Monthly Archives: July 2021
ON TUESDAY, Tory PM Boris Johnson narrowly avoided defeat on a motion to cut UK foreign aid after a rebellion by Tory MPs. In the debate, Johnson insisted the cut was essential as chancellor Rishi Sunak has had to ‘find over £407 billion’ during the pandemic to prevent British capitalism...
PARISIAN finance and tax workers held a one-day strike in defence of jobs and services last Friday, July 9th, accompanied by a rally which was called by three unions including Force Ouvriere (FO). Some 200 finance staff and agents gathered outside the offices of the DRFIP (Regional Office of Public...
HE BRITISH Medical Association (BMA) doctors’ trade union has spelt it out that pressing ahead with lifting final Covid-19 restrictions in England on July 19 is ‘irresponsible and perilous’. Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA council chair, said: ‘It’s irresponsible – and frankly perilous – that the government has decided to press...
‘WE KNOW that we are going to see more hospitalisations and more deaths from Covid,’ Tory PM Johnson admitted at yesterday’s 5.00pm press conference in which he confirmed that the remaining Covid restrictions will still be lifted on Monday July 19 despite infections soaring. He said: ‘We think now is...
RUSSIA is warning Western allies that nothing good will come out of provocations in the Black Sea as any attempts to test Moscow’s willingness to defend its own borders are ‘doomed to failure’, Russia's Embassy in Washington told the American press last week. ‘Manoeuvres performed in the immediate proximity to...
THE WEALTH gap in Britain has widened dramatically during the pandemic with the richest 10% of the population gaining an extra £50,000 each on average, according to research carried out by the Resolution Foundation. The think-tank said total UK wealth increased by £900bn to £16.5tn during the course of the...
THE GLOBAL academic boycott of University of Liverpool began on Friday as lecturers fight against the sacking of 21 staff. The University and College Union (UCU) hit the University of Liverpool with the ultimate sanction of an international academic boycott over the university’s refusal to halt the sacking of 21...
NHS WAITING lists in England could more than double in the coming months, from the current figure of 5.3 million people to around 13 million according to Health Secretary Javid as his government chases the spectre of ‘herd immunity’ at the expense of the population to get capitalism going...
ENGLAND has an ‘unforgivable’ and ‘frightening’ NHS workforce crisis that severely threatens patient safety, says the BMA doctors’ union in research published today. The BMA says the number of doctors per 1,000 people in England is 25 years behind comparable European Union nations, which means an estimate of almost 50,000...
‘IT’S HERD immunity by the back door,’ Dr Deepti Gurdasani, an epidemiologist and senior lecturer at Queen Mary University told the BBC on Thursday. She is the organiser of a letter published in The Lancet signed by over 100 scientists and doctors opposing the lifting of all Covid-19 restrictions. Dr Gurdasani...
DOCTORS’ union the British Medical Association (BMA) has launched its own ‘Lessons Learned’ inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic. This is ahead of the Tory government’s public inquiry, which does not start until the spring of 2022. Doctors say they are not prepared to wait for years while the public inquiry...
METROPOLITAN Police officer Wayne Couzens yesterday pleaded guilty to murdering Sarah Everard. The 33-year-old vanished while walking home from a friend’s house in Clapham, south London, on 3 March. Judge Lord Justice Fulford will sentence Couzens at the Old Bailey on 29 September. Couzens, 48, previously pleaded guilty to kidnap and rape...
THE HIGH Court has ruled that the 1,000 claims against The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and its tenant management organisation (TMO) over the Grenfell Tower fire should be put on hold for nine months while out of court settlements are ‘explored’. However, lawyers for the survivors said...
AS TEHRAN hosted a round of intra-Afghan talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has told the representatives of the Kabul government and the Taliban, that the Islamic Republic stands ready to help the neighbouring country resolve its conflicts and achieve lasting peace. In a tweet on Wednesday morning, Seyed...
ON MONDAY night, the Tory Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (the Policing Bill) passed its third reading in Parliament on its way to becoming law that will criminalise protest against Tory policies and even make being homeless a criminal offence. The very next day the Tory Home Secretary Priti...
ISRAELI bulldozers yesterday demolished Palestinian homes in Khirbet Humsa al-Fawqa village, southeast of Tubas city. Mu’taz Besharat, who monitors Israeli colonial settlement activities in Tubas, said that Israeli soldiers escorted bulldozers and trucks into the northern Jordan Valley village, where the heavy machinery tore down structures before the structure contents...
A mass petition with over 600,000 signatures was delivered to the Government on Monday, demonstrating the strength of public opposition to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (the Policing Bill). The petition was handed in to parliament as the Third Reading of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill...
LAST week, the outgoing chief economist at the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, bluntly warned that the rapid increase in inflation would make the massive national debt (standing at an eye watering £2.3 trillion and rising) unsustainable, as interest rates inevitably shoot up. Servicing this debt will become unaffordable for...
GAMBLING with people’s lives, the new Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid made a statement on removing Covid-19 restrictions yesterday. He told Parliament: ‘We must balance the risks, the risks of a virus that has diminished but not been defeated, against the risks of keeping these restrictions and the...
Israeli forces have levelled large areas of farmland in the Gaza Strip after infiltrating the border fence between the besieged enclave and the occupied Palestinian territories. Palestine’s official Wafa news agency reported on Monday that ten Israeli bulldozers and military vehicles advanced towards the Shaj’iya neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, and razed a large tract of farmland...
HAMAS, the Palestinian resistance movement which recently fought a successful 11 day war with Israel against its occupation of Palestine, has condemned the participation of four Arab states alongside Israel in a US-led anti-Russian NATO war game codenamed ‘Sea Breeze’. It said that the participation of Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and...
TORY PM Boris Johnson set out his five point plan for ‘Living with Covid’ yesterday saying that he expects the lifting of restrictions will go ahead on July 19 despite infection rates rising rapidly across the country and scientists calling for him to wait until the vaccination programme is...
THE UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says Israeli forces have either demolished or seized 24 Palestinian-owned buildings in the occupied territories of West Bank and Jerusalem in a span of just two weeks. In its bi-weekly report of last Friday on Israeli violations, the OCHA said...
A REPORT yesterday by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) warns that up to 350,000 youth aged between 19 to 24 face being thrown out of work and ‘scarred by recession for years to come’ as the Tory furlough scheme is wound down and finally ended in October. The IFS...
BY THE JULIAN ASSANGE DEFENCE COMMITTEE The week of Julian Assange birthday events kicked off in London on Saturday with protests at the Australian Embassy, online events and a picnic in Parliament Square. Punk fashion icon Vivienne Westwood and Assange supporters spread the message that Assange has been arbitrarily detained by...
OVER 250 London NHS doctors, nurses and hospital workers demonstrated through the West End on Saturday, demanding a 15 per cent pay increase and a stop to NHS privatisation. The lively march from UCLH hospital to Downing Street was part of a National Day of Action on Saturday ahead of...
TWENTY years after invading Afghanistan, US-led coalition troops have vacated the largest military base in the war-torn country, located in the ancient city of Bagram, about 45 miles north of Kabul. They have retreated, a beaten force with their tails between their legs, like a beaten dog.
The sprawling airfield, hich...
THE US ruling class, and its UK and German allies have suffered a historic defeat in Afghanistan. This is the verdict of the former UK Chief of the General Staff General Lord Dannatt. He told The Daily Telegraph: ‘Ultimately, Taliban force of arms has prevailed.’ During the 20-year conflict, 454 British...
SENIOR doctors in England will be consulted on taking industrial action if the government’s 1% pay rise offer is not improved. The British Medical Association says it will ask members about stopping paid and unpaid overtime if there is not a figure nearer 4%. The Royal College of Nursing has already...
‘DAMPER’ devices placed in Grenfell Tower’s ventilation system to prevent the spread of smoke were of the ‘lowest possible standard’, the ongoing Grenfell inquiry into the fire was told last week. The session’s opening statement to the Inquiry – now in Week 38 – saw representatives of the bereaved families...
MONDAY is the anniversary of the founding of the National Health Service (July 5th 1948) and Johnson’s Tories have marked the event by refusing proper pay rises to nurses, midwives, NHS staff and doctors. There are protests outside hospitals up and down the country today (Saturday) over the way...
‘INSTEAD of driving us off a furlough cliff edge later this year, the government should provide continued support for employers,’ the GMB union said yesterday as the Tory government began winding down its furlough scheme. Yesterday, the government reduced the contribution it makes to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and the...
HAMAS LEADER, Ismail Haniyeh warned the Palestinian resistance has many ‘powerful cards’ it can use in the fight to put an end to the Israeli occupation. Ismail Haniyeh made the remarks on Wednesday in Lebanon, where he arrived four days ago at the head of a delegation hailing from the...
ON WEDNESDAY Andy Haldane, outgoing chief economist at the Bank of England (BoE), delivered a message of doom for the British economy in a speech marking his departure from the Bank after 32 years. Haldane delivered a stark warning about the dangerous increase in inflation and the risk that the...
ISRAELI military authorities yesterday handed 25 residents of al-Sawiyeh village, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, demolition orders for their houses under the pretext they were built in Area C and without an Israeli permit. Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors Israeli settlement activities in the north of the...
THOUSANDS of health workers in Cook County, Illinois, are continuing strike action against attacks on their pay and conditions. Meanwhile 100 Illinois librarians have formed a union in Maine in order to fight against jobs, funding and programme cuts.
The Cook County health workers, represented by SEIU Local 73, began picketing...
FROM TODAY the Tory furlough scheme starts to unwind with businesses forced to contribute 10% of furloughed workers’ wages, rising to 20% in August as taxpayer support is cut from the current level of 80%. The entire scheme will be scrapped by the Tories on 30 September. From the start...