UK Newswire Archive
Supporters Call for End to Inhumane Treatment of Bradley Manning
22-12-2010 12:42
Quantico, VA, December 22, 2010 – After trying other avenues of recourse, the Bradley Manning Support Network is urging supporters to engage in direct protest in order to halt the punitive conditions of the soldier’s detention. Bradley Manning, 23, has been held in solitary confinement in military jails since his arrest in late May on allegations that he passed classified material to WikiLeaks..Council Hopeful Calls For Stadium Referendum
22-12-2010 12:22
Independent council candidate Anthony Butcher calls for a referendum on the Bristol stadium project."Give us a referendum on the stadium" was the call today from Anthony Butcher, an independent council candidate for Long Ashton in next May's election.
"Bristol City Council has resorted to asking both sides of the debate to compromise over the stadium project, and it is clear that they don't know how to proceed." claimed Mr Butcher, a trustee of the Long Ashton Community Association.
"Why don't the two councils involved give us a referendum on the issue instead, as they should have done in the first place? Ask the residents of Long Ashton and Ashton Vale what they think of the proposed commercial development of the area. We are, after all, the people who will have to live with the results, both positive and negative" added the former hospital campaigner.
"The people of Bristol also deserve a say. The council spent over £360,000 on the failed World Cup bid, £270,000 on a giant World Cup screen, gifted £4.5 million worth of land to the developers and waived millions of pounds worth of Section 106 fees. Are Bristolians happy about the way this project has been handled?"
A referendum could be held at minimal cost at the same time as the council elections in May next year, and could also include questions about the South West Bristol Urban Extension plan, the expansion of Bristol Airport from 6 million passengers to 10 million and the sale of Bristol's green spaces.
International Migrants' Day- Stop The Crackdown!
22-12-2010 09:32
The organizers and participants of migrant workers rally on 18th December (to mark the "Int'l Migrants Day") in Seoul adopted the following "2010 Declaration of the Human Rights of Migrants":Towards a New World without Discrimination and Exploitation!
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/?m=2006-02 Situ type destruction. AN ADD ON: London 9th December 2010
21-12-2010 23:30
revolt against plenty's dave and stu on 'student' demosSupport Julian Assange
21-12-2010 17:27
I am a mainstream media journalist and I am increasingly disaffected with my work - I support WikiLeaks because it is helping to reinvigorate real journalismJudge 'astonished' by corruption denials as he fines BAE £500,000
21-12-2010 17:22
BAE - corrupt as fuck, at our expenseMr Justice Bean says arms firm gave £8m to 'shady' middleman to secure Tanzania radar contract
Sir Richard Evans (pictured), then chairman of BAE, approved the use of a middleman in Tanzania in 2002, said Mr Justice Bean.
So what is Somerset MP Liam Fox, now Secretary of State for Defence intending to do to recover the lost billions ?
After all BAE is now shedding jobs like a tree sheds its leaves in autumn, so the lost billions of pounds would be handy for either the NHS, education or housing.
While guilty, BAE get off with paying peanuts.
This being only one of the corrupt deals they've undertaken.
A judge has declared he was "astonished" at claims that BAE Systems, Britain's biggest arms firm, had not acted corruptly when its executives made illicit payments to land an export contract.
Mr Justice Bean said it was "naive in the extreme" to believe that a "shady" middleman who handed out the covert payments was simply a well-paid lobbyist.
The judge concluded that BAE had concealed the payments so that the middleman had free rein to give them "to such people as he thought fit" to secure the contract for the company. BAE did not want to know the details, he added.
His verdict at Southwark crown court today brings to an end long-running attempts to prosecute BAE over bribery allegations in a number of countries. One investigation, into a Saudi arms deal, was terminated by Tony Blair's government.
Today's prosecution centred on a relatively small accounting offence admitted by BAE in relation to one contract in one country – a £28m radar deal in Tanzania in 2002.
Corruption allegations have swirled around the overpriced radar deal since it was signed in 2001, with former Labour minister Clare Short saying: "It was always obvious that this useless project was corrupt."
Bean pointed out that no individual was prosecuted, even though the payments were deliberately hidden by BAE's executives and the use of the middleman was "personally approved" by its then chairman, Sir Richard Evans.
BAE was brought to court for the single offence after agreeing a plea bargain with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to settle years of investigations. The company did so provided that it did not have to admit corruption.
The court heard how BAE had hired the Tanzanian middleman, Sailesh Vithlani, to secure the radar contract and gave him $12.4m (£8m) over five years – a third of the contract's value.
BAE and the SFO argued in court that Vithlani was being paid to lobby for the contract. But Bean said it was inexplicable that Vithlani received more than $12m and that most of this was channelled via two offshore companies, one in the British Virgin Islands and the other in Panama.
The judge accepted there was no surviving evidence to prove what Vithlani did with the money. "I also accept that there is no evidence that BAE was party to an agreement to corrupt. They did not wish to be and did not need to be," he said. The fact that the money had been paid through the two offshore companies placed BAE "at two or three removes from any shady activity by Mr Vithlani".
He said he could not accept the arguments of BAE and SFO that the former was concealing "merely a series of payments to an expensive lobbyist".
He had raised the possibility of calling witnesses to testify "if it really is the case that legitimate lobbyists could be paid 30% of the value of a $40m contract simply as recompense for their time and trouble".
The judge fined BAE £500,000 for concealing the payments to Vithlani "from the auditors and ultimately the public". He added that there was "moral pressure" on him to keep the fine low, as BAE had agreed in the plea bargain to pay £30m in corporate reparations and fines.
The arms company had said that any fine would be subtracted from that total, with the "balance paid as an ex gratia payment for the benefit of the people of Tanzania".
A sum of £29.5m was now due to be paid to the Tanzanian people – "the victims of this way of obtaining business", said the judge.
BAE will pay £225,000 for the SFO's legal costs in bringing the prosecution, although the financially-strapped agency had asked for £750,000.
Nicholas Hildyard of anti-corruption campaign the Corner House said: "BAE has been convicted of an accounting misdemeanour that hid a major crime: concealing improper payments. The company will never be able to deny this in future."
Kaye Stearman of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade said: "Today's sentencing is an indictment of BAE's culpability. Whatever the level of the fine, the judge's remarks are damning."
In the same deal to settle the corruption investigations in February, the US government compelled BAE to pay $400m (£260m) in penalties.
Palestine Today 12 21 2010
21-12-2010 16:44
Freezing for justice
21-12-2010 14:22
Len Miskulin, 59, is a father who is protesting about the state's removal of his children through the family courts. He has not seen his two children Stephen and Mathew for 10 years.
Len has been on a hunger strike last summer for 41 days and he is still recovering from it.
During the first truly cold spell of the winter Len's only protection to survive the harsh winter is a drafty summer tent.
Len Miskulin is trying to survive in freezing temperatures, heavy
rain and snow.
http://www.youtube.com/user/photoexpo
more information:
www.dottal.org
Student: Why I am protesting
21-12-2010 13:27
David Cameron recently wrote in the Evening Standard, ‘Before protesting, students need to get the facts straight.’ There is an establishment theory that the student protests are a knee-jerk reaction to reform. They claim that the student actions are ‘hysterical’ and ‘ill-informed’: basically, we don’t know what we’re talking about. Students just want an excuse for a ruckus, the theory goes; we are bored of daytime TV and binge drinking, so we’ll try rioting for an adrenalin-filled change.
radio kebele show 9!
21-12-2010 13:22
pure radio kebele gold - great global updates and an interview with student occupiersradio keble #9 is now online!
this month we have some news updates and a great interview with some of the student occupiers. well worth a listen - and a nice escape from all the holiday madness.
check it out at:
live1.radiovague.com:8000/archives/kebele/radiokebele9.mp3
or
www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/47871
Wikileaks: Play the ball, not the man – and check who’s kicking it
21-12-2010 10:12
Palestine Today 12 21 2010
21-12-2010 07:43
Those brave palestinian resistance fighters have fired a Qassam at a Zionist installation (i.e. a kindergarten), wounding a Zionist occupation soldier (i.e. a schoolgirl)Phone Siege of Israeli Consular Office London. 2nd Anniversary of assault on Gaz
21-12-2010 07:34
Details of the Extended Phone Siege co-ordinated by Ramal Altahade with support of Gaza Combined NGOs Office. Action in memory of the zionist murderous assault on Gaza for those unable to attend vigil outside Israeli Embassy London on 27th December.BNP & EDL Websites Hacked & Member Information Leaked
21-12-2010 04:42
Vigil Against Violence Towards Sex Workers
21-12-2010 01:22
On Friday 17th December 2010 a group of sex workers from various locations around West Yorkshire and the UK were joined by local campaign supporters to hold a vigil as part of a global event to mark the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers
The group, carrying red umbrellas to mark their support for the campaign, handed out leaflets and chatted to late night shoppers, early revellers and passers by in the area around Ivegate, Bradford.
How to object to EDF's plans to desecrate 400 acres of Somerset coast
21-12-2010 00:49
Occupation of Working Class Life and Music Festival
20-12-2010 23:55
Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), Joan Bakewell, has agreed to judge the shortlist of the Working Class Life and Music Festival Short Story Competition of the "Working Class Life & Music Festival". http://www.workingclassmusic.org.uk/2010/10/joan-bakewell-to-judge-festival-competition/
Mimosa Healthcare and Bristol City Council: the endless cycle of the abuse of the elderly
20-12-2010 22:22
Whar privatised healthcare is all aboutKingsmead Lodge ... Two years on and it's the same old problems and the same old solutions ...
Today the Post reported that Kingsmead Lodge Nursing Home in Shire, run by private healthcare providers, Mimosa, has been given seven days to take action to improve standards of care by the Care Quality Commission.
The problems at the home - where Bristol City Council places vulnerable elderly people - include:
- residents were not experiencing safe and appropriate care,
- staff did not have an understanding of the complex needs of residents in their care,
- their needs were not fully assessed on admission,
- not enough information for staff about some of the medicines administered,
- doubts over whether some residents had not been given their medicines correctly,
- when staff were recruited to work with vulnerable adults, the company did not take into account previous employers' references,
- the competence of staff was not checked.
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Firm-warned-poor-ca....html
This may ring a bell with some people. Here's part of a statement made by a member of the public to the BRISTOL HEALTH SCRUTINY COMMISSION in February 2009:
"Now five former staff from the home have come forward and made sworn statements regarding what’s been going on at this home. The allegations include:
Abuse of residents
A culture of bullying and harassment
A lack of support to staff from management
Abuses of Health & Safety guidelines
Basic healthcare policy and practice ignored
Inadequate reporting procedures
A lack of equipment
And “a regime run by bullying and fear where you would suffer repercussions if you spoke out or reported any incidents.”
I do not have time to read the statements in their entirety but I urge members to take the time to do so. They are included in this statement.
Allegations you’ll find in the statements include:
“I witnessed a 70 yr old resident thrown against a wall”;
“I have witnessed the removal of residents buzzers at night”;
“I have seen the contents of sedative capsules mixed into food”;
” I was told to hoist residents on my own”;
“Staff were working twelve hour shifts sometimes with no break”.
You will also find horrifying incidents such as this:
“A resident was found in bed with a cup of tea which had been spilt. The resident was obviously scolded
The RGN on duty was more concerned with what her family were going to say than carrying out emergency first aid to cool the scold.
So it was approximately one and a half hours – and after myself and another care assistant keeping on at her – that she carried out first aid.
Eventually cold compresses were applied and a Doctor called.
I was also asked to take responsibility for this incident by the RGN."
http://www.bristol.gov.uk/item/committeecontent/?ref=xa...te=00
At this stage the member of the public was physically removed from the meeting on the orders of the city's chief solicitor, Stephen McNamara.
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Fresh-allegations-B....html
The Post goes on to say today that "Ian Biggs, CQC regional director, said his staff would work with the city council, the Continuing Healthcare Team and Bristol Primary Care Trust to monitor Kingsmead Lodge closely."
Exactly what we were told in February 2009.
It's now plainly apparent that Bristol City Council and their private healthcare provider are openly engaged in the long term institutional abuse of the elderly in residential homes in Bristol and covering it up. When will it end?
Biden Brands Assange “terrorist” – Washington’s contempt for law and rights
20-12-2010 20:14
“Wikileaks and Julian Assange are not “revolutionary” in the typical sense. But it seems clear to this observer that their existence and continued work can make invaluable contributions in the struggle against oppression and inequality, war and the waste of human lives that are the hallmark of capitalism. In order for the materials brought to light by wikileaks to have a revolutionary effect, revolutionaries and progressives the world over must take responsibility for the analysis and dissemination of their content. Clearly people, the corporate press has no interest nor intention of doing this for us.Let progressive people everywhere join in the effort to prevent further attacks on Wikileaks and its staff. In this critical period in human history this is not a battle we can afford to lose. Please adjust the quantity and quality of your “fightback” with this in mind.”
This rage is the only future we have! Thoughts on 14th December protests in Ital
20-12-2010 19:43
In the last few days I’ve read, listened to and watched a lot of stuff about the student protests in Italy, and especially the huge demonstrations of 14th December, when Rome was set on fire by thousands of beautiful, angry youth. With few exceptions, the Italian media have been doing what they do best: Attacking, twisting, distorting, diminishing, LYING. No surprise there. I can’t see a reason why the Videocrat and his court would like to have angry people on the streets, unless it was the new generation of Black Shirts they’ve been breeding during the last few years. There have been attacks from other sides too, unfortunately. Roberto Saviano, the writer of the bestseller “Gomorrah” (you’ll have heard of the movie!), wrote a letter to the “left wing” newspaper La Repubblica, in which he attacked the students using the same old refrain we already know: The police’ violence was horrible, but it was the violent protesters’ fault. A few black sheep ruined the whole peaceful movement, and so on…