National News
Unlikely militants
by New Worker correspondent
CIVIL Servants working for the Bailiwick of Jersey, a Channel Islands dependency off the Normandy coast, are not particularly noted for their industrial militancy but they have already been on strike three times since July.
The 3,000 civil servants who work for the tax dodgers’ paradise have rejected a miserable pay offer. Both Unite and Prospect, who represent them, say they will not put the States Employment Board’s (SEB) latest woefully inadequate pay offer back to members because it is basically the same as the one already rejected twice before.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Night(mare) trains
by New Worker correspondent
LONDON was almost entirely cut off from Aberdeen at the beginning of the week because of transport union RMT taking another round of strike action on the Caledonian Sleeper service.
At the start of a two-day strike that closed the service, General Secretary Mick Cash said “RMT members are standing united and determined from Inverness to London today in a fight for basic workplace justice on the Caledonian Sleeper service while the company, SERCO, ignore their duty of care to their staff, wreck the talks process and focus solely on profiteering at our members’ expense. The shutdown of services today and tomorrow is entirely due to SERCO and their cavalier approach to their staff. Their attitude is an absolute disgrace.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Jobs saved
by New Worker correspondent
HARLAND and Wolff, the Belfast shipbuilder best known for the Titanic, was saved from a watery grave on Tuesday when it was announced that 120 jobs will be saved at the yard after a nine-week occupation by the workers.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Cutting culture
IN PERHAPS not the best way to promote its bid to become the UK City of Culture in 2025, the City of Bradford has announced cuts of about 65 per cent to its libraries and museums. In response, library staff have voted 77 per cent for strike action and 94 per cent for industrial action short of a strike in defence of the woollen city’s library and museum service.
Their union, Unite, has charted a decade of cuts to libraries and museums by the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council — the latest £950,000 for the year starting April 2019 and a further £1,050,000 earmarked from April 2020.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Johnson flounders as crisis deepens
by Svetlana Ekimenko
FORMER Tory Attorney General Dominic Grieve has warned Prime Minister Boris Johnson that if he acts in violation of the recently-adopted anti-No-Deal legislation he will not be able to keep his job.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
THE Conservatives’ annual conference in Manchester may have been overshadowed by the ongoing Brexit crisis and the tittle-tattle about Boris Johnson’s wandering hands, but north of the border the Tories face the challenge of a resurgent nationalist demand for independence.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Survival of the fittest?
Review
Evolution by Steve Jones (2017).
Hard-cover: Ladybird Books, London. 56 pages. £7.99. ISBN-10: 0718186281; ISBN-13: 978-0718186289.
Kindle: Penguin. 28 pages. £4.99. ASIN: B01N7RPYJ9.
PROF Steve Jones is an author and TV presenter. He is also one of the world’s top six experts on snails, he says that the other five agree.
This beautiful 56-page book is an easy read. One of a series of Penguin Ladybird Expert books for adults, it consists of some 25 short, stand-alone arguments, each followed by facing illustrations.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Dorchester Pride
DURING the Hanoverian era the landed gentry spent some of their vast wealth on a ‘Grand Tour’ of Europe to gape at the ruins of ancient Rome and Greece, and start a craze for antiques that continues to this day. Their souvenirs ranged from the priceless Elgin Marbles that were more or less looted from the Parthenon in Athens, to the more modest statues, busts and coins that they gathered to adorn their stately homes and gardens. Some of these collections eventually ended up in public galleries such as London’s British Museum, which was established in 1753 to house the 71,000 antiques, books and other items that Sir Hans Sloane had amassed during his life-time.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
TV REVIEW
Northern lights
by Ben Soton
Scarborough;
BBC1 Friday 9.30pm. Written and directed by Darren Little. Starring: Stephanie Cole, Catherine Tyldesley, Jason Manford.
ALTHOUGH Scarborough is billed as a comedy, this new BBC1 30-minute sitcom feels more like a kitchen-sink drama. It’s written and directed by Darren Litten, the creator of Benidorm, who has a talent for generating comedy from everyday situations.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
International News
Trump on the ropes!
Radio Havana Cuba
NANCY PELOSI, speaker of the US House of Representatives, has warned that official investigations are being conducted to bring President Donald Trump to trial for allegedly violating the US Constitution and also endangering the National Security of the USA.
These charges were sparked by a phone call made by Trump last July to his Ukrainian counterpart, Vladimir Zelensky, whom he pressured to investigate the prospective Democratic Presidential candidate in the next US general elections, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, for alleged corruption.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Israel down a blind alley!
by Lena Valverde Jordi
ALTHOUGH Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud bloc lost the recent parliamentary elections in Israel, President Reuven Rivlin has asked him to form a new Government despite the difficulties posed by the political fragmentation in that country.
Netanyahu stayed two notches below his main rival, Benny Gantz, of the Blue and White bloc, but both of them are quite far from the majority of 61 deputies that the Israeli Parliament requires. A political arrangement to form a new government is, therefore, highly improbable. Most probably, a third new election will be necessary.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Gordon Brown praises China
by Wang Jiangang
CHINA’S unparalleled progress in national development deserves a big celebration, former premier Gordon Brown told the Chinese media on the side-lines of the 74th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN). After talking extensively about China’s profound changes, including lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty over the last decades, Brown, who is the current UN special envoy for global education, said: “After 70 years, China can really celebrate.”
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Chinese advance with their country
Global Times
TUESDAY 1st October marked the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The average age of Chinese people is 37-years-old, which means they have accompanied China for 37 years. Many young Chinese need to learn about the country through narratives of other people. Based on distinct experiences, people of different generations may also have various perspectives of China.
China is a country that started out with a very weak economy; but China has made huge economic achievements and has become the world’s second-largest economy. It achieved initial modernisation, led its largest population in the world to live in a well-off society, and achieved poverty alleviation.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Features
On the Road to Damascus: An international union conference against sanctions
by Roger D Harris
“WELCOME to your second country” was the greeting our Syrian hosts gave us when we arrived for the International Trade Union Forum for “solidarity with the workers and people of Syria against the economic blockade, imperialist interventions, and terrorism”.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Looking Back: I was on the first flight from Ireland to Cuba
by Padraig Mannion
IN 1978 the first ever flight to Cuba left Dublin with 70 young people heading to the World Festival of Youth and Students. We thought we knew it all back then, though we probably didn’t know much of the world beyond building sites in London. Some people might have gone to the USA. For one or two people who were doing languages it was part of your course to spend a summer in that country; but by and large the idea of travel as we know it now just didn’t exist.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
