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Occupy LA: One Week Old and Going Strong

08-10-2011 16:55

OccupyLA Day Seven. The encampment at City Hall continues to grow. The camp now numbers close to 100 tents with at least two occupants per tent. Rain on Wednesday failed to discourage the occupiers, and the encampment is now larger and more organized than ever. Tomorrow the camp will have completed its first full week. It has been an action packed week and has drawn much media attention even competing with the Jackson murder trial just down the street.

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Banner drop in solidarity with Australian forests

08-10-2011 16:38

banner drop
As part of an international day of action, some people did a banner drop in Oxford.

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#occupyLSX assembly at Block The Bridge

08-10-2011 14:54

Assembly Flyer
With the #WallStreetOccupation into its third week, plans are afoot in London for an occupation of the London Stock Exchange to be one the many occupations that are planned to begin globally on October 15th. Today people have been working on banners, and tomorrow those interested in joining the London occupation are invited to join a general assembly which has been called to take place at tomorrow's 'Block the Bridge' on Waterloo Bridge.

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Prominent Kurdish Activist Assassinated in Syria

08-10-2011 13:27

Kurdish Activist Assassinated in Syria
Syrian Kurdish activist and opposition leader Mishaal Tamo was gunned down in the largely Kurdish city of Qamishli on Friday.

 http://www.rudaw.net/english/news/syria/4040.html

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Radioactive leak at Dounreay nuclear power plant

08-10-2011 11:21

A minor radioactive leak has taken place at a nuclear power plant in Caithness. The incident is being described as minor. The corporate media are being very careful to underplay this story. It currently is not on the guardian or daily mail main webpages, and is only a minor story on bbc uk. However the bbc story is very careful to trumpet the site operator's (probably true) claim that no one's lives were put at risk. It seems people will have to die before anyone accepts the danger of nuclear power.

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Riseup Rebel Radio: October the 4th session.

08-10-2011 10:55

Radio for the great unwashed!

Alternative news to the mainstream.

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TUC March for the Alternative Manchester Oct 2011

08-10-2011 03:26

Salford against the cuts Banner
They may have come in their thousands to tell the coalition government "cuts are not the cure".
Unfortunately they were met by Dr TUC’s quack medicine wagon and patented Labour party elixir

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20 new HLS suppliers leaked!

07-10-2011 19:33

20 new US / UK HLS suppliers have been leaked and published by SHAC.

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Blockade on tenth anniversary of Afghan war

07-10-2011 16:55

Members of the London Catholic Worker movement blockaded Downing Street today on the tenth anniversary of the start of the Afghan war. Red paint was spilt on the ground symbolizing the blood that has been spilt during the conflict; banners were held; names of the dead were read out.

Today marks ten years of tragedy. We - the US, the UK, and our allies - have spent ten years bombing, shooting, killing people in Afghanistan. A war that started a mere 26 days after the horror of 9/11 carries on to this day.

A group from the London Catholic Workers gathered this morning at the seat of power - Downing Street - to call again for the war to stop. We split red paint on the ground to remind us of all the blood spilt during the conflict; and we read out the names of some of the dead. May they never be forgotten.

We also blockaded the entrance to Downing Street - to at least create an inconvenience for the machine of power that drives this war. And we called on those passing by to join us, to wake up from their stupor and see this war for what it is.

For there's a numbness which has descended on the British population with regards to Afghanistan. We don't talk about it, we don't curse it, very few of us organise against it. Unlike the war on Iraq which was routinely pilloried and condemned, Afghanistan just keeps going and going and going, while we look away.

And yet it's a tragedy on the scale of Iraq, and with as little point. As I write there have been 2676 Coalition deaths through the duration of the American-led war (first called Operation Infinite Justiceand now Operation Enduring Freedom), also including the NATO operation known as theInternational Security Assistance Force. What is more the trend is ever upwards - pretty much every year is worse than those that came before it, with 2010 the worst so far. Who knows how 2011 will end?

Calculating casualties on the Afghan side (civilian and military) is a whole lot harder of course. People who do counts on these things generally preface all their numbers with the caveat that they are probably underestimating. The main source of the figures that follow, Prof. Marc Herold, has described the figures he came up with as an absolute minimum and probably a vast underestimate.

And yet the numbers are still appalling: 6000-9000 civilians killed directly (violently) by the Coalition, roughly the same number killed directly by the other side. A further 3000 - 20000 (that's quite a range) dead as an indirect result of the conflict. By any measure this is a momentous tragedy. Now imagine scaling it up to account for all the dead that no one counted. And then add in the untold numbers of Afghans and others who died fighting the coalition invasion; we call them the bad guys but they still bleed red.


We should also note that the same upward trend applies to these figures too: every year is worse than the last. In 2010, for instance, Marc Herold's ``vast underestimate" is that some 2777 Afghan civilians were killed, a jump of 15% over the previous year. We hear in the news that progress is being made in Afghanistan but how can this be, when every year is worse than the last?

The numbers are appalling, but they're still only numbers. Do they measure how bad a war has to get before we think we should end it? What's the maximum number of casualties that we can collectively stomach? How many mothers and fathers need to wake up screaming each morning before it's no longer OK to keep killing their children?

What the hell are we doing in Afghanistan? What hell are we making there?

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Policing public order - the manual

07-10-2011 16:14

I've been told the attached is the handbook for policing public order (i.e. the manual for riot cops). I can't guarantee it's genuine, but seems realistic enough.

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Bury the Dead, Heal the Wounded, End the War

07-10-2011 12:58

6 peace activists arrested outside Downing St on 10th Anniversary of the Afghanistan War.

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Free coach to UK Uncut Block the Bridge

07-10-2011 11:34

UK Uncut have called for mass civil disobedience in protest at the Health and Social Care Bill that threatens to destroy the NHS, by blocking Westminster Bridge on Sunday 9th October.
There will be a free coach running from Birmingham, contact kerryliz at live co uk to book a space
coach meet at 8:30am, Carrs Lane Church, near Moor Street Train Station

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Dale Farm: Get Ready To Resist: skills and mischief at Camp Constant this weekend

07-10-2011 10:54

Latest court date for a decision on whether or not a judicial review will be held is set for Wednesday. The result could go either way and the threat of eviction is still very real. This weekend at Dale Farm we are holding two days of workshops and activities. This is a great time to come to Dale Farm and get a feeling for the current situation here and at the high court, share skills and learn some new ones and prepare us all better for possible eviction.

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#rebelliousMC book a space for a meeting

07-10-2011 10:46

The interactive section of the Rebellious Media Conference website is for anyone who is passionate about radical media.  http://live.rebelliousmediaconference.org

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Drugs, greyhounds and self-regulation

07-10-2011 09:50

Where greyhounds are used as a betting medium the misuse of drugs on the dogs is inevitable.

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Voices from #OccupyWallStreet

07-10-2011 07:54

Julian

While the slant of corporate media coverage of the Wall Street Occupation has focused on the general motivations behind the movement, often missed are the variety of personal perspectives, backgrounds and desires that brought this protest-city together. Here are some of the many voices that have combined their efforts to bring New York City the Wall Street live-in protest.

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Local police forces are now little armies. Why?

07-10-2011 07:31

Manning Protest at Quantico PHOTO: Ellen Davidson
More and more, in dealing with nonviolent political protesters police across America show up in battlefield dress with intimidating military gear supplied by the Pentagon and Homeland Security. Writer John Hanrahan says reporters, instead of ignoring this ominous development, should ask local, regional and national leaders: Do we need this crap?