UPDATE
100,000 HITS IN 100 MINUTES CRASHED THE SITE. WE DON’T KNOW YET IF GENUINE INTEREST OR DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK. OUR BRILLIANT WEBHOSTS HAVE QUADRUPLED THE RESOURCE, BUT IF YOU CAN HELP TAKE THE STRAIN BY REPOSTING I WOULD BE VERY GRATEFUL.
I returned to the UK today to be astonished by private confirmation from within the FCO that the UK government has indeed decided – after immense pressure from the Obama administration – to enter the Ecuadorean Embassy and seize Julian Assange.
This will be, beyond any argument, a blatant breach of the Vienna Convention of 1961, to which the UK is one of the original parties and which encodes the centuries – arguably millennia – of practice which have enabled diplomatic relations to function. The Vienna Convention is the most subscribed single international treaty in the world.
The provisions of the Vienna Convention on the status of diplomatic premises are expressed in deliberately absolute terms. There is no modification or qualification elsewhere in the treaty.
Article 22
1.The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter
them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.
2.The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises
of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the
mission or impairment of its dignity.
3.The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of
transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution.
Not even the Chinese government tried to enter the US Embassy to arrest the Chinese dissident Chen Guangchen. Even during the decades of the Cold War, defectors or dissidents were never seized from each other’s embassies. Murder in Samarkand relates in detail my attempts in the British Embassy to help Uzbek dissidents. This terrible breach of international law will result in British Embassies being subject to raids and harassment worldwide.
The government’s calculation is that, unlike Ecuador, Britain is a strong enough power to deter such intrusions. This is yet another symptom of the “might is right” principle in international relations, in the era of the neo-conservative abandonment of the idea of the rule of international law.
The British Government bases its argument on domestic British legislation. But the domestic legislation of a country cannot counter its obligations in international law, unless it chooses to withdraw from them. If the government does not wish to follow the obligations imposed on it by the Vienna Convention, it has the right to resile from it – which would leave British diplomats with no protection worldwide.
I hope to have more information soon on the threats used by the US administration. William Hague had been supporting the move against the concerted advice of his own officials; Ken Clarke has been opposing the move against the advice of his. I gather the decision to act has been taken in Number 10.
There appears to have been no input of any kind from the Liberal Democrats. That opens a wider question – there appears to be no “liberal” impact now in any question of coalition policy. It is amazing how government salaries and privileges and ministerial limousines are worth far more than any belief to these people. I cannot now conceive how I was a member of that party for over thirty years, deluded into a genuine belief that they had principles.
The lack of coverage of Israel in the early releases was due to (self-)censorship by the MSM partners. They chose which cables to publish. I suspect a confrontation over this led to the fallout between Leigh of the Guardian and Assange. From memory, m understanding is that Assange wanted the Israeli material published along with the rest. The MSM (in)actions are the origins of the ‘Assange as Iraeli stooge’ claims.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/in-suspected-jerusalem-lynch-dozens-of-jewish-youths-attack-3-palestinians.premium-1.459002
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In suspected Jerusalem lynch, dozens of Jewish youths attack 3 Palestinians
One of the Palestinians was seriously wounded and hospitalized in intensive care; eyewitness: Today I saw a lynch with my own eyes.
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Dozens of Jewish youths attacked three young Palestinians in Jerusalem’s Zion Square early on Friday morning, in what one witness described as “a lynch” on Facebook.
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One of the Palestinians was seriously wounded and hospitalized in intensive care in Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem. Acting Jerusalem police chief General Menachem Yitzhaki has set up a special team to investigate the incident and detain the suspects.
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The three were allegedly attacked by youths shouting “Death to the Arabs” at them, as well as other racial slurs. One of them fell on the floor, and his attackers continued to beat him until he lost consciousness. They subsequently fled from the scene.
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Within a short period of time rescue volunteers and Magen David Adom rescue services arrived on the scene and found the victim with no pulse and not breathing. After a lengthy resuscitation attempt, he was transferred to the hospital.
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Writing on her Facebook page, one eye witness decribed the attack as a lynch: “It’s late at night, and I can’t sleep. My eyes are full of tears for a good few hours now and my stomach is turning inside out with the question of the loss of humanity, the image of God in mankind, a loss that I am not willing to accept.”
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“But today I saw a lynch with my own eyes, in Zion Square, the center of the city of Jerusalem ….. and shouts of ‘A Jew is a soul and Arab is a son of a –,’ were shouted loudly and dozens (!!) of youths ran and gathered and started to really beat to death three Arab youths who were walking quietly in the Ben Yehuda street,” the witness wrote.
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“When one of the Palestinian youths fell to the floor, the youths continued to hit him in the head, he lost consciousness, his eyes rolled, his angled head twitched, and then those who were kicking him fled and the rest gathered in a circle around, with some still shouting with hate in their eyes.”
=======================
Full story at link
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-16/news/sns-rt-us-palestinians-israel-violencebre87f1ba-20120816_1_jewish-settlers-palestinian-vehicle-bat-ayin
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Jewish settlers suspected of fire-bomb attack on Palestinians.
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JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A fire-bomb thrown at a Palestinian vehicle in the occupied West Bank on Thursday set the car on fire and wounded six people, in an attack a military source and Israeli media blamed on Jewish settlers.
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“The main lead in the investigation suggests that Israeli civilians were responsible for the incident,” said a military source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
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Israeli media said that tracks were found leading from the site of the incident to a nearby settlement and that at least four of the passengers wounded were members of the same family, two of them children.
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Full story at link.
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I wonder if Mensch is on the phone right now complaining about the lack of coverage by thd BBC of these two events…
I apologise if this has already been posted but it really worth watching. Not that there are many here who are so foolish as to believe that this is a “rape case” but it exposes the gaping holes in the arguments of the anti-Assange camp.
http://www.youtube…atch?v=yu4WCskniEc
Incidentally, the scummy Guardian ran an editorial calling on Assange to do The Right Thing and give himself up.
Doing The Right Thing…..wasn’t that what the unindicted war criminal Tony Blair kept offering as a defense for his crimes in Iraq?
PS. Craig – I have posted your link on the FT and the Guardian comments section. One loser laughed at me for posting it. Needless to say, I verbally kung-fu-ed the jackass.
Glenn Greenwald is leaving Salon to go work for the Guardian.
Has the filter grabbed my comment?
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[Mod/Jon: yes, released now]
We will not turn the tide until we openly and accurately discuss the specific people behind the organization camouflage. The US government can not be tired and jailed, only individuals. The lady handing out mail at the Post Office may very well be honest, sane, and willing to learn–and is not a criminal.
There are so many bad people in the US government, and likely all governments, companies, and organizations, so this is a big task. There are many more willing to be taught by good journalism and help with this big task.
Keep writing, Craig, but be specific as much as you can.
Also, people are not taught the costs the criminals spend on their abusive activities. People hear these stories like they are situation comedies, and don’t realize this is theft as well as abuse.
Greenwald at the Guardian? That will be very interesting indeed. The Guardian excels at channeling and neutralising dissent whereas Greenwald doesn’t pull punches. There could be fireworks.
“Dumbed down morons” and ‘WikiLeaks is ZioPoison’ are both attempts at reverse psychology in my book. Likewise ‘AntiLeaks’ – the DDoS freaks headed up by ‘DietPepsi’ are using the same reactance to manipulate a majority who are intelligent enough to smell a rat yet lack cohesion in their response. The majority of ‘morons’ on this blog are congruent with Craig’s activism opposing the current establishment’s deception, lies and proxy crusades.
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What if that congruence expands to thousands, even millions of ‘morons’ -agent provocateurs critical and incendiary, incensed by our political thieves, our corrupt bankers, war-mongers and automaton slaves of the elite?
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Our insemination of minds, our influence on the young is ‘their’ greatest fear. WikiLeaks means very little to those in power because nothing that would cause severe damage to their integrity has been disclosed. What they ARE frightened of is you seeing a successful example of independence that might give some impetus to sleeping ‘morons’ who know how the world works yet remain complacent.
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AntiLeaks is their kickback; another proxy flame arranged to distract and divide us. The data speed recently used to overload WikiLeaks servers tells us about the bandwidth needed; it required a corporate pipe and was a government proxy attack according to my insider. These attacks/flames will increase until the Internet ‘kill-switch’ is used and we are left literally in the dark. We must plan for that now.
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Myself and four UCL post graduates are trying to break encryption keys that last only 24 hours because knowledge is power and communication is essential. Before year-end I strongly suggest joining/following UK-Collapse on Facebook or/and Twitter @UK_Collapse. UK-Collapse will coordinate response when the financial crash occurs.
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http://www.uk-collapse.com/prep.html
Mark,
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That UK collapse site is just riddled with numerous spelling errors. Clearly hasn’t even had so much as a spell-checker run over it.
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Looks very amateurish to me.
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Might annoy the University of Kent (at Canterbury) as well 🙂
The law of unintended consequences always comes back to bite you on the arse if you are not careful.
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French and the EU are as good as UK and always ever so ready to jump as the lord high arbiter uncle Sam orders away, and the resultant sanctions put on the Syrians has come back to bite them on derrière. has been and Air France pilot who had ran out of fuel and had no alternative than landing in Damascus and upon trying to refill his little jet with his credit card, the good Capitan is told cash only Monsieur. At which juncture the crew have to go back into the cabin to ask if passengers can scrape together some cash to buy fuel.
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This is reminiscent of the early days Russia during which Aeroflot pilots used to go and ask the passenger to buy fuel, pumps, tires, etc. to take off, otherwise these would have to go back home and await the next plane to be readied that could take days if not weeks.
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Is this the early signs of the collapse of the West, or is it sanctions gone mad?
It is Anon – but the author is sincere, trustworthy, kind and honest. He cheated death in an accident and now suffers some Dysgraphia from trauma I believe. His name is Lee and he makes people look nice after they have passed on.
@VivaEcuador – I agree. Greenwald is a Pilger, he won’t compromise. Perhaps CiF America is going to be worthy of its name?
“The whole trial, the whole prosecution was all false. It’s like when you are in a spider web and you are hunted there and there is no way out and you cannot do anything,” she pointed out.
Mir-Qolikhan was reportedly kidnapped by US agents in December 2007.
most horrifying experience that anybody could have in life
Jay,
Your bit about Andrea Davison is very, very interesting. I found this item which presumably is about her. So if she’s in the embassy, she must have only recently gone there. I couldn’t get into the link.
North Wales woman jailed for document frauds
Daily Post North Wales – 26 Jul 2012
Andrea Davison, believed to have fled the country and claimed … Judge Niclas Parry said Davison had made it clear at the start that she was …
Jay,
I’ve got into the story and here it is.
Daily Post North Wales – 26 Jul 2012
North Wales woman jailed for document frauds
by Our Correspondent, DPW West
Jul 26 2012
A WOMAN who claimed she worked for the security services has been jailed for two and a half years for a series of frauds.
Andrea Davison, believed to have fled the country and claimed political asylum, denied 27 theft and fraud offences.
The prosecution said she was running a false document factory after she kept items from a mail drop service, including passports, as templates to recreate documents.
She was convicted unanimously of 26 charges by a jury at Mold Crown Court, who found her not guilty of one charge at the direction of the judge.
Judge Niclas Parry said Davison had made it clear at the start that she was not attending her trial, and information provided to the court indicated she was at an embassy in Ecuador seeking political asylum.
Davison had, he said, been convicted on overwhelming evidence of serious offences of fraud and dishonesty over many years. It was a breach of trust because people who trusted her with crucial personal information as part of a mail drop service had their privacy violated in a calculated and deliberate way.
Judge Parry said he was satisfied that she was a highly intelligent woman who used information she fraudulently obtained to repeatedly create false identification documents for the purpose of obtaining, potentially, many thousands of pounds worth of credit. It had left people devastated.
“The potential for loss was quite enormous,” he said.
The court heard how Derby Police economic crime unit raided Davison’s Felinheli home after documents uncovered in another fraud case were found to have come from her.
DC Stephen Winnard, commended by the judge for his work, said after the case: “What we found was a document factory at Felinheli, personal documents that could be used in any type of fraud. The end result of her actions is that many people lost their life savings through organised crime groups.”
Davison, 62, of Bangor Street, Felinheli, admitted much of what was alleged.
But she said she provided herself with false or virtual identification because she was trying to protect herself. People had been trying to kill her because of her previous covert work for the security services, she claimed in police interviews.
But she said a large number of people knew who she was and could verify who she was, including former prime minister Tony Blair.
In police interviews she said that she had been deeply involved in the arms to Iraq inquiry. She said she had become involved in the inquiry and many agencies and organisations were trying to kill her, while other agencies were trying to protect her.
Davison confirmed she had credit or bank accounts in other names but said they were all paid up. She spoke of providing virtual realities for other people and told how she ran an organisation called The Association for Former British Intelligence Officers.
Davison denied possessing copies of passports in connection with fraud, making a false Venezuelan passport, offering to supply false ID documents, possessing false utility bills and bank statements and falsifying the register of electors.
She also denied possessing false documents including four stamps purporting to be of official origin including one for the Republic of Panama, possessing a false driving licence in her name with a false date of birth, theft of the passport from the Passport Service, exposing banks and credit card companies to risk of fraud, money laundering, and a trademark offence centred on five watches alleged to have been Breitling watches.
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I notice some posts claiming Assange is working for Israel. I advise peeps to note the real hierarchy. Israel is just another state controlled by Rothschild-Masonic-Zionism, just like the USA is.
Assange has published much against the US grunt mercenaries and their crimes against humanity in the middle east but where has Wikileaks published anything substantial against the Rothschild-Masonic-Zionists.
I.e this is all a theatre show to divert attention away from the real problem.
Assange is like Alex Jones. i.e He’s either controlled opposition or opposition knowing where to draw the boundaries in regard to his own safety.
People who are effective dissidents like William cooper, Rik Clay, David Kelly, Robin Cook, etc have all been assassinated.
If Assange was an effective dissident he would have been assassinated too.
There is a nice little banner running on Sky News along with the mundane stuff like the football season beginning.
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‘New gas mask distribution centres are opening in Israel as country appears to be taking steps to prepare to go to war with Iran’.
A comment from some of the most hard working members of our society who are just coming to the end of their long Summer holidays. No not teachers, MPs!
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British workers are “among the worst idlers in the world”, a group of Conservative MPs have claimed. The UK “rewards laziness”, does not encourage risk-taking and must strive to emulate the work ethic and low-tax culture in parts of Asia, the five MPs argue in a book due out next month.
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The authors include Elizabeth Truss and Dominic Raab, both tipped to be promoted in a future reshuffle. “Too many people in Britain prefer a lie-in to hard work,” they argue.
The other contributors to Britannia Unchained are Priti Patel, Chris Skidmore and Kwasi Kwarteng, influential members of the “class of 2010” – MPs elected to Parliament at the last election.
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/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19300051
That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind.
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Yes, Smeggy, at the top of the pyramid are the devil worshiping Rothschild Zionists, we are living in their Matrix.
Oh Armageddon is only going to last for 30 days. That’s alright then.
Israel ‘prepared for 30-day war with Iran’
Iran has the largest and most diverse ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East
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Israel’s outgoing home front defence minister says an attack on Iran would likely trigger a month-long conflict that would leave 500 Israelis dead.
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Matan Vilnai told the Maariv newspaper that the fighting would be “on several fronts”, with hundreds of missiles fired at Israeli towns and cities.
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/..
Vilnai was the one who promised a ‘greater shoah’ on the Palestinians in Gaza. He comes from the same school of thought as General Eytan whose ‘drugged cockroaches in a corked bottle’ description of the Palestinians spelt out Israel’s war of attrition.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19274866.
The OAS meeting takes place next Friday and not this Sunday as originally planned.
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OAS Permanent Council Convenes Meeting of Foreign Ministers on the Situation between Ecuador and the United Kingdom
http://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-283/12
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Does anyone know anything about the OAS? It is based in Washington I see!
I note, from the web, that the aforementioned woman (assuming it is the same person) to whom Mark Golding and Ruth referred appears to have been highly litigious wrt some articles published:
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http://www.5rb.com/docs/Davison%20v%20Habeeb.pdf
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This suggests that commentators would be well advised to tread very carefully.
The idea of equating Greenwald with Pilger is laughable. As Greenwald himself acknowledges, he is only radical because he subscribes to the rule of law. Pilger has traveled the globe making movies about all manner of political struggles against imperialism. Greenwald lives in Brasil and has some dogs. He focuses almost solely on narrow issues of the US government’s law-breaking.
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Let’s take a sample issue. Drone strikes. Greenwald opposes drone strikes that kill American citizens without due process. Al-Awlaki (and his teenage son) are his favored case studies. However, Greenwald never touches upon the basic question of should the US have the power to launch drone strikes at non-US citizens without due process.
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Hard to see that one not lighting up Pilger’s eyes like an Old Testament prophet.
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I’ve read Greenwald since before he came to Salon. He’s done a fantastic job of documenting the growing lawlessness of the US government, it’s furious war against whistle blowers, it’s persecution of Bradley Manning/Julian Assange, and the growing powers of the surveillance state. But he’s no Pilger.
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tomdispatch.com is also very good.
Duh. Sorry, I should have said, paragraph 2. Should the US have power to launch drone strikes at ANYBODY far from any battlefield, regardless of citizenship.
WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange will appeal to the International Court of Justice if Britain prevents him from going to Ecuador, according to a senior Spanish human rights lawyer.
Baltasar Garzon, who is working on Assange’s defence, told Spanish newspaper El Pais that Britain was legally required to allow Assange to leave once he had diplomatic asylum.
More: http://www.smh.com.au/world/assange-looks-to-international-court-20120817-24e7q.html
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Is there any such legal requirment on Britain?
Kingfelix, I think Greenwald has been good at opposing drone strikes in general. I just did some quick googling and the top 7 results for Greenwald were all anti-drone articles, focusing mainly on non American deaths and all published this year. Below are 2 great examples. Yeah, Greenwalds focus is narrower, but it’s not surprising considering his background in law.
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salon.com/2012/02/05/u_s_drones_targeting_rescuers_and_mourners/
salon.com/2012/04/19/americas_drone_sickness/
DECLASSIFIED diplomatic cables from Australia’s embassy in Washington D.C., obtained through freedom of information requests filed by The Sydney Morning Herald, reveal that Australian officials have already begun laying the groundwork for the US to pursue charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
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The cables show that diplomats in Assange’s home country anticipate receipt of an extradition request for Assange once a secret US grand jury wraps up its investigation. They expect it so fully that embassy staff even reached out to US officials for “early advice” on the potential indictment and extradition request.
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More: http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php/usa-war-on-terror/1782-preparations-made-for-julian-assange-to-be-prosecuted-in-the-us
Mary,
The dutch cows these days have a new method of getting milked:
1- The cows decide to go get milked, as and when they need.
2- The milking parlor is designed so that the herd can be in their field of vision throughout their stay in the parlor.
3- There is classical music piped in for the relaxation of the cows.
4- The suction cups and disinfectant fluids are warmed up to avoid any cold shocks.
5- There is an automated scratch machine/pole available for the cows to get scratched on demand.
6- There is tidbits to be dispensed upon cows getting out of the milking parlor.
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The resultant has been that some cows are getting milked four to five times a day and the production has gone up by at least thirty percent.
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Most British workers would dream of coming back as cows in Holland in their next life. The wankers who have written that book are in fact self projecting, for none of the wankers have probably ever had a proper job in their miserable and useless lives. Hence their patently obvious misunderstanding of work which is not a fucking prison chain gang sentence. These tosspots wholly inadequate grasp of working for living concept is, then regurgitated by the “media” as the lazy bastards not wanting to work, and shirkers intent on drawing dole.
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This is a preemptive move to cover for the current fall in the numbers of the unemployed, which is basically due to unemployed getting kicked off the benefits, along with the sick who are deemed ready for work so long as they can move one joint of one finger. The shit is coming to hit the fan hence the book that is setting the scene for the coming scandal that is about to break out.
At emergency talks held by the OAS in Washington, US envoy Carmen Lomellin said a meeting of foreign ministers [to be held on Friday] “would be unhelpful and harmful to the OAS’ reputation as an institution”.
She said the US – which was joined in a no vote by Canada, and Trinidad and Tobago – did not “recognise the concept of diplomatic asylum as a matter of international law”.
How can they say that?
Meanwhile, an “extraordinary meeting” of the Union of South American Nations has been convened in Ecuador on Sunday to discuss the situation.