National News
Russians mock Boris Johnson’s double standards
Sputnik
FORMER Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s calls for dialogue with the Saudi authorities after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi showcase the double standards of British foreign policy. The Russian comments come after Johnson said, in his Daily Telegraph column, that the Saudis had copied “the playbook of Vladimir Putin, and the attempted killing of Sergei and Yulia Skripal”. Johnson said both attacks were “state-sponsored plots to execute opponents on foreign soil”, and he also called on Saudi Arabia and Turkey to provide more evidence related to the matter.
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Unite takes up the fight in Liverpool
by New Worker correspondent
ONE OF the casualties of the collapse of construction giant Carillion in January was the new Royal Liverpool Hospital. The £335 million, 646-bed hospital was 85 per cent complete when Carillion collapsed. A House of Commons report in June suggested that the losses that caused Carillion’s collapse were almost entirely accounted for by £53 million losses on its Royal Liverpool project that Carillion tried to conceal.
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More austerity for public sector workers
by New Worker correspondent
UNIONS have expressed outrage at Government briefings about the future of public sector pay. Hints have been dropped that the government is considering introducing regional pay, and introducing performance and productivity pay, as part of future public sector pay increases.
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Victory in Bolton
by New Worker correspondent
THE BOLTON health workers we reported on last week have won a speedy victory. The sub-contracted workers, who include cleaners, catering staff, porters and security staff employed by iFM, the wholly-owned subsidiary company of the Royal Bolton NHS Trust, have won full NHS pay rates after taking strike action causing the employers speedily to cave in.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish Political correspondent
Revolting Tories
SCOTLAND’S 13 Tory MPs could become a major thorn in the side of their Prime Minister. They are muttering about revolting against an extension to the Brexit transition period, which is being considered by Theresa May to defuse the Irish border question. If they acted as a bloc the Government would lose its majority.
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Money Grows on Trees
It is hard times for the poor old Duke of Buccleuch, one of Britain’s largest landowners, who is having to put £1 million per year into the pension fund for employees to try to make up a shortfall of nearly £11 million by 2023.
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A Quick Conversion
The SNP have suddenly discovered that the ruling families of Saudi Arabia are not the most delightful of people.
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Rail News
The inaugural run for ScotRail’s new trains might be read as a metaphor for the state of Scotland’s trains. The journey from Aberdeen to Edinburgh, packed with invited guests, was marred by the fact that it ground to a halt in fife and remained out of action for half an hour, resulting in the especially invited passengers having to return home on an older train
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Informer:the murky world of the police informant TV
REVIEW
by Ben Soton
THE BBC’s latest Tuesday night crime thriller Informer shows the murky world of the undercover police informant as well the love hate relationship between the British state and reactionary Islam. The series centres around the roles of a young British Pakistani, Raza Shar (Nabhaan Rizwan), and his police handler, DS Waters (Paddy Considine).
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The blockade of Cuba must end
by Michel Hernández
PAUL LAVERTY, the author of the screenplay for the prize-winning film of the life of Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta, says the US blockade is a disgrace that must end.
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International News
An artist ‘at home’ with the Russians in Syria
Sputnik
AUGUSTO Ferrer-Dalmau Nieto arrived in Syria on 29th September with Russian soldiers. Instead of a rifle, the Spanish war artist had a much more powerful weapon in his hands — a notebook where he made sketches that will later become a painting reflecting life in Aleppo.
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1913: Ulster Protestants against Carsonism
by Mícheál Mac Donncha-An Phoblacht
BY the end of 1913, the campaign against Home Rule for Ireland organised by the Ulster Unionists and their allies in the Conservative and Unionist Party in Britain had reached a crescendo. The Ulster Volunteers had been established, as well as a provisional government that threatened to seize power if Home Rule became law.
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Brazil: Democracy at risk if Bolsonaro wins
Telesur
BRAZIL’S leftist presidential candidate Fernando Haddad said on Monday that if his far-right rival Jair Bolsonaro wins this weekend’s vote as expected, military hard-liners will threaten democratic institutions and the country’s young democracy
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UN gives Palestine more powers
by Pavel Jacomino-Radio Havana Cuba
THE 193-member United Nations (UN) General Assembly will allow the Palestinians to act more like a full UN member state during meetings in 2019 when they will chair the group of 77 developing nations. Palestine’s permanent representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, hailed the General Assembly’s vote in favour of his country as “a new political victory”.
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Black marketeers dive for cover in Zimbabwe
by Xiang Bo-Xinhua
ILLEGAL FOREIGN currency dealers deserted the streets in Harare’s Central Business District on Tuesday amidst government warnings that it will deal severely with offenders.
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Features
Manifestly Excessive’ Anti-fracking activists freed on appeal
by Kit Klarenberg Sputnik
THREE protesters controversially jailed in September for blocking access to a fracking site have had their custodial sentences quashed by the court of appeal — and the Judge who jailed them could face censure.
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Denmark, imperialism and social democracy
by Deirdre Griswold Workers World (US)
FOR SEVERAL years now, large polling companies have been asking younger people in the USA whether they preferred socialism or capitalism. Of those who expressed an opinion, the majority have replied “socialism”.
This is a welcome sea change from attitudes in America during the very reactionary period that began with McCarthyism and the Cold War, and has continued for decades.
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Keeping the ABC public and “reckless harassment
by Rob Gowland Guardian Australian communist weekly
THE Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is currently running a series of campaign spots promoting it as a sort of national icon. Fair enough, I hear you say. And so it is, but bear with me. Utilising the services of several prominent actors and other public figures, these TV spots appear to have been created by a well-meaning ad-agency. Although they utilise such popular sentiments as nostalgia, cultural pride and even patriotism, the only line they plug — with a rather heavy hand, it must be said — is that the ABC is important.
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