National News
Justice denied
by New Worker correspondent
A GIANT papier-mâché effigy of Justice Secretary Chris Grayling headed a march last Friday of around two thousand lawyers — solicitors and barristers together — through the streets of Westminster from Parliament to the Department of Justice to protest at planned further cuts of £215 million to legal aid.
Also on the march were probation officers, law centre workers and people whose lives had been rescued from disaster because they had been able to get legal aid to defend them from serious injustice.
The unions PCS, Napo and Unite were involved in the demonstration as well as the Criminal Bar Association, the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association, the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, Women Against Rape and the Justice Alliance.
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£20 billion more cuts if Tories re-elected
CHANCELLOR George Osborne will need another £20 billion more cuts in Government spending if the Tories are returned to power in the 2015 general election, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
This is because the socalled recovery “might not last” and economic growth could be “lower than expected” for years because of poor productivity. Despite the “recovery”, Government experts believe the prospects for the economy in the long term may actually be worse than expected.
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EDL Women
by New Worker correspondent
THE NATIONAL Union of Journalists in its code of conduct guidance on reporting racism says loud and clear: “Don’t help the racist”. But BBC Three’s journalists breached this code of conduct with a bulldozer on Monday evening with a programme entitled EDL Girls — Don’t Call Me Racist.
It featured a handful of female members of the English Defence League and their reasons for joining it.
It allowed the very poorly educated young women free rein to express their fear and hatred of Islam based on myths that all Muslims want to impose Sharia law on Britain and horror stories to go with that.
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Why are so many women killed by former partners?
REFUGE, the charity that supports victims of domestic violence, along with the families of women killed by current and former partners, are calling on the Government to open a public inquiry to investigate why victims of domestic violence are still not getting the protection they deserve from the police and other state agencies.
Two women are killed every week in England and Wales by a current or former partner. Each death leaves behind devastated relatives and friends. Domestic violence is a national problem; it requires a national response.
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Find out more about domestic violence and the campaign for a public inquiry at http://refuge.org.uk/publicinquiry
Strike threat moves pay meeting
LOCAL authority employers have brought a meeting on pay forward by six weeks following a threat of strike action as unions objected to the Local Government Association attempt to postpone talks until after the Government had announced its intentions on minimum wage levels.
The move by the Local Government Association comes after unions two weeks ago threatened to ballot for strike action over pay. Unions are angry that the employers failed to make a pay offer on 14th February.
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Don’t privatise the East Coast Mainline
RAIL campaigners last Friday protested at stations along the East Coast Main Line against Government plans to re-privatise the service later this year.
Campaigners targeted 11 stations along the line — including London King’s Cross, Peterborough, Newark, Doncaster, Durham, Newcastle and Edinburgh — giving out postcards and talking to commuters about the campaign to keep the East Coast public.
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Academies use unqualified teachers
AROUND one third of academies (self-governing schools) employ unqualified teachers, according to a survey published last week by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) and Reform.
Commenting on the report National Union of Teachers (NUT) general secretary Christine Blower said: “Parents should be extremely alarmed at the finding that over of a third of the academies surveyed employ unqualified teachers.
“Being taught by a fully qualified professional teacher is a right that should be available to all children in state funded schools, whatever their status.
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Dirty tricks against FBU
AN OFFICI AL document reveals how London Fire Brigade managers misled the public over the seriousness of a fire in Dagenham during a strike by firefighters, the Fire Brigades Union in London has said.
During industrial action over pensions on 2nd November last year firefighters were criticised by local fire chiefs and government ministers when they questioned whether a fire in a scrap metal yard in Dagenham qualified as a major incident.
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London air pollution
AIR POLLUTION in parts of London is so bad that children should be kept indoors during the worst episodes occur, according to a report last week from the Mayor’s Office.
There are about 12 so called “smog” episodes a year in the Capital — but inner city schools say they record pollution readings double the EU recommended limits far more regularly.
More than 4,000 early deaths per year in the capital can be attributed to air pollution — that’s approximately one in 20.
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Remembering Karl Marx
by New Worker correspondent
KARL MARX spent most of his active life in Britain working with Frederick Engels to build the international working class movement and writing a corpus of books that provides the basis for scientific socialism.
Marx died in London on 14th March 1883 and his memory has been recalled ever since by the working class movement throughout the world. And last Saturday his immense contribution to the socialist cause was recalled at the annual reception at the New Communist Party’s London centre in honour of the Marx and the philosophical thinking that inspired the great revolutionary movements of the 20th century.
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International Women’s Day in Wales
by Ray Davies
IN TERN ATIONAL Women’s Day had a very special meaning for me this year; 12 months ago, I sang with the Cardiff Arms Park choir in support of the White Ribbon Campaign and made a passionate speech about our responsibility as men to stop violence against women.
As a boy I had seen my mother die on her last unwanted pregnancy, for the lack of a hospital bed, a blood transfusion, and most of all, a safe abortion. Her untimely death saw my lovely family disintegrated, with my eight brothers and sisters dispersed to friends, family and the orphanage.
Last Saturday’s march through our capital Cardiff, I proudly held up the banner calling for no more back street abortions and a woman’s right to choose.
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From Rome to London!
by New Worker correspondent
THE NE W Communist Party of Britain has forged links with Italian communists working in Britain following a meeting on 1st March at the Party Centre in London. NCP leader Andy Brooks held a meeting with comrades from the Pietro Secchia branch of the Communist Party of Italy that was formerly known as the Communist People’s Left.
This Italian party broke away from one of the two successors to the old revisionist Italian communist party in 2009 over disagreements on social policy and the European Union.
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International News
The West’s fiasco in Ukraine
by Ming Jinwei
FOR A brief moment western leaders might have stopped to congratulate themselves for their “accomplishments” in Ukraine.
With their backing, Ukrainian opposition protesters successfully toppled the pro-Russian government, forcing out the president they loathe and dealing a humiliating blow to the Kremlin. The West might have scored a major victory in this latest round of geo-political fight. But things turned out otherwise.
Shortly afterwards Russia struck back. Now, with Russian military personnel deployed in eastern Ukraine to protect Russia’s legitimate interests and pro-Russian regions clamouring for secession from Kiev, Ukraine is teetering on the brink of total chaos and disintegration.
The West’s strategy for installing a socalled democratic and pro-western Ukrainian government did not get anywhere at all. On the contrary, they have created a mess they do not have the capacity or wisdom to clean.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Shrieks of a senile old man
by Sim Chol Yong
BACK HOME from his visit to south Korea recently, former US President George W Bush piled up abuses on us, saying much about the “lack of human rights” and “threat” from the North.
Why did he do so? Apparently he wanted to put a brake on the progress of inter-Korean relations and egg on the local puppets to step-up confrontation with the North, the evil design he had failed to achieve during his term of office.
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Labour should spell out strategy for consolidating the Peace Process
by Declan Kearney
SINN FéIN has said for some time that this British Government is strategically disengaged from the peace process. British Secretary of State Theresa Villiers denies that’s the case and takes cover behind superficial contact with the parties here.
The Labour Party has accurately pointed out that the current administration is in clear default of its joint responsibility to guarantee the terms of the Good Friday and other agreements.
Meanwhile this Tory/ Liberal Government has been very politically engaged . . . doing all the wrong things.
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Whose tools are the NGOs?
KKE
WHEN THE activities in Iraq of the International Mine Initiative (IMI), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), were exposed by the Greek communist daily Rizospastis in December 2003 it opened up a Pandora’s Box out of which NGO-tinted corruption flowed.
According to the article, Greece was defrauded out of the €9 million that was paid to this NGO allegedly in order to clear mines in Lebanon, Iraq, and Bosnia. Fourteen other Greek ministries “fund” dozens of NGOs, sometimes for projects that are beyond one’s imagination, from “voluntary fire-fighting” to the “Christianisation of North Korea”.
During a 20-month police investigation a number of diplomats and civil servants involved in the IMI affair have been taken in for questioning amid allegations of fraud and misuse of funds.
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South Korean workers strike again
by Deirdre Griswold
IMAGINE a general strike of 200,000 workers — and not one word about it in any of the world’s so-called free press. What a breath-taking admission that these so-called “news media” are nothing but propaganda organs for big business.
Look it up — the oneday general strike on 25th February in south Korea. The only place you can find pictures and an explanation of what happened is on websites connected to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. There you will see amazing photos of the enormous rallies held in downtown Seoul and other cities. You’ll also see pictures of solidarity rallies held by unionists in other countries.
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Features
Ukraine: leaked phone tape contradicts ‘New Government’ in sniper attacks
by Timofei Belov
ACCORDING to what has appeared as a leaked telephone conversation between the Estonian Foreign Minister and Catherine Ashton, the EU head of external affairs, the European Union knew that the snipers firing on crowds in Kiev were not sent by Yanukovich, but rather from the faces behind the coup, which the West supports.
So, Mr John Kerry and Mr Barack Hussein Obama... so you are unaware of the comments passing among the Ukrainian anti- Yanukovich opposition leaders about carrying out destabilising activities before the recent coup d’état? So in being aware of these activities, both of you acknowledge that you give the nod to terrorist attacks to bring down governments, is that right? And in being unaware of such activities, then what right do you have to occupy your positions and much less to make insolent and intrusive comments?
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Treachery in Nepal
Peter Tobin, a freelance journalist and sympathiser with the Communist Party of Nepal- Maoist (CPN-M), last month addressed a New Worker meeting in north London on the current situation in Nepal. This report by Theo Russell is based on the account given by Peter Tobin at that meeting.
A NEW REVOLUTIONARY party which describes its ideology as “Marxist-Leninist-Maoist”, The Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, is rapidly gaining support among poor peasants and workers after the leadership of the “people’s war” in 1996-2006 signed up to a UnitedNations-backed settlement that saw and the People’s Liberation Army disarmed and disbanded, and the gains of the struggle squandered.
By 2006 the People’s Liberation Army, led by the CPN (Maoist), controlled 80 per cent of Nepal’s territory, and two mass popular uprisings in the cities led to the fall of King Gyanendra and the monarchy. But the war had reached a stalemate with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) unable to take the main cities.
The Maoists had brought clinics, hospitals, schools, roads and genuine non-corrupt justice in people’s courts to the poverty- stricken countryside under their control for the first time.
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Anti-war coalition says ‘US hands off Ukraine and Venezuela’
Workers World US
Here in full is the statement by the US United National Antiwar Coalition, which demands “US Hands off Ukraine and Venezuela” and calls the US government “the main instigator of the present crises in both countries.”
THE HYPOCRISY of Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement on Face the Nation, “You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext,” is beyond belief. What about the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, or regime change in Libya, or the threats to bomb Syria and attack Iran?
The US has waged a massive propaganda campaign of misinformation, distortion and outright lies, and the national media have taken the State Department’s “facts” and disseminated them without question or challenge. News about the US-European Union role in creating the current crisis is buried.
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