So we had our community council AGM yesterday, which was quite interesting. Apparently I have missed a planning application for more than 242 units on the former BT land up near the primary school, despite signing up for the planning alert and getting the weekly list of planning applications. Luckily enough a member of the local housing association has noticed it and the association will dispute the application. Over the last years our former “Trainspotting” area has been discovered by private housing developers for a quick buck; and whilst our multi-storey council houses got demolished to make way for new buildings intended to lead to much less density of people living here, the private developers have built crackers of “luxury apartment towers” before we had the community councils and when it was more difficult to actually see the list of applications and documents.

BBC World reports that the Linux laptop for kiddies in developping countries is up for sale on a Buy1 – Give1 basis. Originally though I just wanted to check if the BBC World -usually the best on reporting foreign news – has a report about the election protests in Guatemala. Indymedia Germany reports over 200 arrested and one person killed, including reports that a town hall had been burned down, four policemen kidnapped, the house of the mayor and other houses got destroyed, burning barricades erected and that ballot papers were burned. Otto Pérez Molina, the former dictator-general who is held responsible for massacres in the bloody civil war with disappearances and torture, has been running for president, too.

At my last visit to Lidl – prices of fruit and veg cut by 70% – I have noticed a shelf full of new fairtrade products. The brand is called “Fairglobe”, but I am getting a bit suspicious of all the fairtrade products creeping into big supermarket chains and cafes such as Starbucks. I would be very keen to examine and investigate this issue, in particular after seeing Jan Nimmo’s film about the fairtrade banana production in Panama. She shows in her film, that not all fairtrade labels are actually produced under the ethical circumstances we would expect from the label; like the minimisation of pesticides, the possibility to form and join a trade union, health & safety protection for the workers in particular in regards to chemicals, health care for their workers and families, enabling school visits for the workers children, and protecting the environment do that in particular the drinking water, the fishes, the farm animals and the people are safe from waste and residues.

I am very happy that both The Guardian and Channel4News/More4News have taken on the Uzbekistan story. They focus more on the web censorship aspect though than onto the underlying mystery if Murray’s accusations towards Ushmanov are really true or not; but then as much of it is based on events happening a long time ago in Uzbekistan it might be difficult to prove. Just good to see that it’s not always good to give up on the mainstream media just yet. Apart from criticising, The Guardian and the Channel4/More4News are still the best. The Independent would be, too, if they would just not exploit poor journalism graduates volunteering there for ages without contract and pay.

I love scooping news. Neither the Guardian nor the Independent have yet released the story, but am sure they will or at least they should follow – maybe they are just a few hours behind and wasting time on “the beauty of the language” in their news reports, or maybe their lawyers are sharpening their red pens, or maybe, they just run out of bravery, ethical and socially responsible behaviour and are in a state of FUD. Craig Murray’s website has been taken offline; alongside any other websites, such as Boris Johnson’s (apparantly more due to collateral damage) and Tim Ireland’s webserver.