World History Newswire Archive

. . . . westminster, cheap housing association flats, all with their own numbers - all guys, but a couple of days ago two postal ballots for a chinese couple ( both sexes ) turn up on the main doormat - without a flat number. Dropped a sheet of paper with the details off at the local police station, to get told that they'd check it off against the local electoral lists. This doesnt seem much of a response . . . .

I have faced criminal charges as a result of engaging in psychedelic research. I am a serious scientist and an archaeologist from Cambridge in England. This article will tell you why I am engaged in psychedelic research and about the legal obstacles I have faced along the way. I hope what you are about to read, will help other people who are engaged in psychedelic research and also, be helpful in defeating any legal opposition from governments and regulatory bodies.

On a miserable wet day around 400 workers marched through Dublin in the annual Mayday march organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions. Speakers at the end included Arthur Scargill, president of the British National Union of Mine Workers during the bitter year long 1984 strike in which 10 people were killed.

Discussions held by the NATO members on the role of nuclear arms in Europe a generation after the end of the Cold War are in line with the Nuclear Posture Review released last month by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Since 1949, NATO’s policy has obligated European member states to adhere to what is called nuclear sharing or nuclear burden sharing; that is, nuclear bombs stationed on bases in Europe are to be delivered by the host nations’ air forces.
Europe will not be free of nuclear arms until NATO is disbanded.

Audio and slides from a presentation which traces the historical origins of hierarchy, highlighting the role of the international financier clique in financing European wars. Continues by explaining the importance of hierarchy in education and other social structures such as politics, law and business. It highlights its weaknesses such as wastefulness, proneness to subversion by secret societies & general lack of resilience to disruptions. It examines the role of psychopathic ideologies in furthering sociopathic behaviour, and looks at the hold they have over normal people.

An opportunity to forge new links between critical theory and contemporary activism...tune in to a live broadcast of the panel discussion happening from 6pm to 10pm - available for download after...

All of what's happening right now resonates with the developments which we've been a witness to two years before the invasion of Iraq. New York Times is exactly replaying the unpleasant scenario it had devised to convince us that the late dictator Saddam Hussein has had Weapons of Mass Destruction. History is being repeated once again and Iran is now subject to a backbreaking, multilateral psychological warfare in addition to the previously-running economic embargo. The very fact that Iran is still standing on its own feet demonstrates the powerful will and strong capability of this nation; however, what's really happening behind the scenes? What will happen if U.S. or its Middle East subordinate, Israel, attack Iran?

Poll Tax riot London.

As a new film charts the story of the Angola 3, wrongly imprisoned in America’s most notorious penitentiary for 37 years, the documentary’s producer and Big Issue co-founder Gordon Roddick tells of the campaign, started by his late wife Anita, to reverse the injustice

When I wrote my book Against Empire in 1995, as might be expected, some of my U.S. compatriots thought it was wrong of me to call the United States an empire. It was widely believed that U.S. rulers did not pursue empire; they intervened abroad only out of self-defense or for humanitarian rescue operations or to overthrow tyranny, fight terrorism, and propagate democracy.

On the night of February 13-14, 1945, the ancient and beautiful capital of Saxony, Dresden, was attacked three times, twice by the RAF and once by the USAAF, the United States Army Air Force, in an operation involving well over 1,000 bombers.

By the beginning of 1945, the Allied commanders knew perfectly well that even the most ferocious bombing raid would not succeed in “terrorizing [the Germans] into submission,” so that it is not realistic to ascribe this motive to the planners of the operation.

The bombing of Dresden, then, seems to have been a senseless slaughter, and looms as an even more terrible undertaking than the atomic obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which is at least supposed to have led to the capitulation of Japan.

My interest in Angola is as both a paradigm of the Southern transformation of plantations into prisons and as a prototype for what we now call the prison industrial complex. Many old plantations in the South became prisons after the Civil War. Angela Y. Davis traces the initial rise of the penitentiary system to the abolition of slavery, writing: “in the immediate aftermath of slavery, the southern states hastened to develop a criminal justice system that could legally restrict the possibilities of freedom for the newly released slaves.”

Copyleft artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Latuff.

Copyleft artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Latuff.

Booklet compiled by Bristol Anarchist Bookfair Collective - 3 articles looking at recollections and critiques of J18 and the anti-capitalist movement and the possibilties for future organising.

On 29 January 2003, 50 days prior to the launch of the invasion of Iraq, John Pilger wrote the article below.

Exactly seven years later, UK's former Prime Minister Tony Blair, during his testimony before the "Iraq Inquiry", made the following statement:

"The decision I took - and frankly would take again - was if there was any possibility that he could develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) we should stop him,"

(source: "I have no regrets says defiant Blair", Independent, 29 January 2010  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/blair-insists-he-was-right-to-stop-saddam-1882847.html)

Sir Michael Wood confirmed today that the consistent advice from the FCO's Legal Advisers was that it was illegal in international law to invade Iraq without a second Security Council Resolution following UNSCR 1441. He also made plain that he consistently over two years advised both Blair and Straw direct that the war would be illegal.

Tomorrow morning, Sir Michael Wood, former Foreign and Commonwealth Office Legal Adviser, gives evidence to the Chilcott Inquiry. To my mind, this is the most important evidence to be given so far. Michael's then deputy, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who resigned over the war of aggression, will give evidence in the afternoon, I believe speaking in public for the first time since her resignation.

Discussion with former BBC & ITN Foreign Correspondent Alan Hart aired last week on BCfm. The conflict in Israel/Palestine seems to be just about the most divisive in the world. This discussion marks the return of those who participated in the Gaza convoy.

Both the media and the US government, in chorus, continue to point to the 9/11 attacks and the role of Al Qaeda led by "terrorist mastermind" Osama bin Laden.

The bombing and invasion of Afghanistan is described as a "campaign" against Islamic terrorists, rather than a war.

To this date, however, there is no proof that Al Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks.

Neither is there evidence that Afghanistan as a Nation State was behind or any way complicit in the 9/11 attacks.