National News
Royal Mail faces new privatisation battle
THE COMMUNICATION Workers’ Union last week slammed plans by the new coalition government to privatise Royal Mail as “regurgitated failed policies”.
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‘Red tape’ or worker’s protection?
THE BRITISH Chamber of Commerce has welcomed the election of the new Lib-Con government with a new demand for a massive reduction in regulation, or “red tape” as they describe it.
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RMT challenges anti-union laws
THE CURRENT dispute between the union Unite and British Airways last week brought the defence of the right to strike into high profile.
And last Tuesday the RMT transport union, was prompted by the BA dispute and several other recent court rulings against industrial disputes, including a strike by its own members — rail signal workers — to challenge Britain’s anti-union laws in the European Court of Human Rights.
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‘Willie, Willie, Willie — out, out, out!’
THE PLANNED strike by British Airways cabin crews went ahead on Monday after a stormy week which saw BA win an injunction against the strike on Monday 17th May on a technicality, only to have it overturned on Thursday 20th by the Appeal Court.
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Brian Haw arrested before Queen’s speech
PEACE campaigner Brian Haw, who has lived for nine years in a tent opposite the House of Commons, was arrested along with a fellow protester last Tuesday at dawn on the day of the Queen’s official opening of Parliament.
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BNP leader to quit
NICK GRIFFIN, leader of the fascist British National Party, last week said he would resign as party leader by 2013. According to the BNP website, he said by then he would have been party leader for 15 years which was “long enough”.
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Osborne’s cruel cuts condemned
GEORGE Osborne, the new Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer last Monday announced a £6 billion package of public spending cuts, claiming that it was necessary to take “urgent action” to resolve the huge budget deficit, resulting from last year’s emergency bail out of the banking system.
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Unions back McDonnell for Labour Leader
THE LABOUR Party affiliated BFAWU trade union has written to all Labour MPs urging them to nominate John McDonnell. In a letter to MPs Joe Marino (general secretary) and Ronnie Draper (president) wrote:
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Remembering the Kwanju massacre
NEW COMMUNIST Party comrades joined friends of the Korean revolution picketing the south Korean embassy in London last Friday to mark the 30th anniversary of the Kwanju massacre, when thousands of south Korean students and pro-democracy demonstrators were mowed down by the forces of the US puppet regime.
The protest was organised by the UK Korea Friendship Association and also supported by the Juche Idea Study Group, Association for the Study of Songun Politics and supporters of the Russian AUCPB communist party.
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Demanding freedom for Mumia
PROTESTERS stood outside the US embassy in London last Wednesday to demonstrate their support for Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther, who has spent nearly 30 years in jail for a crime he did not commit.
New Worker supporters joined the picket held on 19th May — the birthday of Malcolm X, the American Black Muslim leader assassinated in 1965 — to raise public awareness about this monstrous miscarriage of justice and demand his immediate and unconditional release.
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International News
Defend Democratic Korea!
by our Asian Affairs correspondent
UNITED States imperialism raised tension throughout Asia this week with new provocations against Democratic Korea, while Israel holds massive “civil defence” exercises that many Arabs fear are intended to psychologically prepare the Israeli public for a new attack on Syria and Lebanon.
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Thailand: the conflict continues
by Zhang Bihong
AS LIFE in Bangkok returns to normal after government troops ended the two-month protests by Red Shirt demonstrators, the Thai government still faces tough challenges to heal the wounds caused by political unrest and restoring the country’s social and economic order.
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The end for Radio Marti?
by Angel Rodriguez
“RADIO and TV Marti are lying when they broadcast unfounded information,” admits the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which recommended that the two stations should be definitively withdrawn from Miami and located in Washington, to join the propaganda apparatus of the Voice of America (VOA).
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The EU myth called democracy
by Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
HOW MANY countless millions of Europeans live in a rosy-coloured world they call democracy, fooling themselves as they get up each morning that they live in a democratic society, convinced that their elected authorities control each and every facet of their lives and that ultimately, it’s the people who decide at election time. Such a scenario could not be further from the truth.
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Diggers fighting for God, King and the Bank of England
by Rob Gowland
LAST WEEK I saw an article in the Australian Newcastle Herald in which Mike Scanlon, a columnist for the paper, had a full-page article devoted to Australians who fought in Russia on behalf of Britain against the Bolshevik Revolution.
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Features
Millions march through Athens
MILLIONS of strikers and tens of thousands of protestors, workers and young people, gave one more strong response to the anti-people offensive, condemning the severe anti-people measures, with their participation in the 9th successful strike of PAME (All Workers’ Militant Front) in five months.
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The neo-liberal and tragic Europe
Radio Havana Cuba
THE CURRENT capitalist global crisis is news again today; it has brought new and unpredictable negative consequences in its backpack and the return to the hardest neo-liberal politics.
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