National News
Vigil for victims of hate crime
by New Worker correspondent
SEVERAL hundred people gathered in Trafalgar Square at dusk last Friday for the third annual Vigil for Victims of Hate Crime to the strains of Offenbach’s Barcarolle, played by members of London’s three LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) choirs (London Gay Men’s Chorus, Pink Singers and Diversity Choir) and the London Gay Wind Orchestra.
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Coalition shaken by imminent strike
by Caroline Colebrook
THE CON-DEM Coalition government last Wednesday made a two-pronged desperate attempt to avert the massive national strike of public sector workers, backed by a growing army of unions.
The Government announced an “enhanced” offer on changes to public sector pensions on Wednesday morning, just hours ahead of a joint union rally at Friends House in Euston.
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Nurses lose pay while bosses are rolling in it
RESEARCH conducted by giant union Unite reveals that nurses have received a £2,000 real terms pay cut over the last two years and social workers have lost more than £3,000, as a report reveals how FTSE 100 directors’ pay has risen by 49 per cent in just one year.
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St Paul’s camp eviction halted
THE CORPORATION of London, the Bishop of London and St Paul’s cathedral staff last Tuesday dropped plans to take legal action to force anti-capitalist protesters from their encampment in the cathedral’s churchyard.
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Agricultural workers protest
AGRICULTURAL Workers from across Britain demonstrated at the Houses of Parliament on 25th October to urge MPs to oppose the Public Bodies Bill.
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RMT drivers to take action over tube train safety
LONDON Underground drivers belonging to the RMT union are to refuse to follow what the union considers to be dangerous new instructions from London Underground after voting by a margin of four to one for industrial action over train safety.
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Climate change and Africa
by New Worker correspondent
THE ANNUAL general meeting of action for South Africa took place in east London on 29th October with speaker from Swaziland, South Africa and the British trade unions, one month before the UN conference on climate change in Durban.
The debate raised issues, like decent work, poverty alleviation, human rights which are the heart of the climate change debate.
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Neo-nazis on the Web
Review by Andy Brooks
Far-Right.com: Nationalist extremism on the internet: Searchlight Magazine & the Radicalism and New Media Research Group, 76pp, pbk, London 2011, £8.50.
THIS SHORT book is the result of recent joint work between Searchlight, the veteran anti-fascist magazine, and the Radicalism and New Media Research Group at Northampton University, headed by Dr Matthew Feldman. It began with a seminar on exploitation of the internet by neo-Nazi and racist movements that took place at Northampton University last year.
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International News
UNESCO approves Palestinian membership
by Ed Newman
THE UNITED Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) has voted to admit Palestine as a member, a move that will likely cause the United States government to cut off tens of millions of dollars in annual funding.
On Monday the Palestinian bid received 107 “yes” votes during a Unesco meeting in Paris, with 14 countries voting against and 52 abstaining, enough to satisfy a two-thirds majority of those countries present and voting.
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The West deeply disappointed in Belarusian opposition
by Sergei Balmasov
THE WEST is deeply disappointed at the performance of the Belarusian opposition and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko says that all attempts to promote an “internet revolution” in his country have failed. Is it really so?
For the time being, the answer is yes. Lukashenko’s regime has successfully repulsed the opposition. But is Lukashenko’s regime strong enough to withstand the worsening economic situation in the country?
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Labour wins Irish presidency
IAIS
LABOUR Party candidate Michael D Higgins has become the ninth Irish president. He defeated independent candidate and one-time opinion poll-topper Sean Gallagher, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, and four other candidates in the race to succeed Mary McAleese, who has been president since 1997. But Fianna Fail chose not to field a candidate following the party’s heavy defeat in the last general election.
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Following the footsteps of the Long March
by Yang Guang
IN 2005 grief-stricken Australian photographer Catherine Croll travelled to Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on the invitation of a friend, in a bid to come to terms with the loss of two members of her family.
That was the start of the first of her two tours by sleeper train across China, researching and documenting the country’s traditional cultural heritage.
The 54-year-old says that her 40,000 km-long China tours once again kindled in her a passion for living and led to the photo album, China Portrait, in 2007.
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Uncle Ho’s visit to France celebrated
VNS
AROUND 200 documents and objects dating from President Ho Chi Minh’s visit to France in 1946 are now on display in an exhibition at the presidential complex in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi.
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Cuban culture continues to develop
by Alex Silva
CUBA’S National Culture Day embraces the historical memory, roots and identity of the Cuban people. Every October Cubans take time to celebrate on the anniversary of the composition of their national anthem that was sung for the first time in the rebel city of Bayamo on 20th October 1868.
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Features
Occupy movements resist police attacks in America
by Deirdre Griswold
DESPITE all the nice words by US officials in world forums about their support for “peaceful” protests, despite all the sympathy expressed by politicians, from President Barack Obama on down, regarding the dire conditions that have sparked the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, despite all the efforts by many demonstrators to show good will to the authorities, the riot police have now been called out in many cities and the crackdown has begun.
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Death in Libya
by Rob Gowland
SO MUAMMAR Gaddafi, former leader of Libya, is dead at the hands of Nato and its “Libyan rebel army”, an army armed, financed and to an extent manned by Nato itself. There were of course plenty of Libyans who eventually joined the Nato-backed opposition, especially when it became clear that they had the greater firepower and would be the winning side.
But these “rebels” also included US, British and French special forces, as well as fighters from the armed forces of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. And let us not forget the formidable contribution of the US, British and French air-forces, responsible for the deaths of many thousands of Libyan soldiers and civilians.
In fact Colonel Gaddafi was leaving Sirte in a convoy of several dozen vehicles, according to the French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet, when the convoy was fired on by at least one French Mirage fighter-bomber, bringing the convoy to a stop. The Nato forces then directed “rebel” ground troops to the stationary convoy and Gaddafi was captured, brutalised and then shot dead.
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