World Anti-racism Newswire Archive

Despite the government's pledge to end immigration detention of children and families, G4S continues to lock up innocent children in Tinsley House, near Gatwick Airport. Today students from SOAS Detainee Support protested against this abhorrent practice, and confronted chief executive, Nick Buckles, who earns more than £4000 per day, while continuing to be complicit in harming children's health and well-being, while they are in G4S's 'care.'

No policy of the Obama administration better illustrates its fundamental mendacity than its policy of bullying Iran.

In his very first press conference following the election, President Obama was asked his response to Iranian leader Ahmadinejad’s congratulatory letter. He replied, changing the subject: “Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable. And we have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening.”

It was a clear signal to the outgoing administration and its neocon masters of the Big Lie that he would persevere in their crusade to topple the Tehran government, using the convenient ploy of nuclear fear-mongering.

On 19 April, a barrack on a plot belonging to the freight depot of Zurich's railway station was squatted and revived. The barrack has been empty for more than a year. The Canton of Zurich plans to build a new police and justice center for 570 million Swiss francs (US$ 500 million) on the plot.

Despite numerous reports and substantial amounts of evidence, the new coalition government has only committed to a 'review' of the detention of children and families for immigration purposes. This it is entirely inadequate and unnecessary. SOAS Detainee Support therefore invites you to Release Carnival, a demonstration on the 5th of June, where we will show the government that there is wide support to stop this abhorrent practice!

The English Defence League will be marching tomorrow along with other groups described by the EDL as patriots from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. They will b egin the march at 2pm in Tothill Street, London SW1 and will march up towards Downing Street, Trafalgar Square and to Waterloo Place. Trevor Kelway has put out a callout for the EDL to join the march in London.

Today, a selfless, dedicated and uncompromising Irish Republican political prisoner, Liam Hannaway, lies unbowed in a cold and unforgiving British gaol cell, as he enters his 35th day on Hunger Strike whilst being incarcerated at Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s pleasure at Maghaberry Gaol, located in occupied Irish territory that is known as the State of Northern Ireland. During the recent history of Ireland’s quest for ‘Unity’, this ultimate act of Irish Republican defiance against Britain’s colonial Prison regime in the North has already been presided over by this current British monarch and by a Conservative government in Westminster! – The 1981 Hunger Strike- Lest We Forget!

Less than 24 hours after the nuclear fuel swap plan – which was hailed as a positive development by diverse opinion, including UN chief Ban Ki-moon, China’s foreign minister Yang Jiechi and even French president Nicolas Sarkozy – the Obama administration moved swiftly to sabotage the deal.

This US stonewalling of any avenue for dialogue with Iran has disturbing echoes of Washington’s deliberate sabotaging of diplomatic overtures for a peaceful resolution prior to its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It also exposes Obama’s vow of a new beginning in US foreign policy to be cynical lie, trotted out in front of his nation and the world with hand on heart.

US President Barack Obama, while announcing the results of the Nuclear Posture Review of the Pentagon’s weapons on April 5, explicitly asserted the right to make a nuclear first-strike against Iran and North Korea if the U.S. deemed them to be in violation of nonproliferation rules. The corporate-owned media actually described this as a disarmament proposal!

Hundreds take to the streets in Paris and Berlin in protest against state repression and in response to Fortress Europe. Freedom of movement for all!

Come and help the good people of newcastle chase the english defence leauge out of toon.

A French court recently recognized the idiocy of one of the U.S. government’s attempts to enforce its sanctions against Iran by denying the government’s request to extradite an Iranian businessman for allegedly violating the sanctions.

Perhaps the court was familiar with how U.S. officials had used the so-called “dual use” game against the Iraqi people during the 11 years of brutal sanctions against Iraq.

The house of scummy nazi Kevin (Quimm) Quinn has been attacked again

Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center www.imemc.org for Thursday May 13th, 2010.

The murder of Eugene Terre’Blanche a week after the Johannesburg High Court banned ANC Youth league president Julius Malema’s new found signature tune, Dubhul’ ibhunu (“shoot the Boer”) revealed beneath the racialised, legalistic and narrow-minded surface of the debate, important political currents at play.

Last year 9 brave people broke into Aberdeen airport, closing the runway for several hours and preventing hundreds of tonnes of CO2 emissions. Unsurprisingly, the state decided to arrest them and take them to court. They have been hounded by undercover police, harrassed and needlessly stopped in the street, and are being called domestic terrorists. This summer, they'll be arguing in court that their duty to stop climate change is a valid defence... and they're looking for help.

The Climate9 will be launching their campaign on Thursday 20th May, between 6.30-8pm at WordPower Bookshop, 43-45 West Nicolson Street, Edinburgh. The evening features speakers from the Climate9 Defence Committee, details of the case and a chance to meet other activists and play mystery games. If you plan to come, please drop the Committee a line on  info@climate9.com or call 075351 47478. Don't forget to check out the shiny new website: www.climate9.com.

Women In Black hit the streets of Oxford (well, Bonn Square) on Saturday 8th May in a silent and pasifistic sort of way.

The Obama administration and the US media have exploited the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to New York to again threaten Iran with further UN sanctions and military action over its nuclear programs and demonise the Iranian president.

Like the Iranian “military threat,” the demonisation of Ahmadinejad serves to deflect public attention from Washington’s underlying aim of dominating the key strategic regions of the Middle East and Central Asia.

An organization calling itself Reporters Without Borders has just named Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, China’s President Hu Jintao, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev and Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko to their list of Forty Worst Predators of Press Freedom for 2010.

Most significant about their list of ‘bad guys’ is the geopolitical relation of those leaders and those countries to the current ‘enemies list’ of the US State Department. That is no accident, as becomes clear when we look more closely at who funds RWB.

The “emperor has no clothes” fact is that the new face of unlawful global imperialism is the old face of 20th Century imperialists. As critical mass of public recognition builds, this time, the public will reject their loveless and mass-murderous empire-building.

The two paper-thin lies the 21st Century fascists use to promote unlawful war is that Iran threatens to destroy Israel and Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Both are quickly proven as lies.

It is a fairly reliable rule of thumb that when a person refuses to listen to the argument of another, it is a sign that the person is betraying the fact that his own argument is flawed – or downright spurious.

Take the case of the US and its allies, Britain and France in particular, which allege that Iran is a threat to world peace, has sinister ambitions to build nuclear weapons and is in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).