National News
Fire danger from the fridge?
THE LONDON Fire Brigade (LFB) last week called on the Government to take urgent action regarding the dangers from electrical household goods such as refrigerators and washing machines.
The LFB was particularly critical of the Government’s failure to implement any of its recommendations a year after a faulty Indesit tumble drier caused a serious fire in a tower block in Shepherd’s Bush, which was attended by 20 fire engines and 110 firefighters.
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Modern slavery
TWENTY men from Eastern Europe were discovered as suspected victims of modern slavery by West Midlands Police last week. A man and a woman, both Slovakian and in their 40s, have been arrested on suspicion of slavery offences.
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RMT accuses Grayling over Northern transport shambles
THE RAIL union RMT last week accused Transport Secretary Chris Grayling of turning Northern transport into a shambles.
Mick Cash, RMT general secretary, said: “The Tory Northern transport shambles continues today with Chris Grayling now wading in to local civic leaders just 24 hours after his former colleague George Osborne targeted his fire on his own side.
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Stephen Hawking tackles Jeremy Hunt’s lack of scientific method
STEPHEN Hawking, the renowned physicist and cosmologist, last week paid tribute to the NHS for keeping him alive for so long after doctors in 1962 thought he had only two years to live because of the motor neurone disease that keeps him bound to a wheelchair. Last week he attacked the logic of Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt in making a case for a “seven-day” NHS.
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On the Terraces
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
SUPPORTERS of the two main Glasgow football clubs, Rangers and Celtic, have over a century of mutual loathing for each other, so the Scottish nationalists deserve some praise for uniting them in a common cause. They will be less pleased that the fans, with their unlikely allies in the shape of the Law Society of Scotland, are now united against one of the SNP’s flagship measures.
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Civic Nationalism
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Last week Nicola Sturgeon stated that she does not like the word “National” in the SNP’s name and claims that Scottish nationalism is not nationalism. She asserted that: “If I could turn the clock, back, what 90 years, to the establishment of my party, and choose its name all over again, I wouldn’t choose the name it has got just now, I would call it something other than the Scottish National Party.
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Glasgow Pride
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
On Saturday our glorious leader attended the Glasgow Pride Festival, where she claimed that Scotland was one of the “best countries in the world” for LGBT-plus rights but said it was important to “keep making progress”. The previous evening Ms Sturgeon attended a slap-up dinner at the Glasgow Central Mosque to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Pakistan’s independence. One wonders what she had to say about gay rights in either Scotland or Pakistan at that event. SNP donor and Bible thumper Sir Brian Souter will be a bit annoyed about Sturgeon seeking the pink vote — but he will be happy that she continues to hand over millions to his bus companies.
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Remembering the horror of slavery
by New Worker correspondent
LONDONERS wore Sankofa badges at a rally to remember the victims of the slave trade in Trafalgar Square last weekend. The badge, much like the British Legion poppy, was designed to commemorate International Slavery Remembrance Day, and acknowledge and commemorate the tens of millions of men, women and children kidnapped from the African continent and sold into slavery.
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Chinese Art and Peace in London
by New Worker correspondent
LONDONERS got a glimpse of contemporary Chinese art at an exhibition in the Mall Gallery in the heart of the capital last week. The exhibition showcased highlights from the Beijing International Art Biennale, including paintings in ink, watercolour and oil, as well as wood block prints and sculpture, all by renowned Chinese artists. They have been selected to be part of the Chinese Art World Tour to demonstrate the pursuit of peace through art, and to strengthen understanding and the exchange of ideas between the China Artists Association and groups of artists around the world.
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International News
Venezuelan government back in the driving seat
by Victoria Arguello
THE VENEZUELAN government is again in the driver’s seat, with the political opposition seeming to retreat after four months of relentless anti-government protests.
The newly-elected National Constituent Assembly (ANC) tasked with rewriting the constitution is rolling up its sleeves to tackle the country’s economic problems, whilst the opposition-controlled National Assembly (Congress) has taken a back seat.
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UN sounds alarm over Yemen
by Lena Valverde Jordi
THE UNITED Nations (UN) has strongly criticised Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against impoverished Yemen, sounding the alarm over the escalating catastrophic humanitarian situation in the war-torn Arab country. Stephen O’Brien, the outgoing UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, made the remarks during a briefing on the humanitarian situation in Yemen at the UN Security Council in New York last week, warning that the Yemeni people are suffering from a three-fold tragedy.
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Tens of thousands march against white supremacy
by Pavel Jacomino
Massive protests against white supremacy spread across the United States over the weekend, as tens of thousands of people took to the streets from coast to coast to condemn violent white nationalist groups, and to call for the removal of Confederate monuments and other statues memorialising slavery and racism.
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Syrian claims that cannot be ignored
Sputnik
SYRIA has accused Britain and America of supplying toxic materials to the Syrian rebels. According to political analyst Vladimir Shapovalov, deputy director of the Centre for Historical and Political Studies at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute, the allegations are very serious and should be investigated.
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Japan’s ‘poison gas island’
by Yan Lei and Wang Kejia
A DOCUMENTARY released recently about Okunoshima, an island where poison gas was manufactured for Japan’s aggressive war against China, has attracted a great deal of attention.
The documentary broadcast by the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), together with another one about Japanese Unit 731 released earlier by public broadcaster NHK [Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai; Japan Broadcasting Corporation], revealed the irrefutable historical truth about Japan’s war crimes and prompted heated discussions amongst Japanese society.
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Features
Racism — a capitalist tooled
by Rob Gowland
TIME WAS, if you felt strongly about some issue and wanted to make your views known to other people, you had to type up a stencil and run off copies on a roneo-machine or pay someone with access to a printing press to print your views as a flyer to be handed out to people you hoped to influence.
But that was then. Today, you simply post your views on Facebook or Twitter from the comfort of your computer at home and you can reach vast numbers at insignificant expense. Just because a person knows how to talk however, doesn’t mean they have anything to say that is worth hearing.
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Corporate poison and ‘honourable men’
Automobile scandal in Germany
by Victor Grossman
IMAGINE finding, at one table, the worst killer crooks you ever heard of: Jack the Ripper, Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde, the Zodiak Killer, maybe the pirate Blackbeard, surely a cold-blooded terrorist or two. The very worst! No matter what bootleg Scotch, yo-ho-ho rum or speakeasy gin they’d offer, the Normal Citizen would want to get out — fast!
Lower the curtain, change the scene. The atmosphere in the government building in Berlin on 2nd August is totally different, not a bit of similarity. Those present, most in tailored apparel, sit in soft leather chairs and sip aromatic drinks from fine glassware. Who are they? Germany’s power people!
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