Monthly Archives: June 2020
THE University of Portsmouth is under fire over plans to axe more than half its English literature department. The university suspended the process in March saying it wanted to remove worry and anxiety for staff during the Covid-19 crisis. The university said it is pressing ahead with the plans because...
NHS STATISTICS highlight the ‘brutal impact’ of Covid-19 on healthcare services and patient care, doctor’s union the BMA said. Responding to the latest NHS performance statistics, which show a significant drop in the number of GP referrals for cancer treatment and specialist care, BMA council chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said:...
A SHATTERING collapse of the British economy has taken place. It has fallen 20.4% in a single month, in April, and it is still in free fall. This is ‘historic’, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, with a fifth of the entire economy wiped out. The coronavirus crisis has...
THE Israeli army detained 340 Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip during the month of May, including 25 minors and 10 women, said several prisoners’ advocacy and human rights groups. This was significantly higher than the month of April. The Commission of Detainees Affairs, the...
THE US coronavirus epidemic surpassed two million infections on Wednesday while health officials said that many new infections are likely as a result of the Trump drive to end the lockdown and ignite the US economy with all 50 states reopening. 2,003,038 people were infected in the US by Wednesday...
UNITE yesterday welcomed a Scottish parliament motion lodged by Neil Findlay MSP drawing attention to the crisis facing BA workers. The company has served BA workers with a Section 188 notice which effectively sacks 42,000 workers to bring the workers back on considerably worse terms and conditions.
The measure will also...
IN THE WAKE of last week’s mass Black Lives Matter protests against police racism and brutality in France, the Macron government has announced a ban on the chokehold method of arrests. On the eve of his election to the French presidency Emmanuel Macron promised to lead an ‘uncompromising’ fight against police...
THE TORY leadership reacted in fury this week after the statue of the notorious slave trader Edward Colston was torn down and dumped in Bristol harbour during a Black Lives Matter march in the city on Sunday. Johnson condemned it as ‘criminal act’ while Tory Home Secretary Priti Patel condemned...
THE PLAN for all primary school years in England to go back to school before the end of term has been dropped by the government. Instead, schools will be given ‘flexibility’ over whether or not to admit more pupils. The decision comes after Tory Health Secretary Matt Hancock conceded at Monday’s...
THOUSANDS of Palestinians rallied in downtown Ramallah on Monday against Israel’s intention to annex a large part of the occupied West Bank. Participants hoisted the Palestinian flag and signs denouncing the annexation plan, while speakers warned of the imminent danger to security and stability in the region if Israel proceeds...
THE WORLD Bank stated yesterday that 90% of the world’s economies have been plunged into a slump by the coronavirus pandemic, inflicting global carnage on a greater scale than even the 1929 crash and Great Depression. It predicts that GDP on a global scale will fall by 5.2% this year,...
THE BOSS of Heathrow airport has warned of making 25,000 job cuts as the Tories’ 14-day quarantine system came into force yesterday morning. Heathrow boss John Holland-Kaye was asked if he would have to consider the future of a third of his workforce, and replied: ‘That’s exactly the right kind...
SAFTU (the big South African Confederation of Trades Unions) has strongly condemned ‘the low-intensity war against working-class activists!’ In a statement earlier this week, SAFTU warned that the Unemployed People’s Movement in Makana (AbM) and Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown) is under attack, and the Federation is joining with the AbM in...
YESTERDAY the UK’s three biggest airlines launched legal proceedings in a bid to overturn the government’s new quarantine rules that require air passengers from abroad landing here to self-isolate for 14 days. BA, Ryanair and easyJet issued a joint statement which said: ‘We urge the government to remove this ineffective...
‘ONE SOLUTION – Revolution’ rang out through the 40,000-strong crowd outside the US embassy in Vauxhall, south-west London yesterday as a mass demonstration broke out in anger at the US police killing of George Floyd. Kieran Alexander told News Line: ‘Capitalism is a broken system. It is a disease and...
SIXTY THOUSAND youth and older workers joined the Black Lives Matter march in London on Saturday, from Parliament Square to the Home Office, then on to the American Embassy before heading back to Whitehall, following the Minnesota police’s brutal murder of George Floyd last month. There were also scores of...
THE MASSIVE ‘Black Lives Matter’ marches this weekend saw millions of workers internationally and tens of thousands of youth and workers in the UK turn out to march and rally illegally, as far as the state is concerned, to denounce the police murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis...
AN EXERCISE simulating a coronavirus outbreak in Scotland, which was shared with a UK government advisory group in 2018, showed a ‘clear gap’ in preparedness, the BBC has learned. A report into ‘Exercise Iris’ revealed frontline staff ‘unease’ over personal protective equipment and ‘the need for substantive progress’. The exercise simulated...
THE WORKING class internationally has risen up in anger over the police murder of George Floyd in the US. The burning issue over police killings and the Black Lives Matter movement has rapidly spread around the United States and around the globe. In Australia yesterday, the capitalist government declared...
AFTER last Wednesday’s massive march demanding justice for George Floyd, over a quarter of a million people in the UK have intervened in the struggle in the US and signed a petition demanding the UK stop arming the American police with tear gas, rubber bullets and riot shields. The petition...
‘IT IS CAPITALISM as a system which has to go,’ artist Harlow Welldon said on the 35,000 strong protest last Wednesday in Hyde Park, central London, demanding justice for George Floyd, murdered by US cops. At the mass rally in the park, protesters shouted: ‘Justice for Floyd!’ and ‘Who are...
THE ENGINEERING giant Rolls-Royce which manufactures jet engines this week confirmed that it will slash 3,000 jobs across the UK. Already Rolls-Royce has begun the process, offering voluntary redundancy packages to all workers in its UK civil aerospace division. Thousands of Rolls-Royce workers have been furloughed and with senior managers admitting...
35,000 WORKERS and youth rallied yesterday at Marble Arch, Speakers Corner, to insist that ‘Black Lives Matter’ and give their 100% support to the masses of US workers that are taking on Trump and the US gangster police after the police killing of George Floyd. Bertie Cox, an Equity union...
THE FRENCH economy is expected to shrink 11 per cent this year because of the coronavirus crisis, much worse than the government’s previous forecast of an eight per cent contraction, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Tuesday. Le Maire said: ‘The shock is very brutal.’ However, he claimed: ‘I...
AS THE Tories reel from one crisis to another over their handling of the coronavirus pandemic that has so far led to over 380,000 deaths and confirmed infections nearing 3.5 million people, they were dealt another blow yesterday when a ‘private conversation’ between the Bank of England and the...
‘WE SEND solidarity to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) members and support the AFT’s call for the US Justice Department to conduct a civil rights investigation into the murder of George Floyd,’ Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union said yesterday. Courtney continued: ‘The NEU sends...
‘THERE is no way schools can be opened at this stage because that would be committing genocide,’ Educators Union of South Africa (EUSA) Secretary Kabelo Mahlobogwane warned last Friday. He was speaking ahead of a victory for the teacher trade unions, which forced the South African government to back down...
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump on Monday said he would deploy the US military to US states that don’t use the National Guard in sufficient numbers to dominate the streets, as protests against police brutality raged across America. Speaking from the White House Rose Garden Trump said: ‘Our nation has been...
MORE than 80% of parents have refused to put their children in harm’s way, scuppering the government’s plan to reopen schools yesterday, a poll released by the GMB union confirms. A total of 1,601 members responded to a GMB survey launched last Friday with a massive 1,307 saying they were not planning on...
ALTHOUGH Israel later apologised for the incident that claimed the lives of nine Turkish nationals and one American and compensated the victims’ families, Tel Aviv-Ankara ties have never been able to get back on track, and doubts run high as to whether they can ever be repaired. It was an...
WHILE the Tories were hailing the relaxation of the lockdown rules that came into effect yesterday in England as a giant step forward, senior public health officials were making a last-minute plea for them to scrap any easing. The Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) said that the new...
THOUSANDS of teachers, as well as the parents of hundreds of thousands pupils, are set to defy the government’s instructions for Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 to resume classes today. Appearing on Sky TV’s Sophie Ridge on Sunday programme yesterday, Dr Mary Bousted, Joint General Secretary of the National...
