National News
How they live
by New Worker correspondent
SOME PEOPLE at least do not need to worry about having to go on strike for higher wages. At about two in the afternoon last Thursday (5th January) the CEOs of the FT Stock Exchange 100 index had earned more than the median UK full-time worker can expect to earn in a year
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The fight-back continues
by New Worker correspondent
LAST YEAR more than a million working days were lost to strike action, the highest figure since 2011. Although the high point was in October when almost half that, 417,000, were lost, 2023 is seeing the continuing of action from Shetland to the Sicily Isles. One sign of this is the newspapers have started publishing strike diaries of forthcoming actions, just like the football fixtures.
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Small but
perfectly formed
by New Worker correspondent
AMONGST some smaller strike actions taking place are those at the Driver, Vehicle and Licensing Agency (DVLA) in Swansea and Birmingham, who started a five-day strike on the Monday. In this case about 600 members of the Public and Commercial Service Union (PCS) who assess people’s medical ability to drive before granting them a driving licence have taken to the picket line.
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Private sector actions
by New Worker correspondent
IT IS NOT just in the public sector that industrial action (or the threat of it) is making itself felt.
At Luton Airport, 200 staff employed by GH London Ground Handling have secured a 19 per cent pay increase.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
THROUGHOUT the country Scots welcomed 2023 in street parties that lead to the usual consumption of strong spirit over a winter festival that has long been seen as far more important than Christmas. Christmas celebrations were, in fact, banned by the Scottish Puritans in 1640 and although this ban was lifted in 1712, the kirk frowned on anything that smacked of what it considered to be Catholic or pagan “superstition”.
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Corbyn joins Euston pickets
by New Worker correspondent
FORMER Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn joined Mick Lynch and other members of the RMT on the picket line at London’s Euston station on Saturday in the latest round of strikes to defend jobs, pay and conditions on the railways.
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International News
Travel testing irritation
CGTN
IS THE pre-departure polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test the best way to collect COVID 19 data or is it an unnecessary irritation on global travel? Or just another political tool in an anti-China narrative?
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A British animal rescuer in Vietnam
by Thanh Nga
Harold Browning was a care manager for rhinos and ungulates at Longleat Safari Park in the UK, from 2011–2014. From 2014–2017 he worked as an animal manager for Four Paws Kosovo and deputy director of Four Paws Việtnam. Since 2018, he has worked at the Hànội Wildlife Rescue Centre.
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Russians advance
in central Donbas
by our Eastern European Affairs correspondent
RUSSIAN forces have taken control of the “entire territory” of Soledar, a strategic town on the western front which is surrounded by salt-mines that give the town its name. Wagner soldiers, members of Russia’s answer to the French Foreign Legion, have taken the town hall but some Ukrainian troops are still holding out in the ruins of the town that had a population of over 10,000 before the war broke out last year
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Remembering Filipino revolutionary leader
by Monica Moorehead
A STANDING-ROOM only forum, Ka Joma Lives: International Proletarian Revolutionary Leader, Theoretician, Teacher and Poet in the Service of the People, was held in tribute to the Filipino leader, Professor Jose Maria Sison, in Amsterdam on 23rd December
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Indonesian leader regrets 60s massacres
Sputnik
INDONESIAN President Joko Widodo publicly acknowledged that gross human rights violations took place in the country’s past in a rare admission this week.
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Features
Football and Politics, Politics in Football
by R Arun Kumar
ARGENTINA won the FIFA World Cup. Millions of football crazy fans heaved a sigh of relief. Messi achieved his dream, cementing his place as one of the greatest footballers of all time.
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Blasts from the past: The Spying Game
by Ekaterina Blinova
THE USA is intensifying efforts to swap former US Marine Paul Whelan, convicted for espionage in Russia. The spy case evokes strong memories of the covert struggle between American and Soviet intelligence agencies in the not-so-distant past that both sides kept out of the media spot-light until an incident in the late 1970s.
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Life in the Balance
by John Maryon
BIODIVERSITY refers to the total variety of all different life forms found in one location. Animals, aquatic life, plants, fungi and micro-organisms flourishing together where conditions are suitable. Species may have a mutual dependence upon each other. It could be a simple relationship such as squirrels burying nuts for food that are forgotten and grow into trees. It could be a symbiotic association in which one species could live within another. It could also take the form a predatory relationship.
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