Monthly Archives: February 2022
TORY Foreign Secretary Truss and Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy were united in calling for an escalation of military and economic war against Russia yesterday. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday announced the formation of an ‘international legion’ of foreign nationals who want to fight against Russia and called...
A Moscow-based American political analyst says NATO’s expansionist policy and its disregard for Russia’s security concerns left President Vladimir Putin with no option but to launch military action against Ukraine. Putin had to act when Russia’s proposals on security guarantees, which had been put forth with the aim of resolving...
PM Boris Johnson said yesterday that Ukrainians are ‘fighting heroically’ and with ‘great success’ in some places against Russian troops who have intervened to prevent NATO recruiting the Ukraine, and are acting with great moderation. Following a phone call with the Ukrainian president, the Prime Minister said things ‘are not...
ENERGY bills are set to rise to an eye-watering £3,000 a year which will undoubtedly plunge millions of families into fuel poverty, where they are forced to sit in the dark and cold, unable to cook or wash in hot water as they cannot afford to turn the gas...
SOS NHS are demanding emergency investment in a publicly provided NHS. The immediate measures needed are highlighted in a statement for the NHS Day of Action today:
‘All limits that curb spending on temporary staff to fill vacancies and keep services running safely must be lifted at once. Any temporary provision...
ON Thursday, Sajid Javid, the Tory Health Secretary, made a euphoric speech to the Health Service Journal Digital Transformation Summit. He praised the Covid pandemic for opening the doors to mass take up of the NHS app. He said: ‘It (the pandemic ) pushed digital transformation to levels that we...
GOVERNMENT officials knew of the dangers of flammable cladding 15 years before the horrific Grenfell Tower fire which on June 14, 2017 claimed the lives of 72 men, women and children. Evidence given at the inquiry into the deaths of 72 people show that the priority of successive governments was...
YESTERDAY, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced that he had ordered the Russian military to carry out a special operation in the Donbass region in response to a request by the independent People’s Republic of Donbass. The request for military aid by the Donbass workers comes after eight years of continual...
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin announced a ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine’s Donbass region early yesterday morning to ‘defend people there against government forces’, stressing that Moscow has ‘no plans to occupy Ukrainian territory’. In his address Putin said the special operation would aim to ‘demilitarise’ and ‘de-Nazify’ Ukraine.
The Russian leader...
‘WE MUST do more to defeat Putin’s campaign of lies and disinformation,’ Labour leader Keir Starmer told the House of Commons yesterday at PMQs. ‘Russia Today is his personal propaganda tool and I can see no reason that it should be allowed to continue to broadcast in this country.’ He asked:...
TEHRAN has denounced the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)’s interference in the volatile eastern part of Ukraine, stating that the military alliance’s provocative measures have complicated the situation and led to the sharp escalation of tensions there. ‘The Islamic Republic of Iran calls on all parties to exercise restraint...
ON TUESDAY Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced sanctions against Russia over the decision by Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognise the Republics of Lugansk and Donetsk and pledge that he would order Russian troops to intervene in order to prevent any massacre of workers and youth by Ukrainian fascist...
TORY PM Boris Johnson and Labour leader Keir Starmer came together yesterday in their sanctions attack on Russia – the only disagreement being that Starmer said the sanctions do not go far enough! The SNP speaker Ian Blackford also pledged the Scottish Nationalists’ support and said how important it was...
UNITED NATIONS special rapporteur on torture, Professor Nils Melzer, held a Question and Answer session with the Foreign Press Association (FPA) last Friday, discussing his book, The Trial of Julian Assange: A Story of Persecution. Melzer’s answers provided a devastating indictment not only of the treatment of Assange, but of...
THE DECISION of Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognise the Republics of Lugansk and Donetsk, and to order Russian troops to intervene to prevent any massacres of workers and youth by fascist militias supporting US imperialism, has led to a major crisis for the imperialist powers. The US and the...
THE RUSSIAN Security Council discussed yesterday recognising Donetsk and Lugansk in the Donbass region of Ukraine as independent states. Russian President Vladimir Putin said: ‘I have heard your opinions and I will make a decision over recognition of Lugansk and Donetsk.
‘During the coup in 2014 part of the population of...
UKRAINE and Germany have pushed back against assumptions by Washington about Russian intentions to invade the former Soviet state as tensions further escalated after US President Joe Biden warned that Russia could launch an attack ‘within days’. In an address to the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr...
YESTERDAY, Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the ending of all remaining Covid restrictions in England this week. The Tories’ ‘Living with Covid’ plan means ending the legal requirement for people testing positive for Covid to self-isolate, while at the same time making the chance of anyone testing positive almost...
TORY Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed yesterday that Russia is on the brink of ‘invading’ Ukraine and threatened that what would ensue would be ‘the biggest war in Europe since 1945 just in terms of sheer scale’. Johnson claimed to BBC reporter Sophie Raworth: ‘All the signs are that the...
STRIKE action at UK universities spreads to 68 institutions today as more than 50,000 staff are mandated to strike and well over a million students are being impacted. Staff at 24 additional universities down tools today over pay and working conditions, with demands including a £2,500 pay rise for all...
STAND-your-ground laws in the United States have expanded legal protections for individuals who use deadly violence in self-defence. But a new study published today estimates they result in an additional 700 homicides each year – an increase in monthly homicide rates of 11% nationally, but up to 28% in some...
PM Boris Johnson is now fighting on two fronts. At home, against the Metropolitan Police inquiry into his law-breaking, and the demand that he be sacked if he is found guilty. And abroad, where he is fighting for massive anti-Russian sanctions in a bid to begin a Third World War...
Responding to the latest State of Fire report announced by the chief inspector of fire and rescue services Sir Tom Winsor, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) said on Tuesday that firefighters should have the right to organise together and democratically take decisions, including to strike. The FBU stated: ‘Taking industrial...
WITH capitalism gripped by a deepening worldwide crisis the British ruling class have pushed themselves forward as the most zealous warmongers doing the bidding of US imperialism in a desperate move to provoke a big crisis in Ukraine to try and undermine Russia and wipe out all the gains...
‘WE ARE on the verge of conflict which would involve the whole continent,’ Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said yesterday at a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin after an important meeting between the two leaders. ‘We see that the irresponsibility of a number of Western leaders has lead...
A NEW investigation has revealed that Israel used an assassination tactic, not seen in the occupied West Bank for more than 15 years, in the recent killing of three Palestinian youths. Last Tuesday, Israeli officers in two civilian vehicles cut off three Palestinians in their car in the city of...
DETAILS of the settlement between Prince Andrew and Virginia Giuffre to end her claim that she was forced to have sex with the Duke three times when she was 17, under the orders of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, have been kept secret but it is believed to amount to...
‘I AM HERE today to show the United Kingdom’s steadfast support for the Ukraine,’ Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said yesterday at a joint press conference in Kiev along with Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Ivanovych Kuleba. She had flown to Ukraine to outline a new trilateral anti-Russian alliance between...
STAFF at Imperial College London have voted ‘no confidence’ in the university’s President Alice Gast and Muir Sanderson Chief Financial Officer demanding that they must go and that the college needs to implement a new governance structure. UCU members at Imperial are currently on strike over pension cuts as part...
‘Ministers, employers and inspectorates are failing in their duty of care to teachers, with a lack of action to address workload and the impact of the pandemic driving up stress and poor mental health to unprecedented levels,’ the NASUWT teachers union charged yesterday. A survey by NASUWT into teacher wellbeing...
THE TUC has just published a statement condemning Israel and stating that ‘The illegal occupation of Palestine means that Palestinians face violations of their human and workers’ rights on a daily basis – and too many companies are benefiting from it.’ It adds: ‘The UN has set up a database...
THERE were picket lines outside every department at Sheffield University’s many buildings yesterday morning with striking lecturers and staff determined to fight until they beat the attack on their pay, pensions and working conditions. Sheffield is also embroiled in a local dispute where the entire Archaeology department is being shut...
POVERTY-stricken garment workers in Haiti have been violently attacked by riot police. Last Thursday, for the second day in a row, police fired tear gas and beat protesters with batons outside the SONAPI Free Trade Zone in Port-au-Prince.
Last month a coalition of unions, including IndustriALL affiliate GOSTTRA, called on Prime...
RUSSIAN troops have completed their training drills in Belarus, very close to neighbouring Ukraine, and will begin returning to their bases, the Ministry of Defence in Moscow has announced, amid the fear by the Western powers that the exercises were a precursor to an invasion. Major General Igor Konashenkov, the...
STRIKING UCU union university lecturers and students set up picket lines at the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS) yesterday morning at the start of their 10-day strike. This is part of strike action by the UCU involving 68 universities across the length and breadth of the country. They are...
‘I WANT someone tried and jailed like I was, then I am settled,’ Harjinder Butoy, who ran the Post Office in the Nottinghamshire market town of Sutton-in-Ashfield along with his wife, said yesterday as the public inquiry into the wrongful convictions of hundreds of sub-postmasters opened yesterday morning. Between 2000...
THE STRIKE at South African dairy giant Clover, that started on 22 November last year, has brought together unions, political parties, civic organisations and activists in a united struggle against factory closures and job losses. The 2019 hostile take-over by Milco SA, an Israeli-owned consortium that profits off the occupation...
YESTERDAY, former Post Office sub-postmasters and mistresses began giving evidence to the public inquiry into the Post Office scandal which has been described as ‘the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history.’ Over 700 branch managers were convicted of criminal offences due to a faulty accounting software system called...
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the ‘imminent’ threat of Russian military action in Ukraine justifies evacuating the US embassy in Kiev. His words came after Ukraine’s president urged calm, saying the biggest enemy was panic. More than a dozen countries have urged their citizens to leave Ukraine. Moscow, with...
UNIVERSITY leaders have ‘failed staff and students’, the University and College Union (UCU) said today as up to ten days of strike action began at universities across the UK over devastating cuts to pensions and deteriorating pay and working conditions. Staff at 44 universities walked out today after university employers...
FOR SOME weeks the UK and US ruling classes have been telling the world that Russia is just waiting to invade the Ukraine, that an invasion of the Ukraine is just hours away, and that after they have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, goodness knows where the next...
The TUC responded on Thursday to cuts to bus routes by privateers set to be implemented across the country calling for all bus networks to be nationalised. The TUC said in a statement: ‘A third of all bus routes could be lost across the country leaving communities and commuters stranded...
METROPOLITAN Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick has quit! Millions will be cheering the news, and demanding that the whole Met Police force be disbanded to slash the crime rate. Sisters Uncut said yesterday: ‘Cressida Dick is resigning but she is leaving behind an institution that is rotten to the core.’...
BARTS Hospital Trust workers organised a march from the hospital to a meeting at Altab Ali Park on the final Friday of their two-week strike action against being outsourced to Serco and to be brought back ‘in-house’ as NHS workers. Len Hockey the Unite organiser at Whipps Cross Hospital (WXH)...
Sri Lankan health workers launched an indefinite pay strike on Monday, 7th February, protesting against the government’s failure to address salary and other issues. The indefinite action follows a one-day strike on January 26 and other mobilisations in the preceding months. Health workers in Sri Lanka have been participating in intensive...