National News
UVW members on strike
by New Worker correspondent
ANOTHER group of workers, this time much less well paid, were also on strike this week. They are the caterers, cleaners and porters at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, west London, who are organised by the United Voices of the World (UVW), a street union which is not in the TUC.
The 200 workers are outsourced by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust to French multinational Sodexo. Their demand that they become NHS employees has become the longest in the history of the NHS and is endorsed by the London Regional Council of the British Medical Association (BMA), the doctors’ trade union.
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Taxi Wars
by New Worker correspondent
THE MAYOR of London, Sadiq Khan, announced on Monday that Transport for London (TfL) will not be renewing the licence for controversial cab operator Uber. This is the second time that this has happened. The company was denounced as not “fit and proper” despite having made a number of changes since its first suspension.
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Banking Woes
by New Worker correspondent
MONDAY saw high street bank TSB announce that it was closing 82 branches next year.
TSB was founded on the 10th May, 1810 by the Reverend Henry Duncan of Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire so that workers could open an account with sixpence and learn how to save their pennies — and thus become respectable citizens rather than revolutionaries.
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Nationalising the railways as popular as ever
Sky News has revealed in a new poll that a clear majority of people would support taking rail companies back into public ownership. When asked whether they were in favour of nationalising the network 56 per cent of respondents said they were, whilst only a fifth of those asked said they were opposed to the idea. Sputnik spoke on the issue with Ellen Lees, campaign officer for the We Own It group that is supported by RMT and a number of other unions.
Sputnik: What does this most recent poll tell us about the public’s view on railways? What challenges would a government face trying to nationalise Britain railways?
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Keeping Up Municipal Traditions
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
The SNP Lord Provost of Glasgow was forced to resign by the national SNP leadership a few weeks ago when it was disclosed that she billed the council £8,224 for clothes, make-up and 23 pairs of shoes. This would normally be brushed off but as a General Election was starting up, she had to go.
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Let Justice Be Done
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Scotland’s second most senior judge, Lady Dorrian, the Lord Justice Clerk, had a very interesting Criminal preliminary hearing (SCS/2019-102929) at the High Court in Edinburgh last week. A 64-year-old man was formally indicted with 14 counts of sexual assault against 10 women across the country between 2008—2014. Her ladyship announced the trial would begin on the 9th March. The accused afterwards wholeheartedly denied the charges and said he would defend himself “vigorously”, expressing his faith in Scottish justice by saying: “The only proper place to answer criminal charges is in this court and that is exactly what I intend to do next spring.”
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Down with the Kiev fascist regime!
ANTI-FASCIST campaigners were out last weekend calling for solidarity with all the victims of the fascist gangs and the regime police in Ukraine. NCP leader Andy Brooks and London District organiser, Theo Russell, joined the protest picket opposite Downing Street on Saturday to call for an immediate end to British military aid to the Kiev regime and an end to the conflict with the Donbas republics that seceded after the fascist takeover in 2014.
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Russian film Week takes centre stage in London
by Demond Cureton
THE FOURTH annual Russia film Week was launched in London at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square on Sunday, with over a dozen Russian film stars gracing the red carpet. Over 800 guests attended the premiere, which was followed by an opening party at the five-star W Hotel in Leicester Square complete with talks from some of Russia’s top filmmakers and superstars.
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The Martians are coming…
TV REVIEW
by Ben Soton
The War of the Worlds (2019). Three-part mini-series on BBC1, from Sunday 17th November, 2019 at 9pm. Also available on BBC iPlayer. Mini-series written/adapted by Peter Harness from the original story by HG Wells. Stars: Eleanor Tomlinson, Rafe Spall, Robert Carlyle and Rupert Graves.
A GOOD way to start the week ahead is a decent Sunday night of television viewing. With this in mind, BBC1’s adaptation of HG Wells’ War of the Worlds is worth watching. first published in 1898, War of the Worlds taps on the then popular belief that Mars was covered by canals built by Martians desperately trying to save their ‘dying’ planet.
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British monarchy meltdown
by finian Cunningham
Britain’s Prince Andrew’s “car crash” interview about his friendship with paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein has provoked a storm of public criticism of the monarchy like never before.
The arrogant and aloof Andrew was hardly apologetic over his dodgy shenanigans with the convicted trafficker of underage girls, Epstein, whose leisure it was to ply his rich and famous friends with sex parties.
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International News
Resistance continues in Bolivia
by John Catalinotto
SINCE a US-backed military coup aided by fascist gangs overthrew the elected government of Evo Morales in Bolivia on 10th November, police and military forces using live gunfire have killed at least 30 people protesting the new coup regime.
These criminal acts have been directed at the large Indigenous population that supports the Morales government. State forces backing the coup fired on marches, mainly in the cities of Cochabamba and La Paz and on 19th November by helicopter gunfire in El Alto.
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Arab League denounces America
by Ed Newman
The Arab League has rejected and condemned a decision by the Trump administration that reversed Washington’s four-decade-old position on Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.
An emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers at the Cairo headquarters of the Arab League said that the policy shift was “an extremely adverse development” that “has no legal effect and is a clear violation of UN resolutions”.
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New US slander against Cuba
by Jorge Ruiz Miyares
THE CUBAN communist daily, Granma, has accused the US Embassy in Havana, and particularly its ChargÉ d’Affaires, Mara Tekach, of meddling in the island’s internal affairs through the open instigation to violence, the disruption of order and disrespect of law-enforcement officials.
An additional element of the US slander campaign has been the arrest of the counter-revolutionary JosÉ Daniel Ferrer, a paid agent in the service of the USA with a long history of provocative actions against public order and legality.
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New spirit needed to stop violence in Hong Kong
by Mu Xuequan
LOCAL elections were held in Hong Kong last weekend — the first since the now-withdrawn ordinance amendments concerning fugitives’ transfers sparked unrest in the autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China.
For more than five months rioters have conspired with foreign forces to plunge the region into violence that has divided Hong Kong and set back its economy.
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Features
Thirty years of bogus liberation
by Greg Godels
IT IS only fitting that Timothy Garton Ash [a reactionary British academic] would write an homage for the 30th anniversary of the so-called Velvet Revolution of the once-called Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It is equally fitting that he publish his tribute in the most prominent American periodical of liberal anti-Communism, the New York Review of Books. Ash, born and educated from privilege, contrived a career by demonising the post-war socialist governments of Central and Eastern Europe.
One would, therefore, expect him to gush over the events — the counter-revolutions — that restored Central and Eastern Europe into the hands of the capitalists. One would anticipate a regurgitation of the evils of Communism and the yearnings of the enslaved for the freedom and prosperity of the West.
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Koreans say no to Trump!
by Deirdre Griswold
THE Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has rejected the latest proposal by the Trump administration for a summit meeting.
On 18th November the DPRK Foreign Ministry said in a statement: “Three rounds of DPRK—US summit meetings and talks were held since June last year, but no particular improvement has been achieved in DPRK—US relations. And the USA only seeks to earn time, pretending it has made progress in settling the issue of the Korean peninsula.
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