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The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

Lead story

Famine as an act of war – Zionist war-crimes in Gaza

by Ed Newman, Radio Havana Cuba

The United Nation’s humanitarian aid chief told a meeting of the UN Security Council that “acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes” are being committed in Gaza where Israel’s military continues to bombard, besiege and prevent aid from reaching the civilian population.

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The Working Day and Working Week

by New Worker correspondent

One of the major objects of the trade union movement has been to secure reductions in the working day. This cause has sometimes been popular with the bourgeoisie as well as workers. When the industrial revolution brought about long hours in the dark satanic mills shortening the working day was a popular cause among Tory landlords, as long as it did not apply to their agricultural labourers. The bourgeoisie also took an interest. While they couldn’t care less about the long hours in the cotton factories, they worried about the effect of railway workers falling asleep at the end of a 16-hour shift and causing death and injuries in the first-class carriages. Even some of the bigger cotton masters occasionally looked kindly on the cause if it could help put smaller rivals out of business.

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Editorial

People’s China leads the way

The UN Climate Change Conference kicked off in Baku, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, this week, amid hopes that the COP29 summit will bolster climate finance, carbon trading and the global transition from fossil fuels. Keir Starmer was there, pledging to reduce carbon emissions by 81 per cent relative to 1990 levels by 2035. But this did little to off-set the fear amongst the leaders of the Global South that the new Trump administration in the USA will seriously undermine international efforts to deal with the ecological crisis.

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