50,000 deaths a year: An “toxic air pollution crisis”: Sign the Petition

June 10, 2016April 29, 2019Leave a comment

10 June 2016 — 38 Degrees

A public health emergency: that’s what MPs are calling Britain’s air pollution crisis. [1] Thousands of lives are cut short every year from toxic air polluted with chemicals like nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide. [2] There’s even evidence that it’s permanently damaging our childern’s lungs. [3]

But we’ve got a chance to end the emergency. In ten days’ time, ministers across Europe will meet to agree new laws to cut air pollution – but British politicians are deliberately blocking them. If the deal falls apart, lives will keep being lost. [4] But if we cause a public outcry, we could force our politicians into agreeing to cut toxic pollution.

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For NYT, Fair Use Depends on Who's Doing the Using

June 10, 2016Leave a comment

10 June 2016 — FAIR

Politico (6/9/16) reports that the New York Times is under fire for demanding that two media critics—Daniel Hallin and Charles Briggs—pay the newspaper a total of $1,884 for using three brief quotes from Times articles in their new book Making Health Public.

Critics do not generally need to seek permission nor pay royalties for quotations from the works they criticize—the “fair use” provision in copyright law authorizes such quotes for the purposes of commentary and criticism. But the Times, it seems, has a very restrictive view of fair use when it comes to its own material. As the authors write in a Kickstarter trying to cover the costs incurred by the Times‘ demands:

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Statewatch 10 June 2016: Statewatching Europe Conference, 25 June: Final programme

June 10, 2016Leave a comment

10 June 2016 — Statewatch • e-mail: office@statewatch.org

Conference PROGRAMME: http://www.statewatch.org/conference/conference-2016.pdf
See list of groups supporting the Conference: http://statewatch.org/conference/supporters.html

European conference marking Statewatch’s 25th anniversary

STATEWATCHING EUROPE
Civil liberties, the state and the European Union

09.45 – 17:00, Saturday 25 June 2016
Resource for London, 356 Holloway Road, London N7 ( map)

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Exiting the EU By William Bowles

June 10, 201618 Comments

10 June 2016

I haven’t written a single word about this non-event, precisely because it is a non event. It’s an artificially created argument, with the mainstream reasoning used on both sides, being equally fallacious. A gigantic deception played out with all the pomp and circumstance of a Royal Wedding and just about as empty.

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Another Tamriel is Possible: Brexit Proposals vs Solutions by Elliot Murphy

June 10, 2016Leave a comment

7 June 2016 — Counterpunch

Virtually the entire British political elite is in favour of remaining in the European Union. Aside from a handful of Tory careerists like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove who see a disagreement with David Cameron’s leadership as a way to secure their own position within the party, the forces of reaction and business across the wingspan of British politics are flocking to support the EU. Once we examine the Brexit situation in terms of what would best undermine the more neoliberal forces of the EU, it soon becomes clear that a vote to Leave would pull the EU in a considerably less neoliberal direction, likely benefiting other European countries – not to the mention the global South, in particular Africa, which has enjoyed a fundamentally exploitative relation with the EU since its inception.

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