UK Newswire Archive
Lisbon calling: Portugal gets ready to host NATO summit
23-10-2010 18:23
We are fast approaching the next NATO summit, which will gather in Lisbon, from the 19th to the 21st of November, Barack Obama and the leaders of the other member-countries. Their goal is to adopt the new “strategic concept” of the organization. And we can already notice the growing bustle.
Southampton protests Round-up - Anti-cuts demo & arms traders disrupted at fair
23-10-2010 17:55
Bob Crow (RMT) + Matt Wrack (FBU)
23-10-2010 17:22
Bob Crow, General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) and Matt Wrack, General Secretary of FBU
See report : Radical Workers March as Firefighters Strike
Cambridge Right-to-work demo
23-10-2010 17:03
Steve Hedley (RMT) at anti-cuts demo
23-10-2010 16:22
Steve Hedley, RMT regional organiser, speaking at the start of the anti-cuts march to the TUC in london, October 23rd:
"international capital is attacking us"
"they're trying to manufacture a consensus in the media, and that consensus is trying to say that we're all in this together"
"we are not going to pay for their crisis"
"we've got to be prepared to escalate it"
"but we're not going to achieve this by marching up and down"
"we're not prepared to sit back and let our welfare state and our jobs be used and dismantled to pay for the capitalist crisis"
See report : Radical Workers March as Firefighters Strike
Full article | 2 additions | 3 comments
Yorkshire and Humberside TUC Rally Against the Cuts
23-10-2010 16:16
Full article | 1 addition | 2 comments
Cardiff Jobcuts Rally
23-10-2010 16:08
US troops and Iraqi torture
23-10-2010 16:01
The logs reveal that more than 180,000 people were detained in Iraq between 2004 and 2009. This is equivalent to one in 50 of the male population. In comparison, the number of people detained in Afghanistan, which has a similar population, was 7,500. Most of those detained in Iraq detentions were in state-run centres. .....
http://www.iraqwarlogs.com/ .....
Lisbon calling: Portugal gets ready to host NATO summit
23-10-2010 15:58
We are fast approaching the next NATO summit, which will gather in Lisbon, from the 19th to the 21st of November, Barack Obama and the leaders of the other member-countries. Their goal is to adopt the new “strategic concept” of the organization. And we can already notice the growing bustle.Right to Work march to TUC Rally in Sheffield
23-10-2010 14:53
Full article | 4 additions | 2 comments
Groups that endorse the statement regarding Mark Stone/Kennedy
23-10-2010 14:34
Groups that endorse the statement regarding Mark Stone/KennedyRadical Workers March as Firefighters Strike
23-10-2010 14:22
Hundreds today marched in london against the government cuts and lobbied / criticised the TUC for not calling a national demonstration against the cuts for FIVE months. There were calls to more radical strike action, direct action, one day public sector strikes and a general strike.
With RMT Tube maintenance workers taking industrial action and firefighters on strike and resisting scab labour there were calls to emulate the industrial action seen in greece, france and spain, emphasising the need for mutual support in mass action and the necessity to involve more people than just those in trade unions, to defend each other.
A 'Direct Action Militant Workers Bloc' joined the demonstration and handed out leaflets entitled "Strike, Occupy, Sabotage!" which said that no march past parliament, no matter how big, would have any effect, and that only mass direct action, especially industrial action would be effective.
One speaker said we cannot rely on our MPs, councillors, the TUC, and often even shop stewards, we must agitate at the grassroots level ourselves.
£220 MILLION offered by government for proposed UKCMRI massive bioresearch lab
23-10-2010 13:41
Petition delivered opposing Avonmouth Biofuel Power Station
23-10-2010 11:22
Hallen village's near unanimous opposition taken to LondonSecretary of State at DCLG, Eric Pickles MP, is about to consider the fate of the planned biofuel power station at Avonmouth. Refused planning permission by Bristol City Council in February, and then the subject of a censored planning inquiry in August, the power station will be the largest so far in the UK, burning thousands of tonnes of imported palm oil and possibly jatropha oil.
Hallen villagers delivered their petition opposing the power station to Eric Pickles office in London on Friday 22nd October in London. Nearly every resident – 265 out of 140 households - had signed.
Hallen is about a mile from W4B’s proposed development in Avonmouth and will bear the brunt of the tonnes of air pollution it will create every day from burning 90,000 tonnes of imported palm oil or jatropha oil a year.
Bristol City Council refused planning permission in February for the 49MW power station because councillors believe imported biofuels are not sustainable and have no place in a city aspiring to be a Green Capital. W4B’s subsequent appeal is now to be decided by Eric Pickles, some time before the end of December.
Biofuels like palm oil and jatropha are under intense scrutiny worldwide because of the devastating impacts that growing plants for fuel in tropical areas have on local environments and livelihoods. Studies have concluded that the overall impact of burning liquid biofuels on global climate can be worse than the fossil fuels they are designed to replace.
In the appeal inquiry in August, the Inspector ruled that only local impacts should be considered by the planning system, and refused to hear evidence about the effects of producing biofuels like palm oil and jatropha in Asia and Africa.
Hallen is supported in their opposition to the biofuel power station by their local county councillor Sheila Cook, by Almondsbury Parish Council, and by MP Jack Lopresti.
Sue Black, Hallen Village Committee said:
“The residents of Hallen are fed up with the encroachment of industry towards and into their village over the years. There is almost unanimous opposition to the proposed biofuel power station, not only for local factors such as proximity and air pollution, but also Hallen residents are concerned about environmental problems overseas caused by the growing of palm and jatropha trees. How can bringing the palm oil thousands of miles to burn here be sustainable?"
Robert Palgrave of Biofuelwatch added:
“Far from reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the UK’s bioenergy policy threatens to accelerate global warming by destroying tropical and sub-tropical forests and peatlands, which are amongst the world’s most important carbon sinks.
If we want to have any hope of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change then we need drastic cuts in energy use - not oil crops grown in vast monocultures to produce so-called green electricity.”
Mike Birkin, Bristol Friends of the Earth said:
“Bristol councillors rightly took a wider view of W4B’s proposal to burn imported biofuels at Avonmouth and said “No”. Eric Pickles now has a chance to show that the Government means what it says when it promises greater control for local communities, by refusing W4B’s appeal”
Notes:
The company behind the Avonmouth scheme, W4B, have stated they will burn palm oil shipped from Indonesia at the outset, and then switch to Jatropha from India or Africa at a later date. There are numerous concerns over the use of these crops. Already demand for palm oil in food and cosmetics has lead to widespread deforestation in places like Indonesia, where people have been dispossessed of their land, and animals like orangutans are on the brink of extinction. Any additional demand for palm oil is likely to spell the end of the remaining forests in this region and would be a disaster for those who depend on them.
Groups such as Action Aid and Friends of the Earth have reported that demand for Jatropha (a poisonous non-edible seed crop) for biofuel is already further impoverishing poor communities in India and Africa and leading to food shortages.
W4B’s power station will burn 90,000 tonnes of fuel a year. This is nearly as much as all the palm oil currently going into transport biodiesel in the UK. Annual subsidies could amount to £36million.
Hallen will experience air pollution from the Avonmouth power station 24 hours a day, adding to the pollution from the planned Helius Energy biomass power station and the Cyclomax incinerator also in Avonmouth.
Full article | 1 addition | 13 comments
WikiLeaks: the largest classified military leak in history
23-10-2010 08:37
At 5pm EST Friday 22nd October 2010 WikiLeaks released the largest classified military leak in history. The 391,832 reports ('The Iraq War Logs'), document the war and occupation in Iraq, from 1st January 2004 to 31st December 2009 (except for the months of May 2004 and March 2009) as told by soldiers in the United States Army. Each is a 'SIGACT' or Significant Action in the war. They detail events as seen and heard by the US military troops on the ground in Iraq and are the first real glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to throughout.EDL, Chickens & Israel
23-10-2010 08:01
The EDL are a single issue group unable to respond to the political crisis in the UK.UG#521 - Walling Us In and The Illusion of Separation
23-10-2010 07:21
ITALY: Rubbish tip riots rattle Terzigno town
23-10-2010 03:50
Thessaloniki Solidarity Campaign: Public Meeting in London @ LARC, 25 October
22-10-2010 23:32
The Thessaloniki 4 solidarity campaign group will hold a public meeting on 25 October 2010 at 7.30pm at the London Action Resource Centre (LARC) in Whitechapel, London E1.Over a hundred people were arrested after a demonstration confronting the European Union summit, held in Thessaloniki in Greece in 2003. Seven people were imprisoned on remand and eventually began a hunger strike that lasted more than 50 days.
With the constant worldwide solidarity of thousands of people, in direct action, in occupations, demonstrations, benefits and struggle, the seven prisoners were released on bail and the charges were dropped. Then the charges were reinstated, and when the first trial took place in January 2008, the four were found guilty and sentenced to prison sentences between 5 and 8 years.
The solidarity campaign in London, in Greece and around the world was one of the most powerful – and effective – struggles for the freedom of prisoners we ever experienced.
Eight years after the original arrests, the remaining four accused face their final appeal trial in January 2011. All four, charged with serious offences such as riot, possession and causing explosions, possession of weapons and resisting arrest, face sentences of more than five years, even though they were all beaten up, fitted up and framed.
We will present the latest news on the case and some short films that show what happened in 2003, and what could happen next.
fight the poisonous incinerators in uk
22-10-2010 23:03
