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US Spends 6 Times More on Prisons than Education

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Globe and Mail

For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population and urging states to rein in corrections costs with alternative sentencing programs.

The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.

The steadily growing inmate population “is saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime,” said the report.

Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said budget woes are prompting officials in many states to consider new, cost-saving corrections policies that might have been shunned in the recent past for fear of appearing soft in crime.

“We’re seeing more and more states being creative because of tight budgets,” she said in an interview. “They want to be tough on crime, they want to be a law-and-order state — but they also want to save money, and they want to be effective.”

The report cited Kansas and Texas as states which have acted decisively to slow the growth of their inmate population. Their actions include greater use of community supervision for low-risk offenders and employing sanctions other than re-imprisonment for ex-offenders who commit technical violations of parole and probation rules.

“The new approach, born of bipartisan leadership, is allowing the two states to ensure they have enough prison beds for violent offenders while helping less dangerous lawbreakers become productive, taxpaying citizens,” the report said.

According to the report, the inmate population increased last year in 36 states and the federal prison system.

The largest percentage increase — 12 percent — was in Kentucky, where Gov. Steve Beshear highlighted the cost of corrections in his budget speech last month. He noted that the state’s crime rate had increased only about 3 percent in the past 30 years, while the state’s inmate population has increased by 600 percent.

The Pew report was compiled by the Center on the State’s Public Safety Performance Project, which is working directly with 13 states on developing programs to divert offenders from prison without jeopardizing public safety.

“For all the money spent on corrections today, there hasn’t been a clear and convincing return for public safety,” said the project’s director, Adam Gelb. “More and more states are beginning to rethink their reliance on prisons for lower-level offenders and finding strategies that are tough on crime without being so tough on taxpayers.”

The report said prison growth and higher incarceration rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or in the nation’s overall population. Instead, it said, more people are behind bars mainly because of tough sentencing measures, such as “three-strikes” laws, that result in longer prison stays.

“For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially startling,” the report said. “While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine.”

The nationwide figures, as of Jan. 1, include 1,596,127 people in state and federal prisons and 723,131 in local jails — a total 2,319,258 out of almost 230 million American adults.

The report said the United States is the world’s incarceration leader, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. It said the U.S. also is the leader in inmates per capita (750 per 100,000 people), ahead of Russia (628 per 100,000) and other former Soviet bloc nations which make up the rest of the Top 10.

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War Contractor Makes Bid For Election Machines

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

CHICAGO TRIBUNE - United Technologies Corp. made public Sunday an unsolicited $3 billion bid for Diebold, one of the largest makers of automated teller machines and voting machines. United Technologies, which first approached Diebold two years ago, initially made the offer in private Friday. The bid amounts to $40 a share in cash, or a 66 percent premium over Diebold’s closing price Friday of $24.12, United Technologies said. . .

“This transaction creates significant and immediate value for Diebold shareholders with no operational risk, while creating long-term value for UTC shareholders,” George David, United Technologies’ chairman and chief executive, said in a statement Sunday.
Founded in 1859, Diebold grew as a provider of security technology for financial systems. But Diebold was thrust into the spotlight in the 2004 election when it was criticized for flawed electronic voting machines in Ohio and elsewhere

UNITED TECHNOLOGIES MAKES TOP TEN LIST FOR GOVERNMENT CONTRACTOR MISCONDUCT

PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT - United Technologies, based in Hartford, Conn., is a diversified company that provides high technology products and services to the building and aerospace industries.

Federal Contract $: $5,050 millon

Total Number of Instances of misconduct: 10

Total Misconduct dollar amount: $323 million

- According to a GAO report cited by Senator Harkin and Representative DeFazio, United Technologies Optical Systems, reached a settlement for $150,000 for alleged cost/labor mischarging

- According to a GAO report cited by Senator Harkin and Representative DeFazio, United Technologies, reached a settlement for $304,729 for alleged defective pricing. . .

- United Technologies Corporation’s Pratt & Whitney Government Engine and Space Propulsion Division entered into a settlement agreement in which P&W agreed to pay the government $14.8 million, following a Defense Criminal Investigative Service investigation. The agreement resolved charges that P&W violated the False Claims Act by preparing false purchase orders and submitting false invoices under the Foreign Military Sales Program administered by the Defense Security Assistance Agency. . .

- On July 7, 2005, Pratt & Whitney, a subsidiary of United Technologies, reached a settlement “for potential violations of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, . . . under an outsource labor contract between Pratt & Whitney and EDF Company. On April 24, 2002, Brainard, a Major with the United States Army Reserve, was called to active military service. . .

- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor…cited the Pratt and Whitney Aircraft, Turbine Modular Center, located in North Haven, Connecticut, for alleged willful violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and has proposed penalties totaling $155,000 for those alleged violations. . . the company is being cited for four alleged willful violations, carrying proposed penalties totaling $154,000. . .

- “Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. will pay a fine of $176,000 to settle an EPA complaint for violations of the federal stratospheric ozone protection regulations and two federal hazardous air pollutant standards. . .

- “The [Connecticut] Department of Environmental Protection entered into an administrative consent order with Pratt & Whitney Division of United Technologies Corporation on September 7, 2004 for allegedly violating the standards for underground storage tank systems. . .

- “European Union regulators on Wednesday fined United Technologies’ Otis unit and four other elevator makers $1.3 billion for operating cartels for the installation and maintenance of elevators and escalators in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. . .

- Hamilton Sundstrand, a subsidiary of United Technologies, pled guilty to two counts of violating the federal Clean Water Act and was sentenced to five years’ probation and $12 million in fines. Hamilton Sundstrand is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of advanced aerospace and industrial systems. The company, in operating its Windsor Locks, Conn. manufacturing plant, violated its state pollutant discharge permit and attempted to conceal those violations by knowingly submitting false environmental reports.

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Government ‘letting troops down’

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Conservative leader David Cameron has accused the Government of “breaking the military covenant” as he launched a Commission to draw up proposals to improve support for Britain’s armed forces.

Mr Cameron said ministers were letting troops down on equipment, healthcare, family support and accommodation and promised a defence review to ensure that a future Tory government would match the demands it made on the military with the resources it provided them.

But he declined to say whether he would match the Government’s pledge of £7.7bn additional defence funding by 2011 in last year’s Comprehensive Spending Review.

Labour accused the Tory leader of “damaging troop morale” by claiming the covenant between the armed forces and the Government was broken.

Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth said he was “behind the curve”, as the Government had already launched a Command Paper designed to improve support for troops, families and veterans.

Mr Cameron was joined at the London launch of the new Commission by Falklands hero Simon Weston, who will sit on the panel, and author Freddie Forsyth, who will chair it. Both stressed that their report, due in September, will be independent and non-party political.

The Tory leader said: “I believe the military covenant is well and truly broken, and I am determined that the Conservative Party will fix it.

“This Commission will look at how the Government and society can better fulfil our obligations under the military covenant. It will look at all the issues that affect our Armed Forces, from training and recuperation to the welfare of their families and their wider relationship with society.”

Mr Cameron, who will not be bound by the Commission’s recommendations, accused the Government of cutting defence spending to its lowest level since the 1930s, leaving the armed forces 5,500 under strength. Troops were forced to go into action without necessary equipment like night-vision goggles, while the Ministry of Defence spent £2 billion refurbishing its Whitehall HQ, he said.

He highlighted frontline troops’ complaints about limited phone and email contact with their families, as well as the policy of counting leave from the day they depart their posts, rather than the day they arrive home in the UK.

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Gov gags “extraordinary renditions” whistleblower

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Marcus Morgan

Last Friday, the Labour government took out a high court injunction to prevent a former member of the British Special Air Services, Ben Griffin, from revealing further details about the government’s involvement in “extraordinary rendition”

The US administration coined the term to cover the practice of sending arrested terrorist suspects to dozens of detention facilities where torture is often carried out. Ever since reports of rendition and torture began to surface after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001, the British government has adamantly denied any knowledge or collaboration with these activities.

In his last public address before the gagging order came into force, Griffin told an antiwar rally, “I will be continuing to collect evidence and opinion on British involvement in extraordinary rendition, torture, secret detentions, extra-judicial detention, use of evidence gained through torture, breaches of the Geneva Conventions, breaches of International Law and failure to abide by our obligations as per UN Convention Against Torture. I am carrying on regardless.”

He called for former Prime Minister Tony Blair and his successor Gordon Brown to face trial for breaking international law.

Griffin served in the army for eight years, including a three-month tour in Baghdad working on secret joint operations with US Special Forces. He quit in 2005 because he believed the war was illegal and aimed at seizing control of the natural resources in the region.

He is strongly opposed to the tactics being employed by US occupation forces, including indiscriminate detention of people, a trigger-happy mentality among soldiers and routine torture of prisoners that is advocated through the chain of command. Although he had not witnessed torture first-hand, Griffin said, “I have no doubt in my mind that non-combatants I personally detained were handed over to the Americans and subsequently tortured.”

The secret joint US-UK task force within which he was posted was “responsible for the detention of hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

He added: “British soldiers are intimately involved in the actions of this task force. Jack Straw, Margaret Beckett, David Miliband, Geoff Hoon, Des Browne, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown—in their respective positions over the last five years they must know that British soldiers have been operating within this joint US/UK task force. They must have been briefed on the actions of this unit.”

The gagging order was placed under the Official Secrets Act, which has been used repeatedly since the war began to silence critics of the occupations within the civil service and armed forces on grounds of “national security.” If he makes further disclosures relating to renditions that implicate government ministers in war crimes, he could face a jail sentence.

The Foreign Office refused to comment on the allegations on the grounds that statements are never released on the activities of Special Forces soldiers.

When allegations about the government’s involvement in extraordinary rendition first surfaced in December 2005, Blair told the press, “I have absolutely no evidence to suggest that anything illegal has been happening here at all, and I am not going to start ordering inquiries into this, that and the next thing, when I have got no evidence to show whether this is right or not. And I honestly, it is like all this stuff about camps in Europe or something, I don’t know, I have never heard of such a thing, I can’t tell you whether such a thing exists.”

And again, in March 2007, Blair assured an intelligence and security committee that “he was satisfied that the US had at no time since 9/11 rendered an individual through the UK or through our Overseas Territories.”

This position became increasingly untenable as leaks from individuals within the armed forces, such as those from Griffin and former United States Army General Barry McCaffrey, as well as numerous civil servants, conflicted with official government denials.

Responding to allegations that Britain was co-operating with renditions to the UK protectorate of Diego Garcia, an Indian ocean island that is leased to the US as an air base for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, then-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in September 2003, “The United States Government have explicitly assured us that there have never been any prisoners in detention on any US vessels moored in Diego Garcia waters. The British Government are satisfied that this is correct.”

In December 2006, McCaffrey revealed that he knew of renditions to the base. He said of suspected terrorists, “They’re behind bars, they’re dead, they’re apprehended. We’ve got them on Diego Garcia, in Bagram Airfield, in Guantanamo.”

According to a report from the civil rights group Statewatch, “Diego Garcia has been the subject of repeated, credible and concurrent claims that the island has played a major role in the US system of renditions and secret detention.”

The mounting evidence culminated in the government being forced to make limited admissions, whilst attempting to distance itself as far as possible from the US practice of renditions and torture. A carefully worded statement to parliament on February 21 by Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that Britain had recently been made aware of two US extraordinary rendition flights, which had stopped at Diego Garcia in 2002 to refuel.

Miliband said, “Contrary to earlier explicit assurances that Diego Garcia had not been used for rendition flights, recent US investigations have now revealed two occasions, both in 2002, when this had in fact occurred. An error in the earlier US records search meant that these cases did not come to light.”

He went on to spell out that the US and UK policy on counter-terrorism will continue as before: “Our counter-terrorism relationship with the United States is vital to UK security. I am absolutely clear that there must and will continue to be the strongest possible intelligence and counter-terrorism relationship with the US, consistent with UK law and our international obligations.”

It was Miliband’s evasions and denials about UK involvement in rendition that prompted Griffin to issue a statement a few days later. He pointed out that the government always talks about rendition as purely the process of flying detainees to a foreign country in the hope of deflecting attention away from the British Army’s vital role in the first stages of the process in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said the Diego Garcia admission “pales into insignificance in light of the fact that it has been British soldiers detaining the victims of extraordinary rendition in the first place.”

“Since the invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001 UKSF [United Kingdom Special Forces] has operated within a joint US/UK Task Force. This Task Force has been responsible for the detention of hundreds if not thousands of individuals in Afghanistan and Iraq. Individuals detained by British soldiers within this Task Force have ended up in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, Bagram Theatre Internment Facility, Balad Special Forces Base, Camp Nama BIAP and Abu Ghraib Prison.”

“Whilst the government has stated its desire that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp be closed, it has remained silent over these other secretive prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. These secretive prisons are part of a global network in which individuals face torture and are held indefinitely without charge. All of this is in direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions, International Law and the UN Convention Against Torture.”

Griffin detailed human rights abuses at Camp Nama at Baghdad International Airport in 2004, where individuals captured by the US/UK Task Force were detained and torture was carried out that was “systematic and sanctioned through the chain of command.” He also relates a story he was told by two soldiers that torture was carried out using partial asphyxiation and cattle prods.

Numerous human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, which has obtained damning firsthand evidence about abuses in secret detention facilities, have corroborated Griffin’s statements on abuse of detainees. Witnesses relate that the use of torture, including prolonged sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures, beatings and humiliating treatment were widespread and sanctioned by commanding officers. Soldiers who objected to the treatment of prisoners were lectured on the exceptional circumstances of the “war on terror.”

The latest gagging order follows a series of similar cases where the government has forcibly silenced critics of its “war on terror” policy. Civil servant David Keogh and political researcher Leo O’Connor were jailed last year—for six months and three months, respectively—after being convicted of leaking a secret government memo from 2003, alleged to contain minutes of a meeting between then-Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush in which the latter reportedly advocated bombing Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar.

The growing body of evidence exposing the crimes of detention without trial and a global network of prison camps has also implicated countries other than the UK and US. Statewatch obtained a document in 2005 that confirmed the European Union (EU) had agreed to rendition flights in CIA planes as part of a wider programme of joint security operations with the Bush administration in 2003.

In a recent report from the European Parliament on the alleged use of European countries for the illegal transport and detention of prisoners by the CIA, the EU Rapporteur Claudio Fava said, “Many governments co-operated passively or actively (with the CIA). They knew.”

According to the report, more than 1,000 CIA-operated flights used European airspace between 2001 and 2005. It also states that detention facilities may be located at US military bases in Europe and that some EU members turned a blind eye to flights operated by the CIA being used for extraordinary rendition or the illegal transportation of detainees.

The report mentions 21 well-documented cases of extraordinary rendition in which rendition victims were transferred through a European country or were residents in a European state at the time of their kidnapping. The national governments specifically criticised for their unwillingness to co-operate with investigations were those of Austria, Italy, Poland, Portugal and the UK.

Amnesty International has previously reported on more than 1,000 flights linked to the CIA, many of which used European airspace.

President George W. Bush stated in September 2006 that “alternative procedures” were necessary to deal with the new threat of global terrorism. Thanks to the courage and conviction of those like Ben Griffin, we now know more of the substance that lies behind those ominous words.

The global network of CIA “black sites” that have been established under the pretext of the “war on terror” are being used to suppress growing opposition to the imperialist aims of the United States to control the natural resources of the Middle East and Central Asia. According to the US Congress, up to 14,000 people may have been victims of rendition and secret detention since 2001.

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Clifford claims tour was ‘publicity stunt’

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

By Nicholas Christian

PRINCE Harry’s tour of duty in Afghanistan was a “PR stunt” that has not fooled the British public, publicist Max Clifford has claimed.

The Royal’s 10-week deployment at the front was “virtual reality” because Army chiefs would have kept him away from any actual danger of being hurt, the PR guru added. He said the plan could backfire as the public would soon turn their thoughts to the thousands of ordinary British troops serving in Afghanistan who had not received special treatment.

His claims last night prompted an angry rebuttal from the Ministry of Defence which insisted that Prince Harry was there are an ordinary soldier.

Clifford claimed: “To me it’s blatantly obvious. It’s a PR stunt. The whole thing has been put together. The climate when he went out (he] was getting increasing bad publicity from hanging around in clubs and pubs, and coming out drunk. It happened immediately after that. I don’t think you’re cynical for saying: ‘Hold on a minute.’”

Clifford continued: “(The press coverage] has been favourable, but I do think that the public are maybe a bit more questioning than the media have been in this instance.

“A lot of people have been saying, if he was Private Harry Smith, would he have been looked after in the same way, and how much of this was just a public relations exercise?”

The publicist said Harry was “a brave lad” and the public perception of him was “pretty good generally”, but he went on: “It just comes across, the whole thing, as a very, very calculated public relations exercise. There are, I think, a lot more people out there than the media seem to realise that are saying: ‘Hold on a minute, this is virtual reality.’ I don’t think that they would have dared to put him in real danger.”

Clifford added: “The other aspect of it is he has been shown firing a machine gun at Muslims. What does that say? He becomes a big target. Harry likes to go to clubs and pubs – does that make them targets? It’s not black and white, it’s not a simple situation.”

But the publicist does not think there will be a backlash against the media for keeping news of Harry’s deployment secret. “That’s easily defused – it would have placed him and others in danger,” he said.

The MoD furiously denied Clifford’s claims. A spokesman said: “This was definitely not a publicity stunt. We have made it absolutely clear that what he did was very brave.”

Clifford is the UK’s best known publicist and regarded as a consummate media manipulator. His targets have included David Mellor, Neil Hamilton and Jeffrey Archer.

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Multiple 9/11s every day of the year

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Multiple 9/11s every day of the year: Why is there no war on this terror?

By Shreeram Krishnaswami

“Another child will die in the time it takes to read this sentence. And the death of that child, a child who had a name and a personality, a family and a future, is a rebuke to all humanity. It is no longer necessary. It is therefore no longer acceptable.”
State of the World’s Children — UNICEF

According to the video documentary, “A World Without Water,” (you can watch it at the bottom of this post) “every day 3900 children die as a result of insufficient or unclean water supplies.” Most of these children, under 5 years old, are dehydrated to death — slowly, excruciatingly.

According to UNICEF, “9.7 million children under five die (every year) four million in the first month of life. Most of these deaths are from preventable and treatable diseases. These children don’t die from birth defects or incurable diseases—they die from infections, diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, measles, and other causes that are almost unheard of in our own country. Undernutrition is a key factor in up to half of all child deaths.” That’s about 27,000 children dying a day from easily preventable or treatable causes. Their parents drown in their own tears.

Their only crime was to have the misfortune of being born on the “wrong” side of the tracks — both globally and within their own countries. So successful has been the dehumanization of these, the wretched of the earth, that year after year the holocaust of 10 million children remains invisible and silent to those with full bellies and working faucets.

We don’t allow our young children free access to money and bank accounts because we haven’t yet “taught them how to manage money wisely.” We fear they would fritter it away on toys and candy and perhaps do something reckless, like give some of it to friends. Literally millions of pages have been written waxing eloquent on how best to teach children responsible money-management skills.

Yet the world over, wise adults collectively spend $1.1 trillion every year on weaponry — weapons that, by denying people food and water, kill millions every year without ever firing a shot. I take that back. As the reprehensible NRA is fond of saying, “It’s not guns that kill people” without ever firing a shot. It’s people who kill millions of people every year without ever saying a word.

Leading this global blood lust is the United States, where “our military spending exceeds the rest of the world’s spending combined, and we spend almost 10 times what the second-place country, China, spends.” (Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com). As Glenwald observes, there is a “bipartisan consensus on U.S. military spending .”

Yet a dollar a day can feed, clothe, house and educate a child. A dollar a day can prevent the death of a child who has the same right to life that you and I do.

Instead we have an annual holocaust that murders 10 million of the most innocent, vulnerable and voiceless human beings on this bloody planet. In this we are all silently complicit and all the water in the world can not wash that blood off our hands.

Can someone please explain to me why there is no war on this terror?

More Water Facts and Figures:

* 1.1 billion people in the world do not have access to safe water, roughly one-sixth of the world’s population.
* 2.4 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation, about two-fifths of the world’s population.
* 2.2 million people in developing countries, most of them children, die every year from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.
* Some 6,000 children die every day from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene – equivalent to 20 jumbo jets crashing every day.
* At any one time it is estimated that half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from water-borne diseases.
* 200 million people in the world are infected with schistosomiasis, of whom 20 million suffer severe consequences. The disease is still found in 74 countries of the world. Scientific studies show that a 77% reduction of incidence from the disease was achieved through well designed water and sanitation interventions.
* The average distance that women in Africa and Asia walk to collect water is 6 km.
* The weight of water that women in Africa and Asia carry on their heads is the equivalent of your airport luggage allowance (20kg).
* The average person in the developing world uses 10 litres of water a day.
* The average person in the United Kingdom uses 135 litres of water every day.
* One flush of your toilet uses as much water as the average person in the developing world uses for a whole day’s washing, cleaning, cooking and drinking.
* Comparative costs: In Europe $11 billion is spent each year on ice cream; in USA and Europe, $17 billion is spent on pet food; in Europe $105 billion is spent annually on alcoholic drinks, ten times the amount required to ensure water, sanitation and hygiene for all.
* In the past 10 years diarrhoea has killed more children than all the people lost to armed conflict since World War II.
* In China, India and Indonesia twice as many people are dying from diarrhoeal diseases as from HIV/AIDS.
* In 1998, 308,000 people died from war in Africa, but more than two million (six times as many) died of diarrhoeal disease. …

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Day of Action: Refuse to Pay - 20th April

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

The Student Climate Project

All are invited to take part in a mass action against soaring public transport prices on Sunday 20th April. We encourage people from all walks of life to board trains into the central London terminals, refusing to pay the fare. People will converge together at the terminals at around 1pm. The action is highlighting the fact that public transport must become drastically cheaper and affordable if it is to become a viable alternative to the dominant carbon heavy motoring. It will be a chance to collectively rise up and declare that we are not going to accept how much it costs to travel by sustainable means, and a warning to both the government and private train companies that these actions will continue until public transport prices are brought down massively.

The action is being organised by The Student Climate Project, because choosing whether or not to own a car is a decision many students are faced with. Many will opt to own a car simply because an affordable and accessible alternative is not available. This action gives students an empowering opportunity to contribute to changing the fundamentals of our carbon intensive infrastructure and economy, rather than merely feeling guilty about their own personal emissions. But, of course, you don’t need to be a student to take part in the action!

Since 1980 motoring has increased by an alarming 87%, and continues to grow despite the ongoing threat of climate change. This might have something to do with the fact that, in this time period, public transport costs for the user have risen by 40% in real terms, whereas motoring costs have decreased by 14%. [1]

If anyone is in any doubt about the emission reductions public transport can bring, then you need look no further than the Department for Transport’s own calculations. In a parliamentary answer in July 2004, the Department stated that taking the train from London to Manchester would mean just 14% the carbon emissions of taking the car for the individual passenger. [2]

Climate Change needs to be tackled today. We need 90% cuts in UK emissions before 2030 if we are to avoid going beyond tipping point where the climate system will spiral out of our control completely. As well as rapidly doing away with carbon intensive means of transport, we must also ensure the sustainable alternatives become available for all.

Therefore, let’s come together on this action and bring about positive change: putting public transport first!

More information will follow very shortly at www.studentclimateproject.org.uk and you can also email  process@studentclimateproject.org.uk for info and resources for the action.

References

[1]  http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/trends/current/section1rvc.pd
[2]  http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmhansrd/vo040708/text/40708w05.htm

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Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Israel has pulled back its troops from the Gaza Strip with an army spokesman saying that military operations in the territory were “winding down”.

The move came after an intense Israeli assault that killed eight more Palestinians overnight on Monday, adding to the more than 100 people killed in the past six days.

The Israeli army spokesman said: “Almost all our forces have already returned to Israel.”

Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, said that it is probable that actions against Palestinian forces firing rockets into Israel will continue.

An Israeli official quoted Olmert as telling a parliamentary panel: “We are in the midst of a combat action. What happened in recent days was not a one-time event.

“The objective is reducing the rocket fire and weakening Hamas.”

Hamas ‘victory’

Hamas has welcomed the Israeli withdrawal and said it signalled a “victory” for the Palestinians.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, had suspended all contact with Israel over its assault that left at least 116 Palestinians dead, including 22 children and 12 women.

Overnight, Israel attacked Gaza from both land and sea with naval ships shelling the territory.

The EU, UN and the Catholic pope joined Abbas on Sunday in demanding an immediate halt to the violence.

Israel says the raids are in self-defence, aimed at curbing homemade rockets being fired over the border from the Hamas-controlled territory.

It has threatened to intensify its ground and air campaign, despite allegations it is using excessive force.

Nine rockets slammed into southern Israel, wounding four people on Sunday, Israeli ambulance workers said.

International outcry

Slovenia, the current EU president, issued a statement on Sunday condemning Israel’s attacks as Javier Solana, the European body’s foreign policy chief, was dispatched to meet leaders in Israel and the West Bank.

“The presidency rejects collective punishment of the people of Gaza. Such activities are contrary to international law,” the statement said.

“The presidency at the same time reiterates its condemnation of continued firing of rockets into Israeli territory and calls for its immediate end.”

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, joined his voice to growing global denunciations of the attacks that left more than 60 Palestinians dead on Saturday alone.

Addressing an emergency session of the security council in New York, Ban also called on Palestinian fighters to stop firing rockets into Israel.

He said: “While recognising Israel’s right to defend itself, I condemn the disproportionate and excessive use of force that has killed and injured so many civilians, including children … I call on Israel to cease such attacks.”

“I [also] condemn Palestinian rocket attacks and call for the immediate cessation of such acts of terrorism.”

Suspended relations

Abbas designated Sunday as a day of mourning.

He ordered “the suspension of negotiations … until [Israeli] aggression is stopped”, a senior aide to Abbas said in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday.

Nabil Abu Rudeina, an Abbas spokesman, said in a statement: “The negotiations are suspended, as are all contacts on all levels, because in light of the Israeli aggression such communication has no meaning.”

Arye Mekel, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, said Abbas’s decision was a mistake and expressed hope that the talks would resume “in the very near future”. The director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza however, told Al Jazeera the attacks on the strip were in nobody’s interest. Speaking about the situation in territory, John Ging said: “The crossing points have been closed for days. [We are] struggling to keep our food aid going - remember a million people are food aid dependent - and we’re at our wits end to understand how this will lead to the peace and stability that we all so desperately need.” West Bank clashes   As Gazans mourned the dead, clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops erupted on Sunday in the Shufat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem, Hebron, and Belin as well as other areas across the West Bank. More than 40 Palestinians were injured, three of them seriously, as the demonstrators clashed with Israeli troops. Two Israeli soldiers were killed during clashes on Saturday in the Gaza Strip [Reuters] Hundreds of West Bank residents holding Hamas and Fatah flags staged rallies and appealed for national unity in an atmosphere that is being compared to the situation at the start of the second intifada in 2000. In Lebanon, up to 1,000 people waving Lebanese and Palestinian flags rallied near the Israeli border against the continuing attacks on Gaza. The demonstrators, at the Fatima Gate border point near the southern village of Kfar Kila, shouted “Death to Israel” and “The blood of our sons in Palestine will not be in vain”. Egypt, meanwhile, has agreed to open the Rafah border crossing to let injured Palestinians receive medical treatment. Responding to a request by the Palestinian Authority, Egyptian authorities permitted 250 injured Gazans to enter Egypt through the controversial crossing.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

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