National News
Murder on the Glasgow Express
by New Worker correspondent
ON MONDAY ScotRail issued a press release triumphantly boasting of the fact that they had been awarded the top award in the large employer category at the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Proud Scotland awards for “creating a culture conducive to happiness and security within the workplace”.
This did not meet with the wholehearted approval of everyone. The award was announced at the same time as rail union RMT is balloting for strike action over a pathetic pay offer for all rail staff and has already been involved another dispute over payments for working on scheduled rest days, which has seen most Sunday services being cancelled. Also on the railways, engineering staff belonging to Unite have begun strike action in a separate dispute.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
On the buses
by New Worker correspondent
MANY OTHER transport strikes are looming, this time south of the border, and on the tar roads rather than iron roads.
Stagecoach, the predatory bus company which began life in Perth when buses were first deregulated, is a major target. Its owner Brian Souter first provided very cheap, or even free, buses on many ill-served routes. After putting the competition out of business, services declined and fares soared. He also boosted his business by running buses between Glasgow and Edinburgh on such a tight schedule that they could only be kept by breaking the speed limits – but he never got a ticket. During the Salmond era Souter was a major donor to the SNP but now he seems to favour the Liberal Democrats.
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Scottish Political News
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
SOME 22,000 children across Scotland will be pushed into poverty by the cut in Universal Credit. Boris Johnson’s decision to end the £20-a-week uplift to the benefit came into force this week despite widespread opposition that includes members of his own party.
The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) says the universal credit reduction will push an estimated 22,000 children into poverty in Scotland alone and Citizens Advice Scotland says the decision will push many people into impossible financial choices in the coming weeks and months. But Johnson has turned his back on the charities, anti-poverty campaigners, opposition parties and even his fellow Tory MPs to reverse the cut.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Our brilliant government
by our Scottish political affairs correspondent
Back in Edinburgh, one of the SNP’s latest initiatives has been so badly planned that even normally docile SNP parliamentarians and councillors are saying it’s rubbish, including Nicola Sturgeon’s own campaign manager.
The Health Secretary, who was responsible for it, has said it should be ignored because it does not work. Such is the fate of the SNP’s COVID‑vaccine-passport app, which we were told was essential if COVID‑19 was to be defeated. It was supposed to confirm that people had received the jabs so that they could attend large events such as football matches and crowded nightclubs. It came into force at 5am last Friday but that very night Humza Yousaf, the twice-failed Justice and Transport Secretary who is now Health Secretary, told door staff to ignore the scheme.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Ducking and diving in Downing Street
by Ilya Tsukanov
PRIME Minister Boris Johnson has shocked some of his constituents after denying that the UK was in the depths of a major crisis and saying that it wasn’t his government’s job to fix all of the nation’s ills.
But Britons are facing a perfect storm of an economic crisis caused by a dramatic spike in utilities rates, the lingering impact of COVID‑19, a shortage of fuel for motorists at the pumps, and the prospect of food shortages running through the festive season thanks to disruptions caused by an insufficient number of drivers for heavy goods vehicles (HGVs).
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International News
Indian farmers step up protests after nine killed
Radio Havana Cuba
FARMERS in India have vowed to intensify their months-long protest against laws aimed at liberalising agriculture as tensions flare a day after nine people were killed in northern Uttar Pradesh state’s Lakhimpur Kheri district.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
COVID‑19 deaths top 700,000 in USA
Radio Havana Cuba
OVER 700,000 Americans have died from COVID‑19, according to figures from the Coronavirus Research Center at Johns Hopkins University. The USA is the world’s worst affected country with about 15 per cent of world-wide fatalities.
The grim toll – roughly equivalent to the population of the nation’s capital, Washington, DC – was reached late on Friday with an average of well over 1,000 people dying each day in a country where 55.7 per cent of the population is now fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
The lies of the Western media
People’s Daily (Beijing)
FOR YEARS, the unspoken truth about Western media is that their veneer of objectivity evaporated a long time ago. Whilst touting themselves as the epitome of trustworthiness and honesty, some Western journalists have no qualms about spreading lies about China.
As the co-ordinated anti-China smear campaign is gaining steam, more intrepid journalists with a conscience are calling it out despite the tremendous pressure to silence them.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Israeli-Arabs remember October martyrs
CP Israel
LAST WEEKEND the Palestinian Arab national minority in Israel marked the 21st anniversary of the October 2000 protests in which 13 young Arabs were killed by the Israeli police.
The protests in Arab cities and towns in northern Israel followed a deliberate provocation by the then-defence minister, General Ariel Sharon, who entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem with an escort of over a thousand Israeli police officers. This sparked off the Second Intifada.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Cuba: Caring for the elderly
by María Josefina Arce
THE WORLD’S population is ageing at an accelerated pace. International organisations estimate that by 2050 one out of every six people on the planet will be over 65 years old.
Cuba is no exception to this phenomenon. According to the Ministry of Public Health, in 2020 the number of people over 60 years of age increased in the country, reporting that 21.3 per cent of the national demographic register corresponds to the so-called third age group.
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Features
Pandora’s box: the ‘off-shore secrets’ of world leaders
by Evgeny Mikhaylov
THE International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has released the Pandora Papers, the largest trove of leaked offshore data, accusing world leaders, businessmen and celebrities of engaging in offshore activities.
They claim that the leaked documents from 14 offshore companies unveiled “how the rule of law has been bent and broken around the world by a system of financial secrecy enabled by the US and other wealthy nations”.
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
Black History: The captain who fought Jim Crow, Hitler, and McCarthy
by Tony Pecinovsky
“HUGH MULZAC opened my eyes to another part of the sea…he opened my eyes to another part of life in this country, to racism,” Jeremy Hope, International Vice President of the Masters, Mates, and Pilots Union told over 200 Second World War Merchant Marine veterans, their families, and union members here for a 24th September event at the Maritime Conference Center.
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US atrocities: evading responsibility in Afghanistan
by Yu Ning
“IT WAS a mistake.” On 17th September the US military changed course amidst a huge international public outcry and solid evidence provided by a pair of media investigations. It admitted that the deadly US drone strike in Kabul on 29th August, which it had previously defended as a “righteous strike”, was a “tragic mistake” that killed 10 civilians, including a humanitarian worker and seven children, instead of terrorist targets. General Frank McKenzie, commander of US Central Command, offered an apology for the error. But then what?
[Read the complete story in the print edition]
