feed their children...
ON TUESDAY Theresa May launched what has been billed as her final attempt to cobble together a parliamentary majority amongst MPs for her ‘new’ Brexit deal. This new deal includes an offer that if MPs pass her bill in June she will give them a vote on calling a second...
Russia says Syrian government forces have suspended their operations against foreign-backed Takfiri militants in the northwestern province of Idlib as part of a ‘unilateral’ ceasefire. ‘From 00:00 on May 18, Syrian armed forces unilaterally ceased fire in the Idlib de-escalation zone,’ Russian Defence Ministry’s Centre for Syrian Reconciliation said in...
THE UNITE trade union yesterday urged ministers to take British Steel into public control if a deal cannot be struck between owners Greybull, its lenders and the government to avoid the steelmaker collapsing into insolvency. Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said: ‘While Unite is in continuing dialogue with British...
NEARLY two years since the Grenfell fire, in which 72 people lost their lives, the government has done nothing to adequately prepare fire and rescue services for a similar incident, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) warned yesterday. The FBU calls on the government to end the postcode lottery of public...