TUC hits back at banking boss who suggested public-sector pay should be curbed because the economy falling
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TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said that while the government has “taken the right approach” by investing in public services and infrastructure, “the job of securing growth is far from over — and more support is needed to see that investment sustained in the long term.”
“That’s why it’s time for a grown-up conversation about taxing wealth and financial institutions,” he said.
“It’s only right that banks, gambling companies and the wealthiest in our society contribute their fair share to fund our schools, hospitals and local authorities.
“The government needs to ensure it can repair and rebuild our vital public services along with wider critical national infrastructure.”
Mr Nowak also called on the Bank of England to further Bank of England to “ease the pressure on household budgets and to make it more affordable for businesses to invest.”
Defend Our Juries (DOJ) said the action is planned on condition of at least 1,000 people pledging support, but hundreds more are said to be planning to take part, with a boost in support after a number of activists involved in organising the protests were arrested under terror laws.
Attendees are expected to refuse street bail, requiring more people to be taken into custody, and they plan to go “floppy”, forcing officers to physically carry them away.
Scotland Yard’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan warned that anyone showing support for Palestine Action would face arrest. He said the group was proscribed as a terrorist organisation and that police had the “officer numbers, custody capacity and all other resources to process as many people as is required.”
Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
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Pose for a group photo following the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Foreign Ministers meeting with Japan’s Foreign Minister in Kuwait City on September 1, 2025. [Photo by YASSER AL-ZAYYAT/AFP via Getty Images]
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) called Monday for an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages and detainees, and unrestricted humanitarian access to the enclave, Anadolu reports.
In a final communiqué following a ministerial session in Kuwait, the bloc pressed for full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2735, adopted in June 2024, and praised mediation efforts led by Qatar, Egypt and the US.
The ministers condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, citing mass killings, forced displacement, starvation policies and the destruction of homes, hospitals, schools, mosques and churches. They urged the international community to take urgent steps to halt these crimes and hold perpetrators accountable.
The GCC rejected any Israeli attempt to annex parts of Gaza or impose direct military rule, stressing that Gaza and the West Bank must remain united under the Palestinian Authority.
The council also condemned repeated Israeli attacks on humanitarian convoys and aid workers, recalling UN Security Council Resolution 2730 on protecting humanitarian staff.
It welcomed statements by the European Union and a coalition of 26 international partners in July calling for an immediate end to the war and unrestricted delivery of aid.
On the Palestinian issue, the GCC reaffirmed its commitment to a two-state solution, calling for an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, in line with the Arab Peace Initiative and international law.
It praised an international conference held at the UN last month, co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France, which underscored support for setting a timeline to establish Palestinian statehood and ensure regional stability.
The ministers also welcomed the planned recognition of Palestine by France, the UK, Portugal, Malta, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, urging all other states to follow suit.
The GCC condemned Israel’s plan to transfer control of Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque to a Jewish religious council, settlement expansion in the West Bank, and calls by Israeli lawmakers to annex the occupied territory.
Israel has killed over 63,500 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Vote Labour for Genocide.
The Lower Swat Forest Division team of the Forest Department is engaged in rescue and relief activities in the flood-affected areas of Mingora, KP. Photo: Pir MusavirPTI/X
Pakistan has witnessed frequent heavy rains and floods in recent times causing massive human and material loss claimed to be the result of human-induced global changes in the climate
Pakistan is yet again facing heavy casualties and massive destruction due to unusual heavy rains and floods across the country this year. According to the country’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), more than 650 people have been killed and over 900 others have been injured in rain-related incidents across the country since June 26.
The flash floods in mostly the northeastern parts of the country have also displaced hundreds of thousands with scores still reported missing.
It is estimated that Pakistan has already received 50% more rain this year in comparison to last year. The country’s meteorological department has warned that the current spell of heavy rains is expected to last until August 19 with three more spells of heavy rains through September after that.
The upcoming spells may cause massive flooding in the areas along the Indus river in the coming days, Pakistani authorities have warned.
Though death and destruction from the floods have been recorded across all the provinces of Pakistan, including the capital Islamabad, the northeastern Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KP), and Gilgit-Baltistan have been hit the hardest.
Last week, huge flash floods washed away villages and communication networks at various places in the hilly region of KP and Gilgit-Baltistan. Heavy rains and cloud bursts have destroyed roads, railway lines, schools, hospitals, and other essential civilian infrastructure in KP, Gilgit-Baltistan, and other parts of Pakistan.
Buner in KP, which witnessed a cloud burst last week, has been the hardest-hit district, amassing more than half of all deaths recorded in the province with scores of people still missing.
According to the NDMA, KP recorded the highest number of people killed at 390, followed by Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, which has recorded 164 deaths. Even the drier regions such as Balochistan have recorded over a dozen deaths due to the heavy rain and flash flooding.
Fresh heavy rains on Monday have made the relief and rescue operations difficult, particularly in the most affected regions in the hills.
Effects of climate change
Residents in Pakistan’s hilly areas who lost their houses in the flash floods say there were no early warnings of the heavy rains which multiplied the loss of lives and property.
Inam Haider Malik, head of the NDMA, claimed in a press conference in Islamabad on Sunday that it is difficult to predict cloud bursts and flash floods and warned that at least three more spells of heavy rain in the coming days may cause flooding in the lower areas in Pakistan. He emphasized that the “scale of loss is part of the climate change impacts”.
Pakistan’s chief meteorologist Zaheer Babar also claimed that the unusually heavy rains are a result of climate change. However, he also underlined that the impact of erratic rain is multiplied due to haphazard construction near the river valleys and unscientific disposal of waste in the river beds, Geo Tvquoted Babar saying.
“The situation in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and Gilgit Baltistan is devastating. We are in the midst of a climate emergency,” claimed Ammar Ali Jan, leader of the Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (HKP). In his posts on X, Ammar also demanded “Pakistan should receive climate reparations, including debt relief” as it is a victim of “fossil-fuel driven model of Western development.”
Taimur Rahman, leader of the Mazdoor Kisan Party (MKP), underlined the failure of the Pakistani state to treat all its citizens equally, resulting in disproportionate losses to the poor during such floods.
Taimur claimed that the government in the country uses most of its resources on developing flood preventive mechanisms around richer localities while ignoring the needs of the majority of people.
Pakistan has faced repeated floods in the last few years with an increase in the overall rainfall during the monsoon season in particular. In 2022, in a similar situation, floods killed over 1,700 across Pakistan and affected over 33 million people, badly impacting the peoples livelihoods and the overall economy of the country as it tried to recover from the effects of COVID-19. The floods also destroyed crops, intensifying the overall food insecurity in the country.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Médecins Sans Frontières joined other organisations in Westminster on 25 June 2025 to protest over the deaths of children in Gaza. Photograph: Andy Aitchison
We have warned the government repeatedly: the response has been pathetic. Britain has a duty to act morally, and stop supporting this genocide.
Dr Natalie Roberts is the executive director of Médecins Sans Frontières UK
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At the beginning of April, we at MSF UK wrote to the foreign secretary, David Lammy, detailing our first-hand observations in Gaza. We described the massive influxes of wounded patients and dead bodies being received by MSF teams in medical facilities across Gaza on 18 March, as Israeli forces unleashed attacks of unprecedented intensity, shattering the short-lived ceasefire. We explained that MSF medical staff and their patients had already had to evacuate 17 health facilities and had endured a massive number of violent incidents, including airstrikes damaging and destroying hospitals and health facilities, tanks opening fire on humanitarian shelters, ground offensives being conducted in medical facilities, and humanitarian convoys and ambulances being fired upon by the Israeli military. We noted that not a single hospital in Gaza was currently fully functional, and that about half of them were no longer functioning at all. And we described the complete siege imposed by the Israeli authorities on Gaza.
We noted that this evidence was consistent with the description of ethnic cleansing and genocide provided by legal experts and human rights organisations. We requested a meeting to brief the foreign secretary further and to hear what concrete actions the UK planned, to hold Israel to account for its atrocities against the Palestinian people.
We did not receive a response.
So on 7 May, MSF wrote an open letter to the prime minister describing the use of starvation and collective punishment as weapons of war by the Israeli government against an entire population. We implored the UK government to uphold its obligations as a permanent member of the UN security council to act under international humanitarian law to protect all civilians in Gaza. We also called on the UK government to publicly condemn the Israeli government for the atrocities it is inflicting on the people of Gaza. We warned that failure to take immediate action and to adopt a clear position on these extensively documented and flagrant war crimes and breaches of international law would leave the UK government at high risk of charges of complicity.
We did not receive a response.
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We can only conclude that the UK government just does not want to admit what everybody else can see: that genocide is being committed in Gaza, and it is being committed with the military, diplomatic and material support of the UK.
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Vote Labour for Genocide.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
model houses on a pile of coins and bank notes
