National News
Sisters Uncut crash BAFTA red carpet
THE FEMINIST protest group Sisters Uncut last week stormed the red carpet at the annual BAFTA (British Academy of film and Television Arts) awards ceremony to draw attention to the failings of Theresa May’s new policy on domestic violence.
Sisters Uncut say the measures put forward are a “dangerous distraction” that will leave survivors “locked up in prison, locked out of refuges, and locked in to violent relationships.”
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Bosses ignorant on pregnant women’s rights
EMPLOYERS are “living in the dark ages” on pregnant women’s rights with 59 per cent believing job applicants should have to disclose whether they are pregnant, according to the results of a poll published last week by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
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Unions win new pay deal at Cammell Laird
THE UNIONS Unite and GMB last week announced a new workforce pay, terms and conditions agreement, which the parties say will support the “upward growth trajectory” of the company.
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Debt causing mental health problems
A MENTAL health charity last week said that the problem of people with mental health issues being chased
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DWP quits plan to trial softer sanctions regime
THE DEPARTMENT for Work and Pensions (DWP) last week quietly abandoned a promise that they made to test a gentler approach to dealing with claimants who breach strict benefit conditions for the first time.
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Britain’s unsafe jails
TWO-THIRDS of prisons in Britain are inadequate and two-in-five are downright unsafe according to an investigation by the Observer newspaper
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
SCOTTISH Labour has called on other parties to unite to block a possible state visit to Scotland by Donald Trump. Last week Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard convened a meeting of campaigners, trade unionists and politicians to discuss how best to respond to a possible visit to Scotland by the US president.
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Audit count
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Audit Scotland (AS), the official bean-counter-in-chief, has laid into the SNP government over its plans to expand nursery provision in Scotland.
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Moral count
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
By coincidence, Ms Todd’s predecessor as Childcare minister has also been in the news. Mark Macdonald has come under fire for receiving a resettlement grant of £7,270 precisely 90 days after he left the post last November. Macdonald had to resign when he sent a lewd text message to a woman who was not his lawfully wedded wife
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Local Government News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
It is not only MSPs who find it difficult to avoid making headlines for the wrong reasons.
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End British support to the Kiev regime!
by New Worker correspondent
ANTI-FASCIST campaigners returned to the streets of Whitehall in force last weekend in solidarity with the people of the Lugansk and Donetsk republics, and to call for an end to British military aid to the Kiev regime.
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Chinese visitor numbers soaring
Xinhua
LONDON and two of Britain’s largest cities joined forces this week to promote English tourism to visitors from China, India and the Gulf. The partnership, which will see the capital, Birmingham and Manchester join forces on tourism for the first time with a focus on increasing the number of visitors arriving in one city and then travelling across the different regions. The target areas are seen as three of the world’s fastest growing markets
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London tribute to Korean revolutionary
by New Worker correspondent
KIM JONG IL’S birthday has long been known as the Day of the Shining Star in Democratic Korea. In the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and across the world events were held throughout the month in honour of the DPRK leader who died at his post on 17th December 2011
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Differing views of the Swinging ‘60s
TV REVIEW
by our TV correspondent
ON SUNDAY evenings, now that McMafia has finished, we have a choice between two TV dramas, both set in the 1960s: Endeavour and Call the Midwife. These two dramas give somewhat differing views of what is often referred to as the Swinging Sixties
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International News
Jacob Zuma goes
Radio Havana Cuba
SOUTH Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has resigned after intense pressure from his own party, the African National Congress (ANC) last week. In a 30-minute television appearance he said was quitting with immediate effect but said he disagreed with his party’s decision.
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School carnage survivor slams Trump
Radio Havana Cuba
A STUDENT from a Florida high school where yet another mass shooting left 17 people dead has blasted US President Donald Trump and many other politicians in the country for receiving money from the National Rifle Association (NRA), the powerful lobby that fervently opposes gun control across the USA.
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Nobel Peace Prize a political tool of the West
People’s Daily (Beijing)
RECENTLY, a group of US politicians nominated three leaders of the illegal ‘Occupy Central’ movement for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. The Foreign Ministry in Beijing in a statement on Friday urged the US lawmakers to “stop meddling” in China’s domestic affairs, saying the 2014 protests were
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Features
Racism: a capitalist tool
by Rob Gowland
PRIOR TO the Second World War, the heartland of capitalism — the place that set the system’s policies, methods and style — was England. But after the Second World War, capitalism’s heartland shifted base to the USA where, 80 years after the end of the American Civil War — the ‘war to free the slaves’ — a deep and pervasive racism operated.
In the southern half of the country, blacks and whites were ruthlessly segregated, at school, on public transport, at work, everywhere. The system worked to the benefit of capitalism, keeping workers divided by race and at the same time giving poor whites the illusion that they were not really being ruthlessly exploited because there was a sizeable segment of the population — ‘coloureds’ — who were not only visibly worse off than they were but were clearly ‘inferior’ to them.
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Debunking myths about the Soviet Army in Afghanistan
by Tony Devon
LAST WEEK Russia and 14 other countries that formerly comprised the USSR will commemorate the 29th anniversary of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA). The conflict, which spanned over nine years, was a major escalation point in the Cold War and its consequences remain with us today.
Even though the US war in Afghanistan will mark its 17th year in 2018, it was the Soviet military campaign that has become a source of various misconceptions and fallacies promulgated by numerous ‘military experts’ in the West.
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