National News

Government ‘arrogant and deceitful’ — PCS

THE CIVIL service union PCS last week said that asking public servants to come up ideas for spending cuts as breathtakingly arrogant and deceitful.

Responding to David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s letter to Britain’s six million public servants, the union said it was clearly a gimmick, designed to back up the claim that “we’re all in this together”.

PCS argues that cuts are unnecessary and fundamentally unfair and is calling for a campaign across the trade union movement and in local communities for an alternative approach.

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Academy plans go public

REQUESTS under the Freedom of Information Act, made by the GMB general union and others, have forced the Government to change its secrecy policy.

It has now published the list of schools that have expressed an interest in becoming an academy. There are two lists; one for outstanding schools who can fast-track their academy application to take effect in September, and a list of schools that are not outstanding. Both lists are available on the GMB website.

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Union appalled at AXA job cuts

THE GIANT union Unite last week expressed its shock at the sale of the insurance company AXA Life and the transfer of 2,200 staff.

Siobhan Endean, Unite national officer said: “Unite is appalled that as a result of the sale to Resolution AXA Life employees face a threat to their much valued pension scheme.

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BMA defends public sector

THE BRITISH Medical Association (BMA), at its annual conference in Brighton last week, urged the government not to take the economic crisis out on the public sector.

The BMA also attacked the culture of commercial competition within the NHS and warned that “haphazard” cuts are already having a negative effect on patient care.

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Now is not the time to cut jobcentre staff!

PLANS announced by the Department for Work and Pensions on Monday to cut 8,000 jobs from jobcentres by March 2011 are “economically absurd”, said the civil service union PCS.

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No more support for motor industry

BUSINESS secretary Vince Cable last week warned the car industry that it could no longer depend on the Government for any direct support.

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‘What type of society uses a sonic weapon on its children?’

THE NEW coalition government has rejected calls from the Council of Europe to ban “Mosquito” devices that emit a high-pitched whine that can only by heard by young adults and children. Young adults find them annoying but small children and babies find the noise painful.

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Unite postpones new BA strike ballot

THE GIANT union Unite last Sunday confirmed that it was ready to postpone a new strike ballot among British Airways cabin crews after the company made a new offer.

The ballot had been due to begin this Tuesday but the postponement will allow the workers to consider the new offer before voting.

But the union nevertheless recommends rejection of the offer as inadequate.

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Chilcot consults — was Iraq war legal?

THE CHILCOT inquiry into the Iraq war resumed this week and called for international lawyers to submit their views on whether the imperialist invasion of Iraq in 2003 was legal.

Sir John Chilcot sent an open invitation to legal experts around the world to give their judgements.

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Senior police attack budget cuts

SIR HUGH Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), last week told a conference of that body that the Government’s planned spending cuts will mean fewer police officers.

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Friends of Korea protest

FRIENDS of the Korean people marked the 60th anniversary of the imperialist attack on the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea with pickets outside the south Korean and US embassies last Friday.

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International News

Strikers shut down Greece

by our European Affairs correspondent

MILLIONS of Greek workers walked out on Tuesday in another general strike in protest against the draconian measures the government wants to take to pay for the EU and IMF bail-out loans.

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Honduras: one year after the coup

Radio Havana Cuba

ONE YEAR after the military coup, Honduras, divided and isolated from the international community, observes the first anniversary of the events that have taken the country back from the 21st century to the way things were in the mid 1960s.

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New spy scandal in US really targets Obama

by Sergey Balmasov

ANOTHER spy scandal is gathering pace in the USA. On 28th June the Department of Justice announced the liquidation of a large illegal network, which was supposedly conducting its activities in favour of the Russian Federation. Ten people have been arrested on charges of espionage. Another suspect managed to escape.

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The drums of war

Radio Havana Cuba

FROM THE first days of humanity war drums have heralded conflict whenever rights or justice have failed to appease the appetite of the powerful.

Conquering wars, pillaging wars, “war to end all war” or the modern invention of imperialist capitalism — the ”preventive war”; there is no time period in history without wars.

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Is Obama Losing “his” Afghan War?

Radio Havana Cuba

IF WAR IS the continuation of politics by other means, then US President Barack Obama, has received a double setback in terms of Afghanistan when he was forced to lay off his full military commander, Stanley McChrystal, following controversial remarks to an American journal, in a particularly difficult time.

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Reliving the life on the Ho Chi Minh trail

by Cong Thanh

A PRIVATE war museum in Nghia Ninh village, 7km west of Dong Hoi city in the central province of Quang Binh, was the second stop on Canadian writer Susan M Smith’s trans-Vietnam tour after Hanoi.

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Features

On 60th anniversary of the Korean War What they still don’t want you to know

by Stephen Millies

THE UNITED States government launched the Korean War 60 years ago on 25th June 1950. During three years of massive air attacks and a huge land invasion, more than three million Korean civilians were killed, including hundreds of thousands burned to death by napalm.

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Greater public benefit? You must be joking!

by Rob Gowland

THE DEVELOPMENT of capitalism, like everything, is a process, and it goes through different stages. In the beginning, every bright idea capitalists had to make money was followed by the establishment of a private company to exploit that idea.

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