A protest was held outside the Scottish parliment against deportation. Specifically the Vucaj family. A question was then raised in first ministers question time. It was dismissed as immigration and asylum powers remain with Westminster.

The Fairtrade Foundation has just announced that it has given a fairtrade label to a new line of Nestle coffee (Nescafe Partners Blend). This is a betrayal of the principles of fairtrade principles, set up over the last 20 years to stop the marginalisation of small-scale farmers, to guarantee fair prices for products, and to support democratic control by producers over their products.

Two street medics arrested at the Carnival For Full Enjoyment during the anti-G8 protests last July were acquitted of Breach of the Peace in court on Friday. The trial took place in a Sheriff’s court in Edinburgh, and lasted for around 4 hours.

STOP the BLOODSHED in PALESTINE!

A Lerwick man chained himself to one of the town's main roads in protest against the high speed of cars and lorries there.

Venerable Glasgow Engineering company Weir Group are accused of channeling $4.5M in "after sales service" to agents of the former Iraqi regime. More details of the accusations have emerged from the report into the UN oil-for-food programme. The company refused to let the investigators interview Andrew MacLeod of Edinburgh whose name appears on several of the documents authorising payment. The company has been the target of protests at this and other unethical business practices. These new revelations come before the trial in Glasgow on Tuesday of activists accused of blockading the Weir Pumps' Cathcart site back in July.

Detailed article on the role of celebrity "campaigners" Bono, Bob Geldof and Richard Curtis in shifting the goals and strategy of the Make Poverty History coalition around the G8. Highlights include: Geldof's ecstatic response to the G8 agreement coming *after* being told by MPH that it was mince; the Live8 concerts were organised by Geldof & co with the knowledge of Oxfam, Comic Relief and the UK Treasury but kept secret from the rest of MPH; the token "Africa" Live8 concert in Cornwall only came about after plans for a concert in Jo'berg were torpedoed by the people organising live8 and was then sponsored by Nestle, BAe Systems and Rio Tinto. If / when I'd mentioned this sort of stuff to people in June I would've been told I was paranoid...

Would you know how to help someone if: * They collapsed at a demo? * They were hit by a police baton? * They were suffering from the cold on a protest site?

This is a 920 word article about the talk given by freelance journalist and activist Ewa Jasiewicz on Iraq at Caledonian University recently. 9 labelled photos and some related websites are included.