National News
15-minute care is not enough
THOUSANDS of elderly and disabled people living in their own homes are simply not getting enough care and attention as local authorities and private agencies increasingly limit time allotted for care visits to just 15 minutes, according to a report published on Monday from the Leonard Cheshire Disability charity.
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Roads blocked for justice
by New Worker correspondent
HUNDREDS of campaigners took to the streets last Saturday to block roads near courts in a nationwide protest at cuts to legal aid.
The action, Roadblocks for Justice, was organised by UK Uncut, Disabled People Against the Cuts, Plane Stupid and Fuel Poverty Action.
UK Uncut reported “The central London action outside the Royal Courts of Justice brought Fleet Street and the surrounding areas to a standstill. The actions were a necessary and proportional response to the Government’s plans to block access to the courts for millions of ordinary people by making justice unaffordable.”
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UAF stops BNP action in Croydon
by New Worker correspondent
MORE than 100 anti-fascists and trade unionists assembled last Saturday morning outside Lunar House in the centre of Croydon to prevent a demonstration planned by the British National Party against immigration.
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NHS workers demand a living wage
INSTEAD of bullying staff by threatening to scrap their pay rise, health secretary Jeremy Hunt should introduce the “living wage” across the NHS, the giant union Unite said on Monday.
Following the weekend furore when it was revealed that the Department of Heath told the pay review body (PRB) it wanted to ditch the one per cent increase from April 2014 and the pay progression increments linked to satisfactory performance which had already been promised by the Treasury, Unite is launching a campaign to highlight the continuing pay erosion in real terms for the 1.3 million NHS staff since 2006.
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Schools selling children short
SCHOOLS are getting teaching on the cheap and selling children short by using teaching assistants, cover supervisors and higher level teaching assistants to teach children on a regular basis rather than employing qualified teachers, according to an ATL survey.
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British military join Rangers fans in loyalist displays
by Phil Mac Giolla Bháin
CALLS have been made for the Ministry of Defence and Scottish authorities to take action after hundreds of British military personnel taking part in an “Armed Forces Day” at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow on Saturday 28th September posed with Ulster loyalist emblems and apparently joined in as fans chanted about the death of Bobby Sands while senior officers looked on from the directors’ box.
British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force personnel, in full uniform, were captured on video dancing and clapping as the Ibrox crowd sang about guarding Derry’s walls and chanted about the death of Bobby Sands before the Rangers versus Stenhousemuir game kicked off.
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Salmond launches Confucius Institute
Xinhua news agency
SCOTTISH First Minister Alex Salmond opened the Confucius Institute at the University of Aberdeen last month saying he expected it would strengthen bonds between Scotland and China.
Speaking at the launching ceremony on 27th September, Salmond noted that the Scottish government is committed to strengthening the bonds through academic and cultural collaboration, alongside continuing governmental and business exchanges.
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EDL leaders have Damascus moment
by New Worker correspondent
STEVEN Yaxley Lennon, commonly known as Tommy Robinson, former leader of the Islamophobic English Defence League, and his main side-kick Kevin Carroll, last week stunned their followers by announcing they were leaving the EDL.
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Students mobilising
THE NATIONAL Campaign Against Fees and Cuts is organising a variety of actions and stunts to fight the privatisation of student debt, to be staged later this month.
Students are planning events for 16th October in Bloomsbury at the University of London Union, Goldsmith’s College in south east London, and other London venues.
On Friday 18th October there will be a protest outside the department of Business, Innovation and Skills at 1pm.
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Protest against Daily Mail hate
by New Worker correspondent
HUNDREDS of people gathered outside the headquarters of the Daily Mail newspaper to protest at the hate campaigns run by the right-wing tabloid.
The protest was organised via Facebook by the People’s Assembly and was prompted by the Daily Mail’s attack on Ralph Miliband, the father of Labour leader Ed Miliband, whom the paper described as “the man who hated Britain”.
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Workers Party of Korea celebrated in London
by New Worker correspondent
COMRADES from several different organisations came together last Saturday 5th October in south London to celebrate the formation of the Workers Party of Korea, on 10th October 1926, at a social organised by the Friends of Korea.
Youg Ho Thae, minister at the DPRK embassy, explained the history of the formation of the Workers Party of Korea, which was directly descended from the Down With Imperialism Union by the young, patriotic student leader Kim Il Sung in 1926.
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Free the Arctic 30
AROUND 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside the Russian embassy in Kensington, London, last Saturday to demand the release of 30 Greenpeace activists who were arrested a week ago by the Russian police on a charge of piracy after they tried to board a Russian oil drilling rig in the Arctic Sea.
The protesters included a number of celebrities: Jude Law, Imelda Staunton, Jim Carter, Dame Vivian Westwood, Damon Albarn and many more.
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International News
US shutdown: who suffers?
Workers World (US)
UNABLE or unwilling to reach an agreement to extend government spending, the United States Congress has provoked a government shutdown. It will quickly “furlough” 800,000 government workers, keep others working without pay, and threaten cuts to some essential social programs like Women and Infants Care and institutions like the Centres for Disease Control, already diminished by the sequester.
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Russian border control tightened ahead of Games
Voice of Russia
RUSSIAN special services are tightening control over the state border ahead of the Sochi Winter Olympic Games to prevent entrance to terrorists, including from Syria, and the smuggling of gear for staging terror attacks, said Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov.
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The CIA and the not so secret war against Venezuela
by Juan Leandro
THE EXPULSION by President Nicolas Maduro of the head of the US diplomatic mission in Venezuela, Kelly Keiderling and two of her employees are proof of the resurgence of the plan to overthrow the Bolivarian Revolution. Maduro said he has evidence of American involvement in the sabotage of the national economy and the power sector.
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Russia premieres Stalingrad epic
Voice of Russia
LAST WEEK Russian film director Fyodor Bondarchuk presented the Moscow premiere of his World War II drama Stalingrad, an epic about one of the bloodiest battles in history, and which Russia has picked as its Oscar entry. Made with a budget of €22 million including financing from the government, Bondarchuk’s new film is the first Russian film to be shot entirely in 3D.
The release comes as President Vladimir Putin is seeking to play up patriotism to shore up support after returning to the Kremlin for a third term as president last year following huge protests.
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Vo Nguyen Giap 1911-2013
by Paddy Colligan and G Dunkel
GENERAL Vo Nguyen Giap, a hero and leader of the Vietnamese people’s struggles against Japanese, French and US imperialism, died on 4th October..
He was the founder and first leader of the Vietnam People’s Army and helped to develop and applied the concept of “people’s war” that the Vietnamese used first to defeat the French colonial rulers in 1954 and later to drive US imperialism and its puppets out of South Vietnam in 1975.
[ Vo Nguyen Giap 1911-2013 ]
Features
The invalidation of the worker: Disability in capitalist society
by Adrian Chan-Wyles
THE TERM “invalid” has been used for decades to describe a human being who is subject to a psychological or physical disability. The term “invalid” means quite clearly that the subject being described is in a state of existence that is free of value. The in-valid state is one stripped of consensual value. Society as a whole withdraws acknowledgement of “value” from a human being who happens to be subject to a unique or unusual psychological or physical limitation. What is it that has no value?
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