Monthly Archives: September 2020
UNIVERSAL CREDIT claimants have been thrown into destitution, poverty, homelessness and starvation as a direct result of a ‘flawed algorithm’ a damning new welfare benefit report concludes. The report, by watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW), has found that Universal Credit is causing hardship among people who lack digital skills or...
THE number of people worldwide who have died from Covid-19 has passed one million, reaching 1,002,296 with 33,378,462 infected, the Johns Hopkins University reported yesterday. Deaths in the US, Brazil and India make up nearly half of that one million total, which UN Secretary General António Guterres called a ‘mind-numbing’...
FRENCH president Emmanuel Macron stepped up his blatant interference in Lebanon on Sunday when he issued Lebanese politicians an ultimatum that they must form a new government in six weeks – or else. With imperialist arrogance, Macron delivered his ultimatum at a news conference devoted to Lebanon at which he...
AS MANY as 40 different universities around the UK have now reported corona cases as the virus sweeps through the education system. After the University College Union’s (UCU) worst fears began to materialise, it called for an end to face-to-face teaching and for all classes to be moved on-line. Thousands of...
THE BANNING of protests, abductions and torture of activists and students, arrests of journalists and the intimidation of trade unions are not issues that we will be silent about, says the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA). NUMSA, which is affiliated to IndustriALL Global Union, organised a picket...
STUDENTS at Manchester Metropolitan University are confined to their rooms, with security officers keeping them inside. In a statement, Manchester Met said: ‘Our security teams will increase patrols to support the lockdown and we will take disciplinary action against any students found to have breached requirements.’ Joe Byrne, a Manchester Met...
PALESTINIAN President Mahmoud Abbas said during his speech last Friday before the General Debate of the 75th Session of the UN General Assembly that the Palestinians are gearing up for holding parliamentary elections, followed by presidential elections, and with the participation of all factions and political parties. ‘Here we are,...
THE UK government borrowed £35.9bn in August, which was £30.5bn more than it borrowed in August last year. Borrowing between April and August totalled £173.7bn. The UK national debt has hit £2.024tn, £249.5bn more than the same time in 2019. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS)...
APARTHEID is a crime against humanity, giving rise to individual responsibility and state responsibility to bring the illegal situation to an end. In May 2020, a large number of Palestinian civil society organisations called on all States to adopt ‘effective countermeasures, including sanctions, to end Israel’s unlawful acquisition of Palestinian territory through...
A NEW unity between all Palestinian factions against the common enemy – Israel and the US – is rapidly developing. The leadership of the Palestinian people in the West Bank, Fatah, and the leadership of the Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas, have agreed to hold the first elections in Palestine...
SEVERAL hundreds of secondary schools throughout Greece remain shut as school students refused to attend classes considering the Covid-19 government guidelines to be ineffective. Last Thursday in Athens, over 2,000 school students, along with delegations from university students’ unions, marched to the Vouli (Greek parliament) shouting ‘money for health and...
ADDRESSING the Labour shadow secretary Anneliese Dodds, the Tory Chancellor Sunak said yesterday in the House of Commons: ‘I do stand ready to work with the honourable member opposite, if she knew exactly what she wanted.’ He added: ‘Today the government stands with the British people and British business with...
NOT PARTICIPATING in the signing ceremony of the agreement to launch the East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF) on Tuesday does not mean withdrawing from the forum, which Palestine has participated in its establishment, said Omar Awadallah on Wednesday, the head of the United Nations General Administration and its Specialised...
ADDRESSING the Labour shadow secretary Anneliese Dodds, the Tory Chancellor Sunak said yesterday in the House of Commons: ‘I do stand ready to work with the honourable member opposite, if she knew exactly what she wanted.’ He added: ‘Today the government stands with the British people and British business with...
‘THIS CASE is a grave threat to press freedom, not just for Julian Assange, but for all British journalists,’ lawyer Stella Morris, Julian Assange’s fiancée said yesterday outside the Old Bailey where prosecutors are trying to have Assange extradited to the US where he faces 175-years in jail. His ‘crime’?...
THE PRESIDENTS of Venezuela and Argentina have demanded an end to the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is currently fighting extradition to the United States at the Old Bailey court in London. Argentinian President Alberto Fernández and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro signed an open letter, along with...
PM JOHNSON announced the latest draconian lockdown rules in the House of Commons last Tuesday, with the threat that, if not obeyed to the letter, he was prepared to call in the military to force obedience Johnson told MPs that there would now be ‘greater police presence’ on the streets...
‘IT IS in no-one’s interests for members of the armed forces to be given a free pass over alleged war crimes’ said Kate Allen, Amnesty International UK’s Director, yesterday. She was speaking ahead of the first proper hearing today on the government’s highly controversial Overseas Operations Bill. ‘This Bill comes with...
PALESTINE Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has accused the United States administration of pressuring and blackmailing the Palestinians to compromise on their national rights. Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting in Ramallah on Monday, Shtayyeh said: ‘The US policy has been and is still aimed at encircling the Palestinian leadership and...
THE TRUMP administration has stepped up its war on ‘Marxists and radicals’ naming three major cities that it has targeted to strip of their federal funding. New York City, Portland and Seattle are on the Justice Department’s hit-list of ‘anarchist cities’ accused of encouraging crime and criminality. A Justice Department statement...
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has said he would nominate a woman to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Immensely popular among Democrats, Ginsburg, 87, died of cancer last Friday, just weeks before the presidential election.
Her death handed Trump, who is seeking...
YESTERDAY the Tory government announced its plans to save the profits of the private rail companies by bankrolling them for another 18 months. In March, when lockdown started, every single rail company faced being wiped out as passenger numbers plummeted by 90%. At this point the Tories stepped in to guarantee...
THE TORY government is imposing a new legal duty to ‘self-isolate’ if instructed to do so by ‘NHS Test and Trace’ from next Monday, 28 September, with fines of £10,000 for failure to comply. Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show yesterday, Tory Health Secretary Hancock warned: ‘This self-isolation is...
LAST Wednesday Howard Beckett, Unite union assistant general secretary, welcomed as a victory for the union British Airways ‘partial U-turn on fire and rehire’. Beckett announced that a draft agreement had been reached with BA that would not be finally agreed until Unite members had voted and agreed to the...
TORY HEALTH SECRETARY Hancock yesterday said of the Covid-19 crisis that Britain was facing a ‘tipping point’ and ‘we have a choice’. It turns out that the choice was for everybody to become a police nark and inform on their neighbours! Covid restrictions in England will get tougher if the...
THE WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) is urging healthcare leaders and governments to address all persistent threats to both the health and safety of all workers and patients. ‘The Covid-19 pandemic has reminded all of us of the vital role health workers play to relieve suffering and save lives,’ were the...
THE DIRECTOR of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Christopher Wray, told a congressional hearing on Thursday that the US ruling class has lost control of the situation and that the mass protests sparked by police killings and police brutality have the potential to escalate into civil war and...
DURING DAY 11 of the hearing yesterday at the Old Bailey, in which the prosecution is attempting to get WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange extradited to the US, the prosecution attempted to argue that people had come to harm as a result of the documents that WikiLeaks published exposing imperialist...
SYRIA’S Foreign and Expatriates Ministry has affirmed that the statements of US President Donald Trump about targeting Syrian President President Bashar al-Assad for assassination underlines that the (US) administration is both rogue and outlaw. It follows the same method as terrorist organisations – of killing and liquidation without consideration to...
YESTERDAY, the Bank of England announced that it will be keeping interest rates on hold at the historical low of 0.1%. This was the unanimous vote of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) which also voted to keep on with its Quantitative Easing (QE) programme of pumping out £745 billion...
UNITE union said yesterday that it welcomes what it has called British Airway’s ‘partial U-turn on fire and rehire’ but warns issues are ‘not yet settled’. British Airways sacked 42,000 workers at the beginning of August. Following the appearance of Alex Cruz, the chief executive of British Airways at the House...
THE TORY government has announced that the Overseas Operations Bill will get its second reading in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 23rd September. In its current form, the Bill risks effectively decriminalising torture.
Second reading is a first opportunity for MPs to debate the main principles of the proposed legislation.
Senior military figures including...
WITH coronavirus cases continuing to rapidly increase day on day as a result of the Tories’ campaign to drive the reopening of workplaces, schools and universities, the vital issue of testing for Covid-19 has descended into complete chaos as a result of the Tory determination to hand the NHS...
THE LABOUR Court in Johannesburg will be the setting for South Africa’s trade unions and the African National Congress (ANC) government to fight it out over salary increases for about 1.2 million public servants. Trade unions are presenting a united front to get salary increases of between 4.3% and 5.4%,...
A PROPOSED law giving PM Johnson’s government the power to reject parts of the Brexit agreement with the EU passed its first reading in the House of Commons by 340 votes to 263 on Monday night, with former Tory PMs, such as Theresa May, abstaining along with 30 Tory...
JOHN SHIPTON yesterday called for the TUC to take up the fight for the release of his son, Julian Assange, and prevent his extradition to America. The TUC is currently holding its Annual Conference at Congress House, just round the corner from the Old Bailey, where the WikiLeaks founder is...
PALESTINIANS in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank rose up in anger to denounce the normalisation deals signed in Washington yesterday afternoon between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Both the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Hamas movement, which governs the Gaza Strip, have condemned the...
US PRESIDENT Trump is behind the politically motivated prosecution of Julian Assange who he said should receive the death penalty, it was alleged by American lawyer Eric Lewis at Assange’s extradition trial at the Old Bailey when it resumed yesterday. The case was postponed last week, halted for two days...
PALESTINIAN factions and the broader international Muslim community have expressed outrage at a fledgling trend of Arab-Israeli normalisation that has so far seen the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain cozying up to the occupying regime under Washington’s auspices. Palestinians have declared today, Tuesday, a ‘day of rage’ over an...
NEW ANALYSIS by the research group the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) has shown that unemployment in the UK will be a massive increase on the levels reached during the recession of 2008/9. According to the IES, in the third quarter of this year 450,000 jobs will go – more...
FOLLOWING the refusal of the Arab League to condemn the UAE for its recognition of the state of Israel, Bahrain has now followed the lead of the UAE and now recognises Israel and will, no doubt, be attending the ‘Recognition’ signing ceremony in Washington tomorrow. US President Trump and Israel’s...
‘WHAT DO we want? 15%! When do we want it? Now!’ rang out on the Nurses March through London on Saturday afternoon. More than 1,000 nurses and their supporters marched from BBC Broadcasting House in Portland Place to Trafalgar Square, where they heard speeches demanding trade union action to achieve...
