UK Defence Secretary Philip Hammond’s visit to Tashkent on 28 February was not covered in any UK mainstream media that I can find, which is peculiar, given the media’s obsession with covering anything to do with “Our heroes” in Afghanistan. It was not really the kind of visit the state would want to publciise, with Hammond in the rather unheroic position of having his knees firmly placed on the acres of marble floor of Tashkent’s presidentiail palace, with his tongue well and truly stuck up Karimov’s arse.
NATO, including the UK, needs to transit Uzbekistan to get its 14,000 vehicles out of Afghanistan, having well and truly queered the pitch of an exit through Pakistan by a decade of bombing the locals. The Karimov family had already made hundreds of millions in profit through a monopoly of providing haulage and logistical services to supplies going in to Afghanistan. With NATO’s demoralised forces sitting on an incredibly large stockpile of materiel in effect stuck in the country as the utterly fruitless occupation ends, the Karimovs are in a position to ramp up extortion.
That will not only involve huge cash payments going to the Karimov family from the British taxpayer, disguised as transit fees, railway charges, fuel provision etc. It will also include a raft of political demands. Karimov had already in 2011 secured the ending of EU sanctions, and the international respectability he craves for his regime through an official visit to Brussels and call on EU President Barroso.
Now as a condition of facilitating our retreat, Karimov is insisting on a full visit to Tashkent by David Cameron in 2013 or 2014, a state visit by Karimov to the UK in 2015 and acceptance of Gulnara Karimova as Uzbek Ambassador in London. He is also keen to acquire a variety of state of the art UK weapons and surveillance systems for use against his own people. The strong steer from No 10 is that these Karimov demands will have to be accepted.
There is an excellent video here of Scott Horton being interviewed by Galima Burkabaeva on the subject of the kelptocratic Karimov state. Galima was an eyewitness to the Andijan massacre of 2005, in which Karimov’s military murdered some 800 pro-democracy demonstrators. Galima herself only just got away, a bullet passing clean through her reporter’s notebook.
Nice friends Mr Hammond has.
(Am currently in Delhi).
Courtenay – You appear to think that the other ‘stans might impede our objectives. Let me reassure you; nice Mr. Hammond is quite at home talking to obviously deranged dictators and will let no opportunity slip, whether it is exports, Central Asian gas and oil, military hardware, or a little logistics problem.
http://en.hrsu.org/archives/1418#more-1418
Turkish beer is pretty good – Efes Pilsen – and the state raki (Yeni Raki -sorry haven’t got the Turk font up-) is to die for. They’re working on the wine, too. But please note, it is at least nominally (East of Kayseri, very nominally) a secular state
For Russkies watching the scramble for getting out of Dodge on the last train out of Tashkent, is a scene that conjures an all too warm feelings of contentment of schadenfreude.
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Hell, they may even sweeten the deal with throwing in cheap diesel for the locos, seeing as the pipelinistan dreams have come to naught.
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The great white warriors trundled in thorough Pakistan, and are now planning to skulk away from Uzbekistan, why would any Russian ask for money?
Anyone recollect the horror stories of the airline passengers in the early days of the break up of USSR?
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Is history repeating itself in more than one way?
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262 United Airlines, China-bound travelers stranded 2 days in Anchorage
Privatisation in our courts of law. The Min of ‘Justice’ have outsourced court interpreting. A shambles. Perhaps shades of things to come as the NHS privatisation takes effect?
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‘The Law Society fears this is leading ALS to employ linguists with no qualifications or experience. There have been incidents of interpreters not turning up to court, not speaking English, and ++even pets being registered as interpreters++, BBC London has learned.’
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17463036
Very occasionally, pleasant things crop up on the BBC website. This is a set of 100 year old photographs of the Russian Empire taken by a pioneering photographer called Prokudin-Gorskii who devised a three filter colour system for glass plates.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-17449958
Thanks for that, Mary! Good catch. Seems that digital techniques have enabled the recreation of good images from Prokudin-Gorsky’s rather tricky method…google P-G and see his Wiki entry which contains a magnificent picture of the last emir of Bukhara.
Thanks Komodo. The Emir was a big boy wasn’t he and aren’t the colours amazingly vivid?
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Your link led me to the online site. These of Samarkand (and other places on the search box) will interest Craig and others here.
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http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=uzbekistan%20samarqand&co=prok&sg=true
You tend to think of the 19th century Russian Empire as being either black and white or badly painted, don’t you? Fascinating record of what it really looked like, and I’d never heard of it.
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Fox: unhappy bunnies –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/21/government-handling-liam-fox-resignation?newsfeed=true
Interesting arse-licking post, Gwent. Most interesting was right at the end with reference to Tethys Petroleum, a Guernsey-registered company investing in Uzbekistan with some influential (mostly Cambridge-educated) execs, including Sir Peter Lilley, and a Russ Hammond, who I have not been able to tie in with Sir Philip, but don’t discount a connection.
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http://www.tethyspetroleum.com/tethys/static/EN_US/au_bod.html
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How badly will offshore petroleum companies like Tethys and Tony Buckingham’s Heritage Oil suffer under Osborne’s new measures to punish the rich? You’ve guessed it!
There is also a Julian Hammond on Tethys’ board, John. And Tethys rings another bell. Research in progress.
Thanks Komodo, I noticed that, but he seems to have been US educated – not that that means anything in this day and age.
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By the way, I thought of you this morning, there’s a BBC deadly species programme just previewed which features Komodo dragons chasing somebody called Backshall (I think). Now if it were Tony Buckingham, or other wicked prey, vegetarian though I am, I would say “Get them teeth in!”
Whistle blowers punished
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Two members of staff have been suspended over claims an NHS board manipulated waiting times figures to meet targets.
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The suspension comes after Nicola Sturgeon told parliament NHS Lothian “betrayed” patients by marking them as unavailable to artificially reduce the number in breach of statutory waiting times guarantees.
England is a fascist state, ‘led’ by a fascist, David Cameron.
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‘This opportunity was missed, and a recently retired former senior civil servant, Sir Alex Allan, was appointed through a closed recruitment process, which only became public knowledge after the event.
The committee concludes that the independent adviser lacks independence in practice, as he is appointed personally by the prime minister, is supported from within the Cabinet Office, and cannot instigate his own investigations.
It finds that the way Allan was appointed – through a closed process – was unsuitable, and questions Allan’s appointment.
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“At present, the title of independent adviser is a misnomer,” the report states, adding: “We do not in any way question Sir Alex’s integrity, ability or commitment, but neither he nor the role to which he has been appointed is independent of government in any meaningful sense.”
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In evidence, Sir Christopher Kelly, the chairman of the committee on standards in public life, told the committee he believed Cameron had probably broken the ministerial code in not using Mawer.’
[…]
‘An alternative draft of the report, written by the Labour MP Paul Flynn, called for further investigations of the prime minister’s decision to bring in O’Donnell to run the inquiry.
“There is powerful evidence that using Sir Gus O’Donnell to carry out the swift investigation was a decision taken to hide the whole truth in order to satisfy political expediency and avoid political embarrassment to the coalition,” he wrote.’
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I ask again, Where is the law?
Yeah, (Jeffrey) Russell Hammond seems to have Canadian antecedents and (oil) connections, while Philip is more a UK health”care” kinda guy CMA Consultants (consultant, Phil). I’m sure he ties in nicely with Fox, though. Maybe some defunct healthcare shells with backstreet maildrops, too, but I really can’t be bothered looking…Caledonia Oil and Gas (director, Phil) acquired Consort Resources (director, Phil) and Lehman Bros paid Phil some money for his services to that deal. But it was stictly N. Sea, not a whisper of the ‘stans. Caledonia is now part of E.ON. *Makes sign of cross*. The Hintze connection’s more interesting, IMO
Russ Hammond on another energy company. John.
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Russ Hammond, Director
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Mr. Hammond is an independent businessman with over 30 years’ experience providing venture capital to firms in the natural resource and energy sectors. Mr. Hammond is also director of Eco Recycling Systems Ltd., an environmental services company since 2000.
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Mr. Hammond is a director of Tethys Petroleum Ltd., an independent energy company operating in Central Asia since 2006.
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Mr. Hammond served as Chairman of Terrenex and its predecessor from 1995 to 2008. He is director and founder of CanArgo since July 1998, and a director of Cadiz Inc., an agricultural and water development company from 1991 to 1998.
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Mr. Hammond has been self-employed since 1986. From 1974 to 1985 he was an equity partner in the British brokerage firm, W. Greenwell & Co., and from 1985 to 1986 was Managing Director of Greenwell-Montague Securities following the firm’s acquisition by the Midland Bank.
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Mr. Hammond holds a Bachelors’ degree in Economics from Cambridge University.
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http://www.questerre.com/en/aboutus/directors/ photo inc.
Chairman based in Oslo. Company address Canada. Frackers.
John Goss
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Those are British businesses and I guess British MP had right to pay visit to them. I am more concerned with her paying a visit to organisation that is aimed to defend Human Rights of Uzbek citizens BUT headed by the lawyer known as one of the nastiest advocates of Karimov’s brutality.
I personally have no problem with foreign companies in Uzbekistan as at least they (US and European companies in particular) pay Uzbeks with more decent salaries than local companies or public employees.
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Mr Murray himself once referenced BAT (British American Tobacco) which was concerned with Uzbek government law that denied them paying Uzbek workers more or less decent salaries. And I can believed that this was true. According to Uzbek law foreign employees must pay locals certain amount (usually only up to 20 times more than minimum salary which equals to 8-10 USD) and only in national currency SUM. Back in 2003 (when Mr Murray was an Envoy) state exchange rate of US dollar to SUM was 4 times lower than the black market rate. BAT had to exchange dollars to SUMs by state rate (already losing 4 times the value) and then pay Uzbek workers salaries in SUMs. So in summary, if Uzbek worker employed by BAT was paid 200USD in fact they have been paid in SUM the amount which allowed them to purchase ONLY 50 USD in black market.
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And this is not BAT’s fault but Uzbek government’s that does not allow Uzbek workers to be paid decent salaries. Uzbek government is the one that creates such conditions that only enriches them, and not investors or those who are employed by investors.
O/T (completely)
Light relief.
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[Mod: Link disabled due to tracking cookie / persistent adverts, see Komodo’s further comment at 23 Mar, 9:01 am below.]
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{puritandownloads.com/swrb/products/Puritan-Hard-Drive_-12_500-Puritan-(Owen_-Watson_-et-al)_-Reformation-(Calvin_-Knox_-Luther_-et-al)_-Covenanter-(Rutherford_-Gillespie)_-Presbyterian-(Hodge)_-Calvinistic-(Edwards)_-Reformed-Baptist-(Spurgeon_-Bunyan_-Pink_-et-al)-Books_-MP3s_-Videos.html/#Cart}
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“Your Own Personal Rocket Fuel For Remarkable Christian Growth”
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Bloody hell.
Komodo,
(You save $4,649.00)
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Rocket fuel for rapture, is the only discounted fuel of any kind these days. Well spotted!!!!! BTW, who could have bought the originally priced $4,997.97?
@ Passerby
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I guess Puritan missionary charges (killing non-puritans all over the world) have been included into the original price. It was until then when smarter Puritans discovered that missionary can be financed by simpler way-public borrowing. No need for surcharges then.
What astonished me was that the Covenanters seem to be hanging on. And it’s a good time to be a Covenanter, with sermons discounted from $5.99 to $0.99! Praise!
My guess is these Hammonds may be connected in some way with John Hays Hammond, an explorer and mineral speculator.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hays_Hammond
The next time anyone buys fruit or vegetables labelled Grown in Israel, they should remember that the produce is mostly grown on land stolen from the Palestinians and that Palestinian child labour is being used.
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‘A report (in Arabic) published by Maan reveals that between 500 and 1,000 Palestinian children work for Israeli settlers in the Jordan Valley – some as young as 13. Many of the children are from the Jordan Valley – others come from different parts of the occupied West Bank. They pick, clean and package fruit and vegetables. The children have to work in the simmering summer heat of 50 degrees Celsius and also in the cold of winter when the temperature drops to 0 degrees Celsius. They start work as early as 5.30 in the morning and continue until two o’clock in the afternoon. They drop out of school because the work hours overlap with school hours.’
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http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-nieuwhof/poverty-drives-palestinian-children-work-israels-agricultural-settlement
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There seems to be very little difference here from the young children being used in Karimov’s cotton production.
@ Mary
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One point to add is that Uzbek children are forced to work not only because poverty drives them, but because they are forced to work as slaves. Children in Uzbekistan are not actually paid at all as most of the money is pocketed by either local governor’s office or police.
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Products contributed by children slave labour not only have to be boycotted but prohibited.
Gideon Osborne is boasting of his success in getting Glaxo Snmith Kline to enlarge their UK operations. Does anyone know if GSK have had any inducements like going to an enterprise zone or given grants?
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Dissident Voice have been on Big Pharma’s case for several years. Here are some of the articles – Paxil, Avandia, etc etc.
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http://dissidentvoice.org/search/?cx=004699754223191941067%3Adjkep-0myaa&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=glaxo+smith+kline&sa=Search
Yes Uzbek – I remember a very good BBC documentary which showed that they were taken from school. Part of it is on the link.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7068096.stm
Another example of what happens when the work of a state service (DWP) is handed out to the ‘private sector’. Fraud, inefficiency and a cover up. The management were too busy counting their £millions to do anything about it.
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22 March 2012 Last updated at 18:03
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Leaked document suggests ‘systematic fraud’ at A4e
Newsnight’s Paul Mason explains the latest evidence about allegations of fraud at A4e
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Welfare-to-work firm A4e knew of widespread potential fraud and systematic failures by management to control it, a leaked document suggests.
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BBC Newsnight has obtained the results of a confidential 2009 internal audit of work by A4e’s top recruiters.
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The auditors found examples of staff claiming for putting people into jobs which did not exist, jobs which did not qualify for payment and fabricating paperwork to back up claims.
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A4e has so far declined to comment.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17476415
/..http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17476415
Was Mohammed Merah Another Underware Bomber?
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Merah was handled by France’s DCRI intelligence service “for years,” (2008) according to Claude Guéant, the French interior minister.
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MSM claims that Merah was imprisoned in Afghanistan for planting bombs have been denied by Kandahar prison chief Ghulam Faruq and an intelligence official in Pakistan said, “we have no information on him” and he was never arrested. Apart from emails and computer files I have no definitive proof that Merah murdered anyone!
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/21/us-france-shootings-afghanistan-idUSBRE82K17Y20120321