Yemen calls on rights organizations to stop Saudi genocide

TEHRAN, Jan. 08 (MNA) – Yemen’s Ministry of Human Rights has strongly condemned Saudi atrocities against Yemeni civilians and African migrants in border regions, calling on international rights organizations to put a stop to the Saudi genocide.

The ministry said in a Sunday statement that it was “shocked” by the silence of the international community and international bodies led by the UN in face of the crimes committed by the kingdom.

“We remind the world, with all its humanitarian bodies, that the victims of the Saudi attacks, since the beginning of the armistice, have reached 2,258, including 285 martyrs in the border directorates of Sa’ada, and the death toll is still increasing,” read the statement, carried by Yemen’s al-Masirah television network.

It further lamented that artillery shells and machine guns are still raining down on the heads of civilians and immigrants, while the most severe forms of torture and abuse are being practiced against them.

According to al-Masirah, at least one civilian was killed and 11 others injured in the latest Saudi artillery attacks on the Saudi-Yemeni border areas.

Launching a humanitarian appeal, the ministry further called on the free world and rights organizations to move in accordance with their humanitarian principles to condemn such crimes and hold the perpetrators accountable.

It also renewed the call to the competent bodies and all humanitarian and international organizations to investigate Saudi crimes in border areas, including the killing and torture of citizens and the displaced people, in light of the high toll of victims and the scarcity of medical supplies, Press TV reported.

Last month, a Yemeni health official said nearly 3,000 civilians, including African refugees, lost their lives or sustained injuries in 2022 as a result of artillery and missile strikes by Saudi military forces in Yemen’s northwestern province of Sa’ada.

Abdullah Musreeh, director of Razih Rural Hospital, added that at least 907 people were killed or wounded during the UN-brokered truce that lasted six months and expired on October 2.

Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms and logistics support from the US and other Western states.

The objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and crush the popular Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government in Yemen.

While the Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet any of its objectives, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

MNA/PR 

 

Taliban decrees against women paralyzing NGO work: Aid chief

• By Amu TV
• 
  

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NRC chief Jan Egeland in Kabul. Photo: Jan Egeland’s Twitter.

The Taliban’s “internal debates and extreme decrees” are paralyzing humanitarian work in Afghanistan, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council said on Sunday after arriving in Kabul for a week-long trip.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the aim of his trip is to talk to the Taliban about reversing the ban on women working for national and international non-governmental groups (NGOs).

Egeland is the first NGO chief to visit Afghanistan for talks with the Taliban since the ban came into effect more than two weeks ago.

Following the ban, numerous aid agencies have paused activities in the country stating they are not able to conduct their operations without female staff. Aid organizations, foreign governments, and the United Nations all say women are vital for the delivery of lifesaving assistance in Afghanistan and are calling for the ban’s reversal.

Many groups have however warned of dire and deadly consequences for a population already battered by decades of war, deteriorating living conditions and economic hardship.

Egeland said that he was meeting Taliban leaders in the capital of Kabul and in the southern city of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban movement and the base of the group’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.

Egeland has already met the economy minister, who initially announced the ban and other Taliban officials. Egeland indicated that those in Kabul were more willing to contemplate women returning to work because of their crucial role in delivering humanitarian aid.

“They all say that they want us to continue work and hope we will continue without females,” Egeland said in an interview Sunday at his group’s Kabul office. “But when I say we’re not willing or able to work with males only, they (Taliban officials) realize that the population is totally dependent on international assistance at the moment, food, shelter, sanitation.”

Women are needed to contact women, including female-headed households and widows, he said. Aid agencies say it is impossible for men to do this work because of Afghanistan’s social and cultural norms as well as the Taliban’s own prohibitions against the mixing of genders.

Separately, two aid officials told AP that they were given the impression by Taliban ministers in Kabul that they want women to resume their work at NGOs but that this decision lies with the leadership in Kandahar.

Egeland said the economy minister “sent us the message given by the supreme leader that we had to discontinue all work.” He said he is traveling to Kandahar because “it is there that the ideological and religious decrees come from.”

“The (Taliban’s) internal debates and extreme decrees have paralyzed our work,” Egeland said, adding that it was impossible to meet the supreme leader in Kandahar but he hoped to influence those around him.

Two weeks after the ban, it remains unclear how comprehensive it is, and some groups have reported that they are able to continue their work.

Egeland said this raises further questions.

“Can this be a religiously activated ban if some (women) are working and some are not? It’s not thought through at all,” Egeland said. “We can’t work with males only because we can’t follow their (the Taliban’s) rules and regulations.”

The Norwegian aid chief said the group’s female staff have complied with the Taliban’s dress codes, gender segregation rules and even the need to have a male chaperone on certain occasions. The damage caused by the ban will become worse the longer it continues, he warned, saying malnutrition and death is rising and maternal health is plunging.

On his trip, Egeland is also due to meet officials from embassies of Muslim-majority countries, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who retain a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan and have condemned the Taliban crackdowns on female education and employment.

Despite initially promising a more moderate rule, the Taliban have widely implemented their interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.

They have banned girls and women from middle school, high school, and university, restricted women from most employment and ordered them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public. Women are also banned from parks and gyms.

Egeland said he was in Afghanistan shortly after the Taliban takeover in August 2021.

“All these promises were made. We were misled. What I would say is that the Taliban decrees on female workers, on education for girls is so wrong for Afghanistan, for the population, for the future, for the economy.”

He urged the West to send their diplomats back to Afghanistan to engage with the country’s new rulers because the population were the “same 40 million citizens they left behind.”

The Norwegian Refugee Council has worked in Afghanistan since 2003 and employs 470 women. It helped more than 840,000 people last year and was intending to help 700,000 this year, the group said.

APARTHEID; SAME AS IT EVER WAS

Withholding millions from PA, Smotrich says he has ‘no interest’ in its existence

$40 million in tax revenues to be transferred to relatives of terror victims as part of new government’s sanctions against Ramallah

By TOI STAFF

Today

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich holds a press conference with bereaved families at the Finance Ministry in Jerusalem, January 8, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Sunday signed a decree to block NIS 139 million ($39.6 million) in tax revenue from the Palestinian Authority and redirect it to families of terror victims, as part of punitive measures against the PA’s international legal action against Israel, decided upon by the government.

During a press conference, Smotrich was asked whether he was concerned the move could bring about the collapse of the PA, answering: “As long as the Palestinian Authority encourages terror and is an enemy, I have no interest for it to continue to exist.”

Smotrich hailed a years-long campaign to offset the PA’s regular payments to terror convicts and to families of dead Palestinian attackers, which Israel and other critics say offer a direct incentive for terror, calling it a “just struggle…not only in providing retroactive justice, but also as a deterrent.”
Israel’s Judiciary: Reform or Ruin?Keep Watching

Israel has made such deductions in the past, following 2018 legislation on the matter, but only partially upholds the policy, as officials are keenly aware that the PA is dangerously close to financial collapse.

“There is no solace for the families of those murdered, but there is justice,” Smotrich said.

The move is one of the steps approved by the government on Friday to penalize the Palestinians in retaliation for their push for the United Nation’s highest judicial body to give its opinion on Israel’s control of the West Bank. The decision highlights the tough line the new government is taking toward the Palestinians, at a time of spiking violence in the West Bank and with peace talks a distant memory.

Illustrative: Police and security personnel at the scene of a terror attack in Jerusalem, on November 23, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussil/Flash90)

The Palestinian Authority’s practice of paying allowances to those convicted of carrying out terror attacks and to the families of those killed while carrying out attacks — often referred to by some Israeli officials as a pay-to-slay policy — has been defended by Palestinian leaders, who describe them as a form of social welfare and necessary compensation for victims of Israel’s military justice system in the West Bank.

Smotrich told reporters on Sunday that as long as the PA “operates according to agreements, takes care of civilian life and thwarts terror activities in cooperation with Israel’s security establishment, then, of course, it is possible to have relations with the authority.

“This is on the condition that the authority does not resort to terror,” he added.

Abie Moses, the head of the national the Organization of Victims of Terrorism, praised the “important decision,” but added it was only a first step among several demands by those hurt in attacks.

“The inauguration of a new Knesset is an opportunity to atone for the long-standing neglect of the victims of enemy hostilities, and to allocate the necessary resources in order to take care of the rights of thousands who lost their loved ones, who are struggling to survive and trying to continue to live,” he said.

Attorney Avi Segal of Israeli legal advocacy group Shurat HaDin thanked Smotrich and the government for the decision, adding “there is empirical research” that cutting off funds was crucial to preventing terror.

Ron Alon, a relative of terror victims killed in a 2002 Jerusalem attack, called the move “a historic day,” echoing Smotrich’s words about both doing justice for terror victims and potentially deterring future would-be-assailants.

Other punitive measures against the PA include the revocation of travel permits for top Palestinian officials that allow them to travel easily in and out of the West Bank, unlike ordinary Palestinians, and the freezing of Palestinian construction in parts of the West Bank.

Italy rejects MSF ship's request for closer safe port

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
08 January, 2023

NGO operations in the Mediterranean are becoming increasingly precarious.


The Geo Barents has been left at sea in deteriorating weather conditions [Getty images]

The Italian government has rejected a request from Doctors Without Borders to assign a safe port to their ship the Geo Barents closer to the place where it rescued 73 migrants, an NGO official said on Sunday.

Italy's interior ministry did not comment on the issue.

The dispute is part of a broader tug-of-war between Italy's right-wing government and NGOs over where to disembark migrants saved in the Mediterranean sea.

On Saturday Doctor Without Borders' ship Geo Barents received permission from Rome to dock to Ancona port, which is in central Italy and on the country's east coast, far away from Sicily where NGO boats normally disembarked rescued migrants.

"The interior ministry rejected our request for a closer safe port for the disembarkation of the 73 survivors on board the Geo Barents. The ship is heading north," Doctors Without Borders' Mission Head Juan Matias Gil said in a message on Sunday.

After rescuing migrants on a rubber dinghy offshore Libya, Geo Barents on Saturday asked for a closer port, adding it would take it more than three days to reach Ancona while weather conditions were deteriorating.

Reporting by Reuters

Builders uncover Jewish WWII trove in yard in Poland

WARSAW, POLAND
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PUBLISHED 1 HOUR AGO

About 400 items believed to have been hidden in the ground by their Jewish owners during World War II have been uncovered during house renovation work in a yard in Lodz in central Poland, media reports said Sunday.

History experts say that the objects include Hanukkah menorahs and items used in daily life, TVN24 reported.

They are mostly silver-plated tableware, menorahs and glass containers for cosmetics, according to the regional office for the preservation of historic objects. The office’s experts said on Facebook last week that the objects will be handed over to the city’s Archaeology Museum.

The stash was found in December and two of the hanukkiahs were lighted Dec. 22 during Hannukah organized by the city’s Jewish community.

The address at 23 Polnocna Street, where the objects were found, was just outside the perimeter of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto that the occupying Nazi Germans established in Lodz in February 1940 and until August 1944 held about 200,000 Jews from across Europe. Most of the inmates died there or in concentration camps.

New York City preps for 8,700 nurses to go on strike, impacting emergency triages at 3 major hospitals

New York City Office of Emergency Management bracing for nursing strike

By Danielle Wallace

FOXBusiness

New York City is preparing for some 8,700 nurses to possibly go on strike Monday, impacting emergency room triage at between three major private hospitals.

Politico reported that the New York City Office of Emergency Management was organizing an "interagency situation room" to kick off virtually and in person at 6 a.m. Monday to monitor citywide hospital operations in real time and direct the flow of ambulances. In preparation for the strike, hospitals were also reportedly organizing patient transfers, though it’s unclear how many were moved.

In its latest 11:30 a.m. ET Sunday briefing, the New York State Nurses Association, a union of representing 42,000 members across the state, said after a day of bargaining at Montefiore and Mount Sinai Morningside and West Saturday, no new tentative agreements were reached.

"Mount Sinai Hospital management walked out on the last bargaining session and avoided the table and their responsibility to bargain in good faith on Friday and Saturday," a press release said. "Today, Mount Sinai agreed to meet with NYSNA nurses, and all three hospitals will be at the bargaining table."




Thsi file image shows people walk outside of Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, on September 22, 2020 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images / Getty Images)

About 8,700 nurses at three New York City hospitals – Montefiore Bronx, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Mount Sinai Morningside and West – will strike on Monday morning if agreements cannot be reached, the union said.

The looming strike went from possibly affecting five hospitals to just three after BronxCare Health System and Flushing Hospital Medical Center reached tentative agreements with the nurses Saturday and Friday respectively.

image shows a man wearing a mask sits on the steps outside Mount Sinai West Hospital as the city continues Phase 4 of re-opening following restrictions imposed to slow the spread of coronavirus on September 23, 2020. (Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images / Getty Images)

The tentative agreement for Flushing, where approximately 470 nurses work, includes a full ratio-based safe staffing grid, improved staffing arbitration and enforcement, a three-year contract with salary increases of 7%, 6%, and 5%, and preservation of NYSNA healthcare and pension benefits.

Similarly, BronxCare and The Brooklyn Hospital Center reached tentative agreements that will improve safe staffing levels and enforcement, increase wages by 7%, 6%, and 5% each year of their three-year contract, and save their healthcare benefits, according to the union. Nurses at BronxCare had planned to strike starting Monday if an agreement could not be reached.

This file image shows people walk outside of Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan on September 22, 2020 in New York City. ( Spencer Platt/Getty Images / Getty Images)

Ken Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, told Politico that he personally briefed New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on the possible strike. The FDNY is implementing contingency plans to reroute ambulances, and NYC Health + Hospitals reportedly will utilize emergency strategies amid an expected increase in patients from the private facilities.

Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai West reportedly began transferring 13 infants treated in their neonatal intensive care units to other hospitals Friday in preparation for the nursing strike.

‘Listen to people on this side,’ migrants in Mexico say as Biden visits border

By Daina Beth Solomon and Jose Luis Gonzalez | Reuters

Residents and pro-migrant activists hold signs while marching in downtown El Paso, Texas, Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023. Several hundred marched through the streets of El Paso a day before President Joe Biden's first, politically-thorny visit to the southern border. Andres Leighton, Associated Press

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Venezuelan migrant Julio Marquez sells lollipops near the border in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, holding a cardboard sign scrawled with marker: “Help us with whatever comes from your heart.”

He has the same message for President Joe Biden, who visits the Texas city of El Paso, just across the border, on Sunday.

“We hope he helps us, that he lets us pass, since we’re suffering a lot here in Mexico,” said Marquez, 32. “He has to listen to the people on this side.”

Biden’s first border visit as president comes days after a new policy aimed at reducing illegal migration has been criticized by migrant advocates for limiting asylum access.

The two-pronged approach offers legal pathways to the United States for certain Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans who have U.S. sponsors, while expelling people of those nationalities back to Mexico if they attempt to cross the border without permission.

Mexican migration agents and state police on Saturday patrolled the concrete banks of the Rio Grande river dividing Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, as groups of families attempted to clamber through loops of concertina wire into the United States.

“Duck down,” Erlan Garay of Honduras instructed a Colombian woman and her three children, including an 8-year-old boy clutching a Spiderman toy.

“They’re going to request asylum, they have a chance,” he said, adding that he would look for somewhere else to clandestinely cross, and shrugging off a drop of blood where the fence pricked his hand.

Marquez said he and his partner, Yalimar Chirinos, 19, do not qualify for the new legal entry program because they lack a U.S. sponsor.

“They’re constantly changing the laws, every week,” Chirinos said, wearing a black hoodie and a single pink-and-blue glove to try to ward off the cold.

The couple has spent five months in Mexico after crossing several countries and the dangerous Darien jungle between Colombia and Panama. They sleep at night on the street without a tent or blankets, hugging one another to stay warm, wary of criminals known to rob and kidnap migrants.

At one point they crossed undetected into Texas, but after several days without food or a place to stay, they turned themselves in to U.S. officials, who sent them back to Mexico.

Marquez said he will stick it out another 15 days hoping to find a legal route into the United States, before looking for a way back to Venezuela.

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” he said, breaking into tears. “Mr. President, if you’re going to deport me, deport me back to my country, not back here to Mexico.”

Others were undeterred, even after their own expulsions to Mexico.

“Send me wherever you want, I’ll come back,” said Jonathan Tovar, 29, speaking on Friday from behind the fence of Mexico’s migration office in Ciudad Juarez. “I want the president of the United States to give me and my family a chance.”

IRELAND

Climate activists vow to defend village at risk from coal mine expansion

SUN, 08 JAN, 2023 - 11:19

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Climate activists have pledged to defend a tiny village in western Germany from being bulldozed for the expansion of a nearby coal mine that has become a battleground between the government and environmental campaigners.

Hundreds of people are expected to take part in protest training and a subsequent demonstration in the hamlet of Luetzerath, which lies west of Cologne next to the vast Garzweiler coal mine.

The open-cast mine, which provides a large share of the lignite – a soft, brownish coal – burned at nearby power plants, is scheduled to close by 2030 under a deal agreed last year between the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia and utility company RWE.

Climate activists have set up camp to try and stop the clearance of the village of Luetzerath (David Young/dpa/AP)

The company says it needs the coal to ensure Germany’s energy security, which has come under strain following the cut in gas supplies from Russia since the invasion of Ukraine.

But environmental groups have condemned the agreement, saying it will still result in hundreds of millions of tons of coal being extracted and burned.

They argue this will release vast amounts of greenhouse gas and make it impossible for Germany to meet its commitments under the 2015 Paris climate accord.

Activists are creating barricades in a bid to protect the village (David Young/dpa/AP)

Prominent campaigners have called on supporters to defend the village from destruction, citing the impact that climate change is already having on Germany and beyond.

German news agency dpa reported that some activists have erected barricades and other defensive measures to prevent Luetzerath being razed.

Last week, protesters briefly clashed with police at the site.

Police have said no clearance will take place before January 10.

German activists vow to resist

plans for coal mine expansion

Environmentalist groups announce massive protests to block expansion of open-air coal mine in northwestern Germany

Ayhan Simsek |08.01.2023


BERLIN

German environmentalist groups announced on Sunday that they will resist plans to expand an open-air coal mine in the northwestern village of Lutzerath.

"Who attacks Lutzerath, attacks our future,” environmentalist groups said in a joint statement, vowing to block preparations for the demolition of the village.

Their spokesperson Luka Scott slammed the German government for failing to live up to its commitments to fight climate change.

“Instead of finally phasing out coal immediately, Lutzerath is to be destructed. This will set off a new climate bomb - with catastrophic consequences,” she said.

Soraya Kutterer, a spokesperson for the Extinction Rebellion group, said the German government is paying more attention to the profit interests of the large energy corporations.

“Together we fight for the preservation of Lutzerath, the preservation of our livelihoods and against the lobbying influence of the fossil industry,” she said.

The German energy giant RWE is planning to demolish the village of Lutzerath, as part of a plan to expand the Garzweiler coal mine’s extraction area, to mine 280 million tons of lignite between 2023 and 2030.

Climate Activists to Defend Village From Demolition by Coal Mine
January 08, 2023 
Associated Press

Activists demonstrate at Luetzerath, a village that is about to be demolished to allow for the expansion of the Garzweiler open-cast lignite mine of Germany's utility RWE, Germany, Jan. 8, 2023.

BERLIN —

Climate activists pledged Sunday to defend a tiny village in western Germany from being bulldozed for the expansion of a nearby coal mine that has become a battleground between the government and environmental campaigners.

Hundreds of people from across Germany gathered for protest training and a subsequent demonstration in the hamlet of Luetzerath, which lies west of Cologne next to the vast Garzweiler coal mine.

The open-cast mine, which provides a large share of the lignite — a soft, brownish coal — burned at nearby power plants, is scheduled to close by 2030 under a deal agreed last year between the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia and utility company RWE.

SEE ALSO:
Climate Activists Protest as German Village to Make Way for Coal Mine

The company says it needs the coal to ensure Germany's energy security, which has come under strain following the cut in gas supplies from Russia since the invasion of Ukraine.

But environmental groups have blasted the agreement, saying it will still result in hundreds of millions of tons of coal being extracted and burned. They argue that this would release vast amounts of greenhouse gas and make it impossible for Germany to meet its commitments under the 2015 Paris climate accord.

“[We] will fight for every tree, for every house, for every meter in this village,” said Luka Scott, a spokesperson for the alliance of groups organizing protests. “Because whoever attacks Luetzerath, attacks our future.”

Prominent campaigners have rallied support to defend the village from destruction, citing the impact that climate change is already having on Germany and beyond.

A damaged police civil car is seen at Luetzerath, a village that is about to be demolished to allow for the expansion of the Garzweiler open-cast lignite mine of Germany's utility RWE, Germany, Jan. 8, 2023.

German news agency dpa reported that some activists have erected barricades and other defensive measures to prevent Luetzerath from being razed. Last week, protesters briefly clashed with police at the site.

The village and surrounding areas belong to RWE and the last farmer residing there sold his property to the company in 2022 after losing a court case against his eviction. Since then, only a handful of activists have remained, some living in self-built tree houses or caravans.

Police have said no clearance will take place before Jan. 10.

Shell poised to pay UK taxes for the first time in five years

Story by David Connett • Yesterday 

Shell will pay tax in the UK for the first time since 2017 as it is poised to make record profits.

(Photo: Rui Vieira/ PA)© Provided by The i


The energy firm said it expects to pay around $2bn (£1.7bn) on profits in the UK and the European Union.

This would be on top of $360m due on its financial performance in the three months to October 2022. A detailed breakdown of the taxes paid will be published next month, the company said.

Shell has received tax relief on investments it has been making in British areas of the North Sea and on oil-platform decommissioning, which have been higher than the taxes it owed, resulting in nothing being paid.

Last year the UK Government, together with some governments in Europe, imposed windfall taxes on energy companies in an effort to use some of the huge profits firms have made through high oil and gas prices to help consumers.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said in his November Autumn Statement that the energy industry will be subject to an expanded windfall tax of 35 per cent. The levy, which ends in March 2028, is expected to raise in excess of $33bn over the next six years

Shell’s former chief executive Ben van Buerden publicly suggested the Government should levy taxes against oil and gas companies to protect the poorest.

Referring to energy companies, he said: “That probably may then mean that governments need to tax people in this room to pay for it. I think we just have to accept as a society – it can be done smartly and not so smartly. There is a discussion to be had about it but I think it’s inevitable.”

Van Beurden was replaced at the start of the year by Wael Sawan, previously the company’s head of gas and renewables.

The European Commission said it originally expected to raise €25bn from the additional oil levy introduced in September, but is now facing a legal challenge from US oil major ExxonMobil.

Analysts said Shell remained on track for record annual profit in 2022, having posted earnings of $30bn in the first three quarters, just shy of the 2008 record profit of $31bn.

Shell said it will increase its ­dividend to shareholders by 15 per cent. It said profits on its natural gas business were “significantly higher” despite major production problems at two plants in Australia.

It also reported higher refining profit margins in its chemicals and fuels business in the last three months of 2022, but said that trading profits from refined products were lower than in the previous quarter.

Shell’s profits come as motoring groups accused retailers, including the largest supermarkets, of not cutting prices quickly enough, or by an appropriate amount, when wholesale costs fall. UK fuel costs are under investigation by the competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority, following record prices last summer.

UK
Teachers plan co-ordinated strikes to shut as many schools as possible

Camilla Turner
Fri, January 6, 2023 

Rishi Sunak visits Harris Academy, in south-west London - A PRIVATE SCHOOL-

Teachers are planning to co-ordinate strikes to close as many schools as possible, The Telegraph can disclose.

Three of the UK’s major education unions will close ballots next week. If they reach the threshold required for industrial action, teachers will be the next major public sector group to walk out, causing havoc to children’s education.

“Unions obviously will talk to each other about strike dates and try to co-ordinate them. It makes sense to do this – there will be more impact,” said an education union source.

Teachers at any one school can belong to multiple different unions, meaning co-ordinated strike action would make it more likely that entire schools would close.

Meanwhile, junior doctors are threatening to strike for three days in March if a ballot opening on Monday is in favour of industrial action.

It comes as Rishi Sunak summoned union chiefs to Whitehall on Monday in a bid to break the deadlock over crippling strikes.

The Prime Minister said he wanted to have a “grown-up, honest conversation” with union bosses about reaching a “responsible, reasonable and affordable” pay deal.

The National Education Union (NEU) has told its 300,000 members that they have until Saturday to post their ballot papers to ensure they arrive before the deadline.

Members of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers and the National Association of Head Teachers are also voting, with all ballots closing by next Friday.

“Once we have the ballot result we will be able to declare what the pattern of action would be,” a union source told the Telegraph. “We would speak to each other – you would expect that.”

The source argued that this would actually be better for parents because it would mean only having to organise childcare on a limited number of days, adding: “The problem with doing it on different dates is that it can create more disruption. The last people we want to disrupt are parents and children.”

The results of the teaching union ballots are expected to come down to the wire as postal strikes have held up the arrival of many ballots papers, The Telegraph revealed last week.

Ministers have angered teachers in the final days of balloting by announcing plans to make all pupils in England study maths until the age of 18 without any policies to solve a shortage of maths teachers.

The Government has also faced a backlash over plans to introduce a new law that would keep schools open during strikes with minimum service levels.

Kevin Courtney, the joint general secretary of the NEU, said the law would create “a situation where you have a right to strike but no meaningful way to do it.” Geoff Barton, of the Association of School and College Leaders, accused ministers of “sabre-rattling”.

On Friday night, there were signs the Government was preparing to soften its stance on public sector pay rises.

Letters sent to health unions by the Health Secretary said the Government was prepared to discuss its recommendations for next year’s pay round and to improve upon them if unions agree to changes to boost productivity and efficiency.

The Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators, made a new and improved offer to the Aslef train drivers’ union of eight per cent over two years. The offer, signed off by the Department for Transport, would take the average train driver salary from £60,000 to £65,000.