Monthly Archives: May 2023
ASLEF and RMT railworkers are striking again this week in defence of their jobs, their working conditions, their pensions and pay. Aslef train drivers are striking across the country today and on Saturday, while RMT members are striking on Friday 2 June, involving 20,000 catering, station staff and train managers...
THE PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) has called on the European Union (EU) to pressure Israel to stop escalatory unilateral measures in the occupied territories. In a meeting at his Ramallah office with EU Representative to Palestine, Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, on Monday, the PLO’s Executive Committee Secretary General, Hussein al-Sheikh,...
GERMANY, the EU’s biggest economy, has crashed into recession data revealed by the Federal Statistics Office last week showed. This was a blow to the German government which had been confidently predicting that growth in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would double this year. The German newspaper Bild reported that...
MORE than 90 per cent of respondents in a global survey strongly oppose NATO’s involvement in the Asia-Pacific region, describing the US-led Western military alliance’s activities as cause for great alarm. According to a poll conducted by CGTN, 93 per cent of the respondents strongly agree that the actions of...
HEALTH Secretary Steve Barclay did the rounds of the TV studios on Sunday to declare an all-out war on doctors, nurses and patients, as the Tories steam ahead with their plans to smash the National Health Service. For the nurses and doctors, Barclay arrogantly declared that there was no chance...
FIFTY GP surgeries in the north of Ireland are threatened with closure, the British Medical Association (BMA) warned yesterday. Sixteen surgeries have handed contracts back to Stormont’s Department of Health (DoH) in the past year, said Dr Tom Black, the BMA in NI’s chair, yesterday. A further 30 practices are ‘in...
TORY Health Secretary Steve Barclay provocatively declared yesterday that there will be absolutely no pay increase for nurses or doctors above the 5% that is being placed in their pay packets from next month. Touring the TV studios, Barclay was asked: ‘Are you saying to Pat Cullen (RCN leader) that...
PRESIDENT Biden and his Republican opponents have announced they have agreed in principle to raise the US debt ceiling and to try to avert a catastrophic default that would lead to US banks going broke and millions of workers losing their jobs. President Biden described the agreement as a ‘compromise’,...
French police have fired tear gas to disperse climate demonstrators gathered in Paris to raise their voices against an annual general meeting of oil company TotalEnergies on Thursday. Called by a coalition of political parties and charities, dozens of protesters gathered around the Salle Pleyel venue from dawn on Friday,...
PANIC gripped the UK ruling class yesterday as the bond markets ‘were thrown into chaos and a crisis’ that is bringing new cost of living and mortgage shocks for millions of workers. The Legal and General revealed that it had stopped making long term investments in the UK debt market...
THE Ukrainian military is highly likely to launch an attempt to retake Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut by Ukraine) and has amassed enemy manpower and equipment close to the city, Yan Gagin, adviser to the acting head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), said on Thursday. ‘Near Chasov Yar and on the...
CARS, lorries and buses hooted support along the busy Bath Road on the perimeter of Heathrow Airport in west London yesterday morning as 1,400 Terminal 5 security officers took their 17th day of strike action. Speaking on the picket line, Ali told News Line: ‘We are striking for a cost...
THE BMA says the dismissal of a consultant from Hampshire for whistleblowing is unacceptable and further highlights the need for cultural and legal reform within the NHS. The BMA is calling for more to be done to protect doctors who raise concerns over patient safety as the Hampshire Hospitals NHS...
THE drive by the Tories and their media supporters to demonise workers and the sick, as the root cause of the crisis that is holding British capitalism in a death lock, was ratcheted up yesterday with a series of articles in The Daily Telegraph. An article by Szu Ping Chan...
OVER 800 Australian protesters took to the streets in Sydney last Saturday to demonstrate against extradition to the US by the British government of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that was intended to coincide with the cancelled visit of the US president to Australia. Leading the protest rally, the wife of...
DESPITE thousands of people having seen CCTV footage on the BBC of Kyrees Sullivan, aged 16, and Harvey Evans, aged 15, being chased on their electric bike by a white police van, moments before their death, South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Alun Michael, continues to claim the ‘youths...
SRINAGAR, India – The Group of 20 (G20) summit commenced in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Monday, focusing on the topic of tourism. However, the meeting has been met with condemnation from China and Pakistan due to the contentious historical context surrounding the region and the Indian government’s track record of human...
FOOD prices in the UK continued to surge at the fastest rate in nearly 45 years in April, as inflation fell at a slower pace than expected. The rate at which grocery prices rose slowed marginally in the year to April, but at 19.1% is close to record highs. Stoked...
YESTERDAY, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) opened the ballot for strike action by nurses in response to the Tory pay offer of a miserable 5% increase. RCN members in the recent ballot rejected this offer, despite the RCN leadership recommending a vote in favour, and are determined to fight...
‘We support a general strike to defeat this bill, we supported it in the TUC and it’s our policy,’ RMT leader Mick Lynch told News Line on Monday evening. Speaking at a Trades Union Congress (TUC) emergency protest in Parliament Square, which was attended by around 1,000 trade unionists as...
JUNIOR doctors in England will hold a three-day strike from 7am on Wednesday 14 June to 7am on Saturday 17 June, after rejecting a miserable 5% pay offer. Announcing the strike on Monday night, Dr Vivek Trivedi and Dr Robert Laurenson, co-chairs of the British Medical Association BMA Junior Doctors...
FOR the first time since massive regular protests began in January, the French government has held discussions with union leaders regarding the two year hike to the retirement age. A notable problem with that long delay is that the age hike has already been forced into law via a decree...
ON MONDAY, with the Tory anti-strikes Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, back in the House of Commons for its final reading before passing into law, the TUC called an emergency protest outside Parliament demanding MPs ‘do the right thing’ and vote it down. Although initially aimed at workers in health,...
‘THIS IS unfinished business,’ said the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) leader Pat Cullen yesterday, urging members to vote YES as the union opened its new strike ballot. Nearly 300,000 nursing staff are being asked whether they’re prepared to take further strike action over the next six months. The ballot of...
PRIVATE health trade body the Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN) has welcomed the cross-party consensus on the key role of the independent sector in tackling NHS waiting lists, following an intervention from the Shadow Health Secretary. This comes as The Guardian newspaper revealed patients are paying up to £550 an...
Workers and youth in Greece were looking to deliver a huge blow to the current right-wing government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis in yesterday’s parliamentary elections. The huge militant mobilisations and the two general strikes in Greece last March, following the Tempi train crash on 28 February where over 100 people, mostly...
PRESIDENT Biden on Sunday, speaking in Hiroshima, the scene of a US-UK atom bombing, was forced to address the US banking crisis and whether he could use anti-democratic dictatorial methods to raise the USA’s debt limit without an Act of Congress. He said that he had the authority to use...
PM SUNAK HAS LOST NO TIME in announcing a series of fresh sanctions against Russia that include a ban on imports of aluminium, diamonds, copper and nickel. The UK has also sanctioned 86 individuals and companies working for Russia’s military, energy, metals and shipping industries. The announcement came ahead of the...
PRESIDENT Bashar al-Assad headed to the Saudi city of Jeddah on Thursday to participate in the activities of the 32nd session of the meeting of the council of the League of Arab States at the level of summit scheduled to be held on Friday. President al-Assad, received an invitation on...
OVER 100 striking NHS facilities workers shouted ‘30p, No,no,no, ISS Shame on You’, as they marched along the quay at Canary Warf beating drums and vuvuzelas, making a din outside the multi-billion pound firm ISS headquarters yesterday. Staff from the four mental health facilities in South London, the Maudsley, the...
RMT members working for the 14 train companies in the national rail dispute will walk out on Friday June 2. The union found the Rail Delivery Groups’ previous offer and associated conditions unacceptable, and despite contact between the parties since the strike on 13 May, no new proposals have been...
FACILITIES staff are on the third day of their four-day strike action today at Maudsley and Royal Bethlem Hospitals. Lois Gyabi, striking GMB member, told News Line yesterday: ‘We work for SSI who have the contract for domestic staff at Maudsley and Royal Bethlem Hospitals. ‘This company owes us a lot...
TUESDAY June 6 is scheduled, at the call of the national inter-union, which will be the fourteenth day of national strike in France against the pension reform since last January, says the Solidaires French union federation. Solidaires continued: ‘The proven goal is to influence the vote of the deputies, two...
US PRESIDENT Joe Biden turned up in the Japanese city of Hiroshima yesterday for a meeting of the G7 leaders over the weekend designed to underline and reinforce the commitment of the US and its allies to a war alliance against China and Russia. Originally, Biden planned on a whistlestop...
FACILITIES staff at Maudsley and Bethlem mental hospitals began a new four-day strike yesterday against the ISS offer of a meagre 30p wage increase, which they have totally rejected. ISS, a Dutch-owned multi-million pound global public services privateer, has not even paid the increases agreed with the GMB union last...
n a development that has sparked widespread concern, the United Nations has announced plans to reduce the food supplies it provides to the Rohingya refugees by approximately 20% in the upcoming month. This decision comes at a time when the refugees are already grappling with the aftermath of a catastrophic...
ONE of the world’s biggest carmakers, Stellantis, has called on the Tory government to renegotiate part of the Brexit deal or risk losing parts of its car industry. Stellantis owns Vauxhall, Peugeot, Citroen and Fiat, and has committed to making electric cars in the UK, but says that is under...
Rishi Sunak held a ‘summit’ meeting yesterday with leaders of the country’s supermarkets and food industry to discuss the surging inflation of food prices in the dominant supermarkets. This meeting was clearly called to try to head off a massive and rising tide of anger amongst workers when, at a...
DESPITE the end of the United States Title 42 border restrictions, obstacles and the lack of legal options to reach the US will continue to have a serious impact on the health of people seeking asylum, warns Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). MSF calls for a dignified and safe asylum system to be reestablished for all...
DELEGATES at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Annual Congress at the Brighton Conference Centre cheered and gave General Secretary Pat Cullen a standing ovation yesterday when she called for a strong YES vote for strike action in the national ballot which begins next week. The 500 delegates strongly backed...
BRITAIN is set to designate Russia’s private security company Wagner Group as a ‘terrorist organisation’, according to a report in The Times of London newspaper, in line with similar plans being debated in the United States and the European Union. The report, published earlier last week, quoted a British government...
The annual conference of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in Brighton this week is taking place at a time when the entire NHS is under attack from a Tory government determined to pauperise the NHS before proceeding to privatise it out of existence. Over a decade of underfunding, accompanied...
OVER 300 students marched yesterday against Brighton University’s decision to sack over 100 staff as part of a plan to make £17.9 million in cuts. The cuts would mean a huge reduction in lecturers in subjects including art, media, education, architecture, engineering, humanities and sports science. Brighton University already has one...
NURSES require a ‘double-digit’ pay rise! This was the message of the leader of the RCN (Royal College of Nursing) Pat Cullen yesterday, ahead of the union’s Annual Congress which begins in Brighton today. Cullen praised her ‘courageous’ members and the nursing union will now ballot for further strike action later...
OVER 5,000 workers and youth demonstrated against the Israeli occupation of Palestine on Saturday, marking the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, with a march across London from BBC Broadcasting House to to a rally opposite Downing Street. There were thousands of Palestinian flags and placards, with a huge Free Palestine...