National News
Stop the Genocide!
by Theo Russell
Tens of thousands of people across England, Wales and Scotland took to the streets last Saturday in support of the demands to Stop the Genocide, Hands Off Lebanon and Don’t Attack Iran.
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Battle of the bureaucrats
by New Worker correspondent
In addition to fighting em ployers Unite is involved in a struggle with a former assistant general secretary. Howard Beckett has just lost an unfair dismissal claim against the union in the midst of an ongoing police investigation into claims of bribery, fraud and mon ey-laundering at the union
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The Housing Question
by New Worker correspondent
Two sets of housing workers are taking industrial action. In the Midlands, employees of West Midlands Citizen Housing association are up in arms over pay. Some 200 repair workers responsi ble for the maintenance of 30,000 homes are taking industrial action after re jecting a four per cent pay offer that would leave many of them still on the minimum wage.
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All Vets Greedy and Small
by New Worker correspondent
All Creatures Great and Small. In May of last year the British Veterinary Union (BVU), which is part of Unite, and Valley Vets in South Wales both an nounced that they signed a recognition agreement that was hailed as the first ever n the UK with a private veterinary practice.
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A Targeted Strike
by New Worker correspondent
Perth & Kinross is better known for its grouse shoot ing than being the epicentre of the class struggle. How ever, Unison has changed that. All the county’s 50 primary schools, and two secondaries, have closed due to industrial action by janitors and classroom as sistants who walked out on Monday and could remain so for a fortnight. Unison members rejected a pay offer of either 3.6 per cent or £1,292 in August which had been accepted by GMB and Unite.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
October saw five local by-elections in Scotland. On the first Thursday of the month two by-elec tions in the nationalist stronghold of Dundee saw the SNP maintain their control of the city council when they retained one seat and won another from Labour.
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International News
Pragmatism: a more realistic option
by Mark Blacklock , Global Times
The Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, went Beijing for talks with the Chinese government last weekend.
Britain’s top diplomat was not going to be able to reset his country’s relations with China in a single, brief visit this past weekend, but, as the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Foreign Secretary David Lammy seemed prepared to make that first move during his trip to Beijing. Only time will tell whether this tentative first step leads both countries to a welcome destination.
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A case for two wheels
by Alex Reeves, VNS
commute is nothing but a chore, for me it’s a welcome start to the day, an opportunity to clear my head and switch off before the working day begins – as long as I beat the 7am rush. I don’t have a chauffeur, no fancy SUV to boost my so cial status, not even a nicely air-conditioned car for that matter. In fact, if it were up to me I’d throw every single non-essential four-wheeled vehicle off Nhật Tân Bridge.
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Deepening ties for a Multipolar World Order
Sputnik
The XVI BRICS Summit kicked off in Kazan, Russia on Tuesday with the arrival of global leaders, and President Putin’s high-level meetings with several of them.
Before the summit’s formal kick-off, Putin welcomed UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in the Kremlin, where they reaffirmed the “historical and strategic” nature of their relation ship. And on the opening day Putin held discussions with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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BRICS – a necessary bridge
by Elson Concepción Pérez , Granma
“The world needs BRICS because it would free it from the dollar, from blackmail, from dependence and from the economic blockade,” says a report on the Sputnik website. This truth is the result of the analysis of specialists who follow the subject, on the oc casion of the BRICS Summit that took place in the Russian city of Kazan this week.
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Features
Lenin’s Nature Reserves – a great Soviet achievement
by Graham Holton, Guardian (Australian communist weekly)
The Soviet Union was a cradle of environmen talism, a global pioneer in nature conservation. Two days after tak ing power in the Oc tober 1917 Revolution Lenin’s government issued the decree On Land, declaring all for ests, waters, and sub soil minerals to be the property of the state. On 14th May 1918 the government enacted the On Forests law that created a Central Ad ministration of For ests of the Republic to manage the forests on the basis of planned reforestation and sus tained yield. Forests were divided into an exploitable sector and a protected sector, which included erosion control, protection of water basins, and the preservation of “monuments of nature”.
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