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A Public Meeting will be held in Aberdare on Thursday 9th October 2008, at the Sobells Sports Centre.
At the Meeting Rhondda Cynon Taf Councillors will decide on the new Gloucesters & Ironworks site planning application.
All Welcome.
A Planning Application has been re-submitted to the local Council. The plans are for 130 houses to be built on the Hirwaun Gloucesters and old Ironworks site. This area is much valued and used by the community as an area for recreation and leisure and home to an abundance of wildlife and flora.
Councillors voted to refuse planning permission in July 2008.
Local Council Planning Officers are trying to persuade Councillors to change their minds and approve this application, despite overwhelming objections from residents over the last 3 years.
The people of Hirwaun are not opposed to building new houses.
They are opposed to inappropriate overdevelopment at the expense of the whole community.
Hoo-bloody-rah! for Hirwaun people fighting for their own Community.
It is with considerable sadness we announce that Huw Lewis AM has joined the Mumbo Jumbo Cult.
On 3rd July 2008, he announced on his blog that he has “joined the revolution”. This is a common phrase chanted by new Cult Members as they ritually affirm that they belong to their new ‘family’.
The Mumbo Jumbo Cult has swept through the Welsh political landscape claiming many other Assembly Member casualties.
Symptoms of Cult Membership include excessive use of brand names and imagery in a not-very-subtle attempt to recruit more people to the Mumbo Jumbo ’cause’.
Huw Lewis History
- On July 18th 2007, Huw Lewis was sacked as Deputy Minister for Transport and the Economy. Two months later he published his Winning for Wales pamphlet on the future of the Labour Party in Wales.
- Huw Lewis forewarned that in 2011, the Welsh Labour Party will face its biggest challenge.
- He claimed in Winning for Wales (pg. 11) “the only way to successfully combat these challenges is to create a self-sufficient genuinely Welsh Labour Party which can properly shape this next exciting phase of devolution.“
- Today, eleven months later, Huw Lewis joins the Mumbo Jumbo Cult performing a public volte-face and completely ignoring his own advice. It’s goodbye to those ideas of a “self-sufficient” and a “genuinely Welsh Labour Party”…
Join the demonstration against the proposed military academy in South Wales.
Saturday 26 April, Assemble 1.30 pm, Cathays Park (opp. City Hall & National Museum)
The Military Academy is funded by defence multi-nationals like Raytheon, the manufacturer of cluster-bombs, £14 billion is being spent on this huge complex when we need hospitals & schools.
Needless to say the multinationals will be making a large profit on the scheme. It is also the biggest PFI (Private Finance Initiative) in history, and probably the biggest ever award of taxpayers money to Wales:
Why is there always a blank cheque for war, but no blank cheque for vital public services?
Called by the Stop the St Athan’s Military Academy Campaign and supported by UK Stop the War Coalition, CND Cymru, Cynefinywerin and many other organisations. People will be coming from all over Wales and beyond.
For background information on the Military Academy, see:
http://www.cynefinywerin.org.uk/index.php?docid=265
Image by Carlos Latuff
In the brand-satured world we live in, corporations do their utmost to protect their brand name and logo. Shell – the Royal-Dutch Shell Group – are experiencing some difficulties protecting their logo at Trenant, near Hirwaun.
The Shell fuel station closed in January 2006, and the site has remained a rusting industrial eye-sore ever since. Soon after the business closed, they covered their signage and large logo with a white plastic sheeting to hide the ownership of the site.
Eventually this blew away. It was replaced by bright blue plastic material in February 2008. This looked like a cheap blue plastic bag one might use at nearby Rheola Market! This too blew away within a few weeks.
The fuel station is situated at the junction of Trenant and the ever-busy A4059 Aberdare to Hirwaun road. There is a pedestrian crossing within a few feet and this stretch of road has been the scene of many serious accidents over the years, hence the presence of a nearby speed camera.
As one of the UK’s largest corporations, one would expect a more responsible attitude towards the small community that has tolerated the presence of a fuel station since the 1960s.
Contact Details for Shell UK
- Telephone Freephone 0800 731 8888
- Address : Shell Customer Service Centre, Rowlandsway House, Rowlandsway, Wythenshawe. Manchester M22 5SB
- Email feedback-uk@shell.com
References
Trinity Mirror – the media Corporation which owns the Cynon Valley Leader – has announced Financial Results for the year ending 30 December 2007 painting a bleak picture for the group’s advertising revenue in 2008. The news portends big changes in the operations of local newspapers such as Cynon Valley Leader, based in Commercial Street, Aberdare.
Chief Executive Sly Bailey was keen to emphasise the progress the group is making in ‘going digital’.
In 2003, when Sly Bailey became Chief Executive of Trinity Mirror, digital revenues represented less than half a per cent of the group’s total revenue. Today, digital revenues account for 3.7 per cent of the group’s total revenues.
Trinity Mirror said in its financial results statement that “going forward, our aim is to increase substantially digital revenues as a proportion of total group revenues”.
Trinity Mirror is one of Britain’s largest publishing groups, owning over 200 regional newspaper titles. In October 2007, Trinity Mirror re-branded their portfolio of business in Wales as Media Wales, which took over from the company name of Western Mail and Echo Ltd.
Media Wales is responsible for 16 print titles in Wales, a portfolio of magazines, and a fast-expanding digital presence. The company also claim to have invested heavily in a new state-of-the-start news facility in Cardiff on the site of the Thompson House building. They have dubbed the project a 24×7 ‘around-the-clock’ news operation.
How will these Changes affect the publication of news in Aberdare ?
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WORLD AGAINST WAR
Cardiff Peace Conference
Monday 3 March at 7.30 pm
Law Building
Cardiff University
Park Place
Hosted by CARDIFF STOP THE WAR COALITION
WITH SPEAKERS FROM AROUND THE GLOBE INCLUDING:
HASSAN JUMAA, Leader of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (Iraq)
ROSE GENTLE, Military Families against the War (Scotland)
IBRAHIM MOUSAWI, Editor of Al-Intiqad, Hezbollah Newspaper (Lebanon)
ANNE GREAGSBY, Co-ordinator, No2MilitaryAcademy Campaign (Wales)
PROFESSOR JUSTIN LEWIS, Head of Cardiff School of Journalism (Wales)
Chaired by LEANNE WOOD AM
FREE ENTRY! ALL WELCOME!
Artwork by Carlos Latuff
Come and hear the powerful stories of the Iraqi oil workers and trade unions resisting the military and economic occupation of their homeland . . .
Tuesday 2 October at 7 pm
WALLACE LECTURE THEATRE
Main Building
Cardiff University
Park Place (opp. Student Union Building)
Speakers-
EWA JASIEWICZ
UK rep for the Basra Oil Workers Union & founder member of NAFTANA, an organisation that builds solidarity with Iraqi workers.
+ Speaker from the Stop the War Coalition
About the Ewa Jasiewicz:
In 2004, Ewa Jasiewicz visited Iraq to build links between the anti-war movement and Iraqi trade unions resisting both occupation and the corporate take-over of their counrty. She became the UK rep for the Basra Oil Workers Union, a militant trade union resisting both the sell-off of Iraqi oil to foreign corporations and the armies of occupation and helped organise Iraq’s first anti-privatisation conference.
Ewa has lived in Baghdad and Basra, supporting human rights groups, womens organisations, families, workers, trade unionists and Palestinian refugees.
Her articles have appeared in Red Pepper, Electronic Iraq, Z-Net, Counterpunch, Infoshop, Occupation Watch and The Socialist Review in the US.
This will be an important meeting to join the international campaign against the hydrocarbon law that aims to give control of Iraq’s oil for the next 30 years to foreign multinationals.
About HANDS OFF IRAQI OIL
Hands Off Iraqi Oil is a UK coalition opposing any foreign exploitation of Iraq’s oil reserves that rips off the Iraqi people. Members include Corporate Watch, Iraq Occupation Focus, Jubilee Iraq, Naftana, PLATFORM, Voices UK, and War on Want.
For more info. about this event contact Adam Johannes on 07940108146
It’s a shame to see a small town bookshop close.
The Neath Bookshop in Neath town centre is currently holding a closing down sale.
50% off everything.
Amongst all the usual suspects, there were a couple of Rachel Tresize’s books for sale.
We opted for Cyril Treharne’s ‘Around God’s Acre (in South Western Wales)’ (Llanrwst, Gwasg Carreg Gwalch 2006 – ISBN 1-84527-087-8) : “This book takes us on a journey around some of the most interesting churches and churchyards in Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Gower.”
Priceless.
Well worth three pounds fifty.
Nowadays the small independent bookseller faces being crushed between the mighty monopolistic supermarkets and their heavy discounting and fending off global giants like Amazon who announced earlier this year that they were investing in large distribution centre near Neath. It’s no surprise to see so many bookshops closing.
Caught in the act of tearing up the Welsh countryside! Here is a photo of National Grid’s gas pipeline near Llanigon, north of Brecon.
The photograph was taken in mid June 2007. It is an ugly site to behold. The gas pipeline is a giant industrial phallus imposed on Wales by planners in London. A few corporations will benefit from this project. It will do little good to resolve the peak oil crisis we face in the next few years.
But do we not accept all the noise and the pollution ? Do we not rejoice at the smell and smoke that remind us of our industrial might ?
Ralph Borsodi’s book This Ugly Civilization (1929) reminds us of how man accepts the ugliness of his own creation :
THIS is an ugly civilization. It is a civilization of noise, smoke, smells, and crowds–of people content to live amidst the throbbing of its machines; the smoke and smells of its factories; the crowds and the discomforts of the cities of which it proudly boasts.
The places in which the people work are noisy. The factories are filled with the recurring, though not the rhythmic, noises of machines and the crash and clatter incidental to their operation. The offices, too, are noisy with the rat-tat-tat of typewriters, the ringing of telephones, the grinding of adding machines. The streets on which the people move about, and around which they work and play, resound with the unending clatter of traffic–the roar of motors, the squeaks of brakes, the shrieks of sirens, and the banging of street cars. And even the homes in which they are supposed to rest are noisy because they are not only packed close together but built tier on tier so that the pianos, phonographs, and radios in them blare incongruously above, below, and on all sides of them.
The people of this factory-dominated civilization accept its noisiness. For noise is the audible evidence of their prowess; the inescapable accompaniment of their civilization’s progress. The greater the noise, the greater the civilization.
* * *
More photographs of the gas pipeline on Flickr.
There are many of Ralph Borsodi’s books available for free at the Soil and Health library.
Iraq For Sale Film
Thursday 15 February at 8 pm.
Chapter Arts Centre, Market Rd., Canton
Tickets available from Chapter box office.
Organised in association with Oyster Clothing.
The film will be introduced by poet, Robert Minhinnick, who will also show a short film about his recent visit to Iraq.
*
Corporate Watch UK research and report on the corporate carve-up of Iraq.
Heed the whispered warnings of ghosts, listen to their advice and co-operate with them. They tell us about the past and foretell our future.
In the photograph there is a misty view across the Cynon Valley, from Cwmbach looking down the hill near St Margaret’s Church, towards Aberaman and Aberdare. The photographer has failed to capture a ghost, so instead offers to sketch some notes.
In Cwmbach the first Co-Operative Society in Wales was formed in 1860. On this little Welsh hill there was a magnificent Co-Operative store that lay at the heart of a vibrant Welsh community ‘growing-up’ in the era of industrialisation.
Borrow a Welsh Mam today
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Nearly fifty years ago John Kenneth Galbraith published his book The Affluent Society (1958) about the haves and have-nots of modern capitalist society.
The postcard on the left with images from Cwmbach is a reminder of the differences between the haves and have-nots.
Affluent Society was a book about contrasts in the economy. In Aberdare, the gulf between rich and poor has been transformed into a grotesque chasm in the past three decades of hyper-capitalism under Thatcher and Tony Blair, her ideological heir.
. Read the rest of this page »
Firefighters attended a fire at Aberdare Tesco in Depot Road, Gadlys on Saturday 18th November at 19.28. The fire involved a large amount of toilet rolls on an artic trailer.
These were severely damaged by fire, and fire fighters from Aberdare fire station used two jets and two hose reel jets to extinguish the blaze.
Local residents claim two people were arrested on suspicion of arson.
Imagine Cynon Valley as an orange being squeezed …
The latest pips to squeak are from Abernant
Residents in Abernant are infuriated by a proposal to build on the local village green.
People from across Cynon Valley can sympathise with their plight because building overdevelopment is a key feature of the Cynon Valley economy today. It is spurred on by a planning system which favours the developer-capitalists and the mammoth planning bureaucracy of the local County Borough Council who have a vested interest in continued overdevelopment.
Individuals and communities who dare to argue “no, enough is enough… where is this development leading?” are simply trodden on like unwelcome cockroaches in their own communities.
Yesteryear we might have argued the case ‘for’ or ‘against’ in the local newspaper, but in 2006, Aberdare has no free press where such a discussion could take place. Freedom of speech in Aberdare is a luxury for a political and commercial elite. It has been completely marginalised and shunted to the sidelines into online forums, websites, blogs and the occasional meeting in a local Chapel organised by annoyed citizens.
The media are, as Noam Chomsky argues, adjuncts of the powerful. The media exist to ensure we consent to what the elite have decided is in their best interest. To question economic overdevelopment, whether it is the overdevelopment of houses, roads, or any form of overdevelopment, would be to question the very basis on which the Cynon Valley economy rests : capitalism.
Corporate media do not reflect any anti-capitalist sentiment today because it is, again to quote Noam Chomsky, beyond the “bounds of the expressible“. The media only permit a spectacle or charade of free and open discussion. Thus we can read about opposition to wind turbines in the Cynon Valley in the local newspaper – wind turbines do not, after all, generate much advertising revenue – but we are unable to read about the mass opposition to overdevelopment or to the duelling of the Heads of the Valley road near Hirwaun, a Welsh Assembly Government project. That is beyond the bounds of the expressible. It might upset the capitalist apple-cart and people might get the wrong idea and start engaging in a real democratic debate.
In Abernant, if we look back thirty years, we might find lessons there. Thirty years ago, services at Aberdare were being downgraded and moved to Prince Charles hospital. Thousands took part in rallies and marches. Such expressions of solidarity are nowadays rare. We can but marvel at these mass movement in history books.
Today bourgeois capitalism reigns triumphant and the very last thing the rich and powerful and their newspapers would admit is that there are pips squeaking in every corner of the Cynon Valley. That might give working people a sense that they had something in common . The last thing the bourgeosie want is a conscious working class… it would be bad for business.
The cry of SOS – Save Our Signs – reverberates through Aberdare.
Some one – we presume Arriva Trains Wales – has removed the old, scruffy, rusty, eyesore sign
Please return this sign when you’ve finished cleaning it.
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