The Mail on Sunday is doing a very good job on the odious Jack Straw’s involvement in torture and persecution. I think that at last the truth has entered the established narrative. There is a little box in the report about my own evidence to Scotland Yard. I will type it out here as the Mail’s box format here is not internet searchable:
“Torture” Evidence Handed to the Yard
Further pressure was piled on Jack Straw last night over the “rendition” of Libyan dissident Abdel Hakim Belhadj after sensitive documents were handed to Scotland tard detectives.
Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, passed the documents to police as part of the inquiry into the behaviour of Ministers and intelligence officials over the detention of Mr Belhadj in Bangkok in March 2004.
The opponent of Colonel Gadaffi was flown to Tripoli, where he claims he was tortured.
Mr Straw, who was Foreign Secretary at the time, has denied ever condoning the use of torture to extract information.
But the documents appear to cast doubt on that position.
One memo, headed “Uzbekistan: Intelligence Possibly Obtained Under Torture” contains minutes of a meeting Mr Murray held with senior Foreign and Commonwealth officials on March 8, 2003 to discuss his concern that the UK could be in breach of international law by possessing intelligence obtained by torture.
The minute, dated March 10 2003, quoted Linda Duffield, then the FCO’s Director of Wider Europe, apparently justifying the use of such material as part of the fight against terrorism.
A second memo, dated March 14 2003, and written by Simon McDonald – the Straw’s principal Private Secretary – to Ms Duffield says Straw has read the minutes and “agrees that you handled this very well”.
Mr Murray is understood to have told police that during Mr Straw’s time at the FCO diplomats were told to only refer to the policy on torture verbally.
Mr Murray said last night “My evidence stated that Jack Straw introduced a policy of allowing evidence obtained by torture to be used. I also told them that written evidence had been destrpyed, and we were told to not commit details into writing.”
There is a slight misquote in the above. It should say Jack Straw introduced a policy of allowing intelligence obtained by torture, not evidence. In fact it was specifically stated such intelligence would not be produced as evidence in court (people were imprisoned without charge or rendered instead). The instruction not to put things in writing was given to me personally, I don’t know if others were told the same. As I was the only one protesting, perhaps not.
These links are to the documents in question.
The first two were obtained by Freedom of Information Act request. Details of the CIA’s colllusion with the Karimiv regime’s torturers have been redacted by the FCO. Last week Jack Straw came out and argued strongly for the effective abolition of the Freedom of Information Act. Now there is a coincidence for you.
Where an online relational database is valued in billions, I think we can safely say that something has gone badly wrong with the concept of value. And money, for that matter, but we were beginning to suspect that already, weren’t we? Still, there’s a sucker born every minute.
Should be interesting.
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Hunt adviser to appear at Leveson
Lord Justice Leveson is conducting a judge-led inquiry into press practices
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Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s former special adviser Adam Smith will give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry next week, it has been announced.
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News Corporation lobbyist Frederic Michel will also appear on Thursday.
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Mr Smith resigned last month over his dealings with Mr Michel in relation to News Corp’s bid to take over BSkyB.
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Former Labour cabinet ministers Lord Mandelson, Lord Reid, Tessa Jowell and Alan Johnson will also appear at the Leveson Inquiry next week.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18118611
At 4.02am I was wide awake trying to think where I had lost my house keys and car key (latter’s replacement cost from main stealers £205) and listening to the World Service telling of the euro cliff edge precipice we are all on and how St David of Cameron was saving the day for Great Britain. Also hearing of his crony’s Octavius Black wheeze, the Parent Gym, coming into operation.
By the by. Gavin Millar GC is the brother of Fiona Millar, who is married to Alastair Campbell. Millar is representing the Telegraph at the Leveson Inquiry and also Glenn Mulcaire in Chancery Division whatever the latter means.
http://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/barristers/gavin_millar_qc.cfm
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Adam Boulton, stooge at Sky News, is married to Anji Hunter, late of No 10 and the court of the war criminals, Blair, Straw, Campbell, Hoon, etc etc.
{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Boulton}
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Nicely acid account of the Boulton Hunter wedding by Quentin Letts. Cherie who called Hunter ‘that bloody woman’ did not attend.
{http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-397257/The-ultimate-Labour-luvvies-wedding.html}
Royals arrive for Queen’s Jubilee lunch at Windsor….
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While for food banks are busy….
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Also joining the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh at the lunch are Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry and the Duke of York.
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A British-inspired menu has been prepared using many ingredients sourced locally.
To start, the royals are being treated to a tartlet of poached egg with English asparagus. This will be followed by a main course of new season Windsor Lamb with braised potatoes, artichokes, peas, carrots, broad beans, cabbage, and a tomato and basil salad. Kent strawberries and vanilla Charlotte will conclude the meal, with dessert fruit and cheese also on offer.
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Analysis
Peter Hunt News correspondent
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What was meant to be a celebratory occasion – a gathering of heads of state who owe their positions to accidents of birth rather than the ballot box – has taken on a political dimension. First, one queen snubbed another queen’s party. Sofia of Spain is now not coming because of Gibraltar – the territory Britain has and Spain wants back.
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Then, it was confirmed the King of Bahrain will attend – something his critics argue shouldn’t happen because of the way pro-democracy protests have been violently suppressed in the Gulf kingdom. Also sitting down with the kings, queens, an emperor, a grand duke and an emir will be Mswati III of Swaziland – who, according to his opponents, uses state funds in a poor African country to support a lavish lifestyle for himself and his thirteen wives.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18099937
Such occasions are rare. Buckingham Palace is unlikely to want to change that.
Kent strawberries, eh? Guess that ol’ Rothschild/Masonic/ Windsor conspiracy has developed travel into the future, then…
{http://www.stonepitts.com/}
…and that’s with poly tunnels.
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Anyway…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5Xd_zkMEgkI#t=3s
Sorry, forgot about hydroponics. So, Tesco strawberries, then.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2114380/Strawberry-yields-First-bumper-crop-hits-shops-55-000-tonnes-red-fruit-expected-sold-record-year.html
Step away from that trowel, Sir. We ave reason to believe that you are hillegally hoperating a ydroponic operation on these premises…
Returning happily to the topic –
http://www.nationalpics.co.uk/windsor_palace_state_banquet/print/713209.html
Painful.
Tesco Jubilee strawberries £8.30 per kg.
and tasteless probably at this time of year without much sun.
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=264779993
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and another stuff your face for free banquet tonight I noticed. Free wine and only the best will do.
The article about Santander in guardian smacks of desperate attempts to stop a bank run here in UK, won’t you agree?
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Santander Q&A: is your money safe?
Ok, Komodo, Clark, Mary, Passerby… where have others gone? Hallooo, Craig?
Pullman, this blog is now little more than a chatroom for the Israel-firsters.
Passerby….sssshhh…everything’s fine. The UK is a safe haven. Osborne said so. So did Mervyn. Don’t buy gold. Or whoopee cushions. Or used toilet paper…I’d be interested to know how RBS’s (mandatory) sale of its English branches to Santander is going, btw.
Do note though that Santander Spain is just part of a vast corporation which has a semi-monopoly of large and profitable swathes of South America, and also join me in speculating that heads of credit rating agencies may soon start showing up hanging from bridges.
Mary/ Komodo – well done for sticking with all this – bloody asparagus and Kent strawberries indeed – hope the king of Bahrain whoever he is, thought it was worth it – imagine the dinner table conversation – you’d need to be drunk to even strike one up.
Spent a good part of today watching Oborne’s and Evans’s evidence at Leveson yesterday – riveting stuff. It’s kind of restored my faith a bit. Brian seems to be bending over backwards to be even-handed – though something seems to happen to his mouth when a response displeases him. And why does the blonde lady in the back seem to be in tears during Harold’s evidence – or is that just my crappy compooter?
Mary – the parent gym thing came up this morning on Today, but I wasn’t strong enough to listen – it was bad enough hearing the “endorsements” in an earlier trailer.
Glad to hear Craig is OK and that the long loading times will have been worth it when he does re-appear.
I would think it prudent if depositors in Greece and other risky Mediterranean banks were to transfer their Euros into safer banks in Germany or indeed other currencies; my point being that if this indecisiveness continues there is likely to be a huge run on these Med banks, causing a wholesale banking collapse in these countries no matter what the politicians ultimately decide. I suspect we are pretty close to being out of time. If these med-country banks collapse, one wonders how much the City will also be on the hook for.
Rose 🙂
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Tonight they were stuffing down:
The menu for Prince Charles’s banquet includes twice-baked cheese souffle with baby leaf spinach, line-caught sea bass with coastal samphire and rhubarb Eton mess.
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Get the Rennies out. The menu is as pretentious as mine host. Cost? Unknown.
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And as for the torch rubbish in Culdrose with the clique of Coe/Beckham/Boris/Robertson with P Anne bringing up the rear, well! Is there no end in sight for this self promotion?
As the old lift attendant said in Are You Being Served, “Going down”.
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Market DataLast Updated at 23:27
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Market index Current value Trend Variation % variation
FTSE 100 5267.62 Down -70.76 -1.33%
Dax 6271.22 Down -37.74 -0.60%
Cac 40 3008.00 Down -3.99 -0.13%
Dow Jones 12369.38 Down -73.11 -0.59%
Nasdaq 2778.79 Down -34.90 -1.24%
BBC Global30 5713.56 Down -48.54 -0.84%
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/overview/default.stm
I forgot to include Clegg in the Culdrose line up.
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The dreaded ‘flame’ has just been taken by helicopter to Land’s End to start the relay. What a lot of hot air and what a lot of fossil fuel is being wasted on this nonsense.
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Cameron is getting much coverage from Camp David. His hair is receding fast. He will look strange when bald as he has such a high forehead. Does anyone remember the Mekons in the Eagle comic?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mekon
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The G8 lot decamp to Chicago to join the NATO summit. More plans for more killing.
Look into my eyes, look into my eyes, can you see it now, oh yes you can….
So 50% of us in Europe are in favour of war with Iran according to this article and a survey done by the Pew Global attitudes research, ro should that be ‘puke’.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/05/20125182157963338.html
642.9billion military excpenditure next year says that the survey is right, whatever we say or come up with.
At the same time the GSC is deadlocked on the question of unity, with disunity over Bahrains occupation by Saudi and US forces reigning large.
Afghanistan: email to Amnesty USA
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From: Musab Younis
Sent: 19 May 2012 02:27
To: strimel at aiusa.org
Cc: feedback at amnesty.org.uk; activism at amnesty.org.uk; press at amnesty.org.uk; press at amnesty.org; editor at medialens.org
Subject: Press release
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Dear Ms Trimel,
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I just wanted to write a quick note, as an Amnesty supporter, to express my concern over the press release ‘Amnesty International Hosts “Shadow Summit” With Afghan Women’s Rights Leaders As NATO Summit Opens May 20 in Chicago’ dated May 11, 2012.
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http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/amnesty-international-hosts-shadow-summit-with-afghan-women-s-rights-leaders-as-nato-summit-opens-ma
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The main thrust of the statement, advocating continued support for women’s rights during and in the aftermath of a NATO withdrawal, is laudable. But the language used is deeply disconcerting. The occupation is painted in glowing terms: “significant investments by the U.S. and Afghan governments and their allies to improve the lives of women and girls”, “[m]aternal mortality and infant mortality have declined significantly”, and so on. Hillary Clinton and Colin Powell are cited uncritically as defenders of Afghan women’s rights. Afghan women (in a yet another iteration of a long tradition of writing from the West) are, we are told, helpless and weak, whose only respite from brutish Afghan men has been a foreign military occupation. “[T]here is grave risk that Afghan women will look on the period of NATO involvement as a blip of hope,” we are told, “amid a bleak long-term trajectory of insecurity.”
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Missing from this litany of achievements are some noteworthy additions: unknown thousands of civilian deaths (which the occupying forces refuse to count), torture and inhuman treatment by NATO forces and Afghan forces working with NATO, continued drone strikes killing men, women and children without reason or trial, widespread terror (house searches, mass arrests, airstrikes, NATO military immunity from prosecution), the recent massacre by Staff Sgt Robert Bales, “omnipresent bribes” (according to the UN), and so on. Amnesty has, of course, campaigned on many of these things. One can imagine ways to describe this period in Afghan history other than “a blip of hope.”
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It is indeed difficult to know how to react to the description of NATO’s actions as “a blip of hope amid a bleak long-term trajectory” except with incredulity. Perhaps you could speak to some of the tens of thousands of refugees from the war – there are many in the UK – about how they have experienced this “blip of hope”?
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The statement is made worse by your refusal to give voice to a single Afghan citizen in a statement that is purportedly for the benefit of Afghans. It is made more shocking by Amnesty’s proud campaigning record with relation to the damage caused in the region by the US and its allies.
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Best wishes,
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Musab Younis
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IMO Musab Younis, who I believe is a deputy editor at Ceasefire Magazine, is unwise to continue to be ‘an Amnesty supporter’. It is purely a left front for the gangsters-in-charge. ie Ms Nossel CEO AIUsa ex Clinton {http://www.amnestyusa.org/about-us/who-we-are/executive-director-of-amnesty-international-usa}.
Not only the wealthy Greeks, Spanish and Italians have withdrawn hundreds of millions from their banks, its also the French who fear Hollande’s 75% tax talk.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/wealthy-french-flee-to-london-amid-fear-of-hollande-a-833814.html
And they all love Osborne’s regime, love the City of London with its unregulated trading. Cameron is desperate to stop the financial transaction tax push in Europe, all he is missing now is Maggie’s handbag and the morphing is complete.
Britain does not want to be part of Europe and it saddens me, typical pirate attitude, want to trade and make money there, but daren’t get involved in the nitty gritty, just moan.
Greeks have made their system into what it is, not Goldman sachs or any other bank. Rich Greeks deposits in Switzerland should be confiscated as lute and returned for investment, there as it is here, the well heeled and the establishment/political clique, hardly payed any tax and their public sector pay was high in comparrisson to the rest of society. They are suffering from the same establishment problems that are forcing the status quo on us.
Roderick Russell,
This whole stinking Ponzy scheme could not go on forever. On one side there stands the parasitic gobshites whom by virtue of their family or tribal connection carry on gambling and calling it investment banking, on the other we have the zombies never questioning the worth of the bits of paper they get paid for their toil and sweat.
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The gravy train could not run on forever, especially in an instant messaging time.
Overheard in the hockey mistress’s (Fiona Bruce) commentary this morning as the flypast took place over Windsor. ‘Here come the C130s. They are very busy at the moment’.
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She neglected to add that they are very busy repatriating bodies and body parts from Afghanistan to Brize Norton, formerly to RAF Lineham/Royal Wootton Bassett.
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What banging of war drums took place this morning. All the kids waving Union Jacks and the crowds, six or seven deep, cheering. How they love to see the marching and to hear the bands playing. The RAF squadrons, Army regiments, sailors and marines were marching by (what’s left of the British military that is).
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I did not spot Mr Hammond nor Mr Liam Fox and of course St David of Cameron is in the US planning more killing at the NATO summit.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18123991
I say. Is this why Craig’s been away? Has he got a part time job (like 1 million British citizens who would like a full time job but cannot get one)?
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‘Air Vice-Marshall Murray, who organised the event, said he had been keen to give the Queen a day she would enjoy.’
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I am convinced that one cannot beat the market, but one could make the playing field more level – by eliminating tax havens, and avoidance schemes so that the super rich pay the same share of their income in taxes as the middle classes do. As for the foreign “hot” money now flooding into the City as a result of the ‘Euro” banking crisis, most Britons will derive no benefit at all as it will neither pay UK taxes, nor will it create private sector jobs since it is unlikely to be invested in UK businesses. However it will be a gravy train for the City, particularly as they know that any significant future losses they make will be picked up by the taxpayers, no matter which political party is in power.
I called 2011 the ‘year of redemption and atonement, yet we have witnessed NO restitution, NO reparation for war, torture, misery, murder or suffering caused by an anathema.
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This year 2012 I propose is the year of enlightenment.
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The force that brings life to our universe and connects everything; that spark that passes through all things and captures and codes; that same force consistent in producing the gravity that glues the cosmos and manipulates all mass, is, the source of change.
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If one believes in that connection then enlightenment can and will expand – through the power of intention. Enlightenment, or bodhi is the source of change. We must evolve.
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Evolving means turning my eyes towards the West’s military…
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When terror struck in 2001 the military DID NOTHING and 3000 people in America died and millions of Americans were traumatized, gripped in/with fear. Further, billions of people have/are seduced by synthetic terror. Therefore I will expose those who DID NOTHING to impede that horror, and so must you.
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These people betrayed you:
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General Richard Myers – lied to the American people on the readiness of intercept fighters. (Jared Israel)
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Richard Cheney – lied to the American people:
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“Well, the – I suppose the toughest decision was this question of whether or not we would intercept incoming commercial aircraft.” (September 16th 2001 – Cheney on Meet the Press)
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Donald Rumsfeld – issued no order to scramble jet fighters.
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General Ralph Eberhart – Lied about ‘war-games’ and closed his mind to a ‘stand-down’ order in complete contempt of an eon of military training.
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Atonement awaits these people, trained to protect and defend their country, it’s citizens and the fragile lives lost from the spawning of an abomination, a premeditated murder that asserts itself even today.
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The ‘Tripod’ undertakings that framed and encased a military sworn to protect America will be now broken and the truth revealed.
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It is that truth that will close a chapter of agony and sorrow, not only for the families of those who died in America but also the families of those who died in countries coveted by a greed and power sought by the conspirators.
They just can’t let go of their insipid ways. Two women of the 11 murdered Israeli athletes now want to hold the world to ransom and demand a minute silence, on top of the ceremony that will be held in their memory in the Guild hall.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-wants-olympic-silence-for-munich-7763779.html
At least thats what it sounds like, or, would it be that the cretins/advisers around Netanyahu are using this issue for another political tub thumping sidestep highjacking the Olympics, garnering brownie points before they switch the fan on and the shit hits it.
But what could possibly go wrong with their demand, the Wests politicians are eating out of Netanyahu’s hand, we only have to look at the sponsored frequently flying MP’s on behalf of Bicom and the FoI?
That stupid torch again.
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A team of 70 Police officers are defending it on its route. What a waste of police time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18058190
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A little like the heavies who accompanied the Beijing torch as it went round the world.
Would such a hostage situation or similar these times make main stream news. It seems as the BBC have got a ban censoring palestine the “issues” that would be brought to light would warrant this treatment.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bbc+censors+word+palestine&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a
Lets hope the games are a sporting success and we can move forward with peace in our hearts. And maybe reason will be seen.
I have just been informed that ‘jubilee’ is a Hebrew word.
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1. often capitalized : a year of emancipation and restoration provided by ancient Hebrew law to be kept every 50 years by the emancipation of Hebrew slaves, restoration of alienated lands to their former owners, and omission of all cultivation of the land.
Merriam Webster Dictionary