Skip to content or view screen version

UK Analysis Newswire Archive

Full article

Egypt: A mandate to kill!

28-07-2013 16:43

The popular street mandate for the Egyptian military to prosecute a 'war against terror' opens up the path for further reactionary developments. The absence of a strong left in Egypt to counter this development is not something unique to the Arab World and the Arab Spring. It is a symptom of radical left weakness which is endemic throughout the world. A global crisis of the capitalist mode of production requires a global response which has yet to develop.

Full article

UG#656 - Secret Wars Of The CIA (A Classic Speech by John Stockwell)

26-07-2013 09:38

Audio
This time a radio adaptation of the video, "Secret Wars Of The CIA", by winner of the CIA Medal of Merit winner turned CIA whistleblower, John Stockwell. In this vintage video, before the advent of WWW, an earnest Stockwell gives an overview of CIA activity and cites dozens of books to supporting material by other researchers.

Full article | 1 comment

Kerry Uses Arabs to Bully Palestinians*

26-07-2013 07:40

US Department of State spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters that unless progress was made on Kerry’s sixth visit to the region, he would not be returning for more visits. If anything, this sounds like an unveiled threat aiming to put pressure on Abbas and his chief negotiator and force their cooperation

Full article

Dialogue No More

24-07-2013 14:34

It was a long and painful death, and deservedly so by own achievement. Having been assigned the task of writing the obituary by historical circumstance and current necessity, this must be said before everything else. The patient we are talking about is the "EU 3" negotiation program over the Persian reactors. On Monday of this week in the streets of Brussels, the bipartisan centrepiece of European-American relations burned itself. The click of the lighter could be heard all over Europe: The regime declaration of war against the Hisballah network. Insiders had been expecting something like this to happen since the program doused itself in petroleum with accordingly targeted police raids two months ago, and warning signs had been echoed even by Nigerian exiles in Britain. This is an analysis of what might have triggered the Brussels incident and an explanation of the difference it makes. It has not made a chain reaction starting with attacks against the Persian reactors more likely, in the same sense as leaving the umbrella at home does not make rain more likely. But it might have made more likely the demise of the atomic state, respectively the military-industrial complex.

The "EU 3" were a construct with no other foundation than its single purpose, the negotiations with Persia, which in reciprocation had assigned negotiators with no other purpose than maintaining the contact. Neither is there any formally declared special role of Germany, France and Britain - the self-appointed "nuclear troika" - in the European Union, nor in the United Nations, and neither is the coincidence of the proportional influence of these regimes in Europe nor the partial overlapping with Security Council membership sufficient legitimation to assume one. The only mandate the "EU 3" ever received was from the Americans, who had chosen it as their proxy to answer Persian calls for dialogue. And since the Persians are interested to talk to the Americans to remind them to remove their military from their region, they maintained the contact.

The negotiations were without results and nothing has helped to change that, not even the calendar association of the meetings with the full moon, which hit an ironic sense in older statements that there was "no daylight" between the approaches of the two blocs. In Persia one of the negotiators who confronted the European-American troika is to take the presidency, and the Persian approach to the United Nations framework for the administration of reactors consistently has been the same as the American one to the "Kyoto Protocol," which made it difficult for the European negotiators to complain with an American mandate. And the post-Kyoto diplomacy has already dug its own grave by delaying decisions for a decade. The escalation of reactor use that is projected during the time span and beyond would shrink the meltdown interval to half of its current value.

On the basis of probability and manufacturer data, the list of Harrisburg, Chernobyl, Fukushima will grow longer quicker and soon is very unlikely to remain unamended for an entire decade. Just recently e. g. the Delhi regime announced the first of a large number of projected reactors. The theory that the Kundankoolam decision was the trigger that killed the "EU 3" negotiations is supported by the fact that the Brussels raids against the oil corporations coincided with their public relations activities in India. These are reactors entirely outside of any United Nations framework, unlike in hitherto meltdowns, which makes it appear infantile and ridiculous to rattle the sabres over reactors which are at least as safe as the "Kyoto Protocol," and received that status not as a result of but as a precondition for the "EU 3" approach.

Since the Americans chose proliferation to India over diplomacy, nothing of the entire issue of ending the proliferation of radioactive threats which had to serve as legitimation for the empty theatrics of the "EU 3" has remained to back it. To make the farce complete, Japan deprecated its role in the United Nations reactor control structure by doing the same, which can only surprise if its failure to use this structure to receive compensation from the Americans is not already be seen as an indication of its lack of sanity. Not only was Fukushima a wet meltdown in comparison to the earlier dry ones, it also was the first reactor meltdown in which the country having produced the reactor and the country hosting it were not the same.

Apparently no one told any of these regimes that it would have been wiser to offer India a Security Council veto in exchange for the freeze and transfer of its existing reactor and arms load into the United Nations framework. Then Persia would have had to argue why 60 million Shia Muslims there need additional reactors while a multitude thereof in India do not, but so would the hitherto Security Council members, just like over conventional climate disruptions, and they would not have had the possibility to postpone one issue for predictable disruption by the other. Or, if that option had been considered with conscious awareness, greed was the defining condition that led to the current proliferation, against which the assumed intentions of Persia can only appear as a minor threat.

If the Americans and the Europeans are so greedy to push their reactors, such as Germany does in Brazil, they have - not only for everyone else but now even in their own eyes - lost all credibility to try to persuade someone else to scale back on it. The other explanation, an expectation to conquer the Pakistani nukes, might be even less favourable since it would be legitimising reciprocation from the Western neighbour. If the American intention had been to avoid talking its military aberrations in the region with Persia then it now pompously failed, just like their warmongering, their oil policy and just about everything else they did in the last hundred years.

The nature of this failure is illustrated in the case of the Persian exile writer in Europe who received a death verdict from Tehran. At the time it might even have justified the reciprocation against the projected executioners, which now - a generation later - occurs as a farce. But if that writer had received fissile story material from NSA or the like, to dress up an otherwise unmarketable slur in targeted mimicry, that would put what appeared as an assault on the freedom of arts into an entirely different light, namely that the alleged artwork is part of the actual assault and the alleged assault part of an actual liberation. The untimely hostility against the Hisballah network might be an indication that something like this is the case. All reactors are inherently bad, not only due to their radioactivity, they also are the last pretexts for criminal regimes to exist. In that respect the rulers of Persia are similar to their European and American, Japanese, Indian and other counterparts. And the "EU 3" deception now is on the ash heap of history.

Full article

Immutable Egypt – Gaza Bonds*

23-07-2013 18:19

Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood never hid their ties, were proud of their connections, and made no secret of their cooperation. But the political adversaries of both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt would have us believe that anything that befalls the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt will befall Hamas in Gaza, which is a massive exaggeration.

Full article

UG#655 - Unite and Conquer 3 (Social and Personal Consciousness of Self & Other)

21-07-2013 15:13

Audio
A successor show to episode 531, we wonder this week whether a suppressed half of human consciousness knows that we are inseparable from all of the rest of life? We begin with Jill Bolte Taylor's dramatic account of the stroke that shut down the left half of her brain, followed by Elisabet Sahtouris and Willis Harman on new paradigms in science, and author Gish Jen on cultural differences in ideas of the self.

Full article

Zero-hour contracts!

18-07-2013 14:50

Recent media coverage has highlighted the onset of zero-hour contracts for employing workers in various private and public sectors. This article looks at the economic logic of this under the capitalist mode of production and suggests this is nothing new in the history of that mode.

Full article | 15 comments

From Trayvon Martin to Andries Tatane: Cognitive Dissonance and the Black Male Body

18-07-2013 07:50

Moments before his death, Andries Tatane being attacked by police
"The awful truth is that in a white supremacist society the black body remains a location of violence. The reality is that the black body has an identity that is still confined to and judged upon the colour of the skin. It is this skin, this exterior of the body, which becomes the fundamental focus in a racialised identity. As Fanon denoted, the white man sees only the black skin. It becomes the foundation for all relations. The black man is reduced to his outer coating and body. There is no depth – only surface. He is flattened out and stripped of psychology, emotion and intelligence. Thus the black man does not really exist as a fully-fledged human in this imaginary – he is an object. But more so he is an object that presents a danger to whiteness. He becomes nothing more than a signifier in service to white fear."
_________________________________________________

This article by Gillian Schutte was originally published on SACSIS under a Creative Commons License

Schutte is an award winning independent filmmaker, writer and social justice activist. She is a founding member of Media for Justice and co-producer at Handheld Films.

Full article | 1 comment

Egypt – State of Disinformation

16-07-2013 12:33

It seems to have become a conundrum for many, but it was obvious for some at least since last summer when Morsi compromised with the spies of the old regime. This sort of Islamic revolution would be very different from the one in Persia a generation ago, where Khomeini resisted that temptation, not as much as the death toll on the most revolutionary segments of the population is concerned, but in its fundamental architecture and outlook to the future. The current Persian regime, whatever one might think of it, was literally rebuilt from mud, but in Egypt it was the remainder of the old which served as the raw material for the new one, with the Islamic association being little more than the icing on the cake. This decoration has now been removed, and lacking an internal enemy the structural legacy of generations of imperialist meddling has come to the fore.

Full article

UG#653 -The Biopsychosocial Approach (The Growth Of Child Development Disorders)

11-07-2013 10:40

Audio
Following on from last week, another show on a very important but commercially sidelined scientific backwater. Dr. Gabor Maté combines personal testimony, anecdotal evidence and a lot of scientific research to tell a story of child development very different to the one pedalled by institutions such as the Drug Industry, the criminal justice system or other profiteers of human disfunctionality. Increasing ill health, Maté suggests, is a natural response to an increasingly sick society.

Full article | 5 comments

Watching the BBC's newswatch?

08-07-2013 13:59

The BBC's NEWSWATCH is supposed to be about getting the truth and the ethics into the output of the Corporation. But does the slot deliver what moral and ethical viewers expect it to?
Jimmy Saville is only the tip of the iceb erg of unaccountability on the BBC

Full article

Egypt: Insurrection or Interregnum?

08-07-2013 08:53

The toppling of Morsi by the combined efforts of millions aided by the military have introduced new factors into the volatile situation in Egypt. This article considers a number of them both positive and negative.

Full article | 1 comment

KHOODEELAAR! SCOOPS BBC Sunday Politics Programme about Tower Hamlets Council

07-07-2013 21:03

The BBC Sunday Politics programme broadcast today 07 July 2013, fronted by Andrew Neill had its London segment carry a piece on Tower Hamlets Council featuring John Wright, the Shadwell resident who had been stopped from filing the Council on Wednesday 26 June 2013. But the BBC Report was incoherent and lacked any clear or contextual info even from John Wright himself whom they showed. KHOODEELAAR! scoops the BBC in their view report posted on youtube tonight [Sunday 07 July 2013]

Full article

UG#652 - Is Humanity In Its Right Mind? (The Rise and Rise Of The Left Brain)

07-07-2013 02:28

Audio
This week, a remarkable set of ideas by an unknown speaker with a highly unusual credential (a sleep deprivation record of 11 days) whom I first came across only a few days ago. His ideas are such a close fit with many of the others we have heard on the show that I felt I had to share them with you. If they are even partly true, we all need to know about it.

Full article

OathKeeper Movement Ignites U.S. White House Fireworks Freedom Anyway

03-07-2013 21:52

American citizens planned revolt is set to begin on its "Independence Day" July 4, 2013 that was cancelled by the U.S. President for the first time in recent history so, this likely ignited tensions in what could easily turn into a day of bloody insurrection for The Colonies that will live in historical infamy once again.

Full article | 5 comments

Egypt: Workers and Soldiers.

03-07-2013 20:11

The conflict in Egypt has reached another peak. The military have once again moved in an attempt to resolve the current tensions. This article considers the economic basis of the ordinary soldier and the tensions which may occur between the military elite, tied to the USA and the origins of the rank and file in the working class communities of Egypt.

Full article | 1 comment

UG#651 - Deep Green Resistance (Earth At Risk Conference)

02-07-2013 22:48

Audio
A trio of speakers this time, two of whom have been regular contributors to the show. We listen in on a conference that happened in California in 2011 entitled Earth At Risk. While they outline contrasting approaches to resistance, the speakers are united in their conviction that the culture of capitalist golobalisation has no mechanism for self-regulation and so Direct Action is necessary to stop its ongoing ecocide.

Full article | 1 comment

The Future of Bristol & District Anti-Cuts Alliance

02-07-2013 06:55

I am the Organising Secretary of the Bristol & District Anti-Cuts Alliance but am writing this in a personal capacity.

This is more or less the third anniversery of BADACA. The idea came from a meeting of reps from local branches of the NUT and spread to other unions and organisations. It is now time to review BADACA and Bristol NUT has just passed a resolution to that effect.

In many ways BADACA has been a success. For one thing it has kept going when anti-cuts groups in other towns have not. It has organised demos, lobbies and leafletting; it is taken seriously and provides a valuable information service to about 1500 people on the effect of the cuts and action against them locally. Recently, it has been active in the campaign against the bedroom tax, giving out thousands of leaflets and starting the beginnings of tenants' groups in parts of Bristol. I think we are the only organisation doing this consistently. I also think we can take some of the credit for Bristol City Council hesitancy on sticking the boot in on tenants who cannot pay as shown by the resolution passed at the last Council meeting. This resolution was by no means an outright victory but it was something.

Full article | 1 comment

An 'Assembly' of Illusions?

30-06-2013 10:14

Did the recent 'Peoples' Assembly offer a realistic way forward or just another chance for the left elite to gain an audience? Was the dominant message based on reality or simply wishful thinking? This article considers the positives and negatives of this recent initiative and suggests avoiding some obvious pitfalls.

Full article

UG#650 - Fighting Nature To The Last Drop

25-06-2013 16:28

Audio
Following last week's observations on the destructiveness of the money system in general, we look this week at two specific examples of devastaed communities and ecosystems. Firstly, an account by Arundhati Roy of the oppression of Indian communities by a government determined to extract resources. Secondly, a radio adaptation of "To The Last Drop", a film about the Athabasca Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada.