National News
Disability assessors mocked claimants
A DISABILITY assessor working for Capita — a firm contracted by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to assess disabled claimants for Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) — boasted that he could earn “£20 grand a month most months” by speeding up the assessments and processing hundreds every week.
The man, known as Alan, was exposed by the Channel Four undercover Dispatches report, shown on Monday evening.
He also mocked one claimant, saying she needed “help to wipe her arse because she’s too fucking fat to do it herself”.
He was filmed by an undercover reporter — a former mental health worker — who applied to and went through the Capita recruitment and training programme for assessors.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Protesters call for Cameron to go
THOUSANDS of protesters descended on Downing Street last Saturday, at very short notice, to demand David Cameron’s resignation after a week of admissions, dragged one-by-one from the Prime Minister, about his and his family’s connections with offshore investments.
This delivery left everyone wondering what new revelations were coming next in relation to the leaking of the “Panama Papers” from the database of the Panamanian lawyers Mossack Fonseca.
After more than 10 years of savage austerity cuts imposed by Cameron many people are very angry that he appears to be amongst the millionaires who have salted away most of their wealth into offshore trusts where it cannot be taxed.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Edinburgh schools closed
SEVENTEEN schools in Edinburgh remain closed after inspections during the Easter break found major safety issues with the buildings and concerns over the standard of their construction.
They were all built under the same public private partnership (PPP) contract.
About 7,000 pupils are likely to be affected by the closures. Parents have been left to make last-minute childcare arrangements. The Goodtrees Neighbourhood Centre has also been closed.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
London Tube at risk of flooding
EIGHTY-FIVE sites on the London Underground are at high and rising risk of flooding, according to a report that says it is “only a matter of time” before serious flooding strikes.
Most threatened are some of the capital’s busiest stations, including Waterloo, King’s Cross and London Bridge, and the report warns of potential dangers to passengers.
“The rapid nature of flooding events often produces high safety consequences,” it reads. The report was funded after Hurricane Sandy swamped the metro in New York City in 2012.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Scottish Parliament Election News
EXCITEMENT is mounting across Scotland as the big guns fire off their shots. Speaking at a meeting in Portobello in Edinburgh last weekend, Labour leaders Jeremy Corbyn and Kezia Dugdale both condemned the Scottish National Party for failing to use the Scottish Parliament’s new powers to challenge the Tories.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
International News
Ukrainian coup ‘Interim step for toppling Putin’ — former CIA analyst
Sputnik
NOW THAT Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has resigned, former CIA (US Central Intelligence Agency) analyst Ray McGovern speaks with Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear to discuss who’s in line to be the US-approved replacement.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Why Yatsenyuk’s resignation ‘Unlikely to save Ukraine’
Sputnik
“THE National Endowment for Democracy... talked about Ukraine being the biggest prize, sort of an interim step toward toppling Russian President Vladimir Putin,” McGovern said.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Venezuela supreme court rules against Amnesty Bill
Radio Havana Cuba
IN VENEZUELA, the Constitutional Court of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice has voted unanimously that the Amnesty Bill is unconstitutional.
The Court declared “unconstitutional” the provisions of the Law on Amnesty and National Reconciliation, based on, amongst other things: “inclusion of criminal offences, including offences of organised crime; the violation of constitutional principles of legality, criminality, justice and accountability in the process of drafting laws; the inclusion in the amnesty of administrative offences that violate the protection of public assets and the fight against corruption; the violation of the constitutional principle of sovereignty; and the effects on society and the legal system, of ignoring the rights of victims.”
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
China continues releasing water to droughthit Mekong countries
Xinhua
CHINA has decided to continue discharging water from a hydropower station into the downstream reaches of the Mekong River for drought relief, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday.
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Never forget My Lai
by Rob Gowland
CAPITALISM is synonymous with wars of aggression. To covet control over other people’s territory and resources is fundamental to it. To secure that control — or to eliminate competition — it initiates wars of conquest or simply of destruction.
And to ensure that the young men it sends to carry out those wars do so with the right degree of savagery, capitalism inculcates in them not just a carefully nurtured hatred for “the enemy” but also a contempt, a belief that the enemy is less than human, inherently inferior and undeserving of any humanitarian concerns.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Odessa: neo-Nazis attack commemoration
Solidarity with Anti-Fascist Resistance in
Ukraine (SARU)
THE 10th April marks the anniversary of Odessa’s liberation from Nazism during World War Two. This year, neo-Nazi thugs from the Right Sector, Svoboda, Automaidan and the Maidan Self-Defence attacked those who wanted to commemorate the event.
And they destroyed the Memorial at Kulikovo Field to those who died in the House of Trade Unions on 2nd May, 2014.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Seán Crowe TD speaks Córdoba
by Mark Moloney
THE IRISHMEN who joined with the Spanish people to face down fascist dictator Franco were remembered at a commemoration in the city of Córdoba in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia.
Speaking at the event to remember members of the International Brigades who fought in Spain during the country’s civil war of 1936—1939, Sinn Féin Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Seán Crowe TD told the crowd: “The men and women who joined the International Brigades were motivated by the highest of ideals. It wasn’t for wealth, profit or personal gain.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Russia delivers S-300 Air Defence System to Iran
Sputnik
RUSSIA has made the first contracted delivery of the S-300 air defence systems to Iran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hussein Jaber Ansari said on Monday.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Features
1.2 million workers and students reject new labour law in France
by G Dunkel
WORK MORE, earn less! Give your boss more flexibility so you can be “laid off more easily!” were some of the key criticisms of the new labour law that French workers explained to TV reporters were why they were protesting on 31st March in Paris and 250 other French cities and towns.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Lakota Native American finds new home in Russia
Sputnik
“A MAN makes his own arrows, according to an old Native American proverb. It rings especially true in the case of Justin Irwin, a Lakota Native American who lives deep in the woods of Central Russia.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Radical plots in comic books?
by Michelle Zacarias
THIS PAST weekend, Marvel Studios released the second trailer for Captain
America: Civil War. Fans rejoiced at the unexpected cameo of Spider-Man and other favourite heroes. Whereas many remained initially concerned that the film would water down the critical politics of the comic series, it seems that they will actually embrace much of the original content.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]