Gordon Brown Snubbed by Soldiers' 'Curtain' Protest 'Gordon Brown was snubbed by badly injured Afghan veterans when they closed curtains round their beds during a hospital visit and refused to speak to him. More than half the soldiers being treated at the Selly Oak hospital ward in Birmingham either asked for the curtains to be closed or deliberately avoided the prime minister, according to several of those present. The soldiers, who have sustained some of the worst injuries seen in Afghanistan, described his visit as “opportunistic” and a “waste of time”.' March 11, 2004. The Madrid 3/11 Bombings: Was it Really an Attack by 'Islamic Terrorists'? 'A series of bombings plunged Madrid into mourning five years ago. The Spanish legal system concluded that this operation, attributed first to ETA and then to Al Qaeda, was Islamist inspired, though not linked with international networks. The Spanish press, led by the newspaper El Mundo, today is calling into question that conclusion, which was of obvious political character. As in the cases of the September 11th attacks in the U.S., or those in Bali, Casablanca and London, we will take a look at an analysis of the issue.' Bhopal: 25 Years of Poison 'Wake up people of Bhopal, you are on the edge of a volcano!" In September 1982, Bhopali journalist Raj Keswani wrote a terrifying story, the first of a series of articles, for the city's Jansatta daily. Bhopal was about to be annihilated. "It will take just an hour, at most an hour-and-a-half, for every one of us to die." Keswani's information came from worried staff at the Union Carbide factory, where a worker, Ashraf Khan, had just been killed in a phosgene spill. The first world war gas was used in the production of MIC (methyl-isocyanate), a substance 500 times deadlier than hydrogen cyanide, and so volatile that unless kept in spotless conditions, refrigerated to 0C, it can even react explosively with itself. Cooling it slows reactions, buys time, but MIC is so dangerous that chemical engineers recommend not storing it at all unless absolutely necessary and then only in the tiniest quantities. In Bhopal it was kept in a huge tank, the size of a steam locomotive.' American Indian Land Sold Off by IRS to Pay Off Taxes 'US tax officials have sold off thousands of acres of an impoverished Indian reservation in what the tribe claims is a "shameful" and unprecedented breach of laws protecting Native Americans.' DEMOS: National Service for Seven-Year-Olds 'Demos today launches a report arguing that the principle of national service, abolished in Britain in 1960, still has something to offer. A national civilian service — a sort of “civic corps” — would look very different from its military forebear: it would be flexible and tailored to people’s lives, not a one-size-fits-all compulsory scheme. It would, however, be based on the same principles that underpinned wartime service: the idea that we owe something to each other and that citizenship is more than a soulless contract between individuals and the state. It would be paid for by introducing interest on student loans, raising about £1.2 billion a year. The scheme would see people serving throughout their lives, taking up opportunities, from school projects at the age of seven to paid leave for employees. For a week a year, people would down their tools or keyboards and pick up litter, dredge canals, become reading mentors or help the elderly. The community benefits would be huge.'
Monday, 7 December 2009
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