Russia’s new president faces US on Iran
Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) - 14 May 2008
Summary: Russia’s new presidentEric Margolis: Medvedev will continue policy of opposing any US attack on Iran Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated as the new president of Russia last week, following the resignation of his mentor and predecessor, Vladimir Putin. The outgoing president will now act as Prime Minister, a position from which he will oversee both domestic and foreign policy. Pressing issues for the new leadership include expanding relations with Iran, and acting as a counterweight to American involvement in the region. source: The Real Newsread more

U.S. Is Headed in the Wrong Direction, Poll Suggests
Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) - 14 May 2008
Summary: Democratic PartyAmericans are feeling pessimistic about the direction the country is heading, a new bipartisan NPR poll suggests. They’re increasingly leaning toward alignment with the Democratic Party and divided over their choices for president in the fall. source: National Public Radioread more

NIAC Files Defamation Lawsuit against Hassan Daioleslam
Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) - 14 May 2008
Summary: Rajavi Saddam Washington, DC - On April 30, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) filed a lawsuit against Hassan Daioleslam in response to his defamatory articles about NIAC. Daioleslam, who has been identified by former members of the terrorist-listed Mujahedin organization as a member of the group's executive committee, has since early 2007 mischaracterized NIAC's anti-war and pro-diplomacy activities as serving the interest of the Iranian government. His writings have mostly appeared on right-wing blogs and in neo-conservative outlets. source: National Iranian American Councilread more

Iran and Israel: Lost in translation?
Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) - 14 May 2008
Summary: Babak YektafarBabak Yektafar explains the meaning behind Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterates controversial statements calling for an “end to the Zionist regime,” leading different news services to translate his words in different ways, some making them sound more belligerent than others. The Real News Network Senior Editor Paul Jay speaks to Babak Yektafar of Washington Prism to discuss the meaning of the statements. source: The Real Newsread more

Iran says nuclear talks with U.N. watchdog positive
Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) - 14 May 2008
Summary: TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran said on Thursday the latest round of talks with U.N. inspectors to resolve remaining issues over its disputed nuclear work were “positive and constructive”, a news agency reported. source: Reutersread more

Elections Analysis from the Left List
UKWatch.net - 14 May 2008
This was a watershed election. For the first time since the New Labour election landslide of 1997 the Tories are in the ascendant. The result of the London Mayoral contest demonstrates that New Labour is now in meltdown.   The reaction of the soft left Compass group around John Cruddas, though doubtless an exaggeration, tells us a deal about the likely reaction among old Labour sections of the movement:   “New Labour is now dead. The strategy that saw the Party continually triangulate interests and concerns, tacking endlessly to the right, doing what the Tories would do only doing it first, fixating on a mythical middle England and denying that free market policies are having a damaging effect on society is now finished.” Like the late 1970s an exhausted and socially conservative Labour government is presiding over an attack on working class living standards. Unlike the late 1970s the extra-parliamentary and industrial struggle is not on the retreat. But if we are to exploit this contradiction to strengthen the left and face new challenges from the Tory and fascist right we need to understand clearly what happened to the left in these elections.   The failure of the Livingstone strategy Livingstone has moved progressively to the right since he first ran as Mayor as an independent eight years ago. He moved right when he rejoined Labour four years ago – and his vote went down. In this election he moved even closer to the Blair-Brown-City axis – and he lost.   Livingstone’s residual left wing reputation meant that his vote was higher than the New Labour vote for the Assembly and his polling figures were higher than the government’s rating but he was too closely associated with New Labour to be able to effectively combat the Tory tide.   Moreover, Livingstone’s own regime in City Hall was part of the problem not part of the solution. Livingstone had no independent base in the labour movement. Indeed when he had the chance to build one out of his independent campaign eight years ago he deliberately refused to do so.   Consequently, the City Hall developed its own version of triangulation – combining left wing statements on racism and the Iraq war (which cost nothing) and City friendly policies on property development, the Olympics and privatisation (where a left wing policy would cost money).   The Livingstone campaign tried to reproduce this approach by constructing a huge cross party bloc stretching all the way from Blair and Brown to the Greens and George Galloway.   This failed in the face of a hard-line Tory candidate who mostly kept quiet and let New Labour’s unpopularity with its own working class supporters do his work.   The Left and Livingstone  Livingtone’s own clientist approach to the ethnic communities in London and the rest of the left reduced the impact of a really independent radical left. The Greens and Galloway claimed to be critical of Livingstone’s neo-liberal economic policy and his loving up to the City, Brown and Blair~but infact have run campaigns that have traded largely uncritical support for Ken in return for his patronage.   This failed for Livingstone, but it also failed for the Greens and Galloway as well.   The Greens got massive publicity in return for calling for a second preference vote for Ken, but their vote stayed the same and they returned the same two GLA members.   Galloway got even less. A sectarian rally held in the middle of the 100,000 Love Music Hate Racism just a mile away at the end of Brick Lane drew less than 200 people to hear Livingstone give a less than explicit plug for Galloway. This was reported in the local press but then repudiated on polling day by local Labour candidate John Biggs.   Other than that the only fruit of this pact was a front organsiation, Operation Bangla Vote, which issued a leaflet with Livingstone and Galloway’s picture on it. The Left List took a different approach. The Left List argued that while we prefer Labour to the Tories we will not stop defending working people from New Labour’s neo-liberal policies simply because Labour has made itself unpopular with working people. This approach stressed the need to organise independently of New Labour and Livingstone and not to simply to jump on to a sinking ship.   Anyone who remembers the decay of the Labour government in the late 1970s knows how essential it is to create the widest possible left able to organise independently of the pressure to collapse all points of principle in response to the Tory threat.   The Left List vote was disappointing but the campaign did demonstrate a number of important points:   1. The Left List mounted the only genuinely London-wide left wing campaign. We are the only left force that was able to mobilise enough supporters and raise enough money to stand in the Mayoral race, in all the constituencies and on the London wide list.   2. The Left List campaign was the only campaign that has been able through mass leafleting, canvassing, our entry in the Mayoral booklet, and TV and radio broadcasts to put a left argument to millions of Londoners.   3. In a dramatic final full week of campaigning we were the only force able to effectively intervene in the great joint union demonstration on the 24th of April and in the 100,000 strong Love Music Hate Racism carnival.   4. In husting after husting Lindsey German and our other candidates were able to pull the whole debate to the left. Here is how one contribution to the Guardian online discussion put it:   “Whenever Lindsey German’s been invited to speak, she has quickly become a point of reference: At NO2ID hustings she gave Boris a torrid time. At University of London Union hustings Paddick started mimicking her line on Council Housing. At ULU and Stonewall Livingstone has lied about the name of her organisation to create a naughty confusion between her and former friends.  At LSE and Goldsmith College other candidates all used the phrase “as Lindsey said….” at least once.”   We’ve made more impact on the press than any other left candidate, including Galloway who lost out because of the strategic decision not to run a Mayoral candidate at the urging of Livingstone supporters in his group. The Left List appeared on BBC London TV news four times, on ITN news, in the Independent, the Guardian, The Times, BBC radio, BBC News 24, Radio 4’s Today programme, The Evening Standard, the Pink Paper, in local papers, local radio stations and in online broadcasts.   5. The Left List candidates are the only really diverse candidate list in the elections. The Greens only had 3 non-white candidates. In contrast to the unfulfilled promise Galloway made to produce a ‘broad list’ it was actually the Left List that had a mix of trade unionist, Afro-Caribbean, Turkish, gay and lesbian, Muslim, Sikh, Jewish, young and old candidates.    The Left Vote  All the left from Livingstone to the Left List were overwhelmed by the massive rejection of New Labour that benefited the Tories and, even more worryingly, the BNP.   The Left List suffered from having a new name. This led to confusion which benefited Galloway. We know that a number of our supporters voted for Respect by mistake. So some of the difference between our 1.3 percent in the Assembly constituencies and the Galloway 2.3 percent on the Assembly list is down to confusion and electoral inertia.   And because voters could vote for the Left List for Mayor, in the constituencies and on the London-wide list the total number of people voting Left List was higher than the total in any one of these categories (ie voters gave us one of three votes). The Left List Mayoral vote was massively squeezed by the ‘stop Boris’ vote for Ken. But it is worth noting that in 2004 we gained 61,000 first preferences and about the same number of second preferences giving a total of 120,000 first and second preferences. This year the second preferences were much higher than the 16,000 first preferences giving a total of 51,000.   The Left List vote was more evenly distributed across London, while Galloway’s vote was an East London centric vote. Although even here the constituency vote for Hanif Abdulmuhit (the only Galloway constituency candidate) was down slightly from 15 percent to 14.5 percent. And Galloway’s own Assembly list vote fell to 11 percent.   Nationally, the Left List is the only organisation with anything like a countrywide presence and the election results were as good, or nearly as good, as anything the old Respect achieved.  In Preston we got 37 percent and missed electing a second councillor by 70 votes. In Sheffield we came second with 25 percent of the vote. In Manchester we won 12 percent and, in a newly contested ward, nearly 10 percent. In Cambridge and Bolton the vote was around 15 percent. And although Salma Yaqoob’s Sparkbrook ward returned another councillor the vote went down in the neighbouring Sparkhill and Kings Heath wards, both of which would need to see increased votes for her to win the whole parliamentary constituency of which they are a part.   The Left and the decline of New Labour  The crisis will produce two main reactions. New Labour loyalists, not just in the government but in the leadership of unions like UNISON, will argue that we can’t rock the boat and must all stand behind the government or we’ll get the Tories back just as we have done in London. Some of the left will go along or compromise with this view, just as they did with Livingstone (although it will be harder to carry this argument with no left wing banner bearer in Labour). No doubt if we get the Tories back this lot will argue we shouldn’t rock the boat or Labour won’t be re-elected!   The Left List must be part of that grouping on the left, which will contain many Labour party members, who think that fighting neo-liberalism is the best chance of reviving the left’s fortunes irrespective of what the Labour leadership say.   There are some important developments that have been part of the picture of the last few weeks that show that this approach will have an echo. Teachers, lecturers, civil servants, RMT members are very open to this argument~as the united union demonstrations and strikes on 24th April showed.   In London the challenges that a Tory Mayor will throw down to the unions and the left may well provoke struggles on a higher plane than those of recent years – especially as the economic crisis continues to eat into working class living standards.   The LMHR Carnival showed that tens of thousands have already been mobilised against the Nazis – and will be ready to fight a threat that has become even more real in the last week.   Beyond this the anti-war movement remains in strong shape and will need to be deepened as the US presidential race concludes the interregnum in the Washington’s imperial project. The Left List can become part of this growing opposition to New Labour and play an important part in regrouping the left in the debates that are bound to attend the crisis of the New Labour government. 

Olympian Failure
UKWatch.net - 14 May 2008
When Ken Livingstone lobbied for the 2012 Olympics he argued that the resulting investment was needed desperately by east London, as it had seen none since Victorian times. Yet the games have received a chorus of damnation in recent weeks. A study by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) thinktank has shown that the regeneration of the East End of London was wishful thinking, at best. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. New Labour tends to see “regeneration” through the prism of how much profit can be made by business, blindfolded by its belief in the “trickledown” system. The report states that the games will mean that small local businesses will be unable to compete with the multinational stampede into east London, while residents will be priced out of the area. Indeed, the 1992 games in Barcelona displaced tens of thousands of low income families, while the 1998 Seoul games displaced 720,000. China is currently going for gold, with an estimated 1.25 million already displaced from Beijing. Josh Ryan-Collins, the co-author of the NEF report, said, “The regeneration legacy was not just an enlightened addition to the plan for the games – it was central to the bid.” We will be paying more than double what Tessa Jowell, minister for the Olympics, first estimated. The original budget was set at 4 billion, 738 million of which was due from the private sector. The new budget stands at 9.325 billion, with predictions for private investment down to just 165 million. The extra cost will be picked up by direct taxation and the National Lottery – 20 percent of the lottery’s total “good cause” budget. MPs on the Public Accounts Committee last month damned the original budget estimations, saying they “ignored foreseeable major factors” including tax and security. Policing and security costs have risen by 600 million since the original proposals, with the “delivery budget” up from 16 million to 600 million. The bid also omitted a VAT bill of 836 million. Is it any wonder then, given New Labour’s notoriety for its anti-Midas touch on white elephants ranging from Wembley Stadium to the Millennium Dome, that three quarters of British people don’t think the Olympics will benefit them? One of the tests for whether London was to host the games was the level of public support. Perhaps that public support would have been less forthcoming had they known the true cost.

Airport expansion is Plane Stupid
UKWatch.net - 14 May 2008
Expansion at Heathrow does not only fly in the face of the scientific imperative that we reduce our emissions. It also makes a farce of the democratic process on which we traditionally rely. On May the 2nd Britain woke up to a very different political landscape. The significant Tory gains told of the shadows to come: shadows which indicate just how dark our future could be. With Boris now mayor, London’s hopes for setting a benchmark to radicalise the Brown government’s environmental policies have faded. No longer have we a mayor who is willing openly to confront the climate-wrecking policies of New Labour. This is, however, only a small part of the story. A Tory government may do little to alter the business-as-usual trajectory to catastrophic climate change; but Brown is certainly not taking the necessary harsh measures he once purported to advocate. Not only is he doing nothing to reduce UK emissions in line with targets, but he is actively supporting and investing in irresponsible projects that will entail massive emissions growth. At the forefront of these projects is the expansion of Heathrow. Expansion at Heathrow does not only fly in the face of the scientific imperative that we reduce our emissions. It also makes a farce of the democratic process on which we traditionally rely. The public consultation on adding capacity at Heathrow highlighted the undemocratic nature of the government’s actions. In not allowing dissenting voices within the parameters of the document, it denied the vast democratic majority a voice in choosing the fate of their own city, country and indeed their planet. Instead, what it did, quite clearly, was to highlight the cosy relationship between Brown and big business. Democracy is failing us. Our representative government is not representing us; we have no voice in the decisions that determine our fate. The aviation industry, already subsidised to the tune of 10 billion annually, is now quite explicitly driving public policy. The locus of power is not with the people, or even their representatives, but with profit and business. The old accusation that it is corporations who take these decisions rings truer as every new policy – whether it be in energy, transport or elsewhere – is announced. So where does this leave us? Where institutionalised democracy fails, an alternative is needed – an alternative that reminds people what it is to have a voice and to participate in the decision-making processes that shape the outcomes of their lives. Non-violent direct action is a legitimate, if not the only remaining, response to this democratic failure. When the traditional channels of politics are rendered so corrupt, we must look beyond them. Plane Stupid have made clear that direct action against the aviation industry and their government cronies is vital: both as a means of raising public awareness regarding the dire consequences of airport expansion and the impact of air travel on our battle to stop climate change; and as a method of collective bargaining with which the government must engage. Direct action gives a platform to those disempowered by parliamentary politics – to those that party politics consistently neglects. This generation of activists are the last generation who can stop climate change. We have seen the failure of traditional forms of protest during the run-up to Iraq. Plane Stupid know – as do so many others, both young and old – that if we are to stop the business-as-usual agenda, that direct action is a means we must use. We also know what it is to participate directly in true democracy: with our horizontal power structures and our consensus decision-making processes, the activist community could certainly give the Brown government a lesson or two in successful democracy. In 2007, 78% of people said that they would be prepared to change their behaviour to tackle the threat of climate change: given this, we must wonder why, in light of such a clear mandate, the government consistently fails to act. But it may perhaps be time to leave aside such questions and begin the long course of action necessary to meet today’s challenges. We will try to stop irresponsible political decisions. We will try to reverse them if they are made. But as democracy continues to be left in the gutter it should not surprise anyone that when the time comes, Plane Stupid and many others – both inside and outside party politics – will be there to meet the bulldozers. If we are to confront the true nature of the climate threat, the government must first scrap its airport expansion plans. The construction of the Third Runway at Heathrow would make meeting even the pathetically inadequate 60% reduction target impossible. Research from the Tyndall Centre shows that with expansion on this business-as-usual trajectory, flight numbers will treble by 2050. This is not going to stop climate change. The public has woken up to this reality: is it not, now, the turn of the government to face the facts?