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UK Analysis Newswire Archive

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21st Century Strategy: Militarized Europe, Globalized NATO

27-02-2010 14:38

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates launched into a diatribe against a fictitious peace contagion enveloping Europe – when almost the entire continent is now absorbed by NATO and practically every nation on it has sent troops to a war zone in Asia:

“One of the triumphs of the last century was the pacification of Europe after ages of ruinous warfare. But, ... I believe we have reached an inflection point, where much of the continent has gone too far in the other direction. The demilitarization of Europe – where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it – has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st.”

A cultural infection of pacifism. A non-existent demilitarization of Europe which threatens peace. Sentiments of this type have not been voiced in Europe itself since the late 1930s and early 1940s, when like now most of the continent was united under one politico-military power.

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Hereford Heckler - the first two years

27-02-2010 13:41

A short article taken from  http://herefordheckler.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/hereford-heckler-w12.pdf about the first two years of the Hereford Heckler, and what else we've been up to during this time.

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Understanding the Nature of the Global Economic Crisis

24-02-2010 17:43

"The sovereign debt crises that have been unfolding in the past couple years and more recently in Greece, are canaries in the coal mine for the rest of Western “civilization.” The crisis threatens to spread to Spain, Portugal and Ireland; like dominoes, one country after another will collapse into a debt and currency crisis, all the way to America."

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Greek capitalism – a tragedy in several parts

24-02-2010 12:30

Greece is the latest in a line of countries squeezed by the ongoing financial crises continuing to ripple around the world. It is an important case to watch, more so than say Iceland or Ireland, as the situation in Greece is closer to the economic positions of the UK – both have governments who form an important part of economy, and are financially overstretched.

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The Iran Threat: more of the same

23-02-2010 19:19

The pressure is cranking up on Iran. During her recent tour of the Middle East, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton declared that Iran is "moving toward a military dictatorship", because the civilian government is being "supplanted" by the Revolutionary Guard, which "poses a very direct threat to everyone." She added: "We don't want to be engaging while they're building a bomb." About a week earlier US National Security Adviser Jim Jones described the Iran nuclear issue as the "top global security threat."

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GATES OF DELUSION: Media Distortions And +Real+ Climate Scandals

22-02-2010 19:49

Since November last year, the public has been bombarded with the story of stolen emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, revealing a supposed "scandal" of scientific malpractice, stupidly and lazily named "climategate". Further media frenzy erupted over an erroneous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change statement that 80 per cent of Himalayan glacier area would very likely be gone by 2035. Other climate-related storms in a teacup have been appearing in the corporate media almost on a daily basis. This nonsense is distracting attention from a mountain of evidence that human-induced climate change is accelerating and poses a deadly threat to civilisation.

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The End of Obama’s Vision of a Nuke-Free World

20-02-2010 17:58

To secure America, a president must have the courage to dismantle what, in the past, has been proclaimed as the foundation of our survival, but in reality presents us with the seeds of our destruction—nuclear weapons.

Back in April 2009, in a speech delivered in Prague, US President Barack Obama articulated his vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.

Since that time, however, the Obama administration has offered very little of substance to push this vision forward.

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Fighting and Beating the Poll Tax - Friday 5th March 2010

20-02-2010 16:23

Friday 5th March 2010 at
The Sparrows' Nest, St Ann's, Nottingham
Starts 7.00pm

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Trevor Phillips

20-02-2010 13:31

Surprisingly, Harriet Harman's poodle Trevor Phillips has hit the weekend news with the extraordinary claim that he is concerned about human rights of Muslims tortured by the USA with UK spying operatives in complicity.. Phillips is the most promoted ‘hope’ of the British state among the Operation African-origin serviles! He does not deserve to be allowed this latest career move just as election time is upon us

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Syria: A Clenched US Fist Behind the Hand of Friendship

19-02-2010 18:43

Charles Hunter, Chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus
The announcement by Washington today that it is appointing an ambassador to Syria – after an absence of five years – is being hailed in the western media as another example of the Obama administration’s “policy of engagement” for regional peace.

The seeming US hand of friendship towards Syria is more accurately understood as the further clenching of Washington’s fist towards Iran.

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U.S. – Iran Power Struggle over Iraq

18-02-2010 09:57

A secure, stable and democratic Iraq will have first to wait for an end to the raging power struggle over Iraq between the United States and Iran inside and outside the occupied Arab country.

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Greece economic crisis (by Latuff)

17-02-2010 19:11

Greece Economic Crisis
Artwork originally produced for Greek newspaper DROMOS:  http://www.edromos.gr

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The rise of the far right and anti-fascism

17-02-2010 12:10

Audio
Attached is a recording of a communist discussion group meeting held in Sheffield on 16th February 2010 titled, the rise of the far right and anti-fascism.

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Interview with Erik Swyngedouw: The post-politics of climate change

15-02-2010 22:01

Interview from Shift Magazine, issue 8

Erik Swyngedouw is Professor of Geography at the University of Manchester. He is committed to political economic analysis of contemporary capitalism, producing several major works on economic globalisation, regional development, finance, and urbanisation. His interests also include political-ecological themes and the transformation of nature, notably water issues, in Ecuador, Spain, the UK, and elsewhere in Europe.

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The media response to the growing influence of the 9/11 truth movement

15-02-2010 15:31

In the past year, in response to emerging independent science on the 9/11 attacks, nine corporate, seven public, and two independent media outlets aired analytic programs investigating the official account.

Increasingly, the issue is treated as a scientific controversy worthy of debate, rather than as a "conspiracy theory" ignoring science and common sense.

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NATO's Secret Transatlantic Bond: Nuclear Weapons In Europe

15-02-2010 03:07

"Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices." [13]

The Time piece of December 2, then, points out that the continued presence of U.S. nuclear warheads in Europe is "more than an anachronism or historical oddity. They [the weapons] are a violation of the spirit of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)...."

"Because 'nuclear burden-sharing,' as the dispersion of B61s in Europe is called, was set up before the NPT came into force, it is technically legal. But as signatories to the NPT, the four European countries and the U.S. have pledged 'not to receive the transfer...of nuclear weapons or control over such weapons directly, or indirectly.' That, of course, is precisely what the long-standing NATO arrangement entails."

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What Do Empires Do?

14-02-2010 23:39

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.

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Peak soil

14-02-2010 22:14

Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R. Montgomery
"Dirt" (2008) by David Montgomery deals with the relation between soil erosion and civilization collapse. It is neither the first nor the only book that examines this subject. It is, however, written by a soil scientist, and it brings to a deeper level the understanding of how soil disappears and how this affects agriculture and, in turn, society.

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EU - Internal Security Strategy & Commitee On Internal Security

14-02-2010 02:58

The EU has been waiting for years to launch its Internal Security Strategy (ISS) and the Standing Committee on Internal Security (COSI) which will be responsible for developing it. Back in 2003 It was thought that the Lisbon Treaty would be well in place by now, instead the Lisbon Treaty and the Stockholm Programme have come into effect at the same time. What the ISS and COSI have in common is that they both form part of the matrix of the next stage of the growing European state.

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BNP trounced in Hucknall election

13-02-2010 01:12

The BNP have been trounced in the Hucknall Central by election, coming last in a five horse race which saw the Labour take power, replacing Gordon Riley, the conservative councillor who died late last year.