SANTA CLAUS PRIVATIZED. The eleven workers who answer the letters from kids in the UK to Santa Claus had their pay per letter reduced to 15p to 7p when they were contracted out of the Royal Mail. Metro Mail, owners of the elf slave house refused to comment, the post office accused workers of "trying to destroy the magic of Christmas". Meanwhile kids now only receive a form letter with a typeset signature. Not even Christmas is safe from Capitalism! YTS. As more studies showed that there were probably twice as many homeless people as officially recognized, unemployment was about to hit the 5 million mark and YTS was farcical - the government's response has been to clamp down on truancy at school and a new "scrounger buster" plan to pilot in 2 areas a plan to remove 200,000 18-24 year olds from benefits altogether. The Unemployment Unit mid-December survey on YTS showed that just over 1/2 left these scams early - to go on to better paid jobs (well better than 29.50 a week!) or .....well fuck knows. Of the other half - only one third got any qualifications even from the Mickey Mouse school of street sweeping. The employment secretary admitted that there was no way to make employers guarantee long term employment (a bright one eh?).At least they could try and make sure they survived - as is 4 young people were killed on YTS schemes and 183 seriously injured from Jan to June 1993. The pilot scrounger buster scheme is to expand the farcical job plan scheme from one week to four weeks. Job Plan showed it's usefulness for one claimant who wanted to work with animals by suggesting abbatoir work. People who refuse to participate would be denied benefit. However through actions by U.A.G.'s and themselves, many claimants have ended their job plan courses early by actions from joint strikes to just being pains. Contact L.U.A.G. [071 733 5135] and H.U.A.G.[071 249 8086] for more info, and to join groups in occupying job plan workshops around London. Gulf Hangover We all knew the US government didn't give a fuck about working class people Iraq - though the gift of 300 tonnes of "depleted" uranium dust from 944,000 tank shells in the Kuwait/South Iraq area has only just been exposed. Many of these were made at BNFL's Springfields' works in Preston. but its also clear that they didn't give a fuck about there own civilians - as is made clear by the information that excluding "secret" CIA tests, the governments and universities made human guineapigs from over a thousand people up till the 70s. These included 800 pregnant women, 130 prisoners and 68 people with intelectual disabilities - oh and 12 tests in America to see how fall out works and 48 secret above ground tests in the Pacific - nice one eh? So it shouldn't come as much surprise that they don't give a fuck for their own squaddies. Even a doctor who contracted Gulf War Syndrome got sacked - while another who refused to give untested anti nerve gas pills was court martialed. Meanwhile 4,000 US, 500 UK and 15 children in the west are suffering from the unknown after effects of the "clean,smart" war. Reports from Iraq say that there have also been increases in leukemia and birth defects since the war.Basically they don't give a fuck. Don't drink the water ... As water disconnections grow - along with the introduction of water meters - some bright spark - the government chief medical officer - has denied that there is any connection between this and water rationing for poor people. Maybe the 500% or so increase in dysentery in Britain between 1990 and now has some other cause ... or maybe the CMO just didn't listen when he was told to wash his hands at school! Euro scroungers on tour? With the Tory party desperately needing some 'continental' instruction about how to bonk discretely it comes as a surprise that they should go and target unwaged workers from the rest of the European Union for benefit cuts. The new "centre of interests" test will be applied over the last 5 years and will affect up to 17,000 people - including Irish people in Britain. The fact that benefits are better almost everywhere else in Europe has escaped the government - do they think people come here for the weather?