National News
Railway Trade Unionism Past and Present
by New Worker correspondent
Everyone loves the railways, once upon a time it was every schoolkid’s dream to be train driver. Whilst trainspotters, or “gricers” as they are fondly known, have largely gone from our platforms many other enthusiasts spend their weekends driving steam trains or shovelling coal into the boiler on heritage railways. They do it for nothing. Others have to work in the transport industry to make a living.
The struggle for decent wages and conditions since the beginning of the railways has not been an easy one. From the start, long hours and strict discipline was the lot of railway workers, which require trade unions to overcome or at least mitigate.
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Terrible Cuts to Wages
by New Worker correspondent
Readers should get their hankies out when they read of the terrible hardships faced by Britain’s bosses. The High Pay Centre reports that bosses of the biggest companies in Britain’s largest companies listed on the blue-chip FTSE-100 index was only £2.69 million last year, a catastrophic fall of 17 per cent from the £3.25 million they earned in the glorious pre-pandemic year of 2019.
Luke Hildyard, the Centre’s director, also made the shocking revelation that bosses’ bonuses fell from £1.1 million to £828,000 in the same period, and that average long-term incentive plan payment fell from £2.4 million to £1.38 million.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
WHILST THE SNP are busy patting themselves on the back for securing what is clearly a coalition agreement with the Scottish Greens, after that latter party voted in favour, the nationalists have been spending more and more time and energy fighting each other.
Green co-leader Patrick Harvie has what must be the most long-winded job title ever, “Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights”, and will be under the thumb of Sturgeon loyalist Shona Robison, presently Social Justice and Housing Secretary. The other Green co-leader Lorna Slater becomes “Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity”, strangely enough under the Finance Secretary.
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Literary Review
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Alex Salmond is back in the news for another reason – and is none too pleased about it. Tuesday saw the publication of a new book that was serialised in the Times and Sunday Times, although the content is more suitable for the late News of the World.
The book in question has the self–explanatory title of Break-Up: How Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon Went to War, by journalists David Clegg and Kieran Andrews, which comes from political publisher Biteback.
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convert
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
It was Sillars who invented the concept of “Independence in Europe” for the SNP and who did much to convert the then Euro-sceptic to its present love affair with the European Union (EU). He now regrets this, however, thinking it is nonsense to break from Westminster only to surrender powers to Brussels.
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Raab must go over Kabul blunders
by Oleg Burunov
FORMER GENERALS are calling on Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to resign over the accusations he hampered the UK’s evacuation efforts in Afghanistan. Raab, however, rejects claims that he was “paddle-boarding” on holiday as the Taliban advanced on the Afghan capital Kabul.
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Extinction Rebellion block Oxford Circus in London protests
by Maxim Minaev
EXTINCTION Rebellion (XR) campaigners blocked traffic in London’s Oxford Circus last week. The environmentalist activists blocked the junction in London’s West End as part of their ongoing campaign for talks on global warming. The protests are scheduled ahead of the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference and Biodiversity Conference in Scotland in November and will continue until a demand to “stop all new fossil fuel investment immediately” is met.
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International News
Zionist oppression continues
Radio Havana Cuba
THE ISRAELI regime has arrested at least 1,900 Palestinians, including a large number of minors, across the occupied territories since the beginning of the year.
Palestinian rights groups reported on Sunday that most of the arrests were made following the Palestinian al-Quds Sword offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip in May. The Palestinian Prisoners Club said that the Israeli regime had detained mainly youths to instil fear amongst them and prevent them from confronting its forces.
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Another imperialist front against Cuba
by Lisset Chavez Bergues
CUBAN Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla has denounced Creative Associates International as a front for the US government to design soft coups and overturn the government of Cuba and many others as well.
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Hate crimes in USA hit 12-year high
Radio Havana Cuba
THE NUMBER of hate crimes in the USA rose last year to the highest level in more than a decade, driven by a rise in assaults targeting Black victims and victims of Asian descent, the FBI reported.
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African scientists denounce vaccine apartheid
Prensa Latina
AMIDST A new wave of COVID‑19 contagions, African scientists on Tuesday denounced what they described as vaccine apartheid by developed countries to the detriment of this continent.
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China–Africa relations thrive during the pandemic
Xinhua
PEOPLE’S CHINA and Africa have shown the world how a bilateral relationship can continue to thrive despite a raging pandemic. Ever since the outbreak of the pandemic, China and Africa have supported one another with good faith, further enriching their brotherhood.
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Features
Oliver Cromwell 1599–1658
by Andy Brooks
That ‘tis the most which we deteremine can,
If these the Times, then this must be the Man
Andrew Marvell
1621–1678
OLIVER CROMWELL, the leader of the bourgeois English Revolution, died on 3rd September 1658. Stricken by a malarial fever that proved to be fatal, the Lord Protector willed himself to live until his auspicious day – the day his first parliament met in 1654. The day he smashed the Scottish Royalists at the battle of Dunbar in 1650 and forced the young Charles Stuart to run for his life the following year when the Royalists were routed at the battle of Worcester.
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Afghanistan: No clean end to a dirty war
by John Wojcik
THE RUSSIAN Foreign Ministry was the first to announce Thursday that a suicide attack outside Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport killed at least two people and wounded 15 more. Other explosions in Kabul, including one at a major hotel, were also reported. Later reports had at least 13 American troops and over 170 Afghans were killed by an apparent suicide bomber.
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US leaves deserts behind and calls it peace
by Ekaterina Blinova
Retired UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order Alfred-Maurice de Zayas has sat down to discuss the hasty evacuation from Kabul, the consequences of the nearly 20-year occupation of Afghanistan, and how the international community can help the Afghan people tackle a humanitarian crisis. On 16th August, President Joe Biden addressed the nation on Afghanistan defending Washington’s decision to withdraw. Ex-President Donald Trump was quick to retort: “It’s not that we left Afghanistan, it’s the grossly incompetent way we left”. The US pullout has been subjected to harsh criticism in the press, but Alfred de Zayas argues that the US should not have invaded Afghanistan in the first place.
Sputnik: Do you think the US withdrawal and the Taliban’s victory will really bring an end to the 20-year war? What are the odds of Afghanistan being dragged into a new violent civil war now?
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World mourns loss of renowned “Red poet”
by Chris Mahin
THE WORLD has lost a great poet – and a militant communist. Jack Hirschman died suddenly on 22nd August at his home in the North Beach district of San Francisco. He was 87 years old. He died in his sleep, shortly before he was scheduled to take part in a Zoom meeting of the World Poetry Movement (WPA), a group of which he had recently been appointed coordinator.
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