A doctor has been "sacked" as a medical assessor for a government department after refusing to renounce his Christian belief that gender is determined at birth, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Dr David Mackereth has worked for 26 years as an NHS doctor but was told he could not be employed as a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) disability assessor if he refused to identify patients as being of a sex that they did not see themselves as.

The 55-year-old father of four believes sex is genetic and biological, so established at birth.


He now claims his right to freedom of speech has been denied and he has been classed "unfit" to work for the department because of his religious convictions.

And, the medic from Dudley in the West Midlands fears many other professional people of faith could also be dismissed simply for holding opinions about gender that are "centuries old".

Iraqi police opened fire to disperse dozens of protesters near the southern oil hub of Basra on Sunday as they demonstrated against a shortage of jobs, electricity, water and other basic services, police and local officials said.

Police sources said eight protesters were wounded in the shooting while a local mayor said one demonstrator was killed and three were wounded.

"Protesters were only making fair demands for jobs and better basic services but police opened fire and killed one protester," said Yaseen al-Battat, a local mayor from the Imam Sadiq area where the protesters were.

On Sunday, Moroccan authorities recovered the bodies of 45 illegal migrants carried by the waves of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Larache city, located in the North of Morocco.

An official in Tangier, northernmost of Morocco, told Anadolu Agency that, "local authorities have been notified about bodies floating off the coast of Larache city."

The Moroccan official, who preferred not to be named, added that, "specialized authorities acted immediately upon receipt of notice, and recovered the cadavers of 45 Africans, including seven women".

One year ago today I wrote an article titled "Lefties Need To Stop Being Shy About Working With The Anti-Establishment Right", and Left Twitter exploded. To this day there are still some social media echo chambers in which this article is the primary thing I am known for.

I still think it was a decent article, and I stand by it. It was about how anti-establishment leftists can collaborate across ideological lines on specific points of mutual interest without compromising their principles, which to me is just an obvious no-brainer, and that people can trust themselves to know how and to what extent that collaboration can take place. Over the following few weeks, the actual contents of my article were falsely spun by Progressive Army, Counterpunch and a few other lefty thought leaders as "Caitlin Johnstone wants us to align with Nazis."

None of the journalists or activists fanning the flames of this conspiracy theory ever reached out to me for comment, or even to try to convince me of the error of my ways. Not one private message, email or Twitter DM was ever sent to me (apart from one particularly virulent hater after I pointed this out publicly). This is because these people weren't interested in my actual ideas or what I was actually saying, they were interested in advancing and controlling a narrative: Caitlin Johnstone wants leftists to become Nazis/facilitate Nazis, and anyone who ever suggests venturing outside their impotently small political faction to get things done is pulling a Caitlin Johnstone. My reputation in those circles now serves as a head on a spike warning off anyone from ever suggesting that leftists ever collaborate on any agenda with anyone besides (A) other leftists and (B) the centrists who are intrinsically opposed to ideas which run counter to the interests of America's unelected power establishment.

The false narrative that a Hillary-hating leftist wants to collaborate with Nazis was shoved into mainstream attention by this faction of Left Twitter day after day after day, until eventually it caught the attention of left-punching centrists who, of course, took this false narrative and ran with it as an excuse to attack the left. The people responsible for aggressively and relentlessly promulgating this false narrative then went on to blame me for it.

New York magazine recently published a piece supporting President Donald Trump's border wall - and the article did not have a dateline of April 1.

Yes, it's true - an Op-Ed piece by a fierce Trump critic in the liberal publication has urged Democrats to support the building of a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

Andrew Sullivan wrote last month that allowing construction of a wall is probably the first step in alleviating the crush of families trying to enter the U.S. illegally and how to handle them after being detained.

See below for update from AFP Canada.

Facebook announced last year that they will be using third-party fact-checkers to root out "fake news" on their platform. At the time of the announcement, conservatives sounded the alarm about how some of the fact-checkers they're using are left-wing hacks like PolitiFact and Snopes (who recently, with straight faces, fact-checked a piece of satire from The Babylon Bee).

A recent warning that accompanied an article I wrote for PJM highlights the fallibility of Facebook's fact-checking program:

Why a Canadian outfit is fact-checking U.S. news is anyone's guess, but they clearly flagged my article in error. [It was brought to my attention after this article was published that AFP Canada is part of France's state-run Agence France-Presse, so let me rephrase that question: Why has Facebook chosen a state-run French news outlet to fact-check U.S. news?]

"This is what we call a miracle," the Missoula County Sheriff's Office said.

A 5-month-old baby who was buried in a Montana forest for at least seven hours was found in the middle of the night Sunday, officials in Missoula said Monday.

The infant was in good condition at a hospital after being left alone for "several hours," the Missoula County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

A man who was supposed to be taking care of the infant, Francis Carlton Crowley, 32, was arrested for criminal endangerment, authorities said. Additional charges were expected. It wasn't clear what Crowley's relationship is to the child or who the boy's mother is.

"For all of us at the sheriff's office, this is what we call a miracle," the sheriff's office said. "For the officers who were present for this event, it's especially hard knowing what this small baby endured in the last 24 hours."

Protesters heckled Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as he left a Kentucky restaurant on Saturday. Incensed at the Trump administration's immigration policy, they chanted "abolish ICE" and shouted "we know where you live."

McConnell was accosted as he left Louisville's Bristol Bar & Grille, with protesters chanting "where are the babies, Mitch?" a reference to the 2,400 children of illegal immigrants separated from their families at the US border. The separation of families drew intense criticism until President Donald Trump ended the policy by executive order last month.

The protesters also chanted "abolish ICE," a slogan that has become a rallying cry for the far left. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been lambasted by leftist politicians and had its staff and their families threatened by 'Antifa' activists for their role in enforcing the administration's 'zero tolerance' immigration policies.

Thousands in Colombian cities gathered in vigils to call for an end to political violence against human rights defenders.

Several cities around the world joined Colombia's vigil Friday to protest the systematic murder of social and community leaders.

In Colombia's capital city of Bogota, and in Medellin thousands gathered with lit candles to reject incidents of violence, which seems to have become the norm.

"We scream in silence that we don't tolerate one more murder, no more violence, no more aggression against our human rights defenders, no more paramilitary structures trying to silence us. #TheyWon'tSilenceUs #TheCpuntryFirst @CountryFirst," activist Mafe Carrascal tweeted.

India's Supreme Court confirmed that the men who gang-raped a 23-year-old paramedic in 2012 will be hanged. The brutal incident shocked the nation, sparking protests and changes in laws regarding sex crimes.

"There is no material to review our order," the judges said on Monday as they upheld the death penalty verdict for the three men involved in the shocking rape case, local media reports.

All three men were earlier sentenced to death by hanging but launched a lengthy process to review the verdict, claiming that is was "cold-blooded killing in the name of justice." The fourth man who is also sentenced to hanging chose not to appeal the ruling.