Monthly Archives: March 2020
‘ALL health workers and their families must be tested immediately,’ Chair of the Council of the British Medical Association and GP Dr Chaand Nagpaul demanded yesterday. Johnson’s government said that testing of NHS staff began over the weekend. However, it is only those who are showing symptoms who are being...
AFTER eight months of campaigning to demand that Microsoft drop their investment in the Israeli facial recognition company AnyVision, the hi-tech giant finally announced its divestment from the latter. ‘This is a huge and sorely needed victory at a time when corporations and governments have begun to use Covid-19 as...
LAST THURSDAY, the 27 heads of the European Union held a video conference call to decide the EU’s economic response to the coronavirus pandemic. The main item on the agenda was how to finance the huge bail-outs demanded by the banks and industry to prevent complete collapse in the face...
THE DEATHS of more than 50 doctors from Covid-19 in Italy must serve as an ‘urgent warning’ to British government on PPE supply. The BMA says that the tragic deaths of these doctors must serve as an urgent warning to the British government over the supply of personal protective equipment...
TWO LONDON organisations are flouting government policy over coronavirus by attacking the pay, and terms and conditions of their employees, the Unite, union said Friday. Unite is pinpointing the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF), which runs 33 nurseries across London; and Gateway, a cleaning company, a spin-off operation of GS...
THE creator of the Universal Credit onslaught against the working class and the poor, Iain Duncan Smith has launched an attack on China in The Mail on Sunday newspaper. China has won the admiration of working people all over the planet for the way that it tackled and defeated the...
THE TORY government hid the outcome of an exercise it conducted on how the NHS would cope with a pandemic because it considered the results ‘terrifying’, it was revealed yesterday. A three-day major exercise in October 2016 testing the UK’s ability to deal with a pandemic, codenamed Cygnus, exposed ‘terrifying’...
PM Boris Johnson has tested positive for coronavirus. Johnson said he developed mild symptoms over the past 24 hours, including a temperature and cough.
He is now in self-isolation in No 10 but will ‘continue to lead the government’s response via video-conference as we fight this virus’.
Johnson was last seen on...
THE HOUTHI Ansarullah movement says any political solution to the Yemen conflict should begin with an end to the US-sponsored Saudi military aggression and the blockade on the impoverished state. ‘We renew our firm position that any comprehensive, just and lasting political solution will not be practically achieved before ending...
THE TRADE union leaders and the Labour Party are currently cementing their role as the most enthusiastic would-be partners of the Tory government and the bosses. The battle cry is ‘let’s just put our differences aside in this time of crisis and work together.’ Asked yesterday about the Tories’ ‘help...
FIGURES released yesterday show that 3.3 million Americans have filed for unemployment, the worst jobless figures since the Great Depression of the 1930s after the 1929 Wall Street Crash. New cases of coronavirus have rocketed in the US with 5,000 more Americans testing positive in New York alone, bringing the...
PALESTINIAN prisoners in Israeli jails sent a humanitarian appeal to the world yesterday calling to save them from the deadly coronavirus pandemic before it kills them. ‘The feeling of imminent threat and danger to our lives in Israeli prisons is growing day by day, even hour by hour,’ said the...
THE WORLD Trade Organisation chief Roberto Azevedo said on Wednesday that the economic collapse and job losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic would be worse than the 2008 financial and industrial collapse. ‘This pandemic will inevitably have an enormous impact on the economy,’ Azevedo said. He continued: ‘Recent projections predict...
HORRIFYINGLY, care workers have been told if they test positive they will have to self-isolate at the care home and will not be able to leave, says GMB union. Vital care workers are being left with no protection against coronavirus, no childcare and poverty sick pay if they become infected.
Thousands...
SYRIAN President Bashar al-Assad on Monday received Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu and an accompanying delegation. The two sides discussed the Russian-Turkish agreements reached on March 5th and the constant breaches of them by terrorist organisations, focussing on the mechanisms of implementing these agreements which involve keeping terrorists 6km away...
THE DEBATE on the adjournment of Parliament for a month until April 21 took place immediately after the Tory emergency legislation passed though the Commons and Lords yesterday. From today, Parliament has closed down for at least a month, leaving a Tory government armed with dictatorial powers to do exactly...
Life came to a standstill in all West Bank cities and towns on Monday as the curfew and strict lockdown Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh declared the day before in order to stop the spread of the deadly coronavirus disease, Covid-19, went into effect. Shops were shuttered, except for the...
THE US Federal Reserve Bank yesterday launched an unlimited money printing programme to try to halt the collapse of the US ‘economic miracle’, and with it President Trump’s campaign to win a second White House term. This was after Goldman Sachs analysts caused panic, predicting that the US economy will...
THE TORIES had promised a ‘complete ban’ on evictions from both council and private social housing. However, anger erupted yesterday as it emerged that eviction notices will still be sent out. The evictions will simply be carried out a month later than planned. This means that more than 20,000 people...
DRACONIAN emergency powers contained within the Coronavirus Bill were debated during the bill’s second reading in Parliament yesterday. Police state measures were outlined to detain people ‘suspected of being infected with coronavirus,’ as well as the power to shut down premises and break up public gatherings by force. Labour were keen...
CHINA will provide Serbia with assistance in protective equipment and medical instruments, and send a group of medical experts to help it better contain the COVID-19 epidemic, Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a recent message of sympathy to his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic. Xi Jinping said China stands ready...
YESTERDAY, the Tories introduced emergency measures to save the private rail companies from complete collapse. The Department for Transport announced it is suspending all the rail franchise agreements and taking on the risks for operating trains for at least six months following the collapse of rail operators income as demand...
Doctors ‘feel like lambs to the slaughter and cannon fodder’, said the chair of the Doctors’ Association UK yesterday morning, demanding that frontline NHS workers must be tested for coronavirus and provided with more protective equipment. Dr Rinesh Parmar was speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr show after finishing a...
IN LIGHT of the coronavirus pandemic leaseholders who live in buildings clad in the same flammable material which rapidly spread the Grenfell Tower Fire are demanding the government take immediate action to make their buildings safe. The Grenfell fire which killed 72 men, women and children was spread by a...
PM JOHNSON has put the blame for the coronavirus firmly on the people, when he warned on the TV that the NHS could be ‘overwhelmed’ if people do not act to slow the ‘accelerating’ spread of coronavirus, as he urged the UK not to visit mothers on Mother’s Day....
PALESTINIAN prisoners have again rejected their meals in protest against the Israeli Prison Service’s plans to stop supplying 140 products – including cleaning products – to the canteen, and to halt medical visits for detainees. This time, however, the protesters are expressing a further serious concern – the danger of...
CHINA’S Wuhan province reported a zero increase in new coronavirus infections last week. China has beaten the virus and with no new cases, their method is one to emulate. The method of the deformed workers’ state has scientifically been proven a success. Enforcing total lockdown, with the full support of...
NEW emergency powers were outlined yesterday by the Tories as they published the Emergency Coronavirus Bill. The sweeping new powers which will last as long as two years, give the police powers to arrest people suspected of having coronavirus, pushing the UK towards a police state. The powers also enable...
THE BANK of England cut its base rate to a record low of 0.1%, a sliver above zero, warning the coronavirus pandemic will result in a ‘sharp and large’ economic shock. Its rate-setting committee, led by new governor Andrew Bailey, also decided at its unscheduled meeting to re-start the post-crisis...
A FORMER Saint-Gobain Crystals and Detectors worker in Bangalore, India, Jayaraj Mathangi, was fired for absenteeism after developing severe health problems due to hazards he was exposed to at work, said global union federation IndustriALL, which condemned his treatment. The company fired him in 2016 after years of service. In...
THE US Federal Reserve announced late on Wednesday the third emergency programme in two days in an increasingly desperate and futile attempt to avoid the banks and money markets crashing as the threat of a global recession has become a reality. It will lend about $10 billion to banks to...
MANY schools across the UK will not be able to remain open past the end of the week, say teachers’ leaders. ASCL general secretary Geoff Barton said experienced head teachers in large schools were saying they would struggle to stay up and running past tomorrow.
It comes after teaching unions spoke...
THE OPPOSITION Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has joined forces with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) to push for salaries in United States dollars, with the labour body saying workers are ‘itching for mass action’ and demanding their rights. MDC leader Nelson Chamisa said on Tuesday the government...
ON TUESDAY, postal workers delivered a massive 94.5% YES vote to strike in defence of their jobs, pay and conditions and the very existence of Royal Mail as a public service. The response of the leadership of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) was immediate – they overturned this massive mandate...
TORY Chancellor Rishi Sunak yesterday unveiled a multi-billion bailout for big businesses in light of the coronavirus crisis. Speaking at the daily press conference Sunak said: ‘The coronavirus is a public health emergency but it is also an economic emergency.’
He said: ‘I promise to do whatever it takes to support...
COMMUNICATION Workers Union (CWU) members in Royal Mail have beaten the anti-union laws for the third time in less than three years delivering a massive 94.5% YES vote for a strike on a return of 63.4%, the union announced yesterday. The current ballot came about after Royal Mail went to...
Casual workers and those in insecure jobs have been left cruelly exposed by Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, says the ACTU (Australian Council of Trade Unions). Despite the undeniable financial crisis many Australian workers are confronting, Morrison has ruled out providing two weeks of paid special...
THE WORLD Health Organisation has issued its ‘Test, Test and Test’ call as its main policy to lay the basis for dealing with the coronavirus emergency. Tory leader Johnson is opposed to this policy – not even NHS workers working with infected patients have been tested! In fact many...
‘OPERATION Broadshare’ has been launched by the military to put 10,000 troops on the streets. The military said that it will work alongside the police in tackling coronavirus. An army source told Sky News: ‘It feels like we’re getting ready for war, but this time at home. ‘This is what the...
SECRETARY-general of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has strongly criticised the US’s covering up of the truth about the extent of the spread of the new coronavirus outbreak. ‘We are in the middle of a battle that resembles a world war,’ Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said during a television interview last...
FOR THE second time in less than two weeks the US Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to near zero on Sunday, a desperate last ditch attempt to keep US capitalism from crashing in the face of the coronavirus crisis. Alongside this cut, the Fed also launched a massive quantitative easing...
THE TORY government will introduce ‘Emergency Powers’ tomorrow, Tuesday, which are to be voted on in the House of Commons on Thursday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said yesterday. He added that ‘every single person in this country will be affected’.
He said that ‘within the coming weeks’ every Briton over the...
THE SOUTH African Federation of Trade Unions has called on Labour Registrar Advocate Lehlohonolo Molefe to ‘resign’ – after the labour court suspended as ‘reckless’ his bid to deregister the Democratic Municipal and Allied Workers Union of South Africa (Demawusa). Molefe’s decision to deregister the union DEMAWUSA – over strike...
BORIS JOHNSON’S policy of do-nothing to combat or turn back the coronavirus has now been dumped after 229 scientists wrote to the government saying this approach will put the NHS under additional stress and ‘risk many more lives than necessary’. In the open letter the scientists argue that stronger ‘social...