National News
GMB fights patient transport sell off
THE GMB general union has begun a ballot for strike action after 62 members employed by a south London NHS trust as patient transport drivers learned that their jobs were to be transferred to a private company.
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Unison takes Government to court
THE PUBLIC service union Unison last Monday started legal action against the Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley, challenging his refusal to consult the public on proposals in his White Paper: Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS.
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Rattled Tories in secret talks with unions
THE TORIES are obviously rattled at the prospect of an “autumn of discontent” of protest marches, strikes and other acts of resistance against their plans to make massive cuts to public service budgets, jobs and services.
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EDL march ban ‘is a victory for the people of Bradford’
THE HOME Office last Friday issued a ban on the proposed march by the extreme right-wing Islamophobic organisation EDL through Bradford this coming weekend.
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London firefighters fight for jobs
THOUSANDS of London firefighters are to be balloted for action short of a strike after their employer has threatened to end their contracts of work as a way of imposing new terms and conditions.
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Keep the post public!
LONDON region of the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) has written to Londoners calling on them to sign up to a statement defending the Royal Mail from privatisation.
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Housing support at risk
AROUND 400,000 vulnerable people, including pensioners, adults with learning difficulties and victims of domestic violence could lose their homes and see their care entitlement scrapped if the Con-Dem government implements its proposal to cut 40 per cent from its £1.6 billion support programme.
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International News
Arab diplomacy takes the lead
by our Arab Affairs correspondent
SO THE Israeli-Palestinian talks are on. But few on the Arab street think anything will be achieved when Israeli premier Binyamin Netanyahu meets Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Washington next week.
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The politics behind the Bushehr plant
by Jin Liangxiang
AS IRANIAN and Russian engineers began loading fuel into Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant last Saturday, the rest of the world watched with unease. Though the significance of the Bushehr power plant has been overestimated, if not misunderstood, the politics around it are complicated.
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50 Years of the Federation of Cuban Women
Radio Havana Cuba
THROUGHOUT Cuba’s history, women have participated in social, cultural and economic action, leaving a deep impression on the Cuban people. And there is an extensive list of women who fill the pages of this island’s history.
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A new dawn for Iraq?
Radio Havana Cuba
THERE is nothing more useful to the “think tanks” of the Pentagon and the US government than the elasticity of language. As a result, they can transform facts and reality at will and make believe that things appear to be different from what they really are.
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The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - Killing two birds of prey with one little stone
by Sergey Balmasov
ON 23rd August the world marked another anniversary of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact against a background of historical speculation that traditionally names the Soviet Union as one of the primary instigators of the start of the Second World War.
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Cuba maintains cigar trade traditions
Radio Havana Cuba
ACCORDING to millions of smokers Cuba is the best cigar manufacturer in the world. It also has in its tobacco growers and workers two of the best production lines in the world. And the traditional art of hand-rolling cigars is not dying out because Cuba’s cigar factories are training young people in this old tradition.
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New President Ho biopic
Vietnam News Service
A FEATURE film on the life of President Ho Chi Minh was released on 19th August to mark Vietnam’s August Revolutionary Day and National Day (2nd September).
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Features
Zimbabwe diamond sales defy US-led sanctions
by Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
FOLLOWING a protracted political struggle waged by Zimbabwe and its allies against US, British and European Union imperialist efforts to ban its sale of diamonds, Zimbabwe sold the first group of diamonds from the Chiadzwa mines — 900,000 carats — on 11th August. The sales earned $72 million in one day.
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US pull-out: views from three Iraqi communities
by Xu Yanyan and Jamal Hashem in Baghdad
“THE AMERICANS are leaving, I recall the past years like a nightmare. The price was very heavy. If I knew it would have come at this price, I
wouldn’t dare to wish them to come here, not for a second,” said Aysar Adnan, a 23-year-old Iraqi Sunni Muslim, with tears in his eyes.
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Russian fires: a gloomy aftermath
by Dmitry Reznichenko
THE RUSSIAN summer of fire and heat is drawing to its end. Nearly all forest fires in the country have been extinguished. Now the country will have to face the aftermath of the natural disaster, which unexpectedly took on a national scale and affected many lives.
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