National News
China strengthens ties with Northern Ireland
land
Xinhua
Officials and academics from Northern Ireland expressed their willingness to enhance exchanges and co-operation with China during meetings last week with the Chinese Ambassador to the UK, Zheng Zeguang.
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A Very Minimum Wage
by New Worker correspondent
The 1st April saw the annual uprating of the official National Living Wage (NLW) to £10.42 per hour for those over 23 years of age, an increase of 92 pence or 9.7 per cent; those aged 21–22 getting £10.18 (a £1 rise); and £7.49 per hour for 18–20-year-olds (up 66p). Those under 18 have to make do with £5.28 (up by 47 pence). These were recommendations set by the Low Pay Commission and accepted by the Government.
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A Holiday Strike
by New Worker correspondent
At Heathrow Airport Easter is being marked by 10 days of strike action by over 1,400 security officers. The strike went ahead after unsuccessful pay talks. At present, the average salary of a Heathrow security guard, working endless shifts, is £30,000, of which £26,000 is the basic after three years experience, with a £4,000 shift allowance. Unite the union reckons that in real-terms this is 24 per cent less than in 2017. Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL) refused to substantially improve its pay offer and only offered a lump sum payment as an addition to the current offer.
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Outsourcing Battles
by New Worker correspondent
The pay struggle continues, meanwhile, for ‘outsourced’ workers. On London’s Docklands Light Railway (DLR), contracted-out staff working for ISS and belonging to transport union RMT walked out on 48-hours strike last weekend.
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Glasgow against NATO!
by New Worker correspondent
“We have been asked here if we have any permission to demonstrate on the Glasgow Green. I have replied: We, the representatives of the working-class parties, the true heirs of the Red Clyde, we have the historic and permanent right to express our views right here, with no additional legalisation!” This is how George Galloway, the leader of No2NATO and the Workers Party of Britain, opened the rally launching the No2NATO Scotland.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
It’s been a difficult week for our new First Minister what with the arrest of the husband of Nicola Sturgeon and the simmering discontent in his own camp amongst the followers of his beaten rivals. Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP, was taken in for questioning “in connection with the ongoing investigation into the funding and finances of the Scottish National party”. He was later released without charge “pending further investigation”.
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International News
Armed at Britain’s expense
by Svetlana Ekimenko, Sputnik
The British Army is being “hollowed out” by the eager gifting of military equipment to the Kiev regime, with the UK Treasury ostensibly warning in February that there will be “no new money” for the country’s own defence establishment.
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Germany: turning up the steam
by Arnold Schölzel, Junge Welt
A foretaste of the depth of the strike waves in France or Britain occurred in Germany on 27th March. For 24 hours planes were grounded and most buses and trains remained in their depots. Some 335,000 workers responded to the joint call by Verdi (United Services trade union) and the EVG transport union for a nationwide ‘warning strike’. [German unions traditionally call warning strikes as a show of strength when pay talks begin.]
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French workers keep up the fight
by G Dunkel , Workers World (USA)
The class struggle intensified after the Macron government rammed through the ‘reform’ of France’s pension system on 16th March – an attack which will require workers to work longer to obtain a full pension.
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Features
Ireland: No to the proxy war in Ukraine!
by Bill O’Brien one of the co-founders of the Irish Truth & Neutrality Alliance
The war in Ukraine has been going on for more then a year now and the left in Ireland are in a most confused state as they are in the rest of Europe and globally. Let’s examine the issues involved and the different attitudes that prevail.
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The view from Australia Whose rules? Whose order?
Guardian Australian communist weekly
Having rules and keeping them sounds like a good thing. Rules keep our roads safe. All our sports have rules. Rules mean other people don’t just do what they like when they like. So if rules are usually good, a rules-based international order should be good too. As with all other kinds of rules, the questions to ask before we accept the rules are: Whose rules is the order based on? Who enforces the rules? How are the rules enforced?
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Tarzan and the New Ivory Fever
by Moisés Saab , The Havana Reporter
Born in the USA, Edgar Rice Burroughs never went to Africa, nor in- deed anywhere beyond the American mainland apart from a visit to Ha- waii, but that did not stop him from creating a character that marked an era: Tarzan ries such as France, which have entered the era of welfarism.
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years
Grey power sleuths
Review by Ben Soton
The Bullet That Missed: (The Thursday Murder Club 3) by Richard Osman. Hardback: Viking, 2022; 432pp, rrp £20. Paperback: Penguin, 2023; 432pp, rrp £9.99.
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