Homeless people help Manchester bomb victims

This video from England says about itself:

Homeless man describes pulling nails from children after Manchester bombing

23 May 2017

Stephen Jones was sleeping near to the Manchester Arena when the attack happened on May 22. Jones ran towards the scene to help victims, many of whom he says were children.

By Peter Lazenby in Britain:

Donations flood in for homeless heroes

Thursday 25th May 2017

Public raise over £50k in just one day for two rough sleepers who rushed to help Manchester attack victims

KINDHEARTED fundraisers for two homeless heroes who ran to the aid of those injured in the Manchester terror bomb raised more than £50,000 yesterday.

And the huge outpouring of support following the atrocious attack raised over £1.5 million for the 22 dead and 59 wounded victims and their families.

Stephen Jones, 35, was sleeping in a doorway near the Manchester Arena concert venue on Monday night when he heard a huge bang, which he initially thought was a firework.

“I then realised what was happening and saw children coming out, screaming and covered in blood,” said Mr Jones.

“We were having to pull nails and bits of glass out of their arms and faces,” he said. “We haven’t slept most of the night because of what we’ve seen.”

Mr Jones, a former bricklayer who has been sleeping rough for more than a year, added: “I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I’d just walked away.

“Just because I’m homeless, it doesn’t mean I haven’t got a heart.

“There’s a lot of good people in Manchester who help us out and we need to give back too.”

Two separate Just Giving fundraisers had raised a total of £56,446 for Mr Jones at the time the Star went to press to help get him off the streets.

Mr Jones’s brave actions were so inspiring that West Ham co-chairman David Sullivan and his son offered to pay rent on a house for him for the next six months to “help him get on his feet.”

A GoFundMe page was also set up for rough sleeper Chris Parker, 33, who also rushed to the aid of injured victims.

Mr Parker had been in the foyer of the arena when the explosion went off which knocked him to the floor.

But instead of running away he told reporters that it was his “gut instinct” to go back and help.

He said he has not been able to stop crying after cradling a 60-year-old woman who passed away in his arms.

The identities of the 22 people killed in the attack, carried out by suicide bomber Salman Abedi, are being revealed slowly.

They include a Polish couple there to collect their daughters, venue PR manager Martyn Hett and an off-duty police officer.

The first victims named were eight-year-old Saffie Roussos and 18-year-old Georgina Callander.

Police are investigating a “network” believed to be involved and have arrested four men in south Manchester.

Troops were sent to guard major London landmarks yesterday and Britain’s terror threat was raised to “critical.”

Jeremy Corbyn also suspended Labour’s general election campaigning until today.

He said: “The British people are united in their resolve that terror will not prevail. Resuming democratic debate and campaigning is an essential mark of the country’s determination to defend our democracy and the unity that the terrorists have sought to attack.”

This video from England says about itself:

Manchester’s homeless documentary

A short documentary that tells the story of some of the many homeless that live on the streets on Manchester. The idea of making this short film was to create a documentary where people can hear their stories without filtering anything. Made by Ryan Priestnall, Charles Dalton and Jarred Gibb in 2014.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Solidarity will defeat terror

Thursday 25th may 2017

THE people of Manchester’s response to Monday night’s terrorist atrocity continues to show solidarity, courage and community spirit that acts as an example to us all.

The thousands raised for homeless Stephen Jones, who raced to the scene to pull nails from the faces of the victims and the hundreds of thousands pouring into the Manchester Emergency JustGiving fund display the same generosity we saw so much evidence of from local people on the night of the attack.

Suspending general election campaigning in the aftermath of the tragedy was the right response, a mark of respect for the innocent victims of terrorism and their families.

But extending that suspension indefinitely is the wrong response. It gives the perpetrators of such disgusting attacks a kind of victory. …

Clearly no society can simply carry on as normal in the face of a mortal threat to the lives of its people. Attacks must be investigated and measures taken to prevent them happening again. But this is very different from suspending our critical judgement of the response of the authorities.

“Something must be done” is not a policy and our recent history is littered with examples of responses which have caused enormous harm — and left us far less safe than before.

The elephant in the room is of course the “war on terror,” launched by George W Bush and Tony Blair in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 attacks on New York’s Twin Towers.

This open-ended conflict has proved more counterproductive even than the much-ridiculed “war on drugs,” which has so dismally failed to reduce the illegal smuggling of narcotics or the lethal violence that awful trade inflicts on civilians in producer countries.

No serious analyst of the wars launched in the name of the “war on terror,” from Afghanistan and Iraq in the Blair era to Libya and Syria under David Cameron and Theresa May, argues that they reduced the terrorist threat.

The destruction of stable governments and the descent of whole nations into bloody chaos created Isis and proved a gift to its precursor and now rival al-Qaida.

Studies by the Open Society Justice Initiative and Rights Watch UK have also slammed the British government’s Prevent programme as counterproductive — allowing widespread discrimination and abuse which can alienate entire communities.

And all such projects to counter “radical Islam” ring hollow when Britain maintains its sycophantic alliance with the Wahhabi regime in Saudi Arabia, where death is the penalty for atheism and where the government sponsors and promotes murderous, intolerant fanaticism on a global scale.

Suspending campaigning is an inadequate answer to Monday’s terrible events because we do have a choice on June 8 that could make a difference.

Theresa May stands for all the failed policies that have brought us to this pass. The government’s response, to ramp up Prevent and flood the streets with soldiers, is more of the same.

Labour offers a different vision, one where our security is boosted by a peaceful foreign policy and military assistance to jihadist groups in the Middle East is ended.

UK REPORTEDLY STOPPED SHARING INTELLIGENCE WITH U.S. ON MANCHESTER CASE After U.S. leaks to the media.

By Julie Hyland in Britain:

Official account of Manchester suicide bombing unravels

25 May 2017

It took less than 24 hours for Prime Minister Theresa May’s claim that Manchester suicide bomber Salman Ramadan Abedi was known to British intelligence only “up to a point” to be exposed as a lie.

Reports from acquaintances of Abedi and a series of leaks from US and French intelligence sources make clear that the security services knew that the 22-year-old who took the lives of 22 people at the Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena Monday night was a serious threat to public safety.

British intelligence had been warned about Abedi being a possible suicide bomber as far back as five years ago. The BBC reported that two college friends of Abedi had made separate calls to the police at that time because they were worried that “he was supporting terrorism” and had expressed the view that “being a suicide bomber was OK.”

Among a plethora of leaks, NBC reporter Richard Engel tweeted that a US intelligence official told reporters that Abedi’s family had warned British security officials that he was “dangerous.”

Later that day his father and brother were arrested in Libya, accused of being long-time supporters of Al Qaeda and planning further atrocities.

France’s interior minister, Gerard Collomb, revealed that Abedi had “proven” links with Islamic State [ISIS], and that both the British and French intelligence services had information that Abedi had been in Syria, from where he had only recently returned.

British Home Secretary Amber Rudd and May’s office have both denounced US intelligence and others for leaks they maintain will damage the “operational integrity” of the investigation into Abedi. Their real concern is that these revelations have undermined their efforts to portray anyone questioning the official account of the Manchester bombing as a “conspiracy theorist.”

Events now unfolding fit a well-established pattern. After an atrocity occurs, it soon emerges that the assailants were known to the security/intelligence agencies, which without fail and for reasons never explained allowed them to “slip through the net.” But claims of incompetence carry no weight. The only plausible explanation is that these individuals are protected by forces within the state.

From a political standpoint, the origin of these atrocities is clear. In every case the roots can be traced to the catastrophic wars launched since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 through to the present day—in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and beyond. The result is a political and social disaster in these countries that provides fertile soil for the proliferation of terrorist groups and individuals.

Crucially, those primed for murderous violence on the streets of Britain, France, the US and elsewhere are products of reactionary terror networks that are intimately involved in these imperialist wars for regime change.

Abedi’s trips to Libya and Syria and his links to Islamist terror forces follow a well-worn path of perpetrators of bombing atrocities being tied in with sectarian terrorist organisations financed, armed and utilised by the Western powers. He comes from an area of Manchester that exemplifies British imperialism’s cultivation of Islamist terror groups for service in its foreign operations.

Abedi is reported to have been a close associate of ISIS recruiter Raphael Hostey from Manchester, who was killed in a drone strike in Syria in 2016. For years, a group of members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group were active in the Whalley Range district of Manchester, close to Abedi’s home. They were allowed to recruit there in return for their role in opposing the Gaddafi regime. The local leader, Abd al-Baset Azzouz, was active until he left for Libya in 2014. He was said to be an expert in bomb making, with 200 to 300 militants under his control.

Just as sinister as the Manchester attack itself is the political use to which it is being put. On Tuesday, May raised the national terror threat to “critical,” its highest level. Amid official warnings that another assault is “imminent,” nearly 1,000 troops have been dispatched to the streets, mainly in London, to reinforce counterterrorism officers. These moves are in accordance with Operation Temperer, a covert plan drawn up by the Tory government in 2015, when May was home secretary.

The latest attack follows a pattern where terrorist outrages coincide with critical ballots—most recently last month’s fatal attack on a police officer in Paris by Karim Cheurfi. This was used to justify holding the first round of France’s presidential elections at gunpoint, amid a massive police and army presence on the streets and at polling places.

France provides a serious warning of what may unfold in Britain.

A state of emergency has been in force in France since 2015 following a series of terror attacks in Paris. It was extended only yesterday, supposedly in response to the Manchester bombing.

Last week, L’Obs magazine disclosed that top members of France’s Socialist Party government had prepared a coup d’état in the event of neo-fascist Marine Le Pen winning the May 7 presidential runoff. The aim was not to prevent a National Front presidency, but to crush left-wing dissent and install Le Pen in power in an enforced alliance with a Socialist Party-led government. …

Does anyone seriously believe that similar discussions are not taking place in ruling circles in Britain?

May called the snap June 8 election in an attempt to pre-empt the democratic process by securing a parliamentary majority to ram through measures that have no real popular support—deepening the austerity offensive against the working class and pursuing a course of escalating war alongside the US against Syria, Iran and even Russia.

Less than 48 hours ago, her plans appeared to be in ruins. So acute was the political backlash over May’s manifesto proposal to make pensioners sell their homes to pay for social care that even her slavish media supporters worried that she might lose the election to Labour.

Such is the hostility in ruling circles in both Britain and the US to the prospect of Corbyn becoming prime minister—due in particular to Corbyn’s stated opposition to nuclear weapons and criticisms of NATO—that in 2015 an unnamed senior British general warned that there would be a “mutiny” should he become prime minister.

Already May has utilised the Manchester suicide bombing to shift the election agenda back to the question of national security, as she struts around unchallenged and unquestioned—the de facto spokesperson for the police, the MI5, the MI6 and the military. But things might not end there.

The most recent historical precedent in the UK for a snap election was that called by Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath in 1974. At a time of enormous political and social tensions internationally, including a militant miners’ strike in Britain, Heath called the election to decide “who runs the country?”

Heath lost, but remained in Downing Street for four days. It is now acknowledged that discussions were being held between senior military officers on a possible coup.

Instead, the state decided it could rely on the incoming Labour government to help re-establish its control. Today… the shift towards dictatorial forms of rule flows from the deep class antagonisms wracking the UK and the utter putrefaction of British capital.

A comment on that article says:

Western imperialists exported so much “democracy” – to Libya too, that there is a shortage of democracy at home, it seems.

This video from England says about itself:

Why we Don’t Buy the S*n – Co-op demonstration against the Sun newspaper in Liverpool

The crew of short documentary ‘Why we: Don’t Buy the Sun‘ spent some time with campaigners and rapidly growing Facebook group ‘Total Eclipse of the Sun‘ during a peaceful protest outside Mossley Hill Co-op in Liverpool.

Join the grassroots campaign and group of almost 45k members who continue to inform people of the reasons of a boycott of The Sun newspaper which famously exists in Liverpool and champion stores/businesses who staunchly refuse to stock the publication.

Follow the progress of the short documentary ‘Why we: Don’t Buy the Sun‘ – THE documentary that both Rupert Murdoch & Kelvin McKenzie DO NOT want you to see as we reveal the reasons an entire city has boycotted ‘The S*n’ newspaper & why other cities now need to follow. Coming Soon.

By Peter Lazenby in Britain:

New calls to boycott the Sun newspaper across Manchester

Thursday 25th May 2017

AN online campaign has been launched to boycott The Sun newspaper in Manchester over its outrageous lies about Monday’s terrorist attack.

If successful it will unite Manchester with neighbouring Liverpool, whose people have boycotted The Sun for 28 years over its shocking coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster, which saw 96 Liverpool fans crushed to death.

The Sun lied that the Liverpool fans caused the Hillsborough tragedy; that they “picked pockets of victims,” “urinated on brave cops” and “beat up PCs giving the kiss of life.”

The true cause of the disaster — police incompetence — was revealed after a determined 27-year campaign by the families of the dead.

Now The Sun is at it again. It sought to exploit the tragic deaths of 22 people in the bombing at Manchester Arena by erroneously linking Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell to terrorism.

According to The Sun, victims of Monday’s atrocity “were murdered specifically because Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell sucked up to the IRA” — a reference to their attempts to seek peace in Northern Ireland 30 years ago.

The appeal to the people of Manchester to emulate Liverpool’s boycott of The Sun for its lies about their city’s tragedy has been made by Greater Manchester resident Charlotte Hughes through online pressure group change.org.

She said: “When I saw the article in The Sun saying Jeremy Corbyn was implicated in some way with the deaths, it was just awful.

“It was absolutely disrespectful to the victims. I didn’t want it to go the way The Sun did with Hillsborough.”

Her appeal states: “On a day set aside for mourning, with all political campaigns stood down, The Sun ran a story that was a naked manipulation of tragic events to serve its own political purposes.

“At a time where media and political regulators seem to be failing to uphold standards, consumers can apply real pressure. Simply by taking their custom elsewhere.”

The Liverpool boycott is estimated to be costing The Sun £15 million a month.

On Wednesday, newly-elected President Emmanuel Macron’s administration seized on the May 22 terror attack in Manchester to announce the prolongation of France’s state of emergency, imposed after the 2015 Paris attacks, through November 1. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced the move after a Defense Council meeting at the Elysée presidential palace. The state of emergency was supposed to lapse on July 15: here.