National News
Battle of the bogs
by New Worker correspondent
RMT and Unite have condemned train companies for breaking promises to end the dumping of toilet waste on the track.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Battle for the job
by New Worker correspondent
VOTING for the general secretaryship of PCS is now underway. Three rival left candidates are in the race for the highest post in the biggest civil service union in the country. PCS, which now also represents many clerical and admin staff in the private sector, has been led by Mark Serwotka for nearly 20 years and he’s the firm favourite to retain his role in the ballot that runs until 12th December.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Unison votes for action in northern Ireland
by New Worker correspondent
HEALTH staff and social workers in northern Ireland represented by UNISON voted overwhelmingly for industrial action on Monday.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Scotland the Liberal-Democrats and the poll
The Liberal Democrats have gone to court against ITV over its ‘unlawful’ decision to leave the party’s leader Jo Swinson out of a face-to-face leaders’ debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn. Lecturer in Law at Glasgow Caledonian University Dr Nick McKerrell shared his views on with Sputnik on this issue.
Sputnik: Do you think the fact the Liberal Democrats have not been invited to this TV debate on ITV is a sign of disrespect to people who voted to ‘Remain’ [in the European Union]
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
For the Fallen
by New Worker correspondent
THE SACRIfiCE of some 27 million Soviet citizens during the Second World War, along with the millions of others who perished in the world wars of the last century, was honoured at the annual remembrance ceremony in the London borough of Southwark last weekend.
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Ten days that shook the world!
by New Worker correspondent
THE RUSSIAN revolution was, undoubtedly, the greatest event in the 20th century. Throughout the world communists celebrate its anniversary to salute the Bolsheviks that established the first workers and peasants’ republic in November 1917.
Last Saturday comrades and friends gathered at the New Communist Party’s (NCP) annual tribute to the Party of Lenin and Stalin that inevitably led to the end of the first world war and then went on to build the Soviet power that crushed Nazi Germany to end the second world conflict in 1945.
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West End producer wants to bring new show to China
Xinhua
A NEW stage musical, the Prince of Egypt, will open at London’s West End in February and its producer wishes to take it to China.
“We would very much like to take the new show to China. It is on our wish list,” says Michael McCabe, an independent, four-time Olivier Awards-winning theatre producer.
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Oil lords of the Middle East
REVIEW
by Ben Soton
Lords of the Desert: The Battle Between the United States and Great Britain for Supremacy in the Modern Middle East by James Barr. Simon & Schuster UK (2019).
Hardback: 416pp; £20; ISBN-10: 1471139794; ISBN-13: 978-1471139796
Paperback: 416pp; £9.99; ISBN-10: 1471139808; ISBN-13: 978-1471139802
Kindle Edition: 416pp; £5.99; ASIN: B077DHWWRG
THIS BOOK describes the Anglo-US rivalry in the Middle East from 1942 to 1967 that undermined the notion of the ‘special relationship’ between the two imperialist powers.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
International News
US hand in Bolivia couption
by finian Cunningham
ONLY DAYS before Evo Morales stepped down as Bolivia’s president, audio tapes were published implicating opposition politicians, the US embassy and American senators in a coup plot.
Amongst those US senators mentioned in the leaked tapes by the Bolivian politicians seeking Morales’ ousting were Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, according to a report by Telesur.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Freed Lula calls for unity and justice
by Ed Newman
AFTER HAVING spent 580 days as a political prisoner, Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returned to the Metallurgical Industry Workers’ Union HQ for a rally at SÃo Bernardo do Campo, the city where he began his political life as a trade union leader.
Although the Workers’ Party (PT) politician must defend himself against accusations that could put him in prison for eight years, Lula regained his freedom last week thanks to a Supreme Court decision which determined that a penalty cannot be executed whilst the appeals have not been completed.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Gaza militias rocket Israel
Xinhua
Gaza Strip militiamen fired rockets at Israeli cities on Tuesday morning following its killing of a senior Islamic Jihad commander.
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Imperialist criminal Ronald Reagan returns to Berlin — this time as a statue
IDoC
ARCH-IMPERIALIST Ronald Reagan, an idol of the world’s neo-liberals and anti-communists during the 1980s, returns to Berlin — this time not as the leader of American imperialism but as a seven-foot tall bronze statue placed atop of the US Embassy.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
British founder of ‘White Helmets’ found dead in Istanbul
Sputnik
JAMES LE MESURIER, a former MI6 officer who created the controversial ‘urban search and rescue’ organisation in 2013, has been found dead in the Turkish city of Istanbul. The White Helmets have been repeatedly accused of staging fake attacks in the conflict in Syria in a bid to prompt a Western-backed military intervention in the war-torn country. Le Mesurier’s body was found early Monday morning in the city’s Beyoglu district.
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Features
Exploitation and Marx’s theory of surplus value
by Seamus Carey
FOR MOST workers, it is intuitively simple to grasp the meaning of ‘exploitation’ from a moral standpoint. Capitalist society in practice is full of examples of overt ill-treatment of workers, unfair contracts, poor conditions, wage theft, and open disdain for the dignity and independence of the working class amongst much of the wealthy elite. The apologists for capitalism are all too happy to write off each and every such example as an isolated incident, due only to the moral failings of the individuals involved, not a symptom of any systemic problem. But investigating the underlying structure of our society reveals a deeper cause and a deeper and even more pervasive system of exploitation.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
How the Kremlin was hidden from Nazi bombs
Sputnik
DURING THE Second World War, Moscow was bombed 141 times. The main objective of Hitler’s airstrikes was the Kremlin but it suffered only eight attacks. The bombings caused much less destruction than expected.
This was due not only to the city’s successful air defences and the work of Soviet aviation, the Soviet government had another card up their sleeve.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Hong Kong: Rioters must pay the price for violence
Global Times
HONG KONG legislator Junius Ho was stabbed whilst campaigning this week. Fortunately, the attacker failed to achieve his goal of killing Ho. Three people, including Ho, sustained knife injuries.
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