UK Newswire Archive
Syria Today 04 13 2011
13-04-2011 12:29
Syrian revolt spreads to ruling Alawite tribes. Cities sealed. Executions in armyThe popular uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad is still spreading. Tuesday, April 12, one of the Assad family's own Alawite tribes and the key Sunni city of Aleppo joined the movement demanding the president and his kin's removal. Assad fought back against the expanding threat to his survival by mobilizing all his military and security resources, including the loyal young thugs of the shabbiha gangs. They have orders to shoot to kill and not permit ambulances to collect the wounded. Tanks seal the most restive towns of Teraa, Banias, Latakia and Hama.
Deptford Anti-Cuts Social Centre resists eviction
13-04-2011 08:47
SQUATTERS occupying a disused jobcentre in Deptford were celebrating a “victory” this morning after bailiffs failed to evict them from the property. One of the most dynamic campaigns around cuts and other issues has been the one in Lewisham, South London. Social Centre Plus, the occupied ex-dole office has been perhaps the best recent example of how to run a real community space. Yesterday they were able to resist the first attempt at eviction.Anti-nuclear activists blockade EDF HQ
13-04-2011 08:22
ACTIVISTS BLOCKADE QUEEN'S BACK YARD TO BRAND ENERGY GIANT'S NUCLEAR POWER BID A ‘RIGHT ROYAL RIP-OFF'
More photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mini_mouse/sets/72157626440104200/
Campaigners brought rush hour traffic to a standstill on Tuesday morning (11 April) to protest against EDF Energy's plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations in the UK. All four lanes of the A302 outside EDF Energy's headquarters in Grosvenor Place - which runs alongside the gardens of Buckingham Palace - were sealed off shortly after 8am using two 14-foot bamboo tripods. The cleared zone was then declared a ‘nuclear disaster area'.
A specialist police climbing team arrived after several hours. They erected scaffolding to bring down the two women perched on top of the tripods. The pair were arrested and taken to Belgravia police station early in the afternoon, having maintained their blockade for some 8 hours. They were released late evening, after each had been charged with obstructing the highway and an offence under section 14 of the Public Order Act (failing to move into the designated protest area).
Campaign group, Boycott EDF, says the energy giant is spearheading a ‘nuclear renaissance' which could see the construction of at least ten new nuclear reactors - a move spokeswoman, Bella Benson, claims will spell disaster for the UK.
"EDF has spent a massive amount of money marketing itself as an environment-friendly company," says Benson. "But the truth is that it's planning to lumber us with an outdated form of energy that is incredibly dangerous, extremely expensive and completely unnecessary. As the company's HQ Is opposite Buckingham Palace, it would be fitting to call their plan a right, royal rip-off."
Benson apologised to motorists delayed by the protest but adds, "The inconvenience caused today pales into insignificance compared with the dangers that EDF Energy is planning to impose on the British public. The government is trying to slip the nuclear energy issue through the back door and this is the only way we can get our voice heard."
Boycott EDF says a ‘nuclear renaissance' will mean soaring electricity bills. Says Benson: "Nuclear power is so dangerous that millions has to be spent on safety measures. The government claims that the public won't have to subsidise the costs of ‘new nuclear' but you can be sure we will end up taking a hit - through hidden subsidies such as fixed-price contracts and a hike in our electricity bills (1)."
Recent research in Germany has found that young children are more than twice as likely to contract leukemia if they live near a nuclear power station (2). "The nuclear industry has been trying to down-play the effects of radiation after the tragedy at Fukushima," Benson adds. "But decades of mismanagement by the nuclear sector has left us with a legacy of cancers and hundreds of tonnes of toxic radioactive waste that nobody know what to do with. Nuclear energy has no place in the 21st century."
And the campaign insists that nuclear power is the worst possible option for combating climate change. Benson explains: ‘The new EPR reactor is untried and untested and will produce waste that is even more toxic. Moreover, documents leaked from EDF Energy show that there are serious design flaws.'
EDF has already caused great concern - even before construction of ‘new nuclear' has started. An independent report published last year found that land designated for EDF's two new mega-reactors at the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant in Somerset is heavily contaminated with enriched uranium. But EDF has dismissed the report. "With such a hazardous form of energy, best practice must be observed at every stage. We find EDF's attitude shocking," Benson concludes.
Cheaper, greener alternative strategies have been put forward by respected organisations including Greenpeace, the Sustainable Development Commission and the New Economics Foundation (3). Says Benson, "The billions earmarked for new nuclear power stations should be invested in further developing safe forms of energy such as renewables and the type of district heating plants (combined heat and power plants) that can be run on biogas. It's a scandal that there hasn't been an informed public debate about this issue."
The campaign is urging customers of EDF Energy to say ‘no to new nuclear' by switching to other energy providers. It is also asking the public to boycott events and attractions - such as the London Eye - sponsored by the company.
Notes
1. The government's recent decision to artificially increase the carbon floor price was ostensibly to encourage investment in the ‘nuclear renaissance'. It has been estimated that the increase will add at least 4% to electricity bills by 2016.
2. Evidence by Dr Ian Fairlie to the House of Commons:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmenergy/memo/nps/uc8202.htm
3. The reports can be found at:
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications.php?id=344
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/solutions/combined-heat-and-power-chp
http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/mirage-and-oasis
For more information on the campaign go to: http://boycottedf.org.uk
‘I do not believe a single word that issues from the mouth of a single spokesperson for the nuclear industry.' JONATHAN PORRITT, June,2010.
The 3rd National Day of Protest Against Benefit Cuts
13-04-2011 08:22
benefits protestBENEFITS CUTS HURT
April 14th 12 - 5 pm
The 3rd National Day of Protest Against Benefit Cuts
at Government Buildings, Flowers Hill, Bristol BS4 5LA
Welfare as we know it is under attack. Those claiming disability benefits are facing severe pressure as record numbers are being assessed as fit for work when they aren't. ATOS, the company doing the tests, seems to be paid by results, putting unacceptable pressure on their workers. Bristol & District Anti Cuts Alliance (BADACA) and Bristol Disability Equality Forum (DEF) have decided as both workers & claimants to call a public protest to highlight this. All welcome
Come to the protest at Government buildings, Flowers Hill, BS4 5LA. Public transport: X39 Bus from Colston Street, ask driver for 'Flowers Hill Eastbound'
Want to get involved? Any other problems with benefits? Want to tell your story?
download protest posters hereCome to BADACA Social Care, Claimants & Welfare open meetings every Tuesday 7.30pm at Bristol County Sports Club, 40 Colston ST, BS1 5AE. Email stuffit@riseup.net, call 07748707000 or check
www.bristolanticutsalliance.org.uk for more info.
Free graphic designs for all groups from Chew Designs.
13-04-2011 00:26
delocalized actions no g8
13-04-2011 00:24
want do something?
On the occasion of the two-day G8 summit in Deauville (France) some comrades launched a general call for a decentralised global mobilisation. The reasons behind this proposal are, on the one hand, to not let the counter-summit itself become a further experiment (training) of brutal police repression while, on the other, to let the manifold local struggles, with their own paths and insights, take advantage of their differences and make the concomitance with the summit – which is the symbol of all the deprivations and violence to which we are being subjected – a moment of ramifications, multiplication and contamination.The fields that these official summits have for long time advocated to rule are the same on which our daily struggles resonate widely. The spaces of discontent and of lack of a quiet life – from the Greek mass protests, the student (though not only students) rebellions in France, Italy, the United Kingdom, to the ones in North Africa, to which we all express our solidarity and complicity – are sharply increasing realities. They are the ultimate evidence of the failure of a system committed to profit and indifferent to our lives, which are cast into misery and despair.
Those who will smile and take the ritual pictures during the summit are the same who omit the cyclical nature of this crisis, telling us that the worst is over, that difficulties are now behind us. They are the same who foment fights amongst the poor, in the stubborn attempt to divide natives from migrants, to chose the good and the bad, to point out the abnormal in its several exceptions. Under the pretext of security, controls are intensified, repressive practices are experimented, techniques of internment are being refined in prisons, migrant detention centres and in all the structures embracing marginalisation as the organising principle of the social peace. Thus, while existences get literally ruined, guilty of not having a piece of paper assessing their citizenry, in the streets the army and the police become specialised in enforcing unjust and dangerous laws that force us into miserable lives where there is nothing but sacrifice.
Although the unrest grows stronger among large groups of people, and the basis for a general rebellion starting for Europe are there, we believe there is still a lot of work to do. We believe that the mobilisation called for the 26th and 27th of May can be an opportunity for the different movements to gain strength and courage, to get back to talking to people, to create support and solidarity, to exchange experiences, to try to grow and progress beyond national boundaries.
Eventually, this call is nothing more than an invitation to all those who will read it. An invitation to take action to make something possible to happen in Europe, something that can question the centrality of a summit that is not ours. Something useful as an exercise, hoping it will be the beginning of a progressive, continuous strengthening of our struggles, that must become everyone's struggles. Therefore, we invite everybody to take action at any scale. From graffiti writing to actions, leafleting, debates and meeting.
The distance from Deauville is a possibility.
Free the imagination, we need determination!
IF NOT NOW, WHEN?
IF NOT ME, WHO?
Valencia towards the G8.
Breaking Nuclear newsnight
12-04-2011 22:44
I've just seen this and wrote as i heard it.Jobcentre Call Centre staff to strike
12-04-2011 22:22
PCS members at the Jobcentre Plus Contact Centre at Lodge House, Fishponds Road, will be on strike next Monday 18th April. Visits to the picket line from other workers, claimants, unemployed people and anyone who wishes to show their support for the action, would be welcome. The strikers are campaigning to improve their working conditions and the services they deliver to the public. The Bristol office is one of 37 Jobcentre Plus Contact Centres across the UK that will be striking on Monday.Thousands of Jobcentre Plus call centre staff will strike on 18 April after bosses refused to improve working conditions and customer service.
In a ballot of the union’s 7,000 members in JCP’s 37 call centres across the country, 70% of those who took part voted for strike action. The turnout was 43%.
Following this strong result, the union agreed not to call any industrial action to allow negotiations to continue. But senior managers have shown little willingness to resolve the dispute.
The action will follow a well-supported two-day strike in January by more than 2,000 workers in JCP’s seven newest contact centres who have been forcibly moved from processing benefit claims to handling enquiries by phone.
The union wants to improve the levels of customer service in call centres; end the target driven culture, particularly by changing the way unrealistic ‘average call times’ are used; and introduce proper flexible working arrangements.
PCS’s Department for Work and Pensions group president Jane Aitchison said: “We are being prevented from providing a good quality service to the public because of unnecessary and unrealistic call centre targets.
“We entered into negotiations in good faith because we care about the help and advice we give to some of the most vulnerable people in society. It’s very disappointing that our management didn’t do the same.”
Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: “With unemployment rising and welfare recipients being blamed for an economic crisis they did not cause, it is outrageous that standards are being driven down in Jobcentre Plus.
“Instead of punishing people who are claiming benefits through no fault of their own, the government should be investing in our public services to help get people back to work quicker and to help our economy to grow.”
Witnesses Needed
12-04-2011 20:29
Were you at the student demos in December 2010 or the 26th March anti-cuts demo?Did you witness anyone being arrested?
Did you film or photograph any arrests?
show your support for Campaign To Save Bahman (Shirkou) Moaarefi From execution
12-04-2011 20:27
To all anti-religious atrocity
To all those who fight for Justice,
To all political parties, Human Rights & Women organisations,
To all Freedom fighters and those whom fight to save civil librety
http://free-sherko.blogspot.com/search/label/Shirkou%20Moaarefi
Meeting with a Workers’ Initiative Polish trade union delegate in London, 15.04
12-04-2011 19:50
Meeting with a Workers’ Initiative Polish trade union delegate in London, 15.04A meeting with the International Secretary of Workers’ Initiative anarcho- syndicalist trade union from Poland will take place on. Friday, 15 of April, at 7pm in Freedom Bookshop, Angel Alley, 84b Whitechapel High St. London E1 7QX There will be also a screening of “Plyta” movie about the wildcat strikes and workers’ struggle organized by Workers’ Initiative at Cegielski plant in Poznan, Poland.
URGENT: Police arrest third person in Glagsow for 9 December protests!
12-04-2011 18:22
GLASGOW DEFENCE CAMPAIGN
Pentagon cops roughup&arrest 25Veterans,Retired Teachers, Nuns,Catholic Workers
12-04-2011 16:53
Attempt to deliver a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates met with excessive force & intimidation! War coming home in loss of civil liberties!Video of the April 8, 2011 attempt to visit The Pentagon by 25 citizen activists:
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/user/chatareena#p/u/0/Qjvi5ItQwRE Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIXUM8wMkXU
Palestine Today 04 12 2011
12-04-2011 16:25
Helen Caldicott makes a monkey of Monbiot
12-04-2011 14:44
Helen pokes George in the eye and slaps him round the face with a radioactive kipper or two.Attacks on Infastructure
12-04-2011 14:23
In the early hours of this morning individuals who choose to be nameless attacked two points of this society's infrastructure,we used different methods each time, but maintained the same quality of love and hate throughout. In both Bulwell and West Bridgford T3 mobile masts where set on fire. We used car tires we had left nearby days earlier, bundles of rags coated in petrol and disposable lighter. A little later we took our knives, our paint stripper and our expanding foam to work on two e-on vehicles and a G4 van. We choose these methods due the close proximity of the vehicles drivers and surveillance. The knives took on the tires, the paint stripper the bodies of the vehicles and the expanding foam destroyed the exhaust pipes.
These action was carried out because we know that in order to be free the infastructure of dominant society must be destroyed, we recognise that this infastructure is cultural and social as well as physical, and that in order for us to survive all aspects must be challenged. However, these actions were also carried out because we can not always wait, because we are hungry and impatient in our search for freedom, and each time we act against the totality of this society with our force we find a little bit more freedom from the social prison we find ourselves in. Basically they were a FUCK YOU to every aspect of oppression. Fuck you we are getting read. Fuck you we are becoming less afraid by the day. Fuck you our lives will be our own.
For us these actions live side by side with all actions where individuals decide that they wish to take their lives into their own hands. We believe that those actions can take the form of occupying banks, they can take the form of informal education collectives, they can take the form of banner drops and peoples kitchens. They can take the form of all kinds of things, and they need to be if we are to destroy all forms of domination.
But we choose these actions because they represent us, they are a manifestation of our fury and our disgust, they are physical representation of our refusal to obey the joyless status quo.
We dedicate these actions to the friends we know who still feel caged. These actions are in solidarity with our friends in Bologna Martino Trevisan, Robert Ferro, Nicusor Roman, Stefania Carolei, and Pistolesi Anna Maria, who have been imprisoned due their dedication to a liberated anarchist world. This action is for all comrades fighting for a way out of societies jaws.