Headline

Strike: UK Records Largest Walkout In 12 Years

Published

3 years ago

February 1, 2023

Half a million workers went on strike in Britain on Wednesday, calling for higher wages in the largest such walkout in over a decade, closing schools and severely disrupting transport.

As Europe battles a cost-of-living crisis, Britain’s umbrella labour organisation the Trades Union Congress called it the “biggest day of strike action since 2011”.

The latest strikes come a day after more than 1.27 million took to the streets in France, increasing pressure on the French government over pension reform plans.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called for pay rises to be “reasonable” and affordable” warning that big pay rises would jeopardise attempts to tame inflation.

But unions have accused millionaire Sunak of being out of touch with the challenges faced by ordinary working people struggling to make ends meet in the face of low paid, insecure work and spiralling costs.

Teachers and train drivers were among the latest groups to act, as well as border force workers at UK air and seaports.

“The workload is always bigger and bigger and with the inflation, our salary is lower and lower,” London teacher Nigel Adams, 57, told AFP as he joined thousands of teachers marching through central London.

“We’re exhausted. We’re paying the price and so are the children,” he added as protesters held up placards reading “Pay Up” and “We can’t put your kids first if you put their teachers last”.

Britain has witnessed months of strikes by tens of thousands of workers – including postal staff, lawyers, nurses and employees in the retail sector — as UK inflation raced above 11 percent, the highest level in more than 40 years.

Job centre worker and union representative, Graham, who preferred not to give his last name said workers had no choice but to strike faced with soaring costs.

“Some of our members, even though they are working, still have to make visits to food banks,” he said.

“Not only are wages not keeping up, but things like fares, council tax and rents are going up. Anything we get is eaten away,” he added.

– ‘Slap in face’ –

At London’s King’s Cross rail station, Kate Lewis, a 50-year-old charity worker, said she sympathised with the strikers despite her train being delayed.

“I understand. We are all in the same boat. All impacted by inflation,” she said.

Another major commuter hub in the capital, London Bridge station, was completely closed.

One train driver who gave his name as Tony, 61, said the sort of pay rises on offer were insulting, especially in the wake of the pandemic.

“We worked all through Covid. We were being praised as key workers and then there is this slap in the face,” he said.

“I was leaving (home) at 3 am to go to work. People were having barbecues, you could hear the bottles. I think we deserve a pay increase that keeps up with inflation.”

Government and company bosses are standing firm over wage demands.

With thousands of schools closed for the day, Education Minister Gillian Keegan told Times Radio she was “disappointed” teachers had walked out.

But union boss Mark Serwotka said the government’s position was “unsustainable”.

“It’s not feasible that they can sit back with this unprecedented amount of industrial action growing, because it’s half a million today,” he told Sky News.

“Next week, we have paramedics, and we have nurses, then will then be the firefighters,” he added, warning that unions were prepared to strike throughout the summer.

Prime Minister Sunak on Wednesday told parliament the government had given teachers the “highest pay rise in 30 years” including nine percent for newly qualified teachers.

He urged opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer to say “that the strikes are wrong and we should be backing our school children”

– Nationwide rallies –

The latest official data shows 1.6 million working days were lost from June-November last year because of strikes – the highest six-month total in more than three decades – according to the Office for National Statistics.

A total of 467,000 working days were lost to walkouts in November alone, the highest level since 2011, the ONS added.

Alongside the strikes, unions are also staging rallies across the country against the Conservative government’s plans to legislate against public sector strike action.

Sunak has introduced a draft law requiring some frontline workers to maintain a minimum level of service during walkouts.
AFP

Headline

Serbia Indicts Ex-minister, 12 Others Over Train Station Tragedy

Published

17 hours ago

September 16, 2025

Editor

Serbian prosecutors filed an updated indictment on Tuesday against 13 people, including a former minister, over a fatal railway station roof collapse that has triggered a wave of anti-government protests.

The prosecution said all those indicted, among them former construction minister Goran Vesic, face charges of “serious crimes against public safety” over the tragedy that killed 16 people last November.

“The indictment proposes that the Higher Court in Novi Sad order custody for all the defendants,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The roof collapse at the newly renovated station in Serbia’s second-largest city, Novi Sad, became a symbol of entrenched corruption and sparked almost daily protests.

Protesters first demanded a transparent investigation, but their calls soon escalated into demands for early elections.

The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad initially filed an indictment at the end of December, but judges returned it in April, requesting more information.

The accused were released or placed under house arrest following the decision.

The prosecutor’s office said it had complied with the judge’s request and had now completed the supplementary investigation.

The prosecutor specialising in organised crime and corruption in Belgrade is leading a separate, independent investigation into the tragedy.

That investigation is focused on 13 people, including Vesic and another former minister, Tomislav Momirovic, who headed the Construction Ministry before him.

In March, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) launched a third, separate investigation into the possible misuse of EU funds for the station’s reconstruction.

AFP

Headline

Kazakhstan Bans Forced Marriage, Bride Kidnapping

Published

17 hours ago

September 16, 2025

Editor

Kazakhstan has banned forced marriages and bride kidnappings through a law that came into effect Tuesday in the Central Asian country, where the practice persists despite new attention being paid to women’s rights.

Forcing someone to marry is now punishable by up to 10 years in prison, Kazakh police said in a statement.

“These changes are aimed at preventing forced marriages and protecting vulnerable categories of citizens, especially women and adolescents,” it added.

Bride kidnappings have also been outlawed.

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“Previously, a person who voluntarily released a kidnapped person could expect to be released from criminal liability. Now this possibility has been eliminated,” the police said.

There are no reliable statistics of forced marriage cases across the country, with no separate article in the criminal code prohibiting it until now.

A Kazakh lawmaker said earlier this year that the police had received 214 such complaints over the past three years.

The custom is also present in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, where it mostly goes unpunished due to indifferent law enforcement and stigma surrounding whistleblowers.

The issue of women’s rights in Kazakhstan gained media attention in 2023 following the murder of a woman by her husband, a former minister, a case that shocked Kazakh society and prompted President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to react.

“Some people hide behind so-called traditions and try to impose the practice of wife stealing. This blatant obscurantism cannot be justified,” Tokayev said last year.

AFP

Headline

Russia Arrests Woman For Detonating Bomb On Railway

Published

17 hours ago

September 16, 2025

Editor

Russia’s FSB security service said on Tuesday it had arrested a woman in her fifties accused of detonating explosives in a bid to sabotage the Trans-Siberian Railway.

The suspect was allegedly working on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence, the FSB said, in the latest incident of alleged covert activity during the countries’ conflict.

“In August 2025, following the instructions provided by the adversary, the suspect manufactured a homemade explosive device from publicly available components, placed it on the railway tracks and triggered it,” the Russian agency said.

“She recorded the moment of the explosion on her mobile phone camera and sent the footage as a report to the handler to receive a reward.”

The statement did not name the suspect but said she was born in 1974 and carried out the alleged attack in eastern Siberia’s Zabaikalsky region.

The FSB warned Russians that it was monitoring social networks and online messenger services such as Telegram and WhatsApp for evidence of Ukrainian services recruiting Russians to carry out sabotage.

Separately, the agency told state news agency TASS that a man had been sentenced to 18 years and six months for transporting explosives on behalf of a “pro-Ukrainian” group.

A resident of the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, had, the FSB said, established contact through the Telegram app with a banned “terrorist organisation”.

He allegedly retrieved explosives from a cache on the orders of this group before waiting for “further instructions”, according to the same source cited by TASS.

He was jailed by a military tribunal.

AFP