World Analysis Newswire Archive

Mindless, violent thugs, hell-bent on sowing chaos.’ That’s the kind of press anarchists often get. Uri Gordon provides a more sympathetic take on a growing yet still little understood political movement.

There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship - the society characterized by a civically engaged, well-informed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the degree that access to quality information is willfully or unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is degraded.

The week's show features two important thinkers on the idea of the world as system. First, a radio adaptation of episode 2 of the new documentary by Adam Curtis, All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace about the social role and flimsy scientific basis of the idea of an 'ecosystem', followed by a short comment by Curtis on the film's main message. Next, Ivan Illich on the institutionalization of society and the loss of people's personal power in the 1980's when people started to see the world as a system.

The Media Blank Amnesty's Failure To Find Evidence In Libya

In the Independent on June 24, Patrick Cockburn reported a vital development countering official propaganda on Libya:

'Human rights organisations have cast doubt on claims of mass rape and other abuses perpetrated by forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, which have been widely used to justify Nato's war in Libya.

'Nato leaders, opposition groups and the media have produced a stream of stories since the start of the insurrection on 15 February, claiming the Gaddafi regime has ordered mass rapes, used foreign mercenaries and employed helicopters against civilian protesters.'

Amnesty and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have checked the claims and found flat zero evidence.

June 30th marks a very considerable mobilisation of industrial action in Britain, in the shape of a large public sector strike. The Trades Unions are making their first tentative steps towards politically motivated action for a generation, with a massive withdrawal of workers labour in response to government plans for pensions reform; whilst the pensions dispute is the legal justification for industrial action (under Britain’s strict, Thatcherite anti-strike legislation), in reality the issue is the tip of the iceberg. The consensus behind the strikes is that of a political fight against the cuts in general. The range of action we will see on June 30th will stretch far beyond those “directly” affected by pensions plans, with a cross-section of those worst hit by the cuts expected to engage with the day of action– the disabled, those who face massive reductions to vital welfare benefits, students, schools pupils and parents and other public-service users.

On June 26, 2010, while the G20 summit was under way amid mass protests on the streets of downtown Toronto, a startling revelation was made that would reverberate through activist communities for months to come. Two undercover police officers had joined protest groups and been living among activists as part of a large-scale investigation that began more than a year earlier, in April 2009.

Following the arrest of four activists that same morning under charges of conspiracy, the Toronto Star reported that “Undercover officers infiltrated criminal extremist groups in Guelph, Kitchener, Waterloo and Toronto and forged relationships with several people whose ideological beliefs and backgrounds pose a direct threat to large-scale public events, including the G20,” according to allegations by Crown attorneys.

The revolutionary movement that began in Tunisia at the end of last year has now sparked mass movements in Europe; principally, to date, in Greece and Spain. On the surface, these movements have little in common. In Tunisia and Egypt, the people came out in vast numbers to overthrow the hated dictators who, for decades, had strangled their economies and presided over police states, whereas in Greece and Spain, the protestors are not seeking the overthrow of dictators, and are not rebelling against a police state (although both countries can draw on their relatively recent experience of dictatorship).

Confused as to which editorial guideline/s required this action report to be hidden by moderators... or was it simply a case of cowardly political censorship?

Great attack from comrades in Nottingham and well communicated.

'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.

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

This year's Earth First Summer Gathering takes place in East Anglia this year, starting on the 10th of August and running for five days. With six workshops tents we have space for over 100 discussions, presentations and workshops. The spaces are filling up fast, but there is still time to book a spot. So if you've got an idea you wish to highlight, whether it's related to ecological defence or social resistance here is your chance. The gathering is attended by hundreds of individuals interested and participating in struggles around the UK and Europe.

My English’s not improved yet. We have experienced" notre Gauche Proletarienne" and Maoism and we suffer know Chinese impact You are demanding yet facts, because world is to far from death. Dear, here is my experience for that Known as “Spanish [r]evolution.

This is a before-and-after story endemic to politics everywhere. Self-aggrandizing, rich assholes hide their true motives to get elected. Once they're elected they fiddle while Rome burns.

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

Or: Our Problem With Mainstream Dissidents

Working on Media Lens has given us ten years of first-hand experience of just how tightly discussion can be controlled in an ostensibly democratic society. No matter how carefully we have formulated our questions, no matter how politely we have delivered them, we have been branded angry, irrational, unworthy of attention.

The relentless bombardment of Tripoli over the past 48 hours represents a new stage in one of the most naked acts of imperialist aggression since the wars of conquest launched by Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s.

What is the Bilderberg Conference all about? Politicans betraying the voting public. Links between the Bilderberg conference and the Nazis. With Oliver Hides and Tony Gosling

I have now ploughed through all 120 pages odd of the Government’s new Prevent Strategy, which manages to be even more illiberal and more turgid than the original. It claims that the last Prevent Strategy was misguided – but for all the wrong reasons. Rather amusingly, it starts with a message of endorsement from Lord Carlile – who also endorsed the last strategy which it criticises so strongly. The truth is, Carlile will endorse anything for any government which gives him status – he loves status – “It has my considered and strong support” he concludes his endorsement – you have to imagine saying it with marbles in your mouth and a degree of insufferable pomposity – “It has my considered and strong support”- wanker.

American journalists Chuck Palahniuk said “Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct.” It just came to my mind when I was going trough the news of a Pakistani investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad.

It was quite a week for America's Nobel Peace Laureate President. After a speech to AIPAC, there was the major, pre-UK arrival "interview" with the BBC's political commentator, Andrew Marr. Less an interview, in fact than a breathlessly adoring audience.

As the U.S., and British body bags returned from Afghanistan continue to mount, the BBC's audience learned that troop levels had been: "plussed up" and that: "the Taliban is now back on its heels." The occasional minor glitch of entire prisons inmates escaping, U.S., bases under attack, supply convoys routinely incinerated in industrial numbers (he didn't put it quite like that) had been because the U.S., had been: "distracted by the war in Iraq."