Here in Ghana people are stunned by the announcement that a bond of £3,000 will have to be submitted by visa applicants to the UK, redeemable on return.
It is unpleasant for a nation to be singled out as comprised of particularly untrustworthy individuals against whom special measures are needed. Theresa May appears quite deliberately to be singling out countries whose citizens are normally black or brown – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Ghana and Nigeria. They are all citizens with extremely close ties to the UK. For example, all of those countries supplied large numbers of men to British armed forces in two World Wars; with little resulting gratitude.
The true level of Britain’s regard for the Commonwealth is disclosed in all its arrogance; citizenship of the Commonwealth countries with the longest link to the UK will become a positive disadvantage in visa application. Israeli settlers living in Occupied Palestine on the West Bank, incidentally, will still be allowed to enter the UK without any visa at all, despite membership of neither Commonwealth nor EU. Paradoxical, isn’t it?
The measure shows the arrogant British disdain for these countries – of which India pre-eminently but also Ghana are fast growing and important trading partners. Undoubtedly Ghana will retaliate with measures which hurt British businesses; many of my good friends are senior Ghanaian politicians, and they are all furious. The rhetoric the British employ about transformation from colonial status to a modern partnership of equals is exposed for the tissue of lies it has always been. This is a straightforward racist measure, aimed at securing the racist vote to the Tories.
Not does it make any sense. If you are intending to enter the UK under false pretences, and have the intent illegally to settle and start a new life there, then £3,000 is scarcely a deterrent given the substantial economic gains you intend to make over the long period you intend to stay. It will rather seem a good investment; people will find the money. The people it will deter are those who never intended to overstay. The extra cash upfront, to the businessman for a business trip, for the student coming to study, for the tourist will drive them to go elsewhere, to the UK’s net loss.
More cruelly it will deter decent middle class people from coming to see grandchildren in the holidays, from going to the niece’s wedding, from going to graduation. Those things will become the prerogative of the wealthy, those with plenty of cash to spare.
This does nothing to deter illegal immigration. It merely demonstrates populist racism, demonstrates contempt for some of the UK’s best-disposed friends, and demonstrates that the government thinks the right to travel is only for the rich. It is contemptible.
“President Putin has him in Stalin’s old quarters:
http://englishrussia.com/images/bunker_for_stalin/8.jpg
http://englishrussia.com/images/bunker_for_stalin/9.jpg ”
Glad to think he has a bed, in that case. As for the .jpgs, they both say “403 forbidden”.
Hey, spooks, get the F out of my laptop!
“Our” rebels behead a priest in Syria, the Vatican News Agency confirms. Not a word on the BBC.
Well, there’s Glastonbury and Wimbledon. You can’t cover all the news, can you?
@Dreoilin 9 26am.
Too bad your firefox turned awkward.
Here’s most of the piece.
“Sunday 7 October 2012 is the 11th anniversary of the US led invasion of Afghanistan. The subsequent war and occupation of Afghanistan probably cost the lives of over 100,000 Afghan people. The related and equally unjustified war against the people of Iraq probably cost well over one million Iraqi lives, but we will never know the exact figures because the aggressors deliberately “don’t do body counts”. These criminal wars have been compounded by unspeakable acts of torture and abuses of prisoners in Abu Graib, Guantanamo, Bagram and elsewhere.
These acts of torture have more recently been replaced by targeted assassinations using special-forces and drone attack-aircraft. The term “targeted assassinations” is of course a misnomer because the vast majority of victims are innocent civilians, unintended so-called “collateral damage”.
Ireland has played an active and despicable role in all these crimes against humanity by allowing over two million armed US troops to transit through Shannon airport. In addition vast amounts of war materials and dangerous munitions have passed through Shannon and over one thousand CIA associated flights have been refuelled at Shannon.
In order to highlight and to try and prevent the on-going Irish participation in these abuses of human rights, and the failure of Gardai at Shannon to investigate Irish complicity in torture and other war crimes, a number of peace activists entered Shannon airport at about 4 pm on 7 October 2012, and placed banners beside the main runway at Shannon warning US military and CIA associated aircraft that they are not welcome at Shannon.
Every precaution has been taken to ensure that this has been a non-violent peaceful action, and to ensure that there has been no risk of injury to any person. This is in marked contrast to the actions of the US troops who passed through Shannon, who have caused so much death and suffering across the Middle East and Central Asia, and some of whom have committed the most serious crimes imaginable.
President Obama during his visit to Ireland earlier this year thanked the Irish Government for its complicity in these US wars by allowing the warmongers to transit through Shannon airport.
Peace activists have tried repeatedly by various means to get the Gardai and other involved authorities to prevent this use of Shannon airport for such criminal activities. These efforts included the submission of a large amount of documentary evidence and information to the Gardai at Shannon on 18 March 2011. Seventeen months later a response was received from the Gardai stating that they had: “failed to uncover any evidence concerning breaches of Irish and international laws resulting from the transit of armed U.S. troops and CIA associated aircraft in connection with the wars and military aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, and in connection with the unlawful detention and torture of prisoners at Guantanamo prison and elsewhere.” This statement beggars belief, given that Judge Kearns of had ruled in the High Court in April 2003 that the Irish Government was in breach of International laws of neutrality, and that full details of this judgement were submitted to the Gardai at Shannon on 18 March 2011. If the Garda investigation into these matters failed to uncover any evidence into the matters complained of, this is most likely because the focus of any such investigation was to cover up any such evidence rather than to uncover it.”
A sense of humanity still alive and kicking in the Emerald Isle.
And isn’t Clare Daly just a gem?
NR,
If the US are playing a double agent game with Master Spy Snowden they must surely know that would be Putin and FSB’s first thought too.The Russians would make sure,as a basic matter of spook protocol,that he’d be kept quarantined in perpetuity from any sensitive Russian info and personnel.
It makes no sense for the US to try such a clumsily basic play.
They will know the Russians aint so dumb to fall for such a ham-fisted manouver.
Where’s the angle?
“Snowden is in the transit area of Sheremetyevo airport and has not crossed the Russian Federation’s border (onto Russian soil)… Russia has never extradited anyone, is not extraditing anyone and will not extradite anyone,” Peskov told reporters.”
http://news.yahoo.com/snowden-transit-area-drops-russia-asylum-request-kremlin-082047503.html
27 mins ago from Reuters
@Dreoilin.
Glad you found it while I was copying and pasting.
Good on you bearing witness at Shannon.
“Hey, spooks, get the F out of my laptop!”
Probably just anti leaching measures.
It’s bad form to post links to images on other sites on a forum, uses up their bandwidth for your benefit. Some sites block it.
Re “403 forbidden”, clicking on the link doesn’t get you there, but copying the link location and pasting that into the search window does. It’s a server error, someone hasn’t set it up properly. Not spooks (this time)
“Hey, spooks, get the F out of my laptop!”
Hey, I was kidding
Thanks for the advice Komodo
“Re “403 forbidden”, clicking on the link doesn’t get you there, but copying the link location and pasting that into the search window does. It’s a server error, someone hasn’t set it up properly. Not spooks (this time)”
No it isn’t a server error.
Look folks there are nice people out there on the internet who put up interesting sites for our benefit. If you post links directly to images on their sites to a busy blog you are stealing a lot of their bandwidth. It’s theft and it’s no error when they block referrers.
@ Dreoilin 2 Jul, 2013 – 10:00 am
“Glad to think he has a bed, in that case. As for the .jpgs, they both say “403 forbidden”. Hey, spooks, get the F out of my laptop!”
The links work for me. Any reason the Russians don’t want you to see the splendor of Stalin’s bunker? Re later comments — that’s weird, it works on a direct click for me.
@ Jives 2 Jul, 2013 – 10:08 am
“NR, If the US are playing a double agent game with Master Spy Snowden they must surely know that would be Putin and FSB’s first thought too.The Russians would make sure,as a basic matter of spook protocol,that he’d be kept quarantined in perpetuity from any sensitive Russian info and personnel.”
“It makes no sense for the US to try such a clumsily basic play.”
“They will know the Russians aint so dumb to fall for such a ham-fisted manouver.”
“Where’s the angle?”
I’ve got it! The NSA and Mossad put their new YuksNet virus on the four (4) laptops that Snowden is carrying, knowing the Chinese and Russians couldn’t resist extracting the alleged secrets. Too late now. When they connected to the laptops their own networks were hopelessly compromised. 🙂
@ Dreoilin 2 Jul, 2013 – 10:09 am
“Snowden is in the transit area of Sheremetyevo airport and has not crossed the Russian Federation’s border (onto Russian soil)… 27 mins ago from Reuters”
They would say that, while they have him wined and dined and hooked up with the finest replacement pole dancers. 🙂
Fred – It’s a known problem with that (proxy) server outfit: I did check. Incidentally, we could both be wrong (Shock! Horror!) – I just clicked on the link again, and it came up instantly…
Thanks for all your c ‘n’ p-ing, Kibo.
Everything just hung here. I only had email and the browser open so I don’t see why. But it’s a pain in the neck, so I’m going off for a while.
‘Only when the last river has been polluted, and the last tree been cut down, and the last fish been caught, will we realise we cannot eat money.’
– Cree saying
“It’s bad form to post links to images on other sites on a forum, uses up their bandwidth for your benefit. Some sites block it.”
Most sites offering pictures welcome the hits, Fred. They’re there for the public to see. Picture of fruity lady with no clothes on here –
(No it isn’t -Ed)
No no no, Mr Snowden’s visit will no doubt encompass the sites of the cities purvey the beautiful countryside and beaches and dancing. The ballet of course.
Samely but wonderful no doubt.
“Fred – It’s a known problem with that (proxy) server outfit: I did check. Incidentally, we could both be wrong (Shock! Horror!) – I just clicked on the link again, and it came up instantly…”
It would do, it’s only coming from your cache not from the site. You already accessed it from a direct link.
Not “Iran’s Hezbollah” then? Let’s see what sort of courage the Bulgarians can muster and reject the ludicrous claims of Hezbollah terrorism from Israel, for which they alone are responsible.
http://forward.com/articles/179626/jewish-ex-interior-minister-to-be-investigated-in/
Duh! You’re right. In which case what I said before. The server software is nginx, and there is a reported problem with its index access. This is fixable at the server end.
“Duh! You’re right. In which case what I said before. The server software is nginx, and there is a reported problem with its index access. This is fixable at the server end.”
The server gets the exact same http request when you copy and paste the link as when you click on it. Only difference is if you click on the link there will be a referral address in the header. If it was an indexing problem both would fail.
@ Dreoilin
“Habbabkuk
“If I were Julian Assange, I would be a worried man”
I don’t think so. Correa has reiterated several times that he is on as good terms with Julian as ever.”
___________
Correa may be more bluster and less Castro. One may be on ‘good terms’ with someone, but I’m not sure how bankable that is.
Anyway, we shall see.
Should I be wrong, I will give permission for a limited number of Excellences to chuck a few more buckets of s**t over me; should the opposite turn out to be the case, I promise to crow.
re Shannon and the American millions
I note that the “millions” claimed on here by someone or other has now morphed into “over two million”.
Honey, I shrunk the kids! 🙂
Anyway, that’s what Shannonwatch claims. Given where they’re coming from, I think I’d prefer to treat that ‘info’ with some caution.
Perhaps as solid as the claims, made at the time, that “thousands” of Palestinians were killed in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead….
***************
La vita è bella, life is good!
@ Komodo (09h16)
“Hidden costs of Afghanistan/Iraq still to appear:…etc”
__________
I’m glad you said that because it reminded me to ask tyou if you’d had any further thoughts about how UK govt expenditure (annual, Komodo, annual)on pensions, social security and the NHS (which Kempe reminded us is £201 billion) compared with UK govt expenditure on defence. Have you?
You rightly go on to say :
“We borrowed to finance just about everything:…etc”
Which is correct and which is also why everyone should applaud the present govt for trying to reduce the national debt or at least slow down its runaway increase. (It may of course be that you are in favour of saddling future generations with even more debt)
***************
La vita è bella, life is good!
Fred, My impression from the site I looked at was that the index failure could have been invoked by an embedded link while it would work from the browser address bar. But no matter – I don’t buy your suggestion either. Out.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=610091
There’s oil in them thar fishing grounds.
Stop and search to be used more sparingly.
Stop-and-search powers: Public to have say
Stop and- search in progress People should not be stopped because of their ethnicity, Theresa May is to say
The public will be consulted on changing how police in England and Wales use stop-and-search powers, the home secretary is due to announce.
About 1.2 million stops took place in 2011-12 – but only 9% led to an arrest.
Theresa May is expected to say stop-and-search powers must be used more carefully to ensure people are not stopped because of their ethnicity.
/..http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23140505
She is speaking now following Cameron on Afghanistan.
Back to topic, I heard on Radio 4 this morning that landlords will now be required by the Border Agency to check on their tenants in case any illegal immigrants have slipped through the net.
Don’t know if this has been posted as there have so many posts this morning. I have been doing my aguafit to the sound of 60s pop! Took me back.
The BBC probably enjoyed putting this up and some here will be pleased.
2 July 2013 Last updated at 12:13
Edward Snowden’s asylum options narrow
Edward Snowden is wanted in the US on charges of leaking secrets Fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has suffered a setback in his attempts to avoid extradition to the US, as a number of countries have rejected his requests for asylum.
Eight European states including Spain and Germany said asylum applicants had to be on their soil.
India has also said no.
Mr Snowden, who is at Moscow airport, sent requests to 21 countries in total, Wikileaks said, but he later withdrew a request to Russia.
/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23145887
“landlords will now be required by the Border Agency to check on their tenants in case any illegal immigrants have slipped through the net.”
The ones who are housing poor immigrants in sheds in their back gardens (minus proper bathrooms, heating, or fridges) will be unlikely to do that. It’s far too lucrative for them.
The headline in the Irish Times reads
Venezuala looking like whistle-blower’s last hope
But I think I counted about 10 countries which are listed as either “status unknown” or “he’d have to be here to make a request”. So if the Russians give him travel documents, he could presumably “be here” in any of those cases. And “Bolivian President Evo Morales told Russian state-run RT television today that his country is ready to consider Snowden’s request.”
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/venezuala-looking-like-whistle-blower-s-last-hope-1.1450301
Flaming June –
can’t even open PressTV at present, but u can find these by doing search of the headlines:
PressTV – Is Eutelsat CEO an Israeli?
Nov 5, 2012 – Eutelsat is a person, not a company. Eutelsat says it is European, but it is actually Israeli. French sounding ‘Michel de Rosen’ runs Eutelsat, an Israeli citizen, company with Israeli stockholders, a company long dictated to by extremist groups within Israel, the militant ultra-nationalists of the Likudist regime of Netanyahu.”
PressTV – Eutelsat Israeli chief behind attack on Iran channels
Feb 24, 2013 – In the letter obtained by Press TV, the Franco-Israeli Eutelsat chief has warned satellite companies to remove Iranian channels or prepare to …