Author Archives: clockword

HSBC guilty but walk free, Shaker Aamer innocent but still in Guantanamo.

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You get the justice you can afford…

According to the media, the City of London’s reputation has been severely damaged by HSBC’s money laundering scandal. What rubbish. It’s favourable services offered to the drug dealing and terrorist communities is precisely what gives the City its “competitive edge.” However, the City of London’s competitors may be a little more squeamish (or tightly regulated) to profit from such rich pickings.

So what happens to those caught red handed abetting Al Qaeda and drug dealing organisations?  They resign, say sorry and promise not to do it again.

HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA)’s head of group compliance, David Bagley, was faced with charges that HSBC gave terrorists, drug cartels and criminals access to the U.S. financial system by failing to guard against money laundering. The result; Bagley stated at a Senate hearing that he will step down. He has also been told to release a formal apology.

 

Compare this to how people like Shaker Aamer are treated. Shaker, a completely innocent man cleared for release but, even today, still stuck in  Guantanamo in a nightmare limbo. He had been  extraordinarily rendered from Afganistan, tortured and imprisoned for more than 10 years without trial or access to his family.

You can watch Spectacles new film on Shaker Aamer’s story here and sign the petition here.

You could also compare it to how ‘rioters’ were treated following the London riots in August 2011. Mother-of-two Ursula Nevin,  was jailed for five months for receiving a pair of shorts that had been looted from a city centre store, and Nicholas Robinson was jailed for six months for stealing a case of water worth £3.50.

So when the media talk about restoring the “City’s reputation” what they mean is restoring the cosy myth of decent trustworthy pinstripped chaps simply being better at “invisible exports” than their counterparts in Paris, Amsterdam, New York or Frankfurt. The big mistake, as was the case for Ursula Nevin and Nicolas Robinson, was being caught. The real loss of reputation is among the drug cartels and terrorists. Can they really trust the City of London to keep their operational secrets?

One wonders what the reaction might be if the bank and bankers in question were Islamic, or from say Iran or Gaddaffi’s Libya. Would it be a completely different story…?

Spectacle has made a short film about Shaker Aamer to mark the 10th anniversary of his incarceration. Watch Spectacle’s new video on Shaker Aamer and please sign the petition @ www.freeshaker.com. Get him out of Guantanamo!

Order Spectacle’s DVD Outside The Law: Stories from Guantánamo

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5 Days to support the doco Bookchin on Bookchin

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5 Days to go! Please support the documentary Bookchin on Bookchin.

Anarchist, urbanist, utopian, social ecologist

Our supporters comments:

“Looking forward to an important film. We are sure it will inspire radical movements and contribute to social change.”

“Murray’s ideas are very important in the current world climate.”

“Murray Bookchin’s ideas are very inspiring for today’s world!”

Please help get it made now by donating as little as a dollar, or pre buy a copy for $50 or get a copy and an end credit for $250. See site for other perk details.

Thanks
Mark

http://www.indiegogo.com/Bookchin

Battersea Power Station

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Architect Keith Garner, has written a letter to Architect Journal according to the Battersea Power Station developments.

” You say in your editorial (10th May 2012) that the suggested move by Chelsea FC is a “the most thrilling and plausible vision” put forward for the building to date.  You also criticise deputy mayor Eddie Lister for opposing the move.  It is true that, in his time as Leader of Wandsworth Council, Eddie Lister presided over three failed schemes for Battersea Power Station.  But in opposing the move by Chelsea, Eddie Lister is right.

Lack of infrastructure cited by Lister is one of many reasons why this scheme won’t work.  Sketches by KPF that you also publish show that he stadium will take up space currently occupied by the Cringle Street refuse transfer station.  Where will the transfer station go?  Nor do you mention the new US Embassy would be overshadowed by the Russian oligarch’s stadium.   Surely the State Department will have something to say about that?

Far from maintaining the integrity of the II* listed building as you suggest, KPF’s sketches show that the ‘B’ Station turbine hall would be demolished, so the essential symmetry of the building would be lost.  Still worse is the idea of grafting a 60,000 seat stadium onto the side of a building which is (currently) famous as a solitary urban monument.

This is an unviable and unattractive scheme that would condemn Battersea Power Station to years of further neglect while Ambramovich & his team try to make it work.  It does the AJ no credit to support it.

Fortunately the question of Battersea Power Station was given a more sober assessment at the recent Twentieth Century Society seminar, which was timed to coincide with the sale of the building following the collapse of the scheme by the previous owner Treasury Holdings.  One of the key points to emerge from the meeting was that the building should be passed to a public interest trust, with an endowment to fund repairs.

In pursuit of this objective, the Battersea Power Station Company (a development trust set up by Battersea Power Station Community Group) has offered £1.00 for the freehold of the building by sale deadline.    The remainder of the site (the former South Lambeth Goods Yard site to the south, not historically a part of the Power Station) would be sold to raise the money owed to the creditor banks and give an endowment to the trust.

By this route, Battersea Power Station could be opened in the short term as a “controlled ruin” in a public park with a riverside walk to Battersea Park.  The building could then be repaired and brought back into used in a sensible phased refurbishment as funds permit.  Meanwhile commercial development could proceed on the flat land to the south unencumbered by the task of making a profit from the listed building itself.

“Investment and vision”, as you say.  Well, state-controlled Lloyds Bank is one of the two main creditors and could retain a stake in the project.  Now it is time for the GLA, Wandsworth Council and English Heritage – who have all sat on their hands while the building has deteriorated – to get around the table with administrators Ernst & Young to make this desirable outcome a reality.

Very well done Chelsea FC for winning the Champions League.  But please stay at The Bridge! ” (Keith Garner, 2012)

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Battersea Power Station for £1

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The Battersea Power Station Community Group (BPSC) has put in a bid of £1 to buy the Battersea Power Station. If their bid is successful they plan to redevelop the unused site for the local community. Plans include museums, restaurants and music venues.

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Dial M for Murdoch- Book Launch

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This week saw the release of Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corporation of Britain, written jointly by Labour MP Tom Watson and The Independent’s Martin Hickman. The book was launched this morning at a press conference in which Watson called the Murdoch empire a “toxic institution that has operated in Britain like a shadow state”.  Predicted to be the “one of the most attacked books this year”, the title and publication date were kept a complete secret until Monday. Published by Penguin, the book is on sale for £20. Reviews say that the book gives a detailed and researched account of the phone hacking scandal just in time for Murdoch’s appearance at the Leveson inquiry next week.

See also Despite the Sun

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OLYMPIC SPONSOR PROTEST CAMPAIGN EVENT-Tonight

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ENVIRONMENTAL AND HUMAN RIGHTS CONCERN GROUPS UNITE

Monday 16th April

Venue: Amnesty International UK Human Rights Action Centre, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA

Time: Launch event 7pm-9pm

On Monday 16th of April, a coalition of environmental and human rights groups are unveiling a new online campaign, Greenwash Gold 2012, focusing on the ‘worst’ London Olympic sponsors. this is sure to ramp up the pressure on LOCOG after the fiasco surrounding Dow Chemical’s sponsorship of the London Games as further groups look set to unite in opposition to various London Games sponsors.

Three controversial Olympic sponsors, Dow Chemicals, BP and Rio Tinto are the targets of the new online campaign. Each has been made the subject of a short animated film (by various award-winning animators) and viewers will be encouraged to visit the ‘GreenwashGold’ website where they will be able to vote for the worst corporate sponsor.

During the Games, in July, the organisers will award medals to these companies based on the results of the public voting.
Members of communities impacted by the Olympic sponsors, from all over the world, have come together for the launch event on the 16th to criticise the companies, including:

A survivor of the Bhopal disaster who witnessed first-hand the devastation caused by the gas leak and campaigns tirelessly to highlight Dow Chemical’s liability towards the ongoing chemical contamination.
A representative from the Gulf Coast where communities are still dealing with the environmental devastation of BP’s catastrophic oil spill.
An organiser with indigenous communities in Canada fighting BP’s controversial tar sands operations.
A mother from Utah fighting against the life-threatening air pollution levels caused by one of the mines from which Rio Tinto is providing the metal for the Olympic metals.
A community representative from Mongolia where another Rio Tinto mine proving medals metal is accused of exploiting scarce water resources in a desert region.
The launch on the 16th will be chaired by Meredith Alexander, the ex Olympics ‘ethics tsar’ who resigned her role on, the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012, over controversies surrounding Olympic sponsorship.

Colin Toogood, Bhopal Medical Appeal Media Spokesman said: “The Dow Chemical Company are the owners of the Union Carbide Corporation wanted, in India, on the criminal charge of culpable homicide for their role in their Bhopal Disaster. The Bhopal disaster site has never been cleaned up and highly toxic chemicals are now found in the drinking water of over 30,000 poor people. If we can clean up the London Olympic site in readiness for the games, why can’t Dow take responsibility for cleaning up Bhopal.”

Richard Solly, coordinator of the London Mining Network said: “Some of the most disreputable companies in the world are sponsoring the Olympics. Rio Tinto, Dow and BP all have appalling environmental and human rights records, and they are being allowed to greenwash their tarnished reputations by association with the 2012 games. Greenwash Gold 2012 is providing people with an opportunity to name and shame the worst corporate sponsor of London Olympics.”

Jess Worth, from the UK Tar Sands Network, said: “BP has bought itself the prestigious title of London 2012 ‘Sustainability Partner’. But this is dangerous greenwash. BP is one of the least sustainable companies on earth, responsible for the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the extraction of highly-polluting tar sands. Its entire business is geared towards keeping the world addicted to fossil fuels and driving us towards uncontrollable climate change. And the Olympics are helping BP get away with it!”

Cherise Udell, the founder of Utah Moms for Clean Air, said: “I was delighted to learn that the 2012 Olympic committee was aiming for the greenest Olympics ever. Then I heard that Rio Tinto metal from our controversial Utah mine would be used to make the medals. In Utah, Rio Tinto are the number one emitter of toxins known to cause harm to human health. Every year, between 1000 and 2000 Utahns die prematurely due to chronic air pollution and Rio Tinto’s Bingham mine is responsible for about 30% of this.”

Launch Event Facebook page:

GreenwashGold website goes live with animations from 16th April.

For more information/comment, contact

Colin Toogood, Bhopal Medical Appeal,

ColinToogood@bhopal.org, 07798 845074

Farah Edwards-Khan was born and raised in Bhopal and was ten years old at the time of the disaster. Farah was lucky enough to be in a part of the city that was not too badly hit by the gas, during the night of the main disaster, but witnessed the unfolding tragedy first-hand the following morning as bodies lined the streets of Bhopal

Colin Toogood has worked for the BMA for three and a half years after a change of life decision for this erstwhile DJ. Colin decided he needed something more worthwhile to do with his time and feels very lucky to have found such a worthwhile cause to be working for.

Cherise Udell, the founder of Utah Moms for Clean Air, is a mother of two, and a resident of Salt Lake City. Cherise has a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from U.C. Berkeley and is nearly finished with her M.S. in Environmental Health and Social Ecology at Yale University.

Zanaa Jurmed is the Director of the Center for Citizens’ Alliance and Vice Chair of the Tripartite National Committee on Resolving disputes mining and public property issues. She is also the Chair of the Board of the Oyu Tolgoi Watch, a non governmental organization in Mongolia. She is the founding member of the number of Women’s and Human Rights NGOs since 1992, member of the Human Rights group to the Mongolia President and non-staff member of the Mongolian National Human Right Commission.

Derrick Evans is a sixth-generation native of Turkey Creek, a Mississippi Gulf Coast community settled by freed slaves in 1866. Derrick founded Turkey Creek Community Initiatives to promote sustainable local development that is both environmentally and culturally sensitive. Since Hurricane Katrina and the devastating BP Deepwater Horizon spill he has been a tireless organizer and advocate for the needs and rights of coastal communities, and is an advisor to the Gulf Coast Fund.

Clayton Thomas-Muller, of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation also known as Pukatawagan in Northern Manitoba, Canada, is an activist for Indigenous rights and environmental justice. Clayton is the tar sands campaign organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network and works with grassroots indigenous communities to defend against the sprawling infrastructure that includes pipelines, refineries and extraction associated with the tar sands, the largest and most destructive industrial development in the history of mankind.

 

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Olympic Realities

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Landlords in east London are already hiking up pricing in anticipation of big profits this summer. Accommodation during the Olympics is shaping up to be very big business- hotels have been booked for months and so private landlords are stepping in to fill the hole in the market. The result of this, however, is massively inflated rent. Long-term tenants are being given the choice between arbitrary rent increases or notices of eviction to make space for short-term tenancies. More on Metro.

Hoteliers and theatre owners have raised fears that foreign tourists could avoid the capital because of the Olympics and possible transport problems. Culture Secretary, Mr Jeremy Hunt, admitted that there would be “displacement”, with fewer traditional, foreign tours coming to London this summer.

To soothe these worries, a £4m TV advertising campaign for domestic holidays is due to begin next month in an effort to persuade the population to stay in the country this summer for the games. The advert exclaims, “There’s so much happening in Britain in 2012, why on earth would you want to go abroad?” Quire right, Mr Hunt – who wouldn’t want to sit in front their TV all summer?

He added: “You’ll kick yourself if you don’t come to London this summer.” And you will; for missing out on all the chaos in the capital. (A new spectator sport for the Olympics?) No transport, no tickets (to the games, to the Olympic Park, to theatres, no hotel rooms or restaurant tables), annexing of public spaces, no jobs, no beer, wildly inflated prices; the list of crises/idiocies goes on.

Seven hundred bars and clubs that receive deliveries from The Brewery Logistics Group are situated on the 109-mile Olympic Route network. Special “Zil lanes” will be in operation on a third of the network and are typically closed to all but official Games traffic from 6am until midnight, making daytime deliveries difficult. Mike Bracey, the group’s chairman, said: “The Olympics for us is the ultimate nightmare and time is running out to find a solution. London Councils and LOCOG are standing in the way of the solutions we have proposed about altering our routes and operating times.” He added: “But if there is no breakthrough then our members will have to either meet huge costs in getting the deliveries through or the beer won’t arrive at all.”
All these disruptions are in the name of the Games… Or profit. Where the London Organising Committee of the  Olympic Games are concerned, the two terms are relatively interchangeable.

 

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LOCOG loyal to Atos over Paralympics Sponsorship – WHY?

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The Atos Healthcare assessment for disability benefits has been labelled a box-ticking exercise, employing the use of LiMA (Logic Integrated Medical Assessment) – a script which the Atos assessors use to determine a person’s level of disability. These assessors are often medical professionals who have undergone training to comply with the objectives of the test.

The aims of this kind of test, using multiple choice questions to provide quantitative information to assess disability, is to try and standardise disability in order to make the murky waters of individual medical conditions a little more transparent, ostensibly for budgetary purposes. Atos currently has a contract with the UK government which they claim to be worth £100m a year.

The government’s planned re-structuring of the benefits system will incorporate similar assessments, for example, replacing the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) with Personal Independence Payments (PIP). The PIP scheme will make claimants subject to regular review and face-to-face assessments, using methods like LiMA. The government says that they hope to save £1bn using such a system, but disability groups say that the system is insufficient, and Atos’ monopoly on benefits assessments is inappropriate. One of the universal criticisms of Atos is that they rarely make eye contact with patients…

Some disability campaign groups have subsequently called for a boycott of the 2012 Paralympic Games due to Atos’s position as a worldwide partner of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The campaigners say the company is running a flawed process to assess disabled people’s rights to benefits and is therefore an inappropriate sponsor of the Paralympic Games. Yet for campaigners, the last straw is the appointment this month of former Atos chief executive – Bernard Bourigeaud – to the board of the International Paralympic Committee.

The LOCOG committee has a poor record when it comes to sourcing ethically sustainable goods and sponsorships. They can now add another instance to the list. Accused of causing ‘fear and loathing’ among disabled claimants, Atos’ system remains hidden to prevent any critical testing of its efficacy, and their extremely lucrative and unassailable contract with the DWP shrugs off other corporate competitors. For anyone disabled, the name Atos is hardly reputable.  However, LOCOG doesn’t really mind where it comes from, so long as the money flows.

 

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Plans to reveal yet another statue.

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The Camden New Journal yesterday uncovered plans to erect a statue of Christ the Redeemer on Primrose Hill. The statue will be a tribute to the one overlooking Rio de Janeiro, to celebrate passing on the torch (pun begrudgingly intended) to Brazil for 2016.

The Brazilian government would fund the project, and a planning consultancy based in London has been employed by Brazil’s tourist agency to hold a public meeting to display the designs before applications for planning permission are submitted.

The Camden-based design company See Me, Hear Me, Feel Me did not want to discuss the plans, and the Brazilian government was unavailable for comment, but Primrose Hill Lib Dem councillor Chris Naylor said he wasn’t sure a 30ft statue of Christ with his arms outstretched was quite what the area needed.

Other statues to celebrate the Olympics have been erected around Britain, often to the displeasure of residents. The ‘Jurassic Stones’ statue, by Richard Harris, has been greeted with horror by residents of Weymouth, Dorset. The Stones’ £335,000 bill pales in comparison to the £19m spent on Anish Kapoor’s ‘ArcelorMittal Orbit’, on site in Stratford.

 

Many people question why so much money is being spent on statues to celebrate the Olympics, and whether it is appropriate in the current economic climate. The term ‘Legacy’ has always been used to describe the impact of mega-events like the Games: urban development, social, economic and cultural changes are words often thrown around in relation to the Legacy. However, the term has been re-appropriated by critics of the Games and become somewhat of a joke. The Legacy that does seem to be taking shape is symbolised in the statues cropping up around the country – abstracted, distorted, and expensive.

The real Olympic Legacy will be towering debt.

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Olympic Mascot Toys Allegedly Made In Sweatshops

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New allegations have been made that cuddly toy versions of the Olympic mascots are being produced in factories that abuse worker’s rights. The allegations have led to an internal investigation by LOCOG. The British toy company Golden Bear, who sell the mascot toys have been accused that  workers in their Chinese factory are alleged to work more than 11 hours a day, for 26p per hour. Golden Bear, along with the BTHA (British Toy and Hobby Association) have launched an inquiry and LOCOG claims to have contacted licensees to ‘reiterate the importance we place on the sustainable sourcing code they have each signed up to.’ A LOCOG spokesperson has said that they ‘place a high priority on environmental, social and ethical issues when securing goods and services and take these allegations extremely seriously’.

The LOCOG Sustainability Source Code (http://www.london2012.com/publications/locog-sustainable-sourcing-code.php) outlines LOCOG’s approach to the sustainable sourcing of materials, from timber for furniture and fitting to the product specific industry standards in merchandising. The principal audiences of the Code are internal buyers and specifiers and prospective suppliers and licensees i.e. both the LOCOG merchandising team and the toy’s manufacturers, Golden Bear. The code specifies that:

“Put simply, our approach to sourcing sustainable products can be based
on the following five key questions:
1. Where does it come from?
2. Who made it?
3. What is it made of?
4. What is it wrapped in?
5. What will happen to it after the Games? ”

It’s aim is that interested parties “can better understand our views on sustainability and how they are being implemented.” Prospective suppliers and licensees are advised to review the requirements of the Code and ensure that relevant areas of their business and supply chain are in compliance with its provisions. On occasions when we are sourcing services which involve labour, LOCOG uses the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) Base Code (http://www.ethicaltrade.org/resources/key-eti-resources/eti-base-code) as the required standard that suppliers should be achieving. in the case of Golden Bear’s factory, LOCOG’s processes for the tendering of contracts, both the Sustainability Source Code and the ETI Base code, seem to have been neglected. The question therefore is, how has this happened?

The LOCOG Code states that “following our due diligence process and award of a contract, we will monitor a supplier or licensee’s practices to ensure they are being carried out as agreed in the tender process”, and they utilize a spend priority categorization system to determine the likelihood of assessment and monitoring during the tender process. This means that the higher the priority according to the spend categorization the more likely it is that the prospective suppliers and licensees will be evaluated for their ethical sustainability. According to LOCOG sustainable sourcing code, the product specific industry standards for merchandising (the category into which the toy mascots fall) are rated as “moderate” priority and are SEDEX (Supplier Ethical Data Exchange – http://www.sedexglobal.com) mandated, though no guidelines or strategies exist for supporting sustainability. The upshot of this is that the potential for merchandise suppliers to be assessed during the tender process “will be determined by LOCOG on a case-by-case basis”, with “moderate” priority for sustainability support.

Perhaps in the case of Golden Bear the assessments were not deemed necessary. Perhaps the difference between “moderate” and “high” priority is purely a result of interest in the abuses of factory workers. Perhaps it is even the case that the LOCOG Sustainability Source Code is an elaborate exercise in demonstrating how important such ethical issues are in relation to the spending of money. It does seem more likely, though, that their prerogative is, as stipulated on page three of the Code, that “LOCOG will do business with suppliers and licensees who are best placed to deliver outstanding value for money”. In the case of the Golden Bear factory, this seems to be at odds with their commitment to sustainability as “one of several core elements which make up how we (LOCOG) define value for money.”

 

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