National News
A one-side partnership
by New Worker correspondent
A PETITION is circulating, which had nearly 30,000 signatures on Monday, claiming that that about a fifth of the 83,000 workers, sorry, “partners”, employed by John Lewis and Waitrose receive less than the “real living wage” of £9.50 per hour, or £10.85 in London, after the ending of their annual bonuses as a result of the pandemic.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Co-op: It’s what we do
SMALL shopkeepers were not difficult to differentiate from rays of sunshine. Very often self-made individuals, they ensured workers put in long hours before and after opening time and made sure that trade unionism never got a foot in their shop door through close supervision of their staff. Shop-keepers developed a passionate hatred of the rival co-operative movement that kept prices down for working-class consumers, and this petty bourgeois class hatred boiled over to the Co-op’s trade union allies.
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Scottish Political News
TUESDAY saw Holyrood hold one of its annual rituals with the Scottish Government informing the Scottish parliament of the plans for its new term of office. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon set out plans for a second independence referendum as she unveiled her government’s legislative agenda in Holyrood. The Scottish nationalist leader said her administration would restart work on “a detailed prospectus” ahead of a new vote, which she wanted to be held by the end of 2023 provided the COVID‑19 pandemic had passed.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Our new centurions
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Police Scotland have been hitting the headlines recently. At long last Police Scotland have finally admitted that they “materially contributed” to the death of a young mother who lay undiscovered in a crashed car that had come off a motorway near Stirling. Although the accident had been reported soon afterwards it took the police a whole three days to find the car. When they did the driver was found dead, but his 25-year-old female passenger was alive and conscious enough to speak; she died in hospital four days later.
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Government denies “secret plan” to move Trident to USA
by Oleg Burunov
THE MINISTRY of Defence (MoD) has dismissed reports about the government’s plans to relocate Britain’s Trident nuclear submarines abroad in the event of Scottish independence.
The statement follows a report in the Financial Times quoting unnamed sources as claiming that the UK is making “secret contingency plans” to move its Trident nuclear submarine bases from Scotland to the USA, or even France, if the northernmost part of the UK gains independence.
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Rising singer Reuben James connects with China through music
by Martina Fuchs
FAST-EMERGING British singer, songwriter and pianist Reuben James hopes to build more musical bridges with his audience in China in his new role as an ambassador for Chinese star pianist Lang Lang’s foundation, and said he is open for collaboration with Chinese artists.
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International News
Palestinians escape from high-security prison
by Ed Newman
THE HUNT is on for six Palestinian prisoners who escaped from a high-security jail in northern Israel early on Monday. The prisoners escaped from Gilboa jail, which is supposed to be one of Israel’s most secured facilities.
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Final resting place for Gaddafi
by Ilya Tsukanov
THE REMAINS of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi will be handed over to members of his tribe in Sirte for reburial, Saudi Arabia-based news channel AlHadath reports.
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Belarus communists look to China
Xinhua
PEOPLE’S CHINA has set “an example of what needs to be taken in the fight against such a terrible epidemic” says Alexei Sokol, the leader of the Communist Party of Belarus.
Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), China has become the only major economy in the world to see GDP growth in 2020 during the pandemic, and “this is what speaks about the policy that is being pursued. It means that people are constantly developing”, Sokol said.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Hurricane Ida: Government does nothing for the poor
by John Catalinotto
Gavrielle Gemma, a union and political organiser since the 1970s and now working with the New Orleans-based Workers Voice Socialist Movement, reports on the situation there, post-Hurricane Ida. Gemma is now living in a modest single-family home in the Florida neighbourhood of New Orleans, part of the Upper Ninth Ward.
“It’s bad,” she said. “Only poor folk stayed once the mayor and governor advised that people evacuate. That means the people left had no choice, no place to go, no money to pay for hotels or motels – assuming they could find a room. If they had made the evacuation mandatory, then the government would be responsible for the welfare of the people who left. But they’re doing nothing.
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Mikis Theodorakis 1925 – 2021
WFTU Secretariat
THE World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) on behalf of its 105 million members in 133 countries of the world sends its heartfelt condolences for the death of the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis who passed away last week at the age of 96.
Mikis Theodorakis 1925 – 2021
Features
What next after US defeat?
by Finian Cunningham
THERE MAY no longer be US military boots on the ground in Afghanistan, but there are still plenty of Afghan boots that Washington can mobilise to destabilise the country and, more importantly, the region.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Remembering the mother of Afghan women’s liberation
by Tim Wheeler
ALL THE newspapers and television news programmes right now are filled with stories about the dark future hanging over Afghan women and girls as the Taliban retakes control of their country. The Guardian has featured an article by an unnamed Afghan woman who said she is now hiding the two university degrees she earned, searching for a burqa to cover every inch of herself as the women-hating fundamentalists of the Taliban close in.
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Paw Patrol: the movie
by Tara Brady
The further adventures of the unaccountable, private crypto-fascist militia known as PAW Patrol.
“I ALREADY am eating from the trash can all the time,” said Slavoj Žižek in his entertaining documentary-essay, The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology. “The name of this trash can is ideology.”
Where Paw Patrol is concerned, the name of this trash can is more specifically fascism. (See also the trash can of misogyny: the misogyny of condemning girls to pink-attired, feminised behaviours or, in the case of female politician Mayor Goodway, bumbling incompetence.)
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