Ceramic Seed Grenades For Guerilla Gardeners

These are fantastic - £12 for three is a bit steep though...

LAZY FRIDAY - I Met the Walrus

Today's Friday lunchtime distraction is an animated short film based around a recording by a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, who in 1969 managed to talk his way into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and conduct an interview.

In 2007 Levitan, director Josh Raskin and illustrators James Braithwaite and Alex Kurina collaborated to create I Met the Walrus, which was nominated for the 2008 Academy Award for Animated Short and last year became the first internet-film to win an Emmy.

Philosophy Football's Redux Gaza Flotilla T-Shirt

Philosophy Football has brought out a revised Gaza Flotilla t-shirt reflecting the assault on the flotilla covoy on 31 May. They write:

On May 19 Philosophy Football launched our Gaza Flotilla shirt in support of the seaborne relief convoy for the besieged people of Palestine. Our design was of a naval ensign, employing the olive branch of peace but also representing a flotilla of boats heading south to Gaza. We knew the convoy was risky, but we did not predict an unforgivable massacre. We have now updated that original design. The Star of David bullet holes symbolise the dead and wounded civilians shot by Israeli commandos, their numbers yet to be confirmed. Wear this shirt in solidarity, with the flotilla, with Palestine. Profits will be used to support future convoys.

The new design can be ordered from here.

Equalities Commssion - At Odds With Tories Over Police Powers?

In March the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published Stop and Think, a review of the use of stop & search powers in 42 policing areas, which concluded:

Nationally, black people are still stopped and searched at least six times the rate of white people. Asian people are about twice as likely to be stopped and searched as white people. The evidence suggests racial stereotyping and discrimination are significant factors behind the higher rates of stops and searches for black and Asian people than white people.

The Commission argued that the use of stop & search powers "may be unlawful, disproportionate, discriminatory and damaging to relations within and between communities". Indeed, little has changed over the last decade - Home Office figures showed that in 2001/2002, black people were eight times more likely to be stopped and Asians three times more likely to be subjected to stop & search powers.

However, new Prime Minister David Cameron is on record as supporting the extension of stop & search so that officers can use the power at their own discretion and without the need to fill out a form. In 2008, Cameron went further, telling The Sun during a particularly muscular moment that more stop & search was now acceptable because the police are no longer racist:

"We are never going to deal with [crime] unless we free the police to do far more stopping and far more searching. I am quite clear the current rules have to go.

In the British police service there were problems with racism, there were problems with attitude. That needed to change. I think it has now been changed.

That change is a good thing. But it's now time to recognise that it is now possible for the police to carry out more stop and searches without being accused of racism. We will carry out a review to see how we would do it and would implement it very rapidly under a Conservative government".

Utter bollocks, of course, but far nearer to mainstream Tory opinion, which is heavily critical of the Human Rights Act and sees the EHRC under Trevor Philips as incompetent and too closely tied to New Labour, than to Dave's new Liberal Democrat bed-fellows.

So how will Conservative activists react to the EHRC decision today to write to the Metropolitan, Dorset, Leicestershire, West Midlands and Thames Valley police forces, asking each to justify the disproportionality of their use of stop & search and to provide information about meeting their obligations under the Race Relations Act?

And how will the EHRC's action been seen by Tories within a government that has pledged to "reduce time-wasting bureaucracy that hampers police operation"?

I look forward to pointers from Littlecock (otherwise engaged today in slagging off Cumbria's Deputy Chief Constable) and of course Mad Mel Phillips, but not until she stops frothing at the mouth about Cameron's reaction to the Gaza Flotilla.

Colonel Dick - The Royal Anglian's IDF Apologist

The Guardian's report on the Israeli government's efforts to smear the people they killed on the Turkish passenger ship Mavi Marmara, this time by describing them as potential suicide bombers, includes a quote from Colonel Richard Kemp of the Royal Anglian Regiment, who is the former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan. Kemp claimed there was an core of violent extremist activists on board and added that whilst most weren't intent on violence, "some of them were duped, and had no idea what they were getting in to."

Guardian reporter Harriet Sherwood may not know who Colonel Kemp is, but some of us will be unsurprised that he is currently in Jerusalem for a conference on counter-insurgency. Kemp has close links with the Israeli Defence Force and has been a repeated apologist for its actions.

In October, the colonel spoke in Geneva on behalf of UN Watch, a lobby group with strong ties to Israel, at the UN Human Rights Council debate on the Goldstone Report. There he claimed that during Operation Cast Lead, "the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare". Presumably Kemp discounts the use of white phosphorus against a UN school in Beit Lahiya, or the allegations of abuse of civilians made by the Israeli veterans group 'Breaking The Silence'. Here's the video of Kemp's speech:

Kemp has since been the guest of honour at events organised by Zionist organisations in London and Manchester and in February, he told the Zionist Federation's anniversary dinner that "dark forces" were exploiting the international media, that some criticism of Israel "is based on antisemitism" and that it had been a "privilege" to work alongside members of the IDF.

Kemp is therefore far from an impartial "expert", as the Guardian should have acknowledged. Indeed, the colonel may technically be retired, but more often than not it seems like he has instead taken a secondment to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit.

Update

The journalist Max Blumenthal reports that, after being challenged, the IDF has retracting its lurid accusation that "Attackers of the IDF soldiers found to be Al Qaeda mercenaries" and now simply says that some of those on board the Mavi Marmara had no identification papers. The initial headline originated from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest advisors in Israel's National Security Council.

BP - Too Important To Capitalism To Fail?

Six weeks have passed since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling platform that has resulted in the worst environmental disaster in US history and yet everything BP has attempted in order to halt the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico has failed. The situation is growing so desperate that the house magazine of America’s conservative right, the National Review, is even advocating the nuclear option.

But back in the UK, all the talk has been about the impact of the disaster on the British economy, as the company faced the biggest one-day fall in its share price for 18 years, wiping £12bn off its stock market value. Another £2.4bn was lost when trading began today.

It’s a reminder of just how much of an impact a relatively small number of multinational companies have on the fragile system of international capitalism and how, just like the banking crisis in 2008, a disaster in one part of the world has global effects. We heard again and again, after the collapse of banks exposed to the US sub-prime market, that some banks were just ‘too big to fail’, even if this encouraged high levels of risk in the pursuit of high rewards. Others have argued that the UK’s arms industry, despite its evident corruption, is also too important to lose.

Whilst a global company like BP is unlikely to ever be forced in bankruptcy, it does face enormous clean-up and containment costs, the prospect of punitive fines and compensation payments to the Louisiana fishing and tourism industries. In the long term, it may decide to use the tactics that Exxon adopted after the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 to minimise these costs. But in the short-term, a jittery market threatens its ability to pay what had historically been high dividends to its shareholders and because BP accounts for a disproportionately large share of the income received by pension scheme investors, around 8% of all income, private pensions in Britain will suffer.

Today, two Democrat senators, Chuck Schumer of New York and Ron Wyden of Oregon, wrote to BP CEO Tony Hayward, calling on him to suspend planned dividend payments to shareholders until the full costs of the oil spill can be calculated.

Already, BP’s chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg has reminded Americans how “big and important’ his company is to the US economy, telling the FT:

"The US is a big and important market for BP, and BP is also a big and important company for the US, with its contribution to drilling and oil and gas production. So the position goes both ways"

Although nominally a British company, the likelihood that the public would easily stomach another UK corporate welfare cheque, this time in the form of state assistance to BP, is almost zero at a time when the Con-Dem government is ushering in a new era of austerity. But a bailout is exactly what the company may get in the US: Republican senator Lisa Murkowski, from Sarah Palin’s home state of Alaska, has blocked efforts to raise the cap on liabilities that BP faces. Under current laws BP is only liable to pay for the first five days of clean-up (approximately $75 million), leaving the government covering the rest (over $560 million and counting).

Presumably Murkowski is so keen to defend the interests of accident-prone Big Oil that she is unfazed by last week’s shut-down of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, partly owned by BP and on her own doorstep, after it spilled several thousand barrels of crude oil into backup containers.

See Greenpeace's Tar Sands Campaign for more designs to rebrand BP with a new logo that is more suitable for their dirty business.

Another Victim Of The European Arrest Warrant

This morning, Radio 4’s Today programme reported on the disturbing case of Edmond Arapi, an Albanian living in Britain who faces a 16-year jail term in Italy for a murder committed in Genoa in 2004.

Witnesses say he was working at a café in Leek in Staffordshire – 780 miles away – at the time of the murder and his lawyers claim he is a victim of mistaken identity. The charity Fair Trials International say his case highlights flaws in the European Arrest Warrant, a fast-track system created in 2002 for surrendering people from one European country to another to face trial or serve a prison sentence.

Arapi is not the first person to be tried in absentia or to discover, years later, that his life has been thrown into turmoil. In 2007, a woman named Deborah Dark from Richmond in London was arrested at gunpoint whilst on holiday in Turkey. Unbeknown to her, two years earlier a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) had been issued by French authorities seeking her extradition to serve a prison sentence for drugs charges she had been acquitted of in 1989. Without informing her, prosecutors had appealed against her acquittal and, in her absence, it was overturned and she had been sentenced to 6 years’ imprisonment.

Dark was released by Turkish police and back in the UK, the Serious Organised Crime Agency told her that there was no EAW listed in her name. However in 2008, she was again detained whilst on a trip to Spain and spent a month in custody before Spanish courts refused to extradite her to France. But on her return to the UK, she was re-arrested at Gatwick airport under the same. EAW It was not until April 2009, after five months on bail, that Westminster Magistrates’ Court also refused her extradition on the grounds that she would not receive a fair trial.

As there is no provision for the withdrawal of an European Arrest Warrant, Dark is still at risk of being re-arrested on the same EAW if she ever leaves the UK and travels in Europe.

Far from delivering justice, the European Arrest Warrant is resulting in serious miscarriages of justice. EAWs have been used to send thousands of people to other EU member states – earlier this year the Law Gazette reported that in 2008, nearly 14,000 warrants were issued and 351 people were extradited under EAWs from the UK alone. Many have been for the most minor offences or for those allegedly committed many years ago. They have also led to prison sentences that are the result of an unfair trial or evidence obtained through police brutality. People have been forced to spend months or even years in detention before they appear in court to establish their innocence.

More information on Edmond Arapi’s case can be found on the Fair Trials International website

Caoimhe Butterly - "If You Are Watching This..."

The Irish ISM activist Caoimhe Butterly, who I know through her involvement in the Justice4Jean campaign, was one of those taking part in the Freedom Flotilla, although I'm not sure what ship she was on.

Before boarding, she recording the following message: "If you are watching this, this probably means that the flotilla has been either been attacked or stopped at sea..."

Madam Miaow has extended footage showing civilians had been shot and reports of two deaths before the Israeli commandos even land aboard the Mavi Marmara. So much for IDF claims that they are the victims of unprovoked violence by passengers of the ship.

Mumbai's Mangroves Threatened By New International Airport

Mumbai’s mangroves, which are important marine ecosystems and provide vital protection against floods and coastal erosion for a city built on reclaimed land, are under threat from plans to build a new international airport.

Ninety percent of the site for the proposed Navi Mumbai International Airport is wetland and 170 hectares are covered with dense mangroves. A third of the site falls within the Coastal Regulation Zone created in 1991, which banned development on mangroves and other ecologically sensitive areas.

In 2005, floods during the monsoon season brought Mumbai to a standstill and nearly 1,500 people died. The destruction of the mangroves and uncontrolled development have been seen as aggravating factors that caused the disaster.

The new airport is expected to handle 10 million passengers a year in 2012, rising to 20 million in 2020, in order to to cater for the limits of expansion of the existing Chattrapathi Shivaji International Airport at Sahar. More than 91 million travellers are expected to pass through Mumbai by 2031.

The Ecologist reports that the Maharashtra state government has refused to consider proposals by conservationists for alternative sites for the airport and that powerful business interests, who argue construction is essential for attracting foreign investment, also have a “vested interest in the land adjoining the proposed site”.

Rapid industrialisation, pollution, housing development and an increasing population has already resulted in the gradual destruction of mangrove ecosystems, with 40 percent lost over the last decade.

More from the Ecologist here and further information on Mumbai's mangroves here.

Made in Dagenham

I've just seen the trailer for the film Made in Dagenham, which is about the 1968 strike for equal pay at the Ford Dagenham car plant by women working as sewing machinists.

It looks really good and it has both Happy Go Lucky's excellent Sally Hawkins and Richard Schiff of the West Wing in it. The film is due for release in October.