Feile An Phobail Belfast 4110

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The Respectability of Torture

St Mary’s University College, Thurs 1st August, 7.30pm

 

Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, was a whistleblower who was removed from his ambassadorial post by Tony Blair for exposing the Tashkent regime‟s use of rape and systematic torture, including the boiling to death of political opponents. He has also spoken out against Central Asia‟s appalling dictatorships, regimes which are allies of the West, involved in torture and rendition, and was accused of threatening MI6‟s relationship with the CIA. Now a human rights activist, author and broadcaster, he outlines the dynamics of torture and the hypocrisy of incriminated Western governments.

 

My first public appearance for a while will be in Belfast on 1 August where I shall be giving a talk.  Long term readers of this blog will recall that, while my focus is largely on international affairs, the domestic political achievements I most hope to see are a united Ireland and an independent Scotland.

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4,110 thoughts on “Feile An Phobail Belfast”

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  • AlcAnon

    Ben,

    In 2007 they worked out an asteroid half way to planet killer hits in 2013. What happens next?

  • AlcAnon

    2007 FT3 is officially NASA “Condition Code 9”

    That means the 10th most dangerous item in the solar system in in completely unknown position. Last known projection: Potential Impact October 2nd 2013.
    .
    And that’s not news?

  • Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version)

    AA; just like the Patriot Act, which was in a Pentagon Drawer since the 80’s.

    They know what happens next.

    Will you Publish?

  • AlcAnon

    Ben, I’ll just repeat

    If someone can tell me why 2007 FT3 is not in the upcoming NASA close approach data then I’ll drop it.

  • Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version)

    I don’t want you to drop it, AA. I don’t think I’m being contrary. I think you are onto something that needs more air. I am a glutton for information, which doesn’t mean I have an iron stomach.

    It’s more like a glutton for curiosity.

  • glenn_uk

    @Someone 14 Aug, 2013 – 12:31 am: Undoubtably a satellite, if you observe a clear sky which is not subject to light pollution for 10 minutes or so, you are bound to spot one after the other. There are thousands of them to see, we can spot the bigger specimens with the naked eye (or bespectacled, in my case).

  • Someone

    glenn_uk,

    Yes, I think it was as you say, always thought they held a static orbit though!.

  • Flaming June

    Does this mean that Regev has got the chop?

    Diplomania
    by Barak Ravid
    13.08.13

    Is an abusive racist the best Israeli PR can produce?

    Facebook messages posted by Daniel Seaman, who will head Israel’s public diplomacy efforts, raise serious doubts about his judgment.

    Daniel Seaman, the outgoing deputy-director general of the Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Ministry, which is being closed, is a highly controversial figure in those parts of government in constant contact with foreign media. An active member of the Likud party, Seaman once ran as a candidate in the party primaries. He previously served as head of the Government Press Office and…

    http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania/.premium-1.541269

  • Clark

    Someone, that was an interesting observation. 30 times faster than an aircraft?

    Glenn_uk is right, there are many satellites visible from the ground. By “static orbit” I assume you mean geostationary orbit, where one orbit takes one day, above the equator and in the same direction as Earth spins. You can’t see these as they’re several thousand miles up.

    The satellites Glenn_uk is describing are mostly low earth orbit, 200 to 300 miles up, completing one whole orbit every 90 minutes or so (sometimes you can watch the ISS on two consecutive passes, 92 minutes apart). From the ground, these appear to move at about the same speed as passenger aircraft, crossing the observer’s visible sky in several minutes.

    30 times faster would cross from horizon to horizon in about ten seconds. If it was really that fast, then I’ve no idea what you saw.

  • Flaming June

    I call them troughers. They are, literally, feeding and drinking from the trough.

    Parliament food and drink costs taxpayers £7m
    Houses of Parliament Food and drink prices in Parliament were increased earlier this month

    Related Stories
    Commons nursery ‘costs too much’
    Parliament bar closure announced
    ‘Unhealthy’ drink culture among MPs

    Taxpayers subsidised Parliament’s bars and restaurants to the tune of £7m last year – £600,000 less than in 2011/12.

    The Commons normally adds income from its gift shops to the official figure making the costs look smaller.

    But without that income the operation ran a deficit of £4.9m in 2012/13, an FOI request revealed.

    The House of Lords said that, excluding revenue from functions and retail sales, its eight catering outlets cost £2.3m.

  • Clark

    The effects of Parliament’s subsidised bars and drinking culture are clearly audible in the indiscipline of parliamentary “debate”. If they bawled and shouted like that on the streets, they’d likely be arrested. That’s when they bother to leave the bar (or even enter the House) at all.

  • Clark

    I’d never really thought of it before, but if I saw a crowd of several hundred approaching me on the street, and they sounded like a parliamentary debate, I’d make myself inconspicuous and go a different way.

  • Komodo

    The effects of Parliament’s subsidised bars and drinking culture are clearly audible in the indiscipline of parliamentary “debate”. If they bawled and shouted like that on the streets, they’d likely be arrested. That’s when they bother to leave the bar (or even enter the House) at all.

    It’s traditional….they were just as bad in the 19th century. Come to that, a good number never left the 19th century.

    But more seriously, the tribal behaviour mainly manifests itself at PMQ’S (a ritual whose purpose escapes me) and high-profile Government announcements of deeply dodgy legislation, like the Budget speeches. Restricting the oxygen of publicity might help – most of it’s playing to the gallery.

  • Komodo

    I enjoyed a report last night on R4 which announced that the Tories had been given £4M this quarter – introductory to the legacy story. The BBC moved swiftly on to tell us that Labour had been given £3M…of which 3/4 came from the unions.
    1. Not a word of where the majority of Tory funding comes from (hedge fund managers and favoured manufacturers, one of whom nobbled a peerage in the latest round of favours rewarded)
    2. And what’s wrong with the unions funding Labour? They founded Labour. If only Labour would get off its shambolic neo-Thatcherite arse and do something to earn its pay!

  • Fred

    “Parliament food and drink costs taxpayers £7m Houses of Parliament Food and drink prices in Parliament were increased earlier this month ”

    So minimum pricing on alcohol wouldn’t affect them at all, just going to affect the poor. They can charge the poor for a spare bedroom while we pay for their second homes. Everyone else has to take pay cuts while they award themselves huge rises and of course the bars in Parliament are exempt from the smoking ban.

    What a bunch of fucking hypocrites.

  • fedup

    What a bunch of fucking hypocrites.

    Why don’t you tell the truth Fred?

    MPs are a bunch of fucking lying, fucking cheating, fucking scheming, fucking free loading, fucking hypocrites!

    These fuckwits have only helped to sustain the shitty status quo, all the while lining their own pockets and serving their corporate masters.

    Fucking cheap booze, cheap food, cheap housing, and plenty of brown envelopes perfectly legally available to these esteemed “reps”! Why should they care about wankers like you and I, and the rest of the people who work their butts off just to make ends meet and barely pay the bills, missing two, or three meals along the way.

    Now lets go find the bastard immigrants who come here and take our jobs, women and NHS, and given a mobile a car to boot!!!! That ought to solve the fucking corruption and the free ride for these fuckwits politicos who play us all like a fucking violin, and keep passing a new fucking law everyday to shaft we the people even more.

  • Dreoilin

    “If someone can tell me why 2007 FT3 is not in the upcoming NASA close approach data then I’ll drop it.”

    At that link, http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2007+FT3&orb=1

    at the bottom of the page, in one of the boxes, it says “solution date 2013-Aug-05 10:42:02”

    Something about 5 August 2013 in Close-Approach Data also (bottom of page).

    No idea if this is relevant. I’ve never looked up this stuff before.

  • AlcAnon

    Dreoilin

    http://www.hohmanntransfer.com/news/crt07obj.htm

    Notes: 2007 FT3 was discovered by the Mt. Lemmon Survey on 20 March 2007 and announced the next day, which is when JPL posted it as an impact risk. NEODyS posted it on March 22nd.

    2007 FT3 is theoretically in view for most NEO observers until around July 24th and much longer than that for larger telescopes. It has been lost, however, and has not been reported since Mt. John Observatory observed it on March 21st, and so awaits a determined recovery effort or accidental rediscovery.

    So officially the 10th most dangerous asteroid to earth hasn’t been spotted since March 21, 2007 despite it being due back in less than 2 months.

  • Komodo

    Is there any connection between fracking and sinkholes??

    No. Broad picture: Limestone is slightly soluble in water containing dissolved CO2, such as rainwater. Over centuries/ millenia, groundwater forms caves and swallowholes in limestone: when these, or their later infill, collapse – sinkhole.

    It’s just possible fracking could cause enough of a tremor to kick off such a collapse, but it would have to be pretty near happening anyway. A heavy truck passing nearby could do the same.

  • Dreoilin

    AlcAnon
    At your link, doesn’t it show “2007 FT3” with an “[r]”
    and doesn’t it say
    “r=has impact solutions”

    and at my link it says “solution 5 August 2013”

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