Author Archives: clockword

A screening of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo” at the European Parliament in Brussels- January 24

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On Tuesday January 24, at 7 pm, there will be a special screening of the acclaimed documentary film “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” at the European Parliament in Brussels. The screening will take place in the main European Parliament building, the Altiero Spinelli Building, Rue Wiertz, in Room ASP – 3G2, on the 3rd floor, and Moazzam Begg, former Guantánamo prisoner, and the director of the NGO Cageprisoners, will be joining Andy Worthington and Polly Nash for the screening, and for the Q&A session afterwards.

 

The screening has been arranged by Jean Lambert (UK Green MEP), with the support of Sarah Ludford (UK Liberal Democrat MEP) and Ana Gomes (Portuguese Socialist MEP), and the purpose of the screening is to raise awareness of the continued existence of Guantánamo, and its mockery of universal notions of fairness and justice, ten years after the prison opened, on January 11, 2002. Given President Obama’s very public failure to close the prison as promised, it is essential that other countries step forward to take cleared prisoners who cannot be safely repatriated, and one of the main purposes of the screening is to encourage EU countries to re-engage with the process of resettling prisoners that was so successful in 2009 and 2010.

The screening is free, but anyone who wishes to attend needs to contact Rachel Sheppard, the Parliamentary Assistant to Jean Lambert MEP:  jean.lambert@europarl.europa.eu

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

If those wishing to attend do not already have an access badge for the European Parliament, they need to provide their full name, date of birth, nationality, passport number or ID card and number and also specify the type of document (passport, ID card) so that access badges can be arranged. Without an access badge, those wishing to attend the screening will not be allowed.

Moazzam Begg and Andy Worthington will be available to talk to the press along with Jean Lambert MP, Sarah Ludford MEP and Ana Gomes MEP they are hoping to have the opportunity to discuss the need for European countries to revisit the generosity shown in 2009 and 2010, when many offered new homes to cleared Guantánamo prisoners who could not be safely repatriated.

171 prisoners are still held in Guantánamo, and 89 of these have been cleared for release by President Obama’s interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force. 58 of these men are Yemenis, whose release is being prevented by President Obama, and by Congress, but others remain in need of new homes, and it is only the absence of offers from, for example, countries in Europe, that is preventing them from finally being freed.

As Guantánamo recently marked the 10th anniversary of its opening, with no sign of when, if ever it will close, given Congressional opposition, and the President’s refusal, or inability to assert his authority, it would be a powerful humanitarian gesture if European countries once more agreed to take cleared prisoners, to help to close this shameful icon of the Bush administration’s misguided “war on terror.”

 

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REO is falling to pieces – literally

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“If there is a high wind one of the chimneys on the power station is  going to come down, so it’s better if you take them down and put them back up so that can’t happen. They’re basically un-reinforced concrete.”
Richard Barret, co-founder of Treasury Holdings, on the redevelopment of Battersea Power Station, October 2011

And just a few months later their fence around the power station was blown over by a strong gust of wind. All four chimneys are still standing strong proving once again that Real Estate Opportunities‘ threats, promises and bank accounts are nothing but empty.


This picture was sent to us by Brian Barnes, founder of the Battersea Power Station Comunity Group.

Your TV tonight: The undead Grey Men of Battersea Power Station

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On ITV’s London Tonight and LBC radio you can watch or hear Ravi Govindia, the leader of Wandsworth Council who, as former cabinet member for “strategic planning and transportation”, is particularly responsible for the failed private-property owner led regeneration of the area,  trying to defend the borough’s pathetic policy towards the obviously flawed and greedy plans for Battersea Power Station.

Only a few days ago George Osborne and Boris Johnson were doing their best to puff the disastrous scheme which is now as all but dead and buried by the creditors calling in their loans.


For the Battersea Power Station Community Group (BPSCG) it is just another “new beginning” as the fourth developer limps off stage to boos and jeers.

Keith Garner is also interviewed calling for the whole site to be put into public ownership for a sensible, viable, gradual development of the historic and beautiful building and its surrounding site. An ideal exhibition for industrial power ( see our previous blogs). Keith cites the difference in the approach of Southwark to the other Gilbert-Scott designed river front power station, the highly successful Tate Modern. Through partnerships and a gradual, planned development it shows what Battersea residents could have had these past 30 years.

WATCH: ITV London Tonight on Battersea Power Station debt

Spectacle’s crew were there today too and will be posting soon the bits of the interviews the broadcaster left out. Including an hilarious episode where the owners try to stop ITV filming by shutting the gates. Perhaps their last act.

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Prestige Tickets sold hospitality packages for a venue which didn’t exist – and they didn’t have planning permission to build it either

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Prestige Tickets Ltd has been selling hospitality packages to the equestrian events in Greenwich Park and their specially designed restaurant without having planning permission to build the structure.

Owned by former England rugby player turned sports agent, Mike Burton, and a French company, Soxedo, Prestige Tickets Ltd is the official supplier of  “world-class hospitality packages” for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Their plan is to build a restaurant seating 500 people in Greenwich Park, consisting of two connected by a glass bridge under which competitors will ride.

On March 29th 2010 the Council granted full planning permission for temporary use of the site for the hosting of the equestrian and modern pentathlon events, including the test events in 2011.

In an email Janice Goldsmith, Assistant Policy Officer at Greenwich Council, said: “The temporary structures include a 23,000 seat arena, training areas, stabling, a cross county course, operational site set up and removal compounds, vehicular and pedestrian access areas, operational parking and ancillary structures. Concessions areas and structures were also included.”

However, this response did not give any information regarding the building for the restaurant, so Spectacle politely responded and asked whether a planning application had been submitted for “a proposed two-towered structure seating up to 500 diners” in the area.

Our first email questioning the planning permission was sent on September 27th 2011. On November 30th, many excuses and nearly two months later, we received an email from Ms Goldsmith saying that “the Council has received a planning application for the structure. The application number is 11/2604/SD.”

A quick search on the Council’s website reveals that this application was made on November 2nd, a long time after we first requested the information and a long time after the tickets went on sale.

If the two towers and glass bridge was included in the first planning permission, why would they then have applied for it again?

The planning application made on November 2nd this year can be found on London Borough of Greenwich Planning Pages.

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Why the Northern Line extension will never happen

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The recent PR buff on Battersea Power Station has left us no closer to a solution to the issue. Chancellor George Osborne and Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, have been talking about the Northern Line extension and oligarch Roman Abramovich has received media attention by saying that he’s thinking about moving Chelsea Football Club‘s home ground South East of the site.

Extending the Northern line from Kennington to Battersea is one thing – funding the project is another. During the Autumn Statement in the Commons today, Osborne stated that the government will back the project – but did not mention with how much. He also called for “a developer” to contribute to the project and develop the power station site before a deadline of 2013.

The project is still heavily reliant on private funding and current owners Treasury Holdings is going to struggle. A scheme this size, roughly three times the size of Canary Wharf if you include Nine Elms, is always going to be difficult to get up and running at the best of times. But in a recession..?

Giving the Northern Line extension green light and talking up the moribund and equally fantastic Rafael Viñoly’s nightmare vision of gloomy glass canyons, is certainly invaluable property pump priming. And it’s hard to imagine why the Conservatives are so happy to collude in this theatre, given that they held their 2010 election campaign launch under the same chimneys which Battersea Power Station’s owner Richard Barrett, one of the co-founders of Treasury Holdings, once said “would fall in strong wind.”

Recently, Tory dominated Wandsworth Borough Council’s planning committee gave Treasury Holdings permission to demolish the power station’s chimneys on the grounds that they were unsafe. However, many experts disagree and local residents believe that, like the roof which was never replaced, the chimneys will never be re-built once they are gone. If Treasury Holdings really believe that the chimneys are precarious, it shows a very cavalier approach to the health and safety of Her Majesty’s Opposition, as there wasn’t a hard hat in sight.

The Battersea Power Station should become a World Heritage site for industrial power. The site has a unique Victorian Pumping Station with site of the biggest Cornish engine of its day. It also has spectacular gasometers dating from 1910 as well as, of course, the beautiful coal-powered art deco power station.

It would be nice to see Abramovich spend some of his heard-earned billions derived from oil, show some philanthropic decency and rescue the site from the clutches of the myopic grey men. They would simply turn the site into just another crass, desolated, windswept and empty river-front development along the banks of the Thames.

The Big Society was prime minister David Cameron’s flagship policy idea for the 2010 election campaign and has stated that it’s his “mission.” One may ask, if one of the world’s richest men isn’t going to chip in – then who will?

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“the whole essence of the movement is to reject the game’s rules as it is being played” – Occupy Wall Street defined!

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Occupy Wall Street is a movement in response to a system of society where wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few.

Yet its methods are uncommon. Peter Marcuse offers the following explanation:

“It makes 4 points:

1.       Occupy Wall Street doesn’t make specific demands. Understandably. There is a difference between immediate demands and claims of rights, and the Occupy movement is about targeting claims of rights.

2.       This is not only for strategic reasons – it’s not their role – but also on principle; its supporters don’t want to get into the game, they want to change its unfair rules.

3.       They do not seek consensus but understand the inevitably of conflict. They wish to stand with the 99% and recognize that this means losses for the 1%,  but not losses that would seriously impinge on their needs.

4.       The space they have chosen to organize their protest is not classic public space, but space in the heart of the territory in which the activities and forces they target operate. It is both a physically and a symbolically well-chosen space for their purpose.”

Peter further expands on these points in the following blog article, where he also details his personal experience of Occupy Wall Street’s Oct 5th march:

Peter Marcuse’s Blog – Occupy WallStreet – For What? For Whom? Where? Why?

 

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“Ten Hours for Ten Years” – A demonstration for Shaker Aamer, Trafalgar Square – Sat 8 Oct

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Coinciding with tomorrow’s Anti-war Mass Assembly in Trafalgar Square tomorrow, there will be a demonstration marking Shaker Aamer’s 10 year incarceration in Guantanamo.

“Ten Hours for Ten Years”  – Demonstration for Shaker Aamer will be staged by The Save Shaker Aamer Campaign’s (SSAC) where a Guantanamo cage will be set up for ten hours from 10am to 8pm in the south-west corner of Trafalgar Square.

The Shaker Aamer Campaign urges the UK Government to demand the immediate release of British Resident Shaker Aamer to the UK as a matter of great urgency. Shaker is a UK resident and was originally cleared for release in 2007.

Shaker Aamer is the last British Resident still held in Guantanamo without charge or trial – a victim of US aggression following 9/11.

For more details on Shaker Aamer and the demonstration, visit the SSAC’s website and their Facebook page.

For more information on the Anti-war Mass Assembly please visit the Stop the War Coalition’s website and/or the Anti War Mass Assembly’s dedicated site.

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Julian Assange to speak at Anti-war Mass Assembly in London – Saturday 8 October

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The Anti-war Mass Assembly, marking 10 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq will start at 12 noon in Trafalgar Square, London tomorrow 8th October.

It will be officially opened by Joe Glenton, the ex-soldier who was jailed for refusing to fight in Afghanistan alongside Grace McCann, who in 2010 attempted a citizen’s arrest on Tony Blair.

Supporting Glenton and the assembly will be high profile figures such as Noam Chomsky, Julian Assange, Jemima Khan and Tony Benn.

For more information including a list of who will be attending, a complete timetable and for the chance to sign the pledge to attend please click on the Stop the War Coalition’s website and/or the Anti War Mass Assembly’s dedicated site.

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Olympian battle to get London’s transport fit for the Games…

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A guaranteed budget of £6.5bn has been set aside to get London’s transport network up to speed in time for the Olympic Games next year. Thanks to the Games, this budget is also protected during present austerity measures.

With an estimated eight million visitors expected in London during July and August 2012, Graham Stephens, the co-ordination manager for the Olympics for Transport for London said that transport was marked as a potential problem right from the start: “The first advisers for the London bid helped us a lot when they stressed right at the beginning of the process that transportation was a major issue.”

Speaking about the legacy, Stephens pointed out that the transport system after the Olympics will be “significantly reinvigorated.” In the meantime, Londoners continue to face delays and line closures while the transport system goes through its upgrade.

For the full article click here

 

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Battersea Power Station: a new home for Chelsea FC?

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Roman Abramovich is looking to relocate Chelsea FC from Stamford Bridge to the disused Battersea Power Station (BPS). The current site only has capacity for 41,800 spectators and hence it is unable to host an anticipated 60,000. Therefore the Russian oligarch has recently injected a huge sum of money into researching alternative venues.

Apart from BPS, Earls Court & Olympia, White City and Imperial Wharf are all potential sites currently under consideration. However, BPS seems to be most sensible choice due to its convenient size and availability, The Guardian writes.

The final “yes” or “no” is not only up to the Russian as once again Chelsea Pitch Owners (CPO) are exercising their contractual rights. 12,000 shareholders are legally entitled to the name Chelsea Football Club and if it moves elsewhere, Abramovich needs the CPO’s permission to use this well-known trade name. In order to get them on his side, the oligarch made an offer to CPO on Tuesday promising to give perks of priority rights to purchase season tickets and a roll of honor at the new stadium.

It might be worth mentioning that the US Embassy’s future offices could be right next to Chelsea FC’s new stadium in Battersea and one may wonder if anyone asked the American diplomats for their opinion on rubbing shoulders with football fans…

 

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