Issue: January/February 2019
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Top Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s arrest – a provocation too far
Following an extradition request by the US, Miss Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer of the technology giant Huawei (pronounced ‘wah-way’ in Chinese), and the daughter of its founder, Ren Zhengfei, was detained at Vancouver airport by the Canadian authorities on Saturday 1 December during a... [Read more]
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Syria carves out her future
US imperialism, having failed in its mission to topple Syria’s legitimate leadership, is now reduced to acting like the proverbial dog in the manger. It cannot, through its cowardly combination of proxy forces and aerial terror, win the war which it orchestrated from the first. Yet it cannot live... [Read more]
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Brexit paralysis – government and opposition in a shambles
Theresa May’s days as Prime Minister are numbered. With Britain set to leave the European Union on 29 March 2019, May’s ‘Chequers deal’ stands on the verge of defeat. Two years after triggering Article 50, and fast running out of time, May’s government has entirely failed to produce an... [Read more]
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Ukraine: Provocation in the Kerch Strait
On 25 November three Ukrainian Navy ships entered the Russian territorial waters of the Kerch Straits, the narrow body of water that separates Russia from Crimea, travelling from the Black Sea in the direction of the Azov Sea. Because of the volume of shipping that passes along what is quite a... [Read more]
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France fights on against austerity, despite concessions
French President Macron has found himself in the international news quite a bit this year, mainly as his ‘hard-man’ of French bourgeois politics act has blown up in his face, thanks to the resistance of various workers and students, and he continues to stumble from one crisis to another. There... [Read more]
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Interserve – dead men walking?
The collapse of Carillion in January 2018 sent a shock wave through the whole outsourcing industry, calling into question the sanity of entrusting vast swathes of the public sector into the hands of giant capitalist monopolies like Kier, Capita, Mitie and Interserve. The last mentioned, once... [Read more]
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Cammell Laird strike suspended for now
The four-week delay in implementing redundancies at Cammell Laird, matched by Unite and GMB with a four-week suspension of strike action, is not the end of the struggle to save jobs at the yard, although it has saved the 291 workers expected to be made redundant from receiving redundancy notices... [Read more]
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Crude jingoism deployed to boost President Trump in US mid-term elections
Anyone who has access to a computer, a television, a radio or a newspaper has doubtless heard the news of the vast caravan of Central American peoples that was heading through Mexico, at the time leading up to the US mid-term elections. The participants were attributed with having the expressed... [Read more]
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The lengthy Marriott Hotel strike wins significant concessions
Marriott International is the biggest hotel chain in the world, with around 6,700 franchised hotels operating under 30 brand names in 130 countries. In 2017 Marriott raked in net profits of $1.37bn. These glittering rewards are not however reflected in the pay and working conditions of the... [Read more]
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Microchipping
As King Midas was condemned to turn everything he touched into gold, so capitalist social production relations work to turn all human relations into monetary transactions and all workers into mere machines for the production of surplus value for the capitalist. Given this deep alienation at the... [Read more]
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An introduction to the life and times of Maxim Gorky on the occasion of his 150th birthday
(presentation made by Paul Cannon at a public meeting of the Stalin Society, London, on 16 December 2018)“Forty years in the literary career of a great writer will always cover a large area on the ever-growing map of world culture. It is only at a distance that such a mountain range can be... [Read more]
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World War I in the Middle East and its aftermath
Presentation made to the Stalin Society, London, by Ella Rule on 18 November 2018Examining the situation at the end of WW1, one cannot help but remark on the truth of Mao Zedong’s observation that imperialists are paper tigers, with far greater impact on people’s minds than their actual physical... [Read more]
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WH Smith gobbles up another 74 post offices
Five years ago the government privatised the Royal Mail delivery service, and ever since the vultures have been circling the remaining Crown post office counter services too. The recent announcement that another 74 post offices are to be franchised out to high street monopoly WH Smith, in... [Read more]
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Asda workers fight job losses
Staff at ASDA in Queslett, Great Barr, are fed up with the imposition of ‘scan and go’ machines, taking the place of the usual checkout tills. Where once there were 31 manned tills, there are now only 20, and workers fear that up to a dozen jobs may go by February next year.As well as the threat... [Read more]
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Stifling criticism of Israel in the British trade-union movement
Reproduced from the Finsbury Communist of October 2018, with thanks.The delegates [to the annual Trades Union Congress conference held this year in Manchester] on September 12 waved Palestinian flags as they voted unanimously for Emergency Motion 4:Cuts to UNWRA and the Nation-State LawMover:... [Read more]
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A Texas elementary school speech pathologist refused to sign a pro-Israel oath — so she lost her job
A Texas elementary school speech pathologist refused to sign a pro-Israel oath, now mandatory in many states — so she lost her jobExtracts from an article by Glenn Greenwald dated December 17 2018 (Reproduced from The Intercept, with thanks)A children’s speech pathologist who has worked for the... [Read more]