I was a bit behind in hearing about this but have been glued to the news for the past 2 days.
I can't quite believe what I'm seeing and the way people are just behaving in this way for NO reason what so ever. You can see from the footage that people are just blindly following one another and it's all a bit of fun and games.

And now it's starting up in Birmingham. Ridiculous.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14450248

It makes me want to go up to London and shout at them how stupid they are being!!!

I was rather behind as well!
I hadn't realised that the riots came to London from Tottenham =/
And I live in London lol =O
I was out clubbing last night at the West-end.
There were lots of police around but I didn't see anything out-of-the-ordinary.

It's really annoying that they have to behave so disgracefully.
They are giving young people a worse reputation. =@
How hard is it to protest peacefully?
Going around looting, being violent + smashing shops up.
What the fuck is that going to achieve!?

I think this world has gone fucking insane.
Stupid people =/

It is insane. What I want to know is why did it take 3 days of this before the Mayor of London and the prime minister have shown their faces to support their city at this time?

I got curious about what international reporting on this was like... CNN have it as their headline on their website and reporting is pretty good... Fox news have it third down on their 'more news' page and focus on the fact this is happening in the city which is to host next year's Olympics. Honestly, people are losing their homes and businesses and they focus on the Olympics?!?

Fox News is probably the last place I'd ever go to get news. They're incredibly biased and often-times flat out wrong in an attempt to get the "scoop."

That being said, most media in America is biased one way or another. I saw the story, but it wasn't a top headling in US news, as is the case, you know, of the massive economic problems going on in the US. London riots take a backseat, so to speak, when the stock market drops 6+% in the span of a day on the back of a credit downgrading, all following one of the worst weeks the economy has seen in a while.

@ Klein mitleid: oh, I know that. I can't stand Fox News. I looked at their website because I was curious about what spin they would apply to the story.

@red Fraggle: I've watched the news a couple of times today... my city mentions the mob attacks we had here a lot more than international news. They only mentioned this particular riot briefly - but never really went into detail on it.

Fox can always be depended on to have the wrong priorities. :-P There is some political buzz about Republicans who want the 2012 nomination, but there has been a lot of coverage on the riots on cable news in general.

London =/

i clearly live under a rock. why are there riots? what are they rioting about? what's going on?

From what I understand - and I don't know how it got so out of hand - Police were arresting a man and somehow during the arrest the police landed up shooting the man and he died.

So understandably people weren't happy about this and riots have errupted.

By the looks of things, from what I've read, there's isn't a legitimate reason for the riots to have gotten to this point. Basically people in Tottenham were shocked at the shooting of this person, so they rioted and things got a bit crazy there. I think it's spread for no apparent reason, people texted other people, jumped on twitter etc so basically people have just started rioting and looting because they can. I could be wrong, I can't seem to find any article which suggests there IS a reason why the riots have spread.

This is what I have heard too. Also heard the guy getting killed by police is gang related. I haven't had the chance to read or watch anything yet.

I hadn't heard much about this at all, much less the source of the rioting. After a bit of digging, I've found this...

Taken from The Daily Mail Online:

Police leaders have been meeting community leaders in a desperate bid to calm tensions over the clashes which were sparked by the shooting of 'gangster' Mark Duggan last week.

Mob mentality rules, though. It's no longer about what happened to Duggan, but simply wreaking havoc and taking advantage of unprotected storefronts.

One shouldn't believe everything found in the Daily Mail. They're twats. But I agree it's stupid people rioting for they don't even know what. They're only looting for their own benefit. And it's terrorizing for the people who live nearby. I don't see what it's going to do for the guy who was shot by the police or their family. It's only causing more hurt and problems. Stealing those 3D HD tvs will not bring the dude back.

Riots have now spread to Nottingham, Bristol and Liverpool.

And Oxford apparently.
But the worst rioting is here in London =/

Is this still going on? It was still on the news in Australia with a story about a couple having to leave. Their newborn child's side because the fucking hospital was being looted. What. The. Fuck. ??

Sorry meant to say still on the news yesterday.

The hospital?!? Goodness I didn't hear about that!

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/08/us-militarys-plan-london-riots/41101/

US has plans already in the event of an insurrection. Some-odd 400,000 people ready to roll and take down rioters/looters in the event of widespread uprising. The riots in the UK remind me of those in LA after the Rodney King trial, only the business owners decided they had had enough of the nonsense, and stood out front and on rooftops of their businesses, armed and ready to defend.

God was i drunk when i posted i forgot to write DYING newborn's side and it wasn't. On the news yesterday but the day before yesterday. So it is still going on? Jeez.