National News
The Boys in Blue
by New Worker correspondents
ONE GROUP of workers who are certainly unhappy these days are the police. Their union or rather staff association, the 130,000 strong Police Federation, passed a motion of no confidence in the Home Secretary when it was announced that officers earning over £24,000 would get nothing while those below will only get £250.
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Lucky for Some
by New Worker correspondents
DESPITE THIS gloom for most public sector workers there are rays of sunshine for some of the high castes. The Chancellor?s pay freeze for civil servants does not apply to those at the very top. Clare Lombardelli, the Chancellor?s chief economist got a rise of £30,000. This blow against the gender pay gap means her salary is now just under £150,000.
One way round pay freezes is for the chosen few to be awarded bonuses, which they can ?earn? by simply turning up. The two top Treasury civil servants, Sir Tom Scholar and Charles Roxburgh, were each given bonuses of up to £20,000 on top of their salaries, along with the Treasury?s department?s head of tax and welfare, Beth Russell.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
SCOTLAND achieved a new European record last week. It was not a sporting one. A record 1,339 drug-related deaths were registered in Scotland in 2020. This was a five per cent increase on 2019. This death toll is three and a half times per capita higher than the rest of the UK which has exactly the same laws as Scotland. Angela Constance, the Scottish minister for drug policy, described the latest figures as a ?national shame? and promised to make tackling drugs deaths a priority.
The figures were also the highest since the present means of recording drug-related deaths began in 1996. In 2011 the figure was 584. It was also the seventh consecutive increase. Unsurprisingly the figures also show that people in the most deprived areas of Scotland were 18 times more likely to die than those in the least deprived.
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Go to Jail
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Craig Murray, a former British Ambassador, has secured a footnote in the annals of Scottish history for being the first person jailed for contempt of court for journalism. His crime was one of the hitherto unknown charge of ?jigsaw identification?.
Never one shy of publicity Murray celebrated the beginning of his eight month sentence by drinking champagne outside an Edinburgh police station. Even the SNP President, former minister Mike Russell, who accepts Murray?s guilt thinks the sentence too harsh.
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Johnson?s crime plan slammed by Labour
by Svetlana Ekimenko
PRIME MINISTER Boris Johnson has pledged ?unstinting? efforts to make society safer as part of his much-touted levelling-up agenda - a central message since the current Conservative government came to power after elections in 2019.
But the raft of measures to tackle crime unveiled by Downing Street has already been criticised by the Labour Party and the Police Federation, who represent rank-and-file officers, as ?more gimmicks and more slogans?.
The Prime Minister unveiled the government?s new Beating Crime Plan, built around three key reforms, on Tuesday 27th July.
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International News
US threatens Iran over Gulf attack
by Gaby Arancibia
AMERICAN foreign minister Antony Blinken says that the US is working with the UK, Israel, Romania and other allies to come up with a collective response to the drone attack on the oil tanker Mercer Street attack in the Arabian Sea last week.
But in Tehran the Iranian Foreign Ministry said it had nothing to do with the drone strike and said the Islamic Republic will respond “immediately and strongly” to any retaliatory moves taken against Iran.
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DKP ban lifted
by New Worker correspondent
THE GERMAN Communist Party (DKP) will once again take part in September’s general election following the lifting of a banning order by the constitutional court. The Federal Constitutional Court has completely overturned the decision of the Federal Electoral Committee in July to deprive the DKP of its status as a political party and prevent it from standing in elections. The pretext for this shameful decision was the alleged late submission of financial statements,
This arbitrary act, reminiscent of West Germany’s anti-communist crusade during the Cold War, was immediately challenged by the DKP in the courts. And at the hearing the Federal Constitutional Court accepted the German communists’ argument and restored their status as an electoral party.
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Qantas workers win landmark court battle
by Ed Newman
IN A HISTORIC win for trade unions, Australia’s federal court has ruled in favour of the Transport Workers Union in a case against the airline giant, Qantas. The outsourcing scandal saw over 2,000 employees laid off during the coronavirus pandemic. The union said: “Today is a great day – for Qantas workers, for aviation workers and for all transport workers”.
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Peace in Korea!
by G Dunkel
A CROWD of around 50 people, mostly Korean, gathered in front of the United Nations HQ in New York last week to demand that the US finally sign a peace treaty with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). For 68 years the US has refused — there is only an armistice and the constant threat of another US war.
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Jackie Chan wants to join the Party!
by Valentin Cartillier
JACKIE CHAN, the movie star, director, and master of the martial arts wants to join the Communist Party of China (CPC). Chan has starred in over 150 films, having started his acting career in the 60s and continuing to this day. A Hong Konger, Chan has gained enormous international recognition over his career.
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Ben & Jerry president under Zionist flak
by Ed Newman
ANURADHA MITTAL, the president of Ben & Jerry’s, has received death threats and was forced to abandon her home after the ice cream company said it would no longer be selling its products in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
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British vaccines for Vietnam
VNS
THE VIETNAMESE Ministry of Health has received a donation of 415,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the British government. The vaccines were presented to the health authorities at a reception ceremony held at the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology in Hanoi this week.
Over the past 50 years, co-operation between Vietnam and the UK had been constantly expanded and developed, and the two had become important strategic partners to each other.
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Features
Eye-witness Cuba
by Kathryn Guerrera
AS A CANADIAN with family members that live in Cuba, who was in Cuba during the anti-government protests that occurred on 11th July, I found myself in a unique and disturbing position where I could see and feel the disconnect between what was being reported by the mainstream media back home and what was really happening on the ground in Cuba.
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Woodland comrades and the Soviet future
by Tara Brady
CHILDREN in the Soviet Union were cherished by society and the Communist Party. After all, children held the key to and promise of a socialist future. A key figure in the cult of childhood was Pavlik Morozov, a 13-year-old who reported his father for selling forged documents to bandits. Pavlik and his younger brother were brutally murdered by his own grandfather, grandmother and uncle in retaliation, leading to much public outcry and a martyr status that saw statues erected in his honour across the USSR.
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