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Two Weeks in Beirut November 13, 2024: - Flying from Rome on a bright Sunday morning, the MEA Airbus was configured for about 300 people. About 20 of us boarded to fly to Beirut. It is a very strange feeling to be on an almost empty commercial airliner, particularly as nearly all of the small number of passengers were in business class, leaving economy class barren. Two Christian priests traveling economy, with impressive beards and pillarbox hats, were rescued by the hostesses before takeoff and moved forward to business. The flight was entirely uneventful, except that for some reason it served no alcohol, which is new to MEA.… Online Media Banned in Lebanon November 10, 2024: - It is illegal to report from Lebanon without prior accreditation by the Ministry of Information. On the day Niels and I arrived in the country, a new rule was introduced by the Ministry specifically excluding online media from accreditation, which is now limited to print newspapers and broadcast TV stations only. All freelance journalists and independent TV production companies are also specifically excluded. The specific instruction from the Ministry of Information states: not: web or digital or online or production house The new policy is given in writing to journalists who apply, by the Press Bureau of the Ministry of…
Beirut Problems November 1, 2024: - On Wednesday we were arrested and held awhile by General Security in Lebanon and told not to report from here until we receive the proper permits. This is a frustrating delay but I hope will soon resolve.
Setting Up In Beirut October 30, 2024: - I apologise for the break, I have been setting up in Beirut to cover the Israeli assault from here. This has been quite a logistic challenge. I am accompanied by Niels Ladefoged, the cinematographer with Wikileaks who was with Julian Assange on his flight to Australia. Readers of this blog know Niels as the cinematographer of Ithaka who was my companion on the month-long tour of Germany I made with that film. We have needed to get to Beirut and then get safe accommodation, and organise internet access, a car and driver, interpreters, etc. I am lucky to have some…
Who Are the Terrorists? October 18, 2024: - I have a confession to make. When a journalist writes this it generally means they will proceed to reveal something they hope will actually show them in a good light or justified in some way. But I have a real confession to make, of something I did that was wrong. Somewhere in the UK, among the papers of a dead loved one which nobody has the heart to throw out, in cardboard boxes in dusty attics or deep in the filing cabinets of Jeremy Corbyn, exist still a few copies of thousands of letters bearing my authentic signature. These letters,… 
The Notional Health Service October 17, 2024: - Today is my 66th birthday, so I am hoping that you will forgive an article that is at core the anecdotal ramblings of an old man. It was inspired by horror at Wes Streeting (I could end the sentence there but I shall continue it) 's plan to give weight loss jabs to the unemployed. The unemployed are more likely to be underweight than the population average, and this attempt to portray the unemployed as lazy couch potatoes is vile in many ways. Its masking as an "investment" in the economy by Big Pharma is chilling. If it goes ahead,… 
The Salisbury Festival of Russophobia Opens Today October 14, 2024: - Today is the grand opening of the Salisbury Festival of Russophobia, otherwise known as the Public Inquiry into the death of Dawn Sturgess, an unfortunate victim of imperialist spy games. Do not be fooled. This is not in any sense a genuine public inquiry, supposed to get at the truth. This is an inquiry like the Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, designed entirely to conceal the truth and further the official narrative. In the Kelly case, the official narrative was that one of the world's leading experts in chemical weapons, with access to instant-action neurotoxins, decided… 
Alex Salmond. Always My Hero. October 13, 2024: - Before Alex Salmond, Scottish Independence was an impossible dream, a romantic aspiration, outside the realm of practical politics. After Alex Salmond, it is the dominant question in Scottish politics and by far the biggest threat to the UK state. I would argue that, with every poll for a decade showing overwhelming support for Independence among the under 30s and support for the UK only in a majority in the over 55s, Alex made Independence inevitable. In Scotland's national story, he deserves a place alongside William Wallace and Robert Bruce. (In my last conversation with Alex, about two weeks ago, he… Simply No Red Lines At All October 11, 2024: - There is literally no act so vile that the UK, US and Germany will not support if perpetrated by the terrorist state of Israel. Yesterday Israel: deliberately attacked UN peacekeepers in three separate bases; bombed residential central Beirut killing and maiming hundreds; abducted, beat up and held an American journalist; slaughtered 30 Palestinian refugees in an UNRWA school; was found by an official UN Commission Report to be guilty of the crime against humanity of "extermination" in Gaza. Any single one of these outrages would be roundly condemned if committed by any country at all except Israel, and would lead…
In Praise of Civil Disobedience October 9, 2024: - Western governments are deeply involved, strongly against the will of the majority of their population, in committing a colonial genocide of indigenous people. This happens because the political class have been bought by the Zionist lobby. The causes may run deeper, but that is the mechanism. Democracy has therefore failed, having been fatally corrupted. In these circumstances, civil disobedience is not just ethically justified, it is the duty of the good citizen. Palestine Action continue their highly effective actions to disrupt the chain of supply of the Israeli weapons industry. On Friday morning I was at the Old Bailey with… 
A Very Peculiar Triumph October 5, 2024: - At the end of Julian Assange's testimony before the Judicial Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, 95% of the entire room of 220 people rose in a standing ovation. The audience consisted of members of the Parliamentary Assembly, who are delegated members of their national parliaments, from all over Europe. Furthermore they included members of the full European political spectrum, including the dominant national parties. The audience also included Council of Europe staff and experts, and worldwide media. Note this well - and I have never witnessed anything remotely like this - the 100 or so… 
Netanyahu Plays Chicken September 21, 2024: - Netanyahu is desperate to keep war simmering along and to draw the USA closer and closer to him. At the same time he cannot send ground forces into South Lebanon where they will take massive casualties. Israel can assassinate, it can employ indiscriminate terrorism and it can bombard from the air, and it has done all these things against Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran. But Israel cannot destroy Hamas nor Hezbollah, cannot get back its hostages from Gaza and cannot make Northern Israel safe for its colonialists. Nothing Israel is doing in any way advances those declared objectives and in… 
A New Left Wing Party in the UK? September 18, 2024: - Keir Starmer has left about 70% of the landscape of historic western political and economic thought vacant to his left. It is unsurprising that a new party will arrive to claim the unoccupied ground. A meeting at the weekend discussed a new party provisionally called The Collective, which may be led by Jeremy Corbyn, who addressed the meeting. That was strangely secretive but seems to have been an adjunct of Corbyn's Peace and Justice Movement international conference, which occurred simultaneously and featured many of the same cast. The Collective is not new. This name was used for a loose coalition… 
Some Truth Bombs At the UN September 16, 2024: - Alongside Richard Medhurst I had the chance to state rather more truth than is generally heard inside the United Nations in Geneva: "Not only is the West complicit in the Genocide in Palestine, the ruling class of the West is so scared of its own citizens that it is now prepared to persecute its own citizens in support of a genocide". Richard Medhurst followed up on the same theme: Our appearance at the UN was organised by Justice for All International, an admirable Geneva based NGO with which I am proud to be associated. If you can donate to their… 
That Harris/Trump Debate September 11, 2024: - I just sat through a recording of the Trump/Harris debate. Ignoring the merits of their political stances, I agree with the general consensus that Kamala Harris "won" in performance terms, but only because Trump was awful. Both were of course terrible on Palestine. While I appreciate that that is of most interest to perhaps a majority of my readers, and that it is a key issue for a significant slice of US voters, it is not what this post is about. I am considering more broadly the prospects for who becomes US President. Trump's ability to make a coherent argument… Scotland and The Devolution Trap September 9, 2024: - As Starmer and Reeves subject the UK economy to yet more austerity and deregulation, the Scottish Government takes the blame for cutbacks caused by an economic policy in which they have zero say. That has always been the problem with devolution: it is responsibility without power – an invidious position to be in. That is not to say the Scottish government does not make plenty of mistakes of its own - the absurdly large sums of money thrown at the "third sector", often to further pet causes, is one example. Angus Robertson has just imposed cuts on Creative Scotland programmes,… 
The End of Western Pluralist Democracy September 1, 2024: - No major western leader is ever again going to be able to speak about human rights or ethical values, without attracting howls of derision. They are turning on their own people in order to prevent protest at a genocide they actively support. Keir Starmer stepped up the pressure on opponents of Zionist genocide on Thursday with the arrest of journalist Sarah Wilkinson and the charging of activist Richard Barnard, both under the draconian Section 12 of the Terrorism Act which carries a sentence of up to 14 years in prison. The UK MSM has of course ignored these, but is… Pavel Durov and the Abuse of Law August 27, 2024: - The detention of Pavel Durov is being portrayed as a result of the EU Digital Services Act. But having spent my day reading the EU Services Act (a task I would not wish upon my worst enemy), it does not appear to me to say what it is being portrayed as saying. EU Acts are horribly dense and complex, and are published as "Regulations" and "Articles". Both cover precisely the same ground, but for purposes of enforcement the more detailed "Regulations" are the more important, and those are referred to below. The "Articles" are entirely consistent with this. So, for…
The Attack on Truth: Julian Assange and Richard Medhurst August 22, 2024: - Julian Assange was released in the midst of the election campaign and the event was not really given the attention it deserves. Alex Salmond invited me to take a look back with him on what this persecution means and where we are now. I do recommend that you subscribe to Alex's show Scotland Speaks. He is a fascinating and, in my view, admirable man whose public image is massively distorted by the mainstream media. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the range of topics he tackles and his approach to them, as well as his breadth of intellect.…
Richard Medhurst and the Right to Armed Resistance August 20, 2024: - We were waiting for Richard Medhurst to arrive and join our panel at the Beautiful Days festival, when he was arrested and imprisoned for 23.5 hours. Obviously we were all worried sick about him. I was arrested at Heathrow Airport under the Terrorism Act, Sec 12 because of my reporting.6 police officers were waiting for me at the entrance of the aircraft.I was held for almost 24 hours and questioned.I believe I'm the first journalist to be arrested under this… pic.twitter.com/pbf6q5dXIf— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) August 19, 2024 It is now becoming easier to list the truly dissident UK journalists who… More News
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