UK Analysis Newswire Archive
Reporting of the Gaza Conflict
07-02-2009 17:17
We have spent the last month meticulously reading, watching, listening to and analysing what the UK media had to say about Israel’s operation in Gaza (within the limits of our scope of monitoring). Our objective has been to see whether the coverage was balanced, impartial and factually accurate. Had any lessons been learnt since Lebanon 2006 when, in the eyes of many, the media got it so wrong?Who is an Expert on the Stimulus Package?
07-02-2009 17:09
The sheer size and complexity of the proposed stimulus package makes quality journalism about it difficult. Striving for some scientific perspective on the problem, journalists have asked many economists what they think about the package. Having earlier questioned the legal system's reliance on some economic experts, I'd like to offer some skeptical thoughts about their role in the stimulus debate.Asylum and the myth of sharing
07-02-2009 16:41
Have you ever wondered why as children we’re taught the importance and value of sharing? I have and it seems somewhat misplaced; it’s not as if as adults we have any need for such a value.The much-lauded childhood principle of sharing runs contrary to those principles we practise as grown-ups. As adults we are scared about what the next man has, we envy his lot. We are scared about what sharing might do to our children’s futures. Those very children who think sharing is so important. So while as children we equate goodness with generosity, as adults we try very hard to undo this philosophy. Bizarrely this seems to work.
Climate Action: Too Important for the Politicians
07-02-2009 15:45
On 23rd January I went to a climate question time at Leeds Civic Hall organised by Oxfam as part of their role in the Stop Climate Chaos coalition. The panel was pretty high level;Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Robert Goodwill, Shadow Roads Minister for Transport
Richard Brett, Liberal Democrat and Co-Leader of Leeds City Council
Martin Kirk, Oxfam’s Head of Campaigns
It’s usual in these things for there to be a load of party point scoring – including generous helpings of logical and factual errors – but the balance is somewhat redressed by points from the audience.
Israel and Hamas Won, So Who Lost?
07-02-2009 15:44
The spectacle of tanks back from the battlefield with the blue and white Star of David flapping from their turrets, the faces of the young soldiers, their body language—all leave no doubt concerning Israel's victory. If we compare this pullback from Gaza with the one from Lebanon over two years past, there is no need for extensive commentary: Israel has retrieved the pride and reputation of its army, which had been badly damaged by that other war in the north. The world has been reminded that the Middle East contains but a single military power worthy of the name. Deterrent capability, the magical force that is supposed to protect Israel from its enemies, has returned in full strength. Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, who promised to correct his earlier failures in accordance with the findings of the Winograd Inquiry, has indeed come through.Obama’s Trilateral Commission Connections,
07-02-2009 14:03
The pre-election attention is reminiscent of Brzezinski’s tutoring of Jimmy Carter prior to Carter’s landslide election in 1976. For anyone who doubts the Commission’s continuing influence on Obama, consider that he has already appointed no less than eleven members of the Commission to top-level and key positions in his Administration.New World Order - Told u so!
07-02-2009 13:59
TIME Mag does an article called, “New World Order.” It Calls for Global Central Bank to be Constructed to “Save” the Global Economy, Backed by G-20. Didn’t We All Call This Out When We Were Telling You They Were Crashing The Economy On Purpose to Bring About the NWO?February 7th, 2009 by Jonathan
heathrow is go, kingsnorth no?
07-02-2009 13:51
as aviation minister, I learned two lessons about the aviation industry. First, its demands are insatiable; secondly, successive Governments have always given way to them.- Chris Mullin MP, House of Commons, 28 November 2002
Full article | 1 addition | 7 comments
Ben Goldacre receives legal warning
07-02-2009 13:24
You may enjoy Ben Goldacre's column in The Guardian. The Press Gazette reports: Medical journalist Ben Goldacre has been hit with a legal warning from London radio station LBC after he published an audio clip of an ‘irresponsible’ MMR phone-in on his website.Third runway to cure cancer and end world poverty
07-02-2009 13:13
Is there anything a third runway at Heathrow wouldn't do? Not according to its promoters in the aviation industry. The recent snowfall that crippled most of our airports shut Heathrow after a plane skidded onto the icy grass. Some 18-30s club rep from the Association of British Travel Agents thought they'd whack out a press release claiming that it could all have been avoided with a third runway.stop emissions but keep flying
07-02-2009 13:06
It was an extraordinary thing. Greenpeace activists had occupied a coal-fired power station yet the jury acquitted them.Prisoners' rights under attack
07-02-2009 12:32
POA supports attacks on prisoners’ rightsPrisoners have few legal tools with which to defend themselves but have at times been able to bring successful court actions against the prison system’s worst excesses. Labour’s Justice Minister Jack Straw and the Prison Officers Association want to stop them doing this.
Public Action Against Judicial Corruption & Institutional Failures in the UK
07-02-2009 08:36
Demonstration Against Judicial Corruption, Unlawful Imprisonments, Convention Rights Abuses and Institutional Failures in the UK; Every Saturday outside HMP Wormwood Scubs, Du Cane Road, London W12 0AE.The Politics Of Bollocks
06-02-2009 23:54
February 06, 2009 "Information Clearinghouse" --- Growing up in an Antipodean society proud of its rich variety of expletives, I never heard the word bollocks. It was only on arrival in England that I understood its majesterial power. All classes used it. Judges grunted it; an editor of the Daily Mirror used it as noun, adjective and verb. Certainly, the resonance of a double vowel saw off its closest American contender. It had authority.Tax Payers Alliance - helping the rich on your behalf
06-02-2009 09:58
When the Tax Payers Alliance refuse to condemn tax dodging by rich people and corporations, they're acting in the interests of the super-rich. This is strange since, it is because the wealthy dodge tax that ordinary taxpayers have to pay more taxes than they otherwise would do.Dialect - Ex-RN Lieutenant-Commander and his fears of a coming UK police state
06-02-2009 01:35
http://www.bcfm.org.uk/
The Imperial Obama is Frustrated on Zimbabwe
05-02-2009 23:44
If the Pope Changes His Mind…
05-02-2009 20:28
Does that mean he's imperfect? Or that God is imperfect? We've all probably addressed the issue of whether an omnipotent being can change its mind about something, but let's get down to Earth for a moment and address the issue of whether Catholics or anyone should give any respect or deference to a religious idol in the flesh who claims to be the spokesperson for God, but who, from generation to generation, and even within the same tenure, changes his mind on issues due to political and public pressure. In other words, the Pope is and should be treated only as the equivalent of a Prime Minister of a tiny little, but very influential, country tucked away in Rome. So, why do people give him so much credit where it's clearly not due?The Way of Izvestia: BBC as a Metaphor for State Propaganda
05-02-2009 09:26
By Muhammad Idrees Ahmad'The BBC cannot be neutral in the struggle between truth and untruth, justice and injustice, freedom and slavery, compassion and cruelty, tolerance and intolerance.' Thus read a 1972 internal document called Principles and Practice in News and Current Affairs laying out the guidelines for the BBC's coverage of conflicts. It appears to affirm that in cases of oppression and injustice to be neutral is to be complicit, because neutrality reinforces the status quo. This partiality to truth, justice, freedom, compassion and tolerance it deems 'within the consensus about basic moral values'.Support for taxes on flights keeps growing
05-02-2009 08:03
It finally seems like we might just be getting through to people - maybe even the hard-working British families the aviation industry likes to blame for their plans to turn Britain into Airstrip One.