Source: ZNet
[Note: I wrote this article just before hearing the news that university management had given redundancy warnings to Senior Language Tutors. A senior source said the redundancy warnings "came completely out of the blue. It was a shock to all of the department." The move has been described by the University as part of a "restructuring" of its languages department.]Read more
*from a film-showing event on the war in Afghanistan, Tuesday 13th April*
On February 12th ISAF (International Security Assistance Force – NATO force in Afghanistan) released a press statement headed 'Joint Force Operating in Gardez Makes Gruesome Discovery'. It reported that a security force acting on intelligence of “militant activity” killed “several insurgents” in a firefight near the village of Khatabeh. On entering the compound they “found the bodies of three women who had been tied up, gagged and killed”. A later Pentagon press release made reference to ISAF's continued efforts to fight “criminals and terrorists who do not care about the lives of civilians”.Read more
*the following was prepared for a film-showing event on the war in Afghanistan on Tuesday 13th April*
It was reported yesterday [Monday 12th] that four Afghan civilians were killed and another eighteen wounded in a U.S. attack near the city of Kandahar. Witnesses say U.S. forces opened fire on a passenger bus just as it began pulling over to the side of the road to allow another military convoy to pass. The bus was said to be full of civilian passengers when U.S. troops opened fire. Some of the wounded have been left in critical condition, and the death toll may rise. Rioting has now broken out across Kandahar in protest at the incident.Read more
Rodrigo Adb/Associated Press
*from a film-showing event on Haiti, Tuesday 16th March*
On Tuesday January 12th at 4:53pm, the 3rd deadliest earthquake since 1900 according to the U.S. Geological Survey struck Haiti, with its epicentre near the town of Leogane, about 16 miles west of Post-au-Prince. There were over 50 aftershocks in the two weeks that followed. Some estimates put the death toll at 222,500, with around a million people left homeless and 250,000 residences having collapsed. In its coverage of the earthquake and its aftermath, the news media have tended to focus on the following: delays in the arrival of aid; violence and looting among Haitians in the quake's aftermath; celebrity fundraisers; and most of all the underlying poverty in Haiti, which is taken as a fact of nature.
Explaining (away) povertyRead more
Thursday, 10 December, 7-9:30PM
School III, St Salvators Quad
Capitalism: A Love Story, directed by controversial American filmmaker Michael Moore, is a documentary analyzing the recent economic crisis in the context of the recovery stimulus. Making the connections between Wall Street and Congress, Moore discusses the bailout, for-profit prisons, the US foreclosure crisis, and whether or not Jesus would have been a capitalist.
Moore, who has spent years making topical films like Roger & Me and Sicko, saying of his newest film: "I thought I'd just kind of cut to the chase and propose that we deal with this economic system and try to restructure it in a way that benefits people and not the richest one percent".
After the film, a short discussion will be led by Will Brown, a lecturer in the Film Studies Department.
Meeting to organise actions against the war in Afghanistan: Friday 4th, 4pm outside Mansfield
On Tuesday President Obama, following a months-long 'strategic review' and recommendations by General Stanley McCrystal, announced that the United States would be sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. This announcement was preceded by Prime Minister Gordon Brown's assertion that the conditions set by the British Government before the sending of 500 additional British troops would be approved have now been met.Read more
This Tuesday we'll be showing the first two parts of Adam Curtis' acclaimed three-part documentary The Power of Nightmares.
Variously described as "arguably the most important film about the 'war on terrorism'" and "the loopiest, most extreme antiwar documentary series ever sponsored by the BBC" (!), Curtis' film charts the rise of the neo-conservative movement in the United States and draw parallels with the rise of the radical Islamist movement. The film has achieved fame (or infamy) for its contention that the idea of al-Qaeda as a massive and dangerous terrorist organisation is largely a myth perpetuated by politicians, specifically the neo-cons, in an attempt to unite Western populations that had been let down by earlier utopian ideologies.Read more
The left in the Uruguayan elections
Round 1: down but far from out*
On Sunday October 25, elections took place in Uruguay to decide on the president and vice-president and to elect representatives in the two chambers of the legislature.
In St. Andrews, we say "Nae Tae G20!
No to G20 neo-liberalism! No to economic exploitation! No to environmental destruction!
Yes to sustainability, community cooperation and peoples' representation!
Yes to liberation, solidarity, equality, human rights and peace!
Yes to revolution!
On the first weekend in November, the financial leaders of the world's twenty richest countries will be hosting closed door meetings in order to decide how our world should be run. The Group of Twenty (G20) finance ministers have chosen to host these meetings in the town of St. Andrews, Scotland, and in response groups of residents and students have paved the way to make our voices heard. Read more
Based on the best-selling book by Naomi Klein, director Michael Winterbottom’s latest film argues that the free market economics which now characterize so many countries did not triumph due to freedom and democracy. Drawing links from the events in Chile in the 1970s to the invasion of Iraq, the film instead suggests that these unpopular economic policies could only be implemented while citizens were reacting to disasters and upheavals – ‘shocks’.Read more
