Mainstream Media Feedback

Marco van Belle, Video Journalist at Look North, is keen to be contacted ASAP if a situation arises at the convergence space - 07866 601450

here's a list of newsdesks to be contacted immediately in the event of a situation at the convergence space. Can someone print it out and put it up somewhere obvious?

Radio Sheffield - 0114 2675440 Look North - 0114 2675430 Calendar - 0114 2727772 Sheffield Star - 0114 2767676

Somone reposted a good article on indymedia:



Check also the building of the STEEL FENCE up in Scotland Times Online:





Is there a way to counteract negative media input about protesters?
Yes, there is. Pat[iently write letter to the Editor, such as this sample one below, easy to personalize with a few alterations to the original,

A list of media sources will be added.

In the meantime, check this publicity material for election campaign ending May05: from UK Indenpendence party: a typical view of anti-immigrationists.





Letter to the Editor
''' Dear Sunday Herald Editor, I would like to write to say that I am quite thankful to hear people are going to protest against the G8 meeting in Scotland coming up this July. Why would anyone in their right mind think that the leaders of the eight richest nations in the world should be able to meet secretly behind closed doors to decide how the entire world should live? Isn’t it clear that something is wrong when these presidents and prime ministers meet at some posh golf course while tens of thousands of children starve to death everyday and climate change is still not properly addressed? I commend anyone who comes from anywhere to protest against the G8 meeting this summer, and urge local people to join in. Sincerely,''' Jason...

Send to: letters@sundayherald.com editor@sundayherald.com If you want your letter to be published in the newspaper, including a postal address, e-mail contact and daytime phone number is essential. This is a routine requirement of UK publishing law

Also, ring them up and complain about lack of balanced coverage: tel: +44 (0)141 302 7800

(the article on the Sunday Herald (already published) to which the letter to the Editor refers to!)

http://www.sundayherald.com/47848 ANARCHY AT THE G8; More than 200,000 people, including the most determined activists and protesters on the planet, will (......)

While activists plan their tactics for the event, the police are being given public order training at a number of sites across Scotland.

(.....)

Kenneth McFarlane, president of the Edinburgh Bar Association, the lawyers' body, confirmed that "extensive" measures were to be implemented to cope with the fallout of the G8 summit including sitting on Saturday, July 2 - the day of the Edinburgh anti-poverty march.

He said: "The reason it will sit on that day is so that the cells in Edinburgh are cleared of prisoners. So by the time the march starts on the Saturday, Edinburgh will be at maximum capacity for accepting custodies."

THE POLICE

JOHN Vine, Tayside Police's chief constable, is the man with overall charge of co-ordinating the security operation to protect the G8 leaders.

He will have thousands of uniformed and specialist officers at his disposal during the event, including many who have been drafted in from other Scottish and UK forces.

His team is currently liaising with the British and international security services to monitor potential trouble-makers. There are also links with all eight other Scottish forces, the British Transport Police, the Ministry of Defence Police, the UK Atomic Energy Authority Constabulary, the Association of Chief Police Officers in England and London's Metropolitan Police.

In what will be the biggest security operation ever mounted in Scotland, Vine's team is also working closely with security staff working for the leaders of the US, Russia, Germany, France, Canada, Italy and Japan, who make up the G8 along with Britain. Regular meetings are being held with the police and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the organisers of the summit, the Scottish Executive, Perth and Kinross Council and a range of other agencies involved in contingency planning.

The key figures in Vine's team include Chief Superintendent Brian Powrie, a former firearms officer.

Based in the so-called "Summit Control Centre" in Tayside, he will head up policing for the event in the Gleneagles Hotel.

Chief Superintendent Jim Green, who has been seconded to the team from Strathclyde Police, oversees planning from a national perspective. Among his duties is ensuring Scotland's ports and airports are secure for the event.

Superintendent Stephen Harvey, of Lothian and Borders Police, is responsible for communications and IT for the police operation, while Tayside's Detective Superintendent Colin McCashey is in charge of the Intelligence Cell. With past G8 summits marred by rioting, McCashey is involved in gathering information about activists intent on violent protests in Scotland.

The lead officer for Lothian and Borders area - which includes planning for the massive Make Poverty History protest in Edinburgh on July 2 - is Assistant Chief Constable Ian Dickinson.

M17 Derby


Violent versus Comic



Gleneagles blockades
the scotsman

Protesting for democracy at the G8 summit
Mon 28 Feb 2005

PLATFORM

CASEY VAYAN-TODOS

TO COMPLAIN, as Duncan Hamilton did in his column last Monday, that "anti-capitalist" networks like Dissent, in which I play a small part, offer no alternatives to global capitalism is both incorrect and misses an important point. There are as many ideal worlds as there are people and this diversity is our strength. Far from offering no alternatives, we recognise that there are thousands of alternatives possible. What we can do is work together to find a way that we all can live with each other.

This idea of "one no, many yesses" means it is also incorrect to claim that we are anti-everything. Plainly if I am anti-hierarchy, I must be in favour of working in a way where everyone has an equal say, truly democratically. The way Reshape Glasgow and other Dissent-linked anti-G8 groups are organising stands in stark contrast to the self-appointed Group of Eight (or seven). We want to work as equals with anyone who shares our goals.

Why do I want to stop the summit? The G8 leaders are a profoundly undemocratic clique that has no legitimacy and no right to issue edicts that effect the other 6 billion of us. They aren't meeting to convey the wishes of their people but to decide what they want to do and how to sell those decisions to "their" populations, regardless of their wishes.

As much as I want to see an end to poverty and a massive reduction in carbon emissions, asking "world leaders" and the market to solve the problems they have created is akin to employing Herod as a nursery nurse because he has prior experience of working with children.

Here in Scotland we're lucky to have even the illusion of access to power. This isn't a courtesy extended to the majority of the world. Mexico's Zapatistas and Brazil's Landless Peasants' Movement may be fighting the same struggle for a better world, but no-one passes them canapés. The same system that pretends to offer us its ear shows the rest of the world its true, violent face. I can't in conscience ask for anything from the G8; that would be recognising its right to make decisions that affect us all.

So rather than engaging in another protest that asks those above us to rule us in a different way, I choose to confront them directly. By setting out to blockade Gleneagles, we will achieve two things. We will make it harder for the ruling class to cut deals behind closed doors and impossible for them to present their decisions as ours.

TV cameras will show contextless images, newspapers will report the protests as isolated aberrations, "failures of the democratic process". Those who are there will know better, that we're reaching towards a better, more directly democratic idea.

We know that with the chains we break and the friendships we make this summer, we will take more steps towards building the new world that exists in all of our hearts.

Casey Vayan-Todos is an anti- capitalist activist.

resist g8 2005 – media coverage –

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Read more mainstream media feedback at the resistg8

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Then check this team to recover your smile: The N.A.T.O

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Read also about a good case for ID cards: ID cards good

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