Subtitled “A big event in a small town in the big country”, this chirpy little pamphlet is the work of a Stirling local, outlining his experience of the “spectacle” that was last July's G8 protests.
In the introduction Declan says “Its about a time when the world was very briefly focused on ... where I happen to live and work. It was a strange but exciting time for me and that's why I have been drive to write about it.” It's divided into two distinct sections - the first dealing with…
Shut Them Down is a collection of reflections on the anti G8 mobilisation which took place in July 2005. It was created by activists whose stated aim was to “harness the energy created in Scotland to move in productive directions”. In the introduction the editors humbly deny speaking for the movement as a whole, and aim only to provide reflection on this particular instance of mobilisation within the wider “movement of movements”.
The book is extremely varied in content,…
In 2006, the G8 will meet in Russia for the first time. While for the majority of apolitical Russians this is a totally uninteresting occurrence, the Russian government and all shades of opposition consider it to be a highly significant event. The Russian elite is eager to ensure it does not end up with egg on its face and that all these high-powered meetings run smoothly.
To that end the corrupt, but nonetheless powerful, apparatus of the Russian special forces has been called into…
On 16 February 2006, two police officers were acquitted of charges of causing severe bodily harm to two activists who narrowly escaped with their lives after a police officer cut a climbing rope during an action at the protests against the G8 in Evian, Switzerland, in 2003. Despite clear video evidence that the police officers had cut the rope in question, the judge ruled that the police officers involved could not be held accountable.
In June 2003, two climbers suspended themselves…
Margaret Legum has written a good and interesting book, but not the one she set out to write.
Part of the problem is that the book emerged from a set of lectures given at a University of Capetown Summer School. There is therefore an expectation that the reader already has a relatively clear understanding of the social and ecological costs of unfettered capitalism. While this is true for South Africa, other parts of the world still have a (diminishing) cushion of illusion. I fear that…
People who want to change the world must buy this book.
Avian influenza, or “bird flu”, is going to change the world, and affect every struggle we are involved in, from global trade to the war in Iraq, via the world economy, immigration and animal rights. Mike Davis has put together a dense, readable book setting out the nature of the problem, and the deeper roots of the crisis in the present world system - in intensive agro-industry, dispossessed Third World slums, and corporate…
This is a piece of academic research geared towards producing an internationally acceptable methodology for assessing the effects of the arms trade on sustainable development in developing countries.
Its aim is to persuade all arms exporting countries (mainly in the "first" world) to apply sustainability criteria to all applications for arms export licences. It is not, therefore, against the arms trade per se, but neither does it confine itself to the banning of arms sales to…
It is almost hard to know where to start with this - there are so many reasons! But here goes with the main ones...
Reinforcing power: I suppose the first is just that part of me feels as though those eight white men in suits are not wo
Wednesday 6 July marked the first day of the G8 summit, so on Tuesday night, while eight men in suits were preparing to sit down to a meal of Marrbury smoked salmon and roast fillet of Glenarm lamb, thousands of activists were finalising their plans f
As part of the week of G8 actions, more than 1000 people protested at Dungavel Detention Centre (officially Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre) on 5 July against the detention of asylum seekers, in a demonstration organised by groups including the
Kicking off the G8 week in style, an estimated 2,000 people participated in a particularly “big” blockade at the Faslane naval base, home to Britain's four nuclear powered - and armed - Trident submarines.
Organised as a nonviolent, antimili
The leaders of the G8 countries (the eight most industrialised, wealthy and powerful countries) will meet at Gleneagles in Scotland on 6-9 July for discussion of international issues and to strengthen their relationships and appear for photo-shoots. These annual summits have become a focus for protests and actions, as activists try to unmask their hypocrisy and reclaim the agenda.
A number of actions and demos are already being organised about issues such as climate change, human…
This collection of essays and speeches by India's award winning writer ranges across the world on many important issues from globalisation to AIDS.
Roy's acceptance speech for the USA Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom urges her US audience to remember their history of brave resistance. She speaks as “a subject of the American Empire” when she says the change has to begin in America. She calls on its citizens and says, “The only institution more powerful than the US government is…
On 4 February more than 20,000 packed into London's Trafalgar Square to hear Nelson Mandela issue a rallying cry to “make poverty history” in 2005, and challenging world leaders to “recognise that the world is hungry for action, not words”.
His call came as finance ministers from the world's richest countries arrived in London for the G7 meeting where they will discuss cutting poor countries' $39 billion debt burden.
Mr Mandela was invited to London by the Make Poverty…
This volume sets out to demonstrate that we are now living in what the editors refer to as a “new age of Empire”, which the book argues began with wars of occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead of being the start of a world in which global co-operation ensures advancement and prosperity for all people, globalisation is actually responsible for the increased instability that threatens ever-greater numbers of people.
A collection of original and rigorous pieces by nine prominent…
