Monthly Archives: August 2019
VER a hundred Unite bus drivers and their supporters held a lively rally on Thursday morning outside London’s City Hall demanding action from Transport for London (TfL) to tackle fatigue among London bus drivers. At the rally, Unite regional officer John Murphy said to loud cheers from the crowd: ‘The...
THE REMAINER MPs have been dealt a minor blow by the Scottish courts. A Scottish judge has refused to order an immediate halt to Tory PM Boris Johnson’s plan to prorogue Parliament. The group of 75 Remainer MPs were unable to get an interim interdict. Instead, a full hearing will...
‘THE CANDYFLOSS of outrage we’ve had over the last 24 hours, which I think is almost entirely confected, is from people who never wanted to leave the European Union,’ Tory Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg told Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday morning. He added: ‘This is the greatest period of anger...
FOLLOWING his re-election this week as general secretary of specialist rail and transport union RMT for a further five-year term, Mick Cash is insisting it’s back to ‘business as usual – as the union unites and steps up the fight for workplace justice in a wide range of ongoing...
THE BRITISH car industry is steadily collapsing as a result of the world economic crisis, figures produced yesterday highlighted. According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders UK car production fell by more than 10% year on year and has now fallen for 14 consecutive months, a fall longer...
THE QUEEN has been asked by Tory PM Boris Johnson to prorogue Parliament days after MPs return from the Summer break, which will mean resuming in mid-October, leaving a matter of weeks before the Brexit deadline of October 31st. The Queen has agreed to the prorogation. This means that when MPs...
The latest demolitions of Palestinian structures in Beit Jala city in Bethlehem district and the string of Israeli attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip dominated the front page headlines in Tuesday’s issues of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies. They all reported that an Israeli bulldozer demolished a house and a...
YESTERDAY, the Tory government asked the Queen to suspend Parliament from 10 September, just days after MPs return, for 23 working days until 14 October, a move that has caused an eruption of anger from Tory Remainers, Labour MPs, the SNP and LibDems. What Johnson has done is effectively close...
LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn convened a meeting yesterday with opposition MPs from the Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists, Greens, Plaid Cymru and Change UK ‘independents’ including ex-Tory Remainers like Anna Soubry. The alliance was brought together with the sole aim of scuppering Brexit, and agreed to try to block a no-deal...
THE spokesman for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's administration has slammed Israel’s recent attacks against a number of regional countries, warning Tel Aviv will pay ‘a high price’. Speaking to reporters during his weekly briefing on Monday, Ali Rabiei said: ‘During the preceding month, the Zionist regime became so outrageous as...
LEBANON’s president, Michel Aoun, on Monday condemned an Israeli drone attack on Beirut at the weekend as a ‘declaration of war’ that justifies a military response by the Lebanese armed forces and Hezbollah. ‘What happened is a declaration of war,’ Aoun told Jan Kubis, the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon...
LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn risks jeopardising a vote of no confidence in the government by insisting he becomes caretaker PM, Lib Dems leader Jo Swinson insisted yesterday in a new letter. If he wins a no-confidence vote, the Labour leader plans to form an emergency government that will refuse to...
IRAN’S Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif suddenly arrived in the French city of Biarritz on Friday, where the G7 meeting of the seven top economic powers of the world is underway, to discuss with French officials the recent initiatives offered by the two countries’ presidents. The spokesman for the Iranian...
ON THE eve of the G7 Summit in France over the weekend US president Donald Trump ordered US companies to leave China and move their operations out of the country and bring them back to America. Trump issued the order saying: ‘The vast amounts of money made and stolen by...
China launched countermeasures against the United States’ trade war attacks yesterday, with the Chinese People’s Daily saying that Beijing ‘will never waver in its stand on countering any provocations by the US side.’ The paper warned that America will not win the trade war because of the plight faced by...
‘THERE is only one decision: No extradition! – free Julian Assange’ chanted a demonstration of over 50 supporters of the jailed Wikileaks founder Julian Assange outside Stratford station on Saturday. Clara Campo, from the Julian Assange Defence Committee who organised the ‘Stand for Assange’ demonstration, told News Line: ‘We are...
PRESIDENT Trump has described the new ‘utopia’ that the UK faces once it breaks with the EU, and the UK ruling class switches its adherence from the ongoing attempt to build the EU into the major imperialist power, to the USA. Speaking to reporters after the working breakfast, Trump said...
THE VERMONT US Senator Bernie Sanders wants to give federal workers the right to strike, to eliminate so-called ‘right-to-work’ laws, and at the same time to limit ‘ultra-high CEO pay’ for federal contractors. He pledged to deliver this plan on August 3rd, at a forum in Nevada hosted by the...
HUNDREDS of workers joined yesterday’s Harland and Wolff Rally in Belfast, with speakers reiterating their demand for the renationalisation of the shipyard. Unite Regional Coordinating Officer Susan Fitzgerald chaired the Irish Congress of Trade Unions solidarity rally at the shipyard gates at which a range of leading trade unionists spoke. Introducing...
BALPA (British Airline Pilots Association) yesterday gave notice to British Airways that it calls on its members to strike on 9th, 10th and 27th September. ‘With a 93% vote in favour of taking industrial action, and with no prospect of any further meaningful talks, we have no choice but to...
‘Since 2010, Coalition and Tory governments have indulged in an orgy of slashing the enforcement budgets of the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) and Local Authority watchdogs and extracting their teeth,’ warned the Hazards Campaign yesterday. Hazards, together with 20 other different organisations, have come together for the first time...
THE temperature is rising all over the Middle East as US and Israel seek to force the Palestinians to accept the dirty ‘deal of the century’ and hand over their land to Israel, at the same time as Israel and the US have begun to raid pro-Palestinian movements in...
RYANAIR pilots have downed tools today causing huge cost to the company after Ryanair managers again refused to enter talks to end the long running dispute. Their union BALPA said: ‘Pilots, whose argument is with the company and not passengers, are showing their resolve with the action after Ryanair declined...
MORE strife is looming at South Africa’s Marikana platinum mines, as members of Amcu (the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union) warned Lonmin’s new owners that they are ready to strike ‘for up to a year’. The union and its members have used the event marking seven years since police...
THE BRITISH armed forces, especially the army, are making a big turn to recruit youth, with military colleges springing up everywhere. More than one-in-10 new army recruits are boy soldiers of just 16 years old, according to the latest figures released by the Ministry of Defence. More than one-in-four of all...
TENS of thousands of homeless children in England are ‘temporarily’ housed in converted shipping containers and office blocks, freezing in winter, sweltering in the summer, often for months or even years on end, it was revealed yesterday. Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, published a new report called Bleak...
WORKERS from General Motors plants across Latin America met in São Paulo, Brazil, last week to discuss and take action against workforce casualisation within the firm. GM unions from Argentina, Brazil and Colombia came together to discuss the situation as the company, which produces cars, trucks and engines, is currently...
THE REPORT by Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, ‘Bleak houses: Tackling the crisis of family homelessness in England’, reveals the ‘terrible reality’ of how some children are living in converted shipping containers, office blocks and B&Bs, in cramped conditions, often miles away from their schools. The report shows...
EVERY frontline police officer in Northamptonshire is to be armed with a Taser gun, the East Midlands county’s Chief Constable Nick Adderley announced yesterday. Adderley said the weapons would be issued to all officers who want one. According to a Parliamentary briefing, there were 1,044 frontline officers in the Northamptonshire Police...
US AND UK-backed Islamists are on the run from their last stronghold in Idlib province in Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported yesterday that the anti-Assad forces had pulled out of the town of Khan Shaykhun in the southern part of Idlib and a nearby area in...
Jeremy Corbyn, speaking at a children’s centre in Corby, Northamptonshire yesterday, announced that ‘we will do everything necessary’ to stop a No Deal Brexit and claimed: ‘Labour can be trusted to deliver to end austerity.’ He declared: ‘I will bring a vote of no confidence in the government, and if...
ALTHOUGH Zimbabwe’s main opposition group, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), called off anti-government protests in the capital Harare at the last minute last Friday after failing to overturn a police ban, protesters who had already gathered in the city were violently dispersed by police and several were hurt. The...
JOHN McDONNELL made his bid to lead the proposed government of national unity to smash Brexit during his interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday. The Shadow Chancellor said: ‘What is annoying me is, it’s all well and good for Michael Gove or Boris Johnson to say all will...
FORMER Tory Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind spoke out in support of bringing down the Johnson government to prevent a no-deal Brexit yesterday. Appearing on the Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme on Sky TV, Rifkind first of all commented on the crisis in Hong Kong, saying: ‘The position of the United...
ON the Israeli violations in al-Aqsa Mosque – statement from the Hamas movement. The leadership of Hamas held an urgent meeting on the ongoing dangerous Israeli violations in Al-Aqsa Mosque. Indeed, the Israeli occupation took new measures in Al-Aqsa on the Day of Eid Al-Adha which are still ongoing. All of these...
THERE IS VERY great resistance to the proposal of Labour leader Corbyn that he should put down a motion of no confidence in PM Johnson and his government, and that it should be replaced by a time limited government of national unity led by Corbyn. This is despite the fact...
AFTER the Scottish government announced they will nationalise Ferguson Marine shipyard, trade unions are calling on the UK government to safeguard jobs and skills in Harland and Wolff in Belfast. Susan Fitzgerald, Unite Regional Coordinating Officer demanded the UK government move quickly to renationalise the Belfast shipyard: ‘The historic stand at...
FUEL DRIVERS in Portugal are continuing their strike, now entering its second week, as the Portuguese government called a state of emergency, deploying the army to deliver fuel while petrol stations dry up. The government have threatened fuel drivers with jail if they do not go back to work. However,...
THE HOME Office itself has produced figures showing that more than 3,000 refugees and asylum seekers have been on hunger strike in the last four years, protesting at their detention, threatened deportation and conditions. The Home Office defines a hunger strike ‘when someone refuses to eat or drink for at...
KENSINGTON and Chelsea council have re-housed Grenfell survivors and their families in a block found to have a ‘high risk’ of fire! A fire risk assessment of the Hortensia Road block in Kensington, which is currently housing 20 people and was set aside for the survivors of the Grenfell Tower...
LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn yesterday wrote a letter to leaders of the LibDems, the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party along with selected Tory Remainers calling on them to join Labour and form a National Government with himself as the ‘caretaker’ leader. Corbyn insists this would be a strictly...
‘MEDICARE for All’ is shaping up to be one of the defining issues of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary campaign, with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren the leading candidates in favour, while former Vice President Joe Biden is the most prominent right-winger opposed. The right-wingers are scraping and scratching around...