After tuition fees vote, students will ensure politicians are the biggest losers

The electorate will not forgive or forget the betrayal by Vince Cable and others who broke their pledge to oppose higher fees

an article by Aaron Porter

The last 30 days have shaken the coalition. Together with UCU, the lecturers' union, we brought 50,000 to the streets of London on 10 November for the biggest student demonstration in a generation. It has sparked a new wave of activism that has involved tens of thousands of students, parents, pupils and teachers in creative, nonviolent protests and direct action.

By piling pressure on MPs with dozens of spontaneous demonstrations, scores of occupations and hundreds of thousands taking action around the country, we have come together to defend education and fight for our future. A generation has found its voice.

We won the arguments and the battle for public opinion and, even in parliament, MPs admitted they agreed with us that the government's proposals were unfair, unnecessary and wrong before trailing through the lobbies to vote for them. There are no winners from Thursday's vote, but we will ensure that the biggest losers will be politicians.

We lost the vote in the House of Commons because MPs broke the promises they made to voters. We knew that had their pledges been honoured, we would have won the day.

Twenty-one Liberal Democrat MPs kept their promises and they deserve our praise. I will write to each of them individually to thank them for standing up for students and their families. It was great to see them join Conservative, Labour, Green, SNP, Plaid Cymru, DUP, SDLP and independent MPs as a rainbow coalition to vote down the government's proposals. It is a democratic disgrace that their motion was not considered and that the people were not heard.

The responsibility for the outcome lies on the shoulders of those MPs who have broken their promises to voters. Those who broke their pledge and voted for the government have lied, and those who abstained have not only lied, but they are also cowards. As a result of that vote, students will pay a big price but many politicians cost themselves their integrity and their seats. They dishonoured themselves in the lobbies.

MPs in seats such as Bath, Burnley, Bradford East, Bristol West and Brent Central are a busted flush. The claim from Simon Hughes that he abstained in the vote "on principle" is a joke and Nick Clegg has lost all integrity. As he has spun on his heels in ill-advised U-turn after U-turn, Vince Cable's credibility has been shot to pieces. This may impress Strictly Come Dancing judges, but voters will take a very dim view. The electorate will not forgive or forget this betrayal.

We intend to hold politicians to account for what they have already done and in time we will do so.

But we have urgent battles to fight. The proposals to triple fees will go the House of Lords on Tuesday and we will be urging peers to vote them down. On Monday we will join forces with teachers and lecturers for a day of action to save the education maintenance allowance. The EMA transforms lives and supports the poorest college learners to stay in education. We will fight to defend it as the government looks to pull up the drawbridge on the next generation and price out the poorest learners.

If universities are to be allowed to charge up to £9,000 then promoting, defending and extending the rights of students will become even more crucial than it is already.

Our fight is not just an issue of policy, but one of principle. The government has blamed the financial crisis and told us there is no alternative. The first people who will pay these astronomical fees were aged just 13 when the banks fell. They didn't cause the crisis but they are becoming its victims.

There is still much to be done to build on what we have done together. The student movement has a strong future but we are in the fight of our lives to defend ourselves and each other. Our fight goes on.

Amid tension, U.S. and South Korea begin military drills

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- South Korea and the United States started joint military exercises Sunday, U.S. Forces Korea spokesman David Oten told CNN, prompting a furious response from North Korea.

The naval operations are "no more than an attempt to find a pretext for aggression and ignite a war at any cost," North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said, warning that the drills "are putting the Korean Peninsula at a state of ultra-emergency."

North Korea warned of unpredictable "consequences" if the United States sends an aircraft carrier to the Yellow Sea for the military maneuvers.

The divided peninsula, tense at the best of times, has been near the boiling point since Tuesday, when North Korea shelled a South Korean island, killing four people.

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China called Sunday for an emergency meeting of the six major powers involved in talks about the Korean peninsula.

Top diplomats from the six nations need to meet soon to "maintain peace and stability on the peninsula and ease the tension" in the region, Beijing's special representative for the region, Wu Dawei, said Sunday.

South Korea said Sunday it did not think the time was right for a resumption of the Six-Party talks, then added that its comment was not a response to China's call for an emergency meeting, which Seoul said it would "bear in mind."

But Seoul was extremely cautious about the proposal, given what it called the North's "military provocation," and recent nuclear moves.

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday that the flare-up exposed the failure of "continued appeasment" of North Korea by Republican and Democratic administrations. He said the United States has given North Korea more than $1 billion in aid over the past 15 years with the goal of getting them to the negotiating table.

"It seems the purpose of everything is to get the North Koreans to the table," McCain said. "The North Koreans' only claim to their position on the world stage is their nuclear capability. And they have a terrible, most repressive, oppressive regime in the world. They have hundreds of thousands of people in slave labor camps. And all of that seems to be sacrificed in the altar of, quote, 'negotiations.'"

Significant pressure should have been placed on North Korea long ago, said McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

A top Chinese envoy met South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak Sunday and a high-ranking North Korean official will visit Beijing this week, China's Xinhua news agency said.

North Korea said the South provoked the attack on Yeonpyeong Island because shells from a South Korean millitary drill landed in the North's waters.

A group of 124 people left Yeonpyeong Island by boat Sunday.

The South Korean defense ministry is urging journalists to leave the island voluntarily because of the instability, the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Seoul said Sunday. The ministry expects most journalists to leave Sunday night.

South Korea said Sunday another shell had accidentally been fired during a land-based military exercise, separate from the naval drills with the Americans.

The shell, fired by a unit based near Munsan, South Korea, landed on the South Korean side, a defense ministry spokesman told CNN. South Korea notified the North of the "accidental firing," and there has been no response, the spokesman said.

Earlier Sunday, the United States and South Korea began assembling ships for the exercises off the west coast of the Korean peninsula in the Yellow Sea, a source at the South Korean Joint Chiefs told CNN.

KCNA warned Sunday what could happen if the country perceives its waters are infringed upon.

"The DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] will deal a merciless military counter-attack at any provocative act of intruding into its territorial waters in the future," the state news agency said.

It called reports of civilian casualties part of South Korea's "propaganda campaign" and accused the "enemy" of creating "a human shield by deploying civilians around artillery positions and inside military facilities before the launch of the provocation."

"If the U.S. brings its carrier to the West Sea of Korea at last, no one can predict the ensuing consequences," said KCNA, referring to the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which is set to join South Korea's forces near the coasts of China and North Korea for the four-day military drill.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Nicole Thompson called the claims "outrageous."

"This is just another example of North Korea's own internal propaganda. The North Koreans for many years, including the Cheonan warship incident, have taken provocative action. This didn't have anything to do with U.S. actions," Thompson told CNN, referring to the sinking of a South Korean ship in March that left 46 people on board dead.

The United States and South Korea blame the sinking on the North, which has consistently denied responsibility.

Diplomats, seeking a lessening of tensions and a return to the six-party talks with North Korea over the country's nuclear aspirations, have busily labored to avert more hostilities. The United States, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and North Korea are the six countries that have been involved in the talks, which were put on hold in 2008.

The violence has sparked anger and political turmoil in South Korea. The country's defense minister, Kim Tae-young resigned after the exchange of fire, and veterans of the South Korean military protested Saturday on the streets of Seoul, stating they were angry that their country's government had not done enough to respond to the North's shelling.

The tense maritime border between the two Koreas has become the major military flashpoint on the Korean peninsula in recent years.

The Yeonpyeong attack was the first direct artillery assault on South Korea since 1953, when an armistice ended fighting. North and South Korea are still technically at war.

Student demonstrations around the country

While tens of thousands of protesters angered by proposals to increase university tuition fees stole the headlines on Wednesday, students across the country were holding their own demonstrations.

Here is a round-up of the action away from Westminster.

:: Bristol – Nearly 1,000 students marched from the Senate House to the student union building, where hundreds occupied the site. Students from the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England took part, as well as pupils from St Brendan's Sixth Form College and Bristol Grammar School. Roads were blocked and mounted police kept demonstrators under control.

:: Liverpool – Students gathered at the Liverpool Guild of Students this morning to march to the town hall, monitored by heavy police presence. Up to 3,000 people staged a noisy but peaceful protest march through Liverpool city centre.

: Birmingham – Protesters occupied part of the University of Birmingham's Great Hall, and up to 40 students broke into the Aston Webb building to stage a 36-hour sit-in. The students waved a banner calling for the university's vice chancellor to resign.

:: Sheffield – 2,000 students and secondary school pupils joined protests in the city, marching to Sheffield Town Hall for a mass demonstration. Nearly 300 pupils, mainly sixth formers, walked out of King Edward's School in Sheffield to join the rally, despite being warned that their absence was unauthorised. Reports of plans of a protest at Nick Clegg's constituency office in Sheffield led to extra officers being posted outside the building in Nether Green.

:: Leeds – 1,000 students made their way through the city centre to Victoria Gardens, where a large police presence was put in place. Up to 60 students walked out of Allerton Grange School in the north of the city to join the demonstration.

:: Brighton – Up to 3,000 paraded through the city, with around 15 protesters gaining entry to a university building in Grand Parade. There were also protests at Brighton Town Hall where a small group was asked to leave by security officers. One arrest was made at Priory House for breach of the peace.

:: Cambridge – 1,000 students from universities and sixth-form colleges took part in the protests. A number of students climbed over railings at the university's Senate House, where onlookers described the scene as "crazy". Two students were arrested by Cambridgeshire Police for obstruction, and there were some reports from protesters of police violence. Students from Parkside Community College staged a walkout to show their support.

:: Plymouth – Students occupied a room at the University of Plymouth, demanding a list of concessions from the university's vice chancellor, Professor Wendy Purcell. Two hundred students from King Edward VI Community College in Totnes also planned a walkout in protest over the fees.

:: Derbyshire – Around 300 secondary school students marched on County Hall in Derbyshire, after leaving classes at Highfields School in Matlock on Wednesday morning. There was also a walkout at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School in Ashbourne.

:: Durham – More than 700 students assembled outside the Town Hall before marching to Durham Cathedral in a peaceful demonstration.

:: Edinburgh – Around 250 students marched from the city's university hub of Bristol Square to set up camp outside the Edinburgh Liberal Democrats' office in Haymarket. The protest was monitored by heavy police presence.

:: Nottingham – Around 60 school pupils from Tooting school, Bingham, gathered to protest outside Nottingham town hall. They were joined by students from the city's two universities in a peaceful demonstration.

:: Manchester – Neary 3,000 students from universities, colleges and schools gathered at University Place in the city. A group of several hundred protesters broke away from the main demonstration marched to the town hall, shouting: "No ifs, no buts, no education cuts".

:: London – Staff and students at the Royal College of Art in Kensington staged a peaceful walkout at lunchtime on Wednesday, while hundreds of students at University College London occupied a room in the central campus of the university.

BURMA: BREAK THE SILENCE

Earlier this year, we delivered radios funded by Amnesty supporters to remote areas of Burma. We saw their real impact in providing people with access to independent information in a country where media is heavily censored. We were also reminded of the crucial role our partner organisations - who helped deliver the radios - play in bringing information such as video footage out of Burma. So please buy a radio or video equipment today and help us break through Burma’s wall of censorship.