National News
Victories in the courts
by New Worker correspondent
TRADE UNIONS have won important legal battles over redundancy payments for public sector workers and pension rights.
Last November the Government imposed the Restriction of Public Sector Exit Payments Regulations, a rule which sets a limit cap of £95,000 on redundancy payments in the public sector. Last week this was overturned in the High Court and the Government decided not to take it any further by appealing.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Pay battles ahead
by New Worker correspondent
MONDAY saw the three main local government unions, Unison, GMB and Unite, who together represent 1.4 million workers in local government, submit a pay claim for 2021/22, which they say starts to tackle a decade of cuts and recognise the role played by school and council staff during the pandemic. Staff working in local government have seen up to 25 per cent wiped from the value of their pay, the unions point out.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Bad Karma
by New Worker correspondent
THE SMALL Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), the street union which specialises in precarious and migrant workers, has formed a new branch for Yoga teachers.
The IWGB notes that most yoga teachers have no job security, no sick pay, no paid leave and no employer pension contributions. They do, however, have uncertain hours, poverty pay and a lack of basic workers’ rights, and bullying bosses.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
The SNP’s Proud Record
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
ON THE SNP’s main website there is a page directing people to learn something about the party’s history. This is currently blank. The SNP obviously think it is too embarrassing even to list their former leaders.
The main embarrassment is obviously Alex Salmond because he is a thorn in the side of the flesh of the present incumbent. But the past includes colourful characters such as former leader Arthur Donaldson, who was accused of being a German sympathiser during the Second World War and interned for six weeks after he apparently told an informer that if the Nazis invaded Britain, he was prepared to set up a puppet regime in Scotland like that of Vidkun Quisling in Norway.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
China bans BBC: zero tolerance for fake news
by Yu Ning
PEOPLE’S CHINA has sent the outside world a clear signal that it has zero tolerance for fake news by banning the BBC World News channel. The decision comes as no surprise. According to China’s National Radio and Television Administration, BBC World News has been banned because some BBC reports on China infringed the principles of truthfulness and impartiality in journalism.
The BBC no longer upholds objective reporting, it has degenerated into a rumour mill with no bottom line. It’s fair to say it has become a vanguard in the West in concocting and spreading rumours and lies about China. The BBC views almost everything concerning China with double standards. It is now paying the price for what it has done.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Year of the Ox in London!
by New Worker correspondent
NELSON’S COLUMN was lit up red in the run-up to the Chinese Lunar New Year last week. The dazzling display in Trafalgar Square began on Wednesday 10th February to celebrate the Year of the Ox, which started the following Friday.
The London Chinatown Chinese Association (LCCA), with the support from the Mayor of London, organised the display to celebrate the start of the Chinese New Year, which is also known as the Spring Festival. This is the most important festival in China. Celebrations begin about a week in advance and end with the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the New Year.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Countdown Beijing 2022: Britain’s sports chief upbeat on medal prospects
by Zhang Wei
BRITAIN is targeting more medals at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics despite the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Whilst preparations have been challenging, Britain’s Winter Olympics team have not changed their target for the Beijing games.
“We are still very much hoping that we could put more athletes to more podiums across more disciplines than before,” Vicky Gosling, CEO of GB Snowsport, said in an exclusive interview ahead of the one-year countdown to the Beijing Games.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
International News
Not a coup says Myanmar army
by Nikita Folomov
MYANMAR’S armed forces had no choice but to seize power in the country, the spokesman for Myanmar’s military said on Tuesday, insisting it wasn’t a coup. Myanmar’s military has also stated that they will stick to the 2008 constitution, which was adopted following a constitutional referendum held the same year.
The detention of the civilian government’s leaders was justified, General Zaw Min Tun said, claiming that alleged election fraud in November hasn’t been addressed at the behest of the military.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Die Linke adopts anti-Cuban resolution
IDoC
A RECENT decision of the German Die Linke (Left) party confirms what is already known: the role of social democracy as a timeless instrument of imperialism and an enemy of the working people. At its last meeting, the Party’s executive committee decided to adopt a hostile position towards Cuba by declaring its support for the counter-revolutionary group known as ‘San Isidro Movement’.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Millions for ‘democracy’ – made in the USA
by Ronald Suárez Rivas
ALTHOUGH the effort has never produced the results expected by its organisers, subversion against Cuba continues to be a profitable business involving millions of dollars.
Disguised in multiple trappings, through agencies, companies and organisations, which rarely offer public information on the management of their funds, the financing of actions intended to undermine the Revolution has exceeded $249.5 million over the last two decades.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Settler rampage on the West Bank
CP Israel
RESIDENTS of the villages of Kusra and Asira al-Qibliya, in the occupied West Bank district of Nablus, fended off an attack by dozens of violent Israeli settlers who targeted the outskirts of the two villages on Saturday, 13th February.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Who is Alexei Navalny?
by Seamus Carey
AFTER A DECADE of Western media falsely insisting that Alexei Navalny is a major Russian opposition leader, a certain section of the Russian population – particularly disaffected youth under the influence of online propaganda – has taken the bait.
Although Western media and governments had begun to identify Navalny as a significant opposition figure by 2011 and only a few years later began to refer to him as the main opposition leader, this had no basis in fact. Rather, Navalny was a useful tool, a representative of the particular sliver of the opposition most amenable to Western interests.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Argentina: Women win historic battle
by Maylin Vidal
AFTER DECADES of fighting for women’s rights, Argentineans joined forces and won a battle that made history: the Congress approved, once and for all, the right to legal, safe and free abortion.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Features
Victory for Russian jab
by Finian Cunningham
WELL, how about that? Even the US media – so often irrationally hostile to anything Russian – are now even admitting that the Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 could be “a global success story”.
That turnaround in reaction sort of reminds you of the quote often misattributed to Mahatma Gandhi: “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”
The prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, published a study last week that puts the Russian vaccine at the forefront of the global battle to eradicate the coronavirus pandemic.
When the Russian government first announced back in August last year that it was approving Sputnik V for medical use, it was either ignored or mocked in the US media. One American former senior administration official reportedly scoffed at the Russian vaccine, describing it as a “joke”.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Biden’s Yemen policy: Bait and switch
by Sara Flounders
PRESIDENT Joe Biden seemed to announce an end to Washington’s complete support for Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen, reversing Trump’s and even the Obama/Biden administration’s public policy. He called the war a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe”.
In his first presidential foreign policy speech on 4th February, Biden said: “We are ending all support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” But he quickly added that Washington will continue to help Saudi Arabia to “defend its sovereignty and territory”, including selling the Saudis massive new high-tech weapons, for “defensive” purposes.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
