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Post by Admin on Mar 25, 2024 22:39:53 GMT
Draft UN Report Finds Israel Has Met Threshold for Genocide "Israel's genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza is an escalatory stage of a long-standing settler colonial process of erasure." www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-genocide-2667597341The United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday published a draft report that found "reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a move that came on the same day as the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in the ongoing war. The advance unedited version of the report—entitled Anatomy of a Genocide—concludes that Israel's far-right government and military "have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people." "The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel's assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group," the draft report states, enumerating Israeli actions that violate Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: "Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to group members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." "Israel has de facto treated an entire protected group and its life-sustaining infrastructure as 'terrorist' or 'terrorist-supporting,' thus transforming everything and everyone into either a target or collateral damage, hence killable or destroyable," the paper continues. "In this way, no Palestinian in Gaza is safe by definition. This has had devastating, intentional effects, costing the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroying the fabric of life in Gaza, and causing irreparable harm to its entire population."
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Post by Admin on Mar 26, 2024 15:22:09 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 26, 2024 19:04:25 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 26, 2024 19:17:06 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 26, 2024 23:55:04 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 27, 2024 11:15:52 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 27, 2024 18:07:49 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 27, 2024 18:17:28 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 27, 2024 21:45:57 GMT
Leon Trotsky en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_TrotskyLev Davidovich Bronstein (7 November [O.S. 26 October] 1879 – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,[c] was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, journalist, and political theorist. He was a central figure in the 1905 Revolution,[4] October Revolution, Russian Civil War, and the establishment of the Soviet Union. Alongside Vladimir Lenin, Trotsky was widely considered the most prominent Soviet figure and was de facto second-in-command during the early years of the Russian Soviet Republic. Ideologically a Marxist and a Leninist, his thought and writings inspired a school of Marxism known as Trotskyism. Born into a wealthy Jewish family in Yanovka in what was then the Russian Empire, Trotsky was initially a narodnik, but embraced Marxism soon after moving to Nikolayev in 1896. In 1898, he was arrested for revolutionary activities and exiled to Siberia, but in 1902 escaped to London, where he met Lenin and wrote for the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party's paper Iskra. Trotsky initially sided with Julius Martov's Mensheviks against Lenin's Bolsheviks during the party's 1903 split, but was non-factional from 1904. During the 1905 Revolution, Trotsky returned to Russia and became chairman of the Saint Petersburg Soviet. He was again exiled to Siberia, but escaped in 1907 and spent time in London, Vienna, Switzerland, Paris, and New York. After the February Revolution of 1917, which overthrew the tsar, Trotsky returned to Russia and joined the Bolsheviks. As chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, he played an important role in the October Revolution that overthrew the Provisional Government. In Lenin's first government, Trotsky was appointed the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and led the negotiations for the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, by which Russia withdrew from World War I. From 1918 to 1925, he served as the People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, founding the Red Army; establishing conscription, training, and discipline; and leading it to victory in the Russian Civil War. In 1922, Trotsky and Lenin formed an alliance against the emerging Soviet bureaucracy;[5] Lenin proposed that Trotsky become his Deputy Chairman and preside over economic management[6] at the Council of People's Commissars, but he declined the post.[7] During the New Economic Policy, Trotsky led the party's Left Opposition, which advocated a programme of rapid industrialisation, voluntary collectivisation of agriculture, and expansion of workers' democracy. After Lenin's death in 1924, Trotsky was outmaneuvered by Joseph Stalin and his allies and lost his positions: he was expelled from the Politburo in 1926 and from the party in 1927, internally exiled to Alma Ata in 1928, and deported in 1929. He lived in Turkey, France, and Norway before settling in Mexico in 1937. In exile, Trotsky wrote extensively and polemically against Stalinism, supporting proletarian internationalism against Stalin's theory of "socialism in one country". Trotsky's own theory of "permanent revolution" posited that the revolution could only survive if extended to advanced capitalist countries. In The Revolution Betrayed (1936), Trotsky argued that the Soviet Union had become a "degenerated workers' state" due to its isolation, and called for an end to Stalin's bureaucratic dictatorship. He founded the Fourth International in 1938 as an alternative to the Comintern. In 1936, Trotsky was sentenced to death in absentia at the first of the Moscow show trials, and in 1940, he was assassinated at his home in Mexico City by NKVD agent Ramón Mercader. Written out of Soviet history books under Stalin, Trotsky was one of the few of his rivals who never received political rehabilitation from later leaders. In the Western world, he emerged as a hero of the anti-Stalinist left for his defense of a more democratic, internationalist form of socialism[8] against Stalinist totalitarianism and intellectual contributions to left-wing movements. Whilst some of his wartime measures have proved controversial and have been criticised along with his ideological defence of the Red Terror. Modern scholarship generally ranks his leadership of the Red Army highly among historical figures and he is credited for his major involvement with the military, economic, cultural[9] and political development of the Soviet Union.
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Post by Admin on Mar 27, 2024 22:01:59 GMT
Written evidence from the Association of Labour Providers SSP0025 Call for Evidence Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) is the basic minimum statutory payment an employee is entitled to for periods where they are unable to work because of illness. A person is eligible for SSP from the fourth day they are off sick. To be eligible for SSP a person must be classed as an employee and earn an average of at least £123 per week (the lower earnings limit). In 2019, the Government published Health is everyone’s business, a consultation on proposals to reduce ill health-related job loss. In July 2021 the Government published its consultation outcome which concluded that the consultation posed “important questions on the future of SSP which require further consideration” and it was “not the right time to introduce changes to the sick pay system”. The Work and Pensions Select Committee is conducting an inquiry looking into the current effectiveness of SSP in supporting claimants and if SSP should be reformed to better enable a recipient’s recovery and return to work. The Association of Labour Providers (ALP) ALP (www.labourproviders.org.uk) is a not-for-profit trade association promoting responsible recruitment and good practice for organisations that supply the workforce to the consumer goods supply chain across the food processing, horticultural and wider manufacturing, industrial, warehousing and distribution sectors. ALP members supply all of the Seasonal Worker Visa workers and around 75% of the temporary contingent workforce into the food growing and manufacturing supply chain. Many of these workers progress to form the permanent workforce. All organisations that supply labour into these sectors are required to be licensed by the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA). Labour providers operate in a very competitive market largely resulting from the downward pressure on costs exerted by the consumer goods supply chain. It follows that margins are thin, although just adequate to allow efficient businesses to continue. The actual hourly rate charged by a labour provider to the hiring client for the supply of temporary workers is ultimately a commercial agreement. Any agreed rate should take into account the particular costs of supply, including holiday, sickness and statutory payments. Hirers of temporary labour that pay unrealistically low rates are knowingly or recklessly conniving in illegality as these rates can only be achieved either through worker exploitation, such as holiday pay theft, or tax evasion or both committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/126959/pdf/
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Post by Admin on Mar 28, 2024 9:45:55 GMT
labourhub.org.uk/2024/03/28/the-next-steps-for-momentum/The Next Steps for Momentum By Hilary Schan and Kate Dove On Sunday 10th March, Momentum held our first ever all-member convention, online. We did so amidst a difficult political climate within Labour, from Starmer’s purge and selection stitch-ups to his Great Moving Right Show on economic, social and foreign policy. But the Convention showed the resilience of our movement. Hundreds of our members took part from across Britain and beyond to decide our next steps, with the majority of time given over to member debate and voting, a testament to our democratic socialist principles. And it was clear from the energy and enthusiasm of attendees, as well as the dozens of individuals and affiliates who submitted motions, that only the left has the answers to the deep crises facing our country. The day began with a recap of Momentum’s evolution over the years since our founding in 2015. Katy Clark MSP paid tribute to the culture of grassroots policymaking developed in the Corbyn years, while our co-founder James Schneider talked about the huge appetite in the country for far-reaching political and economic reform, the energy of Corbynism in mobilising it after 2015, and the need for a vehicle for that change today. As well as tackling the longer-term priorities of Momentum, members debated where we should prioritise our campaigning efforts. It should come as no surprise that, amidst Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, members chose to prioritise the issue of Palestine. A composite motion submitted by Labour CND, former Co-Chair Gaya Sriskanthan and others was selected – we will now campaign for an immediate ceasefire, the suspension of arms sales to Israel, the restoration of funding to UNRWA and accountability for Israel’s war crimes. In addition to our ongoing digital campaigning, we are committed to developing motions and presences on demonstrations, too. But recognising that Israel’s oppression of Palestinians did not start five months ago, we will work to tackle the root causes, namely occupation and apartheid, by promoting BDS in councils across the country, while continuing to resist Tory efforts to criminalise it. Additionally, our National Coordinating Group will also consider the second-placed campaign on local government funding. As the crisis of Tory austerity continues to hit councils, it’s vital the next Labour government reforms local government financing to revive our communities and ensure long-term sustainability. Fiscal conservatism won’t cut it. Equally important as campaigns, however, was our long-term strategy. There was a consensus amongst attendees that Momentum should continue to retain and build left involvement within the Labour Party as a priority. To this end, a majority voted to retain the requirement for Momentum members to be Labour members. Members also voted for a renewed focus on political education, helping to build and develop our movement’s collective consciousness. Alongside these long-term objectives, we must now roll out the political strategy agreed at the Convention for the coming months. So ahead of the General Election, we will have a dual focus: one, supporting the left’s candidates in internal Labour elections; and secondly, working with allies to lay out five key transformative policy programme needed to fix the Tories’ broken Britain. A constant throughout the Convention, from speakers Katy Clark and John McDonnell to individual contributors, was the insufficiency of Starmer’s programme and the need for us to be ready and waiting with a socialist alternative. So we need to be clear now that only bold policies, embodying real Labour values, can fix the crises facing us. Whether that’s nationalisation and proper funding of our public services, mass council house building, wealth taxes or political reform, this programme is backed by the labour movement, backed by the public and more needed than ever. So before and after the Election, we will continue to organise and, where possible grow, a left presence within Labour; strengthen relations with our friends in the trade union movement; and defend real Labour values, if necessary against a leadership which fails to advocate for them. Momentum was founded to campaign for a socialist Labour Party enacting socialist policies – that’s what we’ll continue to do in the months and years to come. It’s vital we maintain and build our organisation as a movement. Concomitantly, we must recognise the importance of democracy in sustaining a member-led movement, as we do within Labour. Within this context, members voted to send a constitutional amendment to an all-member vote which would ensure a members’ ballot on any endorsement for Leader / Deputy Leader, with our National Coordinating Group retaining discretion on the format in the regrettable case of no Socialist Campaign Group MP appearing on the ballot. We have been clear, following Refounding, that there will be no repeat of the 2020 débacle which damaged trust among members. This ballot will be held, alongside a change to the criteria for Momentum affiliates, in the coming weeks. We all know it’s not easy on the left right now. But we should take heart from the fact that Starmer’s counter-revolution came from above, not below. He did not win the argument against democratic selections, public ownership or a principled internationalism – he imposed them. Our Convention shows that our democratic socialist movement retains its values, ideas and strategies. The struggle continues. Hilary Schan and Kate Dove are Co-Chairs of Momentum.
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Post by Admin on Mar 28, 2024 14:16:11 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 28, 2024 16:25:22 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 28, 2024 21:53:12 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 17:06:35 GMT
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