Chilena in England

Hablando en Espanglish International students officer UoMSU

[fuckyeahfluiddynamics]

When the right nutrients come together in coastal waters, it can feed a phytoplankton bloom large enough to be visible to satellites. The phytoplankton themselves are microscopic organisms that are easily carried along by oceanic flows. In fluid dynamics terms, they are passive scalars or seed particles–additives that reveal the structure of the flow without altering it. Here the phytoplankton uncover the large-scale turbulent structure of flow in the Arabian Sea. Check the scale in the lower right. Many of the green eddies and swirls in this satellite image are hundreds of kilometers across. Yet, if we could zoom way in, we would still see turbulence acting on scales down to the millimeter length or below. This incredibly large range of length scales–eight or more orders of magnitude here–is a common characteristic of turbulence and part of what makes it such a challenge to understand or model. (Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory)

[taniasauma]

Solidarity with Nepal

Solidarity with Nepal The 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal last 25 of April affected more than 8 million people, costing thousands of lives. The UK government has pledged to send a team of 8 people and 5 million pounds of help, corresponding to 12p per person living in the UK. This is shameful considering that the UK is one of the richest countries of the world and Nepal one of the poorest.

The drama of an earthquake is not over when the earth stops moving, the destruction that causes is so big, that that many have lost their houses, many will be looking for their loved ones and communications and transport will take long to be reestablished, same for supplies of all kind, including water and food, and the aftershocks will continue hitting Nepal for years. The student movement has a proud tradition of internationalism and I urge you to live up to this tradition.

Shreya Paudel, Nepali and the Internaitonal students Officer of NUS said:  "There are various charities like Oxfam, and Save The Children UK who have been collecting funds for the earthquake victims. Likewise, you can text ‘NEPAL’ to 70123 to donate £5 to Unicef. Similarly, various individuals are collecting funds themselves through Go Fund Me. £1 equals Rs 153. A single pound can buy at least two meals." 

Rebuild a country after a natural disaster of this magnitude will take years, and the help you can send today can save lives if it's there on time. In solidarity

Tania Sauma, International students officer Universiyt of Manchester @TaniaSauma

[taniasauma]

I'm voting Hattie Craig #1 at #NUSNC15 to be our next VPHE, check out her Facebook page to see why #Hattie4HE http://thndr.it/1PrTr2Y

[taniasauma]

I'm supporting #Shelly4Welfare at NUS conference #NUSNC15. If you haven't seen her manifesto yet, check it out here: http://thndr.it/1D3Bi6k

[taniasauma]

Statement regarding the Counter Terrorism and Security Bill

On 26 November 2014, Home Secretary Theresa May introduced the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill (CTSB) to Parliament with revised and new counter-terrorism powers; seeking to make the controversial Prevent and Channel Strategies statutory.

We condemn the CTSB and view the Prevent Strategy and Channel policies as further developing a culture of suspicion and surveillance on campuses, whilst also potentially conflicting with institutions’ duties to promote a safe space by making them overly risk-averse and unwilling to engage in important topics of discussion. The monitoring and exclusion of ideas from public debate opposes the basic function of universities; to encourage critical thinking by introducing students to a variety of opinions for them to analyse and debate. The Prevent Strategy guidance in 2011 also recommended to University staff, lecturers and chaplains to report to the police any Muslim students who are isolated or depressed.

Further to this According to the current Prevent Strategy, potential indicators of radicalism” or “extremism” include:

“A need for identity, meaning and belonging.”

“A desire for political or moral change.”

“Relevant mental health issues.”

This could have a substantially detrimental effect on the mental health and wellbeing of Muslim students and/or politically active students, cultivating a threatening environment and therefore dissuading students from asking students for help when they are in need. Such a broad definition of “extremism” could compromise all politically active students and any expectation by the state for academic staff to be involved in monitoring their students is deeply worrying and will damage relations between staff and students. We believe that academics, as well as anyone in a public sector job, should not have to be part of this surveillance. We believe that students are not suspects. Students should be offered help and not victimised for suffering from mental health issues, wanting to establish identity or empower themselves as activists. The CTSB could serve to isolate many students who already feel that the only visible Government engagement is ‘anti-radicalisation’ initiatives, resulting in further alienation and disaffection.

We, the University of Manchester Students’ Union, support an enquiry into the legality of the proposals under the Equality Act 2010 and the Education Act No. 2 1986 as we continue to work with campus trade unions in combating the Prevent Strategy and lobbying them to condemn the CTSB.

[taniasauma]

[ambivalentlyyours]

[taniasauma]

Sobre el triunfo de Syriza

En Atenas se nota la crisis. Yo me quedé cerca del centro y está lleno de edificios vacíos, desalojados bloques completos y muchos negocios clausurados. Dos años atrás en Thessalonikis me pareció que la cosa no estaba tan mal y que los europeos, acostumbrados a sus estados de bienestar, le daban color, pero ahora la cosa se respira en cada esquina y es grave, los helenos ya no tienen nada que perder. Un viejito en el mercado nos decía: "la gente le tenía miedo al comunismo porque pensaba que el gobierno les iba a quitar sus casas pero ya perdieron sus casas a manos del capitalismo, ya no le tenemos miedo a la izquierda" Nos juntamos con unos compas del comité central de la juventud de Syriza, en una reunión con las delegaciones de todo Europa, la reunión fue una mierda, pero nos hicimos amigos de Elías y Petros que con unas pilsen nos contaban como andaba la cosa. 

Conocer a Elías y Petros fue un alivio para mi alma atormentada por la izquierda inglesa, siempre tan pedante, y con tan poquita praxis, tan puristas  y en general tan pasados a shit, en cambio estos cabros la estaban haciendo toda, viviendo su realidad, sin aplicar recetas, sino que buscando una respuesta. La juventud de Syriza me recuerda a la jota chilena del 2011, cuando la revolución era inminente y pusimos al país de cabeza y cambiamos la sociedad para siempre.

Los cabros de Syriza no son posmodernos, ni liberales, ni monos de ningún tipo. Son militantes comunistas de un partido que nace como respuesta a la incapacidad del KKE por distanciarse del estalinismo y establecer una nueva narrativa. Los partidos comunistas europeos me parece que adolecen todos de la misma enfermedad, estuvieron siempre muy cerca de Moscú y dependían estrictamente de su dirección y con la caída de la unión sovietica no pudieron plantearse por si mismos respuestas a las necesidades del nuevo período, en inglaterra ni siquiera existen.

Y esa es la gracia de Syriza. Tienen una narrativa de izquierda, con un programa que mucho recuerda a las 40 medidas de la unidad popular, que no es la revolución en si misma, pero que busca devolverle la dignidad a un pueblo para que pueda efectivamente empoderarse, será que la vía helena al socialismo se parece a la vía chilena al socialismo?

Necesitaban 151 asientos y sacaron 149 (this feels like having the best sex of your life and not being able to come, decía un compa) y si no forman una coalición tienen que volver a llamar a elecciones, considerando que esta campaña se hizo casi sin recursos, se gastaron hasta el último peso prestado y se sostuvieron a puro ñeque, luego de este triunfo, para ellos dejar fracasar el gobierno para tratar de sacar mayoría absoluta en unas nuevas elecciones no es opción. La coalición con los fachos es una movida estratégica y práctica, no son cualquier partido facho, son un partido chiquitísimo, que en la negociación con Syriza debería pesar bien poco y que concuerda con algunos puntos del programa (ñe, no me acuerdo cuales) lo que le daría viabilidad al gobierno, y si logran sumar más apoyos en el parlamento al avanzar, esperan poder prescindir de ellos.

A mí esto me parece una hazaña, Europa necesita esperanza y Syriza está transitando ese camino antes que nadie, acá no hay recetas. Solo la valentía de un pueblo que ya no tiene nada que perder. Que tiemble la injusticia.

update: los fachitos y Syriza concuerdan en su programa anti-austeridad

[taniasauma]

Theresa May, the student movement will take you for a ride (osea, te pasea)

The announcement of Theresa May’s new policy which contemplates “kicking out” international students as soon as they finish their studies would mean that international students need to go back to their home countries in order to apply for a new study visa if they want to take another course, or a new work visa if they get a job. This is part of a wider governmental policy to create a hostile environment for international students and immigrants more generally.

An announcement like this, which comes after the implementation of the new immigration bill that affects international students tremendously with NHS charges, aggressive attendance monitoring schemes including visa checking from landlords (with a pilot programme already going on in Birmingham) and new visa restrictions, is part of the same anti-immigration rhetoric that scapegoats immigrants for an economic crisis that was in fact caused by the Government’s aid of the financial sector.

As part of the student movement, we have been asking for the opposite: the restoration of the post-study visa, the end of the monitoring of international students, and a new fee policy in order to treat us like any other student in the UK. We strongly believe in the contribution that international students make to our communities, and we will continue campaigning to protect them from the racist attacks of this Government.

[suartsculture-blog]

International Migrants Day

Hello

Yesterday was International Migrants Day, so a belated HAPPY MIGRANTS DAY  to all migrants around the world! We attended a protest outside the home office and it was great. I thought I would share some of my experiences as a migrant in the UK.

I have had to spend a great deal of time over the past 18 months, trying to get rid of a discriminatory monitoring system at my university, where International students were being asked to physically go and sign in once a week as if they were on parole for committing a crime. We managed to win the fight at the end but many other universities up and down the country still require their non European students to prove they are not visa cheats every single week and at some places, every single day!

This might not seem like a big issue in the grand scheme of how immigrants are being treated but it is one of many elements that makes non-British individuals in this country feel unwelcome.

I can never forget the humiliating 8 hour long queue to register with the police upon entering the UK, I can never forget the border agency’s racist staff member who told me its because of people like me that this country has poverty and crime. I can never forget the crying lady at the Croydon home office centre which was told she cannot live with her husband because she doesn’t earn enough money to sponsor him, therefore he cannot remain in the Uk.

Read More

[fuckyeahfluiddynamics]

Turbulence is one of the great unsolved mysteries of classical mechanics. Many physicists and engineers have spent their careers trying to further our understanding of the subject and find the mathematical pattern that underlies its complex motions. But understanding turbulence and representing it artistically may be two different things. This video discusses some neat research that found that some of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings, like “The Starry Night”, display mathematical patterns like those of turbulence. (Video credit: TED Ed)

[phdstudents]

most people on a friday

grad students on a friday

[revolutiontrainee]

If you live in Europe or follow European news, you’d have to have your head in the sand to not know there is a highly political public debate occurring about migration. There’s the UKIP/National Front/Golden Dawn line where migrants - despite skill level - are considered a constant threat to...

[taniasauma]

this is the story of my friend, she's an international student in the UK, and as many of us she's in debt and in struggling with visa regulations 

[arts-su]

What happens when you combine milk, food coloring and dish soap? #howto#6secondscience

Art and science are often closely related!

[taniasauma]

Education should be free for all or not free at all

Back in the day Education was free. When fees were introduced, home fees were capped but international fees weren’t. As state funding decreased, universities saw in international students a gold mine, a source of unlimited income because they could rise the uncapped fees of international students as much as they needed/wanted, reaching the dramatic figures we have these days, where the fees are between the double and in some cases the triple of home ones.

This is not normal, is just the product of marketisation of education, which has been ruthless with international students, creating a defromed system that now survives on the money of students coming from the global south.

As soon as you charge someone for education, this becomes a commodity. If education is something that can’t be bought and sold, then it has to be free for everyone, and this by itself should be enough to make everyone who believes in education as a public good and as a human right, to agree that then, should be free for international students as well, but there are some myths around us that are putting people off this idea

1st International Students are Rich Because fees are so high, people think we have to be rich to be able to be here, but for most of us this is not the case, the lucky ones, have scholarships from our home countries (developing countries), and the least lucky are facing a life of debt back home, to afford their degrees.

2nd International Students don’t contribute to society The anti-immigration rhetoric has had a profound effect, even among progressive people, the belief that immigration is a threat, is just a lie and all studies on this subject conclude that international students contribute a lot to the economy beyond the fees [1] as well as immigrants in general [2]. But the new immigration regulations, forcing us to leave the UK 60 days after we finish our degrees, don’t leave us a lot of freedom to contribute more.

3rd We just can’t afford paying for everyone’s education

Having free education depends only of the political will of really wanting  it, and while we are always looking at the examples of rich countries, the truth is free education FOR ALL exist all around the world, from Argentina to Germany, from México (which charges roughly 10 pence per year) to Norway. It doesn’t really depend on the GDP of the country, this is just a political decision of how the country uses the money it already has.

For all this reasons I’m marching this 19th of November asking for free education FOR  ALL. Don’t let the myths fool you, join us! NO FEES, NO CUTS, NO DEBT, NO BORDERS

[1] http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Documents/2014/TheImpactOfUniversitiesOnTheUkEconomy.pdf

[2] http://www.cream-migration.org/files/FiscalEJ.pdf