Monthly Archives: June 2021
‘IT IS TIME to get serious. It is time to go all the way and uproot the virus of occupation. We demand sanctions on Israel now!’ Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, Husam Said Zomlot told the more than 8,000-strong demonstration outside the gates of Downing Street in central London...
NOT SO long ago in the late 1930s ‘European concessions’ on the Chinese mainland contained ‘European Only’ parks, some with signs declaring ‘no dogs or Chinese allowed’ – such was the status that the UK and the US had imposed on the Chinese people in the last days of...
EALING Parking Services workers were on the picket line outside Ealing Town Hall yesterday on the third day of three days of strike action this week against the privateer Serco. They are fighting Serco’s attacks on their terms and conditions and against the victimisation of their union reps and they...
ATHENS – Tens of thousands of workers and students marched in all main cities of Greece last Thursday in a 24-hour general strike against the government’s abominable anti-labour and anti-trade union Bill. It was the biggest strike mobilisation since 2019 when the current right-wing government of Prime Minister K. Mitsotakis...
LAST WEEK, US President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order to enhance and extend a Trump-era ban on investments with 59 Chinese companies, barring US-based individuals or companies from engaging in business with them. The US president claimed in February that China would ‘eat our lunch’ if the US did...
THE NHS BACKLOG is ‘dangerously close’ to crippling our health service as waiting times hit a record high, doctors’ union the BMA has warned. Responding to the latest NHS performance figures, Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA council chair, said: ‘The figures are not just numbers on a spreadsheet, but real people...
TORY Health Secretary Matt Hancock was grilled for four hours by two Parliamentary Committees on Thursday, in which he insisted that ‘There was never a point at which NHS providers couldn’t get access to PPE (Personal Protection Equipment).’ This is despite over 1,000 doctors, nurses and NHS staff getting infected...
TORY Health Secretary Matt Hancock was ‘lying through his teeth to MPs when he claimed there was no Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) shortage during the pandemic’, the GMB union alleged yesterday. Hancock was grilled by the Science and Technology and Health Select Committees for four hours beginning at 9.30am yesterday...
THE TRADE Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) adopted a resolution on the dire situation in Colombia, condemning the violence against trade unionists and calling on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to take action. The recent violent crackdown by the Colombian authorities against the mass opposition and demonstrations follows...
ECONOMISTS at the German Deutsche Bank have issued a report about the inevitable consequence of the US Federal Reserve policy of printing worthless paper money leading to hyperinflation that will devastate the world capitalist economy. The Fed is injecting a staggering $6 trillion into the US economy by printing money...
THE HIGH Court has ruled that the Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove broke the law by acting with ‘apparent bias’ in handing a £560,000 public contract to long-time associates of his and Dominic Cummings at communications agency Public First. Ministers have always claimed there was no favouritism – bias as...
A CRITICAL report by MPs on the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee has warned of large scale ‘workforce burnout’ in the NHS and social care. Their report published on Tuesday states: ‘In our report, Delivering core NHS and care services during the pandemic and beyond, we set out our...
TAX RETURNS of America’s richest people have been leaked to the investigative website ProRepublica and prove that the mega wealthy have been paying little or no federal tax for years. ProRepublica has seen the tax returns of the wealthiest people in the US going back over 15 years – including...
PATIENTS at the Royal London hospital in Whitechapel, East London, are facing the prospect of ‘food chaos’ later this month, after workers employed by outsourcing giant Serco voted for strike action. The workers, who are members of the Unite union, are based in the hospital’s back-of-house catering department. They play...
A NATIONAL pay strike is looming at Eskom, after management at South Africa’s massive national power utility issued a ‘declaration of war’ to the three trade unions involved last Tuesday, at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). Eskom spokesman Sikonathi Mantshantsha said the power utility declared a dispute...
ISRAELI police yesterday cancelled tomorrow’s annual massive settlers’ march through Jerusalem. The march celebrates the occupation of the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1967 and pledges to continue to occupy and settle the whole of Palestine. The Israeli police took the decision to cancel because, currently, Israel has no government, and...
A SENIOR Israeli intelligence official has warned of ‘politically-instigated domestic violence’ similar to the January mayhem on the United States Capitol, after the opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the formation of a coalition to oust him. Last Saturday, Nadav Argaman, head of the Israeli regime’s internal spy agency...
LAST Wednesday the international coffee giant JDE (Jacobs Douwe Egberts) issued dismissal notices to nearly 300 of its workers at the Banbury plant who had refused to sign new contracts that could mean some of them losing up to £12,000 a year – a move branded ‘corporate gangsterism’ by...
THE JOHNSON government faces a substantial rebellion in the House of Commons today and it could be facing defeat, with more than 30 Tory rebels, including several former ministers including ex-PM Teresa May, set to vote against the foreign aid budget cuts. Last year, Tory ministers decided to reduce this...
THE United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has announced that funding shortages have forced it to cut its food assistance for thousands of Syrian refugees living in Jordan. The UN body said on Thursday that 21,000 Syrian refugees will no longer receive their monthly food assistance as of July amid...
BELFAST City Council has given a big lead to the workers of Ireland and the UK by voting to urge the UK and Republic of Ireland governments to immediately expel ‘Israeli ambassadors’ from the UK. At a special meeting councillors have passed a motion stipulating that the local authority would...
GREEK seafarers of the PENEN trade union (deck hands) staged a most important national strike last Thursday morning against a government Bill which wipes out the eight-hour day and imposes the dictatorship of the bosses, with workers obliged to work up to 15 hours a day, the extra seven...
OPERATION BARBAROSSA was the codename given by Adolph Hitler to the invasion of the Soviet Union launched on Sunday 22 June 1941. In the preface to this book Dimbleby describes this as ‘the biggest, bloodiest and most barbarous military enterprise in the history of warfare. The purpose of Operation Barbarossa,...
THE TORIES’ Education Recovery Commissioner for England, Sir Kevan Collins quit last week after 6.7 million school children were starved of the funds they desperately need to catch up on their education that has been terminated by the pandemic. During the height of the pandemic and the lockdown, PM Johnson...
IN A CRITICAL and damning judgment, the Home Office’s decision to house asylum seekers who had made it across the Channel in a ‘squalid’ barracks in Folkestone was unlawful, the High Court has ruled. Six asylum seekers brought the case, claiming Napier Barracks was ‘unsafe’ and dormitory use caused a...
UNITED STATES Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has called on Congress to immediately authorise Tel Aviv’s request for extra emergency funding. Graham made the remarks in an interview with Fox News from Jerusalem al-Quds on Tuesday, after meeting with both Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Benny Gantz during...
OVER 500 members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) came out on strike this week at the agency’s main Swansea centre. The DVLA site has been at the centre of continuing Covid infections throughout the pandemic with management insisting that...
THERE were high spirits on the parking services workers’ picket line outside Ealing Town Hall in west London yesterday morning, with dhol drummers keeping up a constant beat, which was answered by hoots of support from passing cars and buses. The 47 Unite members are on strike again today and...
AN ARTICLE in Haaretz says Israel is fatally weak against the Axis of Resistance, which includes the Palestinian and Lebanese movements. Writing in the leading Israeli daily, Dr. Gil Murciano also said the ‘War between the Wars’ doctrine followed by Israel is greatly limited in shaping an endurable reality for...
RAIL unions have pledged mass industrial action in response to the Tory attacks on the jobs, pay and pensions of workers at TfL (Transport for London). Over a 60% decline in travel on public transport during the pandemic lockdown has seen the revenue from fares collapsing, forcing TfL to rely...
EALING Council Parking Services workers are striking again today and tomorrow demanding that Ealing Council sacks the Serco public services privateer and takes their jobs back in-house. Speaking on the picket line yesterday morning, strike leader and Unite rep Patrick Samaro told News Line: ‘Today is our 7th day of...
THE FRENCH trade unions held a mass demonstration on Saturday, 29 May, to mark the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune when, as Karl Marx said: the workers ‘stormed heaven’ and ‘held the power for a whole month!’ The Commune confirmed the revolutionary role of the working class, and the...
ISRAEL has emerged out of its failed military attempt to crush Hamas much weaker and much more crisis-ridden, while the Palestinians are now much stronger and much more confident in their coming victory. Israel has failed to impose a military solution on the Palestinian people, and cannot even form a...
MORE than 70 schools have been built using combustible insulation since the material was banned on high-rise apartment blocks after the Grenfell Tower disaster, sparking outrage from the Grenfell Community and teachers’ unions. The study, by insulation manufacturer Rockwool, also found about 25 recently built hospitals, care homes and sheltered...
SECURITY experts believe the United States is targeting Iraq’s anti-terror Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU) in order to resuscitate the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group that had wreaked havoc in the country since 2014 but which was defeated in late 2017. ‘Washington helped the terrorists to enter the al-Jada’a camp in (Iraq’s)...
YESTERDAY the temporary ban on evictions in England ended, leaving hundreds of thousands of people facing being thrown out of their homes for rent arrears. A survey of renters and homeowners by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) revealed that 400,000 people have already been served with eviction notices or have...