Kaerast’s NewsCloud Journal

Environmental activists have built a climate camp near a power station in Kingsnorth, south-east England, to protest against plans for a new coal-fired plant. Yet Britain’s energy infrastructure is heading rapidly for obsolescence, and the British authorities need to start building coal-fired plants now if we are to avoid a shortfall in energy supply. That is of little concern to the climate campers, however - they would positively embrace a fall in energy supply, and the austerity that would follow.

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Last month a parliamentary committee was convened to discuss a draft proposal of the Russian government’s Government Strategy In The Sphere Of Spiritual And Ethical Education bill, the details of which were leaked to The Moscow Times. The newspaper subsequently reported that, among other things, the draft bill dubbed the musical movements a "dangerous teen trend" and called for emo and goth websites to be regulated and young people dressing like emos or goths to be banned from entering schools and government buildings.

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In their election campaign earlier this year, Berlusconi and his allies had already made clear their intention of deporting tens of thousands of Roma back to Romania and former Yugoslavia. In mid-June a March decisions by Italy’s highest appeal court was released stating that "it is acceptable to discriminate against Roma" because the court found that "they are thieves". Following the release of the court rulling, Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, announced that a file is to be drawn up containing a DNA data base with digital fingerprints and photos of all Roma irregardless of their citizenship. Unicef has protested that this is discriminatory and a violation of the UN’s Declaration of the Rights of the Child.

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The telecom company that carries most of Pakistan’s traffic, PCCW, has found it necessary to shut Pakistan off from the Internet while they filter out the malicious routes that a Pakistani ISP, PieNet, announced earlier today. Evidently PieNet took this step to enforce a decree from the Pakistani government that ISP’s must block access to YouTube because it was a source of blasphemous content.

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Let me take you back to summer 2005. It was the G8 summit in Gleneagles Scotland and UK activists were suddenly very busy after years of being badly organised. During this time, three important things happened which has affected the UK activist scene ever since.

There was a campsite set up in Stirling which was as eco-friendly as possible given the limited resources and short-term nature of the event. It was advertised everywhere as the “eco-camp”, with being green as important as actually being a base for other actions. A handful of people liked this camp enough to want to do it again next year, only next year the G8 was in Russia and they had no excuse to set up a camp in the UK - so they decided to create a camp just for the sake of being green. Had big business decided to do something just to show they are green, most activists would have called it a cheap publicity stunt - but I digress. And so the climate camp was born, and out of that climate change became one of the major issues that UK activists now campaign on - and with this year’s camp taking place outside Heathrow, the climate change activists are increasingly concentrating on aviation.

One of the major actions during the G8 was a blockade of the Faslane nuclear base. The people involved with this enjoyed it so much that they wanted to do it again, and it led to a year-long campaign against the base. Many of the activists involved with this were anti-Faslane activists, rather than anti-nuclear activists or even pro-peace activists. This is evidenced by the lack of activity at other military and nuclear bases around the country, the declining interest in Iraq and the poor turnout for the DSEi arms fair in London last month.

To a much lesser extent, something similar happened with the protests outside the Dungavel immigration detention centre. A DVD had been produced explaining why Dungavel is bad, and what happens in Scotland. This DVD got sent out to people interested in immigration across the UK and bolstered interest in No Borders groups.

So as a direct result of the G8 summit in Scotland, we now have three very strong issues that UK activists are spending much of their time on. The leaders of issue-based campaign groups claim this is a major success, and the activist scene is doing an awesome job. However, that’s not entirely true. Whilst these three issues are receiving a lot of attention, other issues don’t receive major attention unless somebody from one of these three groups suggests it. Activists outside these three groups who are trying to get themselves known in order to gain some say over what is and isn’t important are considered “publicity-seeking wannabe-celebrities”.

Palestine, the Iraq war, Afghanistan, queer-rights and human rights in general aren’t receiving the attention they deserve because the people high-up in Faslane 365, Climate Camp, and No Borders don’t do anything about them. Groups who are interested in these issues are no longer cool, and don’t receive the publicity they deserve.

The recent fascination with Burma is an exception. Reading this, you’d expect Burma to have been pushed by one of the three previously mentioned groups. It wasn’t. It was pushed by big business who want democracy in Burma so that they can move in and exploit workers there. In a previous article I wrote on the Burma issue, I got called up on the sources used - every single one of them was a front for, or funded by, American Neocons or American businesses; the best video explaining the situation in Burma was funded by Reebok.

So how do we go about challenging the hold these three groups have over the UK activist scene? How do we affirm the fact that those of us uninterested in climate change are indeed still activists? How do we show that our work in building communities and making our world a better place is just as worthwhile as going on route-marches? Nobody is bothering to answer these questions, they’re simply carrying on campaigning on their issues which the rest of the country no longer considers important.

The quality press is awash with invisible-tank stories this morning, as the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Ananova news wire et al pile into an exclusive scoop by the Sun.

It would seem that the Currant Bun scribes have spoken to a squaddie from the Royal Engineers, who claims to have been involved in trials last week featuring a (take your pick) James Bond Die Another Day Aston-Martin / Klingon Bird-of-Prey / Harry Potter’s cloak -style tank which can become invisible.

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A man has been placed on the sex offenders’ register after being caught trying to have sex with a bicycle.

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My first response to this story was how? But whilst it appears to be a fun oddly-enough news story, it’s actually a rather concerning story. What anybody does with an inanimate object in private is their own concern and not the government’s, to be placed on the sex offenders register causes major problems later on in life. So to plead guilty was really stupid and, worryingly, sets a precedent for similar future cases.

Harry Potter author JK Rowling has revealed that one of her characters, Hogwarts school headmaster Albus Dumbledore, is gay.

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YouPorn and other blue Web 2.0 startups could be out of business in the near future if proposed changes to 18 U.S.C. 2257 are accepted into law. Known in the industry as “2257,” 18 U.S.C. 2257 defines requirements porn producers must follow to verify the age of every performer, keep records about the performers’ identities and make those records available to the government. The proposed changes would extend the statute’s reach beyond adult-content producers to include social networking websites

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Piracy, it seems, is about more than price. That’s one of the surprising discoveries to come out of an experiment by the British band Radiohead last week. With popular album releases, illegal download volumes normally outstrip sales, says Garland. But more surprising is that fans chose to steal music they could legally download for any price they choose.

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