I am delighted that a new canpaign has started today against the state enforced child slavery in the uzbek cotton industry, especially as this campaign originates in Germany, where a significant portion of society appears to have finally woken up to the reality of the German government’s appalling complicity in the Nazi style regime and atrocities of Karimov.
However in the UK it remains the case that since the coalition government came to power, there has not been one single government statement on the human rights atrocities in Uzbekistan or – even more damning of our sham democracy – one single statement or question from New Labour.
Just came across this:
Julian Assange News:
In an interview with Actualidad RT, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño stated that, if they can’t reach a diplomatic agreement with the UK over Julian Assange’s situation, Ecuador will have “no choice” but to seek a judicial settlement instead.
http://www.thisdayinwikileaks.org
and this (Julian Assange was interviewed on BBC Radio 5 where he discussed the Swedish case, future WikiLeaks releases, and the upcoming DreamWorks’ film “The Fifth Estate”.) ;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0145pst
NOTE
25 January 2013
WikiLeaks has been financially blockaded without process for 785 days.
Julian Assange has been detained without charge for 782 days.
– 220 days at the Ecuadorian Embassy.
Bradley Manning has been in prison without trial for 977 days.
Jeremy Hammond has been in prison without trial for 328 days.
A secret Grand Jury on WikiLeaks has been active for 862 days.
Yawn…..that was my opinion dearest, now sling your hook and find some other sordid corner why don’t you.
BTW. Dyslexia is curable, all you got to do ism read before you push that button, schoolmaster.
From your valuable link, for which I thank you, Villager.
http://www.bradleymanning.org/activism/1000-days-no-speedy-trial
Mark your calendar for Feb 23rd.
@ Mark
Re. Laurent Louis : since he was first mentioned on this blog, and with my interest increasing in proportion to the reverence he’s being accorded here.
You know, insofar as he’s known in Belgium, he’s not seen as a serious politician. I don’t expect you’ll believe me, but I’m in a position to know and I have no axe to grind.
As to who I respect : well, you’ve always come across to me as a civil and sane poster, so it gives me no particular pleasure to tell you that I find your question damnably cheeky. Why do you ask ME that question? Ask it rather of the prophets of suspicion and negativity on this blog, from most of whom I don’t think I’ve ever seen a post with a good word to say for any figure in the public domain.
(as those those on this blog, everyone who demonstrates mental and moral equilibrium and intellectual honesty)
You’re welcome Ben…i was just coming around to it. Be very interesting to see the impact London could make.
Btw, i agree with your earlier suggestion to Craig.
I’m sure that was your opinion, Nevermind, but you see, I’m not interested in your opinion but rather in Mark’s opinion since he wrote the post. I want to hear the ventriloquist and not the dummy.
Stop eating crow Habbabkuk. ‘Mr Hague established the North Wales Child Abuse Inquiry precisely because of the serious and widespread reports of abuse.
“Investigative journalist Nick Davies reported in The Guardian Sir Peter Hugh Morrison PC received a caution for cottaging with underage boys in public lavatories.[5] Edwina Currie states in her autobiography Morrison regularly had sex with 16 year old boys – whilst the legal age of consent at the time was 21 years old.[6]
In October 2012, Rod Richards, a former MP and ex-leader of the Welsh Conservatives, implicated Morrison in the North Wales child abuse scandal.[7] Between 1974 and 1990, up to 650 children from 40 children’s homes (such as Bryn Estyn in Wrexham), were sexually, physically and emotionally abused. Richards said Morrison and another high-profile Conservative were named in documents as regular and unexplained visitors to the care homes.[8]” Wiki
It is clear tome that Mr Hague who was Welsh Secretary at the time of the inquiry, ‘should have seen the evidence about Morrison’ certainly in the preliminary files if he was as diligent, painstaking and ironclad as confessed at the time.
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/Politics/article1153409.ece
Having seen a TV report showing the grotty looking premises in a Plymouth suburb where the attempted robbery and death took place last night, I thought I would look Ladbrokes up. Revenue nearly £1 billion. Wikipedia says they are based in Rayners Lane, Harrow. Their websites say differently. See Gibraltar addresses below. Tax benefits no doubt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladbrokes
The home pages of the websites are plastered with come-ons for free bets. Once hooked, the poor suckers are reeled in and try to win back their losses.
Betting shops are proliferating in the economic collapse and so are armed robberies at their premises. There were reports of two in our local paper last week.
I see the millionaire racehorse owners, Magnier, McManus and Lewis, frequently photographed with the queen in the winners’ enclosures, have acquired stakes in the company. I bet they have.
Ladbrokes International plc & Ladbrokes Sportsbook LP, Suites 6-8, 5th Floor, Europort, Gibraltar are licensed (RGL Nos. 010, 012 & 044) by the Government of Gibraltar and regulated by the Gibraltar Gambling Commissioner.
Ladbrokes Sportsbook LP a company registered in Gibraltar with Company Number 46808 and whose Registered Office is at 57-63 Line Wall Road, Gibraltar.
PS The attempted robbery (it was a fake gun) is not condoned but I wonder what the circumstances of the 50 year old were. Desperate? Unemployed? Ill?
(CNN) — “In anger over the recent death of an Internet activist who faced federal charges, hackers claiming to be from the group Anonymous threatened early Saturday to release sensitive information about the U.S. Department of Justice.
They claimed to have one such file on multiple servers ready for immediate release.
The hackers apparently hijacked the website of the U.S. government agency responsible for federal sentencing guidelines, where they posted a message demanding the United States reform its justice system or face incriminating leaks to select news outlets.
The lengthy, eloquently written letter was signed “Anonymous.””
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/26/tech/anonymous-threat/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
I hope something very juicy is part of their ‘acquisition’. Regardless of how one feels about the productivity of ‘hacking’, while our government continues to operate in the shadows, denying FOIA petitions; Is there another way to some transparency?
I agree 100% with the sentiments underlying Mary’s post about Ladbrokes. Gambling (in which I include the national lottery, by the way) is a social scourge and if not driven out entirely should be as tightly controlled as firearms.
This is probably not really relevant, but didn’t Noo-Labour have plans at one stage for super-casonis all over the country? Another reason to damn them to hell.
In your small world Habbabkuk seemingly obsessed with sexuality in the sense of both nouns, instaed of morality. You appear here as a doppleganger carrying the same ithyphallic knife used to stab Laurent Louis in the back.
Leave us Habbabkuk – you have thrice crossed my path and I have exposed you.
Question to any lawyers out there : do you think that calling William Hague a pervert is actionable at law? (This was Mark Golding).
Not that he’d bother of course, even if he read it, but I’m just curious.
Whether your fated two brain cells will understand is questionable. Rod Hull was not known for his left arm.
@ Ben Franklin : I do agree with your thought about this thread having fallen victim to a degree of boredom (in fact, both ThatCrab and I said more or less the same thing on this thread a couple of days ago) and with your idea of having a guest blogger in on occasion to fill in an overly long gap.
I was actually going to submit for consideration a couple of ideas on how the functioning and general tone (and therefore the credibility) of this blog could be improved, and your post gives me the excuse to put them forward. However, these ideas imply more work on the part of the moderators and might therefore not be entirely practical.
1/. More emphasis should be placed on keeping contributions to threads on-topic. Take this thread as an example : as I already pointed out, a mere 13 posts in and we have a contribution talking not of Uzbekistan but of the Aitkenhead portrait of Julian Asssange. Anf after that, the thread was all over the place. Therefore : the moderator should be ruthless in deleting or displacing comments which are evidently off-topic.
The counterpart of the above would of course be to keep already-existing threads on other topics open much longer than at present. A great many of the off-topic posts would therefore find, at the moderator’s instigation, a home in another thread (eg, Mary would have been invited to remove her O/T on Julian Assange from the Uzbekistan thread and put it on one of the Julain Assange threads.
2/. There should be a strict application of a ban on what I would call a “non Parliamentary language” used in the responses of one poster to another. There are a number of expressions which are obvious candidates for a ban (it suffices to consult Fred’s posts), and others could be declared as not acceptable by the moderator(s)as and when the need arises. A side-benefit of this refinement of language might even be a refinement of the content of posts. Posters breaking this code should have their posts deleted, together with the explanation, eg “deleted for breaking the code on acceptable language”, hence providing a name and shame element.
Hope the above provided some food for thought.
Chutzpah does not come in to it!
Well, Mary, I didn’t expect one of the main O/T specialists to approve….:)
Mille excuses! My post of 17h08 should have been addressed to CLARK and not MARK!
(I must have Mark on the brain – very worrying! 🙂 )
The radio dramatisation of Animal Farm this afternoon was excellent.
One of the Medialens editors writes here on a Guardian article about Orwell.
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/715-eyes-like-blank-discs-the-guardian-s-steven-poole-on-george-orwell-s-politics-and-the-english-language.html
I would not dream of telling someone else how to run their blog. Why not start one of your one. I am sure it would be well received.
s/be…one of your own.
@ Mary : only trying to offer some ideas to improve matters. But thank you for the typically constructive and gracious comment! And now, enough of you for the time being! 🙂
Et tu Brute!
Habbabkuk, thanks for correcting your confusion between “Clark” and “Mark”. I’m sorry that you found my question “cheeky”. It wasn’t intended that way. I respect many people, including Craig, Noam Chomsky, the two Davids at Media Lens, and many others.
It is very easy to get at crossed purposes in text communication, which is a very narrow aperture through which to observe something as complex as a personality. Making reference to publicly know figures serves as a useful “data compression” technique, if you see what I mean. Maybe if people knew more about you, your values, etc., maybe there would be more understanding, and hopefully less hostility.
All, including Habbabkuk, I really think it would help if everyone stopped trying to shoot at each other. Jesus said “turn the other cheek”. I’m not religious, so I don’t take it as a divine command or as universally applicable, but it can be useful at times.
Laurent Louis is a very brave man.
He is telling Truth to some truly nasty people and vested interests.
I genuinely hope he takes care of his personal protection.The bastards he’s calling out are psychopaths-and powerful.
“Climate-change-denier shills:”
Renewable energy linked to organised crime.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-01-22/world/36485835_1_renewable-energy-renewables-industry-mafia-boss
I just grabbed the subtitles of that Laurent Louis address and added some linebreaks to improve readability (source and translator are in the comment).
I found it a truely remarkable speech to the heart of matters –but not groundbreaking information overall, just quite unique concern and bravery displayed for simply telling the truth of modern war politics.
Absolutely no surprise that the man has accusations and aspersions hanging over him, which allow him to be ignored and discounted by sham media and commentry. Zero surprise about that. Any piece of human error, failure or imperfection in the true and brave can be amplified to sully them, and charges contrived. Good sound words and ideas can be dismissed with only some crass jibes and the proscribed posture of the ‘news’ reports.
Communications can easily be flooded with reverberating chimes and clatter. All who cannot or rather not read the score make noise, keeping pointless scores. –Play on 🙂
“More emphasis should be placed on keeping contributions to threads on-topic.”
Dear Santa,
I don’t agree -the site/blog would become less topical, diffuse and unfocused with no immediacy, with everyone off in little huddles, soon divisions and incoherence of the group, between rival topics, little one-issue silent haunts and segregation -would arise. It would be easier spontaneously or wilfully for one or more individuals or indeed packs of hired hands to dominate each little shard, propounding slickly contrarian views relentlessly, squelching dissent and battering others to submission.
I appreciate the snippets and updates of concurrent events, forming a nice little digest or alternate takes from the powerless, outsiders or original thinkers, on current events, reducing want for exposure to the drivel outlets, providing a pinch of salt to go with the preposterous calumnies the mainstream exudes. The intruding other topics can mostly be classed as abuses of power, detailed exposed and just solutions aired. I don’t mind colourful language. Shameless populist that I am non-one should feel inhibited from posting comment, even the less literate, anything short of txt spk pls. I’d like to hear how coarse parliamentarians language could get but not see or smell their stained underwear when they barricade themselves in vain refuge from the angry mobs at the door.
I think some list of still hot/active topics, on the main page would be nice.
Nice too would be a ‘Report Abuse’ button for habbadak to click often –but which doesn’t actually do anything at all, ever.
CDC ‘surprised’ at ineffectiveness of flu vaccine.
http://www.naturalnews.com/038826_flu_vaccine_victims_hospitals.html
The majority have always found Marys comment feed to be great for setting the tone. Great for a grounded and familiar cynical comment on the latest bullshit blizzards at large.
The Blog advice from someone who the majority find terrible in tone and the most often submitted opinion on the blog in recent months, someone who clearly has no worries flooding threads with jibes and nitpicks and refusals to stop and etc. is totally absurd. But i consider much of the mess made consists of the messiest complaints. My wish would be to keep complaints rare and solid, or very short.
I hear what you say Clark and I respect you as the peacemaker. However I have had nearly three months of these uncalled for barbs and insults but have pretty well kept my tongue quiet throughout. It’s getting beyond a joke now and is tedious. However I will be plying my paint roller and brushes with gusto tomorrow and will have a break from it here.
I am glad you spoke to Craig and to hear that he is well. I worry about long distance air travel for him, DVT risk, pressurized cabins and recycled air passing the bugs round etc. Not a healthy option for someone so recently having had care in a cardiac unit. Hope he is OK.
ATB