Postal workers have ended unofficial strike action in Dundee as staff elsewhere in Scotland stage the latest in a series of official stoppages.

About 125 workers at the Dundee East office walked out for 24 hours in protest at the sacking of a colleague. Delivery offices in Stirling, Anstruther, Irvine and Lochgelly are affected by the latest official action.

The strikes are part of a UK-wide campaign by the Communication Workers Union (CWU) over working terms. CWU representative Willie Lawson said the Dundee workers had voted to return to work, on the recommendation of the union. An appeal against the sacked colleague's dismissal is likely to be held towards the end of next week.

He said: "We didn't want people taking unofficial action but staff there were unhappy with the way things are.

"We hope there will not be too much disruption to members of the public. Deliveries should soon get back to normal."

The official dispute comes after the CWU and Royal Mail accused each other of reneging on a deal reached in 2007 aimed at modernising the service. The union has accused managers of forcing through change without consultation. Royal Mail has insisted change is necessary to meet the challenges of the 21st Century.

On Friday staff in Edinburgh and Stirling took part in the action.

 

 

Another family has been imprisoned in Dungavel, including three young children, bringing the total number of children detained in the immigration prison this year to over 30, exposing the false promises of "Alternatives to Detention".

Farzana Shad and her daughters Mahnoor (9) and Muteeba (5) and son Huzaifa (7) were detained this week when they went to sign at the Home Office.

This brings the number of children detained in Dungavel this year to over 30, at least 6 of whom have been detained since the beginning of Alternatives to Detention (A2D) program on the 1st June 2009.

A2D was supposed to be a scheme where families can stay in their homes while they await removal. Children could continue at school, and families remain in fully furnished homes until removal occurred.

Farzana and her children were detained and taken to Dungavel detention centre on Tuesday 25th August 2009 and have been given removal directions for a flight at 20.25 on Saturday 29th August from Heathrow.

Farzana had an arranged marriage in Pakistan . Her husband quickly became abusive but she was unable to leave him because of the lack of support for victims of domestic violence and the social stigma around divorce in Pakistan . She came to London to join her husband and his second wife in 2006 and the abuse soon escalated. After he attempted to strangle her in front of her children she escaped and sought refuse at a police station. They advised her to claim asylum and she was subsequently relocated with her children to Glasgow .

Edinburgh council bin workers have hit out at the biased reporting of their situation in the mass media and explained what is really at stake in the dispute which has seen rubbish piling up in Scotland's capital.

I'm proud that Kenny MacAskill and the Scottish government stood firm against US threats and bullying (albeit muted threats, and perhaps relief paraded as "outrage" that Megrhai's legal appeal against conviction has been stopped in its tracks before the conviction was overturned in court).
But the Scottish government have only done half the job. If there is no public inquiry into the 1988 Lockerbie bombing then the real bombers of Pan Am Flight 103 will have got away with it, the victims families will have been conned, and the Scottish government will have given in to the US/UK governments pressure to cover up what really happened.
The hidden agenda that led to the UK and US intelligence services framing of Al-Meghrahi and Libya is still being suppressed in the mainstream Scottish media. The real culprits - which most independent investigations have named very specifically as a Palestinian terrorist cell based in Germany and headed by Hafez Dalkamonim (part of Ahmed Jibril's PFLP group as it was back then) have never stood trial for this inhuman crime. Its about time they did if justice is to be done.

The Scottish Patient

RNAD Coulport was blockaded this morning resulting in four arrests.

This morning three people from Faslane Peace Camp and three members of Trident Ploughshares blockaded the main gate at RNAD Coulport as the day shift arrived for work. Using multi-layered lock on tubes of plastic, steel and washing line they effectively stopped all traffic entering the gate for three hours. The four blockaders were all charged with “Breach of the peace”. An attempt to also obstruct Construction Gate was prevented by the presence of MoD police who said they were waiting for the end of their shift.

 Coulport is the facility for storing UK’s Trident nuclear warhead in bunkers dug into the hillside, on the side of Loch Long. The site of RNAD Coulport was formerly occupied by the village of Coulport and “Kibble Palace” the large Victorian greenhouse now removed to the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow. The village was also one end of the ferry to Ardentinny on the opposite shore.

 In December 2008, we created an anti-fascist mural in Bochum, to commemorate those seven anti-fascist from different european countries, who had been killed by neo-nazis during the last years.

After we photographed the whole process of production, we brought those and several other materials together and made a documentary of it, about the mural and the background of the seven murdered antifas.

 Please demand the release of these activists.
A sample letter, addresses, and statements by Nigerien and international rights groups are below.
Further links to background material follows sample letter and statements.

It was a rare day's sunshine on the afternoon of Saturday 22 August, when the annual Glasgow Legalise Cannabis demonstration took place, marching from George Square, through the city centre to Kelvingrove Park. 

Start: Sep 9 2009 - 6:00pm End: Sep 9 2009 - 10:00pm

At the meetup you can come along with your tech problems and as a group we try and tackle the problems together, so far problems have included fixing a sound problem (the sound not working) on a laptop, installing free security software, an overview of audio editing programmes and how to rip music from any program running on a computer

The tech meetup is also available as a space for move advanced tech users to come along to work together on their projects, it currently works as an informal meeting for AnarchoTV (www.anarchotv.net)

The Mainshill Solidarity Camp was set up in June to stop an open cast coal mine from being built next to the village of Douglass in South Lanarkshire. Two weeks ago it hosted the Camp for Climate Action Scotland. The camp has treehouses, towers and tunnels all built to resist eviction.

Since the end of Climate Camp Scotland we've been sorting out left over tat and continuing building defences. This week we have had an increase in Police surveillance with early morning visits on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Both times two police officers walked around the site taking video footage of defences.