The Sunday Herald has this week ( Controversial US firm’s role in census cut back ) drawn attention to moves by the Scottish Government to minimise access to data about Scottish households given to census contractor CACI - a company that has been involved in human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But there will be no cut-back in the £18.5 million being paid to CACI for its work on the census.

 Study shows 'reality gap' for Britons who think they know about immigration
By Cahal Milmo, Chief Reporter, the Independent, Monday, 8 June 2009
http://tinyurl.com/lycx3n

The new principal Jim McDonald is implementing sweeping cuts to the campus over the coming year with 140 staff already lost, plans to sell off 40% of the campus including the Union building and Royal College to private developers and the loss of Education and Law, Arts & Social Sciences as distinct Faculties.

"They are opposed to plans by the government of President Alan Garcia to open up communal jungle lands for oil exploration, logging, mining and large-scale farming."

 Full Article here

North Kelvin Meadow, the "guerilla" garden, allotments and park in North Kelvinside, came under renewed threat of sale last week by the Council who own the land.

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF ACTIONS AGAINST HOUSE EVICTIONS AND DEMOLITIONS IN PALESTINE
- Monday 13th July 2009
THE COMMUNITY OF SHEIKH JARRAH CALLS FOR INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT

SET UP TENTS OUTSIDE ISRAELI EMBASSIES WORLDWIDE IN SOLIDARITY WITH NEIGHBOURHOODS OF OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM

Tents have become a powerful symbol of the struggle of Palestinian people living in occupied East Jerusalem. They have been set up as centres of protest in neighbourhoods threatened by numerous eviction and demolition orders, part of Israel's wider policy to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem of its Palestinian population. Ultimately this would destroy any hope of East Jerusalem becoming the capital of a future Palestinian state. A number of the tents, notably the one in Sheikh Jarrah, have been built by Palestinian residents forcibly evicted from their homes as a result of Israel's racist policy. Palestinians, who became refugees in 1948 & 1967 are, once again, facing dispossession from their homes and land as our governments stand by and do nothing.

The neighbourhoods most severely affected are Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Ras Khamiis, Al Tur and Sur Beher however house evictions and demolitions are not uncommon in the Old City itself. In Silwan, 88 homes in the al Bustan quarter are facing immediate destruction in order to create space for a planned national park. In addition, two apartment buildings housing 34 families in the adjacent al Abbasiyya quarter have also received demolition orders. When completed, up to 2,000 Palestinians will be uprooted from their homes.

The local communities are calling for international activists to organise symbolic protests and set up tents outside of Israeli embassies or Zionist organisations worldwide to stand in solidarity with the protest tents in the neighbourhoods of Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Ras Khamiis, Al Tur and Sur Beher.

THE CASE OF SHEIKH JARRAH