Crimea Clashes 
PRO-RUSSIAN ACTIVISTS GOT BUSY IN UKRAINE
Thousands gathered throughout the east of the country and demonstrators clashed in Crimea

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Tens of thousands of people gathered around Ukraine to hold pro-Russian rallies.

In the eastern city of Donetsk, protesters replaced the regional government building’s Ukrainian flag with a Russian flag; in Luhansk, activists seized regional offices and forced the governor to resign; and in Sevastopol, Crimea, pro-Russia supporters attacked rival pro-unity demonstrators.

In Kiev, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk vowed not to give a “single centimetre” of Ukrainian land to the Kremlin.

However, pro-Russian authorities in the Crimean peninsula have called a referendum for the 16th of March referendum to vote on whether to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.

Ukraine and a number of Western governments have called the upcoming vote illegitimate.
 

Bigot Britain
ANOTHER MONTH, ANOTHER UKIP EMBARRASSMENT
This time, an ex-candidate was racist about Stephen Lawrence’s mum

(Photo via)

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A Tory MP phoned the police after receiving an email from ex-UKIP candidate John White that compared the family of Stephen Lawrence to monkeys.

Conservative MP Peter Luff says White asked him if Stephen’s mother Baroness Lawrence receiving a peerage was “a joke”.

He also, according to Luff, attached a note from an internet commentator that said: “Mrs Lawrence should be elevated higher than the indigenous Brit, which she would normally be, due to the preference of her species for dwelling in high places.” Which sounds a lot like a reference to monkeys.

While the police thought the content of the email was “deeply unpleasant”, they concluded that it didn’t constitute a crime.

The news came a few days after UKIP leader Nigel Farage announced that anyone who wants to stand as an MP or an MEP for the party will now have to sign a charter to prove they’re not an extremist. 

Antifascist Gatherings
SWEDES PROTESTED AGAINST A KNIFE ATTACK BY NEO-NAZIS
Fascists targeted people leaving an International Women’s Day demonstration

(Photo by César Ortiz)

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On Saturday, a number of people from antifascist and feminist organisations were attacked in Malmö, Sweden by a group of knife-wielding nationalists.

The victims were leaving the “Take Back the Night” event, a demonstration against domestic abuse that had been organised for International Women’s Day.

One victim, a 25-year-old activist, is in intensive care with severe brain injuries, and another was hospitalised after being stabbed in the lung.

The attackers are reportedly members of Svenskarna Partiet (Party of the Swedes), a neo-Nazi political party.

Yesterday, over 400 people gathered to demonstrate against both the attack and the fact that Swedish police have ignored the country’s far-right violence. Another protest is planned for next Sunday.
 

A Love of Education 
THE JEREMY FORREST SCHOOLGIRL IS NOW DATING ANOTHER TEACHER
She’s “ridiculously happy” with the 20-year-old PE teaching assistant 

(Photo via)

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The girl abducted by maths teacher Jeremy Forrest is now said to be in a relationship with another teacher.

The teenager, who can’t be named for legal reasons, is reportedly “ridiculously happy” in her relationship with a 20-year-old PE teaching assistant.

The girl is now 16 and the man has no connection with her school, meaning there’s been no suggestion of wrongdoing.

The teenager had previously said that she wanted to marry Forrest after he’d served his five-and-a-half years in jail, which now looks unlikely.

Logical Ideas
A BRITISH SCHOOL IS GIVING 14-YEAR-OLDS SMOKE BREAKS
It supposedly stops them from bunking off

(Photo via)

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A headmistress has allowed underage children at her school to have a cigarette twice a day in the hope that they’ll stop bunking off. 

The school is the Honeyhill pupil referral unit in Peterborough, Cambs, which caters to pupils aged between 14 and 16 and, according to head Claire George, is for children who “have failed – many more than once – in mainstream education”.

She explained that “pupils who already smoke on admission can, with parental consent, have up to two 10-minute, off-site, fully supervised smoking breaks a day”, adding that they have “found it far more effective than simply banning smoking, which our experience shows us leads to pupils not attending school or absconding during the day to smoke”.

A bunch of people are outraged by the school’s policy, one of whom being Tory MP Stewart Jackson, who has called for the local authority to review the decision, saying, “Most reasonable people would be quite surprised by this.”