The most interesting thing about these confrontations is watching Brand’s skilful manoeuvring as he refuses to allow himself to be intellectually sidetracked or cornered. It’s like watching an Olympic athlete. He has to use every skill in his considerable emotional and intellectual armoury: humour, matiness, intelligence, quick-wittedness, compassion, muted anger. So few of us have quite such a complete range of talents.
Each member state of the coalition has its own interest in this [Syrian] war and believes it can be satisfied, even though these interests are sometimes contradictory.
But the most important issues are economic: huge reserves of natural gas have been discovered in the south-eastern Mediterranean. The center of this deposit is near Homs in Syria (more precisely, at Qara).
Those in Washington and Europe who wish to destroy Ukraine’s independence portray an independent Ukraine as a hostage of Russia, while a Ukraine in the EU is allegedly under the protection of the US and Europe. The large sums of money that Washington funnels into NGOs in Ukraine propagate this idea and work the population into a mindless frenzy. I have never in my life witnessed people as mindless as the Ukrainian protesters who are destroying the independence of their country.
Environment secretary Owen Patterson should no longer be in his post. His contempt for climate science is well known. It is absurd to leave someone in charge of a department whose role is to protect the country from a growing climate crisis who himself believes that “people get very emotional about this subject, and I think we should just accept that the climate has been changing for centuries”. If we’re to have an integrated and credible national strategy to deal with the flooding crisis, we must start by having someone in charge who is prepared to acknowledge the reality of the growing climate threat that we face.
The truth about the criminal bloodbath in Iraq cannot be “countered” indefinitely. Neither can “our” support for the medievalists in Saudi Arabia, the nuclear-armed predators in Israel, the new military fascists in Egypt and the jihadist “liberators” of Syria, whose propaganda is now BBC news. There will be a reckoning – not just for the Blairs, Straws and Campbells, but for those paid to keep the record straight.
Rather than working together to build an alternative to Reaper, the focus is now on developing the next generation of drones under the Future Air Combat System. These drones will be much faster, stealthy, more autonomous, have a greater range and be able to defend themselves from attack unlike the Reaper generation.
Amply documented, the Ministry of Defense and MI6 in liaison with US-NATO-Israel are behind the recruitment and training of terrorists.
The report points to the fact that “Some observers have expressed surprise” that British “freedom fighters” ” seeking to oust Assad” should be subject to prosecution. After all its all for a “good cause”, namely “regime change” and “democracy”.
But [the Crown Prosecutor] is categorical: participation in an overseas conflict is illegal.
On one side we have the Obama administration dying to exit Afghanistan, but with the Pentagon adamant on keeping boots on the ground and at least some well-located pearls in its vast Empire of Bases.
On the other we have a US puppet who needs to think about his future after whatever form the American exit takes; otherwise the Taliban may grill him like a live kebab.
Of all the complaints you hear about the Underground, one that crops up very little is, “I wish there weren’t so many ticket offices”
Boris Johnson says the new system will be an improvement for passengers, because it will “shift staff from behind the windows to where they can be seen”. But the plans are to cut 950 ticket office staff, and put only 200 extra staff round the stations. So when he says he’s going to put them “where they can be seen”, maybe he means on the next series of Benefits Street.
The Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC) was quietly set up to identify individuals who they claim pose a direct threat to VIPs including the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the Royal Family.
Under the new plans, aimed at saving about £50 million a year, more than 750 people will lose their jobs, all 260 tube ticket offices across the network will be closed, and a new 24-hour service will be running at weekends.
George W Bush was mocked for his “Mission Accomplished” stunt in which he tried to declare the war over as it began, but we can’t mock the corporate media for what it accomplished. Disappearing hundreds of thousands of deaths that resulted from a very recent and extensively covered war is quite a feat. We should fear what the “free press” could easily accomplish in the future.
