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

South Korea, Japan Protest China, Russia Aircraft Incursions

Published

3 days ago

December 10, 2025

Editor

South Korea and Japan reacted furiously on Wednesday after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols around the two countries, with both Seoul and Tokyo scrambling jets.

South Korea said it had protested with representatives of China and Russia, while Japan said it had conveyed its “serious concerns” over national security.

According to Tokyo, two Russian Tu-95 nuclear-capable bombers on Tuesday flew from the Sea of Japan to rendezvous with two Chinese H-6 bombers in the East China Sea, then conducted a joint flight around the country.

The incident comes as Japan is locked in a dispute with China over comments Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made about Taiwan.

The bombers’ joint flights were “clearly intended as a show of force against our nation, Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi wrote on X Wednesday.

Top government spokesman Minoru Kihara said that Tokyo had “conveyed to both China and Russia our serious concerns over our national security through diplomatic channels”.

Seoul said Tuesday the Russian and Chinese warplanes entered its air defence zone and that a complaint had been lodged with the defence attaches of both countries in the South Korean capital.

“Our military will continue to respond actively to the activities of neighbouring countries’ aircraft within the KADIZ in compliance with international law,” said Lee Kwang-suk, director general of the International Policy Bureau at Seoul’s defence ministry, referring to the Korea Air Defence Identification Zone.

South Korea also said it deployed “fighter jets to take tactical measures in preparation for any contingencies” in response to the Chinese and Russian incursion into the KADIZ.

The planes were spotted before they entered the air defence identification zone, defined as a broader area in which countries police aircraft for security reasons but which does not constitute their airspace.

Japan’s defence ministry also scrambled fighter jets to intercept the warplanes.

Beijing later Tuesday confirmed it had organised drills with Russia’s military according to “annual cooperation plans”.

Moscow also described it as a routine exercise, saying it lasted eight hours and that some foreign fighter jets followed the Russian and Chinese aircraft.

Since 2019, China and Russia have regularly flown military aircraft into South Korea’s air defence zone without prior notice, citing joint exercises.

In November last year, Seoul scrambled jets as five Chinese and six Russian military planes flew through its air defence zone.

Similar incidents occurred in June and December 2023, and in May and November 2022.

Meanwhile, Tokyo said Monday it had scrambled jets in response to repeated takeoff and landing exercises involving fighter jets and military helicopters from China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier as it cruised in international waters near Japan.

It also summoned Beijing’s ambassador after military aircraft from the Liaoning locked radar onto Japanese jets, the latest incident in the row ignited by Takaichi’s comments backing Taiwan.

Takaichi suggested last month that Japan would intervene militarily in any Chinese attack on the self-ruled island, which Beijing claims as its own and has not ruled out seizing by force.

AFP

Headline

Thousands Reported To Have Fled DR Congo Fighting As M23 Closes On Key City

Published

3 days ago

December 9, 2025

Editor

Fierce fighting rocked the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday as the Rwanda-backed M23 militia rapidly advanced towards the strategic city of Uvira, with tens of thousands of people fleeing over the nearby border into Burundi, sources said.

The armed group and its Rwandan allies were just a few kilometres (miles) north of Uvira, security and military sources told AFP.

The renewed violence undermined a peace agreement brokered by US President Donald Trump that Kinshasa and Kigali signed less than a week ago, on December 4.

Trump had boasted that the Rwanda-DRC conflict was one of eight he has ended since returning to power in America in January.

With the new fighting, more than 30,000 people have fled the area around Uvira for Burundi in the space of a week, a UN source and a Burundian administrative source told AFP.

The Burundian source told AFP on condition of anonymity he had recorded more than 8,000 daily arrivals over the past two days, and 30,000 arrivals in one week. A source in the UN refugee agency confirmed the figure.

The Rwanda-backed M23 offensive comes nearly a year after the group seized control of Goma and Bukavu, the two largest cities in eastern DRC, a strategic region rich in natural resources and plagued by conflict for 30 years.

Local people described a state of growing panic as bombardments struck the hills above Uvira, a city of several hundred thousand residents.

“Three bombs have just exploded in the hills. It’s every man for himself,” said one resident reached by telephone.

“We are all under the beds in Uvira — that’s the reality,” another resident said, while a representative of civil society who would not give their name described fighting on the city’s outskirts.

Fighting was also reported in Runingo, another small locality some 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Uvira, as the M23 and the Rwandan army closed in.

Burundi views the prospect of Uvira falling to Rwanda-backed forces as an existential threat, given that it sits across Lake Tanganyika from Burundi’s economic capital Bujumbura.

The city is the main sizeable locality in the area yet to fall to the M23 and its capture would essentially cut off the zone from DRC control.

Burundi deployed about 10,000 soldiers to eastern DRC in October 2023 as part of a military cooperation agreement, and security sources say reinforcements have since taken that presence to around 18,000 men.

The M23 and Rwandan forces launched their Uvira offensive on December 1.

Rich in natural resources, eastern DRC has been choked by successive conflicts for around three decades.

Violence in the region intensified early this year when M23 fighters seized the key eastern city of Goma in January, followed by Bukavu, capital of South Kivu province, a few weeks later.

– Regional risk –

The peace deal meant to quell the fighting was signed last Thursday in Washington by Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame, with Trump — who called it a “miracle” deal — also putting his signature to it.

The agreement includes an economic component intended to secure US supplies of critical minerals present in the region, as America seeks to challenge China’s dominance in the sector.

But even on the day of the signing, intense fighting took place in South Kivu, where Uvira is located, which included the bombing of houses and schools.

Witnesses and military sources in Uvira said that Congolese soldiers fleeing the fighting had arrived in the city overnight Monday and shops were looted at dawn.

Several hundred Congolese and Burundian soldiers had already fled to Burundi on Monday, according to military sources, since the M23 fighters embarked on their latest offensive from Kamanyola, some 70 kilometres north of Uvira.
Since the M23’s lightning offensive early this year, the front had largely stabilised over the past nine months.

Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye warned in February there was a danger of the conflict escalating into a broader regional war, a fear echoed by the United Nations.

Headline

‘Santa Claus’ Arrested For Possessing, Distributing Child Sexual Abuse Material

Published

3 days ago

December 9, 2025

Editor

A 64-year-old man from Hamilton Township has been arrested in the United States after investigators linked him to the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material.

The suspect, identified as Mark Paulino, had been working as a “Santa for hire” at holiday events, a role that placed him in repeated contact with children.

Mercer County officials said the investigation began on 4 December when detectives were alerted to suspicious online activity involving the uploading of child pornography from a residence in Hamilton Township. The probe quickly identified Paulino, a retired elementary school teacher, as the person involved.

Police stated that Paulino had presented himself online as a retired teacher and had recently performed as Santa Claus for photographs and private, corporate, and organisational events. “Because this role involved direct, repeated contact with children, detectives worked around the clock to secure a search warrant,” authorities explained.

The warrant was executed on 5 December, during which police seized multiple items regarded as evidentiary. Paulino was taken into custody without incident and charged with possession and distribution of child sexual abuse materials, as well as endangering the welfare of a child.

Prosecutors have filed a motion to detain him pending trial. The investigation remains ongoing, and authorities have urged members of the public with relevant information to come forward.