Filed under: animation, children, democracy, documentary, environment, ethical, film, palestine, politics | Tags: animation, documentary, film, politics
This is a You Tube Playlist of a selections of films Contaminant Media has made over the last 3 years…
We hope you enjoy them…
Filed under: democracy, environment, politics | Tags: economics, environment, politics
Again George Monbiot manages to offer some interesting comment on what is happening to our economic situation…Having watched Garbage Warrior last night I have come to the conclusion that change is only possible in times of great uncertainty and so can only view this time as positive.
It is unrealistic to think that economic growth could continue in this unsustainable fashion, and so now we have a moment to re-evaluate our relationship with money and wealth. If economics was going to help us then why are there still 1billion people in the world living on less than a dollar a day?
Why have we disconnected so far from the earth that we want to buy everything with a plastic wrapping, and children are growing up not understanding where fruit and vegetables come from…?
Read George’s article…it’s food for thought…
Filed under: democracy, digital revolution, politics | Tags: human_rights, politics, uk
As many of you will know, the government’s proposal to increase the pre-charge detention limit to 42 days – six weeks – has scraped through parliament by a majority of nine. Not that the politics is important to us, but it means that it only passed with the votes of the Ulster Unionists.
This is bad news for human rights. The government didn’t make a convincing case that this would make anyone safer and in fact, by further alienating the Muslim community with measures that will inevitably affect them most, it may make things worse. This is a lesson that should have been learned from Northern Ireland, and clearly hasn’t been.
The ‘concessions’ that have been granted are basically meaningless: parliamentary scrutiny won’t be any use as MPs won’t have any detailed information on individual cases. The judicial safeguards that have been put in place are nowhere near strong enough.
The Bill now has to go before the Lords – and as it only scraped through by nine votes in the Commons, they may well be inclined to ’savage’ it. That’s where we’ll be focusing our attention now and you’ll be hearing a lot more from us soon.
As unsubscribers, Amnesty will be getting our view across on phone-ins, message board and blog posts. The public is being robbed of its basic human rights and we need to make sure that everyone knows what is at stake.
BTW: you don’t have to be a member of Amnesty International to unsubscribe from human rights abuses in the ‘war on terror’ but you might want to join them
Filed under: animation, environment, politics | Tags: climate, elephant, politics
Filed under: animation, democracy, politics | Tags: animation, caroline lucas, green-party, politics
Filed under: animation, democracy, politics | Tags: animation, climate, ethical, film, green, politics
The High Court ruled today that the Serious Fraud Office acted UNLAWFULLY in ending their investigation into corruption allegations against BAE systems, Britain’s largest arms company.
BAE Systems had been under investigation from July 2004, after allegations that it had bribed Saudi officials to win contracts for arms deals. The ‘Al Yamamah’ contract, signed in the 1980s under Thatcher’s government, was for BAE to supply Saudi Arabia with dozens of military aircraft, despite the country’s unenviable human rights record.
In December 2007, just as the investigating body were getting somewhere – the SFO were just about to get access to Swiss bank accounts – the investigation was suddently terminated. (This was after BAE had already leant on the attorney general to halt the inquiry in October 2005.)
The SFO are supposedly an independent prosecuting organisation. Despite this, the Blair government directly intervened to stop the SFO continuing its work, saying that it had already cost a lot of money, it would mean job losses at BAE, and most importantly that it could hurt relations with the Saudi government. It was claimed that the Saudis had tried to blackmail them, by threatening to withhold intelligence on terrorists.
Whether this was true, or whether the decision was made to cynically protect BAE’s corporate interests, is a matter for you to decide.
Campaign Against the Arms Trade and Cornerhouse anti-corruption publishers launched a David v Goliath legal battle to challenge the SFO’s decision. Today the judges were scathing of the government and the SFO, and ruled that they had acted unlawfully in halting the investigation.
Ruling: http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2008/04/10/judgment_corner_house_100408.pdf
Today’s High Court victory confirms the fact that BAE Systems is a corrupt and extremely powerful company, which is able to manipulate the government at the highest level. It shows that the government are also perfectly willing to sacrifice their supposed democratic mandate, to assist the fat-cat bosses in their aim to fatten their already bulging wallets on the backs of those killed by BAE’s products.
The British government remain under investigation for corruption by international OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). The repurcussions for the government as a result of that, and today’s ruling, remain to be seen.
Filed under: digital revolution, music, politics | Tags: lazyboy, music, politics
Filed under: democracy, environment, ethical, politics | Tags: coal, corporates, fossil_fuels, politics
