A Little Less Lonely And Freakish

Article on Monterrico Metals Plc. for CtrlAltShift.

2009-11-03T10:12:00.000-08:00

Article on Monterrico Metals Plc. for CtrlAltShift.

Rogue Report

Last week, I wrote about an English-based multinational mining corporation infringing on the human rights of people in a far away place. This week, I’m going to be writing about an English-based multinational mining corporation infringing on the human rights of people in a far away place. To save me time in future weeks, this Rogue Report presents the Lemmer-Template-For-Writing-A-Mildly-Amusing-Report-On-The-Terrible-Things-Mining-Companies-Are-Willing-To-Do-For-Rocks-And-DirtÓ.

1: Name the company you wish to discuss: For example, English-based multinational mining corporation Monterrico Metals Plc. Point the reader to the Monterrico website which features lots of nice pictures of the nice company doing nice things for nice photogenic local kids, who are probably very nice - all this niceness will be juxtaposed nicely against the nastiness that is to follow.

2. Explain the situation: For example, Monterrico is facing a multi-million pound claim for damages from protesters who were beaten and detained by police in 2005 during a protest against a new Monterrico mine. Details are important; details like how 28 protesters were beaten, whipped and handcuffed-and-hooded before being taken away by police, two female protesters claim they were threatened with rape, and four protesters were shot, resulting in one man losing his eye and one man bleeding to death. Present the other side of the story; for example, Monterrico says they had no control over the police, and that a police officer was shot in the leg by a protester, which led to the heavy police force. Puns like, “the police officer didn’t have a leg to stand on”, or “the police officer was hopping mad after being shot” are unacceptable, unless you’re pointing out the pun is unacceptable.

3. Thicken the plot: Monterrico claims that they had no control over the police action. Monterrico’s claim doesn’t explain why some former employees would testify that the company was directing the police action; according to statements by three former mine employees, the police received instructions directly from the mine’s manager; “the commanding officer of the police did no speak in these briefings”, and the head of the mine’s security told the police that “they had to report every 10 to 15 minuets…to the management of the mining company.” Be careful; this kind of Thickening the Plot will suggest that Monterrico is lying - heaven forbid.

4. Quotes: Use quotes, like Richard Meeran, a London lawyer representing the protesters, saying, “The company must have been aware of the victims ordeal…yet there is no evidence of it taking any steps to prevent the harm. On the contrary, it would appear that the company was working in cahoots with the police.” Present the other side of the story with a quote from Monterrico which says something like, “Monterrico vigorously denies any of its officers or employees were in any way involved with the alleged abuses.” Again, this implies someone is telling lies, and you’ll wish this event had happened on your door step, where it would be easier to ascertain the truth, instead of happening in Peru.

5. Provide some context: You’ve spent 400 words waffling on about something happening somewhere where it might not happen again. Show that your writing about a big issue. For example, explain that over 156 people were arrested in June during protests against Peru’s liberal economic policies, and that only two weeks ago women from Peru joined women from across South America to travel to England to lobby the government not to licence international mining companies that infringe on human rights. Explain Peru’s testy relationship with international mining; explain how only last month a police officer was killed protecting an American owned mine from protesters; explain how a report has found that the toxic waste from an American owned Occidental Petroleum mine is poisoning local communities and contaminating the environment.

6. Be annoyed that once again you have to write another report about multinational companies treating people like expendable resources; be thankful there are people like Richard Meeran and institutes like the Guardian to highlight these issues; be very glad you’re not an indigenous Peruvian living next door to a Monterrico mine.

Article on Vedanta mine for CtrlAltShift.

2009-11-03T10:09:00.000-08:00

Article on Vedanta mine for CtrlAltShift.

To: Anil Agarwal, CEO Vedanta Recourses, UK
From: Richard Lemmer, Head of PR, Vedanta Resources, UK

Mr Agarwal (can I call you Anil?), I’ve received the information from the Sacred Sight Infringement team, and I think we’ve found our winner. Mining for gold under the Vatican is what we call a PR no-no, and while Mecca may have fantastic potential as a the world’s largest open source copper mine, I believe certain individuals may air slight grievances, ie the entire Muslim population of the world. But the team’s suggestion of a bauxite mine on the Niyamgiri mountain…I think we could have what we call a PR yes-yes.

But, of course, there are the negatives. The Niyamgiri mountain is home to the centuries old Dongria Kondh tribe, which holds the mountain‘s beautiful and delicate ecosystem as sacred. These are what we call Boo-Boos, problems that are going to hurt us. The Dongria Boo-Boo is a what we call a Biggie-Boo-Boo, in that it could really hurt our public relations. Thankfully, the Dongria are hurting a lot more. Our aluminium refinery at Lanjigarh has already dumped large amounts of toxic waste in local rivers, and air pollution is destroying crops and creating respiratory problems for locals.

While the Indian Supreme Court has given Vedanta permission to mine the Niyamgiri mountain, and some construction of the mine has been completed, the English Government has created another Boo-Boo. They’ve published a report that has said Vedanta “did not respect the rights” of local people and that Vedanta “failed to put in place an adequate and timely consultation mechanism.” Safe to say this is another Biggie-Boo-Boo.

The PR team needs to turn these kinds of Boo-Boos into what we call a Yay-Yay, which is the happy feeling you get when you look at a picture of a smiling face, even if the smiling face has respiratory problems and is starving due to withered crops and is homeless due to an international mining company bulldozing their house to build a bauxite mine. With this in mind, we have created “Metro Colonies” for the displaced Dongria people. “Metro Colony” sounds like a hip-and-happening places with positives urban connotations, like Cappuccino, Subway and Jude Law; “Metro Colony” doesn’t make you think of a shanty town of depressed people stripped from their sustainable way of life. Of course, anyone with a camera and a Dictaphone can destroy the wonderful connotations of “Metro Colony” (ie, see The Guardian website). Another Yay-Yay can be reminding people that we did offer the Dongria people money (we won’t mention how much, India/UK exchange rates, differences in Indian/UK law, etc) in exchange for their land before we bulldozed their homes regardless of whether they accepted the money or not. Finally, a Yay-Yay might be when we told a small fib about how there weren’t any Dongria tribes within 12 kilometres of the new mine, when in actual fact there are about 60.

Damage control is vital. One Dongria woman told the Guardian, “The way we were living, we were self-sufficient, and we had lived like that for generations…because of (Vedanta), we cannot.” There’s a growing campaign to pressure the Church of England to disinvest from our company. The general secretary of India‘s National Congress Party, Rahul Gandhi (connotations of loincloths, activism, justice, biggie Boo-Boo for us), has said, “Mining the hill will destroy the environment, destroy the water supply source and destroy the cultures, as well as the livelihood, of the tribes.” All these things will only lead the public to become sympathetic with the plight of the sacred Niyamgiri mountain. Maybe we can create gagging orders to stifle the press from reporting on these Boo-Boos, just like legal firm Carter-Ruck has been doing for oil company Trafigura? Our biggest PR asset is that this Niyamgiri fiasco is happening in India(which is like a billion miles away), and involves names most people will struggle to pronounce.

But maybe I can discuss these ideas with you person, Anil? Or post you my full 800 page report? Is it best to reach you at your £20 million Mayfair home, or you luxurious sea front villa in Mumbai? Just let me know.

All the best,
Lemmer

Article on Zimbabwe for CtrlAltShift

2009-11-03T10:06:00.000-08:00

Article on Zimbabwe for CtrlAltShift

Rogue Report

From: Home Office,
Marsham Street,
London,
SW1P 4DF,

Dear (INSERT NAME OF ZIMBABWEAN ASYLUM SEEKER),

We regret to inform you that your application for asylum has been rejected and that you are to be “forcibly returned” to Zimbabwe. Whilst we understand that this news must seem unfortunate, we would like to stress that this decision is not a personal one - 10,000 other Zimbabwean asylum seekers have also had their appeals for asylum rejected and will soon be forcibly deported. We hope you understand that, despite the estimated 100,000 plus derelict houses in the UK, our small island simply cannot accommodate any more citizens/refugees-seeking-to-escape-a-human-rights-crisis. We are willing to “sweeten” this arrangement with a cash incitement of £2,000 for any failed asylum seeker who voluntarily returns to Zimbabwe: to quote one of our earlier statements, “Making cash available to those who go home will support economic reform in Zimbabwe, enabling people to return voluntarily and use their skills to support change and help rebuild Zimbabwe with capital behind them. The scheme will also be extended until 31 December and will be reviewed at that point.”

We appreciate this may seem confusing, being that forcible returns to Zimbabwe have been suspended since September 2006. Nevertheless, we believe the situation in Zimbabwe has drastically improved during the last six months of leadership from the joint government, headed by the experienced and opinionated Robert Mugabe. We appreciate that at the beginning of the year Human Rights Watch published a report entitled “Crisis Without Limits”, a report which detailed Zimbabwe’s cholera epidemic that left thousands dead and the five million Zimbabwean’s dependent on international aid, yet we are confident that the situation has probably become a lot less bleak.

The Home Office is aware that there may be some difficulties facing the average Zimbabwean citizen, ie, food shortages, high inflation, 90% unemployment, a corrupt and oppressive regime etc. To help you readjust to/survive Zimbabwean life, we have included the enclosed pamphlet, “Robert Mugabe: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love A Dictator.” We have found being a prominent Robert Mugabe supporter, or anyone but a member of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangiria’s MDC party, leads to a marked increase in life expectancy in Zimbabwe (barring starvation/cholera/random acts of violence). For example, on October 28th it was reported that six armed men kidnapped MDC transport manaer Pascal Gwezere; the day before, four armed men attempted to kidnap MDC security administrator Edith Mashayire; Amnesty International has also reported “of increased threats of violence in Mashonaland East and Central provinces against known supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).” It is important to be as politically inactive as possible; as the Director of Amnesty International’s Africa Program, Erwin van der Borght, has noted, “dozens of human right’s and MDC activists are on trail for simply exercising their internationally recognized rights, including the rights to freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression.” The Home Office recommends you enjoy as much freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression here in England before you return to Zimbabwe.

It should be noted that whilst democracy in Zimbabwe is dangerous, and possibly pointless, general life expectancy in the country has skyrocketed. A preliminary report (’2013 - Seeing Double and The Dead’) by the Research and Advocacy Unit of Zimbabwe has found that 74,021 people on Zimbabwe’s voting records are over 100 years old; 82,456 voters are between 90 and 100 years old. An extraordinary result produced in the last six months by Robert Mugabe, considering that the World Health Organisation estimates that only 14.7% of the population (just over one million people) live beyond the age of 60. This means Zimbabwe has more centenarians than developing country Japan, which has just over 30,000.

Nevertheless, we recommend you seek asylum in another country as soon as possible. As Director of US Bishops Migration and Refugee Services Policy, Kevin Appleby, has noted, “political violence is continuing in Zimbabwe”, with increased “sexual violence for political purposes”, leaving resettlement in another country “the only hope” for some Zimbabweans. Amnesty International has stated that “Zimbabwe is on the brink of sliding back into the post-election violence that marred the country last year.” Please consider reapplying for asylum in any of the following countries:

(INSERT NAMES OF ANY COUNTRIES OTHER THAN ENGLAND)

Ultimately, we hope you keep a positive outlook on the exciting journey home you are about to forcibly embark on. It should be noted how lucky you are; only this week the UN special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, was barred entry from Zimbabwe and deported. You are in a very privileged position - you are being granted an opportunity unavailable even to a UN official.

Yours so very sincerely,

Richard Michael Lemmer,
Secretary to Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for the Home Department,

Home Office Telephone Number: 020 7035 4848
Immigration Enquiries Telephone Number: 0806 606 7766
Public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Article on Trafigura case for CtrlAltShift.

2009-10-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

Article on Trafigura case for CtrlAltShift.

Dear Srathy,

Just to say, terrible news about you being caught up in this bloody oil company Trafigura dumping thousands of litres of toxic waste on the Ivory Coast in order to cut costs, continue to make a hefty profit and add to the companies growing list of corporate crimes debacle. Ghastly, just ghastly, that you - a Lord for goodness sake! And the leader of the Conservatives in the House of Lords! - should be dragged into this. And poor old Trafigura, everyone know it’s always done business in an ethical and transparent manner - its representatives jolly well say so!
It’s those bloody hippie lefties causing a stink (a toxic stink you could say! Haw! Haw!) . So what’s the bother if you’re the non-executive director of the oil company’s hedge fund arm? So what if the company has been previously accused of taking advantage of the Iraqi Food-For-Oil program to smuggle illegal oil (a case where the company admitted to not being 100% truthful) and has been accused of giving handsome political donations to the Jamaican government in exchange for lucrative contracts - an act the prime minister of Jamaica called a bribe. So what if Trafigura is now offering compensation to over 30,000 people on the Ivory Coast who were left with a series of ailments after the company paid a dodgy third party business to ‘process’ illegal toxic waste but actually just dumped it on the African shoreline? I mean, you’re a Lord and a business man - not bloody Gandhi!
Of course, you’ve handled the situation with class, old boy. Saw your quote in the Loony Rag (that’s the Guardian! Haw! Haw!); “I’ve read today’s stories about Trafigura with concern and I am making inquires about the situation”. More on the ball than me old boy, I’ve just heard about this ‘story’ - my chauffer tells me the dumping occurred three years ago. Just to point out, you might have put yourself in a bit of a pickle; you did recommend former Tory-boy Peter Fraser QC to write an independent report on the situation on the behalf Trafigura. Of course, Fraser admits that Trafigura paid him well enough to keep the report independent. But, for you, it might come across as a bit late in the day to realise that maybe something iffy (maybe even toxic! Haw! Haw!) was going on, what?
Not your fault all this scandal, so don’t beat yourself up about it. Trafigura should keep a tighter reign on it’s emails. If it insists for three years that the waste was not harmful, it shouldn’t let the BBC get hold of company emails that admit the waste is “banned in most countries due to (its) hazardous nature”. That just looks silly, even more silly than Gordon Brown doing…well, anything! Haw! Haw!
Personally, I agree with Trafigura’s lawyers, Carter-Ruck. Too right that they should demand the Loony Rag delete some of it’s articles regarding Trafigura, calling the articles “untrue” and “gravely defamatory”. Yes, the lefties will say “Oh, but UN human rights special rapporteur Professor Okechukwu Ibeanu criticised Trafigura for potentially ‘stifling independent reporting and public criticism’. And oh, look, I‘m wearing eco-friendly, solar powered flip-flops!”. I mean, really!
Trafigura has said that the waste was not their problem and refuted allegations they were complicit in the Ivory Coast disaster AND admitted partial culpability by paying out over £100 million compensation. What more do people want? Anyways, old boy, keep your chin up, best of British and all that, what. Boating at mine next Tuesday? I’ll bring the Pimms, you bring the west African toxic waste (just joking! Haw! Haw!)

Yours, lordly
Earl Lemmer of Bulshite

Article on al-Megrahi case for CtrlAltShift.

2009-10-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

Article on al-Megrahi case for CtrlAltShift.

You are a news reader. You want to know what all this ho-ha about oil and some guy called Al-Megrahi is all about. You want someone to sit you down and talk through the issue as if you’re a sensible, reasonable human being. After all, you may have paid up to two pounds for you‘re news! (Or you got it free off the internet). You know the ho-ha has something to do with Lockerbie; how twenty one years ago, Libyan-UK-US relations nose dived like a jet plane flying from Heathrow to JK airport blow up by a bomb that kills all 243 passengers and 16 crew members. A metaphor so apt, it’s fact. You find out (God Bless You, Wikipedia Founder) that in 2001, former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was found guilty of conducting the bombing. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Except that last month, Al Megrahi’s prostate and the legal system’s sense of compassion had other plans. With doctors declaring that Al Megrahi had just three months left to live before prostate cancer sends him the way of Pan Am Flight 103, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice to the Scottish Parliament announced that Al Mergahi would be sent home to his wife and children in Libya, released on “compassionate grounds”.

Now, you are Libya. You are hot and sandy and very Islamic. Like KFC, your leader is called Colonel. You are slightly unsure how you feel about Al Mergahi; in 2003, you accepted “responsibility for the actions of (your) officials,” ie Al Mergahi. But now, you, hot and sandy Libya, speaking through the mouth of Saif Al Gaddafi, you tell the Scottish Herald, “So many of us, including so many relatives of the victims believe that Mr Mergahi is innocent. One day, history will prove this”. When he returned home, You were very happy to see Al Mergahi, a dying father and maybe a mass murderer. Maybe the sun has gone to your head?

You are the United Nations observer Hans Kochler. You are Austrian, a professor of philosophy, and you have a very cool surname. You call the original trial of Al Mergahi a “spectacular miscarriage of justice”.

You are the Scottish Herald. You are cold and windy and rainy and very hard to understand when you speak. You enjoy haggis and play bagpipes. You’re a bit confused about rumours that Al Mergahi was really released for oil deals, so you interview Saif Al Gaddafi, and he says, “This whole process of the PTA (prisoner transfer arrangement, like school exchange programme, but with criminals) has nothing to do with this latest development because, officially, the Scottish authorities said they rejected the request for Mr Megrahi to return on prisoner transfer…The commerce and politics and deals (ie, oil deals) were all with the PTA. This was one animal and the other was the compassionate release. They are two completely different animals.” You imagine the compassionate release animal being a cuddly pink teddy bear, while the “commerce and politics and deals” animal being whatever-the-hell Lord Mandelson is. You think, so Gaddafi is implying that yes, trade deals were discussed in relation to a PTA, but no, Al Megrahi was not released because of this, but instead he was released on compassionate grounds, right?

You are Fox News. You are middle aged and have anger management issues. Not many people like you. You believe that Shouting is a valid form of debate. Things like socialism, not being patriotic and respectfully disagreeing with an interviewee make you angry. Argh, you sure could kill a socialised kitten/puppy/small-child right about now. You read the Scottish Herald interview, and you think the headline “Qaddafi Son: 'Obvious' Lockerbie Bomber's Release Tied to Oil” accurately sums up the interview. You do not think it is odd that the Scottish Herald does not quote Gaddafi using “obvious” in the same context as you do.

You are the Guardian newspaper. You’re a bit left wing. People say you eat lentils and wear sandals because you’re a big hippie. You do not wear sandals - you have bunions and sandals rub terribly. You report on the Scottish Herald interview with the headline, “Efforts to release Lockerbie bomber linked with trade, says Gaddafi's son, but Saif Gaddafi says deal signed in 2007 ultimately had no bearing on decision to free Abdelbaset al-Megrahi”. That objective counterpoint starting with But seems to spoil all the sensationalist fun. Later, you report, “Gordon Brown insisted trade was not the “core reason" for (his involvement in Al Mergrahi’s release), but acknowledged that it did form a part of Anglo-Libyan relations”.

You are the Sunday Times. If you had your way, young men would still be wearing bowler hats. You are owned by the same man who owns Fox - but shh! You get hold of certain documents about Al Megrahi and oil and bombs, and you report on it with the headline, “Gordon Brown personally vetoed an attempt to force Colonel Muammar Gadaffi to compensate IRA bomb victims because it might have jeopardised British oil deals with Libya”.

You are 10 Downing Street. You keep your cards very close your chest. In fact, some people don’t think you have any cards left to play. You release a statement that says, “As the prime minister makes absolutely clear…trade considerations were not a factor in the government's decision that it would not be appropriate to enter into direct negotiations with Libya on this issue”.

You are the News Editor for CtrlAltShift. You wish international relations and modern media was less complex. You write an article that ends, ““Core reason“? Oil? “Anglo-Libyan relations“? Oil? “Oblivious“? Oil? “Spectacular miscarriage of justice”? Oil? “Compassionate Grounds?”? Oil? Lockeroilbe? Oileroilbe? Oil? Consider my oily descent into oil based madness my resignation as Oil editor. Oil?! Oil?! Argggggggghhhhhhh………”

Article on child labour for CtrlAltShift.

2009-10-01T11:07:00.000-07:00

Article on child labour for CtrlAltShift.

Basically, I’m poor. Not like child-labour-on-a-tobacco-plantation poor (more on that in a bit), but journalism isn’t quite bringing home the bacon. It’s more bring home the rinds. Or just the empty bacon product packaging I‘ve taken from the bins behind ASDA. So, I’m thinking of going corporate - and if I’m going to sell my soul, it might as well be to the smoke-and-hell-fire Satan of corporate hell. Big Tobacco! It still suffers the whole tooth decay/blocked arteries/lung cancer/throat cancer/heart attack/death PR nightmare, but, luckily, I think I have the solution. Cigarettes have to issue health warnings, right? “Smoking Kills”, “Smoking seriously harms you and others around you”, “Smokers die younger” etc etc etc. What’s needed is shifting the focus from the consumer…back to the producer.

Enter Colin, our fictional, average 13 year old Malawian tobacco plantation worker (note: Colin is not a traditional Malawian name). If Colin lived in England, he’d support Manchester United, his favourite TV show would be Top Gear (he sympathises with Richard Hammond’s shortness) and his favourite food would be Turkey Twizzlers. But Colin doesn’t live in England, so instead he supports the tobacco industry, and that’s about it.

According to a new report by Plan, a child poverty NGO, Colin earns 11p a day working on a plantation, like 78,000 other Colins across Malawi. Colin works on a family plot, one of hundreds of thousands of such plots in Malawi, the fifth biggest producer of tobacco. According to the Guardian, “Malawian tobacco is found in the blend of almost every tobacco in the west”. Being a world leader (in tobacco production) is of little comfort to our Colin; he is too busy working up to 12 hours a day, digging the field, applying fertilizers and pesticides to the field, harvesting the crop, carrying bales. This is hard work made all the more difficult by Colin having green tobacco sickness; Colin is so exposed to nicotine, it’s the equivalent of him smoking 50 cigarettes a day; Colin suffers from severe headaches, abdominal pain, severe coughing and breathlessness. But his family desperately need the little money the plantation makes, so Colin works on. He’s just thankful he doesn’t work for the bigger, privately owned plantations with supervisors.

Colin hears terrible stories about the bigger plantations. The children don’t have time to wash, so they have lice. The children have sores because their skin lacks hydration. Sometimes, the supervisors beat the children. Some of the girls, they don’t want to talk about what the supervisor’s do to them when they are late for work in the fields. These girls, these wheezing, lice infested, aching prepubescent girls, they get taken into a shack with a supervisor, and sometimes, every once in a while, this little one-on-one time cause problems about nine months later.

So, really, our Colin is a lucky boy. Of course, he would have been ultra-lucky had The Tobacco Association of Malawi succeeded in its multi-million pound plan to eradicate child labour, a plan that was announced eight years ago. And Colin would have been super-ultra lucky had the tobacco companies actually taken some more reasonability, as researchers from the University of California noted three years ago: “Rather than actively and responsibly working to solve the problems of child labour in growing tobacco, (British American Tobacco (profits of £2.6 billion) acted to co-opt the issue to present themselves over as a “socially responsible corporation” by releasing a policy statement claiming the company’s commitment to end harmful child labour practices, holding a global child labour conference with trade unions and other key stakeholders, and contributing nominal sums of money for development projects largely unrelated to efforts to end child labour”.

Thanks to my idea, Colin could actually help the tobacco industry’s image! Let’s get Colin out in the public perception, really get him ingrained as the face of death, illness and misery caused by cigarettes. So when the consumer sees those pesky warnings - “Smoking Kills”, “Smoking seriously harms you and others around you”, “Smokers die younger” - instead of the consumer picturing themselves, they’ll picture Colin, a million miles away. They’ll instantly think of Colin being killed, Colin being seriously harmed, Colin dying before he turns 21! The happy tobacco consumer is then free to smoke away, safe in the knowledge that those warnings have absolutely nothing to do with them…

Article on Afghanistan for CtrlAltShift.

2009-10-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

Article on Afghanistan for CtrlAltShift.

As Afghanistan prepares for it’s upcoming presidential and provincial election, Vice magazine has summarised the country in a laconic manner worthy of George W Bush: “Afghanistan mean war. When it comes to everything”. Their justification for such a strong statement? Carpets. To be more exact - War Carpets. That is, carpets which have been woven to depict war. Not carpets that kill people (see Carpet Bombing) but carpets that depict 9/11, and AK47s, and dying Soviet Troops. Not standard Ikea catalogue-fodder. But what will the election mean for the flourishing war-carpet market? If war carpets are to be swept under the rug, what new rug will these old rugs be swept under? Is “diversification” needed in Afghan rug/carpet market? Here’s some suggestions for any pacifist weavers/diversifying war-weavers wishing to depict the upcoming elections….

1. Incumbent President Hamid Karzai Having The Smug Grin Wiped Of His Face - By A Woman!: Last year Hamid Karzai tired to push through a law that lead to international condemnation. Opponents of the law accused it of legalising rape within Shia marriage, and effectively turning Shia wives into slaves to their husbands. With the world’s attention focused on the election, Karzai’s administration has announced the law has been changed and officially passed. Now instead of legalising rape within marriage, the law allows men to deny their wives food should the wife refuse to give their husband “reasonable sexual enjoyment”. The law also states that wives are “disobedient” if they leave the family home (maybe to eat-out?) without the their husband’s permission (eat-out plan foiled). "It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch claims. If your looking for a strong word of condemnation with moral undertones to weave across the carpets‘ centre, go with the HRW’s choice of “barbaric”. But who is the brave woman wiping The Smug Grin off Karzai’s face? It could be either Shahla Atta or Frozan Fana, two women running for the position of president. Under the Taliban, women could not even go to school, let alone become politicians.

2. A Donkey Falling Down A Mountain: The donkey representing how Afghanistan should be applauded for being audacious enough to even contemplate putting on an election. Voting in England usually requires a few minuets car ride, or a short walk, but if you live in one of Afghanistan’s remote rural provinces voting is a lot trickier. Because you probably don’t own a car. And there’s a mountain in your way. And the mountain is rigged with explosives. And there might be Osama Bin Laden under the mountain. And of course if your Shia woman, and your useless in bed, you might be walking to the ballot box on a empty stomach. So the officials in charge of the election have drafted in over 3,000 donkeys, horses and mules to carry all voting-necessities to the most difficult to reach areas. Once the voting officials arrive, bury their donkey which has died of exhaustion and set up the ballot box, then the officials have to explain what a ballot box is; “We have not only the challenge of getting to rural communities but also raising awareness amongst a vastly illiterate population about the importance of elections and how the electoral process works”, Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan, explained to American Free Press. "We have the logistics challenge which is a huge complicating matter, we have civic education.... but what we have seen is the Afghan authorities step up to meet some of the challenges”, Siddique said.

3. A Mess: This will appeal to any free-form weavers out there, or anyone who doesn’t have a clue how to make a carpet. Which is fitting, because this is only the second presidential election Afghanistan has ever had. Not much optimism amongst officials: “There will be miss management, chaos, and corruption and fraud”, one Western diplomat told The Guardian. Aside from the fact that he forget “donkeys”, the diplomat forget to mention the Taliban. Muhammad Ehsan, a politician from Kandahar, told the Guardian, “Now is not a very good time to have an election…there is no guarantee that, if you go to vote, you will be safe”. Oh. Although with the Taliban saying “There will be no ceasefire. People should not go to vote”, Ehsan may have a valid point. Except, with the Taliban telling Afghanistan’s 17 million registered voters what to do, it kind of gives the impression they are still in charge.

4. A Big Fat Middle Finger: In a few days time, the world will see how many people decide to give the Taliban the democratic equivalent of the middle finger. For a reasonable price, we’ve free delivery, and a lifetime guarantee, I’d be happy to have this carpet under my coffee table.

Article on Bhopal And Dow for CtrlAltShift.

2009-08-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

Article on Bhopal And Dow for CtrlAltShift.

Andrew Liveris, Dow's Chairman and CEO, has noted that "lack of clean water is the single largest cause of disease in the world and more than 4,500 children die each day because of it." He went on to assert that "Dow is committed to creating safer, more sustainable water supplies for communities around the world”. Is Liveris making CEO stand for Caring and Ethically Orientated? Could one of the worlds largest chemical producers clean the world’s water?
But wait! Hold your applause for Mr Liveris!
Because if you were going to clean up the worlds water, and you were the head of one of the worlds largest chemical companies, where would you start?
Africa maybe?
India?
Yes, India could be a good place. Delhi maybe, or Calcutta. No need to sort out the Indian city of Bhopal though. Dow, with a little help from prankster activists The Yes Men (www.theyesmen.org/) have that base covered. In fact, they have done such a good job with Bhopal, it’s bringing out it’s own mineral water.
“B’eaupal”. The label on the bottle claims the water is “Bottled At Source - HAND PUMP #1 ATAL AYUB NAGBAR BHOPAL”. The small print says “Not suitable for human consumption”. The label explains: “The unique qualities of our water come from 25 years of slow-leaching toxins at the site of the world’s largest industrial accident. To this day, Dow Chemical and the Indian Government have refused to clean up, and whole generations are being poisoned”. As you may have guessed, The Yes Men had a very specific target market in my mind when they dreamed up B‘eaupal. CtrlAltShift joined The Yes Men to see if the target market was interested.
CtrAltShift can take you to some pretty glamorous places. Staines isn’t one of them. A place only famous for being home to a fictional idoit (Ali G), Staines is also the site of the UK HQ of Dow Chemical, a multibillion dollar (profits of over $500 million) company specialising in plastics and chemical products.
Dow is the unlucky owners of Union Carbide, another chemical company that merged with Dow in 2001. 25 years ago in Bhopal, India, a chemical plant partly owned by Union Carbide exploded, exposing over half a million people to 42 tonnes of toxic gas; over 10,000 people died in the first 72 hours. The giant chemical plant, abandoned but still fall of chemical waste, remains standing in Bhopal, never properly decommissioned. A reminder of the worst industrial accident in history. An incident called “The Hiroshima of the chemical industry”; except the people of Bhopal were never at war with Union Carbide. The company paid families who lost relatives to the disaster roughly $1000, to say sorry for their little Hiroshima. But this Hiroshima in Bhopal continues to affect thousands and thousands of people, every day.
Satinath 'Sathyu' Sarangi sees the Dow effect first hand every day. Sathyu is a trustee of the Bhopal Medical Appeal and a clinic in Bhopal that treats people affected by the disaster. Sathyu came to the UK to join The Yes Men in presenting B’eaupal to Dow officials in Staines. When Sathyu reads the fake ingredients on B’eaupal’s label (Dichlomethane, four times the safe amount, Carbon Tetrachloride, 2000 the safe amount, Chloroform, twice the safe amount), he knows the real effects they can create. Thousands of effects evident at birth, the water poisoning babies while they’re still in the womb. Effects that leave babies with 12 toes and 12 fingers. Babies with oversized heads, blind and unable to walk. Effects that bring about the menopause early, like before your 30 years old. Effects that give you liver cancer. Effects that kill you, in one way or another.
So maybe the good people at Dow UK HQ, sunny Staines, could pass on a bottle of B’eaupal to Mr Liveris? Or maybe they could hear The Yes Men coming and shut up shop for the day, leaving a lone security guard to guard the door against a bottle of mineral water? The security guard did a valiant job against a horde of 20 journalists, independent filmmakers, Students For Bhopal activists, Justice In Bhopal activists, CtrlAltShift activists, Sathyu and The Yes Men. No Dow officials; but all the time in the world for some fantastic shots of B’eaupal next to the Dow sign.
It’s just a shame Mr Liveris wasn’t available; we knew a great place were he could start creating “safer water”.

Article on Aung San Suu Kyi for CtrAltShift.

2009-08-17T16:03:00.000-07:00

Article on Aung San Suu Kyi for CtrAltShift.

“Loser chains are not acceptable” - a sentiment expressed this week by a British official at the Home Office. Aung San Suu Kyi would surely agree - she’s the one wearing the chains, and the subject of the British Official‘s comment. She is also Burma’s democratically elected Prime Minsiter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, author of several books and was named Hero of Our Time by New Statesman magazine. Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for over ten years, but since May she has been upgraded to a proper prison, with bars and a history of human rights abuses and even a scary name (it’s pronounced Insane). Suu Kyi’s latest crime? Having an uninvited guest arrive at her house (A special request for the Home Office; can Noel Edmonds be deported to Burma so he can pay for Noel’s House Party in a horribly ironic fashion? Please?).

Afraid that some people (ie. The Rest Of The World) were frowning on their little tiff with Suu Kyi, Burma’s ruling junta decided to show their softer side this week. And what better way to do this than giving Suu Kyi some company - by arresting 50 members of her political party. But this was not your usual shits-and-giggles arrest; police arrested the political activists while they were at a service at the Martyr’s Mausoleum, commemorating the death of Suu Kyi’s father. In Burma, you come for the mourning, but you stay for the police brutality!

Suu Kyi was supposed to have at least one special visitor this month, but the junta decided against the visit. Ban Ki-moon requested to meet with the jailed dissident, but the junta turned down the Secretary General of the United Nations, as you do. And the response of the Secretary General of the United Nations, an organisation that drafted the Universal Organisation of Human Rights, promoting the "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights”? “Deeply disappointed”, a sentiment more apt for Noel’s House Party being rescheduled. But Ban Ki-moon was assured by the junta that the Burmese elections in 2010 would be "held in a fair, free and transparent manner". Then a week later, Mr Ban said, "To be credible and legitimate, Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners should be released”. So it seems the junta will call the election fair and free, and Ban Ki-moon will call it unfair and closed, and they will agree to disagree.

But where the UN fails, one organisation, a bastion of strength, moral fortitude, extreme dynamism and hard nosed determinism, hopes to crush the junta once and for all. Yes - the European Union. It’s weapon - a possible proposal to make existing sanctions (wait for it) even tougher! Understanding the excitement such news can cause, a European diplomat decided to dispel any hysteria by telling NGO UNPO, “If you look at economic sanctions, our leverage is minimal. There is nothing exciting in our back pockets”. Which begs the question - what about the front pockets?

So what’s an activist to do when loser chains are unlikely? Try hitting the junta in the wallet. Total, the fourth largest oil company in the world, gives roughly $500m a year to the junta. In an interview with El Monde, Suu Kyi said, “Total has become the main supporter of the Burmese military regime”. Twice in May and thought July, the activist group Total Out Of Burma protested outside the French Embassy (Total is a French company) in Knightsbridge. Sadly, no EU or UN representatives.

Article on Iran Protests for CtrlAltShift.

2009-08-17T15:54:00.000-07:00

Article on Iran Protests for CtrlAltShift.

While the UK and the US continues to tie itself in legal and linguistic Gordian knots about whether torture/advanced-interrogation-techniques ever did or did-not ever take place here or there or on Granddad Castro‘s back garden or 1,000 ft up in the air, one country is willing to be rather open about the issue. A fellow liberal, Western, predominately Christian superpower?

Yes. That is if Iran counts as a liberal, Western, predominately Christian superpower. Which it probably doesn’t.

Iran’s prosecutor-general, Qorbanali Dori-Najafabadi, has admitted that “mistakes”, made in the aftermath of Iran’s election protests, had led to “painful accidents which cannot be defended, and those who were involved should be punished”. And punished they have been - the head jailor of the Kahrizak “detention centre” (note to the Guardian - what is the difference between a prison and a detention centre? One sounds like a prison the other sounds like a prison trying to be an after-school discipline room) has been jailed, a long with three policemen who beat detainees.

So what kind of “mistakes” are we talking about? According defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi opposition detainees put on trial have been subjected to "medieval torture". According to a letter written by another defeated presidential candidate, Mehdi Karoubi, “some senior official told (Karoubi) that…some young male detainees were raped…also some young female detainees were raped in a way that have caused serious injuries”. Serious injuries? Pray tell Karoubi. “Vaginal tearing,” the letter said. For those without vaginas to tear (ie, abused males), the memories of sexual assault manifest themselves in psychological conditions, like depression, leaving them “incapable of even leaving their homes”.

Considering their injuries, maybe the tortured should keep their stories to themselves? Not in Dori-Najafabadi’s opinion; “Maybe there cases of torture in the early days after the election, but we are willing to follow up any complaints or irregularities that have taken place”. Which makes a nice change from the silent ceremonies that have been taken place to mourn those lost in the protests; Nazanin Jahani, a pseudonym for journalist in Tehran reporting for IWPR, has reported how “no memorial events are allowed in the mosques and no loud mourning at the graveside. In some cases, families have been asked to sign declarations that the deceased has suffered a serious illness”. Illness’s that manifest signs of rape and repeated beatings? And we’re worried about Swine Flu?

For some, a sorry and a holding up of hands from officials is a little too late. According to some informal announcements from officials, the death toll ranges from 20 to 30. Human rights organisations and dissidents believe the death toll ranges from 200 to 300.

And if Iran officials don’t learn to behave, well…we didn’t want to let David Miliband off his muzzle, but here you go; He is “deeply concerned”. Hear that Tehran? Not “interested“. Not “notified“. He‘s “Concerned”. Although, he was speaking about only one prisoner (a British embassy worker on trial). And typing Miliband and torture into Google doesn’t exactly shine the best light on our Foreign Secretary.

Maybe what Miliband needs is the fire seen in Daily Telegraph contributor and Washington-base political analyst Nile Gardiner two months ago. “Miliband Cowers Before Mullahs Of Iran” was the headline: Gardiner accused Miliband and Obama of “empty rhetoric”, repeatedly highlighted the plight the protestors “dying on the streets of Tehran” and rounded up his stirring call to action with a succinct round up of his aforementioned points: “the West must also be ultimately prepared to use military force to end Iran’s nuclear weapons programme”. With guys like Gardiner around, it’s like George Bush never went away.

Maybe Miliband should follow the example of Iranian journalist and dissident Akbar Ganji. No war cries from Ganji - just a letter, signed by prominent Iranian intellectuals, accusing Iranian officials of crimes against humanity, addressed to the United Nations High Commissioner On Human Rights. Or maybe he could follow the example of the Iranian protesters who staged a three day hunger strike outside the UN. You know, show some concern.

Article on the Congo for CtrlAltShift.

2009-08-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

Article on the Congo for CtrlAltShift.

“Could that be a BloodBerry or a Conflict Cell in your pocket“? So asked Fortune magazine three months ago, because Blood Diamonds are so 1999 it seems. If you want to buy the latest product fused with blood, death, destruction and human rights abuses ranging from rape to the conscription of child soldiers, just make sure your MP3 player, your laptop or your mobile phone has it’s origins in The Democratic Republic of Congo.

Establishing this will not be easy. The conflict in the Congo baffles most contemporary news sources by being increasingly complex, with the Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda (FDLR), a predominantly Rwandan Hutu group, allegedly lead by men who participated in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, fighting the Forces armées de la République démocratique du Congo (FARDC), the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo. A potential PR nightmare - both forces have French names, both have initialisations beginning with F and feature the letters D and R. And they’re in Africa, a place that most new sources find irrelevant
unless there’s an orphanage, or a famine, or a famine in an orphanage. Or Ben Affleck (Youtube search - ITN and Congo).

Thankfully, due to the greed and moral relativism of globalisation, abstract numbers like 35,000 (the number of people displaced since 12th July according to UNHCR spokesman, Ron Redmond), or 200,000 ( the number of women the UN estimates have been raped during the conflict), or 3.9 million (the number of people who have died due to the conflict according to The International Rescue Committee (IRC)) can be understood by what you buy.

A report published last week by NGO Global Witness has done all the work of tracing consumer goods to conflict evils. Both the FARDC and the FDLR extort or control the numerous mines through out the DRC; throughout 2007 and 2008, the FARDC collected at least US $120,000 from mines in the Bisie region; People in the mineral rich region of South Kivu describe the FDLR as the “big businessmen”. As JourneyManPictures, noted two years ago - Congo’s tin soldiers can make a killing. The soldiers sell the minerals to middle men, then the middle men sell the minerals to some of the world’s largest mineral corporations, like British owned Amalgamated Metal Corporation (literally, a boring company). A few more steps down the production line, and that speck of mineral dust, hauled by a forced labourer in unsafe, sweltering conditions down an African mine shaft, is playing Leonard Read’s ‘I, Pencil’ on your laptop.

If your still having trouble empathising with the people of the DRC think about the words of George Rupp, president of The International Rescue Committee. In a statement last year, Rupp said, "Congo's loss is equivalent to the entire population of Denmark or the state of Colorado perishing within a decade“; it’s half of London’s population being wiped out, it’s the equivalent of the entire city of York being raped. The question is - would AMC and other corporations be willing to see Denmark sink for the sake of cheap dust? Would your average consumer batter an eyelid at the thought of Colorado being nuked to keep laptop prices down? Is it OK to give money to bad men for the sake of good bargains? Is that BloodBerry or Conflict Cell really worth blood, sweat and tears?"

Article on Sweatshops for CtrlAltShift

2009-07-15T16:43:00.000-07:00

Article on Sweatshops for CtrlAltShift.

"I fear for one of my favourite t-shirts. It is a medium V neck, white with a carnival-style scene depicted in charcoal printed on the front, bough for £3 in the Manchester branch of Primark, made (much to my pleasure) from 100% organic cotton. It is a good t-shirt (I can wear it with almost anything else I own) and it’s a Good t-shirt, being organic. But what is worrying, what is putting the fear in me, is the Made In - sticker. I can find Made In China, Made In Turkey, Made In Bulgaria, and Made In Mexico in my other clothes. On the Primark t-shirt the label reads Made In Bangladesh. And the more I think about it the more it seems my innocent looking Primark t-shirt could be the source of riots halfway across the world.

Obviously it is not THE source, but it could be part of the straw bale that broke the camel’s back. Or, more specifically, the t-shirt that killed the garment worker from Bangladesh. Last week, after facing salary cuts and unpaid wages, over 6,000 garment workers began protesting outside their factories; the police responded with swift action - shooting one protester dead. The protests escalated quickly, drawing a crowd of 50,000 angry Bangladesh workers in the Ashulia industrial zone, 19 miles outside Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka. Police responded by firing rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowd, injuring over a hundred protesters. Meanwhile, protesters took to burning their workplaces; NoSweat reported that over 50 factories were vandalised, and over five factories were set alight.

Unfortunately, you’ll be hard pressed to find this information in the Guardian or The Times. Which is a shame, as in many ways this is as much a ‘UK Story’ as it is a ‘Bangladesh Story’. Only last year journalist Fred Pearce found sweatshops in Dhaka paying workers as little as 50p a day; they were the same sweatshops that provide clothes for H&M, Reebok, and Gap. War On Want found the same situation with Tesco (profits of £2.8 billion), Asda (£638 million) and Primark (£223 million).

Despite the ferocity of the protests, this is not the first time Bangladesh has been confronted by the issue of sweatshop labour. Three years ago thousands of workers protested poor wages, torching over twelve factories, the protests only stopping after unions and the government agreed to a $25 monthly minimum wage; but with less than 20% of factories adhering to the minimum wage, 25,000 textile workers protested a year later.

While it’s impossible to say whether my Primark t-shit passed through the hands of a 50p-a-day worker on the opposite side of the world, I have to accept that it is pretty likely. But the world of fashion doesn’t have to create a world of misery. Before travelling to Bangladesh, Fred Pearce went to India to visit an ethical company, Maral, with a fair-trade and organic approach. Despite having a long way to go, Maral paid it’s unskilled workers up 36p an hour - a marked difference from 50p a day. Despite the pay still being a pittance, Maral is willing to be un-economical to provide a slightly fairer deal for workers. And that is just one ethical producer. There are countless ethical fashion retailers on the market - Quail, By Nature, People Tree, for example. Despite my t-shirts source, I‘m going to keep it. I won’t wear it, but I’ll hang it in my wardrobe, next to my old, old, old Limp Bizkit hoodie and my wannabe rebel, two sizes too big leather jacket - my memento’s of fashion stupidity."

Article on Tony Blair and Torture for CtrlAltShift

2009-07-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

Article on Tony Blair and Torture for CtrlAltShift.

“The Tony Blair Faith Foundation aims to promote respect and understanding about the world's major religions and show how faith is a powerful force for good in the modern world”. Can you feel the love? Tony Blair’s Faith Foundation is like a group hug turned into a charity. It’s already helping people across the world, from the UK to India, from Rwanda to Guantanamo…

Wait, wait redact that, redact that!

Torture scandals are so 2008. This year it’s all about expenses charged to the hardworking tax payer; Geoff Hoon spending £80.46 on a magnifying mirror, Harry Cohen spending £35 on curtain shortening (not cheaper to buy shorter curtains?) and Boris Johnson spending £17.92 for 200 Nescafe One Cup sticks (not cheaper to buy a large jar of coffee?). You really couldn’t make it up, which gives the lazier journalists on Fleet Street a nice break from their churnalism. As Zoe Willaims said, “I love a scandal that involves a new word…I haven’t felt this enlightened since extraordinary rendition”. Oops. Torture again.

Try as we (‘we’ being mostly Tony Blair in this instance) might, the T word lingers on. So while The Daily Mail finds space to wax lyrical on the ’news’ that an 18 year old has spots, The Guardian couldn’t help but notice that Tony Blair, might, kind of, maybe, could just be a little bit complicit in the Genève breaching, International Law bitch-slapping act of torture. But yes, Charlotte Lott does need to do a better job with her concealer (I hear the secret is to bite your bottom lip when applying it to the chin).

Now Tony Blair maybe regretting his words on Decembre 22, 2005, at Prime Ministers Question Time; “I have absolutely no evidence to suggest that anything illegal has been happening…and I am not going to start ordering inquiries into this, that and the next thing, when I have got no evidence to show whether this is right or not”. Unfortunately for Tony, it appears he may have had evidence that British agents were complicit in acts of torture. A British Officer sought his superiors advice in early January 2002, after witnessing American agents abuse a suspect. A few days later, the government issued a statement to all British agents, saying "Given that [the prisoners] are not within our custody or control, the law does not require you to intervene to prevent this”. A little legal peccadillo that Philippe Sands QC thinks may just breach international law. Being Professor of International Law at University College London, Sands may have a point. Adding to Tony’s worries, is Martin Scheinin, a UN special rapporteur on human rights, claiming that British agents had “interviewed detainees…in so-called safe houses, where they were being tortured”, which “can be reasonably understood as implicitly condoning torture”.

And this isn’t even mentioning David ‘Not-Disclosed’ Miliband’s recent refusal to testify Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights. Something to hide?

But Tony doesn’t seem to be losing any sleep. In fact, he explicitly said so in a recent Daily Mail interview; “The one duty you owe people is to be decisive. I started as a politician who was anxious to please people, and I ended as a politician who understood that my duty was to do what was right. Perpetual agonising is not helpful”. Don’t worry Tony, we know you’ve turned the other cheek, and you’ve kept it turned…"

Article on Iran Protests for CtrlAltShift

2009-07-15T16:36:00.000-07:00

Article on Iran Protests for CtrlAltShift.

"To some it’s a grandmother with a bra stuffed with jasmine flowers, to others it’s part of an axis of evil, some remember it for it’s hanging gardens, and some revile it for it’s hanging prisoners. And even within the country that is Iran, perspectives are as extreme as they are numerous; as CBS reported “what looks like democracy to some, looks to Iran's Revolutionary Guard like a potential uprising”.

And so Iran’s recent Presidential elections were at once “real and free” (according to winner Amadinijad) and a “charade“ and “manipulation” of democracy (according to loser Mir-Hossein Mousavi). With over 80% of the electorate voting, 62% of Iranians voted to have four more years of the holocaust denying, Western hating, nuclear (it’s just for energy, ok?) loving, Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Or maybe they didn’t.

Despite Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei calling Ahmadinejad’s victory a “divine assessment” (does Allah vote? If he does, do other votes still count?), the Supreme Leader has decided to go against his previous supreme-divine approval and has ordered an investigation to suspected vote fraud. Observers noted that Ahmadinejad declared himself winner “before the polls had even closed and that his alleged margin of victory never changed during the vote counting, a statistically unlikely if not impossible occurrence“, the Washington Times reported. Of course, the Washington Times would say this, as Ahmadinejad is convinced that foreign media is trying to stir up trouble. And as a former British ambassador told Al Jazzera, “If people perceive they were robbed, that will stir up political passion in what is still a volatile country“. And trouble has indeed been stirred; chants of “death to the dictator” and “the election was full of lies” have echoed across Tehran, cars and buses have been set on fire, street fights have broken out between rival political party supporters, and hundreds of protesters have clashed with riot police; Iran has seen it’s worst civil unrest in ten years.

With the Supreme Leader unable to make up his Supreme mind, what hope is there for the great unblessed? The Observer highlighted the severally divided opinions of the Iranian electorate: Mojtaba Kermani, a 28 year old self-employed businessmen, didn’t “think there has been any vote rigging…millions of people in Iran love their president”, while Akbar Faezi was sure “there must have been vote-rigging…nobody is happy”.

What is for certain is that any Iranians hoping to use Twitter or Facebook after the election were severally disappointed. Twitter and Facebook were part of a social network shut down, orchestrated by the government in order to hinder attempts at protests and civil unrest. Numerous mobile telephone services were shut down, and universities were closed in order to disperse possible protesters. Several journalists have also been arrested.

It can also be confidently said that, although they are divided by candidates, the Iranian electorate are united in their passion for politics. The passion may be angry, and the passion may lead to a difficulty with counting/corruption, but it has turned out at rallies, tuned into TV debates and handed out countless flyers. “Free” or corrupt, “democracy” or “uprising”, whatever politics is, Iran seems to have been engrossed by it. "

Article about Amazon Beef for CtrlAltShift

2009-06-07T19:08:00.000-07:00

Article about Amazon Beef for CtrlAltShift. Should have been much better, wasted oppourtunity.

“Shoes, handbags and ready meals aren’t normally associated with rainforest destruction and climate change, but we’ve found a smoking gun” - so said Sarah Shoraka, Greenpeace forest campaigner, to the Guardian this week. The smoking gun is a three year investigation into the global trade of Brazilian cattle products, a trade that fuels the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Nike Adidas, Timberland and Clarks. It also happens to be a trade likened to the lawless “Old US Wild West”.

According to Shorka, “Global brands must take a stand” - “UK companies are driving the destruction of the Amazon by buying beef and leather products from unscrupulous suppliers in Brazil”. Major UK brands continue to work with these unscrupulous suppliers who have deforested millions of acres of rainforest to create animal feed farms and factory like cattle ranches. 80% of deforested land in Brazil is now used for cattle pastures, and the WWF has warned that by 2030 over half the Amazon rainforest could be gone - ripped up and cut down to make way for future ASDA Big Saver Family chilli beef pasta bakes (£4) and Nike Studio Low Leather Men's Training Shoes (£31.99).

These suppliers are almost “totally unregulated and many people behave as if the law doesn’t apply to them”, Brazilian campaigner Andre Muggiati told the Guardian. Deforestation is often illegal, farms are regularly exposed as using slave labour and there are regular violent clashes over land ownership - and such violence is not strictly between farmers; the indigenous people of the rainforest are more than willing to defend their homeland.

The village chief of the Parakana people, a tribe with no contact with the outside world until 1985, told the Guardian, “Since the invaders arrived there have been many problems…if the government does not find a solution, we will solve it ourselves. We know how to make poison arrows and we are ready to kill people”. The village chief is not the only leader willing to resort to violence against ranchers and loggers; a chief of a neighbouring tribe said, “(ranchers and loggers) wouldn’t stay away, so one time we said to them that you will never go back and you will stay away forever. We killed them. We are proud that we defended our land”.

The plight of the Parakana is echoed across the Amazon, as a recent report by Survival International has highlighted. According to the NGO, five “uncontested” tribes are at imminent risk of extinction as loggers, ranchers, builders and oil companies push deeper into the Amazon. In Peru, one indigenous tribe’s attempt to protect it’s homeland from an oil company has lead to the deaths of 22 police officers and the deaths of 30 indigenous people (over a hundred indigenous people have been injured).

With cattle ranches, lawless territories and battles with Indians, it seems the “Old US Wild West” truly has come to the Amazon.

Article on Augn San Suu Kyi trial for CtrlAltShift.

2009-06-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

Article on Augn San Suu Kyi trial for CtrlAltShift.

“The Name Says It All“, says Amnesty. It’s Burma’s Insein (pronounced Insane) Prison. It’s where over 2,100 of Burma’s political prisoners are being held. Disease such as tuberculosis, scabies and dysentery are rife, but with only three doctors for 10,000 prisoners it’s not surprising. Cells can be as small as 2.5m by 3.5m, and if a prisoner’s toilet is more than a bucket they should count themselves lucky. Torture is a given; when a British citizen was imprisoned in west Burma in 1990, he said “all the prisoners considered torture so routine that they found it amusing when I told them it was not normal elsewhere in the world…It was taken for granted that they wire you up when you walk through the door”. Isein has been labelled the “darkest hell-hole in Burma”.

This is part of the reason why the world is concerned for 63 year old Aung San Suu Kyi. She is the latest tenant of Isein. She also happens to be the countries democratically elected Prime Minsiter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, author of several books and was named Hero of Our Time by New Statesman magazine, beating the likes of Nelson Mandela and erm…Bono. Simply for being a symbol of opposition against the Burma’s ruling military junta, for over 10 ten years Suu Kyi has been placed under house arrest on-and-off; she was originally arrested in 1989 without charge or trial, then released six years later, then arrested again five years after release, then freed after two years and then placed under house arrest in 2003, where she has remained for the last six years. It’s this bizarre series of arrests without real charge or trial that has led Suu Kyi to be a cause celebre, with politicians from George Bush Senior to Gordon Brown trumpeting her symbolic stand against an oppressive regime.

Now Suu Kyi finds herself in the stand of a kangaroo court. Earlier in the month an American, John Yettaw, swam across a lake to visits Suu Kyi’s house uninvited. The government declared it a breach of her house arrest, and then declared it was a plot by anti-government forces to embarrass the Burmese regime. Unpredictability being a running theme for Suu Kyi Vs Burmese Junta; journalists were barred during the ‘opening’ of the closed trial, then were allowed to attend the trial on Thursday, and then were promptly barred again on Friday. If found guilty, Suu Kyi will be sentenced to five years in prison, conveniently out of the picture for the countries ‘elections’ next year and also rendering her previous date of release (27th May) redundant.
"Many people have died when they have been detained in Insein, that's a proven fact”, Human rights activist Debbie Stothard, from the pressure group Altsean-Burma, said last week. "The fact that Aung San Suu Kyi... now might be subject to a life-threatening detention condition - it's totally unacceptable…it's totally unjust”. And totally Insein.

Article on Cap and Trade for CtrlAltShift.

2009-06-07T08:42:00.001-07:00

Article on Cap and Trade for CtrlAltShift.

In the USA, “there is a war of perception that is happening” according to John Larsen of the World Resource Institute. “The facts almost don’t matter”. Which is quite handy, since 73% of American’s don’t know what the facts are.

The USA has been gripped by three simple words that most American’s can’t explain - Cap And Trade. President Obama is trying to pass legislation that will force polluting companies to cap their pollution at set limits, but will allow the companies to trade these limits; a company that is well bellow it’s limit - by switching from fossil fuels to solar power, for example - will be allowed to sell its ‘spare’ pollution quota to a company that refuses, or can’t, limit it’s pollution. It’s like GCSE Maths for Big Business: Rex has an allowance of eight barrels of oil, but he only needs to use three. David has an allowance of eight barrels of oil, but he needs to use ten. How many oil-barrel quotas should David buy from Rex? Europe has something remotely similar with the European Union Emission Trading Scheme - minus Rex and David.

For at least a thousand American’s this crazy Cap and Trade idea is something of a mystery. The Rasmussen Report, an American public opinion poll firm, asked a thousand Americans what Cap and Trade is. 30% thought it has something to do with Wall Street regulation. 17% thought it has something to do with health care reform. Only 24% thought it has something to do with environmental issues. 30% couldn’t even hazard a guesses.

Embarrassing for a country with one of the highest CO2 emissions per capita? Perhaps. Embarrassing considering the amount of money spent on lobbying, advertising and PR-spin-doctoring swirling around the words Cap and Trade? “I‘ve never seen this much media spending on a bill that is only in the subcommittee”, John Larsen said. “Turn on a radio in the blighted town in America’s rust belt, and a new advertisement paid for by a lobbying group…claims that ordinary families could be worse off by thousands of dollars if Congress passes the draft global warming law”. reports the Guardian. “Emissions Cap-and-Trade Aids the Corrupt, Hurts the Little Guy” reports US News. “Who Pays for Cap and Trade? Hint: They were promised a tax cut during the Obama campaign” reports the Wall Street Journal. See a line of attack in the “war of perception”? Hit them where it hurts - the wallet. As Warren “Worth $37 Billion” Buffet said to CNBC: “Anything you put in that effectively taxes carbon emissions, somebody is going to bear the brunt of it. In the case of a regulated utility company, the utility customers are going to pay for it”.

That’s right Mr and Mrs Average American! You may not understand it, but you’re the ones to be paying for it! Although it’s difficult to say how much will be taken from US pay cheques: $680 to $1,500 per year according to The Wall Street Journal; $3,100 per year according to some Republicans. You can hear the shouts of ‘Damn you Obama!’ reverberating across the internet. ‘First you give American families a $400 to $1000 tax break, then you make companies like Shell (profits of $26 billion), Chevron ($23 billion) and ExxonMobil ($45 billion) take it‘! But how else will they recoup their millions and million and millions lost lobbying against the Cap and Trade system?

Admits this flurry of spending, the “facts” have been lost. Facts like the International Energy Agency stressing “the need to address climate change will require a massive switch to high-efficiency, low-carbon, energy technologies”. Facts like scientists at the University of Bristol saying human pollution is turning the sea dangerously acidic. The Kremlin recently predicted the growing struggle for the world’s energy resources could lead to military conflict in the Arctic. A recent report from University College London and The Lancet described global warming as “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century”. But you can always face the facts and maintain a fresh perspective; “I don’t think it’s an utter calamity for mankind though”, 84 year old CEO billionaire and Buffet friend Charlie Munger said about rising sea and pollution levels, “you’d have to be a pot-smoking journalism student to think that”.

Article for Ctrl.Alt.Shift and Nouse on Tamil protests.

2009-05-17T06:57:00.000-07:00

Article for Ctrl.Alt.Shift and Nouse on Tamil protests.

"Can anyone tell me the address of Aislinn Simpson of the Daily Telegraph? For Aislinn is the winner of The Biggest Non-Story Of The Week award, a fictitious award for fictitious news stories. “London Marathon organisers 'could be forced to divert route over Tamil protest'“ ran the headline authored by Aislinn on the Daily Telegraph’s London Marathon website page last week. Surely a news worthy piece, highlighting a potential clash of sports and politics, multiculturism and tradition, sweaty people and angry people?

Unfortunately not. “There are growing fears that Parliament Square, which is on the race route, could be once again blocked by protesters keen to keep the spotlight on the Sri Lankan government campaign against the Tamil Tigers separatist group which has caused the deaths of thousands of civilians”, Aislinn reported. Where these fears were growing from was not made entirely clear. In fact, it wasn’t made clear at all, as this was the only mentioning of these “growing fears“. There certainly were none amongst marathon organisers, with a spokesperson saying "the London Marathon team are in permanent contact with the Metropolitan Police but there are no official plans to re-route the race at present”. Even Boris Johnson said “the route will be the same length as normal. We will not be cutting the marathon and it will be the same route”. But a detour would a be a major, grade-A event in the history of the London Marathon, right? “There have been various disruptions to the course in recent years, including last year when there was a gas leak and we diverted the route at the last-minute”, Aislinn’s marathon organiser source said. All in all, a news story that amounted to a load of hot air.

Now, can anyone tell me the address of Telegraph pundit James Kirkup? James is the winner of The Laziest Comment Feature award, which he should have won a month ago but I couldn’t be arsed to sort out the paper work. Like Aislinn’s work, James piece represents a worrying Telegraph trend of the headline seeming to contradict the main copy. “In praise of the British Tamils' Westminster protest” was the headlines; “Now, you can say a lot of bad things about (the early April Tamil protests outside Parliament). The police say it's illegal, because it wasn't authorised in advance. London travellers, me included, could complain about the traffic disruption caused on the first day when the Tamils blocked Westminster Bridge. And the few lonely souls here at the Commons during the recess might gripe about the noise”, was a significant part of James’s copy. But despite this numerous reasons to moan, the Tamil protesters had James’s “admiration simply for sticking it out”; “they're an affable enough bunch: men, women and children, few if any of whom seem interested in confronting the police or doing anything violent”. Such praise even though James isn’t “quite sure what they want or what they think they're going to achieve”. Of course, he couldn’t go down and ask the protesters what they want because this would be, you know - journalism.

Had James bothered to do some actual reporting, he might have found out that six “affable” protesters had been arrested the day before his comment piece went live on the Telegraph site. Or that many of the protester’s were waving red Tamil Tiger flags - worrying since the Tiger’s are an internationally recognised terrorist group; this is the same Tamil Tigers who are notorious for using child soldiers - the UN recording over 6,000 cases of child recruitment since 2003. This is the same Tamil Tigers which have launched countless suicide bombings against civilian targets.

All a bit too complicated unless framed in the context of an annual charity run it seems.

Article for Ctrl.Alt.Shift on civilian deaths.

2009-05-17T06:50:00.000-07:00

Article for Ctrl.Alt.Shift on civilian deaths.

"Another murder mystery from America’s favourite sand pit: “American soldiers opened fire and killed a 12-year old boy after a grenade hit their convoy in Mosul on Thursday”, a McClatchy website reports. Is the $651.2 billion US military mistaking pre-pubescent children for insurgents, as friends of the boy believe? Or is it, as US military spokesman stated, “that insurgents are paying children to conduct these attacks or assist the attackers in some capacity, undoubtedly placing the children in harm's way”? Can this mystery be solved without a psychic medium?

It’s easy to jump on the US military bashing bandwagon. Eye witness Ahmed Iz-Aldeen, 56, said he saw the person who threw the grenade - not a boy, but a man in his twenties. Reuters reported Iraqi police saying the boy, Omar Musa Salih, had not been involved in the grenade throwing. “A 12-year-old child was killed by U.S. soldiers’ random fire” was the line Iraqi news agency Aswat al-Iraq decided to publish; “The incident occurred in Ras al-Jadah area, western Mosul, when the U.S. military opened random fire at pedestrians”, a security source told the news agency.

Surely some mistake? Is the US military being lax enough to kill 12 year old boys? Well, less than two months ago the US military sure was lax enough to kill a 12 year old girl, standing 100 metres behind a car speeding towards a police station. After the warning shots of a careless trooper , Col. Gary Volesky was left to express “his condolences to the girl’s family for the unfortunate accident” through the heartfelt medium of a US army press release.

Not that the US has to be lax to kill civilians; sometimes it‘s part of the job. Three years ago CommonDreams.org reported that soldiers were under pressure to use extreme force in nearly all situations - regardless of danger to civilians. Darrell Anderson, a US marine and ’winner’ of a Purple Heart, recalled nearly shooting a family - two children, man and his wife - in a car that was speeding past a checkpoint. Darrell’s buddies urged him to shoot. Darrell refused. “My superior came over and said, ‘What are you doing’, I said, ‘Look, there’s children in the back, it’s a family, I did the right thing, it’s wrong to fire in this situation’. My superior told me: ‘No, you did the wrong thing, You will fire, next time, or you will be punished, that our orders’”, Darrell told a reporter; “At traffic stops we kill innocent people all the time. If you are fired on from the street, you are supposed to fire on everybody that is there. If I am in a market, I shoot people who are buying groceries”. Unfortunately, Darrell’s testimony of civilian killing is just one of many. But as Captain Todd Brown, Company Commander of the 4th Infantry Division, stated, “You have to understand the Arab mind. The only thing they understand is force - force, pride, and saving face”. Emphasis on force.

Nevertheless, every story has it’s other side. As George W. Bush was fond of saying - we’re dealing with “evil folks”, and military officials are sure evil comes in child sizes: "Coalition forces fired on two of three individuals positively identified as involved in the attack, killing one, who they later discovered was a 12-year-old boy," the email said regarding Salih‘s death. The boy was found carrying less than $9 dollars worth of Iraqi currency, which McClatchy reported marked a new trend for insurgents paying children to carry out attacks. The United Nations has repeatedly called attention to the trend of using child insurgents in the Iraq war. Iraqi NGO The Iraq Aid Association (IAA) has also reputedly reported of working with child insurgents. Humanitarian news agency IRIN talked to one child insurgent instructor, who said “very small children unable to carry the weight of a weapon are instead taught how to use hand grenades and taught how to distract US soldiers before attacks”. Is 12 years of age prime grenade carrying age?

The US has promised to conduct an investigation into Salih’s death. Will the US military be able to set the record straight without a really good Ouija board? Will it prevent the death of the next unlucky 12 year old? Time will tell. Until then Salih is left as a victim and an aggressor, an innocent child and a insurgent KIA. "

Article on Hamid Karzai for Ctrl.Alt.Shift

2009-05-03T14:24:00.000-07:00

Article on Hamid Karzai...

"Where was Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, when Jacqui Smith needed him? Ms Smith works long hours supervising police brutality, leaked memos, dodgy arrests and Gordon Brown’s ego, and clearly this is leaves her husband very frustrated. He is left at home, alone, with nothing but a second-home expense account and his own restless right hand. He’s in the mood, he’s loney. Two £5 ’adult’ movies later, Ms Smith is in a sticky mess all because her husband wanted a little loving. With a simple piece of Shia legislation that legalises martial rape, could Jacqui’s Porngate dilemma have been averted? Is this the kind of Shia law the archbishop of Canterbury believes should be integrated into common law?

So - Martial Rape. Pros - Jacqui can still be hunched over her desk working away while her husband vents his sexual frustration fundamentalist Shia style. Not the prettiest of images, but pragmatic. Sadly for all those pro-rapists out there (are there any?), you will have to travel to Afghanistan, convert to Shia Islam and marry before you can demand sex from your wife every fourth day. Mr Karzai’s legislation was announced over two weeks ago, a law “passed with unprecedented speed and limited debate”, according to The Guardian. Activists were unable to gain a copy of the law, but the UN declared that it legalised rape within marriage and allowed Shia husbands to deny their wives the right to visit a doctor, seek work or go to school. Considering that over 50% of Afghan brides are under 16, the last point would be problematic if the wives lived in the UK; it’s not so problematic in Afghanistan, where less than 10% of girls go to school. No annoying “Why was your wife not in school today?” phone calls from the head teacher.

Unfortunately for Karzai, his ‘vote winner’ back fired on the global political scene. US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton (whose had man troubles of her own) stated it was “an area of absolute concern for the United States”, Barack Obama called the law “abhorrent”, and Iceland, Finland and Norway all criticised the lack of rights for Afghan women. Does Karzai really want to piss off the Nordic Countries? One word: Vikings. Less frightening than Vikings but still brimming with anger, the women of Afghanistan also expressed their ‘concern’ ; last week 200 female protesters marched to a mosque in Kabul to criticise the law. “Worse than the Taleban” was the common opinion.

However, the protesters discovered that Karzai may be smarter than his law suggest. A counter-protest of alm ost equal size clashed with the female protesters; some women were spat on; others were hit with stones. A peaceful women’s’ pro-law rally also took place, with 300 women attending from the Khatam-ul-Naibieen Shia University, shouting the same chants as the anti-law rally - “We want honour and dignity for women”.

“Honour and Dignity” meaning some very strange ideas for Mr Karzai and his supporters Ayatollah Mohamad Asif Mohseni and Ustad Mohammad Akbari. “A man and wife can negotiate how often it is reasonable to sleep together, based on his sex drive, and a woman has a right to refuse if she has a good reason,“, Mohseni said. Leader of one of Afghanistan’s political parties, Akbari declared “Men and women have equal rights under Islam”. This all seems honourable and dignified. Then it gets a bit strange: “but there are differences in the way men and women are created. Men are stronger and women are a little bit weaker; even in the west you do not see women working as fire-fighters“ - a comment from Akbari made all the more stupid by being quoted in an issue of The Guardian that also reported the introduction of Hijab fire-fighter uniforms. Mohseni’s comment continued - “If a woman says no, the man has the right not to feed her“. A student follower of Mohseni supported the new law‘s demand that women can only leave the house with good reason - “If she’s a housewife, where i s she going to go, why does she need to go out?”. Maybe to get a bite to eat? And do you hear that? That’s petty-mindedness raping my previous comment about honour and dignity.

Still, this law could be one way for Jacqui to lose some weight. Thinking even more pragmatically, imagine all those Shia/horny, frustrated husband votes Labour could win. Imagine all those political scandals that might have been avoided: no stain on Monica Lewinski’s dress, no marriages ruined by David Blunkett, no Two Shags nickname for John Prescott, no Profumo affair and no Porngate. Maybe Karzai’s a political genius. Then again, maybe, just maybe, if he was starved until he agreed to have sex with a burly, horny Afghan man, he’d doubt his own wisdom. "

Article on G20 protest

2009-04-03T05:35:00.000-07:00

Article for CtrlAltShift on G20 protest.

How it SHOULD have been written...

"At last week's G20 protests in London, there was one group of people awaiting the action more eagerly than the anarchists. Cameras at the ready, press passes dangling around their necks, some with PRESS labelled hard hats and knee pads, the mass-media was ready to spin the story as they saw fit.

In the days leading up to the protest, some editors pushed “pointless protest” goading through letter pages and opinion columns. Mostly, it was name calling that even an eight year old would call childish. Expected and seen at the protest were “Soap dodgers”, a “rent-a-mob” (surely the most redundant name for an anti-capitalist protest), “thugs”, “do-gooders” (which begs the question since when was doing good an insult?), “idiots”, a “bunch of thickos“, “wasters”, a “need-a-job-brigade” (because anyone not at work on a Wednesday must be unemployed) “dreadlocked trust fund kids” (again, is having dreadlocks an insult?) “wannabes” (they wannabe…what?), “a rabble of lost ex-public school kids and university drop-outs”, “alcoholics, drug addicts and derelicts”. The supporters of these huge generalisations were the London Paper, The Times Online, The Mail Online, The Sun online and The Telegraph Online and even my student newspaper.

After the protests, the activists' serious PR problem increased .“We’re not all like them, Mr President”, the Sun declared, with it’s front page pictures of smiling President Obama and a male rioter kicking an RBS window. “We’re not all like him” would have been a more accurate headline. “To sum up their contradictory message, one “anti-capitalist” campaigner was SELLING whistles for a pound a go” - a sentence from The Sun which sums up the “pointless protest” bandwagon. Its Us, versus Them, that all-inclusive pronoun that turns roughly four thousand individuals into something with a hive-mind. We’re weren’t even capable of walking properly - “packs of protesters lurch through the city”, was another line from The Sun. Even the activist friendly paper The Guardian was unhappy with the protest, which made “it easy” to be cynical, easy to have all protesters “marked stupid hippies”. A stupid hippy being… a rather vague label.

What of the police? Do we believe The Guardian‘s “Riot police clash with protesters” or The Daily Mail‘s “mobs turn on the police”? “Police repression” (The Guardian) or “patient policemen” (The Sun)? The “kettle”, or “cordon”, or “coral”, has become a point of contention. Four thousand people were kept fixed in a cramped open area on a hot day. Despite a multimillion pound security operation, no ambulances were on hand within the cordon and there was no way of getting anything to eat or drink. There was room to move about and to sit down, but the police declared the area sealed by an “absolute cordon”. No press, no bystanders and no activists allowed in or out.

But the real money shots, the real juice of the story, were to be had with the day’s violence. Despite what seemed like a ratio of four journalists for every one activists, the media has become reliant on about six photos to illustrate the “violence”. All of the four broken windows of the Royal Bank of Scotland have now become famous, as has one unlucky red headed man who took a baton to the noggin. The day’s worst casualty was the protester who died from a heart attack. According to The Sun, “At least one police officer was left covered in blood, while another was coated in red powder” - the horror, the horror! The Daily Mail was keen to blame “the anarchist mob…at heart of the violence”. For the Guardian, two journalists “hold the police responsible for the violence”. The Economist couldn’t understand the fuss; “from (media) headlines and descriptions, you would think full-scale riots had broken out”. Confused yet? I am, and I was there.

For the 3,900 odd people not taking part in the thin line of aggression between the police and anarchists, the day was mostly enjoyable. There was a carnival atmosphere with a serious message of dissatisfaction with the banking system. Thousands of people had chosen to express their anger the old fashioned way, not through Facebook or Bogging but by actually expressing it in person! How quaint! Multicoloured slogans, from Drop Books Not Bombs to Feed The Poor, added some colour to the grey face of the City. I even saw children blowing bubbles. Bubbles? Not the same selling power as blood, unfortunately."

How I wrote it...

"At yesterday’s G20 protests, there was one group of people awaiting the action more eagerly than the anarchists. Cameras at the ready, press passes dangling around their necks, some with PRESS labelled hard hats and knee pads, the media of the world were ready for…well, it appears the media isn’t really sure what it was witnessing.

In the days leading up to the protest, some editors pushed “pointless protest” goading through letter pages and opinion columns. Mostly, it was name calling that even an eight year old would call childish. Expected and seen at the protest were “Soap dodgers”, a “rent-a-mob” (surely the most redundant name for an anti-capitalist protest), “thugs”, “do-gooders” (which begs the question since when was doing good an insult?), “idiots”, a “bunch of thickos“, “wasters”, a “need-a-job-brigade” (because anyone not at work on a Wednesday must be unemployed) “dreadlocked trust fund kids” (again, is having dreadlocks an insult?) “wannabes” (they wannabe…what?), “a rabble of lost ex-public school kids and university drop-outs”, “alcoholics, drug addicts and derelicts”. A big thank you to readers and journalists of the London Paper, The Times Online, The Mail Online, The Sun online and The Telegraph Online and my student newspaper for all those constructive labels.

After the protests, the activists serious PR problem increased .“We’re not all like them, Mr President”, the Sun declared with it’s front page pictures of smiling Obama and a male rioter kicking an RBS window. “We’re not all like him” would have been a more accurate headline. “To sum up their contradictory message, one “anti-capitalist” campaigner was SELLING whistles for a pound a go” - a sentence from The Sun which sums up the “pointless protest” bandwagon. Its Us, versus Them, that all-inclusive pronoun that turns roughly four thousand individuals into something with a hive-mind. We’re weren’t even capable of walking properly - “packs of protesters lurch through the city”, was another line from The Sun. Even the activist friendly paper The Guardian was unhappy with the protest, which made “it easy” to be cynical, easy to have all protesters “marked stupid hippies”. A stupid hippy being… a rather vague label.

What of the police? Do we believe The Guardian‘s “Riot police clash with protesters” or The Daily Mail‘s “mobs turn on the police”? “Police repression” (The Guardian) or “patient policemen” (The Sun)? The “kettle”, or “cordon”, or “coral”, has become a point of contention. Four thousand people were kept fixed in a cramped open area on a hot day. Despite a multimillion pound security operation, no ambulances were on hand within the cordon and there was no way of getting anything to eat or drink. There was room to move about and to sit down, but the police declared the area sealed by an “absolute cordon”. No press, no bystanders and no activists allowed in or out.

But the real money shots, the real juice of the story, was to be had with the day’s violence. Despite what seemed like a ratio of four journalists for every one activists, the media has become reliant on about six photos to illustrate the “violence”. All of the four broken windows of the Royal Bank of Scotland have now become famous, as has one unlucky red headed man who took a baton to the noggin. The day’s worst casualty was the protester who died from a heart attack. According to The Sun, “At least one police officer was left covered in blood, while another was coated in red powder” - the horror, the horror! The Daily Mail was keen to blame “the anarchist mob…at heart of the violence”. For the Guardian, two journalists “hold the police responsible for the violence”. The Economist couldn’t understand the fuss; “from (media) headlines and descriptions, you would think full-scale riots had broken out”. Confused yet? I am, and I was there.

For the 3,900 odd people not taking part in the thin line of aggression between the police and anarchists, the day was mostly enjoyable. There was music and a carnival atmosphere with a serious message of dissatisfaction with the banking system. Thousands of people had chosen to express their anger the old fashioned way, not through Face book or Bogging but by actually expressing it in person! How quaint! Multicoloured slogans, from Drop Books Not Bombs to Feed The Poor, added some colour to the grey face of the City. I even saw children blowing bubbles. Bubbles? Not the same selling power as blood, unfortunately."

Article on Climate Change for Nouse.

2009-04-02T04:51:00.000-07:00

Article on Climate Change for Nouse.

"Far away on the World Leaders’ Luxurious Resort island, there is culture of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. The evil is climate change. The island is over overpopulated and set to sink; most leaders are jostling for semi-comfortable places to sit, with Israeli President Shimon Peres refusing to sit next to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas , Kim Jong-il refusing to talk to anyone, Robert Mugabe making a sun-hat out of Zimbabwean dollars, Gordon Brown being pushed into the ocean because he’s taking up too much room, and ever-perfect Barack Obama standing with humility to allow more space. All of them are arguing over how to save the world: Communism! Kim shouts; war with Palestine/Israel! Peres/Abbas shout; Hyperinflation and cholera! Mugabe shouts; Change! Obama shouts, rather cryptically; only our Gordon looks a bit miffed - hadn’t he already saved the world?

No, said scientists in Copenhagen last week. The world is far from saved. There was unanimous agreement that, if things carry on as they are, by 2100 the world’s oceans will rise by roughly one metre. On their own island of academia, the scientists are calling out: “it’s a major change and it actually calls for action”, said Professor Konrad Steffen of the University of Colorado; “we are going to be living in a very different world”, said Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Hadley Centre; “its now clear that there are going to be massive flooding disasters around the globe”, Dr David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey. “The huge response from scientists comes from a sense of urgency, but also a sense of frustration”, said Katherine Richardson, head of the Danish governments commission on climate change. The frustration comes from being marooned on an island - the realm of reason - out of earshot of our leaders’ resort.

Those on more precarious isles are more prone to listen. The seas rise of metre, small it may seem, will potentially leave 600 million people underwater. Burma, Bangladesh and Egypt should all be listening intently. Bangladesh knows what a bit of water can do - 1995 a flood left 500,000 homeless. A metre of sea water will submerge 17% of Bangladesh. The Maldives - home to 385,000 people - would become a series of reefs. “If the world can’t save the Maldives today”, Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed wrote in The Observer, “it might be too late to save London, New York or Hong Kong tomorrow”.

For this reason, Nasheed refuses to play “a reckless game of chicken with Mother Nature”, to “deal with the carbon devil”; Nasheed has hopes to turn the entire of the Maldives carbon neutral within a decade. Electric cars, 155 large wind turbines, half a square kilometre of rooftop solar panels, and biomass planting burning coconut husks is the plan. For a country that has £$316 million in debt and significant portions of population living on little more than a dollar a day, a green revolution will be a costly enterprise. “I admit installing solar panels and wind turbines doesn’t come cheap”, Nasheed wrote, “but when I read those science reports from Copenhagen, I know there is only one choice”.

Apparently, Brown and co can’t hear that choice on their island. Already Brown has pushed Obama over and is telling Mugabe to clear off - our man has a plan. He’s drawing a blueprint in the sand - a means to get off the sinking island. What is it? Pere guesses it’s an airport and Abbas says it’s a stupid guess. Obama confidently - but humbly - offers that is not an airport but a third runway, and brand new coal power station to power it. Brown’s now too busy holding back the tide to nod."

Article on Chocolate for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

2009-04-02T04:47:00.000-07:00

Article on Chocolate for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

"When it comes to chocolate, we’re spoilt for choice. We have Twix, Boounty, Sneakers, Mars, Yorkie, Dairy Milk, Milky Bars, Quality Streets, Celebrations, Revellers, Chocolate Buttons, M&Ms, Lindt, Flake, Nutella, Ferrero Rocher, Ben & Jerry’s, Milky Way, Galaxy, Nestle Crunch, Kinder Eggs, Kinder Bueno, Kit Kats, Millie’s chocolate chip cookies, Wispa Gold, Maltesers, Minstrels, Aero, Terry’s Chocolate Oranges, Jaffa Cakes, Crunchies, Fudge, Magnum, Lion, Smarties, Time Out, Toffee Crisp, Twirl, Wonka bars and many, many more. With Easter two weeks away, the shops are already beginning sell chocolate eggs and chocolate bunnies. But for one Australian mayor, chocolate is a no go.

Clover Moore, mayor of Sydney, has banned Tim Tams and other “cruel” foods from staff meetings. A city councillor told the press, “Council staff told me Tim Tams were banned because eighty per cent of world cocoa production comes from the Ivory Coast, where there are allegations of child labour”. Requests for comment from Ms Moore were declined, but a spokeswoman said: "No particular brand of food or drink has been identified as being off the menu”. Ms Moore is not the only one concerned about the origins of her chocolate. A Swiss labour group has released images of chocolate bunny rabbits crying blood, with the slogan, "child labour is put into Swiss chocolate", to increase awareness about chocolate’s dubious origins.

Roughly forty per cent of the worlds chocolate comes from the unstable state of Côte d'Ivoire - the Ivory Coast. Deep in the jungles and bush land of the conflict plagued state, cocoa is grown in large plantations that leech the environment of it’s natural goodness. The plantations are often worked by children; estimates of the number of children working cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast vary between 100,000 to 500,000. The children who harvest the cocoa are often injured in the process - from machetes and other equipment - or become ill from the fertilisers applied to the crop. Rebels fighting the government continually poach off the cocoa farmers, knowing they isolated and desperate in the jungle.

The system that takes cocoa from jungle plantation to corner shop shelves is waited against the farmer of the Ivory Coast. Middlemen buy the crop from the farmers, haggling for the lowest possible price. The farmers often have little alternative but to agree. The cocoa is taken by the middlemen to storehouses where it is prepared, before being sold on to international suppliers. Cargill, ADM, Barry Callebaut and Nestle control roughly half the global market of chocolate and buy most of the cocoa that is grown in the Ivory Coast. Thanks to the middlemen, these suppliers and their customers - the makers of chocolate brands - can confidently declare they employ no child labour or can take little responsibility for the growing of the cocoa. Legislation in the US has tried to push for more responsibility, but the chocolate industry has missed two of the legislations deadlines on preventing child labour and increasing working conditions on cocoa plantations.

Chocolate‘s “bittersweet economy” (copyright CNN) doesn’t have to threaten “chocolate's sweet image” (copyright SwissInfo). Fair-trade farms have been set up in Ghana, and farmers in Cameroon are creating small, ecologically sustainable farms. Cadbury’s has recently announced it is working to create it’s flagship brand of Dairy Milk and other products with nothing but fair-trade chocolate. If they are successful, fair trade sales from Ghana will triple. What would happen if every other brand followed suit?"

Article on Water for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

2009-04-02T04:42:00.000-07:00

Article on Water for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

"No one would deny water is important stuff. It doesn’t taste great, but H2o makes up 70% of ours earth’s surface, makes up 60% of us and is vital for life. Your brain is 70% water - it is helping you read this very sentence. You can’t survive more than three days without it. It’s home to 97% of all ecosystems. From the banks of the Ganges to the banks of the Nile, from baptisms in the bible belt to Wudu in the Fertile Crescent, water has always been consider sacred. Without water, you wouldn’t have the puppet show Sting-Ray or half a dozen of the James Bond films (no sharks with lasers attached to their heads). But would you be willing to get arrested over it?

Last week, over 26 people were arrested and three people were seriously injured during protests at the World Water Forum (yes, another WWF) in Istanbul. To chants of “water is people, it’s life, it’s not for sale” and “we want to crush this forum that takes our water”, over 300 demonstrators clashed with police outside several venue buildings. Two activists from International Rivers were arrested and deported for unfurling a banner that read “No Risky Dams”.

Even with those pesky activists thwarted by the police, the mood within the Forum was pessimistic. A representative from the World Bank warned that the global financial crisis could set back water utility development by as decade. 900 million people still have no access to drinking water and 2.5 billion people are still deprived of sanitation. Considering the earth’s population is growing at about 80 million new people a year, in a few years the Forum can round the number of thirsty people up to clean billion. “To reach the targets for the UN millennium development goal on sanitation we would need to spend $10bn annually”, David Bull wrote in the Guardian. Apart from hedge fund managers, who has that kind of money to invest in water? Everyone apparently, as it is as much as is spent in Europe on ice cream every year.

All the doom and gloom shouldn’t mislead you into thinking there’s no future for water. In the USA, you can pay £38 for a bottle of Bling H2o; taken from a spring in Tennessee, this Paris Hilton favourite is sold in a bottled encrusted with swarovski crystals and corked like champagne. If you have even more money to burn, a crown topped bottled of Japanesse Fillico water will set you back £150. Finally, for those who are printing their own money, Kona Nigari water - collected 2,000 feet below the surface of the pacific - comes with a price tag of £275 for 750 ml.

Water isn’t just sacred; it’s big business."

Article on Union Elections for Lazy Students.

2009-03-13T10:36:00.000-07:00

Article on Union Elections for Lazy Students.

"Student Politics is a serious business. Students want commitment, experience and innovativeness from their student presidents - failing that, they’ll settle for eye patches and cutlasses. This is why last year the position of Student Union President for the University of York was won by a pirate; he was called Mad Cap’n Scott, donned a ponytail, an eye patch, a flared white shirt and a fluffy yellow chick as a substitute parrot.

He maintained his buccaneer character - ‘’ahoy’s’ and all - throughout his campaign. The Cap’n secured the position - and it’s £10,000+ salary - to a great uproar of anti-Cap’n petitions and talk of no-confidence votes. So this year YUSU elections will be reported in a purely straight-faced, factual manner in an attempt to instil a sense of proper decorum amongst the candidates. The student newspaper is as dour faced as ever, with a special supplement packed with all those serious student politics facts. This is student politics damn it, not a sketch show. Serious stuff.

So what can be learned about the serious candidates from their extensive (read a poster on nearly every window on campus) serious marketing campaigning? With fliers, leaflets, posters, t-shirts, Facebook pages, billboard, sandwich boards and…plain boards, what do the serious candidates’ serious campaigns have to say?Paradigm seems to be all the rage this year. Rhianna Kinchin has used the Kellogg’s Special K font and trademark K to suggest a candidate that is handy with Photoshop and/or is obsessed with low fat breakfasts cereal. Whether Rhianna is edible is undisclosed.

Rory Shanksis another potentially edible candidate, opting for plagiarising the packaging for Kellogg’s pop tarts. Are we to believe Rory has a warm, gooey centre of strawberry paste or that he will be popped into a giant toaster prior to every YUSU meeting? Again, this is undisclosed. However the nutritional pie chart on his flyers tells voters he is high in policies, low in salt. Rory’s arithmetic seem as lacking as his salt content; his flyer outlines 5 policy plans but advertises “8 SOUND POLICIES”. Could the unexplained three policies be cereal/breakfast bar/Kellogg’s/strawberry based? Is a Kellogg’s collation to be formed between Rory and Rhianna? Even more worrying is the flyers declaration that Rory’s net weight is 400g - how can a man the size of a Borrower work a toaster? It is even possible for him to hold one of his own flyers? Time will tell.

George Papadofragakis (so glad this isn’t a podcast) has chosen to create a Wikipedia page to print off as his poster. Campaigning with a website know for its factual inaccuracies and heavy handed opinions (I was once told Chaos is “Your Mum!!!”) is a daring move, especially when the poster declares “The neutrality of this article is disputed” and says “citation needed” after certain facts. George’s Wikipedia page has been now deleted, so any changes made to the article will have to be made with marker pen.

Ed Durkin has decided nothing says perfect candidate for the Democracy and Services position like…erm, Monopoly. Ed’s flyer and poster campaign sees Ed’s face representing the whole of Islington, with the tactical choice of leaving the Jail tile off the board - which begs the question as to whether Mr Durkin has something to hide. Worryingly, one of his policies takes up a “Chance Card” tile; will Ed be relying on a dice and card set up to make executive decisions? Again, time will tell.

Other plagiarisms include Tom Sharp’s ingenious “Fix Up, Vote Sharp!” tagline (Dizzie will turn in his grave when he dies) and Mandi and James ‘I heart NY/MJ’ logo. These raise just as many questions as the other candidates campaigns, but one thing is obvious from the campaigns; the best candidates have learnt from the Mad Cap’n’s madcap success. The political paradigm that one sinks by levity and rises by gravity has been turned on its head; student politics doesn’t have to be dryer than a digestive biscuit holidaying in the Sahara. Politics is too important to let politico’s bore people into disinterest. Take advantage of student’s love of pop tarts. Monopoly themed flyers is barely pushing the boat out. It’s OK to break the suit-and-tie dress code. Cry a-vast once in while. Student politics may be serious, but students sure as hell aren’t."

Article on Syrian Human Rights for Ctrl.Alt.Shift

2009-03-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

Article on Syrian Human Rights for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

"What kind of man is the President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad? He seems softly spoken, likeable, with a sort of nervous laugh. He likes country and western music and feel-good films like the Pursuit of Happyness. He’s well educated; he studied at the University of Damascus and the Western Eye Hospital in London. Embracing everyone from the king of Saudi Arabia to US senator John Kerry, he wants peace and love in the middle east. For over thirty years his family have held positions in the Syrian governmenment; his family is very wealthy; Al-Assad is very powerful. And if you don’t like his power, or his love of country and western music, or anything else about him, you can get the bsat al-Reeh - the “flying carpet”.

Unfortunately for those who have experienced it, the “flying carpet” is not a premium amusement ride at Syria’s number one theme park. It involves tying a detainee to a rectangular wooden plank and stepping on the detainee’s legs, hands and stomachs. To get the proper “flying” sensation you need to be the one doing the standing and not the one being “flown”. If you get air sick, you can try the dulab, the “tire”. A common form of torture, the tire involves placing a car tire around a detainee's legs, ensuring the bottom of the detainee’s feet are exposed. This allows for some old fashioned falqa - beatings on the soles of the feet.

This Al-Assad approved treatment was described in a recent Human Rights Watch report which called for the dissolution of the Syrian State Security Court. The Court is responsible for such acts of torture as the tire and the flying carpet, along with less ingenious forms, like beatings and electrocutions. Thanks to a forty year old state of emergency, the Court is afforded extraordinary powers; it can also prosecute should you insult the president. The HRW report refers to over eight defendants who were imprisoned for insulting the Syrian president. Sixety seven year old Muhamad Walid al-Hussenini made the mistake of insulting al-Assad whilst sitting at a café in Damascus. State Security Forces overheard. Al-Husenini is now serving a three year prison sentence. It seems al-Assad is a thin-skinned soul. How full would England’s prisons be if Gordon Brown were to become this sensitive?

Putting your criticisms of al-Assad into print spares you little. Over a 100 websites that discuss political, social and economic issues are currently blocked in Syria. Google and Facebook have been censored in the past. Ahmed Khalif, a Damascus-based lawyer, recently asked: “What kind of free media institutions do we have if they can be blocked with one stroke of a pen without clear reasons?”. The answer seems grim. The Security Court does not discriminate against either bedroom bloggers or professional journalists; both are equally prone to human right violations. Twenty three year old blogger Tarek Biasi is currently serving a three sentence because he “insulted security services” online; sixty one year old Habib Saleh is currently imprisoned for writing articles that “weakened national feeling”. Reporters Without Borders has labelled Syria as one of the most repressive attitude towards online journalists. Of course, censorship means the issue of repression is shoved in a tire or flies away on a magic carpet, allowing al-Assad to get away with such a remarks as “we do not have such things as political prisoners”.

To his credit, al-Assad admits “we do not say we are perfect”. He is a humble kind of guy really. Just a bit misunderstood - John Kerry likes him, why can‘t everyone else? He likes Dolly Parton and Will Smith, remember? He just wants you to like him - even if it takes a little bit of tough love."

Article about Apthetic Students for CtrlAltShift and Lazy Students.

2009-03-08T18:37:00.000-07:00

Article about Apthetic Students for CtrlAltShift and Lazy Students.

"What does the whine of the aphetic student sound like? “Do we really care?”, they say looking up from Facebook. “A talk on what? Yeah, Gaza. The Croatian Midfielder. What? Oh, the place - yeah, yeah terrible, I think it was on the news”, they continue, slouching into there chair. “Can’t they just share? What about dinner? Ban Ki-who? Isn’t that a Pokemon? Whatever…pub?”

Yes, talking about politics with some student’s is like keeping a sleep-deprived sloth awake. And how this image tars the rest of us; everything, from McCains chips (student newspaper advert - “Students Get Back To Doing Nothing Quickly“) to this blog, gives an ironic wink to the stereotype of the dosser student. As the Independent columnist Mark Steel wrote last week, “the youth of today - they just don’t show no disrespect“. It’s the “quasi-proverbial, and not wholly undeserved, reputation students have cultivated over the years for extreme political apathy”, as Guardian writer Hicham Yezza phrased it. According to Yezza, even the system is against us; “Many universities have now grown to see their task as that of churning out generic, malleable clones for the consumption of ever more regimental recruiters…they view the very act of students engaging with the wider reality of their world as a subversive phenomenon to be nipped in the bud before it infects the rest of the student population”.

No, we don’t have the freak banner of a modern day Hendrix, or the geeks and one-eyed midgets of Dylan. “Change” happened in America and the recent Greek student protests happened in…well, Greece. And there are some apathetic dossers out there: “Do we really care?”, one student commented on a York University newspaper website article that detailed the amount of money uni‘s invest in the arms trade; “Worst front page ever. So incredibly boring”, another student put; “The vast majority either don't care or support it”, one cheerful soul typed on the Campaign Against the Arms Trade York Uni face book group. It seems being a student radical is so 1992.

But positives change happens regardless of negative perceptions. In recent months, over 20 universities were occupied by student activists, demanding action over Gaza and uni arms trade investments. The occupation of Queen Mary’s, University of London, caused the university to withdraw investments in the arms trade and review it’s ethical policy. The School of Oriental and African Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London and Bangor University also have withdrawn investment from arms companies after student pressure.

Of course, sit-ins are one off demonstrations. Nevertheless, at York University at least, there is a healthy political student community. We have model UN, Labour Society, Liberal Democrats Society, Conservative Society, Amnesty International Society, Oxfam Society and Friends of the Earth Society. Then there is all the independent groups like Gig For Gaza and The Campaign Against The Arms Trade. There are regular film showings on everything from The End of Suburbia to The Zionist Story . Both the university newspapers have thriving politics sections, featuring interviews with Nick Clegg, Mozzam Begg, George Galloway and more. There are countless talks, always so popular that everyone from Hilary Benn to The Prince of Jordan enjoys a full house. Oh, and as for the “System”, York’s large Politics Department and the Centre for Applied Human Rights would have something to say about it’s production of “malleable clones”.

Why must the student activist always be on the defence against the stereotypes of the student radical and the student apathetic? We don’t want either Project Mayhem OR two-for-one drink deals. So what does your average politically active student sound like? “Do we really care? Clubbing tomorrow night instead. And, yeah I’ll be going to the talk on Gaza tomorrow, no need to cook, just re-heat some leftover pizza. Send me the link of the Amnesty group over Facebook, I’ll see if I can make the meeting. My essay isn’t due in ‘till next week, so should be fine. Don’t wear a keffiyeh tomorrow, you’ll look like a twat…pub?”."

Article on Guantanamo Bay for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

2009-02-24T04:52:00.000-08:00

Article on Guantanamo Bay for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

"On the blackboard at the front of the lecture hall, the fading chalk smears were hard to miss ; inadvertently the white dust had formed the shape of an eagle with it’s head sunk low - as if in shame. It was a fitting image to start the evening‘s talk. Moazzam Begg, Guantanamo Bay detainee for three years, Omar Deghayes, Guantanamo Bay detainee for five year, and Chris Arendt, Guantanamo guard for over a year, sat at the hall’s conference table in front of hundreds of students. Chris, little older than a grad-student at 24, looked nervous and fidgeted, tracing circles with his fingers on the table’s surface. Chris would have passed for a scrawny punk band reject, with his converse and un-styled Mohawk; certainly not the Ho-Ah jarhead stereotype.

Mozzam began the talk. ““It’s high time the world realises we are living in an age where arbitrary detention, without charge or trial cannot continue”, Mozzam said. He mentioned the serious efforts to reclaim justice - Cage Prisoners, Amnesty, Taxi To The Dark Side. He was erudite and confident, physically short but intellectually towering. His words were backed by President Obama’s recent decisions regarding the world’s most infamous prison. Obama has called for the Guantanamo Bay detention centre to close within a year, torture is to be outlawed and countless CIA ghost prisons are to be closed. There will not longer be the “false choice between our safety and our ideals”, as Obama put it. Ideals will no longer be compromised by fear.

But has the eagle sunk too low? Will it‘s talons always instil fear of “evil folks” and “enemy combatants”? “Don’t be fooled”, Moazzam warned, “don’t think because Guantanamo is gone the detention process, the extraordinary rendition, the denial of haebus corups will some how restored”. And indeed renditions will continue; Obama’s executive order has made it so renditions are no longer allowed to send prisoners to countries “to face torture”. But even the Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman admitted the order needed to be “fleshed out”.
But it is not just the mighty USA that has been bird-brained in it’s efforts to win the war on terror. Moazzam pointed out the follies of the UK government; “The Government wanted (detention without trial) to be 90 days, and that plan failed. So he tried for 56 days, and that failed. Then 42 days, and that failed. So they’ve stopped at 28 days. But at the height of the campaign of IRA, with the attack on Ten Downing street, the rocket attack on the MI5 building, the killing of a member of the royal family, the bombs in Manchester, and Birmingham and Guildford, during all this, the number of days a person could be detained without charge or trial was three”. It sounds like the set up to a bad joke: Why does it take 25 days longer to charge a Islamic extremist than a Irish separatist? If the Government knows the punch line they certainly aren’t delivering it.

Unfortunately, there is nothing funny about the stories of abuse that have shot the USA down from it’s lofty moral perch. Moazzam spoke of his time in detention; he heard the screams of a woman he was lead to believe was his wife - being tortured. Omar’s stories were no less explicit; at Guantanamo he was repeatedly pepper sprayed in the face, had a finger shoved into his eye socket, was deprived of food. Omar’s permanently closed right eye is the physical testimony to his abuse; what at first seemed like a sinister deformation, suddenly appeared to be a solemn look of pain.

Chris’s speech made no pretensions. He simply walked up the chalk board and scrawled one word - “rhetoric”. “That’s what this whole war has bee based on”, he told us. The use of words. “Its words, words like detainee. Torture. Patriotism. Freedom”. These all appeared on the board. Detainee was used “ because prisoner implies they have the rights of a prisoner of war”. Torture, Chris explained, was not what we had been lead to expect; “It’s a lot more insidious than the sensationalist ideas people have” Chris said, before demonstrating a stress position. Even without handcuffs and with years of experience forcing others into the position, Chris found it difficult to demonstrate what looked like the world’s most uncomfortable squat. Had he been a “detainee”, Chris explained, he would have left in the squat for up to 14 hours, with the air conditioning on scolding or freezing. “And they know these things won’t shock you…you’ll hear air conditioning and squat positions and constant movement and say “that’s no big deal””.

Nevertheless, Chris could still accommodate patriotism; “I love jack Kerouac. I love bluegrass. I love rock’n’roll. I love the work my parents have done. I love working class values”. Chris had seen an ugly side of his country - an ugly side that renamed fries in the name of freedom. Mozzam and Omar had to experience the brutality of that ugly side. It did not matter which side they were on, seeing or experiencing, “enemy combatant” or patriot, the guy with the Mohawk or the guy with the beard. They all agreed they had come out of the ugliness as stronger people - strong enough to fight injustice and speak out against terror. The mighty symbol of the USA and it’s rhetoric were just a stains on a chalkboard."

Article on e-waste for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

2009-02-24T04:40:00.000-08:00

Article on e-waste for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

"What would Gordon Brown do if one of Whitechapel’s £200 wide screen, digital, LCD, high definition display televisions broke? Throw it away? Or maybe rip apart the plastic carcass, tear away the circuit boards and Technicolor wires; then expose himself to the toxins in the cathode ray-tube, the mercury in the switch relays; start a fire, and melt the plastic wire coatings, with all it’s dioxins, until - wheezing “waste not, want no”, and with bloodshot eyes - he’s left with 60ps worth of cooper? For the scavengers of Lagos who deal with the UK‘s waste, the first answer leads to the second.

An investigation by Greenpeace, Sky News and The Independent has found that hundreds of thousands of tonnes of the UK’s electronic waste is being exported to landfills around the world. The investigation tracked a television set from a Hampshire tip to a Nigerian landfill in Lagos, where it was broken down by “scavenger children”. Under WEEE (yes, weee) law, all UK electronic waste must be disposed of safely and without damage to the environment; furthermore, all e-waste cannot be exported to developing countries. Technically, companies are obligated to dispose of all the e-waste they have sold as working items; thankfully for retailers, a “Distributor Take Back Scheme” means companies just have to pay a token sum to the government to opt out of the law. This leaves most e-waste at the local landfill, where it can be bought by licensed recyclers. Unfortunately, authorities are finding it difficult spotting the difference between approved, licensed, eco friendly recyclers and two geezers and a white van who’ll buy the lot for a score. Such mismanagement and poor facilities meant local councils dumped over 100,00 tonnes of recyclable waste - paper, plastic and glass, not just e-waste - last year.

Such high levels of waste is a global problem, and it has created a global ‘underclass’ of mixed blessings. From Brazil to India to Egypt, landfills are creating recycling cultures that has people thrive amongst the junk and waste of others. “At first, it was just for fun”, said Pape Ndiaye of his life in the Mbeubeuss landfill in Senegal to a journalist last year. Now, sorting and selling the waste of the landfill is his full time job, along with thousands of others who have built a “community” amongst the waste. In Cario, the Zabaleen people have created an entire way of life by collecting over 4,000 tons of the cities waste a day. The Zabaleen system has won awards, and American researchers have shown that the Zabaleen recycle 85% of other people’s waste into something useful. In Brazil, over 500,000 “rag pickers” salvage the cities waste.

Of course, a “culture” built around waste is still - if you excuse the pun - a dirty business. The future for Nigerian scavenger children is bleak; “a chocking pall of thick smoke hangs over the small mountain of smashed circuit boards, shards of glass and plastic carcasses of televisions…the reek of burning plastic comes from a small fire”. There is nothing Hollywood about a real life Wall-E world. Scavengers who live amongst the world’s garbage face numerous health problems, from kidney failure to damage of reproduction system. But our garbage system isn’t going to salvage itself - waste not, want not…"

Article on MILF for Nouse

2009-02-23T07:50:00.000-08:00

Article on MILF for Nouse.

"How do you feel about MILF love? On the Philippine island of Mindanao, it’s a matter of life or death. After 6 months of sporadic fighting which has displaced over 500,000 people, the Philippine government is resuming talks with the MILF. Thankfully the government is not dealing with an American Pie-meets-Godzilla creation; the MILF - or Moro Islamic Liberation Front for those who don’t like acronyms - is fighting for an autonomous homeland for the Moro Muslim Filipino ethnic group. Such a ‘homeland’ exists, although it’s autonomy is debatable. Full commencement of peace talks are set to resume as soon as the Malaysian led International Monitoring Team is ready. Last August, the government came close to signing a peace deal and increasing the independence of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARM for you acronym junkies), but the MILF refused to meet the governments demands. Then the Supreme Court decided to declare the peace deal unconstitutional, just for good measure.

So with the MILF fighting for it’s ARM and the government preferring constitutionally sound violence to unconstitutional peace, over 500,000 are left to deal with shellshock and swindlers. During the height of MILF/Government fighting The Children's Rehabilitation Centre reported that an increasing number of women and children were suffering from “psychological trauma” . Those who remain in the area are living in a tropical paradise where “deaths are normal occurrences and have become a way of life”, as a member of the Asian Human Rights Commission phrased it. For the farmers of the island “being awakened by gunshots and loud explosions in the middle of the night is comparable to an alarm activated in a clock”.

Those who have left the area face a different kind of threat. Conditions in the Mindanao’s evacuation centre are cramped and often ill-policed, and some families find themselves drifting from centre to centre. Those who move further away are at risk of being tricked into lowly paid work in situations where migrant labour laws occupy a “grey area”.

Unfortuetalty for the those trapped in the “grey area”, Mindanao faces more than just the MILF to restore peace. The militant communist group the New People’s Army and the militant Islamic group Abu Sayyaf are carving out their own insurgencies. It’s little wonder the director of a Philippine tank worries the island “might end up becoming the Darfur of South East Asia”.

Ironically, last week representatives from Sudan visited the area to facilitate talks between the Philippine government and MILF. Diplomats and peace advisers who took part in the Northern Island peace process have also visited the Philippines to discuss negotiations with the countries warring insurgencies. Is MILF love far off? The people of Mindanao can only hope."

Article on Davos for Ctrl.Alt.Shift

2009-02-23T07:47:00.000-08:00

Article on Davos for Ctrl.Alt.Shift, not used.

"“I watched two embarrassed St Bernard dogs pad through the snow yesterday, each with a pink copy of (the financial times) tied under its neck”. An interesting sight from a canine savvy journalist (how can a dog look embarrassed?) reporting from The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The dogs were most probably a publicity stunt from the Financial Times, which has been using billboards to advertise the FT being carried by a mountain rescue dog, thereby implying the FT’s trustworthy credentials and the avalanche sized crisis the world faces. But what is going to be the next casualty of the economic avalanche of greed, bad debt and dodgy management ? And who will the metaphorical St Bernard rescue first?

It looks like it’s too late for Iceland. In November, the country was forced to take out a £8.5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, and several European countries, to keep it’s banking system in good health. The IMF, displaying all the foresight of Mystic Meg with a drink problem, predicted the country would cope well with the economic crisis. Now Iceland’s economy is predicted to shrink by 10%. Last week protests became more and more heated, with Iceland’s police resorting to the use of teargas for the first time in 60 years. In what’s being called the “Household Revolution”, one in ten Icelanders took to the streets to bang pots and pans to protest the government’s handling of the crisis. Prime Minister Geir Haarde decided to call it a day - even though four days before his resignation he said he wasn’t going anywhere until elections in May. So the Government of Iceland has become the first government to fall due to the current crisis. On the plus side, the crisis has ushered in the world’s first openly gay prime minister; Johanna Sigurdardotir was appointed steward prime minister until the next elections. Unfortunately, it seems our St Bernard was too busy pissing up a tree to save Iceland from economic melt down.

“The Brits should take a leaf out of our book and throw out their government!", one Icelandic protester told reporters. The French, however, didn’t even need to be told. Should the St Bernard turn to gay Paris before it starts singing old revolution songs ? Too late again, it seems. The “Black Thursday” protests saw over a million French workers strike and thousands rolled out the old cliché of taking to the streets and burning…well, anything really. And as usual, numbers were argued: mains unions estimated 380,000 marched through the Paris, while the Interior Ministry estimated 65,000. Either way, the Sarkozy government was keen to play down the movement; “by no means exceptional”, was how the Cabinet Minister described the day of protests. Indeed, in France not even a decapitated monarch counts as exceptional.

So our St Bernard sleeps on. Surely the snow melting beneath it’s paws will rouse it to action? For The World Economic Forum has reported that it will cost the world $10 trillion from now until 2030 in order to save the planet from global warming. And then there is the small matter of the $65 million needed by the UN to feed Zimbabwe’s starving 7 million people. That is, if there is any money left after the £283 billion bank-bailout by France, or the £500 billion bank-bailout by the UK, or $700 billion bank-bailout by the US, and so and so forth until we all become sick of the letter B. Would these be the same banks run by men who pocketed just over £1 billion as the credit crisis began to boil over? Put such questions to one side, our St Bernard is awake. What’s that boy? Bankers in trouble? Down the ol’ finical black hole? Lead on, St Bernie, Lead on!"

Article on Tamil Tigers for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

2009-01-30T14:07:00.001-08:00

Article on Tamil Tigers for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

"While in the West Obama wraps up the War on Terror (Is it over? Did we win?), Sri Lanka is set to end its own battle with terrorism. As with George W. Bush, the Sri Lankan authorities have not let morals, ideals or standards stand in the way of dealing with evil folk; “If there is a terrorist group, why can't you do anything? It's not against a community... I'm talking about terrorists. Anything is fair” - so said Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary, Gothabaya Rajapaksa, two years a ago. It seems the Sri Lankan government is failing to do anything but ensure they completely wipe out The Tamil Tigers. They have the militant separatist group surrounded in an area smaller than the city of York, shelling the handful of terrorists and the 250,000 civilians stuck in the region. So far the shelling has killed over 100 civilians, and injured hundreds more.

Despite having a name like a kick-ass American Football team, The Tamil Tigers certainly qualify for “evil folk” status. In 25 years of war against the internationally recognised Sri Lankan government, The Tamils have (in no particular order) blown up civilian buses, recruited children as soldiers, conscripted civilians into military service, blocked civilian movement and blown up voting stations. The Tigers’ fight has been for an independent Tamil state, called Tamil Eelam, where Tamil’s may have their human rights abused by fellow Tamil, instead of being abused by the Sinhalese ethnic majority. The Tigers have violated the human rights of the people they fight for to…er, protect the human rights of the people they fight for.

With recent military action making The Tigers look more like kittens, the government of Sri Lanka is patting itself on the back as The Tiger’s await their coup de grace. Unfortunately, the government is not willing to let anyone spoil their good mood, and countless civilians are finding themselves coup de grace collateral. The recent military campaign against Tamil territory has left over 300,000 people displaced, by UN estimate, although the UN is having a hard time counting since all UN and other humanitarian staff were kicked out by the Sri Lankan government in September 2008. The government declared they “will refuse to treat as relief workers (those) who still remain in the [Vanni]”— “a chilling warning to humanitarian workers”, Human Rights Watch noted, “in a country where at least 29 aid workers have been killed since 2006”. Not that the government has appeared to care about the murders, with no significant inquiries and with Defence Secretary Rajapaksa making statements like this in November: “if I can, I will ban all NGOs [from] coming to Sri Lanka, and also turn back those [who are] already here. None of these NGOs have done anything for the northern people…”.

Without independent humanitarian aid, the displaced people of Sri Lanka are forced into what the government has dubbed “welfare centres”. Dole offices these centres are not. Guarded by police officers and soldiers, the centres have being described as “just badly disguised prisons”. Detainees movements are severely restricted, and anyone wishing to leave the camp must leave a family member behind as a “guarantor” for a swift return. Government officials have confirmed tens of thousands of people are being held in these “centres”, suffering from poor sheltering and sanitation and without any idea of when they will be released. .

Not that it’s easy or advisable to even discuss the centres’ lacklustre hygiene standards. Independent international reporters are all but banned from entering certain areas of Sri Lanka, and the countries own media is gripped with fear. Last week a national newspaper editor and government critic, Lasantha Wickrematunge, penned an editorial predicting his assassination by the government - then promptly died in a mysterious drive-by attack. Wickrematunge is just the latest victim in a series of attacks on the free press of Sri Lanka. Human Rights Watch is campaigning for the release of J.S. Tissainayagam whose detention since March 2008 has been described as “politically motivated” and has “involved a litany of due process violations”. The situation is so dire for journalists even Sri Lankan electro diva M.I.A has spoken out: “in my country you get killed if you report anything the government does to you!”, she opined on her blog.

"Even when fighting a ruthless terrorist group like the LTTE, the Government must not be seen as using the same tactics as a terror group”, Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera stated in 2006. It seems Samaraweera needs to get with the times; “anything is fair”. "

Article on Heathrow Runway Number 3 for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

2009-01-30T14:03:00.000-08:00

Article on Heathrow Runway Number 3 for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

"Progress! Growth! Development! Beautiful music to the ears of politicians, who treat a downturn like someone farting in the middle of Beethoven’s Fifth. And in time with their favourite tune, Heathrow Runway Number Three is good to go. The government has backed BAA, the Spanish owners of the English airport, in it’s mission to build a third runway - a fitting number for the third busiest airport in the world. As The Daily Telegraph argued, Heathrow’s status as a “"global" airport will be undermined if it is not able to expand”. So expand Heathrow shall, with a price tag of £8 billion and increased noise & air pollution and the destruction of the town of Sipson.

Sipson is no Hong Kong or New York or Paris. It’s an English village, with several pubs and over 700 homes. The government has done the maths; 700 people who stand to lose “everything”, as one landlord said, or 350 extra flights a day at Heathrow? After two days at the new runway, the entire population of Sipson could be sent to Timbuktu, a convenient solution for an inconvenient population. The government has taken poet John Betjamin’s words at face value: “Leave no old village standing, which could provide a landing, For aeroplanes to roar”.

Although airplanes are not the only things which are roaring. Activists and Green-campaigners are speaking out. This Monday saw “Climate Rush”, a 500 strong protest, with activists arriving at Heathrow in Edwardian dress - referencing the suffragette movement - to have a picnic, with a string quartet, performance artists, art installations and a giant conga line around the departure lounge. Activist group Greenpeace have bought an acre sized field right in the middle of the proposed runway site to complicate development. The land is to be sold in small segments to as many as 4,000 people, thereby slowing down any Compulsory Purchase Orders the government may issue to regain the land. Actor Emma Thompson, comedian Alistair McGowan, Conservative party green adviser Zac Goldsmith all pledged their support to the Greenpeace plan.

“Sticking two fingers up to the environment”, was how Mr McGowan describe the decision. “Laughably hypocritical” was how Ms Thompson labelled the government’s decision. A “global embarrassment” was how the World Development Movement charity saw it. How can the government cut 80% Britain’s carbon emissions by 2050 when it will drastically increase the number of flights? The government’s ecological record already seems more like a dirty yellow than a vibrant green; a Whitehall watchdog report has warned that the government could resort to dumping rubbish meant for recycling because is not providing enough recycling facilities; in Europe, countries are setting solar energy mandates, with Germany installing over one million solar powered systems - the UK has roughly 20,000 installed systems.

But the Heathrow plans are not set in stone just yet. The Conservatives have pledged to scrap the runway. The people of Sipson are unlikely to gracefully hand over their house keys to airport authorities. Plane Stupid has promised to fight the development. The No Third Runway Action Group said “We intend to take on this industry and go to the courts and the EU…this is not the end…it is simply the end of the beginning”. Greenpeace has labelled the village of Sipson “the battle field of our generation”. "

Article on Israel-Palestine.

2009-01-15T09:41:00.000-08:00

Article on Israel-Palestine.

"Israel-Palestine New Year’s Resolution: Must be nicer to the neighbours…
“The timing was perfect. No one was there. Obama was in Hawaii. Bush was in Texas. Condoleezza Rice was away. It was a twilight zone”. So said Uri Dromi, former Israeli government press adviser, to The Guardian last week. With the timing perfect, Israel launched countless aerial and artillery bombardments at the Gaza strip, in the hope of stopping rocket attacks that have been coming from the region. But with the Israeli bombardments proving as useful as a shit flavoured Tic-Tac, the Israeli government has decided a more humane approach is needed - ie human shaped fighting machines. So with soldiers and tanks “pouring” over Gaza’s borders (“pouring” being the newspaper’s favourite way of saying “invading”), will they find those pesky rocket launchers?

Well, they will find Dromi’s assertion that “no one” is in Palestine to be a bit misleading. The 400 plus Palestinian’s blown to pieces by Israeli AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles would probably agree. Indeed, with over 4,000 people per square kilometre, Palestine is far from empty. In such a densely populated area, many civilian structures have been destroyed: the Interior Ministry has been damaged, the Islamic University in Gaza has been “crushed by bombs”, and the Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq Mosque has been levelled. Even a bus station has been targeted. Is Israel hunting pesky rocket launching buses as well? Time will tell.

Unfortunately for Israel, such bus-hatred and other war faux-pas have caused outrage across the world. Over ten thousand pro-Palestine protestors marched through the streets of London, cries of “Shame on you, have my shoe” echoed down Downing Street as hundreds of shoes were thrown Number Ten. Tens of thousands marched across the world in condemnation of Israel’s “defence” strategy, with firelighter and Israeli flags being joined in clichéd, redundant matrimony .Hundreds protested in Istanbul. 7,000 protested in Berlin. 21,000 demonstrators marched throughout Paris.

Of course, Hamas should take some of the metaphorical flak, even if taking it literally is denounced. The rockets fired by the Islamic militant group may be imprecise - over 3000 fired in the last seven years, bellow 100 dead - but they are still packed with TNT. The Human Rights Watch has condemned them as breaking “international humanitarian law prohibition on indiscriminate attacks”; they are so indiscriminate that one killed two Palestinian school girls when it feel short of it’s target. Despite being so inaccurate they can’t even hit the right country and so hated by Israelis they are willing to invade Gaza to destroy them, the Qassam rockets continue their one-way, short-haul flights from Gaza to Israel.

This begs the question; why? Why the flying tubes of TNT, why, as a spokesman for Hamas put it, “no sympathy for the enemy”? Could it be Israel’s blockade of Gaza, which Desmond Tutu called an “abominable” siege? The fact that Israel has banned foreign journalists from Gaza? The fact three-quarters of Gaza's residents rely on some form of food aid that is increasingly cut off? Then there is the why behind the blockade; could it be the rocket attacks; the threats made by Hamas; the Palestinian suicide bombers? “The media is full of prattle about the morality of the war”, Israeli journalist Jonathan Geffen put it recently- “have we not learned that every war, no matter how justified, is a crime against humanity?”

Article on famine for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

2009-01-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

Article on famine for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

“There is a view that people want comfort food in these difficult times. It is a business which hinges on people on saying ‘I can’t be bothered to cook, I’ll treat myself’, and that is probably even more the case at these times”. This is how Chris Moore, the chief executive of Domino’s Pizza, has explained the rising share prices of his company . At the moment there is still the ‘luxury’ of Domino’s Pizzas not-so-thrifty choices; should we choose the “Might Meat” pizza - “pepperoni, ham, tasty ground beef, sausage, completed with onions, mushrooms and mozzarella cheese” - or the “Full House” pizza - “onions, green peppers, pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, ground beef, ham, sweetcorn, pineapple” - or the more humble “Extravaganza“ feast - “Loads of pepperoni, ham, savoury Italian sausage, beef, fresh onions, fresh green peppers, fresh mushrooms and black olives with extra cheese”? Maybe we should choose the more ironic option, the “Sizzler”: for as economists and politicians try to cook the books to keep the economy from boiling over, global warming is predicated to cook our planet by 2100.

Scientists from Washington University and Stanford University have predicted our
grandchildren will not enjoy the same feasts of “extravaganza” we consume. By 2100, global warming, amongst other global issues, will mean half the world will be lucky to get any food at all. The average temperature of the tropics is set to soar to record breaking temperatures, destroying local food production capabilities. Harvests of staple food crops such as rice and maize could fall by 20% and 40%. Rice Crispies will disappear from the shelves. The “Full House” will be missing an ingredient. Millions will go hungry while the western world weeps for Snap, Crackle and Pop .

Not that food shortages are a distant problem confined to our grandchildren’s ever increasing list of worries. While the US bemoans McDonald’s double cheeseburger rising to $1.19 - destroying the principal of the Dollar Menu! - Zimbabwe worries about the 5 million people who may need international food assistance during the year. The World Food Program is already feeding over a million people in the country. Creative Zimbabwean army commanders have looked at the countries abundance of starving soldiers and the countries abundance of elephants and ordained a new Zimbabwean military ration meal - no prizes for guessing it’s meaty ingredient. Could elephant meat replace sweetcorn on the Domino’s “Full House”? Time will tell. While Zimbabweans resort to such measures because of Mugabe’s incompetence, Kenya faces 10 million starving people due to droughts. Kenya’s government is set to declare a state of emergency and import five million bags of maize and take other emergency measures.

The scientists’ report predicts only the weather; human nature remains unpredictable. Will last year’s food riots in Haiti and Bangladesh be precursors for what is set to come? Will we curtail carbon emissions in time to halt global warming? Will we genetically engineer new food to survive blistering temperatures? Will our grandchildren be eating the “Elephant Extravaganza” in 2100? Will mass famine put us off our comfort food?"

Article on Mexican drug gangs for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

2009-01-15T09:22:00.000-08:00

Article on Mexican drug gangs for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

"A police checkpoint on a Mexican highway. Two black SUVs are searched. The police get something of a shock; inside the two SUVs are 2 AR-15 assault rifles, three pistols, nine ammunition clips, more than 600 rounds of ammunition of different calibers, 16 cell phones and about $5,000 in cash. Oh, and Laura Elena Zuñiga Huizar, a Mexican beauty queen who has been crowned Miss Sinaloa, Miss Hispanoamericana and came third in a Miss Mexico contest. Miss Huizar explains to officers she planned to go “shopping”. The set up to the latest Robert Rodriguez film, surely? The deluded fantasy of one bored Mexican cop maybe? The starting point for a bizarre Mexican soap opera perhaps? Mexico wishes. This is no Antonio Banderasor or Salma Hayek romp. In the country’s war against drugs, anything is possible.

Laura Huizar is just one of countless Mexicans to be caught up in the countries drug trade. She has now lost her Miss Hispanoamericana crown and there is an investigation into whether her drug-lord boyfriend influenced her winning the Miss Sinaloa contest. This is hardly the biggest shock for the people of the state of Sinaloa; 3,000 people have been killed due to drug related violence this year; there are three drug related murders a day.

Despite the violence, drug dealers continue to inspire respect through fear and their indifference to the law. One drug-lord, know as El Chapo, is reported to have publicly married a beauty queen named Emma, 35 years his junior. Rumours abound that even the government dare not touch him. There is even a genre of popular songs, known as narcocorridos, which glorify the feats of the great drug lord and his rivals.

The government appears to be powerless to stop the violence. This year, the ex-head of Mexico’s anti-organised crime agency was arrested for allegedly accepting £304,000 from drug cartels. When Mexico sent hundred of police officers to the border town of Tijuana, operations did not go according to plan; within days videos emerged of officers taking bribes and extorting US and Mexican tourists. “There is barely a Mexican police officer along the U.S. border who isn't involved in the drug trade. Even if you try to resist, your superiors pressure you into it or sideline you," a former mid-level Tijuana policeman told The Boston Globe. Even a presidential guard was charged with taking bribes from a drug cartel, it emerged earlier this month. And even the independent experts are being outclassed by the cartels; Felix Batista, an anti-kidnapping expert, was kidnapped just before he was about to give a talk on anti-kidnapping techniques. Corporate security experts estimate that drug gangs are now responsible for 30 to 50 kidnappings a day.

With the government unable to contain the situation, the public are left to condemn crime in their own way. In August of this year, more than 150,000 marched throughout Mexico and kept a candle-lit vigil to protest against rising crime. “The most frustrating thing has been the indolence of many of the authorities, their insensitivity", one protester told the BBC. People are increasingly worried vigilantism could sweep the country, causing riots like those seen in 2004, when two undercover police offers were mistaken for kidnappers and burned alive by a mob.

Chaos is becoming routine. Drive-bys, in broad daylight, are common; earlier this year, a man who was killed in his car in front of a busy mall, before his assailants doubled back through traffic to shoot his pregnant wife in the head at point blank range. Four days before Christmas, nine men were found decapitated, their heads displayed outside a shopping mall. With such violence, it is little wonder a Mexican beauty queen needs a small armoury to go shopping. "

End of year round up for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

2009-01-15T09:19:00.000-08:00

End of year round up for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

"January got off to a good start. An “historic” peace pact was signed in Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo by the government and armed groups, after fighting lead to over half a million people being displaced. In the middle-east, a breach of the Gaza-Egypt blockade lead to tens of thousands of people to rush into Egypt to buy much needed supplies as the humanitarian crisis worsened in Gaza. "We feel a little more free today. It's a good thing for the Gazans to be able to breathe," one Palestinian said.

February said sorry. Kevin Rudd, the new prime minister of Australia, formerly apologised for Australia’s Stolen Gneration, in front of the Australian parliament and television cameras. The Stolen Generation has been a difficult issue for Australians to address; between the late 1860s and 1969, over 100,000 Aborigine and “half caste” children were taken from their families by the State and placed in institutions. The government claimed to be protecting the children from abandonment, but it is believed white supremacy and eugenics influenced the government’s policies.

March voted. Bhutan, home to “Gross National Happiness” and eight happiest place in the world, went from being a country ruled by a monarchy, to a country ruled by an elected government - the first government in the countries history. 28 year old King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, the world’s youngest monarch, oversaw an election. "The people really have made the decision”, said a member of DPT party, which won the election. March also ran. At high speeds. Usually away from angry protestors. The 2008 Bejing Olympic torch relay started in Greece, with pro-Tibetans giving it a fiery send off.

April was hungry. Really hungry. Rising food prices and food shortages lead to riots across the globe- from Sengal to Yemen to . Latin American members of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization met to discuss the extreme situation facing some parts of the continent as Brazil banned the export of rice. In Haiti, Prime Minister Jacques-Édouard Alexis was dismissed after failing to respond to food riots that left five people dead across the country. And April carried on running. The Olympic torch relay saw large scale pro-Tibetan, anti-China protests when it arrived in England; who could forget Konnie Huq getting an up-close-and-personal meeting with one determined demonstrator? The torch’s “robotic” guard, from the China’s Peoples Armed Police, were particularly derided.

May united. The Union of South American Nations was signed into being, uniting the entire South American continent into a European Union styled entity. The union hopes to strengthen the countries of South America by allowing a freer movement of people between countries - through better road systems and more stream lined beaurocracy - and a greater trading of natural resources.

June felt cheated. After nearly thirty years of Mugabe’s rule, Zimbabwe thought it had a chance to see the back of the dictator. But after a tense election campaign, with Mugabe doing his best- ie, torturing, imprisoning and intimidating - to be re-elected, it looked like Morgan Tsvangirai would be the new leader of Zimbabwe. Then the election results, which declared Tsvangirai the victor, were declared meaningless, and the second round of elections saw Mugabe as the undisputed heavy weight goon of Zimbabwe once more. Desmond Tutu was moved to say there was "a very good argument" for sending "an international force to restore peace" to Zimbabwe.
July had a meeting. A big meeting. The 34th G8 summit in Japan saw world leaders gather to discuss the world food crisis, whilst enjoying a six-course lunch followed by an eight-course dinner provided by over fifty chiefs. Meanwhile, in the month before the summit started, “over 40 people were arrested in pre-emptive sweeps of broad left and anarchist groups”, according to Indymedia.

August turned cold. Flashbacks of the Cold War troubled the world’s psyche as Russia proved it could still kick East European arse. The South Ossetia war claimed the lives of thousands of citizens, plunging Georgia and South Ossetia into chaos. After the conflict, Amnesty International published a report claiming both Georgia and Russia had conducted serious international law violations during the war.

September was in a state of emergency. The government of Thailand declared a state of emergency after pro-royalist protestors seized Government House grounds. Violence erupted, leaving 43 people injured and one person dead. The act issued bans on the gathering or assemblage of more than five persons within Bangkok Metropolis. In South Africa, president Thabo Mbeki was removed from power after inferences were made that suggested Mbeki influenced the outcome of a corruption case against a political rival. In USA, the bulls came home; after years of bull markets and easy credit, the Credit Crunch earned it’s capital letters when finance firm Lehman Brothers claimed bankruptcy, the largest every bankruptcy case in US history.

October took to the high seas. In late September, Somalian pirates captured a Ukraine cargo ship carrying heavy weapons and 33 tanks; the hijacking lead to increased scrutiny of Somalian waters, which lead to the vital shipping route of the Suez Canal. Over the year there have been 39 successful hijackings, with pirates receiving over $150 million in ransoms. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that urged all nations with military vessels in the area to help combat piracy.

November was hopeful. November brought change. Barak Obama was chosen as the 44th president of the USA, after a presidential campaign that seemed eternal and omnipresent. Obama will become the first African-American president of the USA, and will be a Democratic president - say goodbye to the neo-conservatism that brought us such catastrophes as Iraq, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay and George W. Bush. Unfortunately, November was also frightening. Terrorism struck India, with the city of Mumbai coming under several attacks that claimed the lives of 195 people, and injured at least 250 people. Meanwhile in Nigeria, riots between Christians and Muslims left over 400 people injured and 381 people killed.

December hasn’t been great. Riots in Greece. Invasions in Gaza. 200 people dead after a militia raid in Congo. Happy New Year…"

Article for Ctrl.Alt.Shift on Zimbabwe

2008-12-11T09:41:00.001-08:00

Article for Ctrl.Alt.Shift on the crisis in Zimbabwe.

"Is Zimbabwe “in danger of becoming a failed state”, as the BBC pondered earlier this year? Is it close to collapse, as Koffi Anan fears? How is it fulfilling to it’s motto of “unity, freedom, work”? Well, there is no unity; Morgan Tsvangiri and Robert Mugabe continue to argue over the cabinet positions of the Zimbabwe government. Work has become pointless; 80% of the population is unemployed, and those who do work face hyperinflation of 231,000,000% - a 100 million Zimbabwean dollar was issue on the 4th December, only to have a 200 million Zimbabwean dollar issued on the 6th. Last month you needed 13 Quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars to get one US dollar.

All Zimbabwe is free to do is suffer. “It’s like living in Hell…” one Zimbabwean told The Times. What is it like living in Hell? Zimbabwean farmer Ben Freeth told The Times of the plight facing Zimbabweans; women have scolding-hot sticks thrust into their mouths for refusing to sing pro-Mugabe songs, people are forced to eat anthrax-infected cattle, mango orchards are enclosed in barbed wire, and even the police beg for food. “Civilization in reverse“, was Freeth‘s description. Raw sewage flows through golf course water features and doctors sell bootleg CDs to buy necessities. As the nation’s infrastructure collapses, Zimbabwe’s Health Minister has urged people to stop shaking hands to curb the spread of cholera.

Why is the health minister offering such advice? In a country where 80% of the population lives on less than dollar a day, and it costs US$2.3 to see a doctor, it’s the best advice to give. Corruption and mismanagement has lead to the countries cholera epidemic. The World Health Organisation has said close to 14,000 cases of the disease have now been reported. 589 people have already died from the disease. Zimbabwe’s central hospitals have been in decline for years, and Harare Central hospital closed last month as the capital city had it’s water supply cut off. It has become standard practise for doctors to send patients to private clinics they know the paitent can’t afford. Meanwhile NGO funds have been effectively frozen in the country’s Reserve Bank, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has accused the government of misusing $7.3 million donated to fight disease.

Mugabe’s government continues to make bizarre decisions as Zimbabwe falls to pieces. Just as the country needs astute, experienced help, Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary-general, Jimmy Carter, the American ex-president, and Graca Machel, Nelson Mandela's wife, were denied Visas to visit the country. In October, a government representative voted against regulation of the arms trade - a proposal opposed only by Zimbabwe and the USA.

The enormity of the situation in Zimbabwe has lead to widespread condemnation of Robert Mugabe. One diplomat accused Mugabe’s regime of “criminal and politically driven neglect”. The Archbishop of York has said “the winds of change…have become a hurricane of destruction…the time has come for Mugabe to answer for his crimes against humanity. Gordon Brown has stated "enough is enough". It has even given David Cameron great political ammunition; he described the recent arrest of Damian Green as “like Mugabe’s Zimbabwe”, although The Right Honourable Green seems well fed and cholera free.

Yet Mugabe, a president who is more a circling-vulture than a lame-duck, remains in the seat of power. His regime has done all but piss over his countries motto and he serves as nothing more than a symbol of the international communities failings. Mugabe’s failed idea of “Unity, Freedom and Work” would almost be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic."

Article on Arms Trade for Ctrl.Alt.Shift

2008-12-11T09:35:00.000-08:00

Article for Ctrl.Alt.Shift

"In a packed room, hundred of students listen to the Prince of Jordan speak of peace. At the University Of York, Prince Hassan spoke of the middle east, the “futile crescent”, the “centre of mayhem”. His points are grim - for every $1 spent on conflict prevention, $1,885 is spent on weapons in the region. He worries about the future. Students, members of Amnesty and Oxfam, People and Planet and The Model United Nations, listen intently and nod when he speaks of peace, shake their heads when he speaks of violence. Yet as his words reverberate around the room, we all become hypocrites, and his opinions become part of the university’s doublethink.

York University may well be very proud of it’s Post-War Reconstruction and Development Unit, the department that is hosting the Prince’s speech. The PRDU has “influenced…integrity and anti-corruption throughout the world”, the website proudly declares. But the university is not so proud of it’s relentless pursuit of money, which has lead it to be the 6th largest University investor in the arms trade. The university has shares worth £997,342 invested in BAE Systems, the world’s third largest defence company currently (dogged by allegations of corruption in Saudi Arabia and South Africa), and Rolls-Royce, the 16th largest global arms company. When the prince points out the money invested in weapons, he doesn’t know how ironic his words are.
But as the British government spends hundreds of billions of pounds on an ID card scheme, two wars and bank bailout, the University system struggles for funding. According to many, the UK University funding crisis risks UK's reputation. Even Oxford - with it’s St John’s college investing £2,203,611 in the arms trade - appealed this year for £1.25 billion in funds.

In the current climate, money, not ethics, is what should be on the students mind. What is “The most critical feature of any student account” according to the Independent? “The level of the interest-free overdraft“, of course. “Debt is the real university challenge” The Guardian says, before suggesting the Halifax's £3,000 interest-free overdraft and Royal Bank of Scotland limit of £2,750. The fact that both banks have given loans to companies that invest in Uranium depleted munitions is unimportant. Funnily enough Prince Hassan mentions uranium depleted weapons; “The second largest export from Iraq is scrap metal,” Prince Hassan says, “Our children are dying as we speak; from eating out of cooking pots that are uranium depleted; from climbing on climbing frames that are uranium depleted. You can say we need to take the necessary steps, but tell that to the sticky-fingered”.

And the sticky fingered have deemed it “economically sensible” for a university to invest in the arms trade. Last year the Guardian reported “arms maker BAE Systems…delivered sharply higher profits helped by what it called the "high tempo" of British and American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan”. “We have a great business plan for the next five years”, the chief executive said. That is, assuming people carry on wanting to kill each other.

Thankfully, some students are outraged. On the student newspaper website, the university was labelled “despicable”, “a disgrace”, “disgusting” and part of “crimes against humanity”. “It’s despicable and unethical that an educational institution would make money from war,” said People and Planet Chair Robyn Heather. Other Universities, like Other Universities, like the School of Oriental and African Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London and Bangor University have withdrawn investment from arms companies after student pressure.

But there are those who just don’t care. “Do we really care?” One student commented on the student newspaper website. “Worst front page ever. So incredibly boring” another put. That’s what the university relies on - the people who don’t care. It trumpets the passionate but needs the apathetic; the students who don’t think it’s weird to stock A Farewell to Arms, 1984 and Slaughter House 5 in a library built on receipts for bombs and bullets; the students who don’t question being taught to repair countries broken by weapons their studies have created. When Prince Hassan says “We are our own worst enemies when it comes to recognising the public good”, he doesn’t know how right he is."

Article on AIDs for CtrlAltShift

2008-12-07T15:52:00.000-08:00

Article on Aids for CtrlAltShift. (edited)

"How do you fight the human skulls, bleeding syringes and coffins, finger pointing, sickly faces and fearful looks of HIV? How do you help someone suffering from the “extraordinary” virus? If your Thabo Mbeki, you make it ordinary; tell people HIV is caused by poverty, bad nourishment and general ill health, and that they shouldn’t take expensive Western medicine - not matter how live saving it has proved to be. Of course, Mbeki is accused of 330,000 “needless” deaths by a Harvard research team and a leading South African Aids activist. Ignoring mainstream medicine isn’t going to win you any awards from the international community.

So what‘s a world leader to do? Last week, The World Health Organisation suggested that an annual, compulsory mass-testing scheme should be set up in the most hard hit areas, like the sub-Sahara. The WHO scientists who raised the proposition also suggested compulsory and immediate antiretroviral treatment for all people found to have HIV. They claim in Sub-Saharan Africa this scheme would mean “the proportion of people with HIV would run to under 1% in less than 50 years”. The Indonesian government is set to go a step further. Next month, an Indonesian parliament will vote on a scheme that proposes to tag, using microchips, “sexually aggressive” people with HIV. “The health situation is extraordinary, so we have to take extraordinary action”, one MP claimed.

The health situation regarding HIV is indeed extraordinary. Across the world over 30 million living with HIV. Yet even more extraordinary is the stigma and ignorance that surrounds these 30 million people, a global under-class vulnerable to fear and prejudice. In 2005, A UN report found that in India nearly 20% of surveyed pregnant women suffering from HIV were effectively bullied into having an abortion. In Somalia, you risk your own life just by diagnosing HIV; ''If we tell someone that they are HIV positive, they might take revenge," Josef Prior Tio, general coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, told The Boston Globe last year. Revenge is common, it is reported.

Even government intervention can lead to stigma, rather than eliminate it. The same UN report states “The legal framework of the English-speaking Caribbean actually perpetuates stigma and discrimination against some high risk groups”. In Vietnam, “human skulls, bleeding syringes, and coffins…and sickly faces” is how HIV is portrayed by the government and the media. 58 countries worldwide have laws that criminalize HIV or use existing laws to prosecute people for transmitting the virus. Another 33 countries are considering similar legislation. In Benin, simply exposing others to HIV is a crime, even if transmission doesn't occur.

There is no way of predicting how mandatory tests and treatment will diminish stigma. Even in Brazil, where antiretroviral therapy is universally available, many HIV-positive children and youth still face significant stigma. How would mandatory testing and treatment be enforced in some of the world‘s poorest countries? How can the WHO temper fear and stigma when it resorts to methods that are “extremely radical”, according to Imperial College London. As for microchipping , “it will increase stigma and promote a feeling of complacency”, according to the associate director of The International HIV/Aids Alliance. The WHO could be seen as stern but fair nurse to Aid sufferers, tying them to apron strings for their own good; it could also be seen as a mad doctor with a bloody syringe in one hand and a pair of shackles in the other. Totalitarianism or benign control, either way human rights are to be buried in a coffin branded with H - I - V."

Buy Nothing Day Article for Nouse

2008-12-07T15:47:00.000-08:00

Buy Nothing Day Article for Nouse.

"Should shopping be a patriotic duty?” the BBC asks. If so, I’m going to be one of the first traitors against the wall. I’m in Hoxton, clad in white, trying to look - as director for the day Neil Boorman puts it - “average”. I stare blankly into the camera and try my best to represent “you” - consuming, wasting, spending and splurging. I’m the “good consumer”, and now is certainly a good time to be a consumer. Retailers, economists, politicians and business men are repeating the mantra “consumer confidence” in the hope it will awaken some holy cash-cow of shopping. The government is tweaking everything from VAT to interest rates to get money flowing in and out of consumer pockets. Tesco understands we “might be feeling the pinch” so it’s slashing it’s prices; everywhere else is promising discounts that will beat or bust the “credit crunch”. Shops that aren’t offering huge recession busting sales are offering everything-must-go closing-down sales. And in a month the streets will run red with debt as the novelty, buy-one-get-one-free, fun-for-all-the-family, buy-now-pay-later, gift-wrapped season that is Christmas reaches it‘s materialistic climax. Yet I’m in a grotty studio making a positively anti-consumerist advert for Buy Nothing Day. At this point in time, is such an idea “economic heresy”?

Grown out of frustration at insipid advertising and the cost of living advertised lifestyles, Buy Nothing Day was started in 1992 by artist Ted Dave. Fight Club put the frustration into words; “You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis”. With the popularity of Namoi Klien’s anti-consumerist polemic “No Logo”, Kalle Lasn’s Adbusters magazine and the “green” agenda, the idea began to spread from Canada to over 65 countries around the world. The simple idea of not buying anything grew as an idea as well. Adbusters’ 1996 press release declared it “isn't just about changing your habits for one day" but "about starting a lasting lifestyle commitment to consuming less and producing less waste”. Adbusters even risks some hyperbole; “ There’s only one way to avoid the collapse of this human experiment of ours on Planet Earth: we have to consume less”. For journalist Neil Boorman, who wrote a book detailing his attempt to live an unbranded life and who has made a spoof advert for the day featuring yours truly, the day is a time of reflection; “Buy Nothing Day gives us all the opportunity to take a break from consumerism. Not spending any money for 24 hours, you start to realise just how reliant we have become on the shops, how entrenched consumerism has become in our culture. But it doesn't have to be an ordeal - it can be a release. You're not stopping shopping - you're starting living”.

Although you don’t have to do anything for Buy Nothing Day, there is plenty to get involved with. A tradition of mass demonstrations has been established: in 1999, thousands of activists took over Times Square for a dance party; several years ago adbusting group Space Hi-Jackers walked around department stores in London wearing t-shirts emblazoned with “Everything Is Half Price”; this year, Space Hi-Jackers is co-ordinating a “swap shop” event outside Top Shop. Adbusters recommends a mass credit-card cut up in public or a “Whirl Mart” - a long, inexplicable conga line of shopping trolleys. There is even a free Buy Nothing Day album, a compilation of songs submitted to Ted Dave.

Some people are happy to just preach the message in a more direct fashion. Heralding the forthcoming “shopocalypse” , Revered Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping regularly take to the streets to ask “What would Jesus buy?”. This year they have suggested a week of events ranging from petition signing to fair-trade recipes to keep people busy. Neil Boorman’s spoof-advert for the day is a public service video for the “good consumer. It shows two typical people being instructed how to be “good consumers“, spending instead of saving, buying instead of sharing, replacing instead of repairing.

This idea of “citizens” being seen more as “consumers” extends beyond one day’s worth of reflection. This worrying prospect has led to Paul Kingsnorth and magazine editor Dan Kieran to declare us “Consumers of England” instead of “Citizens of England”. “When we’re not working we should be shopping. It’s our patriotic duty...” Kieran reminds us. “Politicians only ever refer to us as consumers nowadays, as if this is our primary role in life“, Neil says. It has given rise to, as Kieran calls it, “Asda towns“; “where is nothing else to do except spend money and get bored”. For Kingsnorth, the ubiquitous clustering of Starbucks and the Big Box mentality of Tesco’s and Asda has turned us into “citizens of nowhere”. The recent opening of the Sheppard’s Bush Westfield Shopping Centre and Liverpool’s Liverpool One Project - both multi billion pound, 40 plus acres of mall created to “revitalise” the area - helps to reinforce the point.

It is not just the stereotypical radical activist that is concerned about our shopping culture. Amanda Ford, author of Retail Therapy: Life Lessons Learned While Shopping, notes “when we spend money on things that we do not need, or for that matter, really even want, we are contributing to a system that negatively impacts our physical environment, our political and social landscapes, and - most importantly, I would argue - our spiritual development”. As Andrew Simms, policy director of think-tank The New Economics Foundation, puts it, “financially and ecologically, we are overextended. We have taken for granted, and abused, our underlying operating systems - the biosphere and our social fabric - by privileging finance and over-consumption”.

A recent front page of The Independent showed how our abuse of the social fabric by a reliance on consumption has lead to the “The Domino Effect”; we are introduced to “Richard Green , 40, a newsagent in Solihull. Hit by falling sales, he decided not to repair his windows. Thousands of other people did likewise. So Chemix, a chemical company in Stockport that supplies the building trade, went out of business”.

Our abuse of the biosphere is much simpler picture to paint; “1,600 million apples, 1,030 million tomatoes, 2,570 million bread slices and 484 million unopened yoghurt tubs are discarded annually by households in the UK” a Nouse feature declared last issue. Aside from our biodegradable food waste, there is our unfortunately titled WEEE - Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment. The Eden Project represents the average person’s lifetime WEEE with a 7 foot, 3.3 tonne ‘WEEE Man, which contains 4 keyboards, 7 PC screens, 8 CPU’s and 23 keyboard mice - helping to represent 2 million working Pcs dumped into UK landfills every year.

Despite the rise of “green” shopping to combat our WEEE, hardcore anti-consumerists like Neil are sceptical of .the green agenda. “The best kind of green shopping is not shopping at all. Of course, we'll always need to consume things to fulfil our basic needs, but mobile phone upgrades and cheap throwaway clothes are not essential,” Neil says. “Not essential” - this is the problem. Our economy is built on the consumption of non-essential knick knacks. Consumption for consumptions sake. But our shopping habits have far reaching implications - the outdated PSP corroding in some landfill, the box of Kitkats, never sold, representing a newsagent’s “falling sales”. The irony is that Buy Nothing Day seems like an unimportant essential choice in a world of important non-essential choices. So why not try it out this year? All you have to buy is the idea. "

Article on Guantanamo Bay for Ctrl.Alt.Shift

2008-11-25T06:43:00.000-08:00

Article on Guantanamo Bay for Ctrl.Alt.Shift (edited).

"How well does George W Bush sleep? What does he think about as he drifts off to sleep? Does he think anything? If he does, perhaps he should cast his mind back to 2002. In his 2002 State of The Union Address, George Walker Bush declared USA “soldiers, working with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our embassy (in Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia)”. Nearly seven years later, a US judge declared last week that there is “no legal basis” to detain the five Bosnian “terrorists” held in Guantanamo Bay. The five men represent a handful of the 200 petitions for trail made by Guantanamo detainees since habeus corpus was restored to them in June of this year. Meanwhile, commentators around the world have reminded Barack Obama of his promise to close Guantanamo - which has “done much to besmirch the reputation of the United States”, to quote the future president.

The five men - Algerian by birth - serve as a good example of the absurdities the Bush administration has perpetrated in the “war on terror”. The men were investigated for three months by the Bosnian police before they were cleared. Still, the Bush Administration wanted the men. The Bosnian Human Rights Council specifically demanded they should not be forced to leave the country. The Bush Administration threatened if they didn’t get their way, they might just have to pull out of the NATO peacekeeping force in Bosnia. “Let God protect Bosnia”, are the supposed words of US Ambassador Christopher Hoh to Bosnian Prime Minister Alija Behman.

Once US forces had secured the men, there was only one place their innocence could be stifled - by torture, abuse, a lack of human rights and impediment to a fair trial - for nearly seven years. Located on USA leased land on the island of Cuba, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and it’s detainees occupy precarious legal ground. The actual site of the ‘camp’ is deemed illegal by the Cuban government, yet the Bush Administration used it’s grounding on Cuban soil to argue it was not answerable to US laws. The not-so-happy campers of Guantanamo were also given a new title to further complicate legal matters: “enemy combatants”. Should any detainees undergo any ‘abuse’ that might comprise The Geneva Convention’s rules on human rights and prisoners of war, lawyers would find The Geneva Convention doesn’t mention “enemy combatants”. The internationally recognised human rights stated in The Geneva Convention don’t apply to “enemy combatants”. George Bush can sleep easy, safe in the knowledge he hasn't commited any war crimes. It also makes “enemy combatants” free range territory for anyone who finds Human Rights restricting in their line of work; CIA integrators, for example.

Outside of constitutional jurisdiction, until June Guantanamo Bay did away with the nuisance of giving “enemy combatants” a proper trial, or habeas corpus. Instead, Guantanamo began hosting military commissioned trials. They serve as the detainees best chance of proving their innocence. They may look like trials, but ,as military lawyer Yvonne Bradley phrased it, “it’s a veneer: anything we would consider constitutional or fair is missing”.

The trials are beggining to accept the innocence of a few detainees. Of the 250 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, 50 have been cleared for release. How long will they have to wait before they are actually released? 15 Uighur men were cleared of being “enemy combatants” three years ago, but remain in solitary confinement in Guantanamo. Faced with this prospect or worse, it is little wonder Bradley stated her client is going to be leaving Guantanamo “in one of two ways, either in a coffin or insane”. Is Bradlye's cilent exercising their "human rights", Bush style? Is sending prisoners insane "a necessary part of protecting the American people"?

As he gets comfortable under his red, white and blue bed sheets and sips CoCo from his "I love Freedom" mug, perhaps George W Bush should think of death and insanity in Guantanamo Bay. "

Article on Squaters for Nouse

2008-11-25T06:36:00.000-08:00

Article on Squaters for Nouse.

"Anarchist flags aren’t usually found in Mayfair. It’s the embassy district of London, home to foreign dignitaries and overshadowed by the almighty US Embassy, crowned by a golden eagle perched on the roof. The area is patrolled by police officers with tactical-scope equipped machine guns. Local showrooms sell £100,000 plus Chevrolet, Corvette and Aston Martin sports cars, and estate agents will sell you a country house in the swankier parts of Surrey for a small fortune. The barmen wear tuxedos and the door men wear top hats. On the Monopoly board, Mayfair is the place to own a house. Yet for a brief while, amongst the Mayfair millionaires, a squat was added to the board.

The Mayfair squat was started in October after its current residents had patiently watched the building for six months. When I arrive to ‘squat’ for the night at 18 Grosvenor Street, a £6.25 million Grade II listed townhouse, I am unsure what to expect. Even more intriguing than its location, the townhouse’s new anarchistic flag has been raised by an art collective of students and ‘young people’. The youth of the new energy that has swept through the building betrays itself in places; Beyonce lyrics in the kitchen instruct residents to put “everything you own to the left, to the left” of the sink. As I arrive, someone bashes out a rendition of Madness‘s It Must Be Love on one of three broken pianos that stand in the entrance hall.

Called the Da! Collective, The Guardian labelled the new residents a “a raggle taggle group of teenagers”. Drinking tea out of a sugar bowl and sitting on a DIY chair, Stephanie Smith, one of the original members of the collective, expresses concern over the title. “It’s true most of us our under 25“, she says, “but when the Guardian came there was only two teenagers here, and they don’t live here. The average age is 21. Most of us art students or ex-art students. We have one guy studying for an MA in Philosophy. We have a lot of older people come and use the space - we have a established artist using some of the space upstairs”. Tom, another original member, agrees; Some people see this as alternative to getting any old dead end job”.

The building is seen as various alternatives; for about four people it is an alternative home, to some it is an alternative art studio, to most it is an alternative place to hang out. “There are only a couple of us who really have nowhere to go”, Tom tells me, “other people are renting elsewhere, but they find this environment much more exciting to work in and hang out in. Some people work full time and enjoy coming here, some people are full time students and like coming here as communal place to work. That’s been really encouraging. Everyone sees this as only temporary. So were just trying to enjoy it whilst it lasts and to make the most of our time here".

How to make the most of the time is left to be an open ended question. “Its all about using unused urban space and the environment to live and work in", Tom says, “Its more of an experiment in different ways of living. A lot of it geared around anti-consumerism and radical politics but its mostly about art.”

The six storey building, consisting of several bathrooms, conference rooms, ornate chandeliers and a grand central staircase, is full of half finished art products. To get into the main dining hall, I have to duck under a half built Trojan horse that forms the door way between two rooms. It’s head disappears at the ceiling and reappears the next floor up. “Its kind of symbolic” Steph explains, “its supposed to represent our presence in the house”. The plan is to have a megaphone attached to the mouth - so residents can receive house news straight from the horses mouth. Upstairs, a fire place has a giant paper Mache whale’s tale protruding from it’s hearth. The balcony may not be adorned with a golden eagle, but it does have a collection of ceramic parrots with tinsel feathers.

Despite the Beyonce lyrics and other tell-tale signs of youth, conversation in the house focuses more on art and politics than celebrities and partying. Some aspects of the house border on the pretentious; there is a discussion on whether destruction can be art and countless books on anarchism and socialism fill the bookcases. I find a copy of Nostradamus’s Predictions in a toilet. In such a free form environment, composed of radical young people, I suspected Big Brother style tantrums would be rife. “As long people are respectful of other people’s use of the space there isn’t a problem”, Tom says.

The lack of hierarchy or structure does create some problems. The basement of the house remains unused and some rooms are still without electricty. How the current use of electrictiy is paid for has not being properly discussed. Food and cleaning up is improvised when the need arises. For dinner, I’m treated to a free vegan feast, leftovers from a restaurant were one of the residents works. Desert is a surprise; many of the people who visit the building enjoy freeganism (making meals from perfectly edible food that has been thrown away ) and someone has managed to find a undamaged birthday cake, still in it’s box, in a skip. It’s unbelievable, but they swear they found it. “Lots of people that come here try out skipping or reclaimed food” ,Tom explains, “there are some people that enjoy doing that, some don’t, but there has never been any trouble with food or anything like that. There has been this ethos of group building and communal help but you are as involved as you want to be. Maybe its because of the amount people that use the space, but there has been no arguments about the washing up or tidying up.”

The house may seem hippie, but a poster on the wall tries to impose some order: “This House Operates A No Drugs Policy and No Smoking Inside”, it reads - the second command being a lot more tongue in cheek than the first. “We don’t tolerate drug use, because in these sorts of circumstance it could get really out of hand,” Steph points out.

This attitude of not letting activities get out of hand has been - for the most part - warmly received by neighbours. The house enjoys wi-fi provided by a next door building and people are free to come and go as they please. The house could confidently declare itself the busiest and most inclusive building in Mayfair. “None of us actually like living in Mayfair. It sounds stupid but its not that great for us. Its stuffy, its ossified, there’s no culture here, no night life. There is no community. Half of these places are owned by people who have other residences,” Tom tells me. Walking around the area, where tour groups and exclusive bars form the closest thing to a community, you can understand what Tom means.

The Da! House hopes to follow in the tradition of ‘social centres’ that have stimulated radical communities across London. The 491 Gallery in Leytonstone, east London, managed to secure a seven year lease for their gallery after making significant improvements to the abandoned Transport for London building. The RampART community space in Whitechapel offers workshops on radical politics and regularly hosts talks on current political issues. One of the most successful and well documented community centres turned sqauts is The Spike in Peckham. The Spike was originally a ‘doss house’ - a state centre for unemployed and homeless people. Legend has it that George Orwell stayed in the building. In the 1980s it was abandoned and was frequently used for fly-tipping. The current occupants arrived 10 years ago, cleared the building out and have been developing it ever since. Now the building features a bread oven, a wood work centre, a spacious and comfortable gig venue, a recording studio and a video editing suite. Murals and graffiti adorn the area. The Spike has also recently begun to produce bio-fuel to sell to local businesses.

There are countless other smaller social centres dotted around the country, and there could feasibly be one in every community. The Empty Homes Agency, which campaigns for abandoned properties to be used for and by local communities, estimates there are 840,0000 unused sites across the country. “Im sure you could have something like this - a free and open space where people can try to have a community - in every town. Young people might think what we are doing is wishy-washy but if actually come here they see its not what they may think it is. If there were places like this in every neighbourhood, young people would understand it’s more about having a space for themselves - like a youth club”, Tom says.

It seems that young people are not the only ones who see the work of squatted social centres as “wishy-washy”. RampART, The Spike and The Da! House all face eviction by local councils. Squatting is a civil matter that is illegal only if the squatters become a source of crime or if the owner of the squatted property decides to evict the squatters. In the case of The Spike, the local council owns the land and want to make a tidy profit from it - The Spike needs to raise £450,000 if they are to keep the land. The Spike claims no one from the council has visited the site, and an independent valuation of the property placed it’s worth at £375,000 - significantly less than the £500,000 the council originally asked for. As for the Mayfair house, media coverage has caused the owners - a firm registered in the British Virgin Island - to request the council evict the squatters. Their court appearance is due the 25th November. “We can buy some time with technicalities. But really we wont have a leg to stand on”, Tom says, with little optimism in his voice.

Considering the councils seem to be enforcing public sentiment, Tom is right to be apprehensive about the house’s prospects. The Sun’s report on the Da! Is headed “Dossers trash 6 million mansion” - even though The Da! Is compiling a list of repairs it has made to the house. Public comments on The Daily Mail’s report declare them “free loading parasites”; “kick them out and let them get a job... fed up with keeping these layabouts.. that think its there right to sponge of other people”, one user writes. “Its not like we are trying to jump the housing queue or anything”, Tom says in the Da!’s defence, “this place wasn’t being used, and we’re using it. We’re not seeing this as a housing option”.

Interestingly, no cynicism has been directed to the offshore company that left the English Heritage listed building derelict. Nor is their any anger at the council for ignoring the building for so long. It seems the preference is to let the building remain empty, or sell it to a profit-driven developer. In an ideal world, Jack Keuro, John Steinbeck, George Orwell and Jimi Hendrix would move in to the Mayfair squat. Until that happens - and at the risk of sounding like the artistic and anarchistic vibes have gone to my head - something is better than nothing.

Nouse International News Article

2008-11-25T06:29:00.000-08:00

Nouse International News Article.

"
A democrat may have won the American election, but the election itself seemed to represent the Republican symbol: a garish red ,white and blue elephant, trumpeting it’s self-importance and stealing the limelight more with its size than its substance. Obama is now a world famous name. Yet during the rigmarole of Romney’s millions, Hillary’s trouser suits, Obama’s socialism, McCain’s outbursts and Palin’s…well, everything, the names of Nasheed, Mbeki and Tsvangirai were drowned out.

Mohammed Nasheed secured the presidency of the Maldives last month, overthrowing the countries despot ruler of 30 years with a peaceful, democratic election. Nasheed, who was educated at Liverpool University, has been arrested over ten times during his political career and walks with a limp after being tortured by the Maldives’ former ruling party. He faces far harder challenges than Obama; the Maldives is being consumed by the sea, is dependent on tourism during a period of economic downturn and has half it’s population living below the poverty line .

As President Nasheed career ascends, ex-president of South Africa Thabo Mbeki’s career appears to be in free fall. Mbeki was removed from the position of President of South Africa after he was accused of unfairly influencing a court trail brought against his political rival Jacob Zuma. Aid’s workers rejoiced; Mbeki had denied the link between Aids and HIV, and one leading activist has accused him of causing the deaths of 300,000 through his Aids policies. Mbeki’s legacy outside of South Africa - the peace deal in Zimbabwe - is also looking to be on shaky ground.

For while Nasheed is moving in, and Mbeki is moving out, Morgan Tsvangirai is still unsure about his future position of Prime Minister of Zimbawe. Despite being intimidate, arrested and beaten by Mugabe’s lackeys, Tsvangirai has continued to negotiate with Zimbabwe’s ruler of 28 years, Robert Gabriel Mugabe. On the 15th September Tsvangirai shook hands with Mugabe and signed a historic power sharing deal; since then Tsvangirai has threatened to pull out of the deal unless Mugabe restructures Zimbabwe’s cabinet in a fairer manner. Mbeki has visited the country to support the deal, but Tsvangirai has stuck by his convictions; "We respect Mbeki but quiet diplomacy has its limits if it leads o quiet approval of wrong things”, Tsvangirai has stated.

It seems quite democracy goes unheard when there is a loud election being broadcast. "

Article on Friendly Fire for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

2008-11-20T09:29:00.000-08:00

Article on Friendly Fire for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

"When your flying a American AC-130 gunship at high speed, it’s easy to mistake a blurry Afghan civilian for a blurry Afghan terrorist. In the last few weeks, it seems the US needs to spend more of its $300+ billion defence budget on old fashioned eye tests to combat this blurriness. A week after a thousand strong protest surrounded the US Embassy in Syria - denouncing a US “friendly fire” border strike that killed four children - the US are accused of launching a drone attack that has killed 11 people on the Pakistan border. Meanwhile in Afghanistan, two US air strikes have left over 30 civilians dead in cases of “mistaken identity”.
The flight recordings of the USA air force could almost be funny if they weren’t so tragic: “What’s that in the distance co-piolt? Is it the Afghan border? What do you mean were in Pakistan?! Shoot, is that a toodler down there or a radical fundamentalist Islamic Taliban terrorist seeking to overthrow Capital Hill? They look so alike at this height! Hell, we didn’t get suited up for nothing! Where‘s that shiny red FIRE button?…”

After the dust settles, and assuming you can piece together what ever is left of said terrorist/toddler, the USA is left with some very awkward questions. Over 3,000 questions, according to one US professor who tried to count Afghan and Iraqi deaths caused by NATO and US attacks. Thankfully the US has come up with some wonderfully euphemistic phrases - “friendly fire”, “enemy combatants”, “condolence payment” and “collateral damage” - to hide behind. Collateral damage is a statistic or an expenditure; collateral damage is rarely thought of as someone’s house, their livelihood, their life savings. The credit crunch pales in comparison to a 15,000 ‘Daisy Cutter’ (never appeared on Ground Force, did they?) bomb falling on your house. “Friendly fire” is a classic oxymoron; how can a hail of bullets be friendly? Paint them pink and add smiley faces? Have grenades that explode into cuddles? The fire isn’t friendly and the people doing the shooting certainly aren’t. Unfortunately, the people being shot at are.

While the US enjoys the term collateral, it shies away from another long Latinate word beginning with C: Compensation. The same US professor who tried to count the collateral damage body bags found the US gave bereaved families just $2,500 as a “condolence” payment. Aside from the fact US KIA soldiers’ families receive $100,000 compensation, “condolence payment” implies the US had no involvement in civilian deaths. It is as if the US is gracious enough to feel the Iraqi bereaved’s pain but doesn’t think its multimillion dollar air-to-surface missile had anything to do with their family member’s death. This is assuming the US thinks you qualify for their “condolence” in the first place. The family of 16-year-old schoolboy who was shot dead in 2005 whilst walking near an American base had their claim dismissed due to “lack of evidence” and “loss resulting from combat operations”.

If the US’s choice of words are unconvincing, it’s actions are even less convincing. Last year, forty-six countries signed a treaty banning cluster bombs - the US didn’t put ink to paper. The result is over 10,000 US - and UK - unexploded “bombletts” littering the Iraqi country, waiting for the unsuspecting feet of a toddler/terrorist. The US been slightly more embarrassed about its US of napalm - not exactly famous for distinguishing between friend and foe. The US claimed not to have used napalm in Iraq; napalm uses petrol, what they used - the Mark 77 firebomb - contains kerosene. Different ingredient, different name, same smell of victory in the morning. Albeit a very blurry victory. "

Article on Maldives vanishing for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

2008-11-20T09:25:00.000-08:00

Article on Maldives vanishing for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

"Thanks to global warming, the Maldives is in danger of becoming a real life Atlantis. Recently elected president Mohamed Nasheed, who ended the country’s 30 year dictatorship with peaceful democracy, has some bad news for Maldivian’s; either we grow gills or we find a new home. Nasheed has realised the later option is - for the time being anyway - much more feasible. The president announced he will begin to siphon money to land-purchase fund to be used should the 1,200 islands of the Maldives become submerged. “We can do nothing to stop climate change on our own”, told The Guardian, “so we have to buy land elsewhere…we do not want to leave the Maldives, but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades”. Potential new homelands for the Maldives 300,000 strong population include Sri Lanka, India and Australia.
The Maldives is right to be concerned about rising sea levels. The highest point of the small nation barely exceeds 2.3m above sea level - the lowest ‘high point’ on earth. The precarious nature of the island nation was highlighted when the 2004 Tsunami submerged 42 islands, killed 82 people and displaced 12,000. When it struck, the tsunami was barely a metre high.
Sea levels have risen by roughly 20 cm in the past century and predictions about further increases vary from 58cm by 2100 (UN), to 88 cm (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). These rising sea levels have already begun to displace and kill people around the world; in 1995 half of Bhola Island in Bangladesh was flooded leaving 500,000 homeless; Tuvalu, an island nation of 11,000 people in the Pacific, has seen 3,000 of it’s citizens leave their homeland due to rising sea levels, and the situation has become so dire that New Zealand has agreed to accept the entire population into it’s territory. The message of Tuvaluan Governor-General Sir Tomasi Puapua’s to the UN General Assembly in September
2002 may be echoed by millions around the world; “We want our nation to remain permanently and not be submerged as a result of greed and uncontrolled consumption of industrialized countries. We want our children to grow up the way we grew up in our own islands and in our own culture”.
Your average Maldivian may have an annual Green House Gas emission of just 1.9 tonnes, yet they are set to bear the pains of your average American (22.9 tonnes), your average Australian (25.9 tonnes) and your average United Arab Emirates citizen (36.8 tonnes). No country has come forward to claim the climate refugees of the world, all though the Washington DC based Inventory of Conflict and Environment asked, “would the Maldives try to claim Washington DC - which is roughly the same size as the Maldives territory - as compensation for the United Sates role in contributing to global warming?” If life was fair, Arab oil wells would be clogged with coral, SUV soccer moms would find their cars engrossed in sea weed and the Sydney Opera House would be an extension of the Great Barrier Reef. Sadly, by the time Capital Hill becomes the realm of sharks, the Maldives will have slipped into the realm of legend… "

Article on Surya Nightclub for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

2008-11-20T09:19:00.000-08:00

Article on Surya Nightclub for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

"The décor of The Surya nightclub doesn’t fit a typical nightclub’s aesthetic: the chandelier is made of a hundred used biros; chairs are made of recycled mobiles, upholstered in used trousers; newspaper print is used instead of wallpaper. Amongst the clippings on the wall, facts and statistics command your attention - The UK Produces Enough Waste In An Hour To Fill The Albert Hall, Most Car Journeys Are Under 5 Miles, Car Traffic Is Forecast To Increase By 22% By 2010. At Surya, the writing is literally on the wall.

“People asked ‘do clubbers really want to see the stats and figures we have on the walls‘?“, club owner Andrew Charalambous admits. “They need to. They have to see the figures so they understand something has to be done”. Surya is the antithesis of the shrug off “nothing can be done”. The club is fitted with recycled wood, ethically sourced marble and low-water usage toilets. Organic beer and wine is stocked behind the bar. If clubbers want to enter the club, they have to pay admission and sign a pledge to led a more environmentally friendly life. As for power, the club has four solar panels and two micro wind turbines on it’s roof. The star attraction of the club is the floor; using the latest crystal and ceramic technology that generates Piezoelectricity, clubbers can provide up to 60% of the clubs energy just by dancing. Revellers will be - to some extent - manifesting the clubs strap-line of “Dance To Save The Planet”.

Nevertheless, with it’s millionaire owner , clear branding (Club4Climate is the ‘umbrella’ organisation) and plasma screen Tvs, the club could easily be taken as a cynical venture, carefully designed to draw in a new market of Green conscious consumers. Friend Of The Earth have refused to be affiliated with the venture due to Charalambous’s beliefs people need to alter their lifestyle but not necessarily cut down on car and plane journeys. “I don’t believe in talking down to people, telling them what they cant do. You have to let people face their own decisions in life. Tell people don’t drive, don’t fly and they will fight against it if they don’t want it.”

Charalambous hopes the club’s schemes can prove the cynics otherwise: “The green agenda has to be more than advertising; it’s a lifestyle its an belief system and it’s an art form. But it has to be mainstream to work. It has to be a ‘cool’ agenda. It to get people to notice it before it can get people to embrace it. That’s why we are about music and clubbing, and having a good time”. The need to appear ‘cool’ - shallow though it may be - has led him to adopt the persona Dr Earth, a white suited tongue-in-cheek take on Dr Evil. As testimony to clubs altruistic approach to ecological business, Surya shares it’s excess power with neighbouring buildings. “The big word is share. And wouldn’t it make more sense to share?”.

Not that Surya is alone; ecologically conscious clubs are sprouting up in other Western countries. Club Watt in Amsterdam is heading down Green path with it’s sustainable dance floor that utilises Piezoelectricity. Chicago’s Butterfly Social Club claims to serve nothing but organic and fair trade drinks and used recycled natural materials to create the club’s interior. The Temple in San Francisco aims to envelop the outside of it’s club in a “vertical garden” and currently donates it’s used grease for bio-fuel preparation, features low flush toilets and uses easy to recycle, organic corn-based cups and straws.

Are these clubs sincere in their approach to being ecologically friendly? They are nightclubs after all. Could they just be responding to a new market audience, keen to claim a unique selling point? “Why does clubbing have to be about drugs and binge drinking?”, Charalambous counters. “Clubbers get given a bad name, young people get given a bad name. You have to give them the chance to fight that.“

Aside from their immediate sustainability impact, these clubs are proving something profound; we control our culture. Being eco-friendly doesn’t mean growing dreadlocks and not showering no more than clubbing means taking Ecstasy and ending your nights in an orgy. We can - and must - engage with a change in the cultural zeitgeist.

Projects like Surya are showing culture can be shifted - be it business culture, consumer culture or even clubbing culture. If nothing else, the plight of our planet is shifting opinions, stimulating creativity and causing us to question our way of life. We are re-engaging with cultural stereotypes. Getting to dance while we do it is a nice plus. "

STI's for Nouse

2008-11-05T14:21:00.000-08:00

Article for student newspaper, Nouse, on STIs.

Scrape, scrape, scrape. It’s the sound I’ve been dreading all week, the sound of my baby maker being destroyed by a cotton wool bud. It’s the sound of a small umbrella opening inside my penis and tearing its way to fresh air. Sitting in a nurse’s office in York’s GUM clinic, cotton button insertion imminent, I’m having second thoughts. My testicles have shrunk to the size of sultanas. My penis is looking up at me as if to say ‘why have you forsaken me?”, like a podgy naked Jesus before crucifixion. I don’t seriously consider my genitals as important as The Second Coming (no pun intended), but I am very attached to them. But any second now, I’m expecting a Nazi-attired nurse to walk through the door, declare “Ve have ways of making you talk, Herr Lemmer”, and begin a process too graphic for print. So what am I doing here?

I’ve just submitted a sample of urine and blood for STI testing, and I’m about to have a swab test for HIV. It’s a disease I know very little about, which is precisely why I’m having the test done. We are regularly warned about the danger of tooth decay, plague and enamel erosion and so we unashamedly book appointments with a dentists. Very rarely are we warned of the dangers of “difficulty passing urine” or “irritation at the end of the urethra“ or a “painful infection in the testicles” (to quote one NHS STI booklet) and we would be hesitant to tell anyone we’re going to be tested for an STI. But would you rather lose your genitals or your teeth? Neither, of course, yet we take much more pride in our smile than our fertility. The number of recorded STI’s rose by six percent this year, with roughly half of those cases occurring in people16-24 years of age. Little wonder that Professor Peter Borriello from the Health Protection Agency said “a shag now stands for syphilis, herpes, anal warts and gonorrhoea." These statistics should be hardly surprising, since a recent survey showed four in ten pupils receive no sex education at school. Yet the fuddy duddies can’t lecture us young ‘uns, with the BBC reporting earlier this year that STIs have doubled in people over 45 in under a decade and are now rising faster than in the young. We’re all at it apparently.

The university sees the subject as a personal issue, rather than an institutional problem, so there are no records on the number of students with STIs. A lack of records is somewhat of a mixed blessing; there is no danger of an information ‘leak’, but the university could be infested with STI ridden students without ever knowing. The Student Union are aware of the growing problem, as The University’s student welfare representative commented; “We’re working with the York Screen program, the York branch of a Chlamydia testing scheme. The SU has lots of Chlamydia tests available, and you can pick them up from us and then drop them off at the health centre. We’re also looking at having a GUM clinic on campus. We’re looking at other ways of getting people to the GUM clinic, by minibus or some other way”.

York isn’t the only University to appreciate the difficulties of addressing the potentially embarrassing, yet important, subject. Swansea University Students’ Union created a Facebook page for various STIs and began ‘poking’ students to raise awareness of symptoms. One of the network’s first STI’s introduced was “Chlamydia SUSU, which has ‘poked’ students who are registered on Facebook and starts its self-description with “I am a bacteria...” and comments that “I like meeting new people”. It goes on to describe the effects of the virus and where to go for further help.

With close to half a million people with STI‘s in the UK, we’re are beginning to realise the problem we have on our hands (and in our pants). Channel 4’s The Sex Education Show, which did exactly what it said on the tin, enjoyed viewing figures of 3.3 million. The Embarrassing Illness’s program was also widely watched and helped address traditionally ‘embarrassing’ illness’s in a mature and sensible manner. Channel 4 is hoping to continue their successful trend by broadcasting a sex education series, KNTV Sex, aimed at teenagers on weekday mornings later this year. But the dangers of STI is beginning to cause action not just amongst TV producers hungry for ratings. The Scouts Association recently announced it would be for the first time giving explorer scouts sexual health advice - a new twist on it’s Be Prepared motto. The government is also willing to try a bold approach in the way sex education is taught to school children, with plans being drawn up that will mean sex-ed will become compulsory part of the curriculum and begin at the age of seven.

Not everyone is keen to see sex education brought out into public forum. Ofcom received numerous complaints about The Sex Education Show’s “explicit” content that appeared before the watershed. The proposed compulsory sex-ed program has been labelled as a move that will “encourage experiment”. Without proper, mature guidance the problem is likely to subside. Even in the enlightened environment of university the most common reaction when I said I was going to be tested was referencing itchy cotton wool and the noise - scrap, scrap , scrape.

So, back to the sterile lights of the GUM clinic. The nurse prepares the swab. She knows about my feature and reassures me about the procedure. “Please make it clear that the swab isn’t an umbrella type instrument of torture,” she instructs me, “it’s just this soft small loop”. Still, I think, I don’t really want anything down my urethra, no matter how small or soft. “Here comes the sting” Nurse Painbringer (my new name for her) says. And that’s it. One little sting - barely a pinch - that resonates for less than a second. The government says you should have a full STI screening every 12 months, and I could quite easily manage it. Pissing in a cup for a urine test? After fresher’s week, peeing in a cup is old hat. A blood test? I got a free sweet for being such a good boy about the needle.

90% of STIs are treatable, most of them through a course of antibiotics. There’s no need to break the student budget hording condoms either, as the SU gives out free condoms from it’s reception at Goodricke and Nightline sends them out through internal mail. The NHS are also keen to give out free condoms. So after a blurred fresher’s week, you may not be sure what you got up to (or who you got into) an STI test might be the most important test you’ll take this term. Since 50% of male, and 80% of female, Chlamydia sufferers never show any symptoms of their illness, there is the very real chance of you invisibly going infertile. Thankfully, there’s no such thing as the scrape, scrape, scrape.

If you’re worried about STI’s you can call Nighline, talk to your college’s welfare rep or visit the York NHS GUM Clinic on Monkgate Street, free of charge, open Monday to Friday.

Mandeal of The Maldives - CtrlAltShift

2008-11-05T14:19:00.000-08:00

Ctrl.Alt.Shift

"Last week, news from the Maldives sounded like a Hollywood movie. The battle scarred hero, still limping from the work of his torturers, imprisoned 13 times in so many years, beats his former jailer in a national election on a paradise island. The hero also has a catchy nickname - “The Mandela of The Maldives”. He even has an English connection, being educated at university in Liverpool.

Swamped by the bloated USA election, the up beat news from the Maldives received little attention. But it was a historic day for the new President and his country; Mohammed Nasheed is only the 3rd president since the UK granted the series of atolls independence in 1965. Nasheed has battled for decades against the 30 year old dictatorship that controlled the country: Amnesty made him a Prisoner of Conscience in 1991 when he was imprisoned for writing for the popular political magazine Sangu; in 1992 he was sentenced to three years imprisonment for ‘withholding information’; he was then rearrested in 1994, 1995 and 2001.

Despite his treatment at the hands of former dictator Gayoom, Nasheed has extended extreme humility, pledging a pension and adequate security for the former rule: “A test of our democracy will be how we treat (the former regime). I don’t think we should be going for a witch hunt and digging up the past”. How many other leaders could just bury a past of imprisonment, harassment and torture?

So Nasheed trumps McCains war hero and maverick card. Is he down with the kidz like Obama though? The youth of the Maldives certainly hope so. According to the Asian Development Bank, youth unemployment is as high as 22% for men and 41% for women. Worse, 90% of students do not pass their GCSE equivalent exams. With no qualifications and no jobs, it’s unsprusinly half the country is in poverty - despite hundreds of thousands of tourists visiting the islands every year. Nasheed’s job is turning the money spent by tourists’ sipping cocktails into students passing exams. Despite the tough task ahead, Nasheed's victory proves peaceful, but determined, efforts can turn a dictatorship into a democracy. Hope for a better world lies elsewere than America."

dIfferent approaches to a Ctrl.Alt.Shift article

2008-11-05T14:03:00.000-08:00

The second version of the article was used. The Lunar-cy title was dropped.

"Indian Lunar-cy 1.The Moon. The not-so final frontier. To boldly go were men have gone and played gold before. Nevertheless, this hasn’t put off India. India launched it’s first mission to the moon last Wednesday. The Chandrayaan-1 space ship is on a two year mission to explore for a rare isotope called Helium 3, believed to be vital for fusion energy. The space shuttle is the product of The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO - not quite as catchy as NASA), a program with a £1 billion budget. In country a where the poverty threshold is measured at 20p a day - and 30% of the population lives on less - the space program’s budget seems, ahem, astronomical. So what good is India’s journey to the moon?

India has always been aware of apparent contradiction of sending men to the stars while millions literally live in the gutter. In August of this year the World Bank declared that roughly one third of the world’s poor lived in India. Nearly half the population lives under the new international poverty threshold. Therefore, ISRO has made it’s projects as socially responsible as possible. Topographic and hydrological maps produced from satellite images help rural communities locate underground water. OCEANSAT helps ISRO scientists identify areas where cold, nutrient-rich water wells up from the ocean floor, which attracts fish - very useful information for fishermen. ISRO has also used these satellites to implement disaster-warning systems, connect rural schools and hospitals to prestigious urban hospitals and universities. To it’s credit, the ISRO can claim to create money as well as spend it; it sells infrared images from its remote-sensing satellites to other countries, including the US. The social impact of the Chandrayaan trip seems minimal, unless India reveals the moon is made of cheese and feed’s it’s malnourished masses on lunar Cheddar. What’s most perplexing about this trip is it’s generosity.

While the people of India may get some emotional joy out of the launch, European Space Agency and Nasa got free freight space on the rocket to be used for their own sensory equipment. "These kinds of missions and aims are beyond the capacity of any one country. They have to be collaborative", Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma - the only Indian astronaut to be sent into space - commented. Yet one has to wonder at how much help NASA donated to the effort. In early February 2006, NASA’s mission statement deleted the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet”.

So why is it that a ‘developing nation’ is willing share it’s space program with a first world nation’s $17 billion space program? Why not charge NASA and ESA and use the money to combat poverty? Nevertheless, even if ISRO could apply a business model to it’s missions, it is unlikely to offset expenditure, let alone make a profit. As for the 20,000 jobs ISRO provides, they are hardly a vitial part of the labour force in a country of over a billion people.

2.How does it feel to be New Deli slum dweller? You should be proud; your nation has just launched a space rocket to the moon. Surely it is a proud day to be Indian? But the launch could be a hoax for all you know. You don’t have a laptop, so you can’t check a collection of verifiable websites. You can’t watch the clip on Youtube. You can’t watch it on TV. You can budget so you can, maybe, afford a paper. You live on one pound a day, along with millions of your fellow countrymen. Luckily for you, that’s a good 80p above your Government’s national poverty threshold. One in three of your countrymen don’t even meet the threshold. To them, your middleclass. Your part of the elite, like the The Indian Space Research Organisation with it’s £1 billion budget.

Maybe you discuss the launch with some friends. One vehemently argues in defence of the launch. He’s the smart arse of the group. Yes, ISRO has a thousand million pound budget in a country where a third of the world’s poor live, he says. But it has done so much good! ISRO satelittles provide vital data on water supplies, early warning systems to prepare for disasters and connects remote schools and hospitals with experts around the world! India has shown it’s potential; it even had the grace to take NASA and European Space Agency equipment along for the ride - free of charge!

But what good is to a New Delhi slum that a glorified computer is wheezing around a glorified lump of rock? Another friend argues. The only thing astronomical about India is it’s level of poverty. And NASA, with it’s $17 billion budget, getting a free ride is like a renowned explorer being carried up a mountain by a malnourished guide. Try using that line if you ever get in a Rickshaw: “Take me up the street, but don’t expect me to pay - you should feel privileged just to be in my company”.

But maybe your too tired to join the argument. You just watch the slum. Women carrying half dead babies. Men who haven’t moved for days - probably dead, or at least dying, in their own filth. Kids kicking up plastic trash in the street for lack of anything better to do. You may wonder how much money India could make as a rickshaw service to the moon. Enough to offset the £1 billion ISRO budget? Unlikely. But doesn’t the ISRO provide jobs, vital for India’s - you try not to laugh - ‘booming’ economy? Of course there’s no way for you to know ISRO provides only 20,000 jobs. Hardly anything in a country of one billion people. One billion people, millions in poverty. Women clutching half starved babies. You wonder what that looks like from space."

Article for Ctrl.Alt.Shift about Thai politics.

2008-10-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

Article for Ctrl.Alt.Shift about Thai politics.

God Save The King Little is it known, but The Queen of our green and pleasant land commands a good number of obsolete laws. It is illegal to stand within a hundred yards of the Queen without wearing socks, for example. Putting a stamp bearing the Queens Head upside down on an envelope is an act of treason. Killing a swan is a big no-no because they’re all property of our equally gracious Queen. Even The Sex Pistol’s God Save The Queen was banned by the BBC. But few people know, even fewer care. So imagine the surprise of Harry Nicolaides, an Australian writer for The New Statesmen, when he was arrested in Thailand last month for ‘lèse majesté - the crime of insulting the a sovereign ruler. In Nicolaides’ case, it was the Thai king Bhumibol Adulyadej. It isn’t a good idea to get on the wrong side of King Bhumibol.

The political tension in Thailand has become increasingly volatile in the last few weeks as pro-royalist supports continue to clash with police to protest against the current Thai government, seen as anti-royalist. Problems began after the populist rise of Thailand’s prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who ruled from 2001 until 2006, when he was ousted by a coup. Thaksin’s rule was a mixed bag of political nuts: he pushed for universal health care, was a champion for people of the rural north and enjoyed the highest voter turnout in Thai history and was noted for the marked reduction in vote-buying compared to previous elections; unfortunately Human Rights Watch called him a “human rights abuser of the worst kind", he was accused of multiple accounts of corruption and, worst of all some would say, he bought Manchester City. But what led to Thaksin’s exile was one of Thailand’s most divisive taboos - a lack of respect for the King.

King Bhumibol Adulyadejbe is reported to be one of the richest men in the world, with a personal net worth of $35 billion dollars. Not bad for a man living in a country where 775,000 people live on less than £1 dollar per day. King Ad is the longest serving current head of state (he’s been king for 62 years) so he’s had plenty of time to amass a mind-boggling pension fund through owning parts of Thailand’s major corporations and companies. He also makes important decisions, like in 2006 when he pardoned of several convicted paedophiles, including an Australian rapist and child pornographer.

Thanksin’s mistake was to seem anti-royal. A once firm ally, Sondhi Limthongkul, turned against Thaksin to promote a pro-royalist agenda through his own political party, The People’s Alliance For Democracy. The party urged supporters to wear t-shirts declaring their love for the king and until recently suggested changing parliament to a system of being 30% elected, 70% royally appointed. Sondhi even got personal, claiming that Thaksin hired a man to attack a statue of the god Brahman so it could be replaced with “dark forces”. Naturally, these dark forces would be in cahoots with Thaksin. Despite using his media empire and political savvy to help exile Thaksin in 2006, Sondhi reformed to the PAD in 2008 to protest against the election of the People's Power Party, seen as a proxy party controlled by Thaksin.

Now, pro-royalist PAD protesters have stormed and occupied the parliament for the last month, and reports have claimed that things are turning ugly. The BBC has reported PAD protesters are running over police officers and shooting police into crowds. Meanwhile, Thaksin is seeking political asylum in the UK, with a Thai arrest warrant waiting back home; Sondhi is facing charges of insurrection, conspiracy, unlawful assembly and refusing orders to disperse; and the current prime minister of Thailand had to climb over a protesters’ fence to escape parliament. And as Thailand literally burns, King Ad can afford to play a diamond incrusted fiddle. Anarchy In Thailand to the tune of God Save The King? Johnny Rotten should move to Bangkok…

Artricle for Ctrl.Alt.Shift. about NGO Deaths

2008-10-29T07:49:00.000-07:00

Artricle for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

In the documentary “The Day After Peace”, Jude Law goes to Afghanistan to promote a peace-drive organised by film-maker and activist Andrew Gilly. Walking through the streets of Kabul, a sqaudie calls Law “an expensive bullet catcher”. Thankfully (or unfortunately depending on what you make of Law’s ‘acting’ abilities), Jude survives to look very pretty and famous during a press conference to create publicity for the peace-drive. How much publicity would have been created if Law had become an expensive corpse? Last week, the media showed how it would portray the death of inexpensive bullet catcher - Gayle Williams, NGO volunteer.

While Tuesday’s headlines were full of shock and horror at the death of a “good Samaritan”, Wednesday presented business as usual with news of MP George Osborne dealing with a Russian oligarch on a yacht. Politician influenced by man with money? About as revelatory and shocking as dog bites man, pope is catholic, and bear shits in woods. Meanwhile the death of Gayle Williams, aid worker with Christain charity Serve, was left as a one day human interest story.The death of Gayle Williams is tragic in itself (she was gunned on her way to the office), but it highlights the level of chaos that erupted throughout Afghanistan. Last week Nato commander General John Craddock complained of “real short comings” and the “wavering political will that impedes operation progress” in the country. Alliance officials later admitted it took an average of 80 days to respond to an urgent request for equipment from a commander in the field. Little wonder General Craddock feels frustrated at the many operational restrictions imposed on troops. Meanwhile a 483 km highway, costing £110 million and seen as “the most visible sign of America’s post war recovery reconstruction” in the country, is guarded by just a 180 police officers.

The political and tactical confusion in the country manifests itself not in biting sound bites or bitchy in-house moans, but as death after death after death. Last week, US helicopter gunship’s fired on an Afghan army post killing Nine Afghan soldiers and four civilians. Last month, local legend Malalai Kakar, the most high profile police woman in Afghanistan, was assassinated. Two weeks ago, Taliban gunmen killed a former bodyguard of President Hamid Karzai. Two weeks ago, an attack on a bus left at least 25 people dead. Last week the town of Laghman, were many of the dead lived, was in mourning and held large protests to demonstrate a resilient anti-Taliban sentiment. Gayle William’s death is just one of many incidents involving civilians and NGOs; two weeks ago a Canadian journalist was kidnapped, in August three female aid workers were murdered, and in January an aid worker was kidnapped and is still missing. 29 aid workers have been killed in Afghanistan this year, with the total conflict death count for the year totalling at about 4,000. Trying to deal with such carnage has taken it’s toile on some NGOs. After five of it’s workers were killed in June, the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières staged a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan.

But progress is being made. Last week may have seen more death and destruction, but numerous NGOs and local business helped to restore some normatinlty by hosting the first Kabul international music festival. Even Jude Law helps, as the peace-drive, Peace Day, managed to get a signed agreement of ceasefire from a Taliban commander and managed to stage a weapons hand-in in the south of the country. Countries like Afghanistan don’t need less aid and more soldiers - they need nothing but aid workers.

Comment for Nouse

2008-10-29T07:44:00.000-07:00

Comment piece for York Student Newspaper Nouse.

“Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but The Bible says love your enemies”. Frank Sinatria (a man who enjoyed a good martini) distilling some age old wisdom that many a Fresher took to heart recently. In the last issue of Nouse, it was revealed £11million is spent a year on alcohol by York students - £4million more than groceries. And after experiencing Fresher’s’ week, it’s not hard to see how such a bar tab could be run up…I kept tabs of much I drank during Fresher’s to help me budget (and because I’m just a little bit OCD like that). In total, I drank 13 beers, ten shots Absinth, three VK apples, two vodka cokes, two shots southern comfort, one shot straight vodka, one shot tequila, one glass vodka lemonade and one glass red wine. While it sounds like an alcoholic’s Ten Days of Christmas, I stumbled through the week without making a complete tit of myself. Sadly, the same can not be said of others. Ambulances were called, paramedics were on standby, people put to bed early, reeking of urine, alcohol and embarrassment. It became painfully evident that many Freshers in our block had never really experienced the ’joys’ of parental absence and 70% Absinth. Meanwhile, I met Fresher’s who survived the week without drinking a single drop of liquor, scared they would turn into a character from an Artic Monkeys song if they succumbed. Finally free of any parental control and with a massive windfall of cash, many students struggle to walk the literal and metaphorical line between drunk and sober.Surrounded by shrieking couples, kebab gobbling ’wide boys’ and semi-naked, semi-conscious party girls on a Friday night, I’m so glad I binge drank at an early age. I may have failed my GCSEs through partying, but it left me with a more mature and experienced perspective on the binge culture. Going through the drunken stereotypes at an age where I could afford to fuck up allowed me to grow up. Had a drunken fight with a best friend? Check. Been sick in my own shoes? Check. Woken up next to a girl who could fetch a good price at a cattle market? Sadly, check. I enjoyed it at the time (well, maybe not Bovine Girl) but you have to face facts: being so drunk you wet yourself isn’t so fitting when you spend your days writing essays on the Feminist Perspective In Post-Colonial Literturatue. Fresher’s Week’s antics should be a one off, not a template for every week’s shenanigans. I’m sure we’ll learn to love our enemy responsibly.

Carry on South Africa article for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

2008-10-19T21:47:00.000-07:00

Carry on South Africa article for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

Abuse of power…scheming and conniving party rebels…rumours of succession…sex scandals…a media storm…No it’s no the latest Labour party conference (who cares?) or the USA presidential election, but little old South Africa’s democracy problems. While speculation over McCain versus Obama is reaching fever pitch, South Africa’s ruling party is on the verge of splitting in half. Ruling members of the ruling African National Congress are threatening to form a new party in protest of President Thabo Mbeki becoming ex-president Thabo Mbeki.

At the end of September, Mbeki was “recalled” (read ‘sacked in disgrace’) from his position as president and leader of the ruling ANC. Not such a bad thing; despite his power, he was softer than cotton wool on Robert Mugabe, denied the link between Aids and HIV and helped open up wealth to the middle class and political elite but left 50% of the country bellow the poverty line. Nelson Mandela worried about Mbeki’s autocratic tendencies and it’s rumoured he regretted anointing Mbeki as his successor. Unfortunately, Mandela was seen as ‘then’ and Mbeki was ‘now’. Mbeki seemingly rid himself of his most obvious inner-party president rival, Jacob Zuma, when he sacked Zuma as vice-president in 2005. The charges brought against Zuma? His close ally, Schabir Shaik, was charged with corruption and fraud in a arms deal worth £4.8 billion, and Zuma was embroiled in the case. Zuma’s sacking came back to haunt Mbeki, when recently it was announced that Mbeki had unfairly influenced the case against Zuma.
So far, so hum-drum. Political back stabbings are as old as knives. Corrupt arms deals? So last year (and next year, and the year after and until the end of time probably.). Nevertheless, while Mbeki being fired is a good thing, Jacob Zuma taking over has a lot of people worried. Zuma hasn’t secured the presidency yet, but with care-taker President Motlanthe a close ally, it’s a good bet. Zuma has large popular support and many allies in the ANC.

So why the Zuma fears? For starters, his campaign anthem is called “Bring Me My Machine Gun”. It’s memorable, at least. Aside from his entanglement in the dodgy weapons deal, Zuma was also accused of raping a former comrade’s daughter. Zuma admitted to having conseual sex and was found not-guilty of rape, but the case brought up ‘sticky’ details – Zuma didn’t use a condom with the girl, who is HIV positive. Zuma, who was head of the National Aids Council at the time, allayed worries by explaining he had a shower to prevent HIV infection. Obviously Zuma is unaware no amount of Radox shower gel will fight the virus. But Zuma is a lover not a fighter; he has at least four wives, believes it’s against his Zulu culture to turn down a woman and admits to siring 18 children. Obviously Zuma likes to live dangerously in a country where one is seven people are HIV positive.

If Sarah Palin becoming president of the USA is “like a bad Disney film” (to use the words of Matt Damon), Jacob Zuma becoming president of South Africa is like a bad Carry On film. It is little wonder the ruling party is threatening to split over the issue. Meanwhile, the leader who seems to be most able to lead is in danger of being ignored. Care-taker president Kgalema Motlanthe keeps things simple with one wife, has begun to modernise HIV policy and is known affectionately at “Mkhulu" (grandfather in Zulu). He represents stability and a no nonsense attitude. He even likes Jazz. Despite being a chance for a fresh start for South Africa’s government, Zuma’s assumed succession threatens to nullify any of Motlanthe’s achievements. South Africa needs to ask it self – does it want to carry on down the Zuma/Mbeki farce?

Article on Pirates for Ctrl.Alt.Shift

2008-10-07T11:31:00.000-07:00

Article on Pirates for Ctrl.Alt.Shift

"Argghhh! Man the riggin’! Down the grog! Walk the plank! Shiver my timbers! And so on and so forth and such like. For while the news of financial pirates plundering the banks of the world has dominated headlines for the last few weeks, the activates of real pirates - the kind of buccaneers who would consider a peg leg a status symbol - have been left floundering in the backwaters of the media. So far this year there have been over 60 pirates attacks in the Gulf of Aden, a stretch of sea that leads to the Suez Canal, a globally important trading location. Every year through these busy waters of the coast of war torn Somalia over 16,000 ships travel, many of which are easy pickings for pirates. We’re not talking Jack Sparrow or Captain Hook jovially calling ‘A vast’ and sparring the women and children but stealing the rum. Pistols and cutlasses are so 18th century - AK 47s, RPGs, Uzis and motor boats are in.

A war torn country, open water and a strategic trading route - the outcome appears to be simple logic. And piracy is very profitable logic; in the last year a Malaysian tanker owned by MISC Berhad was ransomed for US$2 million, The German-owned MV BBC Trinidad was ransomed for US$1.1 million, and most recently pirates are demanding US$20 million for a Ukraine ship full of heavy weapons and at least 30 tanks. According to some reports, shipping companies have paid up to US$30 million in ransoms to Somalian pirates. With the Somalia’s fishing industry worth an estimated $1.5 million, why fill your boat with rods and nets when bullets and bombs could have you hauling more than tuna?

To deal with the threat, shipping companies have applied a simple logic of their own; a real and dangerous risk of pirates and the pricey ransom demands have caused insurance premiums for sending a cargo shipment through the Gulf of Aden to rise to about $9,000 - up tenfold from a year ago. With 55 ships passing through the area a day, website Information Dessimation worked out piracy is costing companies $440,000 plus a day just in insurance. This means anything coming through the Suez Canal - things like massive electronic and clothing exports from Asia and vital oil from Arab states - will have shiny new price tags to reflect the travelling ‘inconvenience’. This is without accounting for the burden of policing the gulf with French, Danish, Russian, Indonesia. American and Canadian warships that are in or incoming to the area. Should piracy continue, driving insurance premiums even higher, the shipping companies “could be forced to avoid the gulf of Aden/Suez canal and divert around the Cape of Good Horn” a UK think-tank reported recently. That’s more money added to those Bangladeshi sweatshop trainers. If trade through the Suez does slow down, spare a thought for Egypt which relies on the canal for roughly US$ 5 million every day. This option is still all better than the risk of an oil taker being damaged, causing an unpredictable environmental disaster.

But where are these pirates hiding colossal tankers before their ransomed off? Somalia saw pirate attacks subside after The Islamic Courts Union came to power in the country. Unfortunately, America accused the Union of having links to Al’Qa’eda and supported an invasion by Ethiopia. With the country in chaos, the pirates are making use of Eyl, a town in the automounous region of Puntland where the government is near powerless.

The situation is forming a vicious cycle that can only get worse unless Somalia can establish peace and order. Piracy pays, so pirates will continue and grow stronger with each attack, all at the expense of the rest of the world. The most bitter irony? Piracy could deter the countless ships delivering aid to Somalia, undermining any attempts to alleviate the conditions that allow piracy to flourish. Thanks to globalisation, a few small boats can cause some almighty waves.
Bullet News:

Hugo “Boss” Chavez, president of the absolutely-defiantly-completely not corrupt Venezuela, has booted out two members of Human Rights Watch to prove their report, “A Decade Under Chávez
Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela”, was a sack of shit.

More than 100,000 film workers have gone on strike - but their not LA lovvies throwing a caffeine ’n’ coke induced hissy fit. Their Bollywood worker on their first indefinite strike in 50 year, protesting low wages (£7.50 per day), late pay and the expanding casual labour force in the industry. "

Article on the credit crisis for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

2008-10-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

Article on the credit crisis for Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

"So we didn’t disappear when “The Black Hole Machine” was turned on underneath Switzerland, but to read the Financial Times you’d be forgiven for thinking the End Is Nigh. The Credit Crunch began to sound less like a new brand of breakfast cereal and more like the scary end of de-regulated finance that it actually is. While the headlines’ scare mongering just feel short of “Run For The Hills While You Still Can”, it seemed like you needed a Masters Degree in Economics and Business Management to understand last week’s news. Negative Equity? Liquidity? And who the hell are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

Thankfully John Bird and John Fortune explained it best in a sketch they performed last year; a mortgage salesmen, whose income is based on the number mortgages he sells, offers a poor, unemployed black man in Alabama the opportunity to buy his house by giving him lots of money at a high rate of interest. Sub-prime is really someone who can’t afford to pay back their mortgage. This “dodgy debt” is sold and bought by various companies, waiting for the investment to pay off. Like playing parcel the parcel, with billions and billions of near worthless IOUs. To carry the metaphor on, someone sneaked a look at the parcel and now there have been tears before bed time.

And there have been a lot of tears. In the last week XL Lesisure Group, Britain’s Third Largest Tour Operator, has gone bankrupt, leaving thousands of holiday makers stranded. Company Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy after loses of £2.2 billion, causing 5,000 people to lose their job in the UK. American International Group, the world’s largest insurer, was granted a lifeline of $20 billion. The Bank of America took over US bank Merrill Lynch for $50 billion and Lloyds TSB has been forced to buy HSBO, the owner of The Halifax. Back in July, the US Treasury had to rescue Americas two largest loan corporations, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - leaving comedians worldwide to ponder the impact of the US Government investing in Fannie. The Masters of The Universe, as financial traders like to call themselves, have found themselves gored by their own bull market.

But has The Western World ground to a halt? Will the next episode of The Hills show Hedi filling out a bankruptcy form? Has X-Factor been cancelled? No. For those in power or with secure wealth, this has been but a dent in the road. If Damien Hirst can clear up £111 million in an art auction, there must be some cash still floating about. Gordon Brown still enjoys a salary of £189,994 (for the time being anyway), Andy Hornby, Chief Exectuive of crippled HBOS, enjoyed a salary of £2 million last year and has a £2.4 million pension fund, Stanley O'Neal , former CEO of Merrill Lynch, walked away with $161 million worth of stock options and retirement packages and just in 2006 Lehman brothers paid out staff bonuses of $8.7 billion.

While the traders and CEOs have lucrative Cvs and lavish pay packages, the “little people”, the people who invested in these companies, will suffer. It’s UK and US tax payers who will find themselves bailing out companies that hated government intervention when profits were on the rise. As one Lehman’s investor describe after being fired, “many lives have been screwed for the greed of a few”. “All were left with,“ author Will Self wrote, “is schadenfreud, anger - or in the case of the poor, outright misery”.

The arrogance and bloated self worth of the financial sector has dominated the news and will dominate the agenda while this crisis continues; no headlines about the bombs in Delhi or the riots in Bolivia that left 30 people dead, or Mugabe signing a power sharing deal. The one plus of this crisis has been that the West’s agenda has exposed - profits, business and markets before intelligent governance. While the UK and US government have been slow to embrace green technology and sustainable development, they will gladly spend billions and billions of dollars to pay for the mistakes of a few that affect millions. Alleviating the Third World’s $.29 trillion dollar debt? Increased tax and capped prices on energy companies? That’s not part of the economy, stupid."

Saturday Leeds Article

2008-10-05T06:53:00.000-07:00

Article for USC in-store magazine 'Saturday'. Image final copy after being subbed.

"
MUSIC LEAD
Think Leeds is just another clubbing city, packed with the same commercial, generic clubs as everywhere else? The West Indian Centre proves you’d be wrong, so very, very wrong…
Leeds could confidently call itself the clubbers Mecca of the North, providing such fine super clubs as Oceana, Gatecrasher and Club Mission, but the city’s best kept secret is The West Indian Centre. Situated in Chapeltown, the heart of Leeds’ large West Indian community, The West Indian Centre provides a break from the norm of over commercialized dance music whilst keeping with the Chapeltown ethos of creative, community driven projects.
“We put on a lot of reggae and dubstep nights, but we’re really all about the community,” Ian Charles MBE, the Secretary of the West Indian Centre and co-ordinator of The Leeds West Indian Carnival (one of the largest in Europe), tells USC. The West Indian Centre has helped Leeds’ large Dubstep and Reggae scene have a base for touring soundsystems and DJs, and has worked closely with local Dub and Reaggae record label/underground record store Tribe Records. “We hire the centre out to promoters and the community as a cheap place to hire and allow promoters to decorate the centre. They can make a profit from ticket sales, while we keep going from drink sales.”

The Centre has a long history of working with the community and entrepreneurial promoters to create the most respected club in Leeds. “All our big events have been going 10- 20 years, so people know they are safe”. So no danger of a Pete Tong wannabe lamping you for a spilt Bacardi down his Fred Perry shirt.
Just because The Centre boasts a friendly and safe atmosphere, don’t think the music is soft. “Already we are fully booked for next year!” Mr Charles says. Regular event Sub Dub, featuring music from locals Iration Steppas – “The Vanguard of Dub, playin dubz inna year 3000 style”, keeps the Centre full with happy punters full of happy reggae and dub-step. “It’s defiantly an underground place,” Mark Iration, founder of Iration Steppas, tells USC. “You get all sorts of people at the Centre, it’s a very multi-racial, but we never have any trouble. Weekdays or weekends it’s all about the best underground music – reggae, dubstep, hard techno etc. It’s all top class though – it maybe underground, but it’s not a bloke-off-the-street business. Everything from the venue to the bar staff is just top class”.

SHOPPING LEAD

Forget rummaging about in bargain basements and scrounging in Primark; if top name brands get you as excited as Jimmy Savile in a second hand jewelry store, Leeds’ Victorian Quarter is the place to be. But Mr Savile IS NOT an accurate representation of Leeds fashion. With stores from Arrogant Cat to Vivienne Westwood, the Victorian Quarter proves being Northern doesn’t mean shell suits and Del Boy bling. The Victorian Quarter is also the site of the first Louis Vuitton store to have a VIP area, the third flagship Paul Smith store, the first Church’s shoes store outside London and the first Harvey Nichols store outside of Knightsbridge. Even the shopping centre is beautifully presented, full of class and style, being housed in a Grade 11 listed building. Little wonder Lonely Planet called Leeds “The Knightsbridge of the North” – making Knightsbrigde “The Victorian Quarter of the South” as any hardcore Loiner (person from Leeds) will tell you. How’s about that, then?

“MINI” STORIES
Kirkgate Market
Because man cannot live on Dubstep, up-market fashion and heavy bouts of liver failure alone…
With so much to do in Leeds, eating isn’t going to be your number one priority. But, like everything else in the city, Leeds’ has its own unique flavour (no pun intended) that merges quality, style and community. The Kirkgate Market boasts over 800 independent food stalls – making it the second largest covered market in Europe – in a Victorian Grade 1 listed building. Be careful not confuse it with the Leeds Corn Exchange – another Grade 1 listed building that is being turned into a food emporium, turfing out independent traders, despite local protests and a petition with over 3000 signatories. A place to avoid, UCS believes. Thanks to Kirkgate Market, Leeds’ still allows you to go Indie with your diet.
Leeds’ Indie Scene
No city that sired the Pigeon Detectives and The Kaiser Chiefs could be completely absent of an indie seen…
Leeds may be known for its techno, house and dubstep, but if you prefer your jeans skinny and your posses ironic then there are a few indie venues to check out. The Favershams’ Bad Sneakers night has included the likes of The Cribs, Arctic Monkeys, Larrikin Love, Jamie T and, of course, The Pigeon Detectives. The Favershams’ also has the In The Pines Night, an acoustic, singer/songwriter event, that has seen Paolo Nutini and KT Tunstall make appearances. The HIFI club, three times “Best Live Music Venue” at the annual Leeds Bar & Club Award, has The Tea Time Shuffle night, a live music showcase featuring 5 bands on the first Friday of every month.
DIY Leeds Style
Every town/city has its own DIY music industry...
Considering the Leeds’ scene is brimming with musical talent, it’s no wonder there’s a burgeoning music industry that is building itself around the city’s dominate indie and dubstep cultures. Dance To The Radio is the city’s biggest record label, with local bands Forward Russia and The Pigeon Detectives signed. Bad Sneaker Records, the same people who put on the eponymous night at The Faversham, are always on the look out for cutting edge talent in the Leeds indie/alternate scene. Squirrel Records can boast The Cribs as a signed artist and has a definite old school, DIY, qausi-punk attitude. If you prefer natty dreads to tatty threads, there’s aforementioned Tribe Records who have a hand in pretty much every DubStep and Reggae infused event in the Leeds area. So if you live in Leeds there’s really nothing stopping you from appearing in NME.

“Silly Stories”

The Otley Run
Whether you’re a student or not (there’s only a £20,000 loan and severe case of jaundice difference), The Otley Run, a traditional student bar crawl, is one of the best in the country. The rules vary, but it’s generally agreed one pint per pub minimum. Easy? Probably gets a bit harder after the 19th pub out of the 20 or so public houses on the ‘traditional’ route. What sets the crawl apart from other pub runs are the venues: a converted fire station/police station/library, an old water works, the longest bar in Europe (96 pulleys on one bar) and even a gravel barge dry docked in the middle of the road.

Article - Ctrl.Alt.Shift - Meeting with Julian Ovalle - Colombian Conscientious Objector

2008-09-22T06:05:00.000-07:00

Meeting with Julian Ovalle - Colombian Conscientious Objector

"Housmans Bookstore isn’t your average bookstore. Only at Housmans could you find a book called “The Credit Crunch: A Marxist Analysis”. There are whole sections dedicated to Chomsky, Marx and Anarchism. It’s the sort of bookstore The Joker would visit if he was bit left-wing. Waterstones, this is not.

Tonight’s talk is given by Julian Ovalle, looking like the front man of Maroon 5 gone punk, and Julian’s translator, who remained nameless but was a dead ringer for Mika. The venue may have been cramped, the talk may have been disjointed, but the facts were engaging. Colombia has suffered south America’s longest running armed conflict, 50 years and still going strong, with countless factions - guerrillas, criminals and paramilitaries - fighting to control everything from cocaine to water reserves.

Every day in Colombia, 14 people die or are abducted by a faction. Most adductees are press ganged into fighting. The government did demobilise 30,000 paramilitaries recently, but the burly, veteran fighters have kept their connections with the army, spying for money, and they can enjoy lucrative mercenary contracts from any one of the countless factions. The government, which spends 45% of the GDP on the military conflict, enforces conscription.
Don’t feel like fighting? Join the 18,000 young people who refuse to see through their military service. You need to think twice before you rip up your service contract, because you cannot be legally employed or graduate from university until you have severed. If your rich then don’t sweat it, you can buy your way out of military service. A lot of young students feel like they don’t have a choice, being too poor or too intimidated, so they join up. The militarily often occupy schools, and teachers who are conscientious objectors often ‘disappear’. Unsurprisingly, one in four of Colombia’s fighters are aged between 7 and 17. In these circumstances, where every conscientious objector’s case is radically different and absurdly difficult to resolve, it is no surprise that Julian considers two students’ freedom from militarily service “a huge victory”.

But Colombia’s a million whiles away, what can we do? Columbia Records has more relevance to the modern young person than the land of “Liberty and Order” (smell the irony in that national motto?). How can anyone be expected to unravel the problems of Bogotá in Bognor? Well, not developing a cocaine habit will help, cocaine being one of Colombia’s biggest exports and major resource in the conflict. Energy and the oil trade (BP being a bigger player in Colombia) have a major hand in displacing people who happen to be living on a prime site for a refinery or power station. The wonders of BP, selling shit coffee, overpriced oil AND hiring mercenary paramilitaries. Makes you proud that “British Petroleum” is no longer owned by Britain. The boycotter’s old friends Nestle and Coca-Cola came up as other companies enjoying the conflict’s ability to keep unions divided. Coke was mentioned for recently being implicated in the shooting of trade unionists by paramilitaries. That’s ‘The Coke Side of Life’. If you want a hefty dose of irony, visit the Colombian embassy’s website (http://www.colombianembassy.co.uk/) and go the human rights’ section. Has a blank page ever said so much? "

Interview about Green Wedding's for Ctrl.Alt.Shift

2008-09-11T10:58:00.000-07:00

Interview about Green Wedding's for Ctrl.Alt.Shift

"NICE DAY, FOR A GREEN WEDDING

Every year, the UK hosts over 200,000 weddings – that’s 200,000 embarrassing (read drunk) uncles doing the twist like they did too many summers ago and countless more half eaten cocktail sausages getting stuck underfoot. And that’s just the annoying little peccadilloes of the day; after the event, the average bride and groom will face a bill of £15,000 to £25,000. What do they get for this tidy sum? A novelty toaster that sings Billy Idol’s White Wedding? A wedding cake that could house a midget? A dress the bride, and hopefully the groom, will never wear again?

With the increasing ethical, ecological and financial cost of the Great British white wedding, more and more people are turning their backs on big business that offers that individual, “special dress” out of mass distributed catalogue. Fuck his and her towels. But going green and ethical doesn’t mean walking down the aisle with your privates covered in fig leaves. Websites like giveit.com and presentaid.com offer gifts ranging from a reading manual for a women’s literacy project in Sudan (£6) to a community tap which will provide clean, safe drinking water to hundreds of villagers in Nicaragua (£45). Simple stuff, honestly appreciated. But you don’t have to freak out your guests by requesting 800 head of oxen. Ctrl+Alt+Shift talked to Caroline (?surname?) about her green and friendly wedding….

How did you make the wedding ethical?

The two approaches we took were to make the wedding ethical and eco-friendly. In terms of the ethical stuff we bought as much free trade stuff as we possibly could; we had fair trade wine, fair trade champagne, fair trade tea and coffee, and we also did fair trade roses and bouquets. And we even had Fair Trade Wedding rings.

Was the wedding more hassle because of the ethical and eco-friendly stance?

I enjoyed the ethical and eco-friendly stance because it has been so much part of my life up until now. It was a natural thing for me to do, it would have been more unnatural for me to have done it any other way. I’ve never organised a wedding before but I don’t think it was too much more work. You have to think a bit more creatively, but Fair Trade is so much more available than it used to be – finding Fair Trade tea and coffee is easy now.

Was it more expensive that you hoped or was it cheaper?

I think it came out a little bit cheaper than an average wedding, but it defiantly wasn’t more expensive. A lot of the stuff we did, especially the stuff we did based on being eco-friendly, we used handmade and home made stuff, so we saved a lot of money by doing that. For example all the invitation, all the stationary, was homemade, and my wedding dress and all my brides maid’s dresses were home made – my mum made them. All the material from the dresses came from the local area. I made all the jewellery and the table decorations, and all that sort of stuff. Home grown confetti was another thing. We also did a lot of really local stuff. All the caterers provided local produce. I had a local craftsman make my tiara! It was all local – so no air miles went into the making of these things.

So you didn’t go without anything because it was an ethical and eco-friendly wedding?

No, I had all the trimmings, they were just eco-friendly, ethical trimmings!

Were people sceptical about the idea when you told them you were having an ethical and eco-friendly wedding?

I think people close to me weren’t surprised at all because my whole life has been very ethically driven. A lot of people have asked me that question after the wedding, ‘did you have to compromise’, ‘was it less special’, so there is the presumption that it wouldn’t be as nice as a ‘normal’ wedding. But then people see the photos and say it looks just like a normal wedding! They’re nicely surprised.

You say you had this wedding because it was an extension of your personality. Why do you think more people choose not to have an ethical or eco-friendly wedding?

I think the trend for ethical weddings is growing. When I was doing my research into ethical weddings, I was finding more and more websites and blogs and discussions. So there is a community out there. I think what’s been holding people back has been the assumption an ethical wedding will mean more planning, more spending and less of what they want because they think Fair Trade can’t accommodate them.

What was your favourite part of the wedding in terms of getting what you want and being ethical working together perfectly?

After the wedding, I felt very happy that it summed up who I am as a person. It was very unique because so many people were involved helping us making it perfect. That made it even more of a celebration because all of my friends and family had a role to play, everyone had something special to do, which made it more special for them and more special for me. There was a sense of community and family which is what I think a wedding should be about. If I had gone out and just said, ‘I’m going to have a hundred of these balloons, and a hundred of these balloons’, it would have been a lot more generic. The eco-ethical aspect made it really unique."

Article On Tiger Economies For Ctrl.Alt.Shift

2008-09-11T10:50:00.000-07:00

"I say Iran, you say…oppression? Dangerous foreign policy? A half baked leader a few minarets short of a mosque? The death sentence? A middle class suburb, spotlessly presented, accommodating all the needs of a middle-management clerk who works at a nearby Volkswagen factory? What? Have I been drinking? Alas, no. In the middle of the nigh-on inhospitable desert of northern Iran lies Arg-e Jadid – “instant citadel”. It has a supermarket, a cinema, two storey condos and lots of gardens. The security – CCTV, constant patrols – is ever present. The comfortable middle class that lives in this enclave never need to leave the “citadel”. The Volkswagen and Hyundai factories in the industrial zone provide stable jobs. A perfect little world, if you can afford it.

Economic Free Zones, exempt from the rigorous government regulations (like tax), like Arg-e Jadid have helped the east not only rise but also stare down the west in terms of gourde, get-what-you-can capitalism. The totalitarian regimes of China, Iran and Dubai don’t mind their loyal citizens having fun – just as long as the fun is shopping. America may be the archetypal home of consumerist monoliths, but it's The Dubai Mall that is set to become the world’s largest mall when it is completed in 2008. The previous owner of Worlds Largest Mall was China with the South China Mall, which stayed open long enough to open its Teletubbie themed “edutainment” sector, before it was closed because it couldn’t fill its 6 million square foot floor space. In the words of Tinkie Winkie, Uh Oh. Such booming economic success has allowed the China to host one of the most lavish Olympics seen; the Chinese government spent $40 billion, more than all the summer games since 1984 combined. Those reaping the benefits of such outlandish wealth have begun to re-brand themselves in the image of materialist western middle classes. Chinese property developers Sun Hung Kai Properties has recreated on the outskirts of Hong Kong “Palm Springs”, with sterile, suburban streets named after American towns and a park with statues of Disney characters. In Dubai, the wealthy can enjoy ‘Dubailand’, a theme park twice the size of Disney World hosting the largest zoo in the Middle East and, of course, Mall of Arabia.

While the East’s rise is fulfilling all the wildest fantasies of the filthy rich, the plain old ‘filthy’ are living an economic nightmare. As the Independent noted, “the labour market closely resembles the old indentured labour system brought to Dubai by its former colonial master, the British”. Thousands and thousands of Asian immigrants working in Dubai enjoy a wage packet of $150 a month. No frolicking with Mickey & Co in a suburban oasis. While the Chinese wealthy can afford to isolate themselves in gated communities, the national per capita annual income barely reaches the $1,000 mark.

While the wealthy are embracing the tried and tested Western form of gratuitous splurging, the youth are feeling helpless in their pursuit to reach commercial paradise – even in the most successful Asian countries. Japan has a generation of young, part time workers (know as furītā or freeters) and NEETs (not in employment, education or training) who are at risk of becoming shut-ins (hikikomori) living in the virtual worlds of the internet and computer games. Those who work are in danger of working to death or losing control – karoshi being the Japanese word for overwork and kireru being the Japanese word for violently snapping, losing control.

As the old (slightly racist) quote goes, “the East can teach the West how to live, and the West can teach the East how to work. Sadly, the East has learnt from the West too well, learning how to create angst, fear, greed, loathing, inequalities, and money worries in a whole new part of the world. "

Review of Thin Lizzy - UK Tour 75 & Moby - Disco Lies for CMU Daily

2008-09-08T05:05:00.000-07:00

"ALBUM REVIEW: Thin Lizzy - UK Tour 75 (Major League Productions)

How best to describe anything Thin Lizzy has done, in such a short space? It’s like explaining rock and roll using only the words “rock” and “roll”. Coming years before Iron Maiden, Def Leppard and Motorhead, Thin Lizzy had been waging hard rock for four years before this recoding of a live show in ‘75. The album sees the band with founding members Phil Lynott, a smooth, Mercury style vocal ability, and drummer Brian Downey with long serving guitarists Scottt Gortham and Brian Robertson. The line up maybe ’classic’ Lizzy but there is a lack of ‘popular’ hits, Whiskey In Jar being absent, and to a causal listener every song may sound like its on the verge of being ’The Boys Are Back In Town’ - not to be recorded for another year. Being a live album, the recording is a little rough around the edges but is surprisingly clean and precise; what you loose in atmosphere, you gain in thundering guitars on Me and The Boys trying to shred your ear drum to pieces. The album is packed full of little rarities designed to appeal to the hardcore Lizzy fan (like Cowboy Song prototype being called by a different name), but someone new to the band would be better served by listening to Live and Dangerous. Nevertheless, head-thumping tracks like The Rocker, Little Darling and It’s Only Money provide great nostalgia for a time when bands like Alpahbeat would be eaten alive as an after dinner mint. In the words of Justin Lee Colins: Rock On! RL

Release Date: 8th September

Press Contact: Work Hard PR (all)"

"SINGLE REVIEW: Moby Vs Freemasons (Mute)

Listening to Disco Lies you have to wonder if Moby has ever been to Faliraki- “Oi baldy, trouble so hard, yer get it, yer get it?”, followed by overweight piss head being sick in her own thong? Unlikely maybe, but this Freemason remix slaps ‘cheap commercial dance song’ all over Moby. Latest album Last Night may been too cool for its own good, but at least it’s tracks didn’t banally tick the dance song check list like Disco Lies: sexy whispering (check), sultry female vocal (check), epic synths (check), the same, damn, dance beat every hit dance song uses (check). It’s even got a stereotypically quirky, soon-to-be referenced in Nuts music video (Giant chicken in pimp costume kills Colonel Sanders). But it featured in edgy Cloverfield so Moby’s saved his New York hipster chic, right? Expect to hear “It’s just a lie” being bawled from Ibiza to Zante very soon. RL

Release Date: 15th September

Press Contact: ?"

Article on Recycling Laptops for Ctrl+Alt+Shift

2008-08-29T08:27:00.000-07:00

Article for Ctrl+Alt+Shift

What’ll we do with a broken laptop? What’ll we do with a broken laptop? What’ll do with a broken laptop, earl-aye in the morning? What indeed? Everyone knows what you do with a drunken sailor (Put him in the long boat ‘till he's sober), but what can we do with that magic black box when it ceases to be of use? The European Community has made it part of it’s classification of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (giving us the unfortunate acronym WEEE to please our inner ten year old). But don’t go about disposing your WEEE as you would it’s namesake, unless you want a very confused plumber eyeing your bowels with suspicion. The Royal Society of Arts commissioned designer Paul Bonomini to create a 7 foot, 3.3 tonne ‘WEEE Man’ to represent how much e-waste the average Britain throws away during their life time. The WEEE Man, which is now on display at the Eden Project, contains 4 keyboards, 7 PC screens, 8 CPU’s and 23 keyboard mice - helping to represent 2 million working Pcs dumped into UK landfills every year.

Actions like the WEEE Directive and Extended Producer Responsibility mean some pressure is being applied to companies to reduce this e-waste. The WEEE Directive means ‘users of electrical and electronic equipment from private households should have the possibility of returning WEEE at least free of charge’; when you buy a laptop, you can ask to be part of a take back scheme so when your laptop pass’s on to the Great PC World In The Sky you can return the laptop to the shop and then they must dispose of it in a ecologically safe manner. Many Laptop producers already operate similar schemes: Gateway, Toshiba and Apple computers all offer a recycling programme.

Unfortunately there is a get out clause; The British Retail Consortium has set up a Distributor Take Back Scheme, run by the company Valpak, which makes members exempt from the reasonability of dealing with WEEE. In other words, if you buy a laptop from Amazon, which is a member of the Distributor Take Back Scheme, then they don’t have to do a thing when your laptop breaks. By joining the The Distrbutor Take Back Scheme, a company effectively out-sources the recycling progress to Valpak funded centres and picks up a tiny bit of the bill (a company that sells £1.5m worth of EEE pays just £1,500). Even if a company isn’t part of the Distribute Take Back Scheme, you can’t just hand in your old laptop - you have to buy a new laptop from the store. If you don’t, the store doesn’t have to do a thing. This applies to the Toshiba and Apple programmes too.

So instead of companies buying and producing laptops that are easier to recycle/last longer - in the knowledge they will have to deal with products at the end of it’s life span - companies pay a token sum to upgrade local council recycling centres (my nearest Valpak funded WEEE recycling centre is my council run, mostly council funded landfill). Thankfully, some companies, like PC World, offer an in store take back service which is encouraging ’greener’ products, but you still have to buy a new item similar to the recycled one. What’s a eco-conscience, networked e-hipster in no need of a laptop to do?

There’s always the option of selling your deceased laptop on Ebay. It may sound bizarre, but there is a large online market for broken laptops - last time I checked, the highest priced laptop was £72.00 with two days of biding left. Plenty of the components in a broken laptop may work fine, like the graphics card, the sound card, the CPU, the hard drive - all useful parts for people who enjoy building PC’s from scratch. For this reason many independent computer repair shops will take a broken laptop of your hands, sometimes even parting with a little cash. Just remember to wipe the laptop’s hard drive clean - most laptops come with a disk that allows the system to reboot from scratch. That way there is no need to worry about anyone stealing your identify or discovering you’re a member of www.knittersreivew.com. If you think of yourself as more ethical than Mother Teresa on Prozac, it is worthwhile hunting about for a scheme that restores laptops and Pcs to their past glory and ships them developing countries. Computer Aid International, http://www.computer-aid.org/, allows you to post your laptop to their centre and they will do the rest.

No option is completely work free; you will have to get off your arse to take/post the laptop to a store, recycling centre, repair shop, charity organization etc. The options are in your hands, for example you can choose to buy from a store with a take back scheme , and http://www.recycle-more.co.uk/ will help you find your nearest recycling centre (assuming your laptop wasn’t your own means of access). Just remember - Recycling = Good, Flushing Down Toilet/Leaving In Long Boat = Bad.

Article About Military Spending For Ctrl+Alt+Shift

2008-08-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

Article for Ctrl+Alt+Shift

A popular military maxim says the best defence is a good offence. But, like most maxims, it can’t be applied universally. What happens if you’re in a western - didn’t John Wayne teach us it’s best to form a circle with wagons and wait for the Soux attack to subside? In the wild, wild east of Afghanistan, the guerrilla warfare waged by the Taliban shows no signs of relenting, and the cavalry on the hill doesn’t seem to have it’s horses in order. “(British Soldiers) are fighting and dying, while at home they are talking about slashing and cutting,” The Guardian has reported a well-placed defence source saying.

The war in Afghanistan has been a constant source of reports of soldiers dying due to poor or missing equipment or inadequate training. Seemingly unable to provide sufficient training and equipment for troops, what has used up the MoD‘s budget? £4.2 billion of it has gone on offence in the form of the Apache AH1 attack helicopter, a machine that makes Airwolf seems like a homemade gyrocopter. Equipped with Hellfire missiles, CRV7 rockets, an M230 chain gun and a helmet mounted display, The AH1 seems to deserve it’s nickname “The Flying Tank”. Not only can it kill a man in a shower of Hollywood style effects, the AH1’s ability to fly backwards, do a loop-the-loop and even fly upside down means it can kill with more finesse than a psychopathic metallic ballerina.

But what about the cost? The British Apache programme has an overall project cost of £4.2 billion. The Army Air Corps received the first of 67 helicopters in July 2007, but the attack squadrons weren’t at peak killing capacity until 2007. Last year only 8 of 67 helicopters were deployed to Afghanistan. "It is too little, too late," was how Colonel Christopher Langton, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, described the situation to The Guardian. While much is made of the eye-sight precise targeting system for the Apaches’ Mini gun, The Human Rights Watch has deplored the use of the Apaches’ Hellfire missiles, describing them as “especially brutal” as they make it “virtually impossible for civilians to take shelter”.

England isn’t the only one being provided with overpriced military equipment. The US Defence Department was charged $400 million to retool torpedoes so they could fire Navy SEALs and Commonados on to beach heads. That rules out deployment in Afghanistan - a country completely and utterly landlocked. But Afghanistan isn’t so landlocked as to be unassailable from the air, so the US Defence Department has ordered 96 more F-22A fighter jets, a snip at $130 million each, to boost their dwindling supply of 83 F-22A jets. Finally, there’s The Crusader “self propelled howitzer” project, which Congress cancelled at the cost of $450 million.

“It’s not only how much we spend, but where we place our spending emphasis,” ex-Navy SEAL and author Dick Couch told Human Events website. “Would it be better to have a couple of guys who can speak Arabic than to have new sniper rifles?”. Gordon Brown seemed to be stepping in this direction recently when he pledged £64m in development assistance to Afghanistan. Unfortunately, this sum is just over 5% of what is been spent on the AH1 Apache project alone. The best defence may be a good offence, but would the cost of more body armour, training and translators really, if you excuse the pun, hurt?

Reviews of Sway-Saturday Night Hustle and Roots Manuva-Again & Again for CMU Daily

2008-08-23T14:19:00.001-07:00

"SINGLE REVIEW: Sway ft Lemar - Saturday Night Hustle (Dcypha Productions)
“I’m so geed up, I do this with my eyes closed, and my feet up/ And my hands tied, balancing a tea cup on the tip of my nose, other rappers can’t keep up”. Big words from a 25 year old, but North Londoner Sway DaSafo has an impressive trophy case to support him: a BET Hip-Hop Award for "Best UK Hip-Hop Act", a MOBO award and a Mercury Prize nomination. Makes you sick, doesn’t it? But Saturday Night Hustle justifies his prestigious bling, making a departure from Grime infused hip-hop to prove he can flow to some smooth R’n’B. Credit must be given to producer Shux who updates Alexander O'Neal and Cherrelle’s 1985 hit Saturday Love with finesse, while all Lemar has to do is croon away the days of the week like a rushed Craig David. Coming so quickly after the Grime fuelled, txt speak loving F UR X, Saturday Night Hustle should create a buzz about the potentially eclectic genius of Sway’s second album The Signature LP. RL
Release Date: 25 August
Press Contact: Motion PR (all)"

"SINGLE REVIEW: Roots Manuva - Again & Again (Big Dada Recordings)
“Again & Again” presents the download obsessed listener of today with a pitfall: one version, the radio edit produced by Shy-FX, is infinity better than another , the Captain Pugwash/Manuva album production. There will also be a number of remixes released with the single, most notably a Matt ‘Artic Monkey’ Helders reworking. Usually alternate versions of a track suggests a great, catchy song open to multiple interpretations - unfortunately, Again & Again isn’t a great song. While Mr Manuva raps (if his lazy flow can be called that) about how he “don’t sell out”, Again & Again is an overly infectious, happy track that openly wants to be a chart topping anthem. The offbeat horns and the muted guitar of the Shy FX version make the most of the reggae style riff, but the striped down album version is just the same riff Again & Again & Again & Again. “We just sell a record or two”, Manuva claims; he will probably sell a lot more with this track that isn’t Awfully Deep. RL
Release Date: 25 August
Press Contact: Toast Press (NP), Z Zonked (NR)"

Article about Profits for Ctrl+Alt+Shift

2008-08-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

Ctrl+Alt+Shift

"If money is the root of all evil, but money makes the world go round, does evil make the world go round? A statement to stir the inner Marxist in the biggest Fat Cat Capitalist, I’m sure you’ll agree. Nevertheless, with prices on everything from oil to aloe veria soaring higher than an eagle on crystal meth, wealth and where it goes is a pertinent issue. At the beginning of this month, Centrica - the company that owns British Gas - announced half-year profits of £992 million the day after a record 35% increase in gas bills. And where do profits go? They go to providing a £144 million dividend to share holders - 3.9p added to 3.7 billion shares. Now is a good time to own shares, not such a good time to need gas. Sadly, this is just one example of a growing tread of the wealthy getting wealthier, and the poor getting poorer…

At the beginning of this month, BP reported half year profits were up from last year by 23%, just over $20 billion. Shell recently reported profits of £13.9 billion. The head of England’s largest trade union called the profits “obscene”. For the CEO of Shell, they were merely “satisfactory“. Meanwhile, Tesco has reported profits of £2.8 billion, a rise of 11.8%. Not such a good year for ASDA, making just £1.09 billion profit.

Such grandiose numbers mean little when they’re statistics; applying the numbers to tangible products highlights the enormity of the situation. A six pack of what is probably my favourite food stuff in the world ( hot cross buns, not Carlsberg) is 79p from ASDA. With their profits, I could buy 8,278,481,012 hot cross buns ( if my GCSE arithmetic and calculator is correct). If I did want to obliterate my liver - in probably the best way in the world - a four pack of Carlsberg from ASDA is £5.28 - from ASDA’s profits that’s 825 million cans of beer , known colloquially as a quiet night in for Amy Winehouse. I don’t drive, but a open single train ticket from Penzance to Edinburgh would set me back £152. With Shell’s profits, I could make the journey 85 million times.

Aside from showing how much pastry and alcohol fuelled fun your average CEO could have from Lands End to John O’ Groats, the figures have a serious side. In the UK, the “very poor” ( roughly classed as having an annual income of less than £10,000) make up 10% of the population - around 10 million people in the UK. To put that number in perspective, the very poor of the country could fill up 111 Wembley Stadiums. The combined profits of the companies aforementioned could double the incomes of 2.8 million people. I’m no Marxist - put away the Red Star branding iron. But with rising prices, fears of global recession and food riots across the world, is it really that radical to think a little sharing might go along way?"

Single Review CMU Daily - Late Of The Pier

2008-08-05T13:12:00.000-07:00

SINGLE REVIEW: Late of The Pier - Hearbeat (Zarcorp/Parlophone)If nothing else, being part of Nottingham based Late of The Pier has given it’s members a great excuse to give themselves ridiculous names and sing equally ridiculous lyrics; “Pineapple pieces in brine/fucking around with your mind” Jack Paradise sings to Rouge Dog Consuela’s dance drum beat in Heartbeat. Aside from warning about the dangers of buying dodgy Del Monte, Heartbeat is blissfully simple acid-rave sci-fi punk-funk (Klaxons’ invented genre, sadly not my own). The blatant wish to be MGMT fronted by Gary Numan remains from previous tracks, but the short, lopping synth riff is a cut above previous efforts, certainly not genius but definitely catchy. Heartbeat may not be treading new, exciting territory (Klaxons won the Mercury Prize a year ago), but it’s a worthy addition to a genre that deserves a better name than ‘New Rave’. RLRelease Date: 4 AugustPress Contact: The Darling Deparment Ltd (all)

Article About Big Brother for Ctrl+Alt+Shift

2008-08-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

"Oh dear God, no it can’t be! I thought it was put in the grave for good with the Shilpa Shetty scandal! But no! Like a B-movie horror monster (which is an accurate description of some of the housemates) Big Brother, in all its Jordie-narrated bizarreness, is back. With each passing year the franchise grows and grows, until the only way to escape the BB house coverage is to stuff your ears with your own eyeballs. Get text updates, read the blogs, read the papers , view the website, get email updates, watch the channel 4 show, watch Big Brother’s Big Mouth , watch Big Brother’s Little Brother , and listen to Big Brothers Big Ear. And then buy the DVD.

We love to watch, to be voyeurs, get our nosy neighbour fix, and new technology has made it easier than ever. But how do we feel about being watched? What happens when our favourite shiny technology is used against us? On an average day a Londoner can expect to be filmed by 300 of London’s half a million strong CCTV network , and Boris Johnson is pushing to have 150 metal detector arches placed around public transport hubs. The intention for these arches is to allow the police to search for knives - although how the arches will differentiate between a knife and belt buckle isn’t clear.

Nonetheless, London’s surveillance techniques seem small fry compared to efforts of the Chinese city of Shenzhen. Chinese security executives predict they will have installed 2 million CCTVs in Shenzhen by 2011, making it the most watched city in the world.

The Chinese shouldn’t get too complacent in their efforts - surveillance is big, big business. L-I Idendity Solutions, a US defence contractor that supplies software to Chinese security executives and produces US passports and biometric security systems for the US government, predicts it’s annual revenue will be $1 billion by 2011. L-I Solution’s stretching of US Law to do business with the Chinese (US companies aren’t allowed to sell crime control or detective instruments to the Chinese) has proved the suppliers are willing to meet the demand. L - I boasts contracts with the governments of Panama, Suadia Arabia, Mexico and Turkey to name but a few.

Of course the US government can’t spy on it’s citizens, but they can pay people to do it for them. ChoicePoint, one of the largest contractors for the Department of Homeland Security and holder of 16 billion files on American citizens, is allowed to divulge all its files to the US government thanks to the PATRIOT Act.

The UK Government has plans to circumnavigate the private sector when it comes to invading the public's privacy. The Home Office recently announced plans to build a "super database" which will track every call, text, email and internet search in England in real time. Information Commissioner Richard Thomas called the scheme "a step too far for the British way of life" and warned we are "sleep walking into a surveillance society". This year will also see the beginning of the Governments ID Card scheme with the card becoming compulsory if you re-new your passport. Should you opt out of the scheme, or fail to update the system with relevant details, you'll face a £1,000 fine. Despite driving licenses, credit cards, facebook pages, passports, census forms, nation insurance cards, p45s, p60s and birth certificates, the government seems to need more information. As long as the database is presented by Davina McCall, I'm sure we'll be happy."

Body Bags Article for Ctrl+Alt+Shift

2008-08-04T15:55:00.001-07:00

Body Bags Article for Ctrl+Alt+Shift.

"Last month, George Carlin, infamous, irreverent comedian extraordinaire, passed away. Carlin was most famous for his “7 Words You Can’t Say On TV” (and I’m probably not allowed to type here) bit which was accused of disturbing the peace and brought about new legislation regarding profane words being aired by the media. Carlin’s comedy often focused on words, their meaning and the right of free speech. Another one of his more famous bits looks at the word shell shock; “In the first world war, the condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Doesn't seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. . Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, were up to eight syllables now! It's totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car. Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam…and the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder.”

And it’s still is termed “post-traumatic stress disorder“, by the military and the media. With Shell shock mutilated into a hypernym (a word that describes a vague collection of concepts) , other rough-and-ready military phrases have fallen out of fashion. There was much confusion and speculation as to what the US Military are calling body bags these days; it was rumoured “transfer tubes” was the official terminology to be used for the bags that contained the dead bodies of solders. But it was revealed this was all a misunderstanding - the military are still using the terminology from the first Gulf War. Which is? ‘Human Remain Pouch’. No , it’s not something Ray Mears defecates in whilst out camping. It’s what a dead solder gets brought home in. Perhaps the term is befitting the current situation; perhaps the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan is so bad all that is left of Private Bloggs won’t fill up a bag. Why waster material! It would be interesting to find out how far the military take this wordplay; do solders kip in ‘sleeping pouches’? To stop them getting pouches under their eyes? So their fit to fight on in Pouchdad? (Ok, that last one was too facetious…)

But as George W’s mother asked: “Why should we hear about body bags and deaths?”. Maybe because, as Carlin so poignantly phrased it, “if we'd of still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time”. So next time you hear a reference to a human remains pouch, think Body Bag. And next time you hear post-traumatic stress disorder, think Shell Shock. It might stop George Carlin turning in his grave. "

The Mighty Boosh Festival Review

2008-07-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

The Mighty Boosh Festival Review for CMU Daily and ukmusic.com .

“For some reason the Daily Telegraph has decided to report on the The Mighty Boosh Festival as thus; “With its openly professed disdain for sponsorship, TV cameras, VIP areas and corporate tie-ins, the inaugural Mighty Boosh all-dayer makes a convincing claim to the moral high ground”. Maybe the lazy hack for the Telegraph isn’t the sharpest spoon in the cutlery drawer or, a more likely scenario, they just imagined what the event would be like because they couldn’t be bother to attend. By the end of the festival, I wished I had chosen that last option.
I arranged to attended The Boosh Festival in order to answer a simple question; can The Mighty Boosh, our generation’s biggest comedy troupe, pull off a music festival with a capacity of 30,000 attendees? Comedy has always flirted with rock & roll and musical stardom: Python Eric Idle’s many, many class songs, Spinal Tap taking the piss out of glam rock and then going on tour, Alex Sayle’s “Hello John Got A New Motor“, Bill Bailey’s obsession with synths, Dudley Moore giving us the world’s first classical music mash-up, and so on and so on and so on. So perhaps the Boosh Festival website was indulging in hyperbole when it invited viewers to be part of comedy history - comedy has a fine lineage of being funny in time with a beat. But an open air festival with a comedy band headlining is unexplored, exciting territory - and perhaps it is best left unexplored…
Maybe the festival’s failings were my fault. With press passes all sorted (ie blagged), the sun with his Mighty Boosh themed hat on and the voice of John Cleese guiding us by TomTom to Kent in under an hour, I was feeling relaxed enough to declare it was going to be, as the website assured, “a fun day in the country“. It began to dawn on me I had brought about a festival sized jinx when we had to wait half an hour for our press passes, before being manhandled by one of those festival security guards that get shipped in from some remote Orkney village where they’re taught how to fester a hatred for anyone who lives south of John o' Groats. Walking into the main arena was an under whelming experience; it had the layout of a large scale, high capacity festival but the stage, the centre piece for any good event, looked like it could barely accommodate a Rolf Harris tribute band, let alone an international rock god.
Still, stiff up a lip, don’t judge a book by it’s cover and all that we think. But try as we might, me and photographer Tom couldn’t find the festival spirit. With the main stage full of has-beens or going-nowheres and a comedy tent that required a twenty minuet wait to get in, all the usual festival burger vans, herbal-E stalls and literally shitty port-a-loos seemed to be tacked on to give the festival some creditability. And when a chemical toilet is being relied on to provide a sense of atmosphere, the smell of shit will hang heavy on the air. There wasn’t even any excitement to be found backstage. The bands and comedians were tucked away in a VIP area that was off limits to the press - who were being handled by two PR agents that were manic whirlwinds of hustling and bustling activity one minuet and then clueless idiots with vacant stares the next. Those not deemed worthy of an interview with the great Barratt and Fielding (which sounds more like a estate agents than a comedy duo) had to sulk in the media tent like greasy paparazzi, fidgeting with cameras and pretending to ‘network’.
Back outside on grassy fields of Hop Farm, the bands (apparently all booked by Fielding) failed to grasp anyone’s attention, and the crowd, a group of arty adults and giggling kids in fancy dress, wandered about aimlessly with nothing to do but buy merchandise. And what merchandise there was to buy! Surrounded by Mighty Boosh Hats, Mighty Boosh T-Shirts, Mighty Boosh Hot Pants, Mighty Boosh Bags, Might Boosh Flags, Might Boosh Banners, Might Boosh Programmes and Mighty Boosh aficionados dressed as their favourite characters, it was like being at some strange, commercial occultist rally co-organized by Salvador Dali and Gok Wan.
With the ostentatiousness of the event clear to all, I wondered what was the purpose of the event. No one was really interested in the bands and the comedy tent was far too small. Watching Ross Noble, with his virtuoso handling of the absurd, surreal and tangential, I wondered where the Boosh are heading. So far the progression of Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt’s brainchild has been natural enough. Staring out as a live act they soon branched off into radio. After radio came more elaborate live shows that were closer to theatre than stand up. Then TV, albeit the usually piss-poor BB3, offered Noel and Julian a late spot, and it was from this obscure early morning slot The Mighty Boosh grew into an underground phenomenon. Now the Boosh are up to more theatre shows at bigger venues, a Mighty Boosh night on BBC3, DVDs, a festival, an upcoming book, an upcoming album, rumours of a film, gratuitous merchandise and, if you can believe The Sun, rumors of a musical staring Alice Cooper.
Meanwhile Ross Noble, who has an equally solid hold on absurd comedy, is happy to give his audience free ninja monkeys to sell on Ebay (check it out) whilst playing a mid-day slot at another comedian’s festival. After three seasons of underground success and a few appearances on late night TV quiz shows, it seems the Boosh believe they can take on the world, or at least milk their success ’till the cows come home. Perhaps if the festival had been delivered with more parody and less earnestness, focusing on comedy instead of the music, the day would have been more memorable. Sure, the Boosh music is funny in context, but it lacks the Eric Idle quality of being able to survive outside of a sketch. Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life, The Penis Song, The Meaning Of Life, they’re all good songs that are funny standing by themselves. Future Sailors? Electro Boy? Eels? Not exactly Grammy winning material that will have Winehouse hurrying back to the studio in fear of being overshadowed. So why wait all day to watch two middle aged men fulfill some adolescent rock&roll yearnings? Even the ice cream vendors were out to scam the punters; never before have I been charged £2.99 for a 99 ice cream. 99 is just the name, I was told, it doesn’t represent the price. Me and Tom, sunburnt, broke and bored, musing on how The “Mighty” Boosh “Festival” failed to live up to its name, left before the headliners appeared.

Reivews of The Thirst's My Everything and Primal Scream's Can't Go Back

2008-07-13T10:09:00.001-07:00

Reivews of The Thirst's My Everything and Primal Scream's Can't Go Back for CMU Daily.

"SINGLE REVIEW: The Thirst - My Everything (Wooden Records)
Is Ronnie Wood down with the kidz in the hood? Old Mr Wood has singed the hot underground Brixton based four piece The Thirst to his woefully facetious Wooden Records, and his choice proves not every member of the Stones is going senile . Produced by Libertines/Babyshambles member Jack Fior, “My Everything” is more Can’t Stand Me Now than Can’t Get No (Satisfaction) with its choppy indie guitar riffs which do their job well, but they could benefit from some of the later tunes distinctive bite. The up-tempo manic drumming of Marcus Harris saves the clichéd rock&roll chorus from descending into an uninspired ‘look at me I’m a rockstar’ crooning. The chorus’s short coming is disappointing considering the lyrical aptitude displayed in the verses. While “My Everything” shows the potential of a promising new band, with the indie scene more cramped than a weight watchers meeting in a mini cab, The Thrist may need to push themselves to get mainstream appreciation. RL
Release Date: 14 July
Press Contacts: EMMS Publicity (all)"

"SINGLE REVIEW: Primal Scream - Can’t Go Back (B-Unique Records)
Oh the pains of being in Primal Scream! One minuet front man Bob Gillespie is penning tripy dance songs about Nazi‘s and Swastikas , the next minute he’s written a country themed tune about moral redemption. Now, according to Mr Gillespie himself, the band are going down a pop rock route with latest album Beautiful Future - and first single “Can’t Go Back’ certainly supports the claim. The track takes the driving force of Country Girl to power it’s riffs and gives it the darker, harder sound of Miss Lucifer but stays well within the mainstream pop-rock structure of verse - chorus - verse etc.. Gillespie leaves all political, controversial and overly moral lyrical tones in the past, playing it straight with lyrics about a sexy girl and..erm..his inability to go back, apparently. With its catchy charm, simple structure and wooing harmonies, Cant Go Back is a fine song, even without soaring to Primal Scream’s usual level of genre hopping brilliance. RL
Release Date: 14 July
Press Contacts: "

Piece on Music and Politics for Ctrl+Alt+Shift

2008-07-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

Piece for Ctrl+Alt+Shift on Musics and Politics.

"Jay Z entered into the Festival spirit when he took to the stage at Glasto this weekend. No mud slinging or wheely wearing for Mr 99 Problems – instead, The Worlds Greatest Rapper got his festival politics on, denouncing Bush and declaring his support for Barack Obama. When the same Barack Obama discussed the contents of his iPod for the last issue of Rolling Stone he unsurprisingly revealed he was a big admirer of Jay Z. These mutual approvals create a lovely image of Mr Obama and Mr...erm...Z slapping each other on the back, righting the worlds wrongs using their own medium, with Jay Z proving he’s a thoughtful soul and Barack showing he’s ‘down’ with the ‘kidz’. But this happy partnership is just the latest case of Politics and Music jumping into bed together; from the Sixties to the Noughties, Music and Politics haven’t been able to keep their hands off each other. Is it a match made in heaven, or is it as unseemly as MP Lembit Opik bedding a Cheeky Girl? (see Hello! For more info on that unsettling metaphor…)

Wartime propaganda songs aside, Music really began to flirt with politics during the sixties. Fuelled by the anger young people felt towards the Vietnam War, musicians began to feel like they could represent the agendas of the new age group, The Teenager. While Hendrix mangled the Star Spangled Banner and The Beatles denounced Chairman Moa, music festivals became the centre of counter culture, full of fringe groups, grass root movements and student politics. As music began to epitomise the new idea of ‘cool’, politics was taken along for the ride. Bob Dylan , who recently won an honorary Pulitzer for contributions to American culture, was instrumental in the merging of the two concepts and was an avid supporter of the civil rights movements that swept through American in the sixties. You can count on Dylan’s songs being a damn sight more politically complex than Akon‘s ‘Smack That‘. But political musicians didn’t die off after the sixties. Since then musicians like The Clash, Billy Bragg, Manu Chao, Capdown, Anit-Flag, Eminem and Rage Against The Machine have kept Politics cool. Rage’s exploits are infamous - from appearing naked on stage in protest against censorship to shutting down The New York Stock Exchange by playing live music, the band’s music and politics are one and the same.

Unfortunately the love doesn’t work both ways. While it may be fine for musicians to represent their political agendas, it is difficult to hear politicians talk about music without having an inner monologue of cynicism. During Primary Season, Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama where eager to show off their musical fans, with Hilary bringing out Elton John at talks while Obama reiterated endorsements from Bruce Springstien. Do either hold doctorates in Politics from world leading universities? No, but damn! ‘Rocket Man’ is catchy!

But politicians haven’t just settled for name calling rock & roll supporters - they’ve had a go at being musical themselves. Last year, The French and German Foreign Ministers recorded a song with Turkish-German singer Muhabett to get young people interested in the Europe Union and politics. More recently, four Mps joined Johnny Borrel at the Science Museum in London to play a gig to raise awareness about aviation emissions. And Obama’s ‘look at my iPod’ stunt happened two years ago here in the UK, when Conservative leader David Cameron revealed his iPod playlist, detailing his love for The Ramones of all bands.

As a ’young person’, I think it’s great that me and Barack Obama both like Dylan’s ‘Maggies Farm‘; I don’t think it’s great that Obama believes the death penalty is justifiable. Music is a shallow, patronising way to represent a political agenda and ultimately this is what scuppers any politicians attempt to cosy up to young people through any musical genre - the appeal of a politician should come from their beliefs, not their iTunes selection. So what if Cameron likes ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ and Obama likes ‘Dirt Off Your Shoulders’ - Hitler liked Alsatian puppies and chocolate cake, it doesn’t mean he was worth voting for."

Piece on Barack Obama for Ctrl+Alt+Shift.

2008-06-30T05:32:00.000-07:00

Piece on Barack Obama for Ctrl+Alt+Shift.
WHY BARACK OBAMA SHOULD NOT BE PRESIDENT

"The Times calls him the “master of the new Facebook politics”. Technically, I fall into Barack Obama’s prime target demographic; I am a ‘young person’, a member of the ‘Facebook Generation’, a student with a liberal political agenda. I’m the kind of person Obama hopes will download his podcasts, download Will I Am’s ‘Yes We Can’ music video, join the pro-Obama Facebook groups and be swept along by the inspirational oratory and the slick, heavily stylised mulit-media, cross-platform experience that is Barack Obama. He demands change and impartial, well thought out conclusions. It seems obvious to my generation why the young Illonios Senator, the democratic parties first African American presidential nominee, who champions the ‘little man’ and grass root organizations , should become president; but has the Facebook generation been duped into believing Obama is tuned into their wavelength?

It’s wrong to believe that Obama is in the online friends list of everyone under the age of 25, despite what the mass media declares. Facebook group “Young People AGAINST Barack Obama for President” has over 9,000 members, “Every Clueless Person I Know Likes Obama” has over 3,000 and “Is Obama qualified? No...” has over 8,500. While Obama may monopolise the online market, not everyone shares his perspective, as the closely fought primaries showed.

His hype aside, the most common gripe against Obama has been his choice of friends and advisors, ranging from his preachers to his investors. Pastor and family friend Jermiah Wright caused outrage when he declared his belief that Aids was created by the US Government to hurt African Americans, and Tony Rezko, a fundraiser for Obama from 1995 onwards, was convicted of fraud and bribery in May. Obama has distanced himself from these men but only after public scrutiny, and the incidents raised doubts about Obama’s judgement of character.
Dubious judgement of character may be a troubling attribute for a President, but hypocrisy is surely worse. The media has swooned at Obama’s grass roots fundraising, with his 1.5 million online donors making humble offerings; not much is said about Obama’s top five contributors being registered corporate lobbyists. Slowly, Barack’s corporate sponsors are having their contributions acknowledged; Business firms Goldman Sachs, UBS AG, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley have been cited as among the 14 Wall Street firms that have given Obama $2,872,128 as of February 2008. Goldman Sachs was found by the non-profit and independent Centre for Responsive Politics to be Obama’s biggest single monetary sponsor, giving over half a million dollars.

But Obama gives as well as receives. Despite denouncing the act of pork-barrelling (earmarking parts of the national budget to be awarded to specific organizations), Obama earmarked $8 million for a “High explosive air burst technology program” (described as a design “chosen to maximize lethality” by globalsecutrity.org) developed by General Dynamics. This is the same General Dynamics that has Obama’s Illinois Finance Chairman, James Crown, sitting on it’s board of directors. The multi billion dollar Crown family has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Obama’s political career. They also play a complex role a case study Obama uses to highlight corporate greed - the closing down of Maytag factories. Obama often refers to Maytag’s layoffs as an example of money before people, but he seems oblivious to the fact that Lester Crown, James Crown’s father, sits on the company’s board. Lester and his wife have been donating money to Obama’s campgain since 2003.

Faced with these facts, it is difficult to believe Obama when he says “Washington lobbyists havn’t funded my campaign”. Maybe Obama is surrendering himself to the ultimate irony - like so many of his ‘hip’, media savy followers, he is ignorant to the contradictions that underlie his rhetoric. He can send you clips of his speeches to your phone because he is clued up when it comes the Facebook Generation (he hired Facebook’s co-founder Chris Hughes as a member of his New Media staff), but he accepts money with blind abandon. It is the sleaze we should be concerned with, not the self actualised style. As a generation embracing constant information , we have to scrutinize all our politicians; if Obama really believes in his rhetoric, he would want nothing less from us."

Kooks Shine On and The Rascals Rascalize Review for CMU

2008-06-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

SINGLE REVIEW: The Kooks - Shine On (EMI)

Remember the infectious melodies of ‘Sofa Song’ and ‘You Don’t Love Me’? Or the bittersweet lyrical attitude of ‘Ooh La’ and ‘Naïve’? Judging by the sound of ‘Shine On’, second album Konk's second single, The Kooks are desperate to continue their sentimental sea side aesthetic, and they’re not afraid to sacrifice originality in the process. Shine On's short monotonous chorus and equally short soppy verses are set up in a manner unlikely to send you into a nostalgic reverie of a former romance - a boredom induced coma would be a more likely outcome. The staple Kooks set up is present and correct - which will surely please die hard Kooks fans - but it’s the set up at it’s most basic level; when Take That can produce a more original melody for a tried and tested lyrical center piece, it is a serious blow for any band that fails to imbue the lyrics with new energy.

Release Date: 30 June

Press Contact: EMI Music (all)

ALBUM REVIEW: The Rascals – Rascalize (Deltasonic Records)

Is it possible to like Alex Turner too much? Yes, and aside from the obviously negative crazed-fan-kidnaps-Alex-Turner-to-eat-his-brain scenario, the most prominent danger is becoming Miles Kane, member of the Turner & Kane duo The Last Shadow Puppets and The Rascals' frontman. Rascalize, The Rascals debut album and a terrible affront to the rules of morphology, features Kane giving his best Turner impression through his vox and lyrics. The lyrics try to capture the twisted relationship musings of the Monkeys' Favourite Worse Nightmare, but they fall short, painfully so in some instances ("Sweating out another tantrum/reads the book of poetry/words believed in the anthology” Kane sings). The album has the epic, brooding (and some would say pretentious) style of The Last Shadow Puppets and features some ambitious, original ideas – the rippling, reverb laced guitars are haunting and the best trick pulled from The Rascals bag. Unfortunately for every glimmer of serious musical aptitude (Freakbeat Phantom is The Rascals’ idea at it’s best), there is a jarring, heavy guitar thrashing bridge that wishes it was being performed by a late 70s punk band. It seems Kane has invested his best ideas into The Last Shadow Puppets, which holds the fillers for what The Rascals lack – an orchestra and Alex Turner.

Release Date: 23 June

Press Contact:

Review of Less Than Jake, GNV FLA, for CMU Daily

2008-06-19T15:25:00.000-07:00

"Album Review: Less Than Jake - GNV FLA (Sleep It Off Records)
Florida - The Sunshine State, home to The Walt Disney World Resort and more old people than Bognor Regis and the village in Last of The Summer Wine combined. FLA also boasts the spiritual home for third-wave ska – Gainesville, or GNV. This ska-punk mecca is the hometown and source of inspiration for Less Than Jake’s tenth studio album GNV FLA. Packing more brass and horns than a Mark Ronson wet dream, GNV FLA see’s the band return to their roots in spirit and style. The lyrics deal with stereotypical pop-punk subjects, like living in a small town with big dreams, but they are handled with such deft ability it’s hard to find fault. “Condition my small town, prognosis let’s get out” sings Chris Demakes, sometimes whining like Tom Delong, sometimes singing like alternate Brandon Boyd who fell in love with ska. Where as the ska-punk lyrics and singing is business as usual, GNV FLA sees the band return to their traditional sound, mixing off-beat ska, stinging punk riffs and even a bit of heavy metal shredding. For every song with a happy-go-lucky ska vibe (City of Gainesville) there’s a harder punk track (Settling Son), forming a healthy mix of styles, like the music from every Tony Hawks game distilled into one long skank. It is unlikely GNV FLA will see the band cross into mainstream commercial success, but the album is such a glorious archetypal ska-punk outing it will please anyone with even a vague interest in the genre. RL
Release Date: 23 June
Press Contact: Cooking Vinyl (all)"

Protest piece for Ctrl+Alt+Shift

2008-06-19T15:12:00.000-07:00

Note to self: Don't send your editor your draft version, like you did with this article. We all make mistakes, just don't make this one again. To see what should have been sent read bellow. Protest piece for
Ctrl+Alt+Shift

"Some days after a hard shift at work, I feel like going home to arm myself with a placard and a loudspeaker, before returning to my workplace to become a one man protest against my clingy, boring uniform. Of course I exaggerate; retail conditions aren’t that bad. But recently it has been hard to ignore a bad mood rising, as more and more people have been protesting, marching, chanting and cheering like it’s 1968. Is it something to celebrate?

In April the Olympic Torch was carried through the capital, at great speed and with an armed bodyguard. The torch’s course was blocked by numerous peaceful, and not so peaceful , protesters - some pro-Tibetan, some civil right campaigners. In France, protesters even managed to extinguish the flamer - hat’s off to the clever protester who brought a fire extinguisher. Even once out of Europe, the torch faced demonstrations , delays , route changes and other major disruptions.

It’s not just global politics that has been wiping up passionate demonstrations. Recent economic troubles have caused protests around the world; from food riots in Cameroon and Haiti to French labourer protests and English lorry drivers protesting in juggernauts, going into the red has caused people across the world to see the colour of anger and passion. With Royal Dutch and Shell announcing profits of over £7bn for this year, English lorry drivers staged a protests in April ,and again late last month, to complain about extortionately high petrol prices. Yesterday French and Italian fishermen clashed with riot police whilst protesting over fuel prices. On May 30th, Spanish and Portuguese fishermen were a little more peaceful - they gave way 20 tonnes of free fish in protest against high fuel prices. On April 24th over 200,000 teachers and 100,000 public service workers marched to protest against salary changes. - the first national teachers strike in 21 years.

Even Emo’s are getting all hot under the collar (who can blame them wearing all that black?); they formed a black parade (see what I did there?) to The Daily Mail in support of band My Chemical Romance after the national newspaper labelled their music as ‘dangerous’. Who knew there was a common ground shared by Emos, teachers, French workers, lorry drivers, pro-Tibetans and continental fishermen; all enjoy exerting their right to protest. Sadly, that common ground can not be extended to the reaches of China and Burma. In February, Burmese poet Saw Wai was arrested for writing a poem that contained a coded message that read “Power-crazy general Than Shwe”, a reference to the leader of the Burmese junta. In China, it is illegal to even publicly mourn any of the students killed in Tiananmen Square massacre, let alone protest at the lack of an enquiry into their deaths. Nor does China look favourably upon foreign protests; the Chinese government screened the country’s media to ensure no pro-Tibetan protests were reported during the Olympic Torche’s relay.

Compared to China, Tibet and Burma, we can protest, we can point the finger and shout . Sadly our right to demonstrate is constantly under attack, but that must mean more protests, not less. It’s happening everywhere, but it’s no excuse to stand idle. Complacency begets oppression. . Complacency begets oppression. My nine-to-five job hasn’t infringed by human rights yet, but in the meantime there are plenty of causes for my placard to represent… "