National News
Bosses cash in on free labour
AS UNEMPLOYMENT rises unscrupulous bosses are taking advantage of young people’s desperation to find a chance of a job by offering unpaid internships as a kind of work experience, according to the Low Pay Commission.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Criminal record check errors double
FIGURES released by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) last week show that the number of people wrongly identified as criminals or mistakenly given clean records has doubled in the past year.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Points plan for British citizenship
IMMIGRATION Minister Phil Woolas last week proposed making it more difficult for immigrants to obtain British citizenship by establishing a points system.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Vestas workers defy bailiffs
by Caroline Colebrook
WORKERS occupying the threatened Vestas wind turbine factory in Newport on the Isle of Wight earlier this week vowed to continue their occupation in spite of the company being granted a possession order for the building by a judge on Tuesday.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Alarm at scab firefighters
THE FIRE BRIGADES Union last week expressed alarm that tens of millions of taxpayers’ money is being given to the private sector to train non-firefighters to put out fires if the brigades are overstretched or the union goes on strike.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
PCS anger at “bargain basement” job cuts
THE CIVIL service union PCS last week expressed outrage at plans announced by the Government to radically reduce the compensation paid to civil servants being made redundant, saying they are an outrageous attempt to cut jobs on the cheap.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
MPs demand torture inquiry
THE HOUSE of Commons Joint Human Rights Committee last week called for an independent inquiry into reports that Britain’s secret services were complicit in the torture of terror suspects - or “outsourcing torture” as one put it.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
National Express strike
RAIL UNION RMT confirmed that last week’s strike action on National Express East Anglia was been solidly supported across the franchise with the vast majority of services at a complete standstill and with managers running only a few token, ghost trains as a publicity stunt.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Liverpool remembers Jim Larkin
SEVERAL HUNDRED marchers took to the streets of Liverpool on 25th July to commemorate the memory of Jim Larkin, trade unionist and socialist, who was born in Liverpool in 1876.
Organised by the James Larkin Society, the march included the Liverpool Irish Patriots Republican Flute Band and the Volunteer Seán McIlvenna RFB from Glasgow, and featured banners from local trade union branches and the Liverpool-based Cairde na hÉireann group.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Features and International News
Palestine: Fatah seeks a way forward
by our Arab Affairs correspondent
AL FATAH, the Palestinian national liberation movement founded by Yasser Arafat, held its first congress for 20 years in the historic town of Bethlehem this week under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Legacy of Cuba-Africa solidarity continues
Workers World (US)
IN A VISIT to four African states, Cuban President Raul Castro continued the decades-long legacy of international solidarity with the peoples of the continent. Castro, who recently stepped down as chair of the Non-Aligned Movement at its summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, was hailed at the gathering in July for Cuba’s contributions to the liberation and development of Africa.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Ireland 1919: The IRA target British intelligence
by Michael Mac Donncha
AS THE MONTHS passed in 1919, it became clear that the British Government had no intention of recognising the Declaration of Independence adopted by the First Dáil Éireann in January. Armed conflict between the Irish people and the British Government had become inevitable and in that war intelligence would be vital.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Labour and public property
by Rob Gowland
THE DEFICIENCES of social democracy are well known: the lack of principle, the willingness to compromise on fundamental questions, the blatant opportunism, the pandering to sectional interests, and so forth.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Colombia raises tension in Latin America
Radio Havana Cuba
THE LATEST reckless actions and comments by Colombian President Álvaro Uribe and other officials from his Administration against two of its neighbours, Venezuela and Ecuador, have raised tensions in Latin America.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Voices for Scottish independence
by Robert Laurie
Communist Party of Scotland Independent Scotland - A Left Perspective, pp. 38. Available from CPS/Alert Scotland, PO Box 7311, Glasgow G46 9B2.
£2.00 plus 50p postage and packing.
ON THE 9th November last year the Communist Party of Scotland held a conference aimed at “uniting the left in Scotland around a number of shared political positions on Scottish independence”. This pamphlet is the result of that conference. Well produced and reasonably priced it provides an account of the views of various groups, mostly on the left, seeking Scottish independence.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Cuban leader calls for talks
Radio Havana Cuba
“I WASN’T elected as President to restore capitalism in Cuba or to surrender the Revolution. I was elected to defend, maintain and continue to improve socialism, not to destroy it,” said Cuban President Raul Castro last Saturday.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Kim Jong Il pardons American spies
by our Asian Affairs correspondent
DEMOCRATIC Korean leader Kim Jong Il pardoned two convicted American spies after meeting former US President Bill Clinton in Pyongyang on Tuesday. Clinton apologised for the actions of the two women, who were serving 12-year sentences for illegally entering the DPRK and other hostile acts.
The two spies, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, had entered the DPR Korea illegally with a camera crew in March and claimed they were covering a story on alleged people trafficking across the Chinese border. They were working for the San Francisco-based Current TV co-founded by Clinton’s vice president Al Gore,
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Employment situation still grave in China
THE EMPLOYMENT situation in China is still grave despite signs of recovery in the first half this year, said Wang Yadong, an official of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security told the media in Beijing on Tuesday.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Russia strengthens military
by our European Affairs correspondent
THE RUSSIAN contingent in Kyrgyzstan will be strengthened and a new force deployed in Belarus following agreement with leaders of the two former Soviet republics at an informal summit at the Kyrgyz lakeside resort of Choplon Ata this week. Russian President Dimitri Medvedev signed an agreement with Kyrgyz leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev for a second Russian base in the central Asian republic within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) during the talks.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]