Thursday 15th July “False Solutions and Dangerous Distractions”
6pm-7:30pm Political Strategy Discussion organised by Friends of the Earth
Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/93137875217
Silvia Ribeiro – ETC Group
Pascoe Sabido – Corporate Europe Observatory
Andy Stirling – University of Sussex
In this week’s discussion evening, we will discuss dangerous technologies that are emerging as the newest “fix” to the climate crisis, and why they are not only false solutions, but a dangerous distraction from fighting the climate crisis. We will hear from Silvia Ribeiro (ETC Group) on the dangerous implications of geoengineering and BECCS, while Pascoe Sabido (CEO) will explain why we shouldn’t believe the new hype on hydrogen, and why the fossil fuel lobby is pushing for it. We will also hear from Andy Stirling (University of Sussex) on why nuclear power is not the way forward either. Everyone welcome!
Thursday 15th July “Legal Challenges to the Hostile Environment”
7-8.30pm SYMAAG Talks for Change #5
With a panel including Independent investigative journalist May Bulman, “activist lawyers” Tom Nunn, John Nicholson, a rep from Young Legal Aid Lawyers and lots of time for your ideas – enough to give Pritti Patel a nightmare.
Register here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/symaag-talks-for-change-5-campaigning-for-change-with-the-legal-system-tickets-162027597907
Stuart Crosthwaite, Secretary, South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group (SYMAAG)
Friday 16th July Palestine “The Battle for Beita: Resisting Colonisation”
5pm BST/ 7pm Palestine Seeds Association for Development and Culture (Nablus) invite you to a webinar: https://www.facebook.com/events/453273835865907
Supported by Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Sheffield Labour Friends of Palestine and Scottish PSC
Speakers: Activists from Beita and Sheffield
The village of Beita near Nablus in the West Bank is resisting Israel’s objective to fragment the Palestinian population into isolated cantons. An Israeli settler outpost is seeking to cut off the road between Nablus and Ramallah. Since 1967, the villagers have suffered 87 deaths in the face of live fire from the Israeli military. In May, two teenagers, Mohammed Said Mohammed Hamayel (16) and his friend Ahmad Zahi Ibrahim Bani-Shamsa (15) were shot dead by Israeli fire. Six children have been killed in Beita in the last year as Israeli war crimes against unarmed civilians escalate throughout Palestine.
Beita activists will give a first-hand account of their struggle and discuss ways to link with the international solidarity movement to hold Israel accountable.
Friday 16th July “Stop deportations to Zimbabwe!”
Protest 3pm outside Home Office Vulcan House, Sheffield S3 8NU. Organised by South Yorks Asylum and Migration Action group (SYMAAG) Join us for a socially-distanced protest with masks. Bring your banners and placards.
Zimbabweans are being snatched and detained NOW! Reports are coming in suggesting Zimbabweans have been snatched when they have turned up to report at centres, and taken from their homes – in Manchester, London, Southampton, and Wakefield – 28 people so far. Many are being held in Colnbrook Detention Centre near Heathrow.
In secret meetings on June 22 and June 23 in Harare, Zimbabwe, a deal was struck between Emily Hardy of the UK High Commission and a diplomat from the brutal Mnangagwa regime. Zimbabwe is not safe for people seeking asylum to be returned to, particularly those who have spoken out against the military dictatorship.
Nevertheless, the deal was for up to 150 undocumented Zimbabweans to be deported from the UK on a private jet from Heathrow next week on Wednesday 21 July Those to be deported include undocumented people, but the media will be advised that they are all convicted criminals, the meetings concluded.
The fightback has already started. Zimbabwean groups are organising a national petition to oppose the flight, Duncan Lewis’s solicitors are preparing a legal challenge to the deportation. Anti-Raids have produced this leaflet about your rights as an asylum seeker to resist immigration raids, in Shona, one of the main languages of Zimbabwe.
The Home Office has tried this before, in 2019, in Sheffield. The Zimbabwean community, South Yorkshire asylum-rights groups and local supporters organised an online petition signed by 77.000 people against deportations to Zimbabwe of people who had lived here for many years. It was a successful campaign and got our friends released from detention in Morton Hall IRC. A mass rally in February 2019 was held outside Vulcan House to welcome released Zimbabweans.
We can win again – We can stop the deportations. Leave our friends and neighbours alone!
Saturday 17th July In Defence of Cuba- Now Cuba needs our solidarity!
12 noon till 1pm outside Sheffield Town Hall. Rally organised by Sheffield Cuba Solidarity Campaign
Cuba’s solidarity with other peoples in struggle is without parallel. On 11 July thousands of Cubans joined anti-government protests—and much larger numbers demonstrated in support of the revolution. What is the background to these latest events? For 60 years US governments have enforced a vicious economic blockade on Cuba, attempting, in its words, “to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” Trump intensified this economic war with 243 new sanctions—plunging Cuba into a crisis made much worse by covid-19, which has shut down tourism, a vital source of hard currency. On 23 June the UN General Assembly voted 184 to 2 to condemn the US blockade, only Israel sided with the USA. Yet Pres. Biden is continuing Trump’s policy, hoping to turn economic crisis into political crisis by funnelling millions of dollars to “dissidents” to organise protests—which fizzle out because the great majority of Cuban people refuse to join in. Cuban people are sick and tired of the hardships caused by the vicious US blockade, but they’ll never support the tiny numbers of mercenaries and extremists attempting to create the conditions for direct US intervention. Biden is the latest US President to underestimate Cubans’ resolve to defend their socialist revolution, reflected in the highest ratio of doctors to citizens and the highest share of GDP spent on education of any country in the world.
Donate to CSC’s Covid-19 medical appeal for Cuba! Stand by Cuba, say NO to the US blockade! Sheffield Cuba Solidarity Campaign Check us out on Facebook, or write to sheffieldcsc@btinternet.com
Wednesday 21st July ‘International Solidarity with Palestine & Latin America’
7pm till 9pm Public zoom debate organised by Sheffield Labour Left
To join use link us02web.zoom.us
With international institutions, and local Israeli organisations, now publicly calling Israel an apartheid state, plus the ongoing attempts to oppress socialist-orientated movements in South America and elsewhere, it is as important as ever that socialists here show solidarity with those oppressed and fighting back for a better world.
This meeting is open to all, there will be plenty of time for questions and contributions.
Speakers:
Musheir El-Farra – Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign
John Smith – Sheffield Cuba Solidarity Campaign. Author of ‘Imperialism in the 21st Century’.
Maria Vasquez-Aguilar – Chile Solidarity Network (Sheffield)
The meeting will be chaired by Martin Mayer, the Chair of Sheffield Labour Left.
Wednesday 21st July “Britain’s Bus Crisis: Privatisation, Poverty & Human Rights” Launch of Report produced by Philip Alston, former UN rapporteur.
7pm till 8pm National zoom meeting to launch the report with presentations on its main findings from Philip and his team. The Report on the links between bus privatisation in the UK and poverty is due to be published on 20th July.
You can register for the meeting (free) using this link:
“I have invited Dan Jarvis and most Barnsley local councillors to the meeting. It would be good if everyone could invite their own councillors and council leader to join this important meeting. Please also forward this information to your own contacts and share from our Facebook page @betterbusesforsy (and click “going” or “interested”). The organisers (who represent bus campaigns from across the UK) hope the meeting will attract publicity – the more people involved the better, to show how important bus services are to us all!”
Fran Postlethwaite, Better Buses South Yorkshire Campaign.
Monday 26th July Lobby of the Mayoral Combined Authority meeting
9.30am till 10.30am outside Sheffield City Region Offices, 11 Broad St W, Sheffield City Centre S1 2BQ. Organised by Better Buses South Yorkshire Campaign
City Region Mayor Dan Jarvis and the four Local Council Leaderships are meeting here – we want to tell them loud and clear that we want them to take back control of our buses! So far, they have only agreed to an “enhanced partnership” with the private bus operators, which is totally inadequate to protect never mind improve our bus services. The Government say they are allowed to go for a franchising option, taking back control over the private bus operators. Although franchising is not the whole answer, it is an essential first step to bringing buses back into municipal ownership and control. So let’s pile the pressure on our local political leaders to go for it! https://fb.me/e/2xMDbaTow
Wednesday 28th July “Don’t Let Corporate Courts Block Climate Action”
7pm till 8pm Zoom webinar organised by Global Action Now
Register here: https://globaljustice.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=eebd66b68746be9844586842a&id=4f1cec3dce&e=0c25474dcd
Jean Blaylock, Campaigns & Policy Manager, Global Justice Now
Niels Jongerius, Economic Justice Programme, Transnational Institute
Stuart Trew, Director, Trade and Investment Research Project, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Corporate courts, written into trade rules, are an obstacle to a clean energy transition and to achieving climate justice.
- The Netherlands is being sued by two fossil fuel companies for phasing out coal power
- The US is being sued by a Canadian fossil fuel company after President Biden cancelled the Keystone tar sands pipeline
- A UK fossil fuel company is suing Slovenia over fracking
The UK should be getting rid of corporate courts. Instead the government wants to set them in stone – signing new deals with corporate courts in them, like the UK-Canada deal and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and recommitting to an existing big corporate court deal, the Energy Charter Treaty.
The government hopes to get away with this under the radar, because not enough people know what’s going on.
That’s why we’re bringing together speakers from the UK, Netherlands and Canada to learn more about this.
Saturday 31st July “Building for COP 26 – Transport and the climate”
11am to 1pm Stalls and speakers outside Sheffield Town Hall. Organised by Sheffield Climate Umbrella COP 26 Action Group.
Better Buses South Yorkshire and other campaign groups concerned over transport issues will be there to argue why public transport is central to fighting the climate emergency with their banners, leaflets etc. Sheffield Climate Alliance, Green New Deal, XR, trade unions, political groups, Clean Air, cycling, community groups etc are also invited so, please raise this in your organisation and encourage people to come along. We want speakers too from as many different campaigns as possible!
COP 26 is the 26th International Conference of the Partners where world leaders meet to discuss action on climate change. This year it is being hosted by UK in Glasgow in November. SCCUG is planning a series of action days like this one taking up a particular theme and what needs to be done to address climate change
Please share this information as widely as you can.
Saturday 7 August 2021 Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Lecture
“Sylvia Pankhurst: women, race and class – then and now” will be delivered by Professor Mary Davis
“The work of Sylvia Pankhurst was remarkable in its day for bridging the separate spheres of women’s, race and class politics. What can this teach us today as we attempt to navigate the cul-de-sac of identity politics? How should we understand the interconnections between the struggle to end exploitation and oppression? Drawing on the work of Sylvia Pankhurst, this lecture will examine the way in which racism & sexism as oppressive ideologies and practices are founded on class exploitation and are central to its maintenance.”
Sponsored by the Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Committee, the National Assembly of Women, and Wortley Hall.
The lecture will be followed by light refreshments. If you require accommodation at Wortley Hall for the night, please contact them on 0114 2882100, info@wortleyhall.com www.wortleyhall.org.uk
Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Committee, 07932 873838, megan@gn.apc.org, www.gn.apc.org/sylviapankhurst
National Assembly of Women, naw@sisters.org.uk, www.sisters.org.uk
Sunday 8th August “Coal and the End of Industrial Britain”
3pm Zoom Meeting organised by Media North You can join the event through this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwpc-qhqDkuE9zfkMwlxCBHw3XoxZ_KyE9T
Sponsored by Wortley Hall
The publication of an important new book, “The Shadow of the Mine” by Huw Beynon and Ray Hudson, is the focus for this meeting, timed to coincide with when we would usually hold our annual South Yorkshire Festival event at Wortley Hall. The book explores the political consequences of what happens when an industry disappears and the cultural and social activity tied to that employment is lost. We’re delighted that Huw Beynon and Ray Hudson will be speaking at this topical and important event.
Jean Spence and Carol Richardson, who contributed to the second edition of Shafted and have written extensively on women and mining, are also speaking.
Our final speaker is Nick Jones, former BBC industrial correspondent, who has written extensively on the mining industry
For more information go to www.medianorth.org.uk or contact cpbfnorth@outlook.com
Sunday 3rd October Protest the Tory Party Conference
12 pm assemble at Piccadilly, Manchester, M1 2, United Kingdom
Organised by Peoples Assembly Against Austerity
The Tories are back in Manchester and so we will be there to protest them every step of the way. There will be a national demonstration and march on Sunday 3 October and all Manchester venues will be alive with counter politics over the rest of their conference.
Solidarity and #ToriesOut