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Nestle got Greenpeace’s video about the chocolate maker’s destruction of rainforests taken down from YouTube so obviously the thing’s gone viral and is now all over the place.

Out in the sea between France and Finland, the transport ship Happy Ranger is taking construction parts to Olkiluoto in Finland.

Some of my friends are aboard.

I was on the Isle of Wight over the weekend and managed to get to the under-threat-of-closure Vestas wind turbine factory and take part in the protest on the Friday evening.

Here are some photos…

This is the speech given by one of the RMT reps at the protest…

You can find out all you need to know about New Labour kicking off its green revolution with standing by and watching the destruction of 600 green jobs on the Save Vestas website.

When brutality and terror and abuse are government tools, used against people whose only crime is to want to come to this country for a better life, it’s a vital time to fight for the rights of refugees.

It’s Refugee Week from June 15 – 21. There’s loads happening. Perhaps a simple act is in order.

Pass it on.

At a general election, under the terms of the first past the post system, if you’re not fortunate enough to live in a marginal constituency, your vote is almost worthless, taken for granted.

However, the forthcoming European elections on June 4 are held under a proportional representation system which means your vote is worth as much as everyone else’s – getting off your arse and getting out to vote is actually worthwhile. Yes, it’s amazing, I know.

It means the smaller parties untainted by fascism, war crimes or scandal have a chance of winning seats. Votes for them isn’t the futile gesture it is at a general election. A higher turnout also means less chance of the BNP making further political progress. Yay Euro-democracy!

If you’re not registed to vote, you can register online at www.aboutmyvote.co.uk. You’ve got until May 19 to do it. Go!

Read this. Go here.

The Guardian publishes the video of Ian Tomlinson being attacked, the Independent Police Complaints Commission aren’t happy.

And what kind of independent body is it whose first reaction to the Guardian’s evidence on Tuesday night was to call at our offices (accompanied by a City of London policeman) and ask for it to be taken off the website?

In more innocent times we’d be shocked. These days it’s more to be expected. You can see why the IPCC would be embarrassed enough to take a policeman down to the Guardian to help cover their tracks. They were taking every word of the police’s version of events at face value when the video came out showing the police as liars and the IPCC as shamefully credulous.

Maybe the P in IPCC needs changing from ‘Police’ to ‘Public’ if the organisation is to continue to get confused over just whose complaints it’s supposed to be investigating.

Merrick has some great comment and links on all of it. And there’s this, which is slowly being forgotten in the rush to nail one policeman:

This was not one bad officer taking the law into his own hands. This sort of assault was endemic that day. I saw it hundreds of times with my own eyes, and I was at the more peaceful climate camp protest, and left before it got kettled then attacked with dogs and batons in the evening.

[...]

Every single officer is behaving like the one who attacked Ian Tomlinson. It is not them acting on private motivations, they have clearly had orders to do it.

This one guy is being dished up as the fall guy for what was a widespread policy of police violence on April 1. It’s fortunate there weren’t more deaths or serious injuries.

And where’s the CCTV footage from that day? Where are the police spotter photos and videos? Lets see the official footage of policemen blocking ambulances.

A great piece by Merrick on police tactics at demonstrations and the complicity of the media.

It seems clear that the police’s aim is to minimise the number of demonstrators. Having talked up a riot in advance, they discourage many people who are sympathetic to the cause from coming out of fear of injury. Then, on the day, by inciting a riot, kettling the crowd or other methods of physical abuse, they discourage people from coming to similar events in future.

From UK Indymedia.

What a day…

• I don’t want to say the Met is racists but Barack Obama got stopped four times on the way to Downing Street. ‘Is this your vehicle, sir?’ #
• I think the crowd control expert now speaking on BBC News might actually be salivating… #
• It’s like the Day Today, isn’t it? Any minute it’s going to be ‘YES! THERE IT IS. IT’S WAR!’ #
• The news channel should just cut to the chase and give the police stage directions. ‘Could you look a bit more surly, love?’ #
• Oh no, oh no. There we have it. A Sky News camera crew have attacked the CNN team who were ruining their shot! This is terrible. A disgrace. #
• There’s Kay Burley being dragged unconscious from the melee. What a dark day for British journalism. Their bloodlust writ large… #
• There’s the BBC’s Ben Brogan stripped to the waist screaming ‘COME ON ITN, YOU FUCKING WANT SOME?’ Shocking, just shocking. #
• I of course meant, Ben *Geoghan*. The Daily Mail’s Ben Brogan currently has Nick Robinson in a headlock outside Downing Street. #
• @BenSix: And is that Nick Robinson pummelling a chartered accountant with his sawn-off microphone? #
• Christ, it’s not an accountant – it’s Simon bloody Hoggart! Hoggart looks like he’s coming off worst. #
• @BenSix: Ah, he’s failing badly – tried to grab a clump of hair and found himself slipping off Nicky’s newly-tattood pate. #
• You’re not wrong @BenSix. Robinson, slick with sweat makes for a formidable opponent. Oh, oh! He’s biting Hoggart! The blood, the blood! #
• @CathElliot: Please tell me award winning political journalist Quentin Letts is in there somewhere… #
• Let me see. There he is! I can see his head on a stick being paraded by an ululating Polly Toynbee and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. #
• @BenSix: But who’s this? Sunglasses; stripped to the waist; cigar clenched between sneering lips. Why…why…it’s Paxman! #
• Is he finally going to settle his long-standing grudge with the Guardian’s Michael White? You know, I rather think he is… #
• Paxman is down! I repeat: Paxman in down! #
• A small cadre of Sky News journalists worried that the violence might be fizzling out have been spotted donning balaclavas. #
• Jamie Oliver’s cooking dinner for the G20 leaders. Don’t do your carrots in chardonnay, Jamie. They’re shit. #

It’s the World Wildlife Fund’s Earth Hour this coming Saturday…

On Saturday 28 March 2009 at 8.30pm, people, businesses and iconic buildings around the world will switch off their lights for an hour – WWF’s Earth Hour.

We want a billion people around the world to sign up and join in.

[...]

Every single person who signs up to WWF’s Earth Hour sends the message that they want action to tackle climate change!

Sign up here. Get your groovy blog widget – like the one up on the top right – here.

The cynics and climate change deniers will no doubt call it an empty gesture when really those of them of a romantic bent should be enjoying the amazing spectacle and the rest can copper up the money they’re saving sitting in the actual as well as rhetorical darkness.

People of all persuasions, I beseech you, it’s a moment we can all come together and savour.

Each year, 1 in 10 women in Britain experience rape or other violence.

Update: Consult the Map of Gaps.

Let’s have another example of Gordon Brown’s much heralded ‘fairness’ shall we? This is from the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC)…

Dear All,

We are writing to you to ask for your help and support. We may have previously contacted you concerning a little boy – child M and his family. We have worrying reasons to believe that they may be facing imminent detention.

As you may remember child M and his family are facing deportation to Iran, where it is likely that his mother, sister and brother will be imprisoned and risk the death penalty if they are made to return. The family also spent 52 days in Yarl’s Wood immigration centre over the summer of 2008. This experience affected the whole family detrimentally. Child M suffered from violent nightmares, ringworm and his hair started to fall out.

Child M is back in school but is very clearly traumatised from this experience. He and his family live in a daily state of fear and uncertainty, scared that today will be a day that they will possibly be detained again or deported. Child M is unable to concentrate, or focus on tasks and struggles to maintain peer relationships. At home he still suffers from violent nightmares and worries constantly about his and his family’s future. It is clear to all around child M that there has been a dramatic change in his emotional and social wellbeing.

We want child M and his family to have a safe and secure future in the UK, so we need your support!

There are a few ways that you can help:

Please forward this email to anyone who you think will be supportive of this issue.

In the event of immigration officials attempting to remove the family from their home we need as many people who can get to the Gorton area asap. If you are willing to be on our telephone tree, please reply to info@defend-asylum.org giving your name and number.

We also need letters writing to the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, asking for her to grant the family asylum.

Finally… please make sure you and anyone you know has signed our online petition @
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/child-m-must-stay.html

We really need your help and appreciate anything you can do to support us!!

Many thanks,

Zoe Cantle and Sarah Mason on behalf of the Child M Must Stay Campaign http://www.childm.org.uk/

52 days in Yarl’s Wood? Child M suffered from violent nightmares, ringworm and his hair started to fall out? Christ.

Form ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray needs your help…

On Tuesday 10 March the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights will discuss whether or not to hear my evidence on the UK government’s policy of using intelligence from torture. They discussed whether to hear my evidence on 3 March but failed to reach a conclusion.

The government is lobbying hard for my exclusion. I need everybody to send an email to jchr@parliament.uk to urge that I should be allowed to give evidence. Just a one-liner would be fine. If you are able to add some comment on the import of my evidence, or indicate that you have heard me speak or read my work, that may help. Please copy your email to craigjmurray@tiscali.co.uk.

Please also pass on this plea to anyone you can and urge them to act. Help from other bloggers in posting this appeal would be much appreciated.

The evidence I am trying to give the parliamentary committee is this:

I wish to offer myself as a witness before the Joint Commission on Human Rights on the subject of the UK government’s policy on intelligence cooperation with torture abroad…

Murray put his career and health on the line for the fight for human rights. He was repaid by this government with smears and vilification. Ask yourself why that might be. Craig Murray must be heard.

Send your email. Spread the word.

From Amnesty International…

International Women’s Day is coming up soon (this Sunday in fact) and Amnesty is doing loads of online stuff in the run-up to the big day, particularly this Friday.

We’re asking people to draw attention to a shocking statistic:

‘Each year, around 1 in 10 women in Britain experience rape or other violence. One in four local authorities leave female victims of violence without the specialised support they need’.

We want to persuade thousands of people on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter to update their avatars and statuses at 1:10 on Friday 6th March. The status update is:

Each year, 1 in 10 women in Britain experience rape or other violence.  Act now. http://www.oneten.org.uk

On Twitter, we’re asking members to change their profile picture to our avatar and use  #1in10 to spread the message.

We’re then directing everyone to http://www.mapofgaps.org where they can see which services are missing in their local area and email their MP, asking them to do something to sort it out.

It would be great if you could get involved and mention this in your blog to help promote action on this issue. All the information on the campaign is available here. Thanks a lot.

Anyone for justice?

It is necessary to make leaders hesitate before indulging in “the paramount war crime” to quote the judges of Nuremberg, of “unprovoked aggression against a defenceless country”. Unless leaders fear that they might be tried for their war crimes, we will live in an increasingly violent world, where The Geneva Conventions are treated as a joke, the UN is of no account, and death, destruction, torture, and repressive policing are commonplace. At the moment such leaders enjoy more and more trappings of power, and retire with vast sums of money, houses, medals and lucrative contracts. A group of UK Citizens have therefore set up an organisation, “The Blair War Crimes Foundation”, to initially bring one such leader to justice as an example.

Read the letter and become a signatory.

(Via RickB)

From the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns…

Assia Souhalia her husband Athmane nationals of Algeria and their UK born daughter Nouha, residents of Brighton were ‘Snatched’ from their home yesterday morning and are currently detained in Yarl’s Wood IRC. They are due to be forcibly removed from the UK on Tuesday 17th February on British Airways Flight BA895 from Terminal 5 Heathrow Airport @ 08.40 to Algiers, Algeria.

Assia Souhalia and her husband Athmane have been in the UK since 2002. Their 2 year old daughter Nouha was born in Brighton in 2006 and has lived here all her life. The family have made a life here and have many links in the local community.

Assia Souhalia fled Algeria in fear for her life in 2002 after her family had suffered years of violence. Two of her brothers, Rachid and Brahim, both policemen, were murdered in two separate, and premeditated shootings in 1993 and 1994, respectively. Neither brothers were involved in political action. Upon hearing of the death of Assia’s eldest brother Rachid, their mother, Cherifa, suffered a heart attack and died.

Since then Assia’s family have repeatedly received death threats and in 1994 Assia’s brother, Brahim, was murdered. Two of Assia’s remaining brothers and sisters both fled Algiers. In 2002 Assia traveled to the UK with the help of members of her family.

Since Assia arrived in the UK only one man has been arrested in relation to the murders of her family members. In 2007 Assia’s sister was badly wounded in a bomb attack. Assia is afraid for her safety should she be deported to Algeria.

Currently Soualhia and her family have an in country right to appeal against the decision to remove them as they have an outstanding application under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act that has not been decided. The decision to remove them is therefore an immigration decision that has attached to it a right to appeal against it under S82 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. The ground of appeal is protected under S84 of the same act as being incompatible with the human rights of the daughter along with the rest of the family.

We are asking that the Home Office allow the family the time to make the appeal and not to deport them on Tuesday.

What you can do to help!

1) Email/Fax Willie Walsh, Chief Executive Officer British Airways and urge him not to carry out the forced removal of Assia Souhalia, husband Athmane and daughter Nouha . If you do please include all the following details: