Lead story

Lull in fighting in Syria

by our Arab Affairs correspondent

THE GUNS have fallen silent across much of Syria following an agreement between the American and Russian sides last weekend. The Syrian government has accepted the truce terms that specifically exclude ISIS and the Al Qaeda terror gangs, which will continue to be targeted by the Russian, Syrian and American warplanes.

The rebels are now demanding an end to the siege of their enclave in western Aleppo. But the Syrian army will not allow any humanitarian aid from the Turkish regime or any other quarter to enter Aleppo without coordination with the Syrian government and the United Nations.

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Lull in fighting in Syria

TUC warns bosses over zero hours

THE TRADES Union conference (TUC) annual conference opened last Monday with general secretary Frances O’Grady warning that greedy employers “who treat their workers like animals” will have “no place to hide”.

She spoke of the need to deal with the types of worker exploitation typified by Sports Direct, and which are becoming more widespread.

“Our movement showed the spirit that inspires us in the Sports Direct campaign. After months of Unite’s patient organising, winning public support and using trade union shareholder power, we got a result.

“An end to zero-hours contracts for retail staff, no more ‘six strikes and out’, and at long last the chance to get agency workers onto permanent contracts. A proper win for workers.

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TUC warns bosses over zero hours

Editorial

No return to grammar schools

EDUCATION Secretary Justine Greening last week proposed that a new generation of grammar schools, with selective entrance based on academic tests at age 11, should be introduced. She claims this will increase social mobility and give gifted working class children an opportunity to get a really good education and to rise into the middle class.

This is wrong on so many levels. But Greening is proposing this on the basis of statistics which show that social mobility in Britain has more or less ground to a halt with very few opportunities for young working class people to get a good career — even though university entrance is now far wider than it was when the grammar school/secondary modern school system prevailed in the 1950s and ‘60s.

The root of the problem is the long-term underfunding of the whole state education system for many decades, and the rift between the Government and the teaching profession that dates back to the 1980s when the Tory government scrapped the teachers’ pay negotiation structure.

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No return to grammar schools