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World News
TURKS AND CAICOS WEEKLY NEWS
February 25 - March 2, 2012
NHS ‘will be Cameron’s poll tax’, says Ed Miliband LABOUR leader Ed Miliband has told David Cameron he risks making NHS reform “his poll tax” - in noisy Commons clashes over the health bill. Mr Miliband repeatedly accused the PM of refusing to listen to medics’ concerns about the controversial bill. But Mr Cameron attacked Labour as “rank opportunists” - for calling for the publication of documents on the bill. He said Labour had refused to publish a similar document when in power and were “not fit for government”. The two clashed at Prime Minister’s Questions, ahead of a Labour-led debate calling for the publication of the government’s risk assessment of the impact of an NHS shake-up in England. ‘NOT FIT’ The controversial Health and Social Care Bill has passed through its Commons stages but has been amended several times by the House of Lords. Crossbencher Lord Owen is expected to put down an amendment to the bill which would delay its passage through Parliament until after a Freedom of Information ruling on the “transition risk register” on 5 and 6 March. In the Commons, Mr Cameron said Labour frontbencher Andy Burnham had blocked the publication of a risk register in September 2009 when he was health secretary. Mr Cameron said it showed Labour “absolutely revealed as a bunch of rank opportunists, not fit to run opposition and not fit for government”. ‘ARROGANCE’ But Mr Miliband accused the PM of having excluded the “vast majority”
Rescue workers ease a casualty out of the wreckage.
Argentina train crash in Buenos Aires ‘kills dozens’ David Cameron produces Labour briefing on NHS bill during PMQs
of health workers from a “ridiculous summit” on the Health and Social Care Bill on Monday. Having previously said he wanted to listen to NHS workers “now he can’t even be in the same room as the doctors and nurses” - suggesting he had “lost the confidence of those who work in the NHS”. He told the PM “nobody believes him and nobody trusts him on the health service” and claimed the bill had become a “symbol of his arrogance”. Referring the hugely controversial policy seen as helping hasten the end of Margaret Thatcher’s leadership of the Conservative Party, Mr Miliband added: “This will become his poll tax. He should listen to the public and he should drop this bill.” LIB DEM SUPPORT Fifteen Lib Dem MPs are backing Labour calls for ministers to publish the Department of Health’s risk assessment of the NHS shake-up. The government is appealing against a Freedom of Information ruling that it should be published in the public interest. The appeal is due to be considered on 5 and 6 March.
Labour is now using its “opposition day debate” to demand that the government “respect” the information commissioner’s ruling and publish the report. The vote is not binding but would increase pressure on the government. An early day motion on the same issue has been signed by 15 Lib Dem MPs - including Duncan Hames - an aide to Energy Secretary Ed Davey. Mr Burnham told MPs there had been “crucial differences” between the document whose publication he had blocked in 2009 - the strategic risk register - and the one Labour was now pressing the government to publish. He said he had not initiated what he described as the biggest ever topdown re-organisation of the NHS at a time of its biggest ever financial challenge - and the information commissioner had not ruled in 2009 that the paper should be published. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has said it would be “completely misleading” to publish the register, which was put together before changes were made to the bill and had been intended as an “internal mechanism”. (BBC)
Eleven-year-old beaten to death for nine hours for not vacuuming AN 11-YEAR-OLD Pittsburgh boy suffered nine hours of vicious abuse from his mother’s boyfriend before dying of his injuries, all because he failed to vacuum the apartment, police said Sunday. Anthony Bush was watching Donovan McKee while his mother was at work on Saturday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. The 29-year-old savagely beat the boy for failing to clean up. “Bush disciplined the child by beating him with various objects found in the apartment,” Homicide Lt. Daniel Herrmann told the PostGazette. Police said Bush used several wooden sticks on McKee, snapping
the wood in the process. He then made the young boy pick up the pieces. At one point, Bush used a needle and thread to close a gash he made in McKee’s knee, according to WTAE 4 News. When McKee’s mother returned around 11:40 p.m., she called authorities to report that her boyfriend had beaten her son and that the child was unresponsive, police said. Authorities arrived and found the child had suffered a head wound and had no pulse, the Post-Gazette reported. The boy still showed some signs of life and was rushed to the hospital, but later died.
Anthony Bush, 29, is facing charges in connection with the beating death of his girlfriend’s 11-year-old son, police say.
A 5-year-old child was also in the house at the time but was unharmed, police said. Bush was charged Sunday with homicide and child endangerment. (Nydailynews.com)
A TRAIN crash at a station in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, has killed 49 people with at least 600 more injured, officials say. The train slammed into the barrier at the end of the platform at the Once station during the morning rush hour. “We assume that there was some fault in the brakes”, Transportation Secretary JP Schiavi said. Eyewitnesses said the train was travelling fast. Dozens of people remain trapped. “The train was full and the impact was tremendous,” a passenger identified as Ezequiel told local television. Medics at the scene were overwhelmed by the casualties, he added. “People started to break windows and get out however they could,” another eyewitness told Reuters. “Then I saw the engine destroyed and the train driver trapped amongst the steel. There were a lot of people hurt, a lot of kids, elderly,” the eyewitness added. The train had hit the barrier at
about 12mph (20km/h), destroying the front of the engine and crunching the carriages behind it, Mr Schiavi said. One of the carriages was driven nearly 6m (20ft) into the next, he said. Emergency workers are working to extract dozens of people trapped inside the first car, said health official Alberto Crescenti. Survivors told local media that many people had been injured in a jumble of metal and glass. Some suffered fractures and other serious injuries. Many parts of Argentina’s rail network are antiquated and in need of repair, the BBC’s Vladimir Hernandez in Buenos Aires reports. Several similar accidents have occurred in recent years. In September 2011, 11 people died when a commuter train in Buenos Aires hit a bus crossing the tracks and then hit a second train coming into a station. This latest accident is Argentina’s worst train crash since 1970. (BBC)
Harrogate teacher set fire to himself at school A HARROGATE teacher who felt under pressure to get good exam results set himself on fire in the school car park, an inquest has heard. David Charlesworth, a science teacher at Rossett School, died in hospital after suffering 79% burns to his body. Harrogate Coroner’s Court was told he felt stressed that some of his students would not achieve good grades. The court was told he suffered bouts of depression which often coincided when A-levels students were taking exams. ‘Fantastic’ teacher The school’s head Patricia Hunter told the hearing sitting at the magistrates’ court, how Mr Charlesworth had “very high standards”. She told the court: “He never wanted to let anyone down,
particularly the students. “I think some of that was selfimposed anxiety.” She described him as a “fantastic” teacher and said he wrongly thought some of the coursework marks would be poor. “There was no reason in my opinion to be disappointed. The exam results didn’t bear that out.” His wife Jennifer, a fellow science teacher, recalled how her husband would take coursework on holiday. Mrs Charlesworth said: “He felt under pressure that the children get the grades and the pressure was only his and that wasn’t comfortable with him.” The court was told he went to see his GP who initially treated him with medication before referring him to a mental health team in March 2011 where there was a waiting list.