Parliament recalled as London burns

with riots that have engulfed the  United Kingdom.
This is the second time in a month that Cameron is doing this.
Last month, he cut short his four-day trip to South Africa and Nigeria to return home to deal with the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

Cameron recalled parliament yesterday and ordered thousands of extra police onto the streets after Britain’s worst rioting in decades left parts of London and other cities in flames.
As the rioting claimed its first fatality with the death of a man found shot in south London, Cameron vowed to do “everything  necessary to restore order to the streets” after three nights of violence.
Police have begun releasing CCTV pictures of looters, many of them in their teens. Some 525 people have been arrested in London in the last three days, Scotland Yard said.

Cameron warned: “You will feel the full force of the law. And if you are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the punishments.”
He said all police leave had been cancelled and there would be 16 000 officers on the streets of London starting last night, compared to the 6 000 deployed on Monday evening.
However, the rioting has exposed the British authorities’ hypocrisy and double standards, since they are always quick to point fingers at countries like Zimbabwe claiming that the leadership of

President Mugabe is dictatorial, and that it does not observe the rule of law.
They also claim abuse of human rights in Zimbabwe and other African countries.
Britain, the United States and their allies imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe after the land reform programme that saw indigenous people benefiting from land that was held by a few thousand former British settlers.

The Westminister Foundation is one of the many schemes used by the British to finance illegal regime change in Zimbabwe.
Britain’s interference in the internal affairs of its former colonies was evident in Malawi last month. After a diplomatic tiff with Malawi, the British government indefinitely suspended part of its budgetary aid programme worth £19 million.

There was unrest in Malawi and the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) said the demonstrations had been suppressed, civil society organisations intimidated and an injunctions Bill passed that would make it easier for the government to place restrictions on opponents without legal challenge.

The riots began on Saturday when a peaceful protest led by relatives of 29-year-old Mark Duggan, who was shot dead on Thursday night by police in the Tottenham area of north London, turned violent.

Rioters attacked police, set cars alight, burnt a double-decker bus and looted high street shops.
Copycat riots broke out in other flashpoint areas on Sunday, and by Monday night they had spread across the city, from the wealthy districts of Notting Hill and Clapham, to inner-city Peckham and Hackney, and suburban Croydon and Ealing.

Riots swept through London and in other English cities including Birmingham and Liverpool overnight on Monday, the third consecutive night of violence.
Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stephen Kavanagh said the rampage by hundreds of hooded youths overnight was “unprecedented” and said police resources were stretched “to an extent I have never seen before”.

He said plastic bullets, used during sectarian unrest in Northern Ireland but never before in mainland Britain, have been considered as “one of the tactics” to stem the tide of unrest.
The violence has raised questions about security ahead of the 2012 London Olympic Games, and it prompted the Football Association to cancel today’s friendly between England and The Netherlands at Wembley Stadium.

In some areas on Monday, rioters took control of the streets with little sign of police presence.
In Clapham, a mainly affluent area of south-west London, hundreds looted a department store for at least two hours, witnesses said.

Newspapers declared “mob rule”, and one police officer, Paul Deller, admitted yesterday: “We simply ran out of units to send.”
Police have also urged parents to keep their children at home.
They said too many people had been arrested to hold in the city’s police station jails, including three for attempted murder after a police officer was hit by a car in Brent, north-west London.

At least 44 police officers were injured overnight on Monday, in addition to at least 35 who were hurt on the previous two evenings, police said.
Despite the scenes of devastation, Acting Police Commissioner Tim Godwin said there were “no plans” for the army to get involved.
The Speaker of the House of Commons has agreed to recall parliament tomorrow so lawmakers could debate their response to the riots, Cameron said – a highly unusual move highlighting the seriousness of the crisis.

An inquest into Duggan’s death opened yesterday, and heard that he died of a single gunshot wound to the chest after the taxi he was travelling in was stopped by police investigating gun crime in the black community.
Cameron visited some of the worst destruction in Croydon in south London, where an entire block of buildings – including a 100-year-old family furniture business – was burned down, sending flames leaping into the night sky.

Meanwhile, a 26-year-old man was found with gunshot wounds in a car nearby, and police said yesterday he had died, becoming the first fatality of the riots.
The British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on Monday condemned the riots calling them “needless opportunistic theft and violence.”
The British government is already being criticised for its austerity measures, coupled with high unemployment and resentment of the police, for creating a “social division” which forced the police into conflict with communities.

London mayor Ken Livingstone said on Sunday: “We do not want to go back to the 1980s,” he said, referring to a string of riots that swept across urban centers of Britain 30 years ago which affected largely West Indian communities in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds as well as the Brixton area of London.

Lack of jobs and prospects against a backdrop of racism in the wider society and aggressive and sometimes racial profiling by police are now recognised by the authorities and experts as the triggers for the 1981 riots.

The weekend’s riots in Tottenham and north London also came after a winter which saw five major demonstrations in London.
A lawmaker called for BlackBerry’s instant messaging service to be suspended after rioters used it to mobilise in London and other British cities.
David Lammy, Member of Parliament for Tottenham, where London’s worst riots for decades began on Saturday, appealed on Twitter and on BBC radio for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion to suspend BlackBerry Messenger.

“This is one of the reasons why unsophisticated criminals are outfoxing an otherwise sophisticated police force,” he tweeted.
“BBM is different as it is encrypted and police can’t access it.”

Meanwhile, the acting Police Commissioner in London has said that there were no plans to call in the military to help beleaguered police restore order in London and other British cities hit by rioting.- The Herald/Reuters/Guardian/Xinhua/AFP.