THE NEW WORKER

The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 26th January 2018

Lead story

Leave it to the Syrian people!

by our Arab Affairs correspondent

TURKISH TANKS are continuing to advance into the Kurdish-run Syrian province of Afrin but they are meeting fierce resistance from the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish militia the Turkish regime has vowed to crush. The Erdogan government has ordered a crack-down on anti-war reports, which it brands “fake news,” and some 150 people including journalists have been arrested in police raids across Turkey for spreading “propaganda” against the offensive on social media.

Read the full story here >> Leave it to the Syrian people!

PFI costs through the roof

LABOUR MP Meg Hiller, who chairs the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, last week issued an attack on the Government’s continuing use of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deals following a report from the National Audit Office (NAO) predicting that taxpayers will have to pay at least £200 billion over the next 25 years under existing PFI contracts.

Read the full story here >> PFI costs through the roof

Editorial

Hands off Syria!

TURKISH tanks are rolling into Syria to drive the Kurds out of Afrin, a northern Syrian province freed by the Kurdish militias in the fight against ISIS three years ago. Turkish troops first entered Syria in August 2016 when they set up a buffer zone on Syrian soil to block the Kurdish drive to control the entire northern frontier.

The Turkish regime claimed that their action was aimed at driving ISIS out of the frontier zone — but its real purpose was to assist their Arab auxiliaries who call themselves the “Free Syrian Army” and to contain the Syrian Kurdish drive for autonomy which, they feared, would provide a safe-haven for their compatriots fighting a guerrilla war in eastern Turkey. In the end the Turks and their lackeys proved powerless to halt the complete liberation of Aleppo by the Syrian Arab Army; but they did succeed in driving a wedge between the eastern and western parts of the Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Syria. Now, faced with renewed armed resistance in Turkish Kurdistan, they want complete control of Syria’s border lands to crush the Kurds’ ‘Rojova’ zone and any dreams of autonomy or independence.

Read the full editorial here >> Hands off Syria!