National News
Academy schools running out of cash
THE INDEPENDENT operators of dozens of academy schools are facing mounting deficits and are now relying on bailouts from the Treasury to rescue them from insolvency.
The auditors of one large operator of academies, which runs 21 schools, issued warnings over its financial viability after it recorded a loss of £2.5 million.
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100 years of women’s votes but the struggle goes on for equality
CEREMONIES have been taking place all over Britain this week to mark the centenary of voting rights for women — though only for women over the age of 30. They had to wait another decade to win voting rights for all women over 21 and parity with men.
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‘Heart of darkness’ in the Football Lads Alliance
STAND up to Racism (SUTR) last week issued a press release on the real nature of the Football Lads Alliance (FLA), an organisation that claims to represent ordinary football fans, after the FLA expressed support for Darren Osborne, the racist terrorist who murdered Makram Ali and injured many others by driving a large hired van into a crowd of people leaving Regents Park Mosque last summer.
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Celebrating LGBT History Month
FEBRUARY is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) equality month and the theme this year is ‘Geography, Mapping the World’, looking at the differences in LGBT equality across the globe.
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Richard Balfe calls for dialogue with Russia
RICHARD Balfe, a member of the House of Lords, last week called for Russia and the West to restart dialogue to overcome the spiking level of mistrust and suspicion that is now “completely out of hand.”
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Celtic fans solidarity with Palestine
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
CELTIC fans have long identified with the Palestinian Arabs who live under the thumb of brutal Zionist occupation.
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Brexit News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard has put clear red water between Labour and the SNP (to say nothing of his own right-wingers) by strongly attacking the European Union (EU). Leonard, who personally voted Remain but was one of just three Labour MSPs to vote at Holyrood in favour of triggering Brexit, said: “There is no doubt the EU has been used to force through a market-based approach to some areas of public policy where markets should have no place, which in turn has driven down growth in our economy, driven down wages and driven up job insecurity.”
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A Glorious Career Ends
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Not before time the Deputy Leader of the SNP has announced his departure. Angus Robertson, who was defeated at the last general election in his Moray constituency, has said that he is stepping down with immediate effect “to pursue new career opportunities.” That would suggest that he does not find being an SNP politician a wise career move. Eight months after his defeat he told the First Minister that: “I am no longer able to fully discharge my mandate, which was to partner you as Westminster SNP Leader and as a parliamentarian representing a rural constituency.”
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Keystone Kops Part 94
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
The saga of Police Scotland rumbles on. To add to the fun, Colin McKerracher, the retired Chief Constable of Grampian, has joined in the chorus and denounced the SNP government for undue political interference on Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), claiming that some of it is unconstitutional.
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A life devoted to Korea
by New Worker correspondent
COMRADES and friends marked the 76th anniversary of the birth of Korean leader Kim Jong Il at a meeting last weekend called by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) and the British Juche Society.
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Southampton: Hundreds brave rain to support the NHS
by Brent Cutler
THOUSANDS of people marched through London last weekend to demand an end to the crisis facing the National Health Service — a call echoed in similar protests throughout the rest of the country.
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Britain’s 10 greatest music and literary places
by Shi Yinglun
HISTORIC England, Britain’s official cultural body, has unveiled England’s 10 greatest music and literary places, amongst which are the birthplace of William Shakespeare and the homes of famous British writers Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Also amongst the 10 is the famous Abbey Road studios in London, the world’s longest surviving live music venue, where the Beatles recorded world-hit albums.
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Next of Kin
TV REVIEW by Brent Cutler
THIS political thriller is shown on ITV every Monday night and is now into its fourth episode out of six. At the centre of the drama is a British-Pakistani family, who live a mostly affluent lifestyle. The lead female character, Mona Harcourt, is played by Archie Panjabi (Life on Mars, Silent Witness, The Good Wife, Shetland); she is married to a white, Reporter upper-middle class business man played by Jack Davenport (Coupling, Pirates of the Caribbean, United Kingdom). The plot centres around the murder of Mona’s brother and the disappearance of her nephew; both events take place in Pakistan.
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International News
Top DPRK leader’s sister going to Winter Olympics
Xinhua
KIM Yo Jong, the sister of top leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un, will come to south Korea later this week to attend the South Korea-hosted Winter Olympics, Seoul’s unification ministry said Wednesday.
The DPRK notified south Korea earlier in the day of the list of its high-ranking delegation, which will be led by Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly.
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Israeli communists denounce conviction of TKP leader
CPI
THE COMMUNIST Party of Israel (CPI) has condemned and denounced as unacceptable the conviction of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), Kemal Okuyan, by the Turkish courts and his sentencing to 11 months and 20 days in prison on the pretext that he had insulted President Erdoğan in an article he had written.
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Ecuadoreans continue to protect Assange
Sputnik
THE government of Ecuador will continue providing international protection for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as long as his life may be in danger, the Ecuadorean Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility informs that the Government of Ecuador will maintain international protection for the citizen, Julian Assange, as long as the danger to his life persists,” the statement said.
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Thousands attend Stalingrad victory parade
A MILITARY parade commemorating the 75th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazis by the Soviet Army in the Battle of Stalingrad gathered about 30,000 spectators in the southern Russian city of Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad).
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Trump’s threats, vulgarity and isolationism
by Roberto Garcia
USA PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s grossly offensive comments about Haiti, El Salvador and African nations are further proof of his insistence on an isolationist, racist and xenophobic agenda.
Witnesses present at a meeting at which Trump rejected a bipartisan draft bill to protect immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and certain African countries revealed to the New York Times that he had asked why his government should accept people from what he described as “shithole countries,” instead of places such as Norway.
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Features
Constance Markievicz — aiming for the stars
by Jim McVeigh
Constance Georgine Markievicz was an Irish republican who was the first woman ever to be elected to the House of Commons, though she did not take her seat.
UNLIKE MANY of her contemporaries, Constance Markievicz was born into the aristocratic class, the wealthy Gore-Booths of County Sligo. At a young age she married a Polish aristocrat, Count Markievicz, and they had a daughter, Maeve, their only child. The marriage did not last very long and they parted amicably.
She burst onto the political scene at the turn of the 20th century. This was the period of ‘National Awakening’ when groups such as the Gaelic Athletics Association and the Gaelic League emerged, giving expression to a developing Irish consciousness and cultural self confidence.
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1936: The sit-down strike introduces a new tactic
by Chris Mahin
IT WAS a little like staging the Boston Tea Party inside a factory. More than eight decades ago, bold trade unionists introduced a dramatic new tactic to the USA: the sit-down strike.
This innovative method of fighting made its first major appearance in Akron, Ohio in January 1936. For several weeks, Firestone Tire & Rubber Company had been trying to speed up production in the truck tyre department at its Plant One facility in Akron, a move the tyre-builders vehemently opposed. In response, the plant manager sent a company spy into the department to figure out ways to speed up the line. The company agent tried to provoke a fight with Clayton Dicks, a union committeeman in the department. The company accused Dicks of punching the company spy and knocking him out, and suspended Dicks without pay for an entire week.
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The Battle of Lawrence, 1912: Textile workers’ victory contains lessons for today
by Chris Mahin
We want bread — and roses!”
“Bayonets cannot weave cloth!”
“Better to starve fighting than to starve working!”
MORE THAN a century ago, thousands of men, women and children shouted those slogans — in many different languages — in the bitter cold of a Massachusetts winter.
On 12th January 1912, thousands of workers walked out of the textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts and began a strike that lasted until 24th March 1912. At its height, the strike involved 23,000 workers.
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