Monthly Archives: May 2019
UK WORKERS have suffered privation and poverty ever since the 2008 financial crash, when the banks were bailed out by a Labour government at a cost of over £1 trillion. While the bosses and the bankers were saved from the crash, the working class is still paying the bill with...
MARKING half a year of demonstrations against the Macron government, French Yellow Vests protesters defied police tear gas and water cannon attacks for the 26th straight weekend on Saturday. Nantes and Lyon saw major demonstrations on Saturday, as thousands of people joined the rallies in both cities. In Lyon, 2,500 people...
A BATTLE is well underway save 44 threatened libraries across Essex as figures show that 127 public libraries were closed across the UK last year. The annual survey of British libraries by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (Cipfa) showed that spending on libraries by local authorities fell...
PALESTINIAN heroine Ahed Tamimi was introduced to the cheering crowd at the end of the 10,000-strong march to 10 Downing Street marking Nakba Day on Saturday as ‘the true ambassador of the people of Palestine’. The 18-year-old, who was imprisoned by Israel for slapping an Israeli soldier who was trespassing...
UK FIREFIGHTERS protested outside the Italian embassy in London on Thursday in support of a Spanish firefighter facing prison for rescuing refugees. Fire Brigades Union (FBU) activists called on the Italian government to drop its investigation and end its anti-migrant crusade. Spanish firefighter Miguel Roldan faces 20 years...
US PRESIDENT Trump sharply escalated his trade war with China yesterday, more than doubling tariffs on $200bn (£153.7bn) worth of Chinese goods. The US is now enforcing tariffs on Chinese goods of 25%. This comes as China’s top economic negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He and his delegation, arrived in the...
THERE has been a strike vote over ‘punishing’ working patterns at Heathrow. International airlines flying from Heathrow Airport face major disruption to the supply of in-flight food, drink and duty-free after members of Unite voted for strike action. Workers employed by Alpha LSG will take strike action from 00.01 Wednesday...
RAILWAY unions TSSA and RMT have demanded renationalisation of railways – and slammed the privateer rail companies – in the wake of valuable research by Which? magazine revealing rail firms’ insistence on ‘complicated and lengthy compensation claims processes’. Its straightforward title is: ‘How train companies are adding unnecessary hassle...
‘STILL almost 8 in 10 blocks with Grenfell type cladding have not had it replaced with over half of those with no work started at all,’ John Healey, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of Health told Parliament yesterday. He was speaking after Tory Housing minister James Brokenshire made a statement to the...
‘TREATING patients on corridor trolleys should belong to a bygone era. Ministers must stop us heading back there at all costs. ‘It’s undignified and less safe for the patient, and compromises the professional,’ Royal College of Nursing’s (RCN) Director for England Patricia Marquis said yesterday. Commenting on NHS England’s monthly Combined Performance...
‘A LONG-AWAITED trial began on Monday in Paris, accusing telecom giant Orange and seven former or current managers of moral harassment and related charges,’ said the Solidaires union confederation (SUD PTT). The union’s statement continued: ‘The company — then called France Telecom — was undergoing job cuts and modernisation efforts...
THE main points of the United States’ anticipated Middle East peace plan, the so-called ‘Deal of the Century’, were revealed by a Hebrew-language news outlet, on Tuesday, and then published by the Maan website. Israel Hayom news outlet published the main points of the ‘Deal of the Century’ from a...
YESTERDAY Jeremy Corbyn launched the Labour Party manifesto for the upcoming elections to the EU parliament: ‘Transforming Britain and Europe: for the many not the few’, and made it perfectly clear that he is right behind the demand for a second referendum to overturn Brexit. In typical Corbyn fashion, this...
IRAN has suspended its commitments under the 2015 international nuclear deal, a year after it was ripped up by President Trump. President Hassan Rouhani said he would keep enriched uranium stocks in the country and would resume production of uranium enriched to a higher level in 60 days. The 2015 accord...
UCU (University and College Union) lecturers were on the picket line outside West Thames College in Isleworth, west London yesterday, demanding a 5% pay rise, following a 100% vote in favour of strike action. Leon Palmer, ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) teacher, told News Line: ‘Given inflation, we’ve...
OCCUPATIONS, strike votes and rallies by health and care workers are sweeping Canada as trade unionists fight against low pay, unequal pay and privatisation of public services. New Brunswick nursing home workers occupied the constituency offices of eight cabinet ministers across the east coast Canadian province on Monday, demanding binding...
THIRTEEN Palestinian schools in the besieged Gaza Strip were severely damaged on Tuesday, in the Israeli escalation across the Strip, which has claimed the lives of 27 Palestinians and injured at least 154 others. The Palestinian Ministry of Education in Gaza said in a statement that the windows and doors...
THIS week US imperialism ratcheted up its preparations for an all-out military war against Iran. On Monday, Donald Trump’s national security advisor and warmonger-in-chief John Bolton announced that the US aircraft carrier, the Abraham Lincoln, at the head of a battle group of warships was being deployed in the Gulf...
SYRIA yesterday began an offensive to take back its entire territory launching a new assault on Idlib, the last part of Syria still controlled by terrorists. Over the last 24 hours, the Syrian Army has taken full control of several strategic hills and regions in Northern Hama, as the government...
MILES of barbed wire has been installed by US troops on the US/Mexico Border, while over the weekend camps opened to hold thousands of families crossing the border from Mexico. US President Trump has stepped up his war against the people of South America, attempting to make the US like...
SEVENTEEN years since it opened, Guantánamo Bay remains as significant and problematic as ever, says Reprieve. The notion that the men in Guantánamo Bay are ‘the worst of the worst’ is a myth
Despite evidence that torture isn’t effective as a means of interrogation, Donald Trump supports its use
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AFTER over a month of fighting to take Libya’s capital, Tripoli, General Khalifa Haftar – who broke with Colonel Gadaffi to flee to the US in 2011 to join the CIA – is determined to ‘uproot’ the government. The internationally-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), headed by Prime Minister Fayez...
LEASEHOLDERS in the Paddington Walk development in West London have already paid nearly £3.5m in service charges for the removal of dangerous, flammable Grenfell-style cladding, it emerged yesterday. This is despite the Tory government pledging time and again that residents and leaseholders would not be made responsible for the costs...
‘It’s Sajid Javid’s first anniversary as Home Secretary, so we’ve taken a look at his track record,’ Gracie Bradley, Liberty Policy and Campaigns Manager wrote last week. So far he has: 1. Refused to end the hostile environment Apart from pausing a few data-sharing agreements, promising a fairer and more humane immigration...
SYRIAN military forces are continuing to target terrorist hideouts in northwestern Syria where the government has been restraining its offensives based on a de-escalation agreement signed and monitored by international powers. The state-run SANA news agency said military forces had managed to destroy the hideouts of terrorists in southern countryside...
LAST Friday Israel launched a murderous bombardment on the Gaza Strip killing at least 27 Palestinians, including two pregnant women and at least two infants, by Sunday night. By yesterday morning Israeli aircraft and tanks had carried out over 350 strikes, totally destroying seven large residential and commercial buildings, and at...
YESTERDAY, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell accused PM May of having ‘blown the confidentiality’ over Labour support for her EU Withdrawal Agreement and demanded secret talks with the Tories. Meanwhile, Brexit Party leader Farrage warned that ‘if they push forward with this it will be seen as a coalition of politicians...
ON SATURDAY Yellow Vest protesters marched in cities across France for the 25th straight week, with 18,900 protesters taking part. Dozens demonstrated at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport to denounce privatisation plans. Demonstrations were also held in cities around France, including Nice and Marseille, the Alpine town of Chambery and in...
STATISTICS indicate that about 30% of South Africa’s workers now belong to unions. Workers in South Africa have many burning issues that include the pressing need for better pay, cheaper transport, adequate benefits such as pension and medical aid, flexi-time and a whole variety of creature comforts that are absent...
HANAN Ashrawi, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), said the ongoing Israeli escalation against the captive Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip is a continuation of the war crimes Israel has been committing against the Palestinian people for the past half a century. ‘Israel has...
A SENIOR Hamas official has told Press TV that Palestinians will resist the so-called deal of the century proposed by the administration of US President Donald Trump, stopping at nothing less than creating an ‘independent Palestinian state’. ‘As Palestinians, we will not accept such ideas. We will resist. No one...
ON SUNDAY Prime Minister May in a panic-stricken move, after the Tory Party’s defeat in the council elections, urged Labour leader Corbyn to ‘put their differences aside’ and agree on a deal with the EU. Writing in The Mail on Sunday, she said they should ‘listen to what...
BOTH Labour and Tory parties have faced rejection at the ballot box in the English council elections over their Brexit betrayal, with smaller parties and the LibDems winning seats. Polls took place for 248 English councils, six mayors and all 11 councils in Northern Ireland. In England, by yesterday afternoon, the...
THE HEAD of the National Union of Journalists in the UK, Michelle Stanistreet, visited Ramallah in Palestine on May Day, reinforcing the unity between the British trade union movement and the Palestinian unions. Stanistreet was the guest speaker at a meeting organised by the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) in Ramallah...
BOTH the Tories and Labour suffered huge defeats in the council elections yesterday for their cowardly refusal to implement the 2016 EU referendum result. Polls took place in 248 English councils, six mayors and all 11 councils in the north of Ireland. The Tories had lost as many as 450 seats...
AN EIGHTY-strong coachload of Yellow Vest protesters came over from France to join the demonstration outside Westminster Magistrates Court yesterday morning demanding WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is freed. Hundreds gathered outside the court where Assange was appearing by video link from Belmarsh Prison fighting his extradition to the US. His extradition...
NHS CANCER services plunged into the worst winter on record as patients were left waiting weeks for treatment, warns a new BMA report Doctors’ leaders have warned that thousands of cancer patients were left waiting weeks for treatment this winter according to the NHS’s own data. New BMA analysis also revealed...
Following the May Day march last Wednesday, 1st May, the Workers Revolutionary Party and the Young Socialists, held a lively meeting in Covent Garden. Chairman Jonty Leff, Editor of the News Line, drew attention to the thousands of workers marching for socialist revolution on this day, throughout the world. Joshua Ogunleye, National...
May Day erupted across Europe and the entire world this year in an unprecedented and revolutionary uprising of workers and youth against an international capitalist system wracked by an economic and political crisis of historic proportions. On May 1st this revolutionary uprising swept through Europe as the traditional May Day...
‘GET OUT of the EU now,’ RMT general secretary Mick Cash told the May Day rally in Trafalgar Square at the end of the 7,000-strong march of trade unionists, workers, students and youth from Clerkenwell Green yesterday. Cash said, ‘We’ve got a political class which is making a right dog’s...
RENAULT Samsung halted operations at its only plant in South Korea on Monday and Tuesday amid a drawn-out dispute with the plant’s labour union over wages and working hours. Renault Samsung Motors Corp, the Korean unit of the French carmaker, suspended operations at the Busan plant, which is 450 kilometres...
THE PALESTINIAN Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has warned Israeli and international companies against investing in the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, saying such investment will be in violation of international law. In a statement published on Tuesday it said that the Israeli Ministry of Tourism...
VENEZUELAN President Nicolas Maduro said in a televised speech last Tuesday night that a coup attempt by a small group of the military had been defeated, and expressed his gratitude to the country’s armed forces for their continued loyalty to him. He assured the Venezuelan people that the group of...