Preparing for the G8 - - - - - Caledonian University - Glasgow - 23rd April 2005 - - -

This is a country that treats asylum seekers worse than dogs, concludes Pastor Daly, a Minister for the Pentecostal Church Chiurch of Redemption, originally from Angola. Daly and his family were detained in Dungavel detention centre and nearly deported this winter. It is ironic that hunting and cruelty to animals is condemned heer, he says, but asylum seekers are degraded, locked up, drugged or handcuffed so that they can be deported - a death sentence. Seeking to flee persecution, seeking to save ones life, has become a crime.

Aamer, who was chairing the meetin, spoke briefly here about the fustration of seeing people deported for terrorism charges for spurious and ridiculous reasons, such as one man having a birthday on spetmeber the 11th. But he also noted that there were reasons to celebrate on that day - Magloire Sanu and her children had been released from detention, and were in fact in the room. They were given a standing ovation.

Rosie and her party argues consistently against the hypocricy of border that prevent poor people moving around the globe, but allow that free flow of capital. Here she argues that Scotland has both moral and practical reasons for opening her borders, and tells the story of two young children, one from Glasgow, one from Mozambique, whose conversation cuts through all the racist rhetoric surrounding the asylum and immigration debate. The boy from Glasgow asks the boy form Mozambique, "What does your father do then?" The reply is "He works in a diamond mine." "A diamond mine?!

Sandra has been highly active in the campaign against Dungavel Detention, and is a member of the cross pary group onAsylum and Immigration. Asylum and immigration are reserve issues, but Sandra talks here of the role that dissenting MSP's have and can play in the Parliament - how they got rid of the degrading voucher scheme system of benefits, for example. But she also make sit clear that what is really needed is for Asylum and Immigration to become a devolved issue - and that the first thing that would happen once it was would be the closure of Dungavel.

Caledonian University - Glasgow - 23rd April 2005 - - -

In the wake of the Governments much hyped "Commission for Africa" came a reply - a conference not so much "for" Africa, as by Africans. There were excellent presentations and speeches by the usual suspects - Patrick Harvie, Tommy Sheridan, Aamer Anwar, representatives from Oxfam and G8 alternatives - but the most succesful aspect to the conference, what made it really striking, was the African speakers. Of the several hundred people who attended, perhaps half were African.

Taiye presents a set of demands for Africa - an end to exploration for oil with exploitation, unconditional cancellation of the debt, a cheap source of drugs to combat HIV, an end to the financial support of corrupt regimes, and an end to the sale and profit by the West of arms and other destructive technologies.