National News
What does Shapps’s appointment mean for the UK?
by Ekaterina Blinova , Sputnik
Ben Wallace has resigned as defence secretary, with Grant Shapps being quickly tapped to fill his shoes. What’s behind the latest reshuffle within the Sunak government?
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Slice of the Pie
by New Worker correspondent
Industrial action is underway at Sanquhar in Dumfriesshire where Browns Food Group, manufacturer of foods such as haggis and bacon, are in dispute with 180 of their workers. Strike action and an overtime ban began last Monday after production, distribution and maintenance members rejected a pay offer from the company that only equalled the real Living Wage of £10.90 per hour.
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Poverty Pay for Poverty Workers
by New Worker correspondent
Workers at the homeless charity St Mungo’s have won a pay battle against their uncharitable bosses. Their strike, which began on the 30th May, has concluded with an inflation-busting pay award. This works out at 10.74 per cent based on a median wage, or £3,125 in cash terms. There is also a one-off payment of £700 for most workers, with lower-paid workers doing best. The battle has also shamed the executive directors at the charity into taking a pay freeze for 2023/24 and has secured longer holidays for workers
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Rubbish Policy
by New Worker correspondent
Since the beginning of July refuse collectors in Canterbury have been taking industrial action to secure a decent pay rise, which the Labour-controlled council say they cannot afford to pay until next January. They also said their offer of £15 per hour for drivers and £12 per hour for loaders from January 2024 was final.
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Stepping stones to socialism
by New Worker correspondent
Friends of Korea met in London last weekend to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on 2nd September 1948.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Soon after being elected SNP leader the victor Humza Yousaf promised a “Summer of Independence”. Summer has been and almost gone, but the only summertime activities involving the SNP have revolved in one way or another around what must now be the most famous campervan in history.
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International News
Rising anger at Japan’s nuclear waste dumping
by Otis Grotewohl, Workers World (USA)
The Japanese government okayed releasing wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific last month, angering workers throughout the region and sparking numerous protests in south Korea, China and Japan.
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Justice takes time… but it comes
by Roberto Morejón , Radio Havana Cuba
Almost 50 years after the murder of Víctor Jara, six high-ranking military officers were sentenced to 25 years in prison, while another received eight years, for their participation in the torture of and crimes against the Chilean singer-songwriter and lawyer Littré Quiroga
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Features
People’s China: taking the lead for peace
by Andy Brooks
New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks took part in a seminar on the role of the Communist Party of China and the world today at the Chinese embassy in London in August. This is his contribution to the discussion.
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The race for moondust: US imperialism versus China
by Janet Mayes, Workers World (USA)
There is much hullabaloo about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Artemis III project, which boasts with great fanfare that it will land the first woman and the first person of colour on the Moon in the next two or three years. The mission depends on the success of centi-billionaire Elon Musk’s super rocket, SpaceX’s Starship, designed to ferry astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon’s surface.
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In the shadow of the atom bomb
Film Review by Ben Soton
Oppenheimer (2003). Certificate 15; 180 mins. Director: Christopher Nolan. Writers: Christopher Nolan, Kai Bird, Martin Sherwin. Stars: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon.
Christopher Nolan’s latest film covers the life of J Robert Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy, the theoretical physicist who developed the atomic bomb.
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Challenging the demonisation of Stalin
Book review by J Sykes, Fightback News (USA)
Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend by Domenico Losurdo. Iskra Press: Madison, Wisconsin (USA), 2023; 388pp; rrp: £12.71.
The publication of the new English translation of Domenico Losurdo’s book, Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend, is a major event for Marxists, as well as for scholars of Soviet history in the English-speaking world. Originally published in Italian in 2008, Iskra Press has just released the first authorised translation into English, thanks to the translation work of Henry Hakamäki and Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro. y Britain, such as India, Nigeria and South Africa.
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