RaW News has today learnt of the tragic death of Jason Venezia, a first year student from the Psychology Department who lived in Claycroft.
His body was found on the afternoon of Tuesday 13th May on campus in his residence in Claycroft and the cause of death is as yet unconfirmed.
University staff and health professionals are working to support those students who were closest to him and his family have been contacted.
According to the University website, the Vice-Chancellor Professor Nigel Thrift said of the death: “The death of any student is felt deeply by the University community – particularly by friends and staff who knew them well. We offer our sincere condolences to his family and his friends.”
The University also says that a book of condolence will open in the Chaplaincy on Friday.
On 1 May, 2008, students and other activists at the University of Warwick protested against E.ON’s plans to build a new coal power station at the Kingsnorth site in Kent. Members of the People and Planet network were joined by others interested in the cause, and members of the local group The Rising Tide in marching from the centre of the campus to E.ON’s national headquarters, located on the edge of the university in Westwood Business Park.
In a statement released by the organisers they state: “In our view, the issue is very simple: climate change is a fact, and burning fossil fuels (coal, gas and oil) for energy provision is a vast contributing factor to this, accounting for about 86% of global energy production. The UK is also obliged, under EU energy policy, to source 20% of its energy from renewable sources. For all these reasons, it seems very short-sighted and unreasonable to be investing large sums of money (£1.7 billion for Kingsnorth alone) when attention should be focussing on making renewables more efficient and wide-spread. E.ON claims that the replacement of the existing Kingsnorth coal power plant will be fitted with carbon capturing technology, which will enable it to store the emissions underground. However, research into carbon capturing is only at the trial stage and solutions will probably not be deployable until the 2020’s.”
With all this in mind, the protestors gathered at noon in the Piazza, Warwick’s central square, where they erected two 12-foot model power station chimneys. The 50-60 protestors marched across campus, chanting and handing out information leaflets, gaining momentum and attracting a lot of attention from a student population that is currently much more concerned with revising for impending summer examinations. Upon reaching the E.ON building at the far end of the business park, the group continued chanting and the staged a game “catch the carbon”. This was a playful reference to E.ON’s claims that the emissions from the coal power station would be negligible with its new carbon capturing technology, which will supposedly be able to “store the carbon underground” (E.ON website). The game involved one person with some black balloons (the carbon emission) being chased by others with fishing nets (the carbon capture). The game concluded after several rounds that the carbon capturing technology was unfit for purpose at present, thus demonstrating what the protestors were there for in the first instance.
After enquiring whether he could have a statement from an E.ON member of staff, Alex Fowles, an organiser of the protest, was joined by Emily Highmore, E.ON’s senior press officer. When asked why E.ON was supporting a new set of coal power stations, she reasoned that it was their duty as energy providers to maintain a low price and a constant supply of electricity to homes and businesses. It was for the same reason that E.ON opposed a public enquiry into the governments impending decision about whether it should support E.ON’s plans. She further quoted E.ON’s commitment to an “energy mix”, in which renewable sources of energy played a part, but all in the context of guaranteeing energy supplies. She was not able to offer an explanation as to how carbon capturing was to be used if the technology was not ready yet, insisting that it would be installed from day one.
Overall, it is probably safe to say that the protest itself will probably not impact greatly on E.ON’s and the government’s decision-making processes. However, as part of the bigger movement of events, such as a protest outside parliament on April 1, and the Camp for Climate Action in August to be held at Kingsnorth, and a planned meeting with the University’s MP, Warwick University’s People and Planet society have great hope that it will have raised awareness and made their contribution to the ever louder growing voices saying “No!” to an “unsustainable and short-sighted” energy policy.
As if things could not get any worse for Gordon Brown, local elections have risen to strike another blow against the Government. In an election result, the likes of which have not been seen since the golden days of New Labour back in the mid 1990s, the Conservatives smashed the Labour Party across the country securing over 200 seats and the Governments losing around 300 seats. The Liberal Democrats had a disappointing night, gaining around 30 seats but a silver lining appeared when the BBC revealed that their share of the national vote was 1% higher then Labour, putting the Government in third place at 24% compared to 25% for the Liberal Democrats. The Conservative Party was in buoyant mood when the poll put them on 44% enough to secure a majority of over 120 seats, if such results were to occur in a General Election.
Whichever way the results are put, they are disappointing for the Labour Party. 331 Councillors down, reduced from 27% of the National Vote to 24% and 9 councils lost, including some in their midland and northern heartlands. The Conservatives picked up 256 new councillors, 12 new councils and increased their share of the vote by 4%. The Liberal Democrats had to content themselves with 34 new councillors, a single new council and a reduction in a vote by 1%.
Labour was given a further kick in the teeth, when the Conservatives managed to secure the London Mayoralty from Ken Livingstone. The charismatic but gaffe-prone, Boris Johnson, beat the former Mayor of London by over 100,000 votes making for more depressing reading from the point of view of the Prime Minister.
The week worsened for the Prime Minister when Scottish Labour Leader, Wendy Alexander made what could be one of the most important political decisions ever taken by a Scottish Labour Leader, when she decided to push the First Minister Alex Salmond to call a referendum on independence. Mrs Alexander told Alex Salmond to ‘bring it on’ and the Prime Minister was humiliated at Question Time as he tried desperately to get out of the mess his Scottish counterpart had put him in. Leader of the Opposition David Cameron battered the Prime Minister on other issues as well including early release schemes and called on Mr. Brown to ‘stop the PR and start being a PM’.
Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg also stuck the boot in when it came to the 10p Tax Revolt, saying that as a matter of principle the Prime Minister should compensate those that are going to lose out from the tax changes.
The Weekend Newspapers though have not given the beleaguered Prime Minister any respite. Saturday saw the release of Cherie Blair’s Memoirs in the form of a serialisation by The Times, she claimed that Mr. Brown had ‘rattled the keys’ of No.10 to get Tony Blair out earlier and that Mr. Blair was now helping Mr. Brown to get through this politically damaging times, rumours which have been denied by senior Brown aides. The Sunday papers are even worse, with John Prescott’s Memoirs stating how he had advised the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to sack the Chancellor as well as describing the PM as ‘annoying, bewildering and prickly’. An Observer Poll has also shown the Prime Minister being rated as ‘worse then Cameron’ on all tests that they conducted on public feelings.
The Prime Minister is going to have to act fast to stop the rot, with most political commentators speaking of the Conservatives waltzing towards a landslide akin to 1997, a possible third revolt on benefit cuts in the Budget and a personal poll rating even worse then his predecessor at his most unpopular this looks like another tough week for the Prime Minister and the Government. As ever, RaW News shall keep students up to date with all the latest events and provide analysis.
Earlier this month the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs issued its
update on the classification of cannabis. The government had sought a
review of its 2004 re classification of the drug from a class B to class C. The
review was commissioned out of a concern that the strength of cannabis
people are taking is far stronger than it was four years ago. Concern is also shown by the home secretary Jacquie Smith and PM Gordon Brown, who appeare determined to tighten the laws on cannabis, but The advisory council suggested that the drug remain at its current classification. The Association of Chief Police Officers, however, have compelled the government to reverse its 2004 decision. They suggest that the drug be taken back up to class b. Downgrading cannabis sent out the wrong message that cannabis was legal and harmless. This has all been a bit of a confusion for the government, as saving police time and resources was the primary reason put forward by the Home Office for the down grading of cannabis in the first place.
As for the statistics, well, come to all sorts of conclusions. For example last year the London’s Institute of Psychiatry, estimated that at least 1/10th of the 250,000 schizophrenics in the UK could have avoided the illness if they had not used cannabis. Only this month, Keele University’s research suggested this wasn’t wholly true; there was no causal link between cannabis use and mental health problems. So with the government, police and experts all giving out mixed messages, is it possible to find our way through the smoke? I spoke to 2 students about their encounters with cannabis and other drugs and what they made of the inconsistencies. I began by asking them, if they thought the government was right to down grade cannabis four years ago…
With the headline in the Boar shouting “I don’t believe it” when it came to the news that Warwick Atheists had won Best New Society Award two weeks ago, the famous catchphrase seems to have been proven correct. On the last day of term, the Union decided to revoke the Society’s award and the accompanying £100 they had won. At the centre of this decision and sudden acrimony between the society and the Union’s Welfare Officer, are the posters depicting religions being disposed of in a bin. Their inspiration might very well have come from the campaign to keep the No Platform Policy, who used a symbol of a person binning a swastika, but it seems that Atheist version led to a ‘number of complaints’.
According to the Union, the Executive Committee of the Warwick Atheists Society was sent an e-mail regarding the posters that were put up around campus entitled ‘The Importance of Atheism’. The society’s executive was informed that these posters were in the process of being taken down, and that we would be in contact again once the issue had been dealt with in the appropriate manner. Indeed, Ed Callow was seen taking them down with much determination. The main image within the posters themselves was of an individual discarding the symbols of nine major global religions into a litter bin, with the tagline “It’s time to take out the trash” written at the bottom. The Union claims that they included a level of unnecessary and discriminatory language which included: “If you’re sick and tired of hearing “it’s my faith” used as a smokescreen for ridiculous viewpoints, come and take a look at what we have to say”.
The Union has also taken the decision to ban the reproduction of the image in any other publication or media. They have claimed that the “The bounds of the Equal Opportunities Appendix apply to reproductions of these posters in the same way as the posters themselves”.
According to sources close to the Warwick Atheists new Exec, the society is planning to to appeal the decision. Indeed, their main argument against revoking their award was that they were judged on their progress throughout the year, not afterwards. However, the Union takes a different view; ‘Even though this publicity went up after the distribution of awards, given that the criteria include ‘Commitment to Equal Opportunities’, ‘Good intersociety relations’ and ‘Contribution to the Union / wider University environment’, it was felt that this breach was serious enough to merit withdrawal of this honour for the 2007/2008 academic year.’
It seems that Warwick Atheists are not prepared to sit back and accept the Union’s judgment. On an unofficial blog called ‘ToolChronicles’, the ‘Chronicler’ – an anonymous ‘individual’ who according to the ‘webmaster’, doesn’t represent Warwick Atheists, highlighted the words ‘Fuck You Ed’, evidently referring to the Welfare Officer, and he/she defends Warwick Atheists position: “We’ve produced nothing as or more offensive than has been seen in the past, and it was merely a free expression of a valid viewpoint held by a great many people. Religion is mocked in every form of entertainment we have nowadays. We weren’t even doing that. This poster is not offensive to average people. A minority, an incorrectly outspoken minority at that, expressed that it offended their sensitive theistic values.”
The issue does raise questions about freedom of speech and sensitivity towards different religions. After the recent Referendum decision to now allow racists and fascists into the Union, the debate about information will not rest. Warwick students will now enjoy a rift between Mr Callow and Warwick Atheists. The ‘Chronicler’ stated “We’re taking it to appeal, and we’re going to fight it every step of the way. Bring it on, Callow.”
At a meeting of the University Environment Committee last Thursday 21st February 2008, the Students’ Union gained University officials’ commitment to implementing recycling in every kitchen on campus. The meeting was especially timely given that it took place during Go Green Week. As a result of the meeting, the Union resolved to collaborate with Warwick Accommodation and Estates in implementing this scheme by September 2008.
Many students have contributed to the campaign over the years. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, 3000 signatures were gained during Go Green Week, Paul Smyth – Union Environment Officer and Campaigns Committee Chair 2004-6 – stands out as a champion of the environment by demanding that Recycling in Halls to be brought in, cuts in Carbon dioxide emissions and he succeeded in lobbying for An Environment Officer to be appointed.
This year Union President Joe Kirby demanded that students be included in the negotiations for the university waste contract in January and he managed to secure a clause in the contract. This stated that any company who won the tender would be required to remove mixed recyclables from halls and separate them off site. This enabled the University and Union to devise a scheme with one bin for waste, and one mixed recycling bin for tins, cans, plastic and cardboard.
Go Green Coordinators Hannah Smith, Kate Shayler and Alex Fowles have been collecting signatures this year to reinforce the demand for recycling on campus and were instrumental in setting up direct action by several students involved in Go Green Week this year to lobby the University in its own place at University House, which was crucial to the final decision taken at the Committee.
According to to Warwick’s Environment Officer Nick Hillard, the scheme is set to hit recycling rates of 90% cross-campus, comparing with the current some-what dismal rate of 11%. However, there is still a long way to go before recycling is finally delivered in every hall. A Coordinator of Go Green Week said:
‘People and Planet Society have been campaigning on this issue for many years now and have compiled several thousand signatures from students insisting upon the matter. In fact for many, recycling in halls has been the largest issue of contention when analysing the university’s environmental impact. Go Green Week this year was very heavily focussed on pressuring the University to commit to a deadline for the installation and it seems as though the endless petitioning, meetings with the environmental committee and implementation of Union Policy has finally paid off, thanks to the help of Warwick’s environmental officer, Nick Hillard and the many students who have been involved in Go Green Week over the past few years.
‘Personally, I see this as a huge achievement for the People and Planet Society and I would like to thank all of those who have been instrumental; it is very rewarding to see the hard work of so many finally paying off.
‘It is now time to reassess the direction of student action on campus and re-focus our energies on new projects, as this chapter is drawing to its conclusion.’
The fine details of implementation of this scheme are as yet to be decided upon and The Union and the University will be working together to deliver this. In an Interview with RaW News, Union President Joe Kirby and Go Green Coordinator Alex Fowles expressed their views on where the University, the Students Union and active individuals go from here.
Click on the link to hear the interview and please do leave any comments in the section below.
Last Week on Campus was Make Trade Fair Week, an event run by the People and Planet Society. Now in the wake of the Union Referenda this week, RaW News Correspondant Rithee Pandya described the ideas behind fair trade and introduced the contentious debate as to whether Free Trade or Fair Trade is the direction in which this Union should be heading.
Just as go green week ended and you thought you had had you fair share of ethical issues, fair trade week began here at Warwick. The week saw a tent put up in the piazza, fair trade chocolate fountains and an abundance of Oxfam leaflets and badges. There was a Fairtrade forum discussing workers’ rights and the effectiveness of Fairtrade in trade justice and local protest against Topshop.
RaW News interviewed Make Trade Fair Week organisers James Hall and Sara Johnson to analyze the success of the week. To listen, just click on the link below:
But what actually is fair trade? Unfortunately, it runs the risk of being one of those vague concepts that the majority of people follow because of its wash of morality.
The idea behind it is producers of goods, such as bananas, coffee, tea and cotton, in poor countries are given a better-than-market price for their products. This will guarantee them a decent wage,ensuring they can develop their business an infrastructure, rather than being gutted every time the bottom falls out of whichever market they’re in.
In the UK, £300m worth of Fairtrade products were purchased in 2006, up from £493m in 2005. There are predictions that that over the next 5 years this will grow by 11% and total £585m by 2012.Tate & Lyle has just said it’s going to turn over its entire operation to Fairtrade sugar with 40% of the cost of each bag of sugar will go to its growers and producers in Belize. Scotland has said even said it’s going to try to become the world’s first fair trade country.
However, according to the Adam Smith Institute, there are ‘inconvenient truths’ about fair-trade which have yet to surface. This week the ASI published a highly critical report suggesting that fair-trade benefits only a handful of farmers are the expense of the majority. Those farmers who qualify for fair trade certification are given higher prices for their produce, making it ‘unfair’ for the farmers that don’t. Even for Fairtrade certified farmers, only 1/5 of their produce sold ends up as fair-trade.
Those supporters of fair trade point to its successes; schools/hospitals built and agriculture sustained. A representative of the farmers of the Winward Islands in the Caribbean at the ‘Whats the point in fair trade?’ conference here at Warwick, highlighted the benefits the islanders have gained from fairtrade. The windard island produces bananas on, due to their location and resources, an extremely small and expensive scale. Fair trade has allowed them to sustain their business and they can now compete alongside the more developed banana producers of South America and Europe.
Given the wave of fair-trade products sweeping our shelves, what does it mean for consumer choice? By doing our little bit, are we addressing the wider issues? Do we know what the wider issues are? RaW News invited representatives from Make Trade Fair Week, the Warwick Tory Party and then threw in a few extras, in order to debate the pros and cons of fairtrade.
To listen to the debate click on the link, and should you have any views on the matter, please do leave your comments in the section below.
Rithee Pandya
Political Correspondent
Hannah Smith
Head of News
The Liberal Democrats’ Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne, has condemned the government’s record on Civil Liberties in an interview with RaW News, accusing Labour of ‘riding roughshod’ over our basic rights, and saying that by panicking, the government were playing into the hands of terrorists who seek to destroy our ‘distinctive’ way of life. Mr Huhne was clearly relishing his new role on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, following his defeat by the narrowest of margins to Nick Clegg in the party leadership election in December.
On the issue of detention without trial, he said Tony Blair and now Gordon Brown had gone ‘massively overboard.’ He quoted the example of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, saying that no matter what the level of threat from the IRA, detention without trial was not extended beyond two days. He said that he was ‘entirely against extending the twenty eight day limit’, adding that the case had not been made for extending the limit at all. He also stated that the Liberal Democrats would review the system, and did not rule out the possibility of calling for the limit to actually be reduced.
Mr Huhne said the government had gone ‘far too far’ in removing traditional checks and balances and moving away from habeas corpus, often seen as a cornerstone of the British legal system. He said one of the most infamous examples of this was the case of the elderly Walter Wolfgang who was arrested under anti-terrorism measures merely for heckling the platform during the then-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s speech to the Labour Party Conference, saying this highlighted the huge potential for abuse of these powers.
On ID Cards, Mr Huhne is perhaps even less convinced by the government’s argument. Asked if they would not be a small price to pay for defending national security, he replied ‘well, Spain has ID cards. It didn’t stop the Madrid bombing.’ He went on to argue that it is ‘not the role of a legislator merely to give in to a professional without seriously testing the argument.’
He also raised serious practical issues about the proposals, asking how we could be expected to trust the government to keep this confidential data safe, especially in the light of the recent missing data scandals. Mr Huhne said while you may be able to change your bank account number, ‘you can’t change your fingerprint.’
The Lib Dem Home Affairs Spokesman called on the government to ‘stop panicking’ and said they had got the balance between defending liberty and defending security ‘quite wrong’, but did welcome news that the government was taking some constructive steps, particularly the announcement that they would begin using intercept evidence. However that didn’t stop there being ‘alarming prospects’ for civil liberties, and Mr Huhne said he himself had used the phrase ‘sleepwalking into a surveillance society.’ Here he raised the particularly worrying issue of the abuse of the ‘Wilson Doctrine’ established in the 1960s to protect the privacy of constituents when talking to their MP. He said this showed that safeguards were simply not there to prevent the abuse of new technologies.
The Conservatives did not escape Mr Huhne’s wroth either, however, telling RaW that the Tories were ‘fair-weather friends’ of the government on issues of freedom, and adding that they were ‘all over the shop on ID cards.’ He paid tribute to liberal-minded Conservatives such as David Davis, but feared they were coming under fire from within their own party. http://www.radio.warwick.ac.uk/~sdobson/chuhneedit.WAV
The Union’s Communications Officer, James Gadsby-Peet, has launched a new campaign which he has styled ‘Sat_your_day’ in response to ever-growing criticism of Flirt, the current Saturday night event in the Students Union. Flirt is a brand that has been developed nationally by the NUS, but it has proved very unpopular with some sections of the Warwick student body. With the ‘Get Flirt Out of Warwick’ Facebook group now boasting over 900 members, Gadsby-Peet is offering students the chance to attend a meeting and offer ideas for the union event on Saturday of Week 8. If the event is a success, he sees no reason why this can not be rolled out to other events, meaning that perhaps Flirt may be on its way out of Warwick. Listen to what James Gadsby-Peet had to say when Political Correspondent Andrew O’Brien spoke to him earlier. http://www.radio.warwick.ac.uk/~sdobson/gaddsbypeetflirt.wav
Brian Deer, the Channel 4 journalist who produced a documentary criticising the reports which link between MMR vaccines to autism, has said he would release even more information this year against the reports.
Speaking to RaW News, Deer said that there was “a big bunch of stuff” he would “release to the world” against the report published by a medical team led by Dr. Andrew Wakefield more than 10 years ago.
Deer’s previous documentaries have led to Wakefield launching libel action against him, which was subsequently dropped later.
Deer called Wakefield’s action “the biggest mistake in his life.”
Speaking about the current state of journalism, he feels that competition has restricted the scope of stories which journalists could cover.
He thinks that journalists can no longer cover more general social issues such as poverty and homelessness.
“We are more caring about ourselves, and less caring about others,” says Deer, who thinks that people are no longer looking out for each other as they had in the past.
The journalist also looks fondly back at his days when he was an undergraduate philosophy student, from the time when he was the only student in the whole of what is now the Rootes Residences, to the time when he planned an attack with the student union president against the pro vice chancellor and had his degree award delayed.
He encourages students to get engaged with journalism, saying it is one of the most open industries in the market.
14 May 2008 21:38
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boasting over 900 members, Gadsby-Peet is offering students the chance to attend a meeting and offer ideas for the union event on Saturday of Week 8. If the event is a success, he sees no reason why this can not be rolled out to other events, meaning that perhaps Flirt may be on its way out of Warwick. Listen to what James Gadsby-Peet had to say when Political Correspondent Andrew O’Brien spoke to him earlier.
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