The Nepali revolution has not won, but neither has it lost. Historical materialism can explain and shed light on all periods of human history. Historical materialism does not seem able, however, to explain itself. Trotsky’s criticisms against Stalin seem correct, but Stalin’s criticisms of Trotsky also seem correct. They both seem correct and both seem incorrect. International revolution was impossible and socialism in one country was impossible. Otto Ruhle, a German Marxist of the early 20th century, in a provocative essay entitled ‘The struggle against Fascism begins with the struggle against Bolshevism’, argued that Hitler and Mussolini only copied the Bolshevik model for their Fascist ideology, because the party and state structure of Fascism bears remarkable similarities, in form, to the Bolshevik party and state. When the Peruvian state captured Chairman Gonzalo and other central committee leaders of the PCP (Communist Party of Peru), their entire struggle collapsed. Even now, the remnants of the Shining Path go on and on about the great leader Chairman Gonzalo, even though Gonzalo now resides in a top security prison and cannot even lead himself to the toilet. From tragedy we move to farce, and the strange behaviour of Chairman Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party of the USA. Even though Chairman Avakian has not led any kind of Peoples War or any major revolutionary struggle, he has declared a ‘new synthesis’ that goes beyond Marx, Lenin and Mao. RCP USA comrades describe Chairman Avakian as ‘the American Lenin’ (which, I presume, would make Lenin the Russian Avakian). An unquestioned assumption behind this kind of argumentation in the Communist movement is the belief that Marx and Lenin were unquestionably right, simply because Marx is Marx and Lenin is Lenin, and the Russian revolution ‘succeeded’. Frankly speaking, the longer and longer the Bolshevik revolution fades into the past, the less and less convincing the tales and legends of the great Lenin will seem. Now, in the 21st century, we can see that Marx’s criticisms of Bakunin were correct, but Bakunin’s criticisms of Marx were also correct. Both are correct and both are incorrect.
Simon Sheppard was found guilty on Friday July 14, 2008 of eleven counts of ‘race hate’ – all relating to internet publishing posted on servers in the U.S.A. Stephen Whittle (Luke O’Farrell) was found guilty on five counts also relating to internet publishing.
The case has some analogies with the (failed) extradition hearings in London for Dr Toben’s deportation for trial in Germany for ‘holocaust denial’ and with the Zundel trial. However the Germans claim jurisdiction over German nationals even if they post material on the internet abroad and / or live abroad. In the case of the H2 an English court is going further still by asserting jurisdiction over writings on the internet if they can be downloaded in England.
Toben flies home to ‘freedom’, ABC, December 3, 2008, “South Australian man Frederick Toben has returned to Adelaide after avoiding a recent German attempt to extradite him from the United Kingdom…”
Simon’s remaining seven charges were to be considered by the jury on the following Monday. These related mainly to printed material on which the jury was unable to reach a decision. However, the authorities neglected to take their passports and they left over the weekend for Ireland, then flew to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and surrendered to officials in order to seek political asylum in the U.S.A.
The law over internet publishing in the UK has been reinterpreted without debate to end freedom of speech on the internet, presumably acting on the orders of their masters in the E.U. and the Heretical Two were facing the imminent prospect of lengthy prison sentences. They are currently being held under the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.) System at Santa Ana Jail, P.O. Box 22003, Santa Ana, CA 92701, USA.
Simon’s prison number is 0800006404 and Stephen’s number is 0800006408…
The first immigration court session was held on September 17 with Bruce Leichty as defence attorney. The judge claimed that she did not have the power to release the Heretical Two under the defensive procedures adopted by the US authorities. The ‘asylum-only proceedings’ for the Heretical Two was heard by immigration judge, Rose Peters, on October 14. The move by their attorney to get them released before the ruling on asylum was denied by the judge, whose reasoning appeared contradictory.
At the ‘calendar meeting’ of the immigration court on Thursday 13 November – the judge set the merits (main) appeal for three afternoons in blocks of four hours from 2 pm on March 10, 12 and 24 of 2009. It therefore looks very likely that the H2 will spend at least another 4 months in prison in the USA for activities in America which the British government now deems to be crimes, i.e. exercising the right to free speech, but which ironically are not held to be crimes under American law.
Simon’s retrial on the outstanding six charges [one charge was dropped] was held in his absence, as the British government was not prepared to wait for the outcome of the political asylum proceedings in the US. The new trial commenced on Monday December 8 at Leeds Crown Court and was deferred on December 22 to January 5, 2009 – the following day the jury went out to deliberate and on January 8 found Simon guilty on three counts relating to Tales of the Holocaust and later in the day, by a majority verdict on two charges relating to Don’t be Sheeple – even Professor Rabkin’s cogent arguments that the Jews were a religion and not a race had failed to impress the jury.
Although the establishment have so far effectively managed to contain reporting on the trials and asylum attempt to cold and slanted reports in the Yorkshire media, without any discussion of the many issues arising the case, the Heretical Two are, at least, getting considerable publicity at last in this area – the most extensive being in the Yorkshire Post.
Simon Sheppard is a racist, right-wing lunatic, whose writings are both disturbing and occasionally funny — devoted to publicising theories of “procedural analysis”, racist theories and caricatures, holocaust denial and the inferiority of women. (Stephen Whittle wrote a column on Simon’s site about the ‘Brave Jew World’ the White Man is forced to inhabit: http://www.heretical.com/ofarrell/index.html.) Simon was also responsible for establishing ‘Redwatch’, a website dedicated to publishing photos of ‘Reds’ and asking The World if anyone knows who the Hell the people in the funny pictures are (names, aliases, homes, workplaces, telephone numbers, et cetera).
On 8 June 1999, Sheppard and David Hannam were arrested in Hull for distributing racist election literature on behalf of the British National Party. He was expelled from the BNP the same day (though not Hannam, who remains a senior administrator in the party), and on 14 June 2000, Sheppard was convicted at Hull Crown Court of publishing or distributing racially inflammatory material. According to his own website, Sheppard has been banned from every public library in Hull, Hull University and Hull College “merely for expressing opinions”.
Supposedly, Redwatch was largely the work of Tony Foy, Simon Sheppard, Kevin Watmough and Carol White; it is now — again, apparently — largely the work of Kev the Head. Kev is a member of a tiny nutzi party in the UK called the British People’s Party (BPP). The BPP’s most recent claim to fame was in October last year when a little more than a dozen hardy souls stood together outside a shop in Leeds. Or: Leeds Under Threat from ’90s Rap: BPP Takes Courageous Stand (to Popular Acclaim).
Redwatch – BBC 31.10.2007:
Since the BBC report, Redwatch has experienced some turbulence on teh Interwebs, and a number of its mirrors — redwatch.org.uk / redwatch.net / redwatch.org — have gone kaput!, but the site is still available here http://www.redwatchonline.org/indexx.html here http://www.aryanunity.com/redwatchonline//index2.html and here http://elvis.redwatch.org/. Redwatch Poland, while also having experienced some turbulence, and even prosecutions, is also still alive and well (see: http://www.redwatch.info/) as is http://www.antiantifa.net/.
Antifa England has made the following, rather disrespectful, remarks on the subject of Redwatch:
Redwatch’ is a so-called fascist ‘hate-site’, where members of the far-right post pictures of the enemies they will ‘one day make pay’. While the site is undoubtedly designed to intimidate, as with many myths by and about fascists, and often circulated by the pseudo antifascist entity Searchlight, the reality about ‘Redwatch’, is very different to the fascist wanking fantasy they would like us to believe.
Experienced antifascists have long realised that fascist fantasies about ‘Aryan hard-men’, also long propagated by Searchlight, were far from the truth. The reality is that most fascists are snivelling little cowards.
So it is with ‘Redwatch’, the reality is very far from the myth Searchlight have helped to create. The site is filled with photos taken from Indymedia and suchlike, showing trade unionists, anti-war protestors, students, and liberal anti-racists. Along with the photos are a sprinkling of contact details gleaned from public sources. Much of this information is out of date, and frankly drivel.
Included in the glaring lack of information posted on ‘Redwatch’, mixed in with pictures of people who happened to go on a demo at some point in their lives, are pics of a few militant antifascists. But so what?
Do we really care that Kevin Watmough, the main architect of Redwatch, knows what a few of our comrades may look like? Do we f**k! Watmough, of 58 Abbeydale Oval, Leeds, LS5 3RF is typical of the fascist reality – A pathetic degenerate, who when he leaves his bedroom, shambles about in his dirty, un-ironed clothes, afraid to take his eyes from the pavement.
‘Redwatch’ may be violence by proxy, but there’s a big difference between Watmough cackling in his bedroom because he’s taken a new picture from Indymedia, and any threat. Despite the occasional secret gatherings of inbred swastika-wearing morons, the far-Right are not in a position to carry out their pathetic fantasies.
If it were not for the likelihood that we’d be inundated with unwanted pizza, and we thought these cowards would actually come to us for a change, we’d post up our addresses ourselves, so that we didn’t have to spend so much time chasing gutless Nazis.
The reality is that we know more about the fascists than they ever will about us, and unlike them we have the guts and determination to act. While we advise all antifascists to take their personal security seriously, ‘Redwatch’ is a joke.
Despite their well-publicised antipathy, the state manipulated bogey-man ‘Redwatch’, and the state affiliated Searchlight, enjoy an almost symbiotic relationship. If ‘Redwatch’ didn’t exist, then Searchlight would probably invent it – that’s if they didn’t anyway!
Searchlight on Redwatch:
Gerry Gable, British nazis exploit internet freedom, April 2003: “Last month’s jailing of a nazi thug [Tony White] led to an almost immediate reprisal against a teacher whose complaint to the police had resulted in the prosecution. The reason why the nazis could so easily exact their revenge by fire-bombing the teacher’s car was that details of the victim appeared on the nazi Redwatch website…”
Nick Lowles, Redwatch, November 2003: “Redwatch is the scourge of anti-racists everywhere…” The case against Redwatch, September 2006: “It has become common wisdom that the authorities cannot act against Redwatch. It is hosted by a US server, so outside the jurisdiction of the British authorities, and as a result it is protected under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which enshrines Freedom of Speech…”
Nick Lowles, It’s time to get Watty! – British nazi admits to running Redwatch, September 2006: “A veteran British nazi has publicly admitted to being behind the pernicious Redwatch website. Kevin Watmough, from West Yorkshire, made the claim in June on a nazi bulletin board. While Watmough’s role has long been known to Searchlight, this is the first time he has publicly confirmed his involvement in writing…”
As previously noted, media in New Zealand/Aotearoa have picked up on the fact that Kyle & Co. wish to build themselves a little White nest. According to reports, the beans were spilled when an email was ‘leaked’. Maybe so, but Kyle has been flogging the idea on Stormfront Down Under for some time, and announced his cunning plan on The World’s #1 White Supremacist Website on December 20, 2008. (Kyle uses the pseudonym ‘NZTrooper’, having joined the site in February 2003.) http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=553254
Prior to this, Kyle had touted the idea that maybe he and his friends could form a little clubhouse of some kind, one which would exclude undesirables (Asians, blacks, Jews, Maoris, Polynesians, leftists, queers, people who can spell) but do so legally.
At present, Kyle claims to have raised $1,000 towards his pet project, so it may be some time before his Utopia comes to fruition.
Above: SCS cymbal. And yeh, their rool god spelers ‘n’ tht.
Southern Cross Soldiers plan Australia Day rally
Staff writer Herald Sun
January 23, 2009
A RIGHT-WING nationalist group has organised a show of strength at a popular Melbourne beach on Australia Day.
The Southern Cross Soldiers, or SCS, has told members to gather at Mordialloc beach in Melbourne’s south this Monday to promote “Aussie Pride”.
The nationalist group, which boasts about 900 MySpace members, plans to meet at the steps of Flinders Street station at 12pm before heading to the beach “for drinks, etc” in what it describes as “the biggest day for SCS 2009”.
Police are monitoring the group and have assured beachgoers that existing patrols will be able to deal with any antisocial behaviour.
Members of SCS yesterday said the group was not racist and there were no plans to cause trouble at Mordialloc beach on Australia Day.
Anti-racism campaigner Cam Smith said the meeting was unlikely to get out of hand if police patrolled the popular beach on Australia Day.
“I don’t think there will be 5000 people there, so I think even normal beach patrols should be able to handle it,” Mr Smith said.
The Southern Cross Soldiers came to prominence last year after the police shooting of Northcote teenager Tyler Cassidy in December.
Tyler, 15, was a participant on the group’s chat sites before he was shot dead at a Northcote Shopping Centre.
A police spokeswoman said the group was known to police, but police recognised the right of people to join groups and meet as they wish.
“The aim of police is to ensure that these groups do not cause any harm or offend the wider community,” she said.
“Any gathering of a large group of people would be monitored by local police.”
SCS boasts chapters in Melbourne, the city’s north, north-east and west.
The group also has chapters in New South Wales, and the Gold Coast, with one member who uses the name “The Australian Defence Force”.
Dan Hind
dcehind[at]hotmail[dot]com
19 January, 2009
[PDF]
“…They will not jump, these people. They cannot easily accept that they are presiding over a system that must be replaced. They will not give way willingly to new ideas and a new reckoning with the problems facing the planet. The world will always be run by confident and impressionable men (mostly men), because they want power so badly…
I am not saying that we should push those responsible out of tall buildings to their deaths. I am not saying that. They will, if properly handled, do what is required.
But we do have to push them.”
Nice title. Somewhat tepid conclusion. Thus while “The choice is not simply between state control and private capitalism” Hind maintains “The state needs to be more thoroughly democratised”. Then again: “Readers are welcome to revise the text and forward it with changes if you feel so moved.”
I used to think that maybe the keys to a successful marriage were something like ‘commitment’, or ‘communication’, or ‘chocolate’. But Coburg mosque cleric Samir Abu Hamza apparently reckons that for married women it’s three strikes and you’re out. That is, after first having been advised (“for a long long time”), and then having been denied sex, if a married man believes that his wife is not showing due deference, he may then “beat” her in order to make her see things more clearly. As in “shape up woman”. Fortunately, a married man may not bruise or cause his wife to bleed by beating her, and the use of broomsticks is completely out of the question. Which is something, I guess. Oh yeah, and — like the laws in Victoria until 1985 — Samir maintains that there is no such thing as rape in marriage.
Anyways, the cleric’s remarks — apparently made six years ago — have naturally caused a furore, just as those of Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali on men, women, cats and meat did three years ago. However!
The President of the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) Ramzi Elsayed said he had spoken with Mr Hamza about the lecture, titled The Keys to a Successful Marriage. “He told me he was speaking in a metaphorical sense,” Mr Elsayed said. “In regards to hitting your wife, his position is that it has always been metaphorical – it’s not a whack, it’s not a slap, it’s a wake-up call.” ~ Cleric’s lecture ‘taken out of context’, AAP, The Australian, January 22, 2009
On the other hand:
…the senior honorary legal adviser to the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Haset Seli, hit out at Mr Hamza, calling him a lunatic. “His lecture was absolutely ludicrous, unIslamic and highlighted the ignorance of the man,” Mr Seli said. He said anyone who thinks he can force his wife to have sex with him is a lunatic and certainly not a Muslim.
Bonus!
17 The sadness of the heart is every plague: and the wickedness of a woman is all evil.
18 And a man will choose any plague, but the plague of the heart:
19 And any wickedness, but the wickedness of a woman:
20 And any affliction, but the affliction from them that hate him:
21 And any revenge, but the revenge of enemies.
22 There is no head worse than the head of a serpent:
23 And there is no anger above the anger of a woman. It will be more agreeable to abide with a lion and a dragon, than to dwell with a wicked woman.
24 The wickedness of a woman changeth her face: and she darkeneth her countenance as a bear: and showeth it like sackcloth. In the midst of her neighbours,
25 Her husband groaned, and hearing he sighed a little.
26 All malice is short to the malice of a woman, let the lot of sinners fall upon her.
27 As the climbing of a sandy way is to the feet of the aged, so is a wife full of tongue to a quiet man.
28 Look not upon a woman’s beauty, and desire not a woman for beauty.
29 A woman’s anger, and impudence, and confusion is great.
30 A woman, if she have superiority, is contrary to her husband.
31 A wicked woman abateth the courage, and maketh a heavy countenance, and a wounded heart.
32 Feeble hands, and disjointed knees, a woman that doth not make her husband happy.
33 From the woman came the beginning of sin, and by her we all die.
34 Give no issue to thy water, no, not a little: nor to a wicked woman liberty to gad abroad.
35 If she walk not at thy hand, she will confound thee in the sight of thy enemies.
36 Cut her off from thy flesh, lest she always abuse thee.
Boneheaded Kyle Chapman’s shit-talking on Stormfront about a Pioneer Little Europe (PLE) for Aotearoa/New Zealand has earned him a guernsey in The Press. http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=553254
Curiously, the article by Ian Steward fails to mention King Kyle’s first priority for his new Kingdom: a pie shop.
Boom-tish.
For readers wanting to help Kyle in his quest, here’s the bank account details for his ‘Nationalist Alliance’:
The Alliance is composed of most of the major fascist acts in Aotearoa/New Zealand: National Democrats, National Front and New Right, and little fuehrers Kerry Bolton, Kyle Chapman and Anton Foljambe. Of these three figures, Bolton is the one to be most fearful of: his !cinataS powers forced the administration at Waikato University to remove from public circulation a completed thesis he didn’t like.
Oh yeah: a Trans-Tasman alliance between the Alliance and the Australia First Party was declared on April 25 last year. In October, AF’s fueher Dr James Saleam travelled to Wellington to take part in a fascist rally. On a fairly bizarre note, while there, he and Kyle Chapman had themselves photographed fondling children’s books and toys once belonging to a young Jewish man…
Also dead-keen to establish a PLE is plasterer Paul Innes (above, w/- Sue Bateman, former One Nation candidate, at a Stormfront event), currently Chief Swinging Dick on Stormfront Down Under. Paul’s target is The Shire of Kalamunda in Perth (Australia), and his mission is being aided by boneheads belonging to Blood & Honour, who to celebrate the deaths of Australian soldiers in WWII have arranged a special gig for ANZAC Day (April 25), starring local bands Indigenous Hate and Quick & the Dead and Melbourne band Ravenous.
Paul isn’t happy that The Jew has picked up on the story either: “The media will praise and encourage the non-white establishment while denou[n]cing and degrading the White man’s establishments. That is persecution.” http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=6399835&postcount=17
SEEKING DONATIONS: Former bonehead, National Front leader and Christchurch mayoral candidate Kyle Chapman wants to set up a community for “like-minded Europeans” in North Canterbury.
“Shaven-headed, jack-booted, race-based, white power” – meet your new neighbours Rangiora.
Former bonehead, National Front leader and Christchurch mayoral candidate Kyle Chapman is attempting to set up a “unified mini-state” in North Canterbury.
The proposal, a commune-style arrangement for “like-minded Europeans”, has drawn condemnation from across the political spectrum.
Chapman’s “Land Base” proposes to have:
* Training areas for “sport fighting”.
* A “protected community”.
* A “meeting house for gatherings of leaders and active nationalists”.
* A “social bar for fundraising and building unity”.
* A large vegetable garden.
Chapman’s plans were uncovered after a copy of an email to members of a far-Right group, the Nationalist Alliance, was leaked on to the internet.
Beginning “Hello Patriots”, Chapman asked for donations for the project.
“With an ever decreasing European population we face the real risk of having no power in our Nation,” it said. “It currently crumbles through the current system of bad government policies, greedy politicians and businessmen. We must act to build a unified mini-state that we could build up in future to be a base for other like-minded Europeans to come to from other dying countries.”
Once established, the Nationalist Alliance intended to use its “high concentration of like-minded folk” to elect local officials and a member of Parliament sympathetic to its views.
Other “benefits” included:
* Keeping “our children away from the multicultural brainwashing of current system schools.”
* “Encouraging, supportive and friendly interaction with like-minded people.”
* “Ability to put our European skills and intelligence to create new technologies and build something to be proud of.”
* “Safety in numbers.”
The proposal said the base would be established “in the North Canterbury area”.
Chapman declined to comment to The Press, saying there was plenty of information in the email.
Waimakariri MP Clayton Cosgrove said Chapman’s plans were of concern, “given his track record of shaven-headed, jack-booted, race-based, white-power activity”.
“If the motivation is some sort of extreme white-power compound, I’d be deeply concerned, as would any community.’ Cosgrove said the language Chapman used in the email “bred hate and division”.
“This is nutty stuff. He’s 50 or 60 years behind the world. People have moved on. It’s crackpot stuff,” Cosgrove said.
Hurunui Mayor Garry Jackson was unavailable for comment but a spokeswoman, Naomi Woodham, said the proposal was “abhorrent and offensive”.
“All of us here at the Hurunui District Council welcome and embrace cultural diversity, and if there was a proposal to set up a white supremacist movement in the Hurunui District it would be strongly opposed,” she said. “Especially one encouraging sport fighting and survivalist training. This sounds like a form of surreptitious terrorist instruction.”
National MP Kate Wilkinson, a North Canterbury resident and Associate Minister for Immigration, said most “thinking people” would not consider membership of Chapman’s “exclusive club”. Discrimination and division were not part of our culture, she said.
Chapman resigned as leader of the National Front in 2005, citing pressure on his children, who were being shunned at school.
Finally, note that, in addition to wanting to establish a Whites-only enclave in Canterbury, Kyle is also heavily invested in another fascist project called ‘Survive Club’. This involves men running around the bush in Aoetearoa/New Zealand in camo, killing and eating possums, and otherwise honing their skills for the impending Race War. Unlike the October 15 mob, this sort of activity is apparently all fine and dandy as far as the state is concerned.
I just got word that Andrew Giles-Peters (below) died earlier this week.
Among other things, Andrew was an anarchist, a student activist in the late 1960s and ’70s, and a philosopher who wrote and taught extensively on revolutionary history and ideology, including developing a libertarian interpretation of Marx (see for example his translation of ‘Ten Theses on Marxism Today’ by Karl Korsch, originally published in Telos, Winter 1975/6, and ‘Karl Korsch: A Marxist Friend of Anarchism’, originally published in Red & Black, No.5, 1973. On Karl Korsch, see Douglas Kellner, editor, Karl Korsch: Revolutionary Theory, University of Texas Press, Austin & London, 1974 [PDF]).
I met Andrew at LaTrobe in the early ’90s, and found him to be friendly, knowledgeable and open-minded — a quiet inspiration.
World Agenda: riots in Iceland, Latvia and Bulgaria are a sign of things to come
But probably not in Australia, which has one of the most docile publics of any Western society.*
GAZA
Joseph K has some interesting thoughts on the subject of ‘Beyond good and evil: the Gaza massacre’. “The left’s response to Israeli atrocities in Gaza provides a case study in ressentiment. If we want to stop such slaughters rather than participate in the spectacle of them, we need to stop fetishising distant victims and start trying to exercise power over our own lives so that meaningful solidarity becomes possible…”
GREECE Anarchists: kind, polite, and considerate
Greek anarchists pay for senior’s torched kiosk
Agence France-Presse
January 20, 2009
THESSALONIKI, Greece – Two months after her kiosk was torched in local riots an elderly woman from Thessaloniki has received an unlikely cash gift from anarchists to rebuild her life, a press report said on Tuesday. “As anarchists, we felt we should support a fellow human victimized by blind violence,” an organization calling itself Anarchist Initiative said in a statement sent to Eleftherotypia daily. The anarchists set up a special bank account to support 74-year-old Harikleia Ananiadou and collected 13,000 euros ($18,000 US) for the cause. “We gave what we could, even beyond our means, because we know that it would be difficult for her to make a new start at her age,” Initiative member Panagiotis Papadopoulos told Angelioforos daily. “It was an act of solidarity to a woman who could be our mother,” he added. Ananiadou’s kiosk burned down in November during clashes between youths and police on the sidelines of a street demonstration. The government recently announced compensation packages for business owners who suffered damage in the wave of violence that swept the country in December following the fatal shooting of a teenage boy. But Ananiadou says she missed out because her kiosk was gutted a month earlier. “I received only empty promises (from the state) … I feel very fortunate that these boys came along to help,” she said.
ICELAND
Wow. Things have really been kicking off in the land of ice. The former Danish colony is at present in the midst of a serious economic crisis, one triggered by the global financial meltdown of last year. In October 2008, its banking system and currency collapsed, the country’s three biggest banks were nationalised, and as a result many have lost their jobs as well as their savings. Thus: “In total are 12.134 persons registered as unemployed at the employment office. There … are 7654 men and 4480 women. In the capital area are 7656 registered as unemployed. In total were 7020 registered unemployed in December which was a 45% increase from November.” NB. As of January 1, 2007, Iceland has a total population of 307.672.
Icelandic News in English is a great new resource which has been documenting some of the people’s struggles in that part of the world. According to one report: “The protests are now the longest and most virulent that have been at Austurvollur [a square in old town Reykjavik surrounded by the Parliament Building] since the membership of Iceland in NATO was protested there in 1949, or 60 years ago.”
There’s anarchists in Iceland too. Or at least one. Here’s a blog. Unfortunately, it’s in Icelandic: maybe it could be translated by the nice people at Icelandic News?
RUSSIA Actions to commemorate Stas and Nastya around Russia
Anastasia “Skat” Baburova murdered : “Our friend and comrade Skat [30.11.1983 – 19.01.2009] was murdered [Monday] in Moscow, shot to head by an assassin. She was studying in evening line of journalist faculty of Moscow State University. She worked a while in “Izvestiya”, but left and worked as a freelancer. She joined Autonomous Action a day before she got murdered. Inside the movement, Nastya got well along with everyone…”
Skat was killed alongside of lawyer Stanislav Markelov.
THAILAND
More wow. An Aussie, Harry Nicolaides, 41, has been sentenced to jail for insulting the Thai monarchy. Harry:
…originally received a six-year sentence, which the court said it reduced because he had pleaded guilty. The book, Verisimilitude [PDF], was published in 2005 and reportedly sold fewer than a dozen copies. The case was brought under the country’s strict lese majeste laws, which call for a jail term of up to 15 years for anyone who “defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir to the throne or the Regent.” The presiding judge said Monday that parts of the book “suggested that there was abuse of royal power.”
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says Australians should abide by the rules of the countries they visit.
He said the charge involves a book he wrote about the military coup in September 2006 that ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. At a news conference last week, he said the law “restricts freedom of speech and expression and does not allow for public accountability and transparency of the institution of the monarchy.” In November, a prominent social critic and Buddhist intellectual, Sulak Sivaraksa, was charged with lese majeste for questioning the need for lavish celebrations of the king’s reign. Last April, an activist named Chotisak Onsoong, was summoned by the police after refusing to stand up during the playing of the Royal Anthem before a movie. And a former government minister under Thaksin, Chakrapob Penkir, has been charged in connection with remarks he made at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand…
Giles writes on his blog that “…it is clear that this lese majeste charge is really about preventing any discussion about the relationship between the military junta and the Monarchy. This is in order to protect the military’s sole claim to legitimacy: that it acted in the interests of the Monarchy.”
Associate Professor Giles Ji Ungpakorn, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, Ji.ungpakorn[at]gmail[dot]com
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
