THE STRIKING mood sweeping journalists in local newspapers throughout Britain was set to hit the small Lincolnshire town of Spalding on Saturday. Journalists at the Spalding Guardian were to start strikes over low pay, the same issue which has sparked a spate of action in titles elsewhere (see round-up below) Trainees on the Spalding paper with university degrees are on just £9,500 a year.
THE VOTE which could oust Blair's favourite union leader, Sir Ken Jackson, from the head of the AEEU section of the Amicus union will start on 24 June. Jackson faces a serious challenge from left candidate Derek Simpson who gained over 100 nominations. These include factories like Ford, Vauxhall, Nissan and Rover.
FIREFIGHTERS ARE set to hold a national demonstration in London on Tuesday 11 June as part of their fight over pay. Council workers will then strike across London over pay on the two days following the firefighters' march.
THOUSANDS OF civilians are fleeing their homes in Kashmir. The death toll is mounting as shelling by Indian and Pakistani troops escalates. India and Pakistan were teetering on the brink of all-out war at the beginning of this week. Both states have nuclear weapons. Even a war using conventional arms will inflict slaughter in Kashmir and along the India-Pakistan border.
NEW LABOUR ministers are repeating the lies of the racists and the far right. They say there are too many refugees and immigrants in Britain. But the numbers applying for asylum last year amounted to a minuscule 0.12 percent of the population.
"MY SON Michael was murdered." Those damning words came from Geraldine Mungovan, whose son Michael met his death at work. An inquest this week found that the 22 year old student had been "unlawfully killed".
THOUSANDS OF people dying from asbestos-related diseases can now bring claims for compensation after a landmark ruling by five law lords on Thursday of last week. The judgement on three test cases is one of the most significant in the history of industrial disease.
HEALTH secretary Alan Milburn has been caught out fiddling the figures again. He claimed that New Labour's budget last month would mean an extra 15,000 doctors in the NHS by 2008. Yet his figures incorporate thousands of new doctors already pledged two years earlier.
IT'S NOT only on the railways that privatisation has been a disaster. The computer failure at the new air traffic control centre at Swanwick on Friday of last week meant that the number of flights was cut by half, and tens of thousands of passengers were stranded. This is the third failure of National Air Traffic Services (NATS) computers in three months.
THE government's Social Exclusion Unit made a damning admission over transport last week. New Labour's transport policies are helping the rich more than the poor, its report said.
THE PARASITE prince is set to get a £5 million makeover of his new London palace paid for from public money.
ONE IN five teachers are doing second jobs to make ends meet, according to the government's Office of National Statistics. Most of these 84,000 teachers were doing private tuition jobs at weekends and in holiday time, but many were also working in bars and factories.
