Cambridge Globalisation Feature Archive
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Keep Tesco off Mill Road, Cambridge
Tesco hope to move into Mill Road, Cambridge. The over whelming majority of residents and local traders absolutely do not want this to happen. Already posters are appearing in many of the shops on Mill Road, and campaigners spent Saturday spreading the word and drumming up support for the campaign.
An open organising meeting has been called to start planning a campaign against Tesco. It will be held on Thursday 27th September at 7 pm in Libra Aries bookshop (9 The Broadway, Mill Road). (The bookshop has been graffitied in the run up to the meeting).
http://www.nomillroadtesco.org/ | Main campaign post with many useful links | Tescopoly site
Ready to remove a blight on our landscape?
UPDATED This month a controversial experimental genetically modified potato crop is due to be planted in the UK by the German chemical giant BASF (offshoot of the infamous AG Farben). DEFRA initially gave approval in December for BASF to undertake trials at two sites, one in Cambridgeshire (at the National Institute of Agriculture and Botany) and the other initially in Derbyshire - until the farmer pulled out.
The trials are the first GM crops to enter British soil in nearly 3 years, after public opposition forced a u-turn in government and corporate plans for patented crops. Although presented as an R&D trial into the effectiveness of an anti blight gene, they are widely considered to be trial of public opinion.
On 14th April in Cambridge a protest walk took place [photos 1, 2]. This was followed on the 21st by a rally in Hull. This event ended with the proposed trial being effectively sabotaged even before it had began when over a hundred people entered the site and planted several varieties of seed potatoes in the field making it impossible for a scientifically valid trial to take place there.
LINKS:
Cambridge 1 | 2 | 3 | grid reference
Hull 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | pics
Background GM - Back on the agenda? | Sabotage promised | New GM crop trials | London info night (Tues 17th)
Campaign sites mutatoes.org | hedonagainstgm.org.uk | Cambridge GM concern | myspace.com/gmfreepotatoes
Full Story | 1 addition | 6 comments >>
'Defend the NHS' National Day of Action
Saturday, 3rd March, saw a national day of action to defend the National Health Service (NHS), called by NHS Together, an alliance of health service unions and staff associations together with the TUC. Demonstrations and rallies took place across the country, in Birmingham, Cambridge, Hackney (London), Leeds, Preston, Sheffield and other places. The aim of the protests, according to the organisers, was "to send a powerful message in celebration and defence of the NHS" against more cuts and privatisation. Almost three quarters of NHS trusts in the UK are reported last year that financial deficits are forcing them to make massive cutbacks; wards are being closed down, hospitals shut and jobs cut. Billions are going into 'restructuring' the service along market lines, with millions going on management consultants and financial advisers and millions more, in massive PFI payments, to shareholders and bankers.
Reports and pics: Defend the NHS Day: Sheffield Demonstration [photos] | Demo against the privatization of the NHS in Preston | Hackney Save NHS Demo | Leeds General Infirmary For Sale!
Previous Indymedia Features: Is Britain ready to defend its NHS? | The NHS in Crisis | Sheffield Children's Hospital: Save Ward S2 | Local Trusts Take Scalpel To NHS | Indymedia UK's Health topic page
Links: NHS Together | Keep Our NHS Public
No chains on Mill Road
Local residents have formed a 'No Chains' campaign to save Mill Road from becoming yet another identiket street of multinational chain stores.
Mill Road is treasured for its individuality but the encroachment of multinational chain stores - Pizza Hut, Chicken Cottage and Subway- is threatening this unique neighbourhood.
In their most recent action last Friday evening, 20 residents took over Mill Road Pizza Hut with a "No Chains" party with music, dancing, balloons and playing twister to show their refusal to give up their neighbourhood. While the employees behind the counter appeared amused by the party, the manager and police eventually shut down the fun after half an hour.
Indymedia coverage of the Pizza Hut Twister party and earlier actions: [1], [2], [3].
No Chains campaign website and flyers.
Immaterial Labour
Ed Emery of the Universitas adversitatis has organised the "Immaterial Labour, Multitudes, and New Social Subjects: Class Composition in Cognitive Capitalism" Conference in Cambridge this weekend (August 28-30th). This conference will be feature a large international gathering of radicals and militants, with a focus on autonomous inquiry in the digital era and a keynote open to the public by Antonio Negri, co-author of Empire.
This diverse revolutionary current believes that the era of the "material labour" of the factory has been superseded by the "immaterial labour" that includes unpaid family work, "service with a smile" and the production of affects, and symbolic-linguistic production such as computer programming and entertainment. There is also an increased focus on the cybernetic communications of both capital, and as opposed to vanguard parties, the natural antagonism of labour to capitalism and their ability to subvert their own machinery - including the Internet (see texts related to the themes of the conference).
Antonio Negri will give his keynote in French on the evening of the 28th on the topic of "J.M. Keynes, Guaranteed Minimum Income and the Recent Events in France," an analysis of the recent revolt in France against the neoliberal CPE.
To make this conference as widely available, there will be live audio-stream available on www.radiovague.com and an IRC chat room at chat.indymedia.org#immaterial. This room will allow people, regardless of their location in space, to discuss the speakers and ask questions. A full archive will also be made.
Update: At the last moment, Negri had to cancel for personal reasons, but his paper will be delivered by his esteemed colleague Andrea Fumagalli at 7:30.
Full Story | 1 addition | 2 comments >>
The NHS in Crisis
Crisis can be an overused word, but in the case of the NHS it’s difficult to get across the scale of the problem without using it. Three quarters of the NHS trusts in the UK are reporting that financial deficits are forcing them to make some form of cut backs this financial year.
But, hold on. The government says it’s putting more money into the NHS than ever before. For once the government is telling the truth - they are spending far more on the NHS than ever, but the cuts are still taking place... how on earth can they both be true?
The answer is simple, it's not a question of how much money, but where it goes. Private companies have become more deeply entrenched in the health service than ever before, on a level that would have been unimaginable even under the Tories.
Keep our NHS Public, Indymedia coverage [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ]
Iraq-o-mat: Cleaning Dollars for Corporations
Much of the post-war corporate activity in Iraq has come under heavy criticism from many different fronts. There are accusations of corruption, bribery and nepotism as well as simple incompetence - the jobs just aren't getting done... So what is all the `reconstruction' activity in Iraq really about? Supposedly post-war Iraq is a neo-liberal utopia, an economy freed of the tiresome and inefficient burdens of government regulation. Yet an examination of this same economy may lead one to conclude that the system as it stands is rampant with inefficiency. Indeed Iraq's economy today looks less like an economic utopia than a giant money-laundering operation...
CIPO-RFM to speak in Cambridge.
Activists from Mexican indigenous direct action group CIPO-RFM will be visiting the UK for the first time on a 5 date speaking tour (including Cambridge: Wednesday 23rd February, 8pm Films, Bharat Bhavan -- old Mill Road Library) to promote their struggle against globalisation in Oaxaca. Admission to all the dates are free and two short films made by activists will also be shown. They hope to raise awareness about the recent increase in state repression being suffered by Mexican activists. There will also be a benefit gig on feb 18th.
Global South Debt and the G8
For over two decades many of the world's poorest countries have experienced a debt crisis which is having a crippling impact on their livelihoods, hobbling economic growth, and draining and diverting scarce resources from health, education and other vital services, which particularly effects women and children. But how did this state of affars come about? What's happening now? And what can we do about it?
A (Very) Brief History
The latest debt crisis in the global south began in the 1970s after the Bretton Woods monetary regime was scraped and financial markets were 'liberated'. The global south found that the resulting instability in the north's economic activity (fluctuating interest rates, recessions and the rising US dollar) made it increasingly dificult to repay money that had been lent to them from northern banks. This problem first came to world attention with the Mexican default on its loan in 1982, which was followed by other Latin and South American countries. African debt was also exacerbated by official "aid" programmes that were often tied to importing from the donor nation, thus creating a new kind of colonialism and imperialism.
Report on Cambridge Forum 'The Rise and Rise of Corporate Power'
This is a report on the Cambridge Forum from 19 October 2004 on the Rise and Rise of Corporate Power. The discussion was held in the CB1 Cafe on Mill Road on Tuesday, 19 October 2004 from 8 pm to 10:30 pm. About thirty people listened to the three speakers. Before the forum started, two people from the audience recounted their experience at the European Social Forum which just took place in London the weekend prior.Who are the G8? -- A week of action and discussion in Cambridge
From June 8th-10th in Sea Island, Georgia, the world's 8 most powerful governments met. Next year, they're coming here.The eight most powerful men in the world are on the run. Rocked by the scandals of third world debt, growing global inequality and violence in the service of neoliberalism, the G8 have been chased around the world since 1998, when 70,000 confronted them in Birmingham (the last time they met in the UK). Nowhere is safe for these eight global superpowers, so they find themselves forced to retreat into brutally enforced 'red zones' (as in Genoa, 2001) or inaccessible mountains (as in Canada, 2002, or Switzerland, 2003). This year, the eight prime ministers and presidents were protected from protesters by the sea, on a small island of the coast of the US. Even so, in case the sound of the sea failed to drown out the sound of dissent, a state of emergency was declared in the state of Georgia, allowing police to halt any demonstrations. And next year, the eight most powerful men in the world will be coming to the UK.
[G8 2004 in Georgia: News (official) | Maps]
[Cambridge pre-event publicity: flier 1 | flier 2 | Forum | Peoples' Golfing Association | East Anglia]
[Cambridge event reports: Anarchist golf photos | street theatre | forum | G8 explanation-leaflet | Corporate media on anarchist golf]
[Background: Debt and the G8 (WDM) | Arms Trade and the g8 (Amnesty) | Unfair Trade Rules (Oxfam) | Iraq War and the G8 | Health (MSF) | Global Policy Forum Analysis | Toronto University Background | `Better World' G8 links]
Uni Teachers & Students Demonstrate Over Pay and Fees
With the ongoing controversy over the Labour government's plan to introduce top-up fees for university tuition rumbling away in the background, lecturers represented by the Association of University Teachers (AUT) went on strike this week over pay reductions, working conditions, proposed changes to union representation of lecturers, and differential treatment of staff based on where they work rather than the jobs that they perform. The Cambridge AUT has called upon students to campaign with them for better pay, and have pledged their support for student campaigns against variable top-up fees. Meanwhile, at Essex University in Colchester, students occupied the boardroom of university boss Ivor Crewe, a high-profile advocate of fees, and called for a protest movement that can "force a shift in society's priorities, away from warfare and greed and towards satisfying human welfare and need." Occupations have also occurred at Oxford University and in Sheffield, where the Town Hall was taken over by students. Direct actions against threatened closures of the chemistry, philosophy, development studies, sociology and anthropology departments at Swansea University are planned for the 10th of March.
[Video: Cambridge AUT & CUSU pickets] [Cambridge AUT Ballot on Industrial Action] [How to Occupy Your University]
Top-up fees and the university system in the UK are usually discussed as if Britain was a lone island of turmoil in a wider ocean of calm worldwide. Within the mainstream press, there has been little recognition that a systematic, consistent set of structural reforms is being implemented around the globe by proponents of what might be called a "neoliberal", "marketized" approach to education. Here is a sampling of what is going on in:
[Argentina] [Australia] [Canada] [Germany] [Pakistan] [Russia]
Hunger Strikers in Critical Condition
Cambridge activists have been raising awareness of the plight of 7 men, including Simon Chapman from the UK, who are currently on hunger strike in Greek Prisons after being arrested at protests in Thessaloniki in June. Passers by were given leaflets and shown a short film explaining the clear evidence that Simon was framed by Police who planted incriminating 'evidence' in order to give the impression that he had been carrying molotov's, a hammer and an axe.One of the activists said, “The evidence is striking! Simon was seen wearing his blue rucksack when he was first dragged across the street by the police. Minutes later he was filmed surrounded by three black rucksacks which the police had filled with molotov's. It's all on film!”
LATEST UPDATE -- They're OUT! All 7 have been released on bail. See IMC UK for more information.