National News
From Penny Post to the Interweb
by New Worker correspondent
FOR GENERATIONS, cartoonists and comedians have been unable to resist the temptation to make fun of dogs biting posties. All very well – but in real life the issue is a much more serious one. The postal workers’ union, the Communication Workers Union (CWU), puts this issue at the top of its concerns on its website.
It demands that the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act be better enforced and that it applies to all dogs, not just specific breeds, and that owners should be held responsible for incidents even if they are not present.
In evidence to a recent House of Commons committee, the union said that: “All animals can become vicious, if it has a bad owner. It is the owner that is the problem, the problem is on the other end of the lead.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
BORIS Johnson enjoyed basking in the praise of obscure eastern European politicians as he strutted round the diplomatic trail last week. But cold reality struck him when he crossed the border and tried to heal the rift with the Scottish Tories who have little faith in their Westminster leader.
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Freedom of Information Part 94
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Readers of this column will be aware that it often takes the use of the Freedom of Information (FoI) to get basic information out of the SNP Government. Last year alone cases included having to go through FoI procedures to establish the number of Covid related care home deaths, the actual number of jobs in the renewable energy, and matters relating to public subsidies to the publisher of Nicola Sturgeon’s selected speeches.
Now yet another is coming to light. Soon after becoming First Minister in 2014 Nicola Sturgeon said that she wanted to be judged on her record on Education. Now she has somewhat changed her tune.
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No, we can’t pay!
by New Worker correspondent
PROTESTORS gathered outside Downing Street on Saturday to condemn the spiralling cost of living, with demonstrations co-organised by the People’s Assembly and held in over 40 towns and cities across the UK, including Parliament Square in the heart of the capital.
Speaker after speaker spoke out about rising energy prices at the London demonstration, including a wide range of workers involved in industrial disputes. Unite members Arshad and Arnold, from Whipps Cross Hospital, joined the protest straight from their picket line, linking their fight against an insulting pay offer from an out-sourced employer to the broader issue of rising living costs.
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More nonsense from Johnson
by Finian Cunningham
“WHEN POLAND is threatened then the UK stands ready to help,” declared the Prime Minister during a staged visit to Warsaw this week sounding as if he were wearing shining armour instead of his trademark crumpled suit. But as he spoke more British troops were being deployed in Poland as well as in neighbouring Baltic states.
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International News
Rubbing salt into the wounds
by Zheng Xin & Shi Xiantao
THE AMERICAN decision to divert billions of dollars in frozen Afghan assets to the families of 9/11 victims is rubbing salt into the wounds of millions of suffering Afghan people.
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Colombia – and so it goes on
by María Josefina Arce
COLOMBIA never ceases to be in the news. A little more than a month and a half into this year, the high numbers of murders and massacres increase the concern that such actions will not have an immediate end and the worst days are yet to come.
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Under the thumb in the West Bank
by Ed Newman
ANOTHER bloody day has been witnessed in the occupied West Bank. This time in Jenin where 17-year-old Palestinian teen Mohammed Abu Salah was killed in the village of Silat al-Harithiya, as Israeli troops raided the town on Sunday night, to demolish the home of Palestinian prisoner Muhammad Jaradat.
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Features
A revolutionary salute to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic
by Devin Cole
THE 2nd December 2021 was the 46th anniversary of the end of the Laotian Civil War. Not only did the Royal Lao Government, in power from 1947–1975, fall that day, but also the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, a socialist nation with a Marxist-Leninist government, was established and remains in power to this day.
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