National News
Aleida Guevara addresses Miami Five protest
by New Worker correspondent
ALEIDA GUEVARA,
daughter of the Cuban
revolutionary hero Che
Guevara, last Tuesday
attended a mass vigil outside
the United States embassy in
Grosvenor Square, organised
to demand the release of the
Miami Five.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Disabled claimants to face new barrier
THE GOVERNMENT has
just made it harder for
claimants to appeal against a
DWP decision based on an
Atos report. Atos is the private
company contracted by the
Government to carry out
Work Capability
Assessments (WCAs) on all
disabled benefit claimants.
Under the new rules, due
to be implemented from April
2013, claimants who wish to
challenge a benefits decision
will no longer be allowed to
choose to lodge an appeal
immediately.
Instead, there will be a
new requirement for claimants
to request a revision of the
original decision from the
Department for Work and
Pensions (DWP) and have
that request determined
before launching the right to
appeal to an independent
tribunal.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Atos nurse
ordered to
find people
fit for work
JOYCE DRUMMOND, a
former nurse who was
employed by the company
Atos to carry out work
assessment capability
interviews of benefit
claimants on behalf of the
Department of Work and
Pensions (DWP), said she
was forced to manipulate tests
so that disabled people were
deemed fit for work.
Joyce Drummond alleged
she was warned by the
French-owned firm she was
being "too nice" to claimants.
She said candidates were
considered more able to work
if they arrived for their
interview with brushed hair,
had a toddler with them, or
wore make-up.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Tory Lord wants tax haven Britain
TORY Party treasurer Lord
Fink seems to have totally
given up on the image of
Britain as a major player on
the world political stage and
wants us to become more like
the Cayman Islands, or
Jersey — in other words a
minor offshore group of
islands dependent on being a
tax haven for the very wealthy.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Protesters escort fascists off Liverpool campus
ANTI-FASCISTS in Liverpool
last week escorted fascists
belonging to a new
organisation, the “Natural
Culturalists”, from the
University of Liverpool
campus as they tried to
leaflet students attending
the freshers’ fair. The
student union has a policy
of “no platform for
fascism”.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
CBI calls for more privatisation
THE CONFEDERATION of
British Industry is calling on
the Government to step up the
privatisation of public sector
services, claiming that the
Government could save £22.6
billion.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Sun shines for our paper!
WELL IT DID last Saturday at the Metropolitan supporters group’s annual
garden party in Charlton. There was plenty of good food and drink and even
the autumn chill could not dampen the discussions that always take place
when comrades get together. And they showed their thanks in the traditional
manner by putting £95 into the collection tin for the New Worker!
International News
Portugal: “Fuck the troika!”
by John Catalinotto
AROUND a million of
Portugal’s 11 million people
held massive marches in
Lisbon, Oporto and 38 other
cities and towns on 15th
September to condemn the
austerity policies of the
troika — the European
Union, the European Central
Bank and the International
Monetary Fund — and of the
three parties backing
austerity in Parliament.
Demonstrations of tens if not
hundreds of thousands also
took place in Spain that day
on similar issues.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Belarus gives Europe and USA a lesson in free and fair elections
by Lyuba Lulko
THE BELARUSIANS have
elected their deputies to the
lower house of parliament.
The opposition has shown its
weakness by boycotting the
elections. The pro-Nato
Organisation for Security
and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) predictably said that
the elections were not free.
Poland called the Belarusian
elections "make-up on the
face of dictatorship," while
Germany said that it was a
tragedy. But the Belarusians
do not care much about those
attacks. They held the
elections for themselves and
not for the West.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Threat to Catalan independence
by John Hedges
THE SPECTRE of Spain's
fascist leader General
Franco looms behind
Monday’s statement by
retired army officers in the
Spanish Military
Association (Asociación de
Militares Españoles — AME)
saying that anyone
promoting “Spain’s
fracture” (in other words
independence for
Catalonia) could be courtmartialled.
AME named the
President of Catalonia and
all the members of his party
as potential defendants in
military tribunals.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Pyongyang International Film Festival begins
THE 13th Pyongyang
International Film
Festival opened this
week with around 30
feature and
documentary films
from over 50 groups
in 30 countries
competing for the
"torch prize" of the biannual
film festival
that was established
in 1987.
More than 90 films
will be screened during
the festival, including
the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea's
(DPRK) first two coproduced
movies Meet
in Pyongyang with
China, and Comrade
Kim Goes Flying with a
British director.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Features
The London Cables: Labour leaders and US imperialism
Part one
by Neil Harris
BRADLEY MANNING, in
solitary confinement since
his arrest, is facing a courtmartial
in the spring of
2013. If he is lucky enough
to escape the death penalty
he will be serving a long
prison sentence, under the
same kind of harsh
conditions he has faced up
till now.
If the allegations are true;
that he leaked some 250,000
US State Department
“cables”, then his sacrifice
means we owe him a great
debt. It is our duty to make full
use of this remarkable and
unique resource: essentially a
series of confidential reports
sent back to Washington by
US Embassy staff from
around the world. At the time
of the original disclosure, the
bourgeois press published a
small selection of these
without criticism, effectively
repeating the official State
Department worldview, as if it
was true.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]