“The time is right to remove nuclear weapons from Scotland”

Photo: Gareth Harper

 

Scotland could invoke international law to block the UK government’s desire to maintain a nuclear arsenal, one of the world’s leading legal experts has stated.

In the run-up to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s 51st anniversary on February 17th, Judge Christopher Weeramantry, former vice-president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), told an Edinburgh conference that while defence matters are reserved to the UK Parliament, the Scottish Parliament has international humanitarian and legal obligations that weapons of mass destruction violate.

Weeramantry said: “Gross violations of international obligations aren’t excluded from the purview of the Scottish Parliament. The absence of power in the former area cannot cancel out its responsibilities in the latter.”

Dumpster-diving: Bin there, done that?

Photo: Wikicommons

Veritas gets down in the dumpster in the hunt for free food

With the country now ‘officially’ in recession, after the worst slump in gross domestic product (GDP) since 1980, unemployment is on the rise in all industries with predictions of two million jobless in 2009. Though quarterly student loans means that Scottish students are less affected, a high proportion of Napier’s international students relying on part-time jobs are less lucky.

But instead of focusing on the recession, and predictions that it’s only going to get worse, Veritas has hit the streets in its first instalment of ‘how to live for free…’ This month we look at food and the practise of ‘dumpster-diving’ – where people go through supermarket chain bins filling their fridges with food waste.

Starting back in the mid-‘90s in New York, the ‘freegan’ movement has gathered momentum in the past year in the UK, with research figures revealing a high proportion of the 6.7 million tonnes sent to landfill annually is  ‘avoidable’. The movement in Edinburgh has also grown in popularity, with numerous online forums organising meet-ups as well as positive media attention.

Napier doesn’t make the grade in nation-wide student experience survey

Napier University bottomed out in a UK-wide ranking of universities, according to a survey of students’ perception of their experience at university.

The survey, the second of its kind and commissioned by The Times Higher Education Supplement, placed Napier University at 93 out of 101 universities in a poll designed to showcase universities offering the top student experience.

Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, said: “While some cynics may be quick to dismiss the results as ‘just another league table’, what makes this survey stand apart is that students themselves determine the factors important in delivering a high-quality experience.”

The time has come: remove nukes from Scotland

Photo: Wikicommons

 

Scotland could invoke international law to block the UK government’s desire to maintain a nuclear arsenal, one of the world’s leading legal experts has stated.

In the run-up to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s 51^st anniversary on February 17^th, Judge Christopher Weeramantry, former vice-president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), told an Edinburgh conference that while defence matters are reserved to the UK Parliament, the Scottish Parliament has international humanitarian and legal obligations that weapons of mass destruction violate.Weeramantry said: “Gross violations of international obligations aren’t excluded from the purview of the Scottish Parliament. The absence of power in the former area cannot cancel out its responsibilities in the latter.”

Pirate Bay no safe habour for file sharing

 

 

Photo: Pirate Bay

 

 

The word ‘pirate’ is derived from the Greek word peira, which roughly translates to ‘to find luck on the sea’. Language lessons aside, it seems Swedish-hosted file sharing site Pirate Bay is no longer sailing through untroubled waters. In a court case that has bordered on farcical, three of the website’s co-founders, Fredik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi and the site’s donor, Swedish dotcom millionaire Carl Lundström, stood in the dock in Stockholm charged with copyright infringement and staring two years in prison and a fine of £98,000 in the face.

The trial has been the scene of comical moments: when asked if he wished compensation for appearing, part of Swedish court procedure, one of the defense witnesses quipped he would like flowers sent to his wife. This resulted in £3,000 worth of flowers sent via the internet by Pirate Bay supporters.

Controversial comedy – Or political correctness gone mad? Ex-Veritas columnist in discrimination row

 

 

Photo: Will Andrews

 

 

In a case of preaching to the unconverted, Scottish comedian The Reverend Obadian Steppenwolfe III has been accused of “grossly crossing a line of decency and respect” by the Stirling University Students Association (SUSA), who are campaigning to have him banned from 16 student unions

The Reverend, real name Jim Muir, joked about the appearance of a transvestite student sitting in the front row of a recent student union gig in Stirling.

Mark Cullen, Vice President Services and Treasurer of SUSA, said: “There is nothing that the student movement takes more seriously than equality and he was essentially a bully. We all accept that comedy will often be cutting edge and controversial but there is a line of decency and respect that was grossly crossed.”

Grassed up: council defends £40,000 bill to returf Gardens

Photo: Emma McDowell

It’s usually the only place in Edinburgh where you can watch a businessman in a sharp suit gobbling a 99 cone like a sunburnt child at the seaside, ice cream smeared across their face and dripping on their double breasted pockets. 

But the lawns of East Princes Street Gardens won’t be playing host to this and other sights until after Easter as work commences to repair the damage to the grass caused by the city’s winter festival events.

Both sections of the garden will be returfed under orders from Edinburgh City Council, after assessments of the grass declared it failed to recover from the impact made by the winter tourist attractions.

Google StreetView UK a sight for sore eyes

Photo: Demian Hobby

We ‘hoover’ the house when it’s dusty, ‘clingfilm’ our leftovers to sate a late-night hunger, daydream of ‘jetskiing’ Baywatch-esque through turquoise waters, ‘Google’ the answer to a drunken argument over who created cream cheese… When brand names become so ubiquitous they morph into adjectives, it can categorically said they have become part of our collective consciousness.

 

Usually considered a benevolent Big Brother, Google’s introduction of Google Street View to the UK last week has been greeted with flurries of a media storm. The feature, part of Google Maps, provides 360 degree panoramic views of the streets of 25 UK cities.

A myriad of concerns have been voiced, ranging from claims of invasions of privacy to apprehension the service could be used as an aid in planning crimes.

Be the change you want to see in the world

 

Photo: flickr.com/photos/vrampersad

MSPs, meetings, memos… These meaningless ways of engaging with the institutions which govern our everyday existence cannot possibly foster any type of change in the fundamental structure of our society.

The brainwash begins when we enter formal education. Not only are we conditioned to accept a highly regimented schedule as the best way to organize the day, preparing us like rats for the ‘adult’ world of a full time job, but that polite hand-raising and quiet agreement with policy is enough to affect change.

Antiquated styles of protest, such as marches, hand-held signs, and gatherings, are now powerless to effect real change because they have become such a predictable part of the status quo.

Those yearning for change, who cannot accept this bruised-apple version of the world, who will not wait the many years for legislation to be approved, seek more immediate solutions through direct action.

Direct action involves activities like sabotage, strikes, workplace occupation, sit-ins, street demonstrations, spray painting, and squatting. Contrast this with indirect action, such as electing representatives to spew half-truths and inconsistencies.

Direct action can become violent and thus a form of civil disobedience, but many famous incidents of direct action have been non-violent in nature.

Mahatma Gandhi pioneered the philosophy of Satyagraha, “resistance to evil through active, non-violent resistance”. His methods of non-cooperation, peaceful resistances and fasting brought attention to India and its strife, both externally and internally. Would the same result have been produced by petitions and pamphlets?

Hunger: Movie review

 

Photo: Studio Promotional Material

“There is no such thing as political murder, political bombing or political violence. There is only criminal murder, criminal bombing and criminal violence.”

With two simple sentences, Thatcher’s monotone articulation condemned ten Irish Republican hunger strikers to death during the summer of 1981. Hunger, directed by Turner Prize-winning artist Steve McQueen, focuses on Bobby Sands, the first prisoner to initiate the hunger strike in 1981 in power struggle between the paramilitary prisoners and the Prime Minister.

Cinematically, the film is engrossing. McQueen uses unconventional angles to convey very conventional actions. Rather than watching a mouth chew breakfast, the camera concentrates on a lap being showered with toast crumbs. Instead of a face wincing in pain, we are shown blood trailing out of battered knuckles immersed in a basin of water.

Although Hunger’s focal point is the prisoners and their use of the body as a political weapon, the film also attempts to humanize the prison guards as well. The everyday routine of getting ready for work includes one of the guards checking underneath his car for a bomb while his wife peers fearfully through lace curtains.

The film’s violence is extremely realistic, which makes it more disquieting. Far removed from slasher gore, the brutality inflicted on the prisoners in the movie will elicit gasps. Michael Fassbender, who plays the role of Sands, achieved his skeletal figure through a medically monitored crash diet, and his wizened frame spotted with sores is disconcerting.

What is most striking are the levels of silence and noise. The senses are soothed by a shot of a guard quietly smoking in the snow, then barraged by a scene filled with riot police bashing their batons against their shields.

McQueen won the Camera d’Or (for first-time directors) at Cannes this year for Hunger, and it’s an impressive debut. 

Published in Veritas December 2008 Issue 101