Monday, January 27, 2020



Earth's most biodiverse ecosystems face a perfect storm 



Earth's most biodiverse ecosystems face a perfect storm
Fish and diver on a reef Credit: Nick Graham
A combination of climate change, extreme weather and pressure from local human activity is causing a collapse in global biodiversity and ecosystems across the tropics, new research shows.

The study, published today, mapped over 100 locations where tropical forests and  have been affected by  such as hurricanes, floods, heatwaves, droughts and fires. It provides an overview of how these very diverse ecosystems are being threatened by a combination of ongoing climate changes, increasingly extreme weather and damaging local human activities.
The international team of researchers argue that only international action to decrease CO2 emissions can reverse this trend.
Lead researcher Dr. Filipe França from the Embrapa Amazônia Oriental in Brazil and Lancaster University said: "Tropical forests and coral reefs are very important for , so it is extremely worrying that they are increasingly affected by both climate disturbances and human activities".
"Many local threats to tropical forests and coral reefs, such as deforestation, overfishing, and pollution, reduce the diversity and functioning of these ecosystems. This in turn can make them less able to withstand or recover from extreme weather. Our research highlights the extent of the damage which is being done to ecosystems and wildlife in the tropics by these interacting threats."
Dr. Cassandra E. Benkwitt, a marine ecologist from Lancaster University, said: "Climate change is causing more intense and frequent storms and marine heatwaves. For coral reefs, such extreme events reduce live coral cover and cause long-lasting changes to both coral and fish communities, compounding local threats from poor water quality and overfishing. Although the long-term trajectory for reefs will depend on how extreme events interact with these local stressors, even relatively pristine reefs are vulnerable to both climate change and extreme weather."
Tropical  species are also being threatened by the increasing frequency of extreme hurricanes.
Dr. Guadalupe Peralta from Canterbury University in New Zealand said: "A range of post-hurricane ecological consequences have been recorded in tropical forests: the destruction of plants by these weather extremes affects the animals, birds and insects that rely on them for food and shelter."
In some regions, such as the Caribbean Islands,  events have decimated wildlife, reducing numbers by more than half.
"We are starting to see another wave of global extinctions of tropical birds as forest fragmentation reduces populations to critical levels", explained Dr. Alexander Lees, from Manchester Metropolitan University.
The combination of higher temperatures with longer and more severe dry seasons has also led to the spread of unprecedented and large-scale wildfires in tropical forests.
Dr. Filipe França said that at the end of 2015, Santarém in the Brazilian state of Pará was one of the epicentres of that year's El Niño impacts. "The region experienced a severe drought and extensive forest fires, and I was very sad to see the serious consequences for forest wildlife."
The drought also affected the forests ability to recover from the fires. Dung beetles play a vital role in forest recovery by spreading seeds. The study provides novel evidence that this seed spreading activity plummeted in those forests most impacted by the dry conditions during the 2015-2016 El Niño.
Coral reefs were also critically damaged by the same El Niño, explains Professor Nick Graham from Lancaster University.
He said: "The 2015-16 coral bleaching event was the worst ever recorded, with many locations globally losing vast tracts of valuable corals. Worryingly, these global bleaching events are becoming more frequent due to the rise in ocean temperature from global warming."
The last part of the study emphasizes that  and novel conservation strategies are needed to ameliorate the impacts of the multiple threats to tropical forests and coral reefs.
Dr. Joice Ferreira from Embrapa Amazônia Oriental said: "To achieve successful climate-mitigation strategies, we need 'action-research' approaches that engage local people and institutions and respect the local needs and diverse socio-ecological conditions in the tropics".
The scientists caution that managing tropical ecosystems locally may not be enough if we do not tackle global climate change issues.
They stress the urgent need for all nations to act together if we really want to conserve  and coral reefs for future generations.
The research, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, was carried out by 11 scientists from 8 universities and research institutions in Brazil, United Kingdom and New Zealand.
More information: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (2020). DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0116

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SYSTEMIC INSTITUTIONAL RACISM

Similar survival of African-American and white men with prostate cancer in an equal-access health care system

AMERICAN INSTITUTIONAL RACISM AND ITS SYSTEMIC GENOCIDE AGAINST AFRO AMERICANS

by Wiley
prostate cancer

Micrograph showing prostatic acinar adenocarcinoma (the most common form of prostate cancer) Credit: Wikipedia
Among men with prostate cancer who received care from the Veterans Affairs (VA) Health System, an equal-access health care system, African American men did not have more advanced disease at the time of diagnosis or die earlier than white men, unlike trends seen in the greater U.S. population of patients with prostate cancer. The findings are published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
African American men in the general U.S. population are more than twice as likely to die from  as non-Hispanic white men. To examine whether access to health care may play a role in this disparity, a team led by Brent Rose, MD, of the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and the VA San Diego Healthcare System, analyzed information on more than 20 million veterans who receive care through the VA Health System. The analysis included 60,035 men diagnosed with prostate cancer between 2000 and 2015: 30.3 percent were African American and 69.7 percent were non-Hispanic white.
The researchers found that African American men were not more likely to experience delays in diagnosis and care. Also, African American men were not more likely to present with more advanced disease. Finally, African American men were not more likely to die from their disease. These outcomes for African American men were seen even though they were more likely to live in lower-income areas.
The findings indicate that African American men who receive equitable screening and treatment can expect to have relatively similar outcomes as . Access to high-quality medical care may help address some of the racial disparities seen among men diagnosed with the disease.
"These results suggest that poorer outcomes for African American men with prostate cancer may not be a foregone conclusion. With smart public policy choices, we may be able to reduce or even eliminate disparities and achieve equal outcomes for all men with prostate cancer," said Dr. Rose.
More information: CANCER (2020). DOI: 10.1002/cncr.32666
Journal information: Cancer 
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Study finds presence of another person diminishes fear responses in women


ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONING FIGHT OR FLIGHT INSTINCT ACTIVATED CONTINUOUSLY DUE TO CONSTANT THREAT ENVIRONMENT OF PATRIARCHY


by Bob Yirka , Medical Xpress
fear
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
A team with several members from the University of Wurzburg and one from Peking University has found that women respond less strongly to aversive sounds if there is another person nearby. In their paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes experiments they conducted with female volunteers and what they learned from them.
Scientists have learned how to make direct measurements of a person's experience of . Instead of asking volunteers in experiments to give a rating to their fear levels, researchers can affix sensors to the  and measure chemical responses. The technology is called skin conductance response (SCR). Scientists have found that when people are aroused, whether sexually or fearfully, chemicals are produced that make their way to the surface of the skin. SCR sensors apply a small electrical charge to the skin and use it to measure changes in skin conductivity due to arousal chemicals—the higher the conductivity, the higher the degree of arousal—or the more fear that a person is experiencing.
To learn more about how the presence of another person might impact fear levels in women, the researchers asked 97 female volunteers to sit at a desk and listen to scary noises via headphones while wearing an SCR sensor. The researchers tested the volunteers by playing a variety of sounds, some of which were intended to elicit a fear , such as a person screaming. They played the noises when the volunteers were either sitting alone or when there was another anonymous person present nearby. The researchers also varied characteristics of the other person such as their gender and race—and they also asked each of the volunteers to rate their level of fear on a manual scale.
The data from both the written responses and the SCR showed that the women experienced less fear when there was another person present—even if they did not know that person. It also showed that the effect was stronger when the  judged the nearby person as dissimilar to themselves regardless of their gender or race. According to the researchers, the results indicate that humans instinctively put themselves on higher alert when alone.
More information: Yanyan Qi et al. The mere physical presence of another person reduces human autonomic responses to aversive sounds, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2020). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.2241
Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B 
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Eyeing a cure: Scientists examine strategies to end the global HIV/AIDS pandemic

by Delthia Ricks , Medical Xpress

Microscopic image of an HIV-infected T cell. Credit: NIAID
As infectious diseases that are new to science continue emerging around the world, researchers have not forgotten older foes, and are doubling down on efforts to conquer them. For HIV/AIDS, they've begun looking toward a cure.
Writing in the journal Nature, a team of three infectious disease experts from the United States and abroad assessed potential drug candidates in the pharmaceutical pipeline that might eradicate the virus. Their aim was deceptively simple—to underscore why and where a cure is needed and how it might be achieved.
A key take-home message from the authors, who hail from the University of California, San Francisco, the African Research Institute in Durban, South Africa, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, was that much of the HIV cure research is underway in countries where HIV/AIDS doesn't dominate vital statistics.
"Cure research remains focused in academic medical centers located in low-HIV-burden, resource-rich countries," wrote Dr. Steven G. Deeks of UC San Francisco, who along with his two colleagues, contend that cutting-edge innovation must take into account the needs and economies of people who need it most.
"There has been limited public discussion on the practicalities of product development, particularly as they relate to sub-Saharan Africa," Deeks, and his colleagues Dr. Thumbi Ndung'u of the African Research Institute and Joseph M. McCune of the Gates Foundation noted. "Failure early on to define a target product-profile risks developing a strategy that fails to be effective."
The vast majority of global HIV/AIDS cases are concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Health Organization, where an estimated 65 percent of new infections and 75 percent of deaths caused by the virus occur. No other region of the world has greater need for a cure, experts say.
Hopes of snuffing out the viral cause of the global epidemic have emerged in earnest as scientists have begun testing variations on cancer immunotherapy and other groundbreaking approaches. Among evolving techniques under investigation is use of the gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9.
In October, scientists at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco reported in the journal Cell on a novel version of CAR-T cell therapy as a method of tackling HIV-infected cells.
CAR-T therapy is used to treat cancers of the blood by supercharging a patient's own T cells in a lab. The T cells are re-infused into the patient as emboldened fighters capable of zeroing in on a specific cancer biomarker. With HIV, Gladstone researchers are supercharging immune cells and proteins to seek out latent HIV that's hiding in the body, eluding detection by the immune system.
The Gladstone research and emerging technologies are offering fresh approaches to an infectious disease that has claimed 32 million lives globally since 1981, according to WHO. In the United States alone, 700,000 people have lost their lives to HIV within the same time period, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.
Although current antiretroviral therapy (ART) has allowed many patients to reduce viremia—the amount of virus in the blood—to undetectable levels, the medications are not cures, despite their effectiveness. Deeks and colleagues who analyzed HIV-treatment technologies in the journal Nature say emerging treatments aimed at curing HIV must be practical as well as effective.
ART therapies, for example, can number as few as a single pill per day. But while the treatment can decrease viral load to infinitesimal levels, the expense of daily lifelong medication necessitates the need for a cure, the three researchers contend.
Assessment of potential cures by Deeks and his co-authors included several possibilities that ranged from gene modification to cell therapy, among others. CRISPR-based approaches could be designed to target and excise the integrated provirus, and likely would be curative, the scientists predicted.
But the new technology is being pursued amid a staggering statistic: Despite tens of millions of HIV infections worldwide since the 1980s, only two people to date have been declared cured of the disease. Both are known by the cities where their cures occurred: The Berlin Patient and the London Patient.
Each underwent a , a treatment that is expensive, highly specialized and required meeting strict criteria. Bone marrow transplants are not a feasible method for addressing HIV, doctors say.
As it turned out, neither patient underwent bone marrow transplantation with the aim of being cured of HIV. Both were infused with donor bone marrow to treat cancer of the blood. Both disorders—their cancers and the HIV—went into remission. The HIV cures for both patients came as a surprise, doctors for the two patients have said.
The Berlin Patient was declared cured in 2007; the London Patient in 2019. The case study of the London patient was reported at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, which was held in Seattle last March.
As scientists move forward on a variety of cure-oriented research projects, it is important not to repeat past inequities should a  emerge, according to the report in Nature.
"Only 60 percent of people who live with HIV [worldwide] currently receive antiretroviral therapy," Deeks and his colleagues wrote in the journal.
The remaining 40 percent, which amounts to millions of people, are intermittently treated or go without medication altogether. That vast swath of patients largely resides in the Southern Hemisphere.
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Hundreds of Amazon employees criticize firm's climate stance

BEZOS DECLARES THIS AN ILLEGAL ACTIVITY BY STAFF



Amazon is frequently criticized over its carbon footprint due to its road transport network and server farms for its cloud computing activities
Hundreds of Amazon employees Sunday openly criticized the online retail giant's environmental record, in violation of the company's communications policy.
More than 300 signed a Medium blog post by Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ), which is pushing the company to go further in its  mitigation plan which was announced with great publicity in September.
Group members have publicly criticized the company, and some have been warned that they could be fired.
"The protest is the largest action by employees since Amazon began threatening to fire workers for speaking out about Amazon's role in the climate crisis," the AECJ said.
"As Amazon workers, we are responsible for not only the success of the company, but its impact as well. It's our  to speak up, and the changes to the communications policy are censoring us from exercising that responsibility," said Sarah Tracy, a software development engineer at Amazon.
It is common for companies to demand restraint from employees when it comes to publicly discussing the firm's activities and even more so when openly questioning them.
Amazon had nearly 650,000 permanent employees at the end of 2018, according to the company's .
While the environment and climate change was the focus of many of the posts on Sunday, Amazon was also criticized for other activities such as providing artificial intelligence capabilities to companies in the oil sector.
Amazon is often criticized over its  because of the high energy consumption of its huge server farms for its lucrative cloud computing activities.
And it has built its success on the back of a huge road transport logistics network to ensure speedy deliveries, which generates a lot of greenhouse gases, the main culprit of climate change.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on September 19 last year made public environmental commitments, promising in particular that the firm would be carbon neutral by 2040.
The AECJ said this was insufficient and Amazon should be aiming for a 2030 target.
"This is not the time for silencing voices. We need policies that welcome more open discourse, more problem-solving, and more urgent and concerted action about climate change and its causes," said Mark Hiew, a senior marketing manager at Amazon.
Amazon did not respond to an AFP request for a response but an article in the Bezos-owned Washington Post quoted spokesman Drew Herdener as saying Amazon encouraged employees to express themselves, but internally through the various platforms available to them.



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MICRO DOSING

Can lithium halt progression of Alzheimer's disease?

A LOOK AT AN OLD TREATMENT 

by McGill University
alzheimers
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
There remains a controversy in scientific circles today regarding the value of lithium therapy in treating Alzheimer's disease. Much of this stems from the fact that because the information gathered to date has been obtained using a multitude of differential approaches, conditions, formulations, timing and dosages of treatment, results are difficult to compare. In addition, continued treatments with high dosage of lithium render a number of serious adverse effects making this approach impracticable for long term treatments especially in the elderly.
In a new study, however, a team of researchers at McGill University led by Dr. Claudio Cuello of the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, has shown that, when given in a formulation that facilitates passage to the brain, lithium in doses up to 400 times lower than what is currently being prescribed for mood disorders is capable of both halting signs of advanced Alzheimer's pathology such as  and of recovering lost cognitive abilities. The findings are published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
Building on their previous work
"The recruitment of Edward Wilson, a graduate student with a solid background in psychology, made all the difference," explains Dr. Cuello, the study's senior author, reflecting on the origins of this work. With Wilson, they first investigated the conventional lithium formulation and applied it initially in rats at a dosage similar to that used in clinical practice for mood disorders. The results of the initial tentative studies with conventional lithium formulations and dosage were disappointing however, as the rats rapidly displayed a number of adverse effects. The research avenue was interrupted but renewed when an encapsulated lithium formulation was identified that was reported to have some  in a Huntington  mouse model.
The new lithium formulation was then applied to a rat transgenic model expressing human mutated proteins causative of Alzheimer's, an animal model they had created and characterized. This rat develops features of the human Alzheimer's disease, including a progressive accumulation of amyloid plaques in the brain and concurrent cognitive deficits.
"Microdoses of lithium at concentrations hundreds of times lower than applied in the clinic for  were administered at early amyloid pathology stages in the Alzheimer's-like transgenic rat. These results were remarkably positive and were published in 2017 in Translational Psychiatry and they stimulated us to continue working with this approach on a more advanced pathology," notes Dr. Cuello.
Encouraged by these earlier results, the researchers set out to apply the same lithium formulation at later stages of the disease to their transgenic rat modelling neuropathological aspects of Alzheimer's disease. This study found that beneficial outcomes in diminishing pathology and improving cognition can also be achieved at more advanced stages, akin to late preclinical stages of the disease, when amyloid plaques are already present in the brain and when cognition starts to decline.
"From a practical point of view our findings show that microdoses of lithium in formulations such as the one we used, which facilitates passage to the brain through the brain-blood barrier while minimizing levels of lithium in the blood, sparing individuals from adverse effects, should find immediate therapeutic applications," says Dr. Cuello. "While it is unlikely that any medication will revert the irreversible brain damage at the clinical stages of Alzheimer's it is very likely that a treatment with microdoses of encapsulated lithium should have tangible beneficial effects at early, preclinical stages of the disease."
Moving forward
Dr. Cuello sees two avenues to build further on these most recent findings. The first involves investigating combination therapies using this  formulation in concert with other interesting drug candidates. To that end he is pursuing opportunities working with Dr. Sonia Do Carmo, the Charles E. Frosst-Merck Research Associate in his lab.
He also believes that there is an excellent opportunity to launch initial clinical trials of this formulation with populations with detectable preclinical Alzheimer's pathology or with populations genetically predisposed to Alzheimer's, such as adult individuals with Down Syndrome. While many pharmaceutical companies have moved away from these types of trials, Dr. Cuello is hopeful of finding industrial or financial partners to make this happen, and, ultimately, provide a glimmer of hope for an effective treatment for those suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
"NP03, a Microdose Lithium Formulation, Blunts Early Amyloid Post-Plaque Neuropathology in McGill-R-Thy1-APP Alzheimer-Like Transgenic Rats," by Wilson, Do Carmo, Cuello, et al. was published online on December 16, 2019 in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. 
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Privatization, Repression, and Revolts
Dispatches from Pepper Spray University:Privatization, Repression, and Revolts
©2012 The American Studies Association
Sunaina Maira and Julie Sze 

The spaces we live in are broken: occupation is our defense. As capital spirals further into crisis, we are constantly confronted with the watchword of austerity. We are meant to imagine a vast, empty vault where our sad but inevitable futures lie. But we are not so naïve. Just as Wall Street functions on perpetually revolving credit markets where cash is merely a blip, so also does our state government. High tuition increases have been made necessary not by shrinking savings, but by a perpetually expanding bond market, organized by the UC Regents, enforced through increasing tuition and growing student loan debt. Growth has become a caricature of itself, as the future is sold on baseless expanding credit from capitalist to capitalist. Our future is broken. We are the crisis. Our-occupations are the expressions of that crisis.—Communiqué from the Occupied Crush Culture Center, UC Davis

Special Issue: The University in Crisis, Issue, 2010


Dispatches from Pepper Spray University: Privatization, Repression, and Revolts Sunaina Maira, Julie Sze American Quarterly, ... and Revolts Sunaina Maira, Julie Sze American Quarterly, Volume 64, Number 2, June 2012, pp. ... 315 Privatization, Repression, and Revolts ©2012 The American Studies Association ...

Dec 13, 2019 - Julie Sze is a Professor of American Studies at UC Davis. She is ... from the UC Humanities Institute, the American Studies Association, and the AAUW. ... (#28) Sunaina Maira and Julie Sze, Dispatches from Pepper-Spray University: Privatization, Repression, and Revolts. American Quarterly, June 2012.

It may appear today as if UC Davis offers Ethnic Studies programs in the effort to match ... of the social, cultural, and material conditions that contribute to, and arise from, ethnic associations and formations. ... Sunaina Maira and Julie Sze. “Dispatches from Pepper Spray University: Privatization, Repression, and Revolts.

Recently, Julie Sze and Sunaina Maira, the authors of a 2012 American Quarterly ... from Pepper Spray University: Privatization, Repression, and Revolts,” were ...

May 14, 2014 - Sunaina Maira and Piya Chatterjee (SM and PC): One of the ... given the AAUP's censure of the American Studies Association for ... Piya: 19 January 2012. ... [1] See Sunaina Maira and Julie Sze, “Dispatches from Pepper-Spray University: Privatization, Repression, and Revolts,” American Quarterly 64, no.
by N Greyser - ‎Cited by 1 - ‎Related articles
Association. ... Studies” (2012) and “Affective Geographies: Sojourner Truth's Narrative, ... interdisciplinary fields—fields like American studies, women's and gender ... and the University of California” and Sunaina Maira and Julie Sze, “Dispatches from Pepper Spray University: Privatization, Repression, and Revolts,” both in ...

[PDF]
Counterpoints 410: 151-169; Maira, Sunaina and Julie Sze. 2012. “Dispatches from Pepper Spray University: Privatization, Repression, and. Revolts.” American ...
Nov 21, 2011 - By Maria L. La Ganga and Larry Gordon, Los Angeles Times ... As outrage mounted over police use of pepper spray on nonviolent student ... controversy about the forceful response by university police to student protesters. ... Julie Sze, associate professor of American Studies, brought her sign-waving ...



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 1919
 Britain's forgotten revolution: Incredible, '1919: Britain's Year of Revolution', which features black and white photographs of tanks on the streets and warships, including HMS Valiant – one o the most formidable battleships of its time – moored in the Mersey, Liverpool. 





Photos also show how in Luton, the town hall was burned down before troops were able to regain control and in Epsom, Sergeant Thomas Green was killed - becoming the first police officer to die in a riot in the 20th Century. 

On the August Bank Holiday in 1919, the government in London dispatched tanks to the northern city of Liverpool in an overwhelming show of force
Glasgow, January 1919: The arrest of David Kirkwood, an active member of the Union of Democratic Control who was opposed to Britain's involvement in WW1. Police broke up an open air trade union meeting at George Square and leaders of the union were arrested and charged with 'instigating and inciting large crowds of persons to form part of a riotous mob'
The red flag is pictured here being raised in Glasgow in January 1919, shortly before troops were sent in to control the crowds
The towering HMS Valiant – one of the most formidable battleships of its time – can be seen moored in the Mersey, Liverpool, as battleships were deployed against British trade unionist and Communist crowds

THE RIOTS OF 1919: WARSHIPS DISPATCHED AND TANKS ARRIVE AS ANGRY MOBS SPILL INTO STREETS 

Left, Winston Churchill, who served as Secretary of State for War from 10 January 1919 until 13 February 1921 and right, Prime Minister David Lloyd George who was in the post at the time, from 1916 to 1922

The riots of 1919 saw angry mobs consisting of striking rail workers miners and police, clashing with soldiers in the streets.

However, the events of this year are often forgotten in the history books - overshadowed by the first and second world wars. 

Life after the First World War for everyone was tough and Britain found itself in a perilous state - there was a lack of food, young men had perished as they fought for their country and lives had been lost throughout the battle.

Riots saw widespread mutinies in the Army, tanks brought onto the streets to crush workers' uprisings and troops imposing martial law on the Befordshire town of Luton. 

The Royal Navy were called in to occupy the port of Mersey in Liverpool, which came under siege from mobs the Army was unable to contain. 

This took place against the background of a British invasion of Russia and fears in the Government that a revolution was imminent. 

Indeed, the precarious situation the United Kingdom found itself in in 1919 was exacerbated by the attacks on, and invasion of Russia which the British had launched the previous year. 

A headline from the Manchester Guardian of August 4, 1919, read: 'TROOPS FIRE OVER PILLAGING CROWDS, WARSHIPS DESPATCHED: TANKS ARRIVE'.

The unrest reached such a pitch that Prime Minister Lloyd George candidly told a deputation of strikers in the spring of 1919 that they were in a stronger position than the Government itself, and if they wanted, they could take over the running of the country. 

It appeared that Britain could be on the verge of transforming itself from a constitutional monarchy and liberal democracy, into a Soviet-style People's Republic. 
However, in the early 1920s the mood shifted away from revolution and overthrowing the Government in a bloody revolt. There were wars abroad - in Iraq and Afghanistan - and a threat of terrorism coming from Ireland on the form of Sinn Fein. The riots therefore subdued as more immediate threats from abroad presented themselves. 

RACE RIOTS

1919 also saw a series of race riots which came in the wake of the First World War as the surplus of labour led to dissatisfaction among Britain’s workers, in particular seamen. 

This led to the outbreak of rioting between white and minority workers in Britain’s major seaports, from January to August 1919. 

Race riots broke out in Liverpool, London and seven other major ports. In some cases, Afro- and Caribbean British were competing with Swedish immigrant workers, and both with native men from the British Isles.

Along with African, Afro-Caribbean, Chinese and Arab sailors, South Asians were targeted because of the highly competitive nature of the job market and the perception that these minorities were ‘stealing’ the jobs that should belong to white indigenous British workers. 

The housing shortage due to a lack of materials and labour during the war exacerbated the situation.

POLICE STRIKES

The Police Strikes of 1918 and 1919 prompted the government to put before Parliament its proposals for a Police Act, which established the Police Federation of England and Wales as the representative body for the police. 

The act barred police from belonging to a trade union or affiliating with any other trade union body. 

The act was passed in response to the formation of the National Union of Police and Prison Officers (NUPPO). A successful police strike in 1918 and another strike in June 1919 led to the suppression of the union by the government. 

On 1 August 1919, the Police Act of 1919 passed into law.
A soldier and tank in the centre of Liverpool during the riots of August 1919: Industrial unrest and mutiny in the armed forces combined together to produce the fear that Britain was facing the same kind of situation which had led to the Russian Revolution two years earlier
Glasgow's indoor cattle market was turned into a makeshift tank and weaponry depot following the rioting in the city
Troops and police stand in solidarity on duty together on the streets of Glasgow, amid ongoing Communist riots in 1919
The burned out shell of Luton Town Hall after the riots: In the summer of 1919, the hall was burned down by rioters, before the army was brought in to restore order
Sergeant Thomas Green was the first police officer to be killed in a riot in 20th Century Britain. The 51-year-old was fatally wounded when he was hit on the head with an iron bar during the Epsom Riot and died in Epsom Hospital the next day
Police officers on strike in London in 1919: To some observers, it seemed only a matter of time before Britain transformed itself from a constitutional monarchy into a Soviet Republic
Damage to shops near Kinmel camp after the riot and gun battle: 


On 4 and 5 March 1919, Kinmel Park in 
Bodelwyddan, near Abergele, north Wales, experienced two 
days of riots in the Canadian sector
 of the military complex


The book, '1919 Britain's Year of Revolution' by Simon Webb
The aftermath of the rioting at Kinmel, which cost five soldier's lives - but historians still do not know exactly what happened and who killed the five men images show tanks on the streets as striking workers in 1919 raised fears UK would go the same way as Russia had two years earlier 

It is a somewhat forgotten passage in British history, when the Government had to use heavy handed tactics by deploying warships, tanks and troops to the UK's streets because of social unrest after the First World War.

These incredible images reveal how, in 1919, striking workers brought chaos to cities across the country and forced Downing Street to use unprecedented force against its own citizens.

The Army had to be called in because police officers were among those on strike - with soldiers deployed to suppress disorder as fierce and violent riots involving British trade unionist and Communist crowds wreaked havoc.Details of the uprising are revealed in a new book.



The little-known true story of rioting and rebellion among British veterans and workers after the end of World War I.
 
On the August Bank Holiday of 1919, the government in London dispatched warships to the northern city of Liverpool in an overwhelming show of force. Thousands of troops, backed by tanks, had been trying without success to suppress disorder on the streets.
 
Earlier that year in London, a thousand soldiers had marched on Downing Street before being disarmed by a battalion of the Grenadier Guards loyal to the government. In Luton that summer, the town hall was burned down by rioters before the army was brought in to restore order, and in Glasgow, artillery and tanks were positioned in the center of the city to deter what the secretary of state for Scotland described as a Bolshevik uprising.
 
Industrial unrest and mutiny in the armed forces combined to produce the fear that Britain was facing, the same kind of situation which had led to the Russian Revolution two years earlier. Drawing chiefly upon contemporary sources, this book describes the sequence of events which looked as though they might be the precursor to a revolution along the lines of those sweeping across Europe at that time. To some observers, it seemed only a matter of time before Britain transformed itself from a constitutional monarchy into a Soviet Republic.
 
“An extraordinary tale.” —Battlefield

Review

'As ever, Webb proves himself to be a consummate researcher, turning back time to allow modern readers to develop an understanding of past events. With so much focus on World War I in recent years due to centenary commemorations, it's fascinating to see how the conflict shaped and changed the country.' (Essex Life Magazine)

"All in all, it is an extraordinary tale that is well told with a clear and readable style. Webb makes a convincing case for the idea that a revolution might have been on the cards in this country a year after the Great War ended, however fanciful this might seem to some readers." (Battlefield: the Magazine of the Battlefields Trust, Spring 2017)

A fantastic insight into the tumult that existed as the British ruling class pushed back against the unrest which World War One and the Russian revolution had unleashed (The Socialist)

About the Author

Simon Webb is the author of a number of non-fiction books, ranging from academic works on education to popular history. He works as a consultant on the subject of capital punishment to television companies and filmmakers and also writes for various magazines and newspapers; including the Times Educational Supplement, Daily Telegraph and the Guardian.
https://www.amazon.com/1919-Britains-Revolution-Simon-Webb-ebook/dp/B01N0ZBVPZ












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