National News
Still repeating the same old mistakes?
by Mark Blacklock , Global Times
The British government announced on Wednesday that it is forcing a Chinese company to sell its 80.2 per cent stake in a Scottish microchip manufacturer. Even though it has broken no laws, rules, regulations or sanctions, it is somehow poses “risks to national security”. An official statement claimed the Glasgow-based tech firm FTDI risked operating in a way “contrary to UK national security”. Yet, instead of requiring FTDI to change its ways, the UK instead punished its largest shareholder, Beijing-based and China-registered Future Technology Devices International Holding Ltd.
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Defend People’s Korea!
by New Worker correspondent
NCP leader Andy Brooks joined protesters outside the BBC HQ in London on Tuesday calling for an end to the demonising of the DPR Korea by the state-owned broadcasting service. A letter of protest from the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) to the Director-General and Management board of the BBC was handed to a member of the BBC staff.
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Class War in Knightsbridge
by New Worker correspondent
Once again the class struggle has erupted in Knightsbridge, where workers at Harrods are balloting for industrial action that could take place just before the busy Christmas period
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Across the River
by New Worker correspondent
The same union has also been active at another grand London institution. It has organised migrant cleaners at the massive Battersea Power Station complex, which is now occupied by posh flats and posher shops, to say nothing of an Ariel swimming pool between two buildings. In alliance with the GMB, UVW is attempting to force the owners to pay decent wages and conditions
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Korea on the Mersey!
by New Worker correspondent
Korean solidarity campaigners re- turned to the Casa Bar in the heart of Liverpool’s uni- versity district last week to hear a re- port from Dermot Hudson about what he saw in the DPR Korea when he was there in April.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
The Second Coming of the most Scottish ever President of the USA has had a mixed reception here.
The Donald makes much of his Scottish ancestry. He is the son of Mary Ann Macleod of Tong on Isle of Lewis who emigrated to the USA, aged 18, in 1930. That is better ancestry to have in American politics that that of his father who has a German background. Trump tends not to remind us that his father was arrested in 1927 for his association with an important Scottish-American institution, the Ku Klux Klan. Established to intimidate Blacks after the ending of slavery in the southern states, the KKK’s symbolism, from its very name and use of Scottish symbols such as the St Andrew’s Cross and the fiery cross (originally used to rouse Scottish clans into fighting one another), mark the Klan as Scottish as haggis and chips
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International News
Realism in the Zelensky camp?
Sputnik
Kiev is stepping back from the hard-line ‘victory plan’ outlined by Vladimir Zelensky in mid-October and is now prepared to discuss the prioritisation of security over territory. Ukrainian officials are now hinting that land has become secondary to security guarantees in Kiev’s calculations on ending or at least freezing the conflict with Russia. “The territorial question is extremely important, but it’s still the second question. The first question is security guarantees,” an anonymous senior Ukrainian official told the New York Times.
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Why Trump won
Radio Havana Cuba
Despite the fact that until the last moment the polls showed the Republican and Democratic candidates running neck-andneck in the US presidential race, in the end Kamala Harris lost by a wide margin. There are several factors that influenced this result, which will undoubtedly have repercussions in the international arena, and among them is the late entry of the vice-president into the race, while Donald Trump had already established his campaign in the country.
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Features
For a genuine working-class party
by Ian Donovan
Last month Ihe NCP and the RCPB (ML) held a seminar to look at the challenges facing the communist movement following Labour’s victory in the summer general election. Both parties believe this is a discussion that needs to be taken throughout the labour movement. At the seminar Ian Donovan spoke on behalf of the Consistent Democrats, a Trotskyist movement that takes its name from a famous phrase of Lenin’s, and has, over the years, supported a number of NCP initiatives including the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity campaign. This is Ian’s contribution.
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1917: Socialism is the answer, whatever the question
by Nikos Mottas, IDOC
This month marks the 107th anniversary of the single most important event of modern history: the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution. Its significance lies in the fact that it was historically the first conscious step in the transition from capitalism to socialism. Lenin’s slogan “the ice was broken, the road was paved” summarises the passage of social development to its highest level, which is socialism, the ultimate perspective of which is the classless communist society
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The other Cromwell’s story
TV review by by Ben Soton
What do we know about Henry VIII? He had six wives: three called Catherine, two called Anne and one called Jane. Less widely known is that he spent much of his reign in the company of men called Thomas. Thomas Wolsey, who served as Lord Chancellor in the early part of his reign, Thomas Howard the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas More, who also served as Lord Chancellor, as well as the less well-known Thomas Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton. The BBC’s latest Sunday night drama, Wolf Hall – The Mirror and the Light, is the story of Thomas Cromwell.
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