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UK Anti-militarism Newswire Archive

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Three Little Words: WikiLeaks, Libya, Oil

24-06-2011 19:31

'Libya has some of the biggest and most proven oil reserves — 43.6 billion barrels — outside Saudi Arabia, and some of the best drilling prospects.'

So reported the Washington Post on June 11, in a rare mainstream article which, as we will see, revealed how WikiLeaks exposed the real motives behind the war on Libya.

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Public Rally in Support of Victims of Torture, Trafalgar Square, 26 June, 2-4pm

23-06-2011 12:53

In spite of laws to protect human rights, torture remains prevalent throughout the world. Men, women, children and entire communities are subject to unspeakable atrocities and the effects that live with them long after the violence ends. We invite you to come and stand up against these atrocities, and join us in solidarity with the victims.

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Former Inkerman director to be extradited for fraud

22-06-2011 11:51

Halligen's DOD pass
A former director of INKERMAN Ltd – the company that tries to spy on activist groups - Kevin Halligen is now set to stand trial in the US accused of defrauding a London law firm.

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Bangladeshi State-agents target Human Rights Defenders for abduction and torture

21-06-2011 20:56

I came to know that a nine-member joint delegation led by you and Mr. Birk Niebel, Economic Cooperation and Development Minister of Germany, called on the Prime Minister of Bangladesh on Tuesday, 21 June, at her office.

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Wave of demolitions in the Jordan Valley, Palestine

21-06-2011 13:08

PRESS RELEASE: JORDAN VALLEY SOLIDARITY

21/6/2011 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For further information and pictures contact:
 contact@jordanvalleysolidarity.org or Emma Potter 00972 (0)595510814
www.jordanvalleysolidarity.org

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A Tribute to Anti-War Campaigner Brian Haw, Driven by Revulsion at the Murder of Innocents

20-06-2011 09:24

Brian Haw

When I was a child, I read the Guinness Book of Records, and marvelled at the stories of the people who, in ancient times, removed themselves from everyday reality, like Saint Simeon Stylites, a Christian ascetic who lived on a tiny platform on top of a pillar in Aleppo, Syria for 37 years in the 5th century AD.

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NATO`s Global War Experience

19-06-2011 22:49

Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912
NATO Incorporates Libyan Experience For Global War Template ........ As the West’s war against Libya has entered its fourth month and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has flown more than 11,000 missions, including 4,300 strike sorties, over the small nation, the world’s only military bloc is already integrating lessons learned from the conflict into its international model of military intervention based on earlier wars in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. What NATO refers to as Operation Unified Protector has provided the Alliance the framework in which to continue recruiting Partnership for Peace adjuncts like Sweden and Malta, Istanbul Cooperation Initiative affiliates Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates and Mediterranean Dialogue partnership members Jordan and Morocco into the bloc’s worldwide warfighting network. ......... Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912 ...........

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Undying spirit - the words of Brian Haw from March 2008

19-06-2011 19:36

Audio
Brian Haw, the British campaigner for peace who refused to be silenced, set up camp outside Parliament in 2001 -- and stayed there for 10 years.

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Facebook and Google strut with top bankers and royalty - Bilderberg 2011 debrief

19-06-2011 18:39

Audio
Friday Drivetime - BCfm’s weekly politics show - At five: discussing the big stories in Bristol, Britain and around the world - After six: straight talking and investigative reports with Martin Summers and Marina Morris

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Parliament Square peace campaigner Brian Haw dies

19-06-2011 12:34

A brief tribute to wonderful human being and committed peace activist Brian Haw.

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Turkey’s final warning to Syria: Tomorrow may be too late for reforms

19-06-2011 08:35

Angelina Jolie visits a refugee camp at Turkey's border with Syria, 17 June 2011
What is unfolding in Syria is an armed insurrection supported covertly by foreign powers including the US, Turkey and Israel.

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Alternative perspectives on the Libyan War

18-06-2011 08:21

The War in Libya: Race,"Humanitarianism" and the Media
 http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/forte200411.html

Excerpt:
Social Media Folklore:
Creating the Legend of "African Mercenaries"

One of the most fertile sites for the international production of myths of savage African mercenaries has been Twitter, among other social network sites, in ways that bring back to mind the manner in which Twitter was used to spread misinformation at the time of the June 2009 Iran election protests. The problem is not that the site is an outlet for creative imaginations, but that some of the mainstream media source Twitter for their reports, in the absence of correspondents on the ground. The Independent's Michael Mumisa observed that "foreign media outlets have had to rely mostly on unverified reports posted on social network websites and on phone calls from Libyans terrified of Gaddafi's 'savage African mercenaries who are going door-to-door raping our women and attacking our children'," and he speaks of "a Twitter user based in Saudi Arabia," who "wrote how Gaddafi is 'ordering african (sic) mercenaries to break into homes in Benghazi to RAPE (sic) Libyan women in order to detract (sic) men protesters!'" The New York Times' David Kirkpatrick, in one of the few sober pieces analyzing the Libyan opposition, noted that "like the chiefs of the Libyan state news media, the rebels feel no loyalty to the truth in shaping their propaganda, claiming nonexistent battlefield victories, asserting they were still fighting in a key city days after it fell to Qaddafi forces, and making vastly inflated claims of his barbaric behavior."

Twitter is useful, however, not as a source of incontestable information about Gaddafi's atrocities, but as a guide to how the opposition prepared the narrative cover for attacking Sub-Saharan Africans. The mass of passive repeaters (retweeters), comprising diverse individuals and some journalists, helped from early on to inseminate the fear of African terror: "Afro-mercs" landing at the nearest airport and fanning out to murder Libyans. The myth was useful to the opposition, possessing a structure that made it cohere and appeal on a very basic level: 1) all vs. one -- the Libyan people united against the dictator; 2) male vs. female -- African mercenaries specifically targeting Libyan women; and, 3) local vs. foreign -- proud nationals combating savage intruders. Some of the tweeted statements are classics of colonial racial propaganda, especially when they revolve around protecting local Libyan women, a useful trope also in both classic and contemporary imperial narratives linking the status of native women with progress and liberation.

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Demonstration tomorrow against genocide in Sudan

17-06-2011 10:57

Calling out to people to help build our struggle against inhumaine crimes of El Bashir, President of Sudan.

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Journalist and Human rights activist Tortured

15-06-2011 17:18

Video William Gomes
Human rights watchdog Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has exposed a story about the abduction, detention, cruel and inhuman treatment and interrogation of human rights defender William Gomes.

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Public Rally in Support of Victims of Torture, 26 June, Trafalgar Square, 2-4pm

15-06-2011 14:46

26 June is UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. In spite of laws to protect them, men, women, children and entire communities all around the world have to live with the consequences of torture meted out by state authorities. Torture is illegal. Join us on this day to show solidarity with victims. Also the final day of Refugee Week 2011, it should not be forgotten that many refugees have fled torture.

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Armed Forces Offices targeted in Oxford

15-06-2011 03:15

In the early hours of 15th June, the offices held by the Armed Forces at 35 St Giles since 1936 were targeted in an expression of independent anti-militarist direct action. Red paint, emblematic of the unneccesary deaths of innocents and servicemen and -women at home and across the world, was poured over the front door and steps in order to cause maximum inconvenience to those who make war possible while masquerading as members of the local community. This was done to impede as far as possible the continuation of business from that location.

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CAAT Medway meeting

12-06-2011 23:10

First meeting announcement

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British government: We wasted millions chasing wrong terrorist threats

11-06-2011 10:12

The Times, 7 June 2011
British government's outrageous new "counter-terrorism" measures are receiving a public relations backlash because of their extreme, fascist overtones.


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John Pilger writes on 'the extraordinary banning of my film on war and media'

11-06-2011 09:34

Dear Noam

I am writing to you and a number of other friends mostly in the US to alert you to the extraordinary banning of my film on war and media, 'The War You Don't See', and the abrupt cancellation of a major event at the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe in which David Barsamian and I were to discuss free speech, US foreign policy and censorship in the media.

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Guardian's Charlie Skelton live from NATO Bilderberg conference

11-06-2011 01:52

Audio
Guardian’s Charlie Skelton spots George Osborne at NATO’s secret Bilderberg conference in St Moritz, Switzerland,