National News
And on the Buses
TRANSPORT Secretary Grant Shapps has said he wants more buses running, but Unite the Union demands that should not be before certain conditions such as risk assessments are undertaken and fully applied and social distancing measures to protect drivers are preserved. In particular, Unite demands that drivers’ protective screens are sealed, seats around the driver cordoned off and non-cash payments implemented. Restrictions on overloading will need to be introduced.
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Back to school and work
by New Worker correspondent
TEN BRITISH and Irish teaching unions have written an open letter to the five relevant governments opposing moves for an early opening of schools, warning that to do so would be a “very real risk of creating a spike in the transmission of the virus by a premature opening of schools”.
The letter demands the establishment of sufficient “test, trace and isolate” capacity” with a very low infection rate before reopening, with “effective social distancing, strong hygiene routines linked to thorough cleansing practices and appropriate PPE [personal protective equipment] supplied.
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Class struggle continues
by New Worker correspondent
EVEN THOSE workers doing essential work are being threatened by bosses.
Ten couriers working for the Doctor’s Laboratory, a London private pathology company, are being threatened with redundancy despite transporting COVID-19 material during the pandemic. Their union, the Independent Workers of Great Britain, claimed that the sackings target workers who had won a pay rise last year and that one worker had raised health and safety problems, including a lack of protective wear, with the company.
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Going hungry during Lockdown
Sputnik
NEARLY A FIFTH of households with children have been unable to access food in the last five weeks, according to data from The Food Foundations seen exclusively by the Observer on Sunday.
The UK has implemented social-distancing measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 and prevent overloading of patients onto the NHS. But due to existing food insecurity and the reliance on food banks and school lunches before the lockdown, many of Britain’s poorest are at breaking point.
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The New Poor Law
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
The SNP Government has effectively told Scottish councils to go and get lost. Finance Secretary Kate Forbes has said they should drain their reserves before they get any of the £155 million announced by the Chancellor on 18 April that mirrors the extra £1.6 billion given to local authorities in England to assist them with extra burdens caused by the pandemic.
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Bad Cops
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Police Scotland is another shining example of the constructive genius of the SNP. It is supposed to uphold the law, but Freedom of Information (FOI) requests show that it has come to light that force is facing no less than 530 compensation claims from its own staff and the public.
These allegations of wrongdoing against Police Scotland and its officers cover such matters as accidents at work, public liability, issues “where members of the public may have been injured in a police station or by officers and motor liability, including crashes involving police vehicles”.
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A museum of neo-liberalism
by Dermot Hudson
REACTIONARIES like to go on about the ‘victims ‘ of communism and in some former socialist countries anti-communist museums have been opened – but you never hear a word about the victims of capitalism or the victims of neo-liberalism.
Tucked away in a far corner of southeast London however, is the Museum of Neo-Liberalism. which offers an alternative view to the worship of capitalism, ‘the market’ and globalisation that is promoted by the mainstream media. It provides plenty of food for thought.
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International News
Pastors demand investigation on Cuban Embassy attack
Radio Havana Cuba
PASTORS for Peace is demanding that the US government investigate the attack on the Cuban embassy in Washington. In a letter sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other senior officials, the New York-based religious movement condemned the “cowardly terrorist attack” of 30th April.
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More Palestinian land seized for Zionist settlers
Radio Havana Cuba
THE ISRAELI authorities have confiscated a vast tract of private Palestinian land to build a cemetery for settlers in an area of the occupied West Bank, as the Zionist regime presses ahead with land expropriation policies in violation of international law and UN Security Council resolutions.
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Bannon, a bane to global pandemic fight
by Chen Chen
STEVE BANNON has long been a proven far-right fringe extremist. His recent China-smearing remarks on US television have shown just how cold-blooded, brazen and ignorant he can be.
During an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box last week, Bannon accused China of not caring about coronavirus spreading across the rest of the world.
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USA: Guns in a time of coronavirus
by Ray Jones
PERHAPS I shouldn’t have been surprised when I heard that guns sales in the USA had soared with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic but I was a little shocked. For a moment I had a mad vision of armed Americans roaming the streets in search of viruses to shoot!
But it would seem that usually mild, non-armed people are afraid that desperate intruders will attack their homes and steal their food and goods during the lockdown. To assist the defenders, many states have designated gun shops as essential services and free to open!
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May Fourth spirit inspires China to advance
Xinhua
MONDAY marked the 101st anniversary of the May Fourth Movement in China. It bears a special meaning this year as the country is fighting the coronavirus as well as the “political virus” disseminated by some Western politicians.
The May Fourth Movement started with mass student protests on 4th May 1919, against the government’s response to the Treaty of Versailles that imposed unfair treaties on China and undermined the country’s sovereignty after the First World War. It then triggered a national campaign to overthrow the old society and promote new ideas, including science, democracy and Marxism.
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Teaching crucial life lessons in Vietnam
by Lê Huong
GRAHAM BUCKLEY first came to Việtnam as a volunteer in 2006 and soon fell in love with the country. He had signed up to teach swimming on Chàm Island in the central province of Quảng Nam, but the programme was cancelled and he transferred to work as an English teaching assistant in Huế.
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Features
COVID-19: Lies must never be allowed to distort true history
by Ye Shuhong, Ma Qian and Zhang Xin
THE OLD SAYING, brazenly upheld by some Western politicians, that “a lie told a thousand times over becomes the truth” is in itself untrue, because in the face of facts, a lie, no matter how many times it is repeated or how delicately it is fabricated, remains what it is.
So do the lies of some US politicians about China’s role in the global fight against COVID-19.
Panic persists amongst them as, in a little more than three months, the number of coronavirus cases has surpassed a million and related deaths topped 60,000 in the USA, since the first confirmed case of the coronavirus was reported on 21st January in the USA.
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America attacks Cuba with drugs and slander
by Francisco Arias Fernández
THE CYCLICAL slander campaigns of US governments and their special services against Cuba have been a regular weapon in the arsenal used in attempts to discredit – and eliminate – the Revolution, as evident in secret files on efforts to fabricate a pretext to invade the island, during the events that gave rise to Case no1 of 1989, in which Cuban military officers were convicted of drug-related offences.
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Laos keeps virus under control
by Joshua Hanks
THE LAO People’s Democratic Republic has not recorded an increase in coronavirus cases in 13 consecutive days as of 25th April. The number of confirmed cases in the south-east Asian country is holding steady at just 19. Sixteen cases were confirmed in the capital Vientiane and three were found in Luang Prabang. Seven people have recovered.
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