National News
Black Lives Matter protests block major roads
HUNDREDS of Black Lives Matter protesters brought gridlock to three major cities in Britain last Friday, 5th August, by lying down across major roads with their arms chained together inside concrete pipes — a tactic often used by CND to block roads.
On the fifth anniversary of the death of Mark Duggan, a young black man shot without provocation by police in Tottenham, the protesters borough traffic to a standstill outside Heathrow Airport at the height of the holiday rush, and they closed major routes in Nottingham and Birmingham.
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Corbyn supporters reclaim Labour for the working class
JEREMY Corbyn’s position as Labour leader has become virtually unassailable after a series of victories for the growing movement of his supporters, leaving Owen Smith, his challenger for the leadership, facing certain defeat.
The Corbyn supporters have won a vital majority on Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) when six seats came up for re-election and all were taken by Corbyn supporters; they have won nominations from 134 constituency Labour Parties compared with 25 who have declared for Smith and they have won two major court battles.
The first was won last month as a millionaire Labour donor brought a law suit to insist that Corbyn, the incumbent leader, had no right to be on the ballot paper without at least 50 nominations from MPs. The case was thrown out.
And last week Corbyn supporters won a court ruling that the 130,000 who joined the party after January this year did have the right to take part in the leadership election. The judge ruled on the basis that people had been invited to join on the basis that they would have full rights to take part in the party’s decision making.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political correspondent
LAST WEEK we reported on the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) troubles with the Supreme Court over their Named Person Scheme. This is not the only time when ill thought out SNP legislation has been hammered by the men in wigs for not doing things properly.
Their energy policy has also been subjected to judicial review. After giving consent for four huge winds farms totalling 335 windmills off the east coast, the SNP ministers have been damned by the Court of Session for failing to consult properly about the environmental impact of having so many turbines.
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Palestine protesters swoop on drone factory
by New Worker correspondent
ON Monday 8th August hundreds of Palestinian supporters cycled in large groups from Bristol, London, Manchester and Sheffield, to converge on the Israeli drone factory in Shenstone near Lichfield.
The UAV Engines factory is owned by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest private arms manufacturer. There they were met by hundreds more waiting to cheer their arrival. At the factory the cyclists and their supporters demonstrated at the company’s supply of drones, made on the site, to the Israeli army. Some of these drones were used in the attack on Gaza two years ago in which 2,200 Palestinians, including 547 children, were killed.
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Chinese performances applauded at the Fringe
A COLLECTIVE of cultural shows and musical performances from China won applause on Friday 5th August, the opening day of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world’s largest arts festival.
Street shows on the theme of Silk Road and a grand opening orchestral concert for a Shanghai Culture Week entertained the audience.
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Terracotta Warrior Lanterns for Manchester’s New Year
CHINA’S Terracotta Warrior lanterns are to be the centrepiece of new year celebrations in Manchester in January, marking their first appearance in Britain.
The Lanterns of the Terracotta Warriors will illuminate Manchester’s Exchange Square as part of the city’s 2017 Chinese New Year programme, the biggest celebration of its kind in Britain outside Chinatown in London.
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For Peace and Socialism!
by New Worker correspondent
LONDON comrades met to discuss the US—NATO drive to war and the struggle for peace in a pub in central London last week.
Chaired by Theo Russell, the topic was opened by Mushtaq Lasharie, a retired Labour councillor and a leading figure in the Pakistani community, and New Communist Party (NCP) leader Andy Brooks at the upstairs meeting room at the Cock Tavern in Euston.
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International News
Erdoğan hails “Friend Vladimir”
Sputnik
THE Turkish President says he believes talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin offer a chance to open “a new page” in bilateral relations.
Turkish President Recep Rayyip Erdoğan said that he expects talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week will open “a new page” in bilateral relations between the two countries, in an interview with Russia’s TASS news agency. The openness towards restoring cooperative diplomatic relations with the Kremlin comes at a time when Ankara has repeatedly accused US military and intelligence officials of masterminding the failed coup, and as the country’s relations with Brussels have hit an impasse.
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Saudi Link to Al-Qaeda in 9/11 probe
by Lena Valverde Jordi
FORMER Saudi intelligence chief and long-time Ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar bin Sultan has been linked to an al-Qaeda operative by the co-chair of a recent US probe into the 9/11 terror incidents.
The recently declassified part of the 9/11 report regarding suspected Saudi ties to some of the hijackers involved in the terror events revealed that a phone log maintained by an alleged senior al-Qaeda operative, identified as Abu Zubaydah, included an unlisted phone number of a Colorado company associated with Bandar as well as the phone number of a bodyguard working at the Saudi Embassy in Washington at the time, according to a CNN report.
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Milošević exonerated
Telesur
THE LAST communist leader of Yugoslavia was compared to Hitler as his country was sanctioned, torn apart and thousands killed by the US and NATO.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague failed to hold a press conference or announce that on 24th March it deemed that the late Yugoslav and Serbian President Slobodan Milošević was not responsible for the major war crimes he was charged of during the 1992—1995 Bosnian war.
Instead, the tribunal conveniently buried it in the middle of its verdict against Radovan Karadžić. The former Bosnian-Serb president was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 40 years in prison at the same time as the tribunal found unanimously that it “is not satisfied that there was sufficient evidence presented in this case to find that Slobodan Milošević agreed with the common plan” of the “ethnic cleansing” of Muslims and Croats from Serbian territory. In fact, the tribunal found the exact opposite to be true.
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Rio Games: Carnival of hypocrisy?
by Lyuba Lulko
How politicised are the complaints about shortcomings in the Olympic Village and the doping scandal surrounding Russian athletes? Is Rio safe for all or are there places where one should not go? What impressions will foreign visitors take home from Brazil? Lyuba Lulko conducted an interview on the subject with Brazilian sports journalist Jason Mathias of SporTV, Globo network.
Lyuba Lulko (LL): A lot has been said recently about poor living conditions in the Olympic Village — there were reports about garbage in Guanabara Bay, where triathlon competitions are to be held. Do you think these are isolated cases or is it possible to say that Rio is not ready for the Games?
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Features
Cold Warriors ride again
by Rob Gowland
READERS of this journal are well aware that, contrary to the propaganda relentlessly churned out by the ideologues of capitalism, the Cold War did not end. The Cold War was a tactic in capitalism’s strategic war against socialism and the world’s working class. That war certainly hasn’t ended, hence neither has the propaganda offensive known as the Cold War.
An army of academics, journalists, publishers, media editors and more (lots more!) ensure that there is a constant stream — sometimes a torrent — of propaganda produced and widely disseminated that denigrates, belittles and distorts the history and achievements of socialism and socialist leaders.
Last January (my apologies for catching up on it so late!) the Australian Financial Review reprinted — spread over two pages, in fact — a lengthy piece of Cold War propaganda from the Washington Post about the destruction of Japan’s Kwantung Army by the USSR in 1945. The article, by US author John Pomfret, is actually a book review of a history of the last year of the [Second World] War by Richard Bernstein called China 1945. The review was printed in the Australian Financial Review under the revealing headline “Red Allies’ Duplicity Revisited”. The book, like the review, is a classic Cold War product.
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Remember Emmett Till and Tamir Rice!
by Dolores Cox
Emmett Till 1941—1955
Tamir Rice 2002—2014
HAD IT not been for the brutal, racist murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American, he would have celebrated his 75th birthday on 25th July.
While visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, Till was killed for allegedly flirting with a white woman, a Southern taboo. Born and raised in Chicago, he was unaccustomed to the state-sanctioned violence and legalised Jim Crow racial segregation in the South.
On 24th August 1955, Till and his cousins were outside a store in Money. When Till entered, the only person inside was Carolyn Bryant, the owner’s spouse. She claimed that Till “made lewd advances and then wolf-whistled at her.” Others on the scene refuted this allegation.
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3rd August 1916 — Roger CasementRule
by a Special An Phoblacht Correspondent
ROGER CASEMENT was born at Doyle’s Cottage, Lawson Terrace, Sandycove, County Dublin, the son of Captain Roger Casement of the 3rd Dragoon Guards of the British Army and Anne Jephson from Mallow, County Cork.
His mother had him secretly baptised in her own religion, Roman Catholic, but he was raised in the Protestant faith of his father. Both his parents died young so Roger was taken in by his uncle, John Casement of Magherintemple, near Ballycastle, County Antrim, and educated as a boarder at the diocesan school in Ballymena.
After leaving school in 1880, Casement worked in various employments, including clerking, administration and Civil Service work in Africa. From 1895 onwards he held consular appointments at various locations in Africa, including in the Congo, where the British Foreign Office authorised him to investigate and report on Belgian mismanagement. His report condemned the Belgian administration as ruthless and it exposed systematic infringement of the human rights of the indigenous people. The report earned Casement the Order of St Michael and St George in 1905.
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