blessed britons

Sessional Orders are passed at the beginning of every Parliamentary session under an 1839 law to ensure free passage for MP’s to arrive and depart from Parliament. Similar Orders apply to the House of Lords. Under the 2005 SOCPA legislation any march / demonstration in the vicinity of Parliament must be allowed to take place so long as a minimum of 6 days notice is given to the police.
Something more restrictive was needed so the 1839 legislation passed many years before this country had universal suffrage is now being used to attempt to ban the 8 October Troops Out march. Since the march to Parliament is intended to be a peaceful attempt to alert Parliament to the feeling of the majority of the British public about the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan and MP’s themselves will be on the march this cannot be interpreted as obstructing the passage of members of Parliament.

— Stop the War Coalition

www.stopwar.org.uk

mad world

It doesn’t get madder than this. Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava. The government has allocated several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production in the county of Lavumisa, which happens to be the place worst hit by drought. It would surely be quicker and more humane to refine the Swazi people and put them in our tanks.

— George Monbiot

The western appetite for biofuels is causing starvation in the developing world

Hague Conventions

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Submitted by antarchi on May 27, 2008 - 15:39.

CONVENTION (I) FOR THE PACIFIC SETTLEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES (HAGUE I) (29 July 1899)

TITLE I. ON THE MAINTENANCE OF THE GENERAL PEACE
Article 1

With a view to obviating, as far as possible, recourse to force in the relations between States, the Signatory Powers agree to use their best efforts to insure the pacific settlement of international differences.
TITLE II. ON GOOD OFFICES AND MEDIATION
Article 2

In case of serious disagreement or conflict, before an appeal to arms, the Signatory Powers agree to have recourse, as far as circumstances allow, to the good offices or mediation of one or more friendly Powers.

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III
CONVENTION RELATIVE TO THE OPENING OF HOSTILITIES

Entered into Force: 26 January 1910
Article 1

The Contracting Powers recognize that hostilities between themselves must not commence without previous and explicit warning, in the form either of a reasoned declaration of war or of an ultimatum with conditional declaration of war.

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blessed britons

mad world

Hague Conventions