Mike Small, fellow activist, has got his first blog entry in The Guardian (Unlimited) this weekend.
Preperations for the forthcoming G8 protests are frantic, here are two brilliant personal accounts of activities in Hamburg.
Am not sure, but could even be by a friend of mine – maybe, maybe not; the only indication being the sentence: “I hadnt slept in a couple of days.” I only really know one person, who regards protesting against the G8 and associated police repression as a relaxing and unwinding holiday activity, compared to the day-to-day job. Which says probably a lot about the state of trade unionism in this world.
The Independent has a really moving front page today, about African migrants who were clinging to Tuna nets for three days in the middle of the Mediterrean Sea, because no fishermen and no boat wanted to take them on board.
Europe’s Shame. It’s so horrible, and it doesn’t get helped with states prosecuting fishermen who pick up African people in need before they drown.
Two more articles on the issue are “Millions who risk death for a better life” and “This obscenity is a wake-up call.”
Sometimes I even prefer reading The Independent to The Guardian, especially its frontpages and its “Journalism of Engagement”. But was told that for the authors, the working conditions at The Independent would be worse, with quite a long delay of payment for freelancers and got whispered at the NUJ conference a stronger tendency for exploitation of longterm, unpaid work experience graduates.
Which of course leads to the question of what is ethical; and how to evaluate behaviour of companies, especially media companies as such.