National News
Jobs and safety carnage on the London Underground
LONDON Underground (LU) is planning cuts which union leaders say are “a blueprint for jobs and safety carnage”. Some 1,500 jobs would go in plans detailed in LU’s Operational Strategy report made public by the RMT transport union on Monday.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Church divided over St Paul’s protesters
ANGLICANS are divided over its attitude to the anti-capitalist protesters now occupying St Paul’s Cathedral Churchyard — the closest they could get to the London Stock Exchange.
On the first day of the protest, Saturday 15th October, the Dean of St Paul’s, Giles Fraser, welcomed the protesters and told the police not to move them on from the church’s grounds.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Hardest hit protests throughout Britain
THOUSANDS of disabled people, their friends and supporters staged protests in town and city centres throughout Britain last Saturday to show their anger and disgust at the Con-Dem Coalition cuts to their benefits and support services.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
A quango to rule the NHS
THE CON-DEM Coalition is planning to franchise the running of the NHS to a quango — for periods of up to three years — according to leaked documents published in the press last week.
This will shift responsibility and accountability from the Government when and if things start to go disastrously wrong with the delivery of NHS services.
The news came from unpublished evidence to the health Select Committee last week from Malcolm Grant, who is the Government’s choice to run the powerful NHS commissioning board.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
International News
Cold winter ahead for China’s economy
China Youth Daily
NOW THAT the US sovereign credit rating has been downgraded for the first time, and the Greek debt crisis has reared its head again, the global economy has dropped quickly to a freezing point as well. Once again, the US and European media have started to discuss whether China will save the world. The problem is China has its own difficulties.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Hidden motives behind US mission to Uganda
by Pan Jinghai
UNITED STATES President Barack Obama recently announced a plan to send about 100 Special Forces to Central Africa to help the army of Uganda and other nations fight the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The first batch of the troops arrived in Uganda on 12th October.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Humility and solidarity despite the US blockade
by Alex Silva
THE BRUTAL economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States on Cuba for over half a century has failed in its enthusiasm to undermine the humane and internationalist solidarity of the Cuban revolution.
Despite the negative effects of the hostile policy in Cuba, the Caribbean island began a programme of solidarity from the very beginning of the Revolution, mainly in the health and education fields.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
That day’s cheers still resound
by Jong Sun Bok
KOREA was liberated on 15th August 1945 and all the Korean people earnestly waited for General Kim Il Sung to return home.
The time-honoured city of Pyongyang was bustling with life day and night to welcome the national hero. In Seoul, prominent persons organised a preparatory committee to welcome General Kim Il Sung and every day huge crowds thronged to the railway station to greet him.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Betty Ambatielos 1917-2011
BETTY AMBATIELOS, a veteran Welsh communist who dedicated her life to the cause of the working class, communism and the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) passed away last week.
Betty Ambatielos 1917-2011
Features
Serbia: far right is in dissarray
by Ilija Buncuk
THE EXTREME right is in retreat in Serbia today. They have not managed to launch any serious actions for years and they’ve split into a number of rival groups, which significantly weakens their strength.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Why they praise Steve Jobs
by Shelley Ettinger
WHEN you’re worth $8.3 billion, it’s only natural that you get endless, gushing tributes in every capitalist media outlet when you die. There is no higher accomplishment in this society than amassing riches. Naturally, then, when a very rich person dies, he’s lavished with over-the-top obits.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Aussie actors in Aussie films: cultural imperialism not required
by Rob Gowland
MOTION pictures are an art form. Of that there is no doubt (despite the unfortunate efforts of some film-makers to whom art is a foreign language they never learnt). But the movies are also — by virtue of the sheer number of people and crafts needed to make a movie — an industry.
And, as an industry under capitalism, it is at the beck and call of the people who control the money: the banks and other financiers who put up the funding for each new film.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]