Monthly Archives: November 2021
THE PALESTINIAN organisation that governs Gaza, Hamas, announced on Sunday that it will take legal action against the United Kingdom, which recently listed it as a ‘terrorist organisation’. Speaking at an online conference held by the Centre for Palestinian Refugee Studies, Hamas Political Bureau Chief Mousa Abu Marzouk said the...
AUSTRALIAN school teachers and principals in New South Wales (NSW) are taking part in a pay strike next Tuesday, December 7th. The 67,000-member union said on Sunday that the strike is ‘over the government’s failure to address unsustainable workloads and uncompetitive salaries which are contributing to growing shortages of teachers.’ The...
LAST Friday, the Tory plan to designate the political wing of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas as a ‘terrorist organisation’ was nodded through Parliament without any debate after not a single Labour MP raised any objection. If just one Labour MP had objected this would have forced a debate and...
THE NEW variant strain of Covid-19, given the name Omicron by the World Health Organisation (WHO), burst onto the world scene last week although scientists had long predicted that the emergence of such a potentially dangerous strain was inevitable while the pandemic was rampaging virtually unchecked throughout the world. On...
WORKING people across the world were leading a coalition taking action on Black Friday 26th November to build pressure on Amazon to improve its treatment of its employees, the environment and the tax system. Amazon workers and activists in over 20 countries and across six continents took part in the...
CIVIL SERVANTS’ union the PCS, representing Border Force staff, has joined Care4Calais in their legal fight to prevent Home Secretary Priti Patel from pushing back refugees desperately attempting to cross the Channel. Following the tragic deaths of 27 people in the Channel last week, pressure has mounted on the government...
PROTESTS took place worldwide outside Amazon buildings on ‘Black Friday’ yesterday, in the US, UK and across Europe. Black Friday is the busiest online shopping sales day all year and for Amazon workers, who are driven to breaking point.
An international coalition of unions, equality and environmental groups called ‘Make Amazon...
AN ISRAELI court has handed down a ten-year prison sentence to a 17-year-old Palestinian boy after accusing him of attempting to carry out a stabbing attack in the occupied al-Quds (Jerusalem). Palestinian media reports said that the Israeli central court also imposed a fine of 170,000 shekels ($55,000) against 17-year-old Mohammed...
DOCTORS’ union the British Medical Association (BMA) has demanded ‘urgent action this winter to stop the National Health Service derailing entirely’. This stark warning came in a new report ‘Weathering the Storm’ released yesterday, which predicts this winter will be the worst on record for UK health services. The BMA says the strain on an already...
IRANIAN Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says the United States expanding sanctions against Iran, is a major obstacle to the Vienna talks aimed at putting the accord back on track. In a telephone conversation with his Swiss counterpart, Ignazio Cassis, on Tuesday, Amir-Abdollahian said Iran was ‘ready and serious to reach...
TWENTY-SEVEN people, including a pregnant woman and three children, were drowned attempting to cross the Channel in an inflatable boat on Wednesday – the highest number of people killed making it the most dangerous crossing since records were first started in 2004. Desperate men, women and children are forced to...
IN RESPONSE to the drowning of 27 people in the Channel on Wednesday, Tory Home Secretary Priti Patel yesterday pushed her Nationality and Borders Bill. The Bill further steps up the UK government’s war against refugees, criminalising them for crossing the Channel. Patel vowed yesterday to push ahead with plans...
OFFSHORE union RMT along with Unite and GMB on Tuesday issued notice of strike action by offshore members employed with North Sea contractors Ponticelli and Semco. RMT members at Semco Maritime and Ponticelli UK Ltd are instructed not to book on for work on the following dates between:
0600 hours on...
THE KNIVES are out for Tory prime minister Boris Johnson after his disastrous performance over sleaze, U-turns over social care and now his bizarre speech to bosses' organisation the CBI on Monday. Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph reported that Tory MPs, including a government whip, had told the paper that letters of...
PALESTINIAN prisoner Kayed Fasfous has won a decisive victory and ends his hunger strike after an agreement was reached to end his administrative det-ention and release him on December 14. Fasfous, the father of one daughter, has been on a hunger strike for 131 days in protest against his administrative...
THOUSANDS of midwives and their supporters protested in towns and cities across the UK at 2.00pm on Sunday to highlight the crisis in maternity services. Rallies were held in London’s Parliament Square, Birmingham and Manchester and many other town and city centres in England, Scotland and Wales.
Elizabeth Duff tweeted: ‘#MarchwithMidwives...
BEST-SELLING Irish novelist Sally Rooney has won massive support from fellow writers and artists for her support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement (BDS) which works to ‘end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law’ and calls for a complete boycott...
THE UK is using ‘terror designations’ as a tool to criminalise grassroot support for Palestine,’ Iran has warned. Iran was reacting to Tory Home Secretary Priti Patel’s announcement during a speech to the right-wing Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington DC that that the UK government intends to designate Hamas...
LECTURERS and staff took on Goldsmiths College higher management yesterday launching a bold and powerful three week strike against redundancies and the axing of whole departments. Jacob Mukagee, from Goldsmsiths University College Union (UCU) explained to News Line: ‘We are at the start of a three week strike over a...
On ‘Black Friday’ this week, a group of unions and grassroots organisations, known as the Make Amazon Pay Coalition, will stage coordinated protests and strikes in at least 20 countries. The strikes and protests will demand that Amazon pay workers a living wage, respect their right to join unions, pay...
BOTH Tory prime minister Boris Johnson and Labour leader Keir Starmer spoke at the annual conference of the leading bosses’ organisation, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), yesterday. Johnson was up first giving the assembled titans of British industry a speech that was universally described in even the most loyal...
‘THIS IS daylight robbery,’ Labour’s shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth warned yesterday as the Health and Social Care Bill began its third reading. He was reacting to an amendment to the Bill that was voted on last night, which dumps the huge cost of elderly care on the backs of...
‘WE ARE meeting today in a period where the world crisis of capitalism has reached the point of explosion,’ All Trades Unions Alliance National Secretary Dave Wiltshire told the 100-strong News Line Anniversary Rally on Saturday. Opening the rally at Haggerston School in Hackney, east London, Wiltshire said: ‘Welcome to...
NEWS LINE Editor Jonty Leff told the News Line 52nd Anniversary Rally on Saturday: ‘We hail the struggle of the Palestinian workers and youth. ‘We urge the workers of Europe to overthrow the EU and join hands with UK workers to establish the United Socialist States of Europe and we...
HOME Secretary Priti Patel, not satisfied with wanting to send asylum seekers to Albania for processing, has announced she is seeking to declare the whole of the Palestinian militant group Hamas a terrorist organisation and its political supporters to be terrorists. The military wing of the group which holds Gaza...
THE TORY government announced the scrapping of the Leeds leg of the HS2 (High Speed Two) rail on Thursday and in doing so has launched war on the entire working class. Their plan is to build up a gigantic privatised rail system. All the major unions, transport unions and the...
THE PCS trade union issued a statement on Thursday in which it criticised the Tory government and the attacks on the living standards of workers. The statement said: ‘Our members are facing multiple attacks this winter, including on pay and pensions, cut in Universal Credit (UC) and a hike in...
THE takeover of GP practices in London by US health insurance giant Centene Corporation will be subject of a judicial review in early 2022 after more than £70,000 has been raised by the public to fund the case, Unite the union said yesterday. Campaigners say that the review is vital...
THE TUC, Unite, RMT, GMB, Aslef and TSSA all said yesterday that the Tories scrapping of the Leeds leg of the HS2 was a stab in the back for the working class. TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: ‘The Northern Powerhouse Rail plan has been cut back beyond recognition. ‘By scrapping the...
THE PALESTINIAN Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch an immediate investigation into the Tel Aviv regime’s crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories after Israeli forces shot dead a young man in the northern part of the West Bank. The ministry,...
THIS WEEK the deal between the Tory and Ukrainian government to allow Kiev to buy British warships and missiles, using a £1.7 billion-pound loan raised in London, was finally ratified. In a joint statement issued after ratification, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and his Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksii Yuriyovych Reznikov, said:...
THE UNITED Kingdom has finalised an agreement with Ukraine that allows Kiev to buy British warships and missiles to enhance its naval capabilities, a move that Russia will likely view as a new provocation as tensions continue to grow between the two countries. Under the deal, Kiev can use a...
THE WHO warns: 75% of Yemeni kids are ‘chronically malnourished’, with the Yemeni population engulfed in food insecurity. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that 75 per cent of Yemeni children suffer from acute malnutrition, as Saudi Arabia keeps bombing the southern impoverished neighbour in defiance of international calls...
NOT TO WORRY about spiralling inflation, MPs were told on Monday by senior members of the Bank of England, as the soaring cost of essentials like energy and food means workers will have less to spend on other goods so businesses will struggle to put up prices. ‘There is no...
FRENCH police have smashed up a large refugee camp on its northern coast where increasing numbers of people hoping to reach the UK had settled. French police officers pulled down tents and forced 1,500 people off the site near Dunkirk, loading them onto coaches early yesterday morning and arresting 13,...
ON SUNDAY, thousands of Tunisian workers and youth rallied on the streets of the capital, Tunis, to demand that President Kais Saied restore the parliament and normal democratic rule. Saied launched a coup and seized nearly all powers on July 25, suspending the parliament and dismissing the government before installing...
AT A summit last Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned his American counterpart Joe Biden that US support for Taiwanese independence is ‘playing with fire ... and those who play with fire will get burned.’ In fact, the economic crisis of capitalism is forcing US and UK imperialism, with its...
PUPILS were quickly ushered out of Rosemead Preparatory School in Dulwich, south London, yesterday morning after a classroom ceiling collapsed. The London Fire Brigade (LFB) said three fire engines and 20 firefighters rushed to the scene at 9.20am. Several children have been taken to hospital, while many others were treated for...
‘The Bolivian trade union organisation Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) and indigenous peoples organisations have ratified a state of emergency in the face of alleged attempts by the right wing opposition to destabilise the government. A year after the democratic government of the MAS-IPSP led by Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca...
MILLIONS of pensioners will be plunged into poverty as the Tories press ahead with ending the triple-lock on state pensions. The triple-lock guarantees the basic state pension increases by a minimum of 2.5%, or the rate of inflation, or average earnings – whichever is the greater. Last week in the House...
A PERFECT storm of pressures risks engulfing health and social care services in England in the coming months, a comprehensive analysis by the RCN (Royal College of Nursing) shows. In a new report, ‘10 unsustainable pressures on the health and care system in England’, the RCN has identified 10 key...
BRITISH TROOPS are now on the Belarus-Polish border answering a request by the Polish government to give it military support against thousands of Middle Eastern refugees who have travelled to the Belarusian-Polish border with a view to reaching Germany. As well, for some time, British ships have been taking part...
SPYWARE made by Israel’s notorious NSO Group was used to hack the phones of six Palestinian human rights defenders, according to a report published last Monday. At least three of the targeted Palestinians work for groups declared as ‘terrorist’ organisations under a draconian Israeli law last month. Three of the six...