THE HEALTH and Safety Executive (HSE) published its first interim report into the Paddington rail crash last week. The report found that signal 109 was obscured by overhead cables and gantries, making it hard for the driver to see the signal. The HSE report made it clear that the driver of the Thames train was not to blame for the crash.
THE INDIAN cyclone has caused complete devastation to one of the poorest areas of India. Ten million people's lives have been ruined and thousands are dead.
THE BRITISH government secretly sprayed huge areas of the country with deadly chemical spray in the 1950s, it has been revealed. The Ministry of Defence's chemical and biological warfare establishment at Porton Down conducted the secret experiments. It sprayed chemical spray and bacteria over Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire, Dorset, Somerset and Surrey. Scientists claimed they wanted to find how vulnerable Britain was to a biological attack from the Soviet Union.
THE TORIES and the British press have whipped themselves into an anti-French frenzy over beef during the last fortnight. Labour cabinet ministers, like agriculture secretary Nick Brown, have encouraged the mood. But they all ignore the most basic facts about British beef and BSE.
NURSES' UNION leaders in Ireland ordered over 27,000 striking nurses back to work last week while they ballot on a deal proposed by the Irish government. Many nurses are unhappy with the proposals, which do not meet their demand for every long serving staff nurse to receive higher pay. Instead the government is proposing to create 2,500 positions of "senior staff nurse" which will only benefit a minority of nurses.
Sales of Socialist Worker outside workplaces are gathering strength. Last week in central London 14 were sold at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, 9 at Mount Pleasant post office and 5 at the Westminster site of the Jubilee Line Extension. In the north east 15 papers were sold at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary with £15 collected for the Socialist Worker Appeal and £11 at Sunderland Civic Centre where 11 was collected. In Manchester 16 papers were sold at the town hall, 12 at Oldham Road post office and 8 at the Marks and Spencer construction site. In Bristol sales included 11 at the Avonmouth Bridge site and 9 at the central telephone exchange, while on Merseyside 15 were sold at
WORKERS ON Tyneside's Metro light rail system are threatening strike action over millennium holiday payments. They have rejected by eight to one an offer of a £350 bonus, triple pay and a day off for those working after 8pm on New Year's Eve. The RMT union, representing half of Metro's 600 employees, is asking for a £750 millennium bonus.
CAR WORKERS in Coventry have been taking French lessons! The French parliament last week approved the key stage in a law cutting hours to 35 a week with no loss of pay. Unions at Peugeot in Britain are now demanding that the French company's 6,000 workers in Coventry get the same.
MORE AREAS are getting organised behind the campaign for the election of Roger Bannister for general secretary of Britain's largest union, UNISON. Activists on Merseyside met last week to plan a public meeting to build the fight for a socialist alternative to UNISON's current leadership.
ABOUT 50 people attended a counter-demonstration to face down an annual anti-abortion commemoration in Glasgow last week. The anti-abortion "vigil", on the anniversary of the passing of the act which legalised abortion in Britain in 1967, was much smaller than in previous years. The pro-choice lobby included health workers, lecturers and students. Men joined women in with angry chants of, "No return to the backstreet - a woman's right to choose", and, "Not the church, not the state, women must decide their fate."
HOME HELPS in Derbyshire have voted by more than nine to one for industrial action to stop the introduction of electronic time sheets. The result is a blow to the Labour controlled council, whose scheme has been dubbed "electronic tagging" by the home helps. The industrial action was due to start on Wednesday of this week and will allow home helps to boycott the scheme.
LEADERS OF the AUT lecturers' union have disgracefully suspended industrial action over pay. The campaign began earlier this year with an excellent one day strike. Since then it has consisted mainly of boycotts of some administration tasks and admissions inquiries. The union's winter council (a delegate based body similar to a conference in other unions) could be asked to consider holding another ballot for action if there is not sufficient progress by the time it is held.
