National News
The meanest cuts
THE CON-DEM Coalition last week stooped to new depths when it cut funding for local authorities to supply for free walking sticks, wheelchairs and hearing aids to disabled people seeking work.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Low wages leave children in poverty
MORE than half the 3.7 million children living in poverty in Britain are living in homes where at least one adult is in work but on a low wage, according to a new report by the New Policy Institute (NPI) published on Monday for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
University challenge for black students
TWENTY-ONE colleges at Oxford and Cambridge universities last year accepted no black students on undergraduate courses and one Oxford college has had no black students for five years, according to answers given last week under the freedom of Information Act to Labour MP David Lammy.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Student protests continue
STUDENT protests against cuts in education funding in general and the proposal to raise tuition fees to a maximum of £9,000-a-year are continuing throughout the country, winning trade union support and shaking the confidence of the Con-Dem Coalition.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Black? Pay in advance!
FIVE BLACK professional footballers, members of the AFC Bournemouth team, were asked to pay in advance when they went for a meal at a branch of Pizza Hut in Bournemouth.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Case for tax justice
THE CIVIL service union PCS last week expressed support for anti-tax avoidance campaigners who have been picketing the retail outlets and offices of companies that avoid paying their fare share of tax.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
International News
Palestinians bid for recognition
by Osama Radi and Emad Drimly in Ramallah
FACING the stalled peace talks with Israel, Palestinian politicians and observers believe that international recognition of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders would be a powerful start to worldwide recognition.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Gaza: Israel provokes ecological disaster
by Timofei Belov
ISRAEL’S blockade of Gaza was eased in June. Israel is facing a calamitous situation because of forest fires. People suffer. But the plight of the people in Gaza is desperate. It is not opinion makers who are saying this, it is the United Nations. And Israel is provoking an environmental calamity.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Students clash again with police in Athens
Xinhua news agency
STUDENTS clashed with riot police in central Athens on Monday when thousands of them held rallies in the capital and across Greece to mark the second anniversary of a teenager’s death by police fire, which had triggered the worst riots in Greece for decades.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Belarus facing Greek style crisis?
Xinhua news agency
NATIONAL Bank of Belarus Chair Pyotr Prokopovich warned on Tuesday that the country’s economy could face the same problems as Greece and Ireland.
Prokopovich said a continuation of Belarus’ foreign trade deficit over the next three years threatened the country’s solvency.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Spanish pilots vow no strikes over Christmas
Xinhua news agency
THE SPANISH airline pilots’ union, SEPLA, said it had cancelled its plans to stage industrial action over the Christmas period.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
AKEL: a force for Cyprus, a force for the people!
by New Worker correspondent
THAT WAS the slogan that greeted representatives from communist parties all over the world, including New Communist Party of Britain leader Andy Brooks, who came to Cyprus last month to join the party’s Cypriot comrades taking part in the 21st Congress of the Progressive Party of the Working People (AKEL) that began in Nicosia on 25th November.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Features
No war against DPR Korea!
Workers World (US)
SCORES of US warships and fighter jets, carrying more than 6,000 crew members and reinforced by ships, planes and 70,000 soldiers of the armed forces of south Korea, began joint military “exercises” in the sea west of Korea on 28th November. They have brought the divided peninsula to the brink of war.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Indonesia Calling
by Rob Gowland
JORIS IVENS was already a renowned left-wing documentary film-maker when he came to Australia in 1945. A Communist and anti-fascist, he had made Spanish Earth with Ernest Hemingway in defence of Republican Spain. His The 400 Million celebrated China’s struggle (ultimately victorious) against both Japanese and Western imperialism.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]