National News
Grenfell Tower:
People want answers
by Oleg Burunov
ON TUESDAY, a memorial service took place at Westminster Abbey to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire in West London, which claimed the lives of at least 72 people and injured over 70 more.
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North of the Border
AFTER rejecting a 4.2 per cent offer from the recently nationalised ScotRail drivers’ union ASLEF has recommended a five per cent offer which has yet to be balloted by their 2,000 Scottish members, and on which RMT have yet to voice an opinion. This came after 1,000 services were cancelled when drivers refused to work on rest days, resulting in the last trains on some routes leaving at eight pm.
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NHS workers woes
by New Worker correspondent
ANOTHER area where urgent action is needed on the pay front is in the National Health Service across Britain as a whole. The TUC recently issued a report that NHS workers are facing huge real terms pay cuts this year if ministers impose a three per cent pay settlement.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
SCOTLAND’S First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has unveiled what she called a “refreshed” case for independence telling the media that her government had an “indisputable mandate” for a second independence referendum.
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Resistance grows to Rwanda camps
by New Worker correspondent
DEMONSTRATORS gathered outside the Home Office in London on Monday to protest against the Government’s plan to send asylum-seekers to detention camps in central Africa. Around a thousand people rallied outside the Home Office HQ in Westminster to oppose widely-condemned plans to send refugees to detention camps in Rwanda that have even been denounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prince of Wales.
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Solidarity in the West Country
by New Worker correspondent
Korean solidarity activists returned to Taunton last month for a seminar at the Memorial Hall in Taunton on 28th May.
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International News
Why do so many foreigners make Vietnam their home?
by Sean Nolan
FOR MANY years now, Vietnam has been a popular tourist destination – in fact, prior to the start of the Covid pandemic in 2019, over 18 million international tourists visited the country.
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Ukraine:
Western media change their tune
by Ekaterina Blinova
THE WESTERN corporate media has been on the side of the US decision to arm Ukraine while relentlessly vilifying Russia; yet suddenly, the latest series of articles mark a noticeable change in tone and suggest that relations between Kiev and Washington are not as warm as they’ve been thought to be since late February, US journalist Max Parry says.
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Democratic Korea reaches out to Russia
NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong Un has assured Russian President Vladimir Putin of his people’s “full support” for Moscow’s efforts “to safeguard the dignity, security and right to the development of the country,” in a congratulatory message on Russia Day
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Greeks protest against NATO ties
by our Balkan affairs correspondent
Ever since Greece joined NATO along with Turkey in 1952, it has always been controversial. Since the conflict in Ukraine started the Greek conservative New Democracy government has ratified a new arrangement called the Greek-American Mutual Defence Cooperation Agreement (MDCA) which was passed by the Greek parliament on 13th May
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Winds of change
by Guillermo Alvarado
WITH THE first round of the legislative elections in France over, the government of President Emmanuel Macron is in serious danger of losing its absolute majority in the National Assembly, which will make it much more difficult to move forward with his neo-liberal work programme.
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Free the Kononovich brothers!
by New Worker correspondent
One hundred days have passed since the kidnapping and detention of Communist Youth members, Mikhail and Alexander Kononovich, by the reactionary Ukrainian regime.
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Features
The contradiction between mental and manual labour
by J Sykes
SINCE the very origin of class society, when the productive forces developed to the point of producing some surplus beyond bare subsistence, the contradiction between mental and manual labour has been a characteristic of productive relations. Broadly speaking this means that the majority of people toil away physically, while a small minority conducts intellectual labour, such as science and art or planning and administration.
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The anti-Irishness
that’s always there
by Joe Dwyer
… l know your streets aren’t paved with gold
because l laid them, come rain or cold,
your M1s and your M62s,
reading your B&B cards: No Blacks, No Irish,
No Dogs, No Jews.
I am the slighted Irish minding your sick,
teaching your children. You called me thick…
from The Trojan Donkey edited by Ian Duhig and Teresa O’Driscoll
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