"Ashcroft today confirmed that he will comply with cross-party moves to prevent people who do not pay full tax on all their earnings from sitting in either house of parliament and will relinquish his non-dom status.

'I hereby firmly agree that I will not seek to be introduced to the House of Lords until I have taken up residency in the United Kingdom within the timescale mentioned.' He also promises to resign as the Belize representative to the UN on March 31st that year." (Source The Guardian 1/3/2010).

A considerable sum of money is used to address benefit fraud, although tax evasion costs something like 15 times more.

Now in Latin America there is a resurgence of socialism, and the reviled (in Western media) Hugo Chavez calls for a Fifth Socialist International

To illustrate the problem states like Venezuela face, criticism of Venezuela's efforts to help Haiti was made in the Huffington Post. Why? It seems that Venezuela has not allied itself with a group effort because it was felt that much aid effort had the aim of landing lucrative contracts to rebuild this shattered nation. Already Haiti is the subject of continuing colonialisation. This is not what the socialist states of Venezuela and Cuba see themselves joining with.

The help is not seen as short term as permanent hospitals are being set up in outlying regions short on doctors, and often supply of essentials such as water.

I haven't found anyone in the voluntary sector who likes being categorised as "third sector". It smacks of patronage and fits in well with a view of voluntary organisations as being dependent on hand-outs and aid much as an internal "third world". The irony is that the health service has long since recognised the need to work closely with community-based groups in order to reach the many in need of help and support. Mental health is a good example of an area of concern where much could be done in the community to give help and support to those known to be at risk. The Government gave a priority to supporting groups through its Delivering Race Equality (DRE) agenda. Commissioners were advised of the need to work closely with the community-based organisations. This well-paid group of people who have come into existence with the commissioning system make it their task to closely guard the scarce resources they administer. Yes quite so, but the effect has been to make it extremely difficult for many organisations with a long track record of care and in-depth knowledge of community needs to either disappear, or as the Baring report says, compromise their independence, vital for effective advice and advocacy services. Another trend has been for those in receipt of direct payments for the social care and health needs has been for them to have to pay for the advice services that were once free to them.

i seriously doubt, given the background, that M Sarkozy will see things in the same light as Naomi Klein. Writing in The Nation magazine she makes the case that it is Haiti that is owed money and the former and present colonial powers are in debt to them. More likely the time is seen as ripe to return to ways of harnessing a people made desperate by the impositions of despotic rulers placed there to ensure they don't follow Cuba and others into the socialism now taking hold to the south of the USA.

The first thing to do is to kill a dozen or so civilians. Another good ploy is to kidnap suspects so that everyone is sending our search parties for them and send them away to a secret location. No not Guantanamo Bay but somewhere inside Afghanistan. For goodness sake!

The once notorious Bagram prison has cleaned up its act according to the article in the Nation. The dirty work of torture, which continues, goes on elsewhere. No Bush in sight now but the man Obama who promised us the longed for change and hope. Don't look for it here.

What has been overlooked is what has happened to art treasures in Haiti. In short they were ruined. Clearly when it comes to human tragedy on this scale it is not the first matter of concern what happens to artifacts and treasures. Ultimately though the wrecking of a nation's heritage does affect the people whose achievements and histories are recorded. We have seen the consequences of war in Iraq to national treasures, an essential part of that nations identity. While Haiti is known as a "poor" nation in terms of wealth when it comes to artistic traditions it is far from true. Haiti has one of the richest traditions of art in the region. It seems there is little to be salvaged. As one commentator remarked "we have to start all over again".

State schools are paid for by governments not without good reason. There are expectations that they will provide cohesion in society, That is they will contribute to the reproduction of the "culture", "values", "norms" (as Pierre Bourdieu expounds it) that establishment figures trot out. Part of "State Repressive Apparatus" according to Althusser.

It's as if the whole idea of education has been consciously driven away from the liberation of human need. Education means preparing for life in a class-structured society where people continue to have their "place" or "station". While these terms may have fallen out of use they are still part of the ideology which ensures that on the one hand there are those who can have access to resources. On the other those who service their needs for ever smaller reward. This is supported by a grovelling media and is a requirement of education - in the state part that is. The other bit is left alone to similarly reproduce itself which it does quite effectively.

I had the great privilege of joining thousands of others in the Birmingham Convention Centre when Mandela came. He started locally in Handsworth where he asked to go personally to meet with the black population. Facing 3000 or so he began jestingly "if I known there were so many I wouldn't have come" before talking for two hours without a note in sight. I raised my clenched fist in salute as he left the building receiving a smiling acknowledgment.

While Mandela's example was pointed to as an example to be followed what has been reported so frequently in the 20 years that followed is the self-indulgence and greed of so many entrusted with leadership in democratic elections. Mandela's own successor, Jacob Zuma, is embroiled in controversy and it will be a strange sight to see him speaking in tribute to the person he so singularly fails to emulate.

Most regrettable is that the promise of socialism has receded as personal greed eclipses all else as international capitalism continues to encourage and support it.

It's an indication of the locus of power to have the ability to command funds in this way. This is a group of people who don't themselves manufacture anything but have access to money. Whose money? The very people who do, or did, useful jobs and have lost not only their livelihood but their homes and their pensions. In the USA they now have a government struggling against the odds to get health cover for many more citizens, a move viciously opposed by those who have the bonuses to pay for their well being. A classless society? In no way. The one group can command their pay and pensions and then announce that they cannot afford the other group's (i.e. the productive workers) pensions, health care or benefits. Any government that can be voted in will not have the power to deal with the power brokers, rather they will have to jump to their tune. So it is not governments that rule in the so-called democracies of the Western world, big business controls them. This is abundantly clear in the European Union which has enshrined the right to move capital and labour around at will regardless of the consequences for local communities.

The inherent contradictions in capitalist society cannot, or will not be fixed by itself. The parties supposed to represent working people are themselves under the control of the elite group, as we see time and again under New Labour. Rumour has it that Peter Mandelson has already fixed himself up with a £500,000 job with BP if and when New Labour goes pear shaped after the next election. Whose side is he on? Whose side was he ever on?

Only in Latin America is country after country saying "enough is enough" and turning to a different way of doing things. Socialism is being introduced here by democratic means. Not that it gets a fair coverage from a western press controlled by the elite group. Those countries can do nothing right. Improving the education and wealth of ordinary folk is a crime and steps are being taken to hold back the tide. So under Obama's regime there is a build up of US bases in Columbia. Why is this? Because Chavez is planning for war chorus the press. Castro says Hugo is not like that, I know him well. But who is listening to that? Chavez has announced the cancellation of Haiti's debt. What a crime! Will the Capitalist world that has exploited the long-suffering Haitians do the same? Not bloody likely. The self-imporetant tele-evangelist Pat Robertson has said the Haitians 'deserve it". That will teach them to have a rebellion against their colonial masters 200 years ago.

That Haitians recognised their Cuban doctors is illustrated in the story of the birth of a little one, Fidel, among the chaos.

The record needs to be set straight as some of those helping in Haiti have their own struggles to improve education and health in their own populations. UNESCO have reported on the success of Venezuela's efforts to improve education there for example. Chavez has announced that Venezuela is writing off Haiti's debt saying that it was not Venezuela in debt to Haiti, but Venzuela owed a historic debt to Haiti when Toussaint L'Ouverture overthrew colonial rule. The question remains, will others follow to take a huge burden off Haiti?

Israel today has been compared to the apartheid state and the stalled peace process envisages a "two state solution". How this can happen now is far from clear as Palestinian land has been fragmented and reduced with the process continuing to appease the far-right settlers. How can these Palestinian fragments be more than "Bantustans" dominated by the US-backed Israeli state? The whole population needs to live together in a single unit underpinned by equality. While we know there is still a long way to go in South Africa with mind-sets of colonial rule enduring, there are no longer the formal structures and means of oppression which are evident as Israel continues to occupy and brutally coerce Palestinians not only in Gaza but across the West Bank.

As in the former segregated South Africa the cry goes up "if we don't do something (i.e. oppress) they will push us into the sea". Well that hasn't happened and with the unified state seems an unlikely possibility. At present the Palestinian population are daily facing something far worse.

Steve Whatham is a Lawyer and member of the SLP.

"Never has a country, its people, its politics, its leader, its myths and truths been so misreported and lied about as Venezuela in the past decade.

So states John Pilger - Documentary Filmmaker ("War on Democracy") and author of Freedom Next Time

Writing December 14th 2009 Lee Salter - http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/ gives credence to this misreporting.

That there has been a decade of propaganda by the BBC in its reporting of Venezuela.

Researchers at the University of the West of England, UK, have exposed ongoing and systematic bias in the BBC's news reporting on Venezuela. Dr Lee Salter and Dr Dave Weltman analysed ten years of BBC reports on Venezuela since the first election of Hugo Chavez to the presidency in an ongoing research project, and their findings so truth and accuracy.

The researchers looked at 304 BBC reports published between 1998 and

2008 and found that only 3 of those articles mentioned any of the positive policies introduced by the Chavez Socialist administration.

Eva Golinger also writing on Venezuela spells out some of the people friendly policies----

The first and foremost important achievement during the Chávez administration is the 1999 Constitution, which, although not written nor decreed by Chávez himself, was created through his vision of change for Venezuela. The 1999 Constitution was, in fact, drafted - written - by the people of Venezuela in one of the most participatory examples of nation building, and then was ratified through popular national referendum by 75% of Venezuelans. The 1999 Constitution is one of the most advanced in the world in the area of human rights. It guarantees the rights to housing, education, healthcare, food, indigenous lands, languages, women's rights, worker's rights, living wages and a whole host of other rights that few other countries recognize on a national level. My favorite right in the Venezuelan Constitution is the right to a dignified life. That pretty much sums up all the others. Laws to implement these rights began to surface in 2001, with land reform, oil industry redistribution, tax laws and the creation of more than a dozen social programs - called missions - dedicated to addressing the basic needs of Venezuela's poor majority. In 2003, the first missions were directed at education and healthcare. Within two years, illiteracy was eradicated in the country and Venezuela was certified by UNESCO as a nation free of illiteracy. This was done with the help of a successful Cuban literacy program called "Yo si puedo" (Yes I can). Further educational missions were created to provide free universal education from primary to doctoral levels throughout the country. Today, Venezuela's population is much more educated than before, and adults who previously had no high school education now are encouraged to not only go through a secondary school program, but also university and graduate school.

The healthcare program, called "Barrio Adentro", has not only provided preventive healthcare to all Venezuelans - many who never had access to a doctor before - but also has guaranteed universal, free access to medical attention at the most advanced levels. MRIs, heart surgery, lab work, cancer treatments, are all provided free of cost to anyone (including foreigners) in need. Some of the most modern clinics, diagnostic treatment centers and hospitals have been built in the past five years under this program, placing Venezuela at the forefront of medical technology.

Other programs providing subsidized food and consumer products (Mercal, Pdval), job training (Mission Vuelvan Caras), subsidies to poor, single mothers (Madres del Barrio), attention to indigents and drug addicts (Mission Negra Hipolita) have reduced extreme poverty by 50% and raised Venezuelans standard of living and quality of life. While nothing is perfect, these changes are extraordinary and have transformed Venezuela into a nation far different from what it looked like 10 years ago. In fact, the most important achievement that Hugo Chávez himself is directly responsible for is the level of participation in the political process. Today, millions of Venezuelans previously invisible and excluded are visible and included. Those who were always marginalized and ignored in Venezuela by prior governments today have a voice, are seen and heard, and are actively participating in the building of a new economic, political and social model in their country.

The BBC has failed to report adequately on any of the democratic initiatives, human rights legislation, food programmes, healthcare initiatives, or poverty reduction programmes. Mission Robinson, the greatest literacy programme in human history received only a passing mention.

According to the research the BBC seems never to have accepted the legitimacy of the President, insinuating throughout the sample that Chavez lacks electoral support, at one point comparing him to Hitler ('Venezuela's Dictatorship' 31/08/99).

This undermining of Chavez must be understood in the context of his electoral record: his legitimacy is questioned despite the fact that he has been elected several times with between 56% and 60% of the vote. In contrast victorious parties in UK elections since 1979 have achieved between 35.3% and 43.9% of the vote; the current UK Prime Minister was appointed by his predecessor, and many senior members of the British cabinet have never been elected. It will come as no surprise that their legitimacy is never questioned by the BBC.

Of particular note is the BBC's response to the military coup in 2002. BBC News published nine articles on the coup on 12th April 2002, all of which were based on the coup leaders' version of events, who were, alongside the "opposition", championed as saviours of "the nation". Although BBC News did report the coup, the only time it mentioned the word "coup" was as an allegation of government officials and of Chavez's daughter.

The "official" BBC explanation was that Chavez 'fell', 'quit', or 'resigned' (at best at the behest of the military) after his 'mishandling' of "strikes" (which, as Hardy [2007] reminds us, were actually management lockouts) and demonstrations in which his supporters had fired on and killed protestors. In reporting this latter, Adam Easton, the BBC's correspondent in Caracas wrote 'Film footage also caught armed supporters of Mr Chavez firing indiscriminately at the marchers' ('Venezuela's New Dawn'). The footage in question was broadcast by an oligarch's channel that had supported the coup and was shown to have been manipulated.

Given that Chavez had won two elections and a constitutional referendum before the coup, it is surprising that the BBC privileged the coup leaders' version of events. The democratic, restorative intentions of the coup leaders were unquestioned.

In 'Venezuelan media: "It's over!"' the BBC allows the editor of El Universal to declare unopposed "We have returned once again to democracy!". Perhaps more significantly, in 'Venezuela's political disarray' the BBC's Americas regional editor chose to title a subheading 'Restoring democracy'. 'Oil prices fall as Chavez quits' explains that Chavez quit as a result of a 'popular uprising'.

Crucially, all of the vox pops used in the nine articles were from "opposition" supporters, and the only voices in support of Chavez were from government officials, Chavez's daughter or Cuba. It is therefore reasonable to infer from BBC reports that ordinary Venezuelans did not support Chavez; whilst the coup was inaccurately reported as 'popular', the counter coup was not.

The research programme is ongoing and the researchers arrive in Caracas at the end of December for the next stage of the project.

HAITIAN EARTHQUAKE

344 CUBAN MEDICS TREAT EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS

There are 344 Cuban medics working in Haiti today , they have two
improvised hospitals where they are providing services to the
earthquake victims. Only two of them were injured in the earthquake,
both of whom have received treatment for minor injuries and remain
there to assist the disaster victims.

Cuban doctors are working in all 10 "departments" (administrative
regions) of Haiti. They are assisted by approximately 400 Haitian
medical interns who have completed medical degrees on full
scholarships in Cuba.

Cuba has provided free public health care to the poor of Haiti since
1989 - the only public medicine available in that country. During the
recent coup and subsequent US/French/Canadian invasion which deposed
the Aristide presidency, Cuban doctors continued to provide medical
care when other hospitals closed down and other doctors fled the
country.
The Cuban government has offered condolences to the people of Haiti
and pledged immediate additional medical assistance if the Haitian
government requires it.

Cuba's "Henry Reeve Contingent", a volunteer contingent of 1,000
medics, fully equipped and entirely self sustaining for 30 days, can
land on any airstrip in the world at 72 hours notice. Haiti is 32
miles from Cuba - members of the Henry Reeve Contingent could be there
within hours of a request.

Cuban doctors will go where no doctor has gone before, live in
conditions that no doctor has ever lived in before and deliver life
saving medical care to people who have never even seen a doctor
before. And they do all this for free. Each doctor feels privileged to
be able to use their skills to help people who are in such desperate
need of medical care. 35,000 Cuban medics currently provide healthcare
in 78 countries around the world, more than the World Health
Organisation and Medecins sans Frontiers put together.

Cuban doctors have unique experience of working in earthquake zones in
third world countries without infrastructure. There are Cuban medics
currently working on the frozen slopes of the Himalayas in Pakistan
following their unmatched medical support provided during the 2005
Pakistan earthquake. Many hiked for days over mudslides to reach the
isolated communities of the region to deliver medical assistance. To
this day, Pakistanis parents in the earthquake region name their
children after the Cuban doctors who helped deliver them.
Ends

Castro reminds us that Haiti was the first black state to take on the might of both British and French colonial forces and to defeat them under Toussaint L'Ouverture.The BBC site reminds us that Toussaint is one of the unsung abolitionists overlooked in so much history. The classic account is in The Black Jacobins by another outstanding figure rarely mentioned, although he lived and died in the UK, CLR james.

Venezuela is among those who reacted swiftly to the emergency.

Analysis from the Independent which also identifies the effects of colonial rule as underpinning the magnitude of this disaster. Yes, they say, earthquakes happen all too frequently. What is different is here the infrastructure collapsed and poverty has left the population without effective communication and resource. The US promises aid, but, following the French, they exploited Haiti, punishing them for daring to revolt.

Meanwhile just along the coast cruise ships are able to find a berth to off load holiday makers. Presumably this continues to provide the country with a revenue, but who can benefit?

Meanwhile back in Part-au-Prince.

Unicef relief.

What is Haiti owed?