Defence Minister’s address at ‘INDAIR-08’ seminar

Press Information Bureau
Government of India
*****
Defence Minister’s address at ‘INDAIR-08’ seminar

New Delhi : August 26, 2008

Following are the extracts from the address delivered by the Defence Minister Shri AK Antony at the inauguration of the ‘INDAIR-08: Strategic partnering of IAF and Industry on Modernisation and Indigenisation’ seminar held in New Delhi today.

India is increasingly seen to be a nation with significant strategic influence on world affairs due to economic reforms initiated in early nineties. While the commercial clout of "India Inc" has been the more visible component, the unstated role played by the armed forces in ensuring that our nation is viewed as a strong and stable country, has been equally important in achieving the present status. As the fourth largest Air Force in the world, the Indian Air Force has been a key player in these exciting times and provides the much needed "strategic reach" necessary to make impact on global decision.

In order to achieve the national aim, the IAF has embarked on ambitious induction and upgradation programs. On effective implementation, these programs will provide an opportunity for the industry to enter into a profitable and mutually beneficial partnership with the armed forces. The advantages in having reliable indigenous private enterprises capable of delivering cutting edge technology products and services for the armed forces are well understood. This in fact could be the key difference between developing and developed nations in times to come.

India has always been focused and our objective has been to be self-reliant in defence production and services. What has changed, and changed significantly in the recent past has been the methodology adopted to achieve this indigenous capability. While public sector enterprises like Defence Research establishment, PSUs and Ordnance Factories have and will continue to play a meaningful role in this endeavour, the Government of India, has in the recent past introduced a number of measures which provide the industry an incentive to partner with the armed forces in their march towards self reliance. This is due to the maturity and enhanced technological capability of our industry. These initiatives include opening of the defence industry for up to 100% private sector partnership, transfer of defence related items from the reserved to the licensed category, issuance of detailed guidelines for the grant of industrial license by the Dept of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) and dispensing with separate licensing by MoD.

Since the point has been raised in this forum I feel obliged to clarify here that it is a wrong perception that the announcement on the RURs has been delayed by the government due to pressure of the Trade Unions. True, the trade unions, whether those be the Left-affiliated, why even those backed by Congress or other parties, all of them are apprehensive of the RURs. But that is not the reason why the naming of RURs is delayed. This is delayed because a section of the Large and Medium Industry, particularly the electronics sector, are opposed to some of the Guidelines for the naming of the Raksha Utpadan Ratnas. So it is not only the trade unions but the industry itself that is resisting the RURs. But the government is committed to partnering with the industry and let me assure you all here that very soon a revised Defence Procurement Manual would be released, work is going on to incorporate amendments based on interface with the industry.

These policy changes have resulted in a paradigm shift in the role of private sector in the field of indigenisation from the role of supplier of raw materials, components and sub-systems, to partners in the manufacture of complete advanced systems and equipment. Many large industries are showing definite inclination to invest both in R&D and infrastructure to develop capabilities in defence production to assume the role of system integrators. We welcome such initiatives of the industry.

The "Offset Policy" which mandates foreign defence vendors to source 30 to 50 per cent of contract value with India, is an example of the Indian Government's resolve in providing the much needed incentive to the Indian Industry and a fillip to the goal of achieving "self-reliance". The Ministry of Defence has established a 'Defence Offset Facilitation Agency' (DOFA) under the DDP as a single window agency to provide guidance on implementation of this policy. I urge the industry to fully exploit this opportunity.

The key to the success of any partnership is "mutual respect, trust and transparency". I would be failing in my duty if I do not highlight some of the areas which past experience has shown to be possible points of contention. These are inaccurate projections, lack of facilities to undertake prototype tests, lack of adherence to time schedules, not meeting contracted delivery dates and abrupt stoppage of indigenisation activities. Similarly from the vendors' perspective, areas of concern have been low Minimum Order Quantity, changes in specification, lack of guaranteed repeat orders and long lead times in the submission of prototype and bulk production clearance.

These issues must therefore be addressed in this forum and the process taken forward with an open mind for the mutual benefit of both sides. Initiatives like "INDAIR-2008" would act as enablers in resolving such issues. Such interactions also provide an excellent opportunity to understand the perspective of the industry as well as armed forces and help take forward the partnership.

DM / PK / HS /:/....spandey/kol....(RelSet2_26Aug08)



Press Information Bureau
Government of India
*****
Provisional findings of inquiry into Goutami Express fire incident
Fire caused due to some highly inflammable substance carried in a Coach

New Delhi : August 26, 2008

The Commissioner of Railway Safety, South Central Circle, Secunderabad (Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India) who inquired into the incidence of fire in five coaches of train number 2738 Secunderabad-Kakinada Goutami Express which occurred on 01.08.2008 at 1.15 AM between Kesamudram-Talapusapalli stations (Km. 425/12 – 16) of South Central Railway has revealed provisional findings in his preliminary report. According to it, the accident had occurred due to some highly inflammable substance (in liquid or solid form) present in the S-10 coach which was kept there by some unidentified person or persons while the train was on run at a speed of 75 kmph starting from Nekonda, the fire, appeared to have originated from the floor level.
As a result of the incident, 31 passengers were killed and nine were injured, one of them grievously. The Commissioner has sent his preliminary report for the consideration of the Central Government.
****
AKS/HK/LK/TR /:/....spandey/kol....(RelSet2_26Aug08)


Press Information Bureau
Government of India
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National Conference on IFRS

New Delhi : August 26, 2008

Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) will be organizing a two-day Workshop on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) at Baroda, Gujarat, on 29th and 30th August, 2008. The programme, being handled by the Committee for Members in Industry of ICAI, is intended to give an overview of application of IFRS in Indian scenario. The programme focuses more on concepts that are relatively new under Indian GAAP and on topics which by and large potentially impact the net worth and profit or loss under more common situations. Nationally renowned experts having in-depth knowledge, experience and expertise about the IFRS will be addressing the programme. Considering the fact that a lot of challenges are faced during the first time implementation, a special session will be dedicated to sharing implementation experiences by various consultants and users both large and small.

Soon after this Workshop, A two-day National Conference on IFRS will be held in New Delhi on September 5-6, 2008. Continuing Professional Education Committee and Northern India Regional Council of ICAI will be organizing this conference.

KKP/ska /:/....spandey/kol....(RelSet2_26Aug08)




Press Information Bureau
Government of India
*****
Chief Minister of Manipur calls on Thiru Baalu

New Delhi : August 26, 2008

The Chief Minister of Manipur, Shri O. Ibobi Singh called on the Union Minister of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways Thiru Baalu here today to discuss the progress and status of various Road Sector Projects in the State.

On the request of the State Chief Minister, Thiru Baalu agreed to raise the allocation of funds for improvement of National Highways in the State during 2008-09 to Rs. 40 crore from the existing allocation of Rs. 13 crore. The Minister also agreed to accord additional sanctions of works for improvement of Imphal-Moreh road (NH-39) of the State and also NH-150 leading to Imphal Airport.

Thiru Baalu assured the Chief Minister that his Ministry would also consider other proposals of the State Government depending upon the resources etc.

VBA/BS /:/....spandey/kol....(RelSet2_26Aug08)


PIB Kolkata

Dot to Start off Mobile Service Phase II in Rural Areas

Press Information Bureau
Government of India
*****
Shri Pallam Raju’s valedictory address to INDAIR-08 Seminar

New Delhi : August 27, 2008

Following is the extract from the address delivered by the Minister of State for Defence Shri MM Pallam Raju at the Valedictory Session of the ‘INDAIR-08: Strategic partnering of IAF and Industry on Modernisation and Indigenisation’ seminar in New Delhi today.

Defence Procurement Procedure is in existence since 1992. I would like to draw your attention to the changes incorporated in the scope of these procedures. The changes have been evolved over the years based on our practical experience. The Defence Procurement Strategy initially started from the 'buy' category and subsequently grew to 'Buy and Make' category. Today we focus on the ‘Make' category. The inference is simple and straightforward. India is a globally recognised force to reckon with in the field of science and technology. The potential of Indian Industry as of now lies in development of technology, implement it and make an impact in the global market.

India has a strong industrial base. Our strength is the large pool of technically qualified manpower. This joint event organised by the IAF and CII is an indicator that there are ample opportunities for the Indian Industry in the defence sector. The timing and the theme of the event "Strategic partnering of IAF and Industry on modernisation and indigenisation" is appropriate in the present scenario. Our objective now should be to strengthen ourselves economically and technologically. The need for partnerships both on the strategic and technological front should focus on issues to widen our policy and developmental options. Strin

gent quality and safety requirements make the field of military aviation technologically complex and demanding. The foreign defence vendors are in the process of preparing to offer aerospace technologies to competent players including manufacturers and design houses. The offset clause is expected to offer a bonanza of business to the Indian Industry. The Indian industry will thus have to upgrade their infrastructure to be in the race. The right moves in the next couple of months will reap multifarious benefits in the years to come.

Defence-Industry partnership should be with wider perspective to achieve our goal of self-reliance. The focus should be towards creating a self-reliant industrial and technological base that will enable India to play a deciding role in the world market. The present commercial environment in the global market should be used to attract financial inflows for development and to offer our skills for outsourcing services. It is definitely possible with a vibrant Indian private sector whose participation in production activities in the defence areas is growing at a rapid pace. The resultant mutual benefit in all probability would be collectively seen in the form of growth of our nation at large.

Self belief, determination and perseverance are important factors in this field of R & D than the technical potential and infrastructural resources. I am optimistic that this two day interaction would have broken all barriers and developed trust and faith to join hands and work as a team. The mantra is "team work" that will strengthen our all round capabilities. The present policies of the government are aimed at providing ample opportunities to the Indian defence Industry in a transparent way.

The country should strengthen its indigenous research, design and manufacturing capabilities. The government of India is fully committed to support and enhance the self-reliance efforts. The IAF and vibrant Indian industries will have to work as a team towards the goal of self-reliance and contribute to effective exploitation of our new acquisitions.

The conclusion of this seminar which was aimed to garner our resources and reassess our strength and weaknesses is truly not the end but just a beginning in our journey towards greater self-reliance. I have no doubt in my mind that each element of the industry and defence would continue closer interactions and achieve meaningful results to make the nation proud. Let us grow technologically and commercially and provide effective resources to our armed forces.

PK / RAJ /:/...spandey/kol...(RelSet2_27Aug08)



Press Information Bureau
Government of India
*****
Dot to Start off Mobile Service Phase II in Rural Areas
All Villages with 500 Population to be Covered

New Delhi : August 27, 2008


The Department of Telecom is to soon launch the second phase of mobile phone expansion covering about 2 lakh villages. With this, mobile services will cover all habitats with population of 500. About 11000 additional towers will be installed under the scheme. Details of the scheme are being worked out and locations of the towers being identified. The installation work is likely to be completed in one to one and half year’s time.

Under Phase 1 of the scheme, about 7900 towers, also called infrastructure sites, are already being installed in 500 districts spread over 27 states. Out of these, the state owned BSNL is installing over 6000 towers. The setting up and managing of these infrastructure services started in June 2007, with subsidy support from the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) of DOT. The state-wise details of these towers under installation, are given in the table below.
Sl. No.

StateNo. of Districts No. of Towers
1Andhra Pradesh22581
2Arunachal Pradesh1262
3Assam2090
4Bihar37489
5Chhattisgarh16560
6Gujarat466
7Haryana814
8Himachal Pradesh11295
9Jammu & Kashmir12178
10Jharkhand18305
11Karnataka26427
12Kerala1146
13Madhya Pradesh45985
14Maharashtra331017
15Manipur995
16Meghalaya7102
17Mizoram871
18Nagaland756
19Orissa30432
20Punjab313
21Rajasthan32411
22Sikkim38
23Tamil Nadu27371
24Tripura4147
25Uttar Pradesh66666
26Uttranchal13217
27West Bengal16167
Total5007871*

(The number of towers is subject to change based on actual field survey and coverage achieved thereof as per the terms and conditions of the Agreements.)

About 1100 towers have already been set up. Mobile services from many of these towers have also started. Services from all the towers are likely to be completed in a phased manner by the end of the current year. Infrastructure created is to be shared by three service providers for provision of mobile services. Number of towers commissioned by the successful bidders is given in table below
Sl. No.Name of BidderNo. of TowersNo. of Towers Commissioned
1.Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.6175102
2.GTL Infrastructure Ltd.421371
3.Hutchison Essar Cellular Ltd.123242
4.Hutchison Essar South Ltd.208
5.National Information Technologies Ltd. (Now KEC)38416
6.Quipo Telecom Infrastructure Ltd.8884
7.Reliance Communications Infrastructure Ltd.472245
78711060


Akshay rout/vk/:/...spandey/kol...(RelSet3_27Aug08)

PIB Kolkata

Iran says can hit Israel with missiles if attacked

http://www.reuters. com/article/ worldNews/ idUSBLA740667200 80827?sp= true

Iran says can hit Israel with missiles if attacked
Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:57am EDT

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran could hit back at Israel with missiles if the
Jewish state attacked it and could also rely on allies in the region
to strike, the commander of the Islamic Republic's Revolutionary
Guards said on Wednesday.

Israel, like the United States, has not ruled out military action
against Iran if diplomacy fails to resolve a row over Tehran's nuclear
ambitions.

The West and Israel accuse Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons,
despite Iran's insistence that it wants technology to make electricity
so that it can save more of its vast oil and gas resources for export.

"Our strategic calculations show that if the Zionist regime wants to
make the smallest move against our interests, either independently or
with America, in the shortest time all the territories under the
Zionist regime's control will become unsafe," Guards
commander-in- chief Mohammad Ali Jafari said.

"That country is completely in the range of the Islamic Republic's
missiles. The missile capabilities of our armed forces is such that
the Zionist regime, with all its capabilities, would not be able to
confront it," he added.

Jafari was quoted by Iran's Mehr News Agency.

The Guards are an ideologically motivated arm of Iran's military with
an independent command structure to the regular armed forces. They
have their own land, sea and air units.

"The Israelis know that if they take action against Iran definitely
the capabilities that the Islamic world and especially the Shi'ite
world has in the region would deliver a hard blow to them," Jafari said.

He did not mention any names but Iran's regional allies include
Lebanon's Shi'ite Muslim militia Hezbollah and the Palestinian
militant group Hamas.

Jafari also said U.S. troops were vulnerable because of their presence
in the region. Washington has troops based in Iran's neighbors of Iraq
and Afghanistan, and naval forces in the Gulf, along which Iran has a
long coastline.

"The presence of these forces enables Iran to harm America's interests
in different ways...not even using its missile capability," he said.

The Islamic Republic has previously said it would retaliate against
U.S. targets if attacked.

(Reporting by Zahra Hosseinian; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by
Angus MacSwan)

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has been working on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) aspects of Small & Medium Ent

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has been working on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) aspects of Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in India, .

Karmayog believes that CSR means:

1) Steps taken by a company to neutralise, minimise or offset the harmful effects caused by its processes and product-usage.

2) Further steps a company takes using its resources, core competence, skills, location and funds for the benefit of people and the environment.

What CSR activities can a small company do? We will compile responses and forward to UNIDO.

Do see the "Karmayog CSR Ratings of the largest 500 Indian companies", and details of UNIDO's SME project at www.karmayog.org/csr.

Regards
Vinay
www.karmayog.org -- inspiring Citizen Social Responsibility

PS: a) Email your solutions for rash driving to us. (Responses are at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/karmayog/message/41392 .)

b) Felt cheated? File complaint at www.karmayog.org/warn .

Police continue repressive tactics in Denver

Police continue repressive tactics in Denver
By Tom Eley
28 August 2008

In the two days since Denver police—acting at the direction of U.S.
Secret Service—attacked and jailed nearly 100 peaceful protesters
outside the Democratic National Convention, the virtual militarization
of Denver has continued. In total, over 130 protesters have now been
imprisoned.

As late as Tuesday afternoon, fifteen hours after the arrests, about
60 protesters were still being held at a makeshift detention center,
sarcastically called “Gitmo on the Platte” by protesters, as well as
in a downtown city jail. By Wednesday most of those detained had been
released after posting a $500 bond. The protesters were processed in
specially-created kangaroo courts dubbed “DNC Courts.”

The WSWS spoke with Brian Vincente, a lawyer for the People’s Law
Project, which is representing many of the protesters. Vincente said
that lawyers were denied access to prisoners at the detention center.
Then city officials attempted to process many of those arrested in the
middle of the night.

Vincente said that the city has been preparing the special court
system for over one year, but “instead of creating something
streamlined and smooth, they came up with this night court to slam
people through.” Vincente has represented people mistakenly arrested
by police, including school teachers who were on their way to work.

Police arrests and provocations continue. On Wednesday afternoon, the
coordinating center for the protest group Unconventional Denver was
raided and equipment used to make banners was seized. Riot police
pulled up in an armored personnel carrier, entered the building and
arrested two.

On Tuesday, police struck a Code Pink antiwar protester, Alicia
Forest, in the face with a baton.

A Kansas pastor and religious extremist, Ruben Israel, and a small
group of supporters had begun a confrontation with anti-war
protesters, taunting them. A Recreate ’68 organizer, Carlo Garcia,
approached police to request that they remove the pastor, as Recreate
’68 had a permit to use the public park where the confrontation took
place, and Israel’s organization, Bible Believers, did not. Instead,
police arrested Garcia.

In a scene captured on video and posted on YouTube, Forest can be seen
approaching the police to ask for an explanation. The officer responds
by striking her with his truncheon and saying “back it up, bitch.”
Moments later, as she is being interviewed, Forest is grabbed suddenly
by her arm and apprehended by several police. (See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfISlq1gzK8)

Right wing counter-demonstrators, far fewer in number, have targeted
and harassed the anti-war protesters. The right wing protesters have
faced less repression from the police, and in some cases, such as the
police assault on Forest, have received de facto police protection.

However, thirteen anti-abortion zealots of Operation Rescue, including
its founder Randall Terry, were arrested on Monday for blocking a
security gate at the Pepsi Center—though it is difficult to imagine
that the anti-war protesters would have been allowed to get so close.
Elsewhere, an anti-immigrant rally of the fascistic Minutemen
organization drew only about a dozen participants. The small gathering
was addressed by the ultra-reactionary politicians Tom Tancredo, Bob
Barr and Alan Keyes.

As of today, no major Democratic figure has called for a lessening of
the level of police repression in Denver, or for the release of those
protesters who are still imprisoned. One delegate to the convention,
Syracuse Democrat Alfonso Davis, confessed to being surprised by the
magnitude of the police presence. “This is not my first Democrat
National Convention,” he said, but “I’ve never seen this type of law
enforcement presence. This is, I would say, a little intrusive.”

Police preparations are underway in St. Paul and Minneapolis for next
week’s Republican National Convention, which promises to draw more
protesters. According to the National Lawyers Guild, three
videographers from New York City had their equipment confiscated by
members of the Minneapolis Police Department on Tuesday morning. The
videographers had planned to record police interaction with protesters
during the RNC. Meanwhile, the Associated Press has reported that a
makeshift prison encampment has been created out of a parking area in
a police complex in St. Paul.
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Independent panel report on Hurricane Katrina

Independent panel report on Hurricane Katrina
Cost-cutting and poor planning behind New Orleans levee failures
By Joe Kay
23 May 2006

The Independent Levee Investigation Team released a draft report
Monday on the failure of the New Orleans flood protection systems
during Hurricane Katrina, which struck Louisiana and Mississippi in
the southern US on August 29, 2005. The report is an indictment of the
American political and social system, concluding that much of the
damage and loss of life caused by the hurricane could have been
prevented with better planning and more resources.

Ray Seed, a geotechnical engineer at the University of California-
Berkeley and head of the team, said at a press conference in New
Orleans on Sunday, “People didn’t die here because the storm was
bigger than the system could handle...People died because mistakes
were made and because safety was exchanged for efficiency and reduced
costs.”

“New Orleans flooded not so much because there was a hurricane, but
because of human error, poor decisions and judgments, and failed
policies,” Seed said.

The investigation team included 36 engineers, scientists and other
experts from universities and private firms. Some of the funding from
the panel came from the National Science Foundation, a government
agency. A final version of the over 700-page report is due out by the
end of June, including several additional appendices.

The conclusions of the panel differ significantly from another
investigation carried out by the Army Corps of Engineers, which
concluded that much of the flooding resulted from the fact that the
levees were overpowered by a hurricane they were not designed to
withstand. In contrast, the independent panel concludes that while the
overtopping of the levees was one factor, more significant were poor
construction and maintenance, and inadequate funds.

The difference is significant. Not only was New Orleans potentially
left helpless in the face of a major hurricane—a Category 4 or 5 storm—
that the levee systems were never designed to withstand, the city was
also vulnerable to a less powerful hurricane because the levee system
in place suffered from several major flaws. According to the
Independent Levee Investigation Team, the Hurricane Katrina disaster
fell into the latter category. If Katrina had been a more powerful
storm when it struck land, or if it had struck the city head-on, the
consequences would have been even more devastating than they were.

Though it suffers from deficiencies when it comes to an explanation of
the historical and political background to the Hurricane Katrina
disaster, the report is well worth examining in some detail in order
to understand the events leading up to the flooding of New Orleans.
Among the causes of the levee failures cited by the panel were the use
of poor materials, the construction of levees on unstable soils and
the failure to allocate funds necessary to complete and maintain parts
of the levee system.

For example, a section of the levee system protecting the St. Bernard
Parish was incomplete when the hurricane struck, and “as a result
large portions of this critical levee frontage were several feet below
final design grade,” the panel found. In other words, the levee system
was not complete to specifications, in spite of decades of warnings
that a major hurricane would have devastating consequences for the
city.

Approximately 30 percent of the official deaths from Hurricane Katrina
in the New Orleans area occurred in St. Bernard Parish.

Some sections of the levee in this and another area (protecting the
New Orleans East area) were constructed using “highly erodible sand
and lightweight shell sand fill,” according to the report, severely
undermining the levee’s structural integrity. These materials were
taken from soil excavated in nearby locations, apparently to reduce
costs.

The report asserts that the “catastrophic erosion” of these levees was
avoidable if better materials had been used and the levees completed
in a timely manner. While some overtopping of levees would still have
occurred, the resulting damage would have been substantially reduced.

Further breaches of the levee system occurred near the Lower Ninth
Ward area, one of the poorest sections of the city and an area that
experienced some of the most severe damage, flooding and loss of life.
While overtopping of the levees occurred here, the panel again
concluded that this was not the principal problem, pointing instead to
“underseepage”—the flow of water beneath the levees, eroding the soil
and undermining the stability of the entire foundation. These
underseepage flows resulted from the fact that sheetpiles, which are
driven into the ground to prevent water from passing beneath the
levees, were too shallow to perform their intended function.

The panel found that the breaches near the Lower Ninth Ward and along
St. Bernard Parish actually occurred before the storm surge (the
elevation of the surrounding waters as a result of the hurricane)
peaked. This meant that when the surge did reach its peak, these areas
were completely unprotected. Water levels in the Ninth Ward reached as
high as 18 feet above ground level, completely submerging many of the
one-story homes in the working class neighborhood.

Another area of the levee system was compromised because floodgates
had not been installed to prevent storm surges on Lake Pontchartrain,
on the northern side of the city, from raising the water levels in
adjacent drainage canals. The report blamed the failure to construct
these floodgates on the “dysfunctional interaction” among local
government bodies.

The authors note that several of the breaches were caused by common
factors: inadequate materials, underseepage and stability failures of
foundation soils. The frequency of these failures suggests that the
problems may be more widespread.

The panel concludes, therefore, that the catastrophic damage caused by
Hurricane Katrina was not inevitable, much less an ‘act of God.’ It
points to several different factors behind the failure to adequately
secure the city. These include inadequate coordination and integration
of local and federal agencies responsible for flood protection.

The report also notes that for many years the Army Corps of Engineers,
which oversees many infrastructural projects such as the levee system
around New Orleans, “has been subject to extreme pressures at the
federal and state levels to do more with less; do their projects
better, faster, and cheaper; and improve project management...Our
study indicates that as in the case of NASA [a reference to the events
leading up to the explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia in February
2003]...technical and engineering superiority and oversight was
compromised in attempts to respond to all of these constraints and
pressures.”

It was well known that New Orleans would be flooded in the event of a
major hurricane. Yet the levee system was not adequately maintained,
let alone expanded, and procedures to minimize the loss of life and
property damage were not put in place. What explains this? The report
of the independent panel fails to examine in any detail the historical
and social causes of the disaster. Their ultimate source lies in the
extraordinary misallocation of social resources, in which billions are
spent on wars and tax cuts, while basic social needs are ignored or
underfunded.

During the past three decades in particular, the American ruling class
has waged a relentless attack on government regulations and social
spending. Social resources have been plundered in the interests of a
small layer of the population, which has accumulated unprecedented and
unimaginable sums of wealth. The protection of an American city has
been, under these conditions, a minor issue for the corporate elite.

More than anything else, Hurricane Katrina exposed the fundamental
conflict between the basic needs of society and a system in which all
decisions are made in the interests of a financial oligarchy.

According to recent figures, Hurricane Katrina led to the deaths of
1,747 people, including 281 individuals who died after being displaced
but were considered to have perished from causes associated with the
hurricane. Several hundred people are still listed as “missing.” Much
of New Orleans was destroyed, with $100 to $150 billion in damages to
that city alone.

This destruction was caused not only by the failure to maintain the
levee system, but also by the indifferent response to the disaster by
the Bush administration, which provided no resources for days to those
trapped in the city. Nearly nine months after this event, no one has
been held responsible for this event, a product of what can only be
described as criminal negligence.

The full report of the Independent Levee Investigation Team can be
accessed at: http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~new_orleans/

Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath: from natural disaster to national
humiliation
30 August 2007

We are reposting below a statement that originally appeared on the
WSWS on September 2, 2005, four days after Hurricane Katrina made
landfall. It is also published in the pamphlet “Hurricane Katrina:
Social Consequences & Political Lessons,” which brings together
articles and statements posted on the WSWS in the immediate aftermath
of the Katrina disaster, and can be ordered online.

We will resume our series “Hurricane Katrina two years on” tomorrow,
August 31.

The catastrophe that is unfolding in New Orleans and on the Gulf coast
of Mississippi has been transformed into a national humiliation
without parallel in the history of the United States.

The scenes of intense human suffering, hopelessness, squalor, and
neglect amidst the wreckage of what was once New Orleans have exposed
the rotten core of American capitalist society before the eyes of the
entire world—and, most significantly, before those of its own stunned
people.

The reactionary mythology of America as the “Greatest Country in the
World” has suffered a shattering blow.

Hurricane Katrina has laid bare the awful truths of contemporary
America—a country torn by the most intense class divisions, ruled by a
corrupt plutocracy that possesses no sense either of social reality or
public responsibility, in which millions of its citizens are deemed
expendable and cannot depend on any social safety net or public
assistance if disaster, in whatever form, strikes.

Washington’s response to this human tragedy has been one of gross
incompetence and criminal indifference. People have been left to
literally die in the streets of a major American city without any
assistance for four days. Images of suffering and degradation that
resemble the conditions in the most impoverished Third World countries
are broadcast daily with virtually no visible response from the
government of a country that concentrates the greatest share of wealth
in the world.

The storm that breached the levees of New Orleans has also revealed
all of the horrific implications of 25 years’ worth of uninterrupted
social and political reaction. The real results of the destruction of
essential social services, the dismantling of government agencies
entrusted with alleviating poverty and coping with disasters, and the
ceaseless nostrums about the “free market” magically resolving the
problems of modern society have been exposed before millions.

With at least 100,000 people trapped in a city without power, water or
food and threatened with the spread of disease and death, the
government has proven incapable of establishing the most elementary
framework of logistical organization. It has failed to even evacuate
the critically ill from public hospitals, much less provide basic
medical assistance to the many thousands placed in harm’s way by the
disaster.

What was the government’s response to the natural catastrophe that
threatened New Orleans? It amounted to betting that the storm would go
the other way, followed by a policy of “every man for himself.”
Residents of the city were told to evacuate, while the tens of
thousands without transportation or too poor to travel were left to
their fate.

Now crowds of thousands of hungry and homeless people have been
reduced to chanting “we need help” as bodies accumulate in the
streets. Washington’s inability to mount and coordinate basic rescue
operations will unquestionably add to a death toll that is already
estimated in the thousands.

The government’s callous disregard for the human suffering, its
negligence in failing to prepare for this disaster and, above all, its
utter incompetence have staggered even the compliant American media.

Patriotic blather about the country coming together to deal with the
crisis combined with efforts to poison public opinion by vilifying
those without food or water for “looting” have fallen flat in face of
the undeniable and monumental debacle that constitutes the official
response to the disaster.

Reporters sent into the devastated region have been reduced to tears
by the masses of people crying out for help with no response.
Television announcers cannot help but wonder aloud why the authorities
have failed so miserably to alleviate such massive human suffering.

The presidency, the Congress and both the Republican and Democratic
parties—all have displayed an astounding lack of concern for the
hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been shattered and
who face the most daunting and uncertain future, not to mention the
tens of millions more who will be hard hit by the economic aftershocks
of Katrina.

In the figure of the president, George W. Bush, the incompetence,
stupidity, and sheer inhumanity that characterize so much of America’s
money-mad corporate elite find their quintessentially repulsive
expression.

As the hurricane developed over two weeks in the Caribbean and slowly
approached the coast of New Orleans and Mississippi, Bush amused
himself at his ranch retreat in Crawford, Texas. It is now clear that
his administration made no serious preparations to deal with the
dangers posed by the approaching storm.

In an interview Thursday, September 1, on the “Good Morning America”
television program, Bush reprised his miserable performance of the
previous day, adding to Wednesday’s banalities the declaration that
there would be “zero tolerance” for looters.

The president blanched when ABC interviewer Dianne Sawyer asked about
a suggestion that the major oil companies be forced to cede a share of
the immense windfall profits they have reaped from rising prices over
the past six months to fund disaster relief. He responded by
counseling the American people to “send cash” to charitable
organizations.

In other words, there will be no serious financial commitment from the
government to save lives, care for the sick and needy, and help the
displaced and bereft restore their lives. Nor will there be any
national, centrally financed and organized program to rebuild one of
the country’s most important cities—a city that is uniquely associated
with some of the most critical cultural achievements in music and the
arts of the American people.

Above all, the suffering of millions will not be allowed to impinge on
the profit interests of a tiny elite of multimillionaires whose
interests the government defends.

Later in the day, Bush described the aftermath of the flood as a
“temporary disturbance.”

The ruthless attitude of those in power toward the average poor and
working class residents of New Orleans was summed up Thursday by
Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who declared “it doesn’t make
sense” to spend tax dollars to rebuild New Orleans. “It looks like a
lot of that place could be bulldozed,” he said.

While Hastert was forced to backtrack from these chilling remarks,
they have a definite political logic. To rebuild the lives that have
been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina would require mounting a massive
government effort that would run counter to the entire thrust of a
national policy based upon privatization and the transfer of wealth to
the rich that has for decades been pursued by both major parties.

Can anyone truly believe that the current administration and its
Democratic accomplices in Congress are going to launch a serious
program to construct low-cost housing, rebuild schools and provide
jobs for the hundreds of thousands left unemployed by the destruction?

Congress has been virtually silent on the catastrophe in the south. It
has nothing to say, having voted to support Bush’s extreme right-wing
agenda of massive tax cuts for the rich, huge outlays for war in Iraq
and Afghanistan and an ever-expanding Pentagon budget, and billions to
finance the Homeland Security Department.

The millionaires club in the Capitol is well aware that it voted to
slash funding for elementary infrastructure needs—including urgently
recommended improvements in outmoded and inadequate Gulf Coast anti-
hurricane and anti-flood systems.

The Democratic Party has, as always, offered no opposition. Indeed,
the president was gratified to be able to announce that former
Democratic president Bill Clinton would resume his road show with the
president’s father, the former Republican president, touring the
stricken regions and drumming up support for charitable donations. In
this way the Democratic Party has signaled its solidarity with the
White House and the Republican policy against any serious federal
financial commitment to help the victims and rebuild the devastated
regions.

The decisive components of the present tragedy are social and
political, not natural. The American ruling elite has for the past
three decades been dismantling whatever forms of government regulation
and social welfare had been instituted in the preceding period. The
present catastrophe is the terrible product of this social and
political retrogression.

The lessons derived from past natural and economic calamities—from the
deadly floods of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to the
dust bowl and Depression of the 1930s—have been repudiated and derided
by a ruling elite driven by the crisis of its profit system to
subordinate ever more ruthlessly all social concerns to the extraction
of profit and accumulation of personal wealth.

Franklin Roosevelt—an astute and relatively far-sighted representative
of his class—had to drag the American ruling elite as a whole kicking
and screaming behind a program of social reforms whose basic purpose
was to save the capitalist system from the threat of social
revolution. Even during his presidency, the large-scale projects in
government-funded and controlled social development, such as the
Tennessee Valley Authority, never became a model for broader measures
to alleviate poverty and social inequality. The contradictions and
requirements of an economic system based on private ownership of the
means of production and production for profit resulted in any further
projects being shelved.

From the 1970s onward, as the crisis of American capitalism has
deepened, the US ruling elite has attacked the entire concept of
social reform and dismantled the previously established restrictions
on corporate activities.

The result has been a non-stop process of social plunder, producing an
unprecedented concentration of wealth at the apex of society and a
level of social inequality exceeding that which prevailed in the days
of the Robber Barons.

Fraud, the worst forms of speculation and criminality have become
pervasive within the upper echelons of American society. This is the
underlying reality that has suddenly revealed itself, precipitated by
a hurricane, in the form of a collapse of the most elementary forms of
social life.

The political establishment and the corporate elite have been exposed
as bankrupt, together with their ceaseless insistence that the
unfettered development of capitalism is the solution to all of
society’s problems.

The catastrophe unleashed by Katrina has unmistakably revealed that
America is two countries, one for the wealthy and privileged and
another in which the vast majority of working people stand on the edge
of a social precipice.

All of the claims that the war on Iraq, the “global war on terrorism”
and the supposed concern for “homeland security” are aimed at
protecting the American people stand revealed as lies. The utter
failure to protect the residents of New Orleans exposes all of these
claims as propaganda designed to mask the criminality of the American
ruling elite and the diversion of resources away from the most
essential needs of the people.

The central lesson of New Orleans is that the elementary requirements
of mass society are incompatible with a system that subordinates
everything to the enrichment of a financial oligarchy.

This lesson must become the new point of departure in the political
orientation of the struggles of American working people. Only the
development of a new independent political movement, fighting for the
reorganization of economic life on the basis of a socialist program,
can provide a way out of the chaos of which the events in New Orleans
are a terrible omen.


The exploitation of Hurricane Katrina: remaking New Orleans for the
rich
By Joseph Kay and Barry Grey
14 September 2005

Even as the grim task of locating bodies and counting the dead
continues, it is already clear that whatever reconstruction effort is
mounted in New Orleans, it will be geared entirely to advancing the
interests of the city’s elite and the profits of corporations across
the country.

Of the hundreds of thousands of displaced people—the estimates range
from 400,000 to 1 million—who have lost their homes and their jobs,
the majority will never return. The press has begun speaking of them
as the new Okies, recalling the mass migration of small farmers and
rural workers who were uprooted from the Plains states by the “Dust
Bowl” drought of the 1930s.

The overwhelmingly working class and poor ranks of evacuees have been
scattered around the country, in many cases shipped off to remote
regions where they are cut off from friends and family. Such was the
incompetence and indifference of the authorities that many of those
flooded out of New Orleans were not even informed where they were
being taken to.

What is being envisioned for a “new” New Orleans was summed up by Joel
Garreau, an editor and reporter for the Washington Post, who published
a comment on September 11, entitled, “A Sad Truth: Cities Aren’t
Forever.”

Garreau wrote: “The city of New Orleans is not going to be rebuilt....
The tourist neighborhoods? The ancient parts from the French Quarter
to the Garden District on that slim crescent of relatively high ground
near the river? Yes, they will be restored. The airport and the
convention center? Yes, those too. But the far larger swath—the real
New Orleans where the tourists don’t go, the part that Katrina turned
into a toxic soup bowl, its population of 400,000 scattered to the
waves? Not so much.”

Garreau continued: “There are a lot of black and poor people who are
not going to return to New Orleans any more than Okies did to the Dust
Bowl.”

The hurricane and its immediate aftermath revealed in the starkest
terms the social chasm between the wealthy few and the masses of
working people that is the most essential feature of American society.
It also revealed how completely the government—at all levels—functions
as the instrument of the financial elite, starving the social
infrastructure of resources, slashing wages and social programs in
order to finance tax windfalls for the rich. The Hurricane Katrina
disaster was a tragic result of the systematic plundering of society
to further swell the coffers of the American plutocracy.

The same social dynamic is now at work in the so-called
“reconstruction” of the cities devastated by Katrina. If anything, the
descent of the American capitalist elite into manic greed and outright
criminality is more grotesquely on display in this phase of the
disaster than in the first two weeks after the storm.

When not obliged to give out for public consumption declarations of
sympathy and concern, not a few politicians and corporate movers and
shakers are rubbing their hands and gloating over the prospects for
turning the human calamity into a new source of personal enrichment—at
public expense. Among themselves, they speak of the obliteration of
Gulf Coast towns and the drowning of New Orleans as an opportunity to
rid the region of the poor and turn it into a Mecca for wealthy
residents and tourists.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Representative Richard
Baker, a 10-term Republican from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told a group
of lobbyists, “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We
couldn’t do it, but God did.”

Baker’s comments echoed those of Republican House Speaker Dennis
Hastert, who declared on September 1, “It looks like a lot of that
place [New Orleans] could be bulldozed.”

Brent Warr, the mayor of Gulfport, Mississippi, where the storm
obliterated entire blocks and took scores of lives, was quoted in the
September 12 New York Times as saying, “Property values are going to
skyrocket here. All the unattractive stuff has been blown away.... We
have an opportunity now to make it an absolutely unique place. God has
come in and wiped the slate clean for us.”

Within storm-ravaged New Orleans itself, the class divide in America
is seen in the contrast between the fate of the working class, and
their treatment by the authorities, and that of the city’s patricians.
More than two weeks after the hurricane hit, and days after state and
local officials announced a mandatory evacuation, not a few members of
the city’s elite remain camped out in their gated mansions, feasting,
according to press reports, on jumbo shrimp and fine wine. Rifles and
shotguns at hand, they are further protected by hired guards,
including Blackwater mercenaries returned from stints in Iraq.

The US military, National Guard and police patrol their neighborhoods—
not to roust them out, seize their weapons and arrest them, as is the
practice with working class and poor holdouts in the city—but to
guarantee that their property remains intact.

Describing the conditions of some of the rich who have chosen to
remain in the city, the Wall Street Journal reported on September 8:
“The power elite of New Orleans—whether they are still in the city or
have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail,
Colo.—insist the remade city won’t simply restore the old order. New
Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass,
substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate
headquarters. The new city must be something different, [James] Reiss
says, with better services and fewer poor people.”

James Reiss, according to the Journal, is a “descendant of an old-line
Uptown family” who “fled Hurricane Katrina just before the storm and
returned soon afterward by private helicopter.” He “helicoptered in an
Israeli security company to guard his Audubon house and those of his
neighbors,” the Journal notes.

That the outlook expressed by Reiss is shared by Democratic as well as
Republican officials is underscored by Reiss’s role as chairman of the
New Orleans Regional Transit Authority in the administration of Mayor
Ray Nagin, a Democrat. Nagin, a former executive at Cox
Communications, is a representative of the small and wealthy elite
within the black population of New Orleans.

Already, real estate developers, construction firms and speculators
have descended on New Orleans like vultures. They are securing choice
no-bid, cost-plus government contracts and exploiting the pool of
cheap labor guaranteed by President Bush’s suspension in parts of the
South of the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires federally financed
employers to pay the prevailing local wage to their workers.

Those companies reaping the fattest contracts include Halliburton,
formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, and others with close
links to the Bush administration. Even the bourgeois press has noted
the similarity between the profiteering and cronyism already evident
in the “recovery and reconstruction” effort in New Orleans and the
massive corruption that has characterized the so-called “rebuilding”
of Iraq.

Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has been brought
forward to appear on television news shows and argue in the press for
the establishment of a “Zone of Recovery, Reconstruction and
Prosperity” in the storm-hit region. He echoes the calls in the Wall
Street Journal and other organs of big business to turn the region
into an “enterprise zone” where business will be freed of all
regulations and allowed to make super-profits on the basis of the
super-exploitation of workers.

All of this will be financed with public funds, and there have already
been calls from within Congress for allocations for the Gulf Coast to
be offset by cuts in other federal programs.

The analogies to the Okies and the Dust Bowl in the press implicitly
raise social issues with vast repercussions. The profound historical
and political questions are almost universally ignored in the media
accounts.

A comparison of the two mass migrations says much about the present
state of American society. Beginning in 1930 and lasting until the
early 1940s, a massive drought plagued much of the Southwest in the
US, leading to a series of dust storms that forced hundreds of
thousands, and perhaps as many as 2 million, to flee their homes and
farms. These migrants became known as Okies because many were from the
state of Oklahoma, where 15 percent of the population left.

The Dust Bowl was part of a social disaster that fed into the Great
Depression. The economic breakdown compounded by natural disaster
discredited capitalism in the eyes of millions of Americans, and
precipitated a massive political radicalization and the eruption of
explosive class struggles.

In the 1930s, this led, under the administration of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, to a series of federal initiatives—public works, the
Tennessee Valley Authority—and benefit programs such as Social
Security. Fearful of the threat of social revolution—which had been
realized in Russia less than two decades before and was foreshadowed
in the radicalization of the American working class—the section of the
American ruling class represented by Roosevelt saw the need to make
certain concessions to the demands of workers in order to contain
class antagonisms.

But American capitalism, even in the depths of the Depression, was in
a far stronger position to pursue such a policy than it is today.
Then, the US was the dominant industrial and financial power in the
world, and there was a certain constituency—although a minority—within
the ruling class for a policy of social reform.

Today, the global economic position of American capitalism is
immensely weaker than in the heyday of American-style mass production.
The US is beset by economic contradictions for which it has no
answers. It is the world’s largest debtor nation, and continues to
pile up huge budget, trade and balance of payments deficits.

The collapse of the anti-flood system in New Orleans and the utter
incompetence of the government response have revealed to a shocked
world the enormous decay in the underlying physical and social
infrastructure of the United States.

The decline in the global position of American capitalism has been
accompanied by a vast political, intellectual and moral decay within
the ruling elite itself. The most backward, predatory and criminal
elements have risen to the top. The breakup of the Soviet Union and
the collapse of the trade unions have created conditions in which the
American oligarchy feels itself unconstrained. It sees a window of
opportunity to roll back and destroy all of the social gains made by
the working class over the previous century.

Nor is there any significant liberal intelligentsia that criticizes
the profit system and seeks to rein in its worse excesses.

Hurricane Katrina has exposed the disastrous consequences of decades
of policies pursued by both parties in the United States:
deregulation, the dismantling of programs to shore up the
infrastructure and deal with social problems, the funneling of vast
amounts of money to plutocrats whose fortunes surpass anything seen in
previous modern history.

In the wake of the disaster, the overwhelming response from the ruling
elite is to continue its policy of economic plunder—indeed, to exploit
the tragedy to establish new beachheads for its own enrichment.

These experiences will have a deep and lasting impact on public
consciousness, leading to a new period of mass social struggles. What
is essential is that the working class draw the central lessons of
Hurricane Katrina. The failure of all of the official institutions of
American society in the disaster is rooted in the failure of the
profit system itself.

On Aug 27, 10:28 am, VT Sean Lewis wrote:
Frank get your head out of your ass.....Lame duck means you are powerless, like Bush has been since Katrina.

================

Hey VT Sean Lewis!

Just a quick observation;

Telling Frank to get his head out of his ass, is like telling you that your Democrat Party's leadership and platform have become Socialist....Frank knows all of this, Frank is a communist, he openly admits it, and in Frank's view, the Democrat Party is not moving hastily enough, to get to Utopia.

Speaking of Katrina, where President Bush was criticized by all socialists and the few Democrats who haven't realized they have been sold out by socialists, the thing that made me, and other conservatives so outraged at President Bush and the federal government, is that they did not send the National Guard down and order them to shoot to kill the next Son of a Bitch who was caught robbing, raping, pillaging, plundering, and murdering other Americans. We saw how locally elected Democrats handle the situation, and if it were not for President Bush and the federal government, the good people of Louisiana would most likely still be sitting in squalor. This is a classic example of liberalism gone totally amuck. By example, we saw the government issue "debit cards" that were misused. We have seen literally billions of federal tax dollars squandered by a local Democrat run city, that has again squandered federal funds and misplaced federal aid.

Thankfully, the good people of Louisiana elected a Republican Governor with a little sense, who has attempted to "right the ship" down there.

If the people of New Orleans had any sense, they would have dumped that crooked Democrat mayor who proclaimed New Orleans to be "Chocolate City". You, and your liberal brethren should be saluting George Bush, and all that he did for your socialist counterparts down there. The audacity of socialists critizing the Bush Administration for a natural disaster, and then the response by the federal government, when it was not the federal government's duty or job to go into New Orleans, is frankly, quite baffling! If it were not for George Bush, that national calamity would have been far worse!

The other areas that were just as devastated by Katrina in Mississippi, (which had a conservative, Republican Governor) fared quite differently, were self reliant, and have rebuilt in half the time that New Orleans was still crying for more federal dollars, but that is a topic for another thread. This is just one example, of how you, and your socialist brethren are so misguided.

Boycott Israeli Goods Campaign Relaunch - September Actions

----- Original Message -----
From: Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 12:56 PM
Subject: Boycott Israeli Goods Campaign Relaunch - September Actions


BIG Relaunch September 2008

Dear PSC members, supporters and friends

We would like to call on all our members and supporters to join in the Boycott Israeli Goods Campaign's activities for the relaunch of the boycott campaign in September. We plan to carry out a week of action that will be noticed by the public, the press, Israel and the Palestinians.

The aim of the campaign is to show Israel that its continued oppression of the Palestinian people is not condoned by the British public and also to show solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The boycott of Israeli goods will continue until Israel respects Palestinian human rights, abides by international law and ends the occupation. Boycott was an effective tool in helping to end South African apartheid, and it is hoped it will be as effective against Israeli apartheid. The boycott was called for and is supported by Palestinian civil society organisations.

We also encourage activists to contact local shops and mosques about Israeli medjoul dates which are being imported in large quantities this Ramadan (from 1st to 29th of September approximately).

Please find below an outline of the planned actions.

For resources and campaign material please visit the BIG website: www.bigcampaign.org

Or contact the PSC office: info@palestinecampaign.org / Tel: 020 7700 6192


Planned Activist Actions:
September 1st-7th

· PSC office will send letters to the Head Quarters of all major supermarkets in the UK. The letters will also be published on the PSC website. Responses from the supermarkets will also be posted on the website.
· PSC office will contact government ministers from DEFRA, BERR, FCO and The Treasury.
· This week is the beginning of Ramadan and branches are encouraged to campaign in their local Muslim communities to boycott Israeli Medjool dates. Fliers and sample letters will be available from the PSC office and the BIG Campaign website.

September 8th-14th

· Send letters to supermarket branches and other local shop managers who sell Israeli goods. Sample letters will be made available to branches and on the BIG Campaign website.
· Write to your local media as well as national media about your actions and the reasons for the boycott. Local media are always looking for interesting stories and are more likely to take notice.
· Contact local trade organisations, council offices, trade unions, community and faith groups and encourage them to support the boycott.
· Contact prominent local individuals (celebrities, public representatives, faith leaders) and ask them to endorse the BIG campaign, and speak at meetings.
· Speak to local market traders about the origins of their products.
· Contact other providers such as delivery veg box schemes.
· Join your local branch of the Co-Op and have your say. This can be done through their website.
· Organise a local public meeting to mobilise for the BIG campaign. Contact PSC office for suggested speakers and to advertise the meeting on the PSC website.

September 21st-27th — Week of Action

· Street Actions: Set up stalls outside supermarkets. Urge shoppers not to purchase Israeli produce. This includes produce labeled West Bank as it is almost definitely from a settlement. Politely inform shop staff about why you are protesting. Please contact your nearest branch of the PSC to volunteer.
· Arrange a meeting with the supermarket manager.
· Complete shop feedback forms.
· Continue contacting local media.
Materials for stalls and new flyers will be available from the PSC office.

Please keep the PSC office informed of actions taking place and send in action material, reports and photos as they happen. Copies of letters/emails and responses should be sent to head office or info@bigcampaign.org.

Contacts:

Email: info@bigcampaign.org

Send info to:
PSC PO Box BM PSA
London
WC1X 3AA

www.bigcampaign.org


=====================================

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) aims to raise public awareness about the occupation of Palestine and the struggle of the Palestinian people. PSC seek to bring pressure on both the British and Israeli government to bring their policies in line with international law. PSC is an independent, non-governmental and non-party political organisation with members from communities across the UK. Join PSC today!

Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Box BM PSA
London
WC1N 3XX
Tel: 020 7700 6192
Fax: 020 7609 7779
Email: info@palestinecampaign.org
Web: www.palestinecampaign.org