UK Newswire Archive
'Free at Last!': Denise McNeil Released on Bail
26-01-2011 11:16
immigration court in Hatton Cross. Her supporters in the courtroom clapped
as the judge announced his decision.
GM Gathering Momentum day kicked off campaign
26-01-2011 11:02
Stop GM – A network of grassroots resistance to GM kicked off the campaign with a free day long gathering to build links and networks and discuss strategies for effectively countering the current threat from the Biotech industryAlert - London "Australia Day" 2011 - The Empire is trying to transport Assange
26-01-2011 10:54
Free Manning! Free Assange! Free Speech!
releasejulianassange at gmail.com
Did you film undercover cop at Drax?
26-01-2011 10:30
info@undercurrents.org
More Woeful Financial News about UK Coal plc.
26-01-2011 10:29
New information has come to light that suggests that any promises UK Coal plc make about providing Community Benefits when it works Opencast Sites need to be backed up with the assurance that a Banker's Guarantee underwrites that promise.
My call to ATOS to enquire about euthanasia options for the sick and disabled.
26-01-2011 04:53
A disabled person calls ATOS to enquire about euthanasia options for the disabled and sick ATOS deems fit for work, in preference to being forced to die from starvation, neglect or homelessness. 7 minute call.Recap..
26-01-2011 01:23
On October 20th a disgusting scene took place in the House of commons;
As the chancellor George Osbourne finished his long arsed speech outlining the governments plans to make everyone pay for the economic crisis except those who caused it, tory and lib dem mps waved their papers around and cheered with joy.
They were cheering in delight that at least 500,000 jobs were to be cut, that many ordinary people of this land were to be made destitute, that the public services that millions rely on for their well being - and for some their lives - were to be destroyed...oh, and they were cheering because they could not contain their excitement knowing that there was more to come.
Squeezing and patting Osbournes arm was his fellow rich chum pm David Cameron, whose family own a fair chunk of Berkshire and is married to the horsey looking daughter of an aristocratic famiily who own most of Lincolnshire, beamed a smile of approval at his old Eton fag.
Surrounded by the other millionaires in the cabinet they gloated because in their eyes they had dealt the welfare state a mortal blow. None would have been happier that night than the city fat cats and the bonus brigade bankers who created the mess in the first place.
Camerons government had served them well, having used an international economic crisis and turning it into the perfect opportunity to destroy the welfare state so hated by the tories.
They expressed their delight, knowing fully that those to suffer most would be the poor and disadvantaged, the disabled, the weakest, the old and the young.
On their hitlist was anyone who needs or benefits from the welfare state - the safety net created by people who knew what it was like before it existed - people who had experienced the 'five evils' as described by its architect William Beveridge; Want. Disease. Ignorance. Squalor. Idleness.
From the moment of its inception, generations of the rich and their aspirational sycophants have longed for the opportunity to destroy it - and here they were - the heroes of their class having achieved their long awaited aim.
The media had softened up the pliable, comatose masses and the baying Express / Mail facists, bringing up stories of the workshy, of lazy public sector workers in non-jobs living in the lap of luxury off the backs of 'real' workers in the private sector. Miles of newsprint dedicated to spongers, parasitic university students leaching off the taxpayers who never went to university. The people had to made to understand - the rich earn every penny and the poor are undeserving idlers who must be made to suffering their own interest. Yup, the media did their bit.
With their battle cry of 'we're all in this together', the rich and privileged government declared class war on millions and openly, brazenly mocked us.
Three days later we learned that in the previous year the top 1000 earners shared £7bn in bonuses, four days later we found out that the £200bn given to the banks in quantative easing to pass on to borrowers had been stashed away in their own vaults: quite blatantly, they'd pocketed our money.
Next came the news that the Greek government was to sell off some of its smaller islands for between £25m and £250m, and that there was a great deal of interest from British buyers...a vase goes on auction in London and fetches £43m, and a coke bottle used by Warhol sells for £18m at christies. The revelation(?) that the rich dodge tax to the tune of £120bn each year shows us how such obscene purchases are possible. More laughing in our faces...
Cuts in local authority spending will mean jobs will be destroyed in both the public and private sectors, support services for the elderly, mentally ill, the disabled along with the direct blows dealt to education and community projects...those left without work will be mocked and insulted by cuts to benefits, and hundreds of thousands will join the 3m already struggling to pay their mortgages and rents.....and despite this, the con dems could still not suppress their deep joy, back slapping and jubilation on 20th October 2010.
As the picture becomes clearer and more people open their eyes the realisation will be that it is now time (as the students and thousands of others have so magnificently done) to make and continue to make a stand.
The government will increase pressure on 'activists' by use of further undercover infiltrations and even heavier handed policing, the use of The National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit known as NETCU, and by using the media / propoganda in painting demonstrators / activists /anarchists / students / pensioners - anyone against the government oppression - as domestic terrorists - they will try all the predictable divide and conquer tacticts, and quite likely throw in a few new ones - again we must be prepared for this.
We must continue to prepare, individually, in our homes, our communities, our universities and schools, in our workplaces to fight these obscene attacks. We are all being made victims of a crisis that we did not create.
Prepare - get strong physically, mentally, in your communities ....they ordered a class war - lets not disappoint.
Video from Egypt
25-01-2011 23:32
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/12243979, some chanting, then the police turn up and start shooting something - teargas? or shotguns...?
Bristol Against Arms Trade meeting
25-01-2011 23:22
Joanne Baker talks at meetingBAAT meeting at Smiling Chair, Stokes Croft, next to Sprinters the printers at 6pm 2 Feb.
Joanne Baker from Child Victims of War talking about the weapons
of modern warfare and their deadly legacy on civilians. With slide show.
Cake back on the menu!
Extract from Child Victims of War website:
In modern warfare over 90% of casualties are civilian. Around 50% of the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan are children.
“Total global military expenditure in 2009 is estimated to have been $1531 billion. This represents an increase of 6 per cent in real terms compared to 2008, and of 49 per cent since 2000.”
Despite the global financial recession, military spending is continuing to rise. This is partly due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and partly because the military-industrial complex has created strong relationship between arms producers and governments, and has exaggerated the importance of weapons development in relation to national security.
The UK is the world’s 4th biggest military spender, with a high cost per head of population. Spending in 2009 was $58.3 billion
The UK is the world’s 5th largest supplier of conventional weapons. Major clients are USA, India and Saudi Arabia.
In 2008 a UK company, BAE Systems, was the first non-US company to register the highest number of global arms sales: $32420 billion in sales and $3250 billion in profit.
In the UK the investment in militarism is at the expense of technologies which might increase environmental sustainability and security. The US, UK and allies are still basing their national security policies on military force projection in order to control global oil and gas supplies and other profitable natural resources.
The UK defence strategy has led to wars which have resulted in the death and injury of British troops, made Britain an even greater target for terrorists and encouraged the growth of privatised militias.
For the people of Iraq and Afghanistan it has meant millions of lives lost; decades of war and civil strife; the loss of control over their natural resources; the imposition of governments based on power, corruption and division; the undermining of women through the support of fundamentalist factions, and continuous occupation via the hundreds of military bases that are being built.
Aid is becoming increasingly tied to militarism. The recent Strategic Defence Review, October 2010, states that in order to tackle the root causes of instability, Britain requires “an effective international development programme making the optimal contribution to national security within its overall objective of poverty reduction, with the Department for International Development focussing significantly more effort on priority national security and fragile states.” Through the new National Security Council the aid agenda is now linked to the Ministry of Defence.
The UK is now joining the US in endless war based on asymetric threats such as terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and cyber threats. The result is endless profit for large corporations and financial institutions and endless suffering for the poor and vulnerable.
Southampton United for Public Services - Public Meeting
25-01-2011 21:42
Southampton United for Public Services are having a Public Meeting tomorrow, Wednesday 26th January 2011 at 7.00pm in the Sir James Matthew Hall - Solent University.Protest At Southwark Council Against Cuts
25-01-2011 21:22
About 100 people gathered outside the Southwark Council Meeting this afternoon
to protest the planned Cuts. Short Video of some speakers and an announcement
for the Lewisham Carnival against the Cuts
(19th February, http://carnivalagainstcuts.org.uk/ )
Cops get a grilling by Home Affairs Committee over undercover cops
25-01-2011 20:51
Video of grilling of Top cops Police Commissioner Tim Godwin, and Commander Bob Broadhurst by committee about why they lied about undercover copsOlga Noveselova must stay!
25-01-2011 20:42
Olga Novoselova, a prominent member of the Russian-speaking community in Merseyside, has been arrested for an alleged breach of UK immigration law and is currently being held at the Borders Agency detention centre at Yarlswood. Please support her.Mass uprising in Egypt
25-01-2011 20:11
A MASS uprising has broken out in Egypt on the "Revolution Day" called by a wide range of opposition forces.Events & actions during the squatting ban (Netherlands) part II
25-01-2011 20:09
First part of the timeline was posted in November and can be found at
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/11/468333.html
Nottingham Indymedia statement on recent events
25-01-2011 19:23
Nottingham Indymedia has always strived to provide anonymous publishing. In the corporate dominated world of the internet, collecting information on site users is the norm. We think that Indymedia should allow users to decide how much information they reveal about themselves rather than storing data on site users. Due to the controversy generated by the publication of details about monitoring IP addresses and posts from Gateway 303, we think it is necessary to produce this statement of our view of events.
Monitoring IP addresses, Gateway 303 and the fork in the UK network
Our collective was formed in 2005, after the UK Indymedia site migrated to the Mir content management system in 2003. We had no part in setting up Mir or making technical decisions about the way it operated. Whilst a number of our collective had administrative access to Mir we never used its anti-abuse measures and we were not informed about their existence when we joined the UK network.
In 2009, one of our collective came across articles and comments flagged as having come from Gateway 303 and asked Mir techs about what was going on. Those asked were open about the filters that were in place to identify such posts and hoped that the suspected police posting would be exposed some time in the future. This wish was raised formally at the UK Network meeting in Bristol in 2010. It was the subject of considerable controversy with strong views both for and against publishing.
Nottingham Indymedia have always taken the position that there are two separate issues at stake: whether or not to publish the information and whether use of the anti-abuse measures is appropriate. On the first we were quite clear: We took the position that Indymedia admins had a responsibility to share the information they had collected with the wider activist community. To fail to disclose the strategies of systematic disruption, smearing and incitement that had been connected to one particular government gateway would have been to fail the very people who rely on Indymedia. We supported the proposal to publish the information.
The issue of monitoring IPs is separate. We are not convinced that enabling admins to monitor or flag IP addresses are appropriate things for an IMC to do, given the potential security risks. We think that the only appropriate way to remove disruptive, smearing and inciteful posts is through assessing each post on its own merits. Using human, rather than machine intelligence is the only sensible way to moderate an Indymedia site. We think that drawing on the knowledge of the activist networks that we are connected with is the best way to prevent the kind of state manipulation that the Gateway 303 posts represent. Nottingham Indymedia does not monitor IP addresses but we do check every post that is made to our site and confer with connected activists when we are in doubt.
The controversy over the Gateway 303 feature is an example of an increasingly frequent situation that has arisen within the UK Network over the past few years: a lack of consensus that has resulted in inaction. In order to give people with different positions the autonomy to continue with their own projects, a decision was made at a UK Network meeting at the end of last year, to dissolve the UK Network. We think this was the right decision and we hope to see good things emerging from independent projects that emerge. Nottingham Indymedia will continue to work with other local IMCs and independent media projects when it is appropriate. We think that Indymedia in the UK is as relevant as ever and we're looking forward to coming insurrections!
Really Freeschool Occupation: Invite + Wishlist
25-01-2011 19:22
Surrounded by institutions and universities, there is newly occupied space where education can be re-imagined. Amidst the rising fees and mounting pressure for ‘success’, we value knowledge in a different currency; one that everyone can afford to trade. In this school, skills are swapped and information shared, culture cannot be bought or sold. Here is an autonomous space to find each other, to gain momentum, to cross-pollinate ideas and actions.
If learning amounts to little more than preparation for the world of work, then this school is the antithesis of education. There is more to life than wage slavery.
This is a part of the latest chapter in a long history of resistance. It is an open book, a pop-up space with no fixed agenda, unlimited in scope, This space aims to cultivate equality through collaboration and horizontal participation. A synthesis of workshops, talks, games, discussions, lessons, skill shares, debates, film screenings. Our time in this building is short, we have the next couple of weeks to zhumba, zhumba, zhumba.
Lets take education into our own hands. Propose a session, share your knowledge, extend your skillz, or just come down to 5 Bloomsbury Square, though the door is on Bloomsbury Way, opposite Swedenbourg House.
5 Bloomsbury Square WC1A 2LX
http://reallyfreeschool.wordpress.com/
http://twitter.com/thefreeschool
House Wish List ? All Donations Welcome!
Brooms
Sponges
Dust Masks
Putty
Paper
Much, much Stationery, Materials of many, many sorts
Sleeping Equipment – Mattresses
Paint
Heaters
Torches
Nails/Screws/Drill bits/Hammers/Saws
Mop
Rugs/Carpets
EXTENSION LEADS!
Fridge
Toilet & HosePipe
Transport
Day-Time Support
INTERNET
Kitchen Equipment
Books
Chairs
Jars/Mugs/Paper Cups
COFFEE, Tea, Sugar
Fruit & Veg
Ideas for Rooms Available For Use
Basement
- Wood Workshop/Other
- Kitchen
- Toilet
- Miniscule Courtyard
Ground Floor
- Café/Dining Room
- Social/Welcome Space
- Back Room Bike Room
First Floor
- Round Table Discussion Room
- Projection Facilities, Good Acoustics, Spacious Light Room
- Another smaller room
Second Floor
- Office (Use on Request)
- Smaller Room (Occasional Thouroughfare)
- Medium Room
Book a space that you feel is suitable for what you?d like to do by coming down and
writing on the calendar, or booking online via http://bit.ly/ejGbmf
This space is an on-going process, a blank slate, lots of potential, but we need your
help to make it as functional and brilliant as it could be. If you think something could
be useful, bring it!
If you’ve got some time, come down! We could do with a hand in making this happen.
"Mubarak, get out"
25-01-2011 19:15
