National News
Low Workload Problems
by New Worker correspondent
Across the Irish Sea the new Stormont administration is facing demands from Unite the union’s Registered Childminder (RCM) branch which points out that due lack of an effective government in the six provinces about 300 Registered Childminders have left the profession. This is due to both low wages and the number of infants they are supposed to look after. Ironically they are not complaining that they deal with too many but are only allowed six compared to 12 in England and 10 in Wales, resulting in much lower incomes.
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Actively Preventing Recruitment
by New Worker correspondent
Local government union Unison has accused the Government of actually obstructing recruitment for social care jobs.
Unison has come out strongly against another major barrier discouraging recruitment: the recent announcement by Care Minister Helen Whately that migrant care staff coming to the UK will be banned from bringing their families with them from next month
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Social Worker wars
by New Worker correspondent
In Wiltshire both the Tory County Council and the Labour controlled Swindon Borough Council are in dispute with their social workers. GMB say that social workers are facing a proposed pay cut which will see their contractual out-of-hours bonus removed, resulting in some staff losing up to 20 per cent of their annual salary.
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Never Knowingly Over Paid
by New Worker correspondent
All too belatedly, workers (sorry, partners) at John Lewis and its supermarket chain Waitrose are discovering the merits of trade unionism. This come after the company (sorry, partnership) announced it was cutting its redundancy pay in half. John Lewis closed eight stores after the pandemic lockdown was lifted forcing the bourgeois of Aberdeen, Tunbridge Wells and York to slum it in Marks & Spencer and the House of Fraser.
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Pensions Robberies
by New Worker correspondent
Last week, a downmarket rival of Waitrose announced a jump in profits for the sixth consecutive quarter. For the year to 29th October Morrisons reported an increase of 6.5 per cent to £970 million with fourth-quarter profits up 8.5 per cent to £306m. This came despite heavy investment in smaller shops and taking over others .
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Gaza: Stop the Genocide!
by New Worker correspondent
London comrades joined over the 200,000-strong march through central London in solidarity with the Palestinian people last weekend while thousands of others took part in similar demonstrations throughout the country.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
It has been said that it was unfortunate that Nicola Sturgeon’s appearance at the Edinburgh part of the COVID inquiry came too late for the Oscars ceremony as she could have got one for bursting into tears just in time for the lunchtime BBC News. Tory Scottish Secretary, Alister Jack, suggested that Sturgeon could “cry from one eye” if she wanted, but it was clear that her distress was real, as what remained of her reputation was destroyed under the forensic questioning of Jamie Dawson KC. Even the very few remaining former Sturgeon loyalists think the waterworks were on behalf of those who died in the pandemic.
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International News
NATO escalation: a new provocation
by Mark Blacklock , Global Times
It would be misleading to call NATO’s ongoing exercise simply a war game because that evokes scenes of people in costume re-enacting historic battles or modern armies charging about field-testing their tactics and equipment. But Exercise ‘Steadfast Defender 2024’ is far from harmless. It is very much a rehearsal, and – in a theatre where war is already raging, possibly even a provocation. With the Russia-Ukraine conflict still ongoing, Steadfast Defender – NATO’s largest military venture since the Cold War, could be seen by Moscow as a deliberate poking of the Russian bear.
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Transatlantic Civil Servants’ Statement on Gaza
More than 800 officials in the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union have released a public letter of dissent against their governments’ support of Israel in its war in Gaza.
It Is Our Duty To Speak Out When Our Governments’ Policies Are Wrong
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Chávez gone but his legacy continues
by Roberto Morejón, Radio Havana Cuba
With the legacy of Hugo Chavez Venezuelans continue to resist the adversities derived from US sanctions, now in the process of reactivation.
Chavez, a military man of the new type, began his first mandate on 2nd February 1999 and from the very first moment he demonstrated his strength and commitment to the people on the podium and in informal conversations with his compatriots in the political trenches
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The blood and lives of imperialism’s servants
by Vsevolod Rozumny, Red Square Molotov Club
Palestine and Yemen, Ukraine and Myanmar, Iraq and Syria – all current conflicts in the World tend to escalate and expand geographically. Everywhere the countries of the imperialist centre participate in them – America, Britain and the British Commonwealth, France, Germany and the rest of the European Union
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Russians foil terror attack in Crimea
by Sputnik
Yet another Ukrainian terrorist act has been prevented by Russia’s security service. Three people have been detained in Crimea accused of planning to blow up a car belonging to one of the representatives of the Crimean authorities on the orders of Ukrainian intelligence.
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Beware imperialism’s war on Iran
Workers World
Will the escalation in bombing by US and British warplanes against people in Syria, Iraq and Yemen lead to a regional war with Iran?
Despite declara - tions from President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin that they seek no war with Iran, every day the genocide in Gaza continues brings that war closer. Every bomb and rocket the US Air Force launches against the region expands the war
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Features
Zionism’s unsolvable predicament
by Sara Flounders, Workers World (USA)
The 22nd January explosion in Gaza that killed 21 Israeli soldiers and left 33 wounded, 11 critically, happened as they were attempting to lay down explosives to demolish a block of housing units. The explosion brought the buildings down on top of them, burying them under tons of rubble. It was the largest reported casualty for the Israeli Occupation Forces since they began the invasion of Gaza.
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China: Ice-breaking spirit for a better future
In 1954 the “Ice-Breakers”, the 48 Group Club was established after the first British trade delegation travelled to the newly formed People’s Republic of China to initiate trade relations between the two countries. Seventy years later, China-UK relations face greater uncertainties and challenges. In an interview with Global Times reporter Ma Ruiqian, the Chairman of the 48 Group Club, Stephen Perry, shared his views on the “ice-breaking spirit”, China-UK relations and the current hype surrounding the “China threat”.
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