National News
Redundancy battle at AI
by New Worker correspondent
A RUTHLESS employer that has been described as having a “toxic workplace culture” is in the process of making 93 “painful and difficult” redundancies. This is happening at Amnesty International (AI), the self-styled “human rights” organisation whose carefully selected caseload has a tendency to reflect the interests of British and American imperialism, despite issuing some reports critical of imperialism’s allies to make themselves look unbiased.
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A stunning win for Labour
by Neil Clark
THE Inside the Tent ‘pundits’ called the 2016 European Union (EU) Referendum wrong. They got the US Presidential election of the same year wrong. They got the UK 2017 General Election wrong — predicting a Labour wipe-out — and now they have got the Peterborough by-election wrong too. Aren’t they marvellous?
Before the election we were told that Labour was 7—1 against holding on to the seat. The Brexit Party, we were told, was a shoo-in. ‘Centrist’ commentators, as they’ve done so many times since 2015, were writing Jeremy Corbyn’s political obituary. Labour would suffer a humiliating defeat in Peterborough because their Brexit policy wasn’t clear. Their candidate, like Corbyn himself, was supposedly an “anti-Semite”. Corbyn was a disaster.
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Outsourcing woes at the FOC
by New Worker correspondent
EARLIER this week workers employed by Interserve at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) took part in strike action outside their Whitehall workplace. They are generally low-paid migrant workers providing cleaning and catering worker in the grandiose Whitehall offices.
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RMT fights on
by New Worker correspondent
THE MARITIME part of transport Union RMT has sternly contrasted the billion pound bonanzas awarded to offshore wind-farm owners at a time when seafarers in the supply chain are being discriminated against and not even being paid the National Minimum Wage.
General Secretary Mick Cash warned: “Huge dividends are being paid out and hundreds of millions in bond funds are being raised off the hard work of employees in the offshore wind farm sector. At the same time, my members are being excluded from work on a range of vessels where basic pay rates can be as low as £3.60 per hour for a twelve hour day.
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Days at the Museums
by New Worker correspondent
SOME SAY that many of the machines still used in British industry are museum pieces. That may or may not be true, but those charged with looking after industrial museum pieces deserve to be paid properly. Civil Service union Prospect is balloting members in the Science Museum Group (SMG) on industrial action after the group imposed a miserable below-inflation pay rise of 1.5 per cent.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
“MOANFEST” was the term used by Deputy first Minister and part-time Education Secretary John Swinney to brush off opposition claims about combined classes, in which pupils of different ages are taught together in 120 schools because of a shortage of teachers. His simultaneous insistence is that everything in the garden is rosy and that if it is not it is entirely the fault of Westminster.
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battles
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Teachers have won some battles recently. College lecturers have secured a pay rise and a long-running campaign to do away with standardised assessments for primary one (P1) pupils has secured some success. Pressure from teaching unions played an important part in persuading MSPs to vote against them. After the vote however, John Swinney set up an “independent review” on the subject that, as might be expected, would deliver him the results he wanted.
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MP then HMP
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Despite parading a remarkable string of sob-stories, former SNP MP Natalie McGarry has finally been jailed for 18 months for embezzling money from her party and the nationalist front that she helped found.
She was found guilty of embezzling £25,600 but a close colleague assumes the real figure was nearly double that. She pleaded guilty but later unsuccessfully tried to withdraw her plea. Legal sources say that latter action, and her lack of remorse, was the reason for her fairly lengthy sentence.
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Parting Shoot
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Political commentators have been shocked that after England beat Scotland 2—0 in the Women’s World Cup, there has been no demand for a replay from Nicola Sturgeon because she did not like the result or that it makes a second referendum essential.
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Fun in the Park
by Daphne Liddle
GLOBAL Fusion Arts last Saturday celebrated World Refugee Week with a programme of song, dance and cultural demonstrations in General Gordon Square, Woolwich to demonstrate a small sample of the rich cultural contributions that refugees and other immigrants have brought to this south-east London town over many centuries.
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Summer of Rockets
TV review by Ben Soton
CLASS, Race and anti-Semitism set to the backdrop of the Cold-War underline BBC2’s latest Wednesday night drama.
Summer of Rockets gives an insight into 1950s Britain centred on the Petrukhin family. Samuel Petrukhin (played by Toby Stevens) runs a business making hearing aids and is in the process of developing what he calls the staff locator, an early form of pager. Meanwhile he and his wife are keen to get their daughter introduced into upper class circles. In the first episode she is introduced to the Queen as a debutante.
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Irish patriot honoured
by Michael McMonagle
IRISH Republicans gathered in London on Sunday 2nd June to mark the 151st anniversary of the death of Fenian Michael Barrett, who was the last person to be publicly hanged in England.
The commemoration was held in the City of London Cemetery, the final resting place of Michael Barrett, on Sunday afternoon.
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International News
Hong Kong won’t be held hostage by the West
Global Times
DEMONSTRATIONS organised by opposition factions took place in Hong Kong on Sunday. Organisers claimed that some 300,000 people participated in the protests but the police put the actual figure at about 153,000. On the same day, ‘Safeguard HK, Support the Surrender of Fugitive Offenders Legislation’ announced that more than 730,000 Hong Kong citizens have shown their support to the government’s plan to amend the extradition laws.
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Betrayal is not an option
A statement from the Cuban government
THE Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba repudiates in the strongest terms the measures announced by the government of the United States on 4th June 2019, which reinforces the economic blockade imposed on the island for more than 60 years, at a cost for the Cuban economy that in 2018 exceeded $134 billion at current prices and the figure of $933 billion, taking into account the dollar’s depreciation against the value of gold in the international market.
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No choice but impeachment
US REPRESENTATIVE Dan Kildee, a Democrat from Michigan, has said that an increasing number of his colleagues believe President Donald Trump gives them “no choice” except his impeachment
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The story of Castro’s guerrillas retold
by Eduardo Palomares Calderón
AS A key part of Cuba’s extraordinary history of struggle — beginning with the landing of the Granma expeditionaries and the rebel columns that spread from the Sierra Maestra across the country, culminating with Comandante en Jefe fidel Castro Ruz announcing the triumph of the Revolution — the JosÉ Martí first Front will soon have its own museum.
The only guerilla group of such significance that has not had a specific institution of this type will have the ideal headquarters: Santiago de Cuba’s City Hall, directly on centrally located CÉspedes Park, from where fidel announced the Rebel Army’s victory over the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, to Cubans and the world on 1st January1959.
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Palestinian comedy reflects humour and hardship
by Federico Grandesso
“THE GHETTO situation produces its own humour because people are living in a state of stasis, they start creating their own resistance,” says a Palestinian movie director.
“They want to create a sort of illusionary space in which they can reside and somehow instigate some form of life,” said Elia Suleiman, 59, whose movie It Must Be Heaven won a special mention award at the 72nd edition of the Cannes film Festival in France last month.
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Features
Slander and lies at the ETUC
PAME
ON THURSDAY 23rd May the Congress of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) gave the floor to the — imposed by court order and not elected — President of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE), Yiannis Panagopoulos.
It is no coincidence that his speech, which began with the defence of Juncker and the ETUC, was spent in slander, lies and anti-communism, whilst he did not find a word to say about the struggles and demands of Greek workers. Struggles, in which he never took part. Struggles that he opposed and undermined systematically!
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China resists gunboat diplomacy and unequal treaties — then and now
by Sara Flounders
MOST Americans are unaware of the fact that more than a century ago armies of occupation from the USA, Britain, France, Germany and Japan were stationed in Chinese cities. The US Navy had fleets of armoured ships patrolling Chinese rivers and coastal waters.
Concessions were forced on China by brutal gunboat diplomacy and enshrined by onerous unequal treaties that made China pay these imperialist countries huge indemnities.
Now, once again, the USA is making demands on China. President Xi Jinping has compared them with those unequal treaties imposed by the imperialist powers over 150 years ago. The latest US trade demands on China have awakened a fervent nationalist response in every current of Chinese society.
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Iranian bank to sue over sanctions losses
by Ed Newman
ONE OF Iran’s major banks is pursuing damages against the British government over a 2010 freeze of bank assets. Bank Mellat’s case against the UK is expected to start on 17th June, where judges will hear that Britain’s actions “substantially damaged the bank’s reputation” and led to the loss of profits, customers and access to international banking services for which the lender is demanding US$1.6 billion in compensation.
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