Sunday 9 September 2007

Book Launch: Tony Benn - 'Making More Time for Politics'

Tony Benn will be visiting Newham in October and launching his new book ‘Making Time for Politics’ at Stratford Circus. This is your chance to put your questions to him and buy a signed copy of the book.

Wednesday 10 October
7pm

Stratford Circus
Theatre Square
Stratford
London
E15 1BX

Ticket prices: £5 from Newham Bookshop - 020 8552 9993

Queens Market Campaigners Publish Submission to GLA

The campaigners trying to stop the redevelopment of Queens Market in Upton Park have published their submission to the Greater London Authority's "Review of London Markets'

The submission sets out the hard-fought campaign and can be downloaded from here.

Space Hijackers to Auction Saracen Tank at Arms Fair

The Space Hijackers, veterans of the protests against the DSEi arms fair in Canning Town, are now, after several months of fundraising, the proud owners of a Saracen Mk1 tank, which they intend to drive to the arms fair. As the protesters line up against the heavily armed police, they intend to auction the tank to the highest bidder. They said:

"If this so happens to be an angry teenager in a balaclava, then so be it. We don’t see how destruction caused with our tank can possibly be our responsibility."

To those who have accused the Space Hijackers of recklessness and wonder what might happen if someone drives over a police car in the tank, they have responded by saying that "we are simply looking to make a profit, it’s just business transaction. As with the arms dealers and their weapons, once the goods are out of our hands, how can we be held accountable for how they are used?"

For more information, visit www.spacehijackers.org/tank/index.html


Defence Systems and Equipment International, or DSEi, is one of the world's biggest arms fairs and has been held in the ExCel centre in Canning Town since 1999. It is a "tri-service defence exhibition", which means it is a forum for selling military equipment of all kinds for land, sea and air. The arms fair is organised by a commercial company, and receives major support from the UK government: financial, logistical and political.

The current commercial organiser, Reed Elsevier, has announced it is to pull out of the arms trade and plans to sell DSEi by the end of 2007. This has sent a clear signal that DSEi is a liability and that reputable businesses don't deal with the arms trade. Read more.

However, the campaign to stop DSEi continues. If another buyer is found, protesters will continue to put pressure on them and continue to call on the government to end its support for DSEi.

Demonstration against the arms fair

Tuesday 11th September
Meet at 11am, Plaistow Park, Newham
.

Plaistow park is between Balaam Street and Greengate Street, London E13 0AS. (Nearest tube Plaistow, District or Hammersmith & City Lines). Map.

The demonstration will then move off at 11:15am to end at the ExCel exhibition centre, where the arms fair takes place,. A rally will be held next to the Custom House Docklands Light Railway station at 12pm. Map.

The distance of the demonstration is about 3 km, or just under 2 miles. People with limited mobility are very welcome to join the demonstration at Custom House for the rally if preferable. Custom House DLR station has full disability access and the rally will take place just next to the station.

The rally is expected to finish by 1pm.

More information at www.dsei.org

Random Blowe | Original articles licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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