UK UK Newswire Archive
Undying spirit - the words of Brian Haw from March 2008
19-06-2011 19:36
Facebook and Google strut with top bankers and royalty - Bilderberg 2011 debrief
19-06-2011 18:39
EDL Opened Up Up North.
19-06-2011 15:38
A gob-shite, spotty, no-mark rabble claiming 'EDL Bradford' colours came unstuck yesterday after confusing a serious anti-fascist with the UAF.brian haw r.i.p.
19-06-2011 14:55
brian haw, the parliament square peace campaigner, passed away in the early hours yesterday morning after a long struggle with lung cancer.
click on image for larger version. all images are 'some rights reserved' - free for credited non-commercial use, otherwise contact author for permission
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brian haw died peacefully in germany where he had been receiving treatment for lung cancer for the past six months. his parliament square peace campaign marked an extraordinary ten-year milestone just two weeks earlier.
brian originally set up camp in the square opposite the gates of parliament on june 2nd 2001. his protest was against the sanctions on iraq that were directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of children's deaths.
the authorities mounted various legal challenges to evict brian over the years, but each time he saw them off, and fought not only against the sanctions, and later the iraq and afghanistan wars, but also for the right to protest.
over the years, his display of banners spread along the edge of the square, and activists, campaigners and artists (including banksy) contributed banners and artworks to the site.
in 2005, the government brought in new legislation as part of the 'serious organised crime and police act' (socpa), that introduced a system of authorisation and conditions on protest near parliament. the legal challenges from that time were still rumbling on, but the police were instructed to illegally swoop in the middle of the night in may 2006 to remove most of the display, unceremoniously breaking it up and shoving the pieces into a large container.
artist mark wallinger was so incensed by this attack on freedom of expression that he spent months recreating every detail of brian's whole display, and showed the life-size copy in the tate's duveen gallery, winning the turner prize for his work entitled 'state britain'.
support for brian was such that he won the channel 4 'most politically inspiring figure of the year' in 2007, as voted for by viewers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKvhsJJBF-0
as new people joined brian's campaign, an unfortunate rift and personality clash occured, remaining an issue in the square to this day. many of his long-term supporters left or were ostracised, but the campaign carried on, and brian's main focus was the legacy of depleted uranium munitions on the people of iraq and afghanistan - his display included distressing photographs of some of the deformities caused by the radioactive dust released when these missiles strike.
pledges by gordon brown to repeal the socpa laws were never honoured, and the new administration is currently ramping up the pressure with new laws and injunctions to rid parliament square of any permanent protests, possibly ahead of greater illegal military intervention in libya and the middle east. it is a sign of how effective brian's protest has been that government feels the need to draft, debate, and push through legislation which is clearly specifically directed at this one man, first with the socpa clauses, and most recently with the police and social responsibility bill.
i hope that the protest groups in parliament square will find a way to honour brian's memory, put aside differences, and work together to fight the government assault on freedom, and to continue to highlight the illegality of our wars and ammunitions.
i will remember brian most of all for his disarming and radiant smile, for his lethal humour, for his incisive words, and for his enormous personal sacrifice in the cause of peace.
brian haw 1949-2011, rest in peace.
Open letter of anarchist Christos Tsakalos from the prisons of Koridallos
19-06-2011 14:47
Open letter of anarchist Christos TsakalosBP portrait award demo
19-06-2011 13:16
Notts Uncut - feeding the pickets.
19-06-2011 12:55
Notts Uncut - feeding the pickets
Notts Uncut will be visiting the picket lines around Nottingham city centre on the morning of 30th June to deliver sandwiches and hot drinks to the strikers. If you would like us to visit your picket line, or if you are not going to be picketing yourself and would like to join us in feeding the hungry strikers please e-mail us.
We would also be very grateful for any donations of sandwich foods etc. If you are able to make any donations or are willing to lend us a flask for hot drinks please get in touch.
See you on the picket lines!
Parliament Square peace campaigner Brian Haw dies
19-06-2011 12:34
Carbon Capture and Storage - An act of Faith?
19-06-2011 12:29
‘Is Clean Coal an Act of Faith?’ by Anne Harris is a write up of a talk given to The Sheffield Humanist Society 3rd March 2010. A recording the presentation from the opposition, Terry Fox (TUC Clean Coal Task Force), this talk and contributions from the floor are available from
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/40349 and http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/2010/03/446931.html
Brian Haw has passed away
19-06-2011 11:55
Sad News that Parliament Square Peace Campaigner Brian Haw lost his battle against lung cancer yesturday morning.The spuds don't work. GM potato trial, Norwich, 23 July
19-06-2011 09:43
*Norwich, noon, 23rd July 2011.*British trials of genetically modified blight resistant spuds have been failing for the last ten years. But a conventionally bred variety of blight resistant potatoes has been available for 3 years. So why are we
still paying for their dangerous experiment?
Joint Press Release: Brian Haw: January 7th 1949 - June 18th 2011
19-06-2011 09:31
JOINT PRESS RELEASE: BRIAN HAW: JANUARY 7TH 1949 - JUNE 18TH 2011Turkey’s final warning to Syria: Tomorrow may be too late for reforms
19-06-2011 08:35
Nizhny Novgorod criminal case
18-06-2011 21:04
On October 2010 there was a fight in the center of Nizhniy Novgorod, in the result of it a nationalist Redkin D. was knifed in his arm. The wound was not serious and he didn't apply to police. But this accident became known to the Anti-extremist Center at General Directorate of Internal Affairs in Nizhniy Novgorod region detectives who earlier had used Redkin to inititate extremist proceedings.On March 2011 he was taken to center “E” where he was “pressed” (i.e. he was tortured and threatened – SM ) and made to sign a statement with offenders' surnames written in it.
“I was made to sign a statement. When I told that I don't know who was it, the center “E” detectives told me who to blame. Though I knew those people who were offered to me as the offenders and I knew that it weren't they, I was forced by “E” detectives to declare exactly those people who weren't fault in the fact”, tells D. Redkin – the victim-nationalist.
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J30 Protests Across UK
18-06-2011 14:38
Info taken from PCS website: http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/pcs_comment/index.cfm/id/E50FA0FC-7704-4F0A-B1B0BC15C7DB2E16
Workplace Parking Levy to use ANPR
18-06-2011 10:55
Andy at NCCLOLs has found out that the Workplace Parking Levy (WPL) will be enforced using a vehicle equipped with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR). This will drive into the car parks of all workplaces in Nottingham City Centre recording the registrations of all the vehicles parked there, 8 times in every 28 days. This data will then be analysed to work out which vehicles are normally parked in those locations. Not content with surveilling us in every public space the Council now want to start following our cars as well!
The WPL is a state measure attempting to reduce carbon emissions by people commuting in their cars by taxing employers based on the number of parking spaces set aside for employees. The tax is then reinvested in alternatives such as public transport. However, because no one trusts big business not to engage in a little creative accounting over which spaces are for regular users of their car parks and which are for deliveries/visitors, etc the Council has come up with an enforcement strategy - the ANPR equipped vehicle which can use data collected over time to work out which are the regular users and which aren't.
Of course, there are major privacy implications to this. It means that every driver parking in the car park of a Nottingham business could have their whereabouts recorded by the Council and any patterns in their behaviour will be analysed. It's not clear who will have access to that data and whether it will be possible to use it for functions other than the intended one. As usual, we can expect function creep. Andy has pointed out that police and security agencies may well be interested in adding this information to their databases.
Because disabled parking has special status under the WPL, people parking in disabled parking will be categorised separately under the scheme. This raises the fear that the Council is collecting information about drivers' disabled statuses covertly.
ANPR is no stranger to controversy. The police already use a network of ANPR cameras on main roads, ports and petrol station forecourts to read 50 million numberplates a day (expected to be upgraded to 100 million within a few years). The location of the majority of the cameras is secret. The data is held on databases for 2 years (police wanted it to be 5 but the Information Comissioner refused) and is used for intelligence and solving crimes. Data mining is used to build up patterns of vehicle journeys.
The ANPR has been used to target people whose cars have been spotted near political demonstrations for harassment by stop and search. John Catt, whose car was spotted near a Smash EDO demo in Brighton, was later stopped for a vehicle search under s44 of the Terrorism Act in London. He was threatened with arrest if he did not answer police questions.
In the US, ANPR use has led to car confiscations for misdemeanours such as 'frequenting a bawdy place'. Police are equipped with hand held cameras which are often used for the purpose of 'revenue generation'. People owing paking fines get their cars seized and held for ransom until they pay up. This is something not unheard of in the UK as well, where the police have used the cameras to demand all manner of fines from drivers snapped drinking water, talking on their phone or breaking the speed limit. Nottingham City Council are not averse to making a bit of cash out of minor misdemeanours such as dropping fag butts in the Market Square. Can we be sure that they won't turn this latest surveillance scheme into an extortion racket too?
This seems to be another example of high technology being used inappropriately and expanding centralised control over everyday life in the process. Like using retina scanning for registration in schools (something that Nottingham City Council is also keen on) it is slowly making everywhere more and more like a prison, where everything is monitored and no one is free.
Victory for Charlie
18-06-2011 08:50
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.
Cambridge Jobcentre 'Redecorated'!
17-06-2011 21:42
Persons unknown had sprayed "Fuck work B4 it fucks U" right across the front of the building"!
