The problem with the Geneva Communique from the first Geneva round on Syria is that the government of Syria never subscribed to it. It was jointly chaired by the League of Arab States for Syria, whatever that may mean. Another problem is that it is, as so many diplomatic documents are, highly ambiguous. It plainly advocates a power sharing executive formed by some of the current government plus the opposition to oversee a transition to democracy. But it does not state which elements of the current government, and it does not mention which elements of the opposition, nor does it make plain if President Assad himself is eligible to be part of, or to head, the power-sharing executive, and whether he is eligible to be a candidate in future democratic elections.
Doubtless the British, for example, would argue that the term transition implies that he will go. The Russians will argue there is no such implication and the text does not exclude anybody from the process. Doubtless also diplomats on all sides were fully aware of these differing interpretations and the ambiguity is quite deliberate to enable an agreed text. I would say that the text tends much more to the “western” side, and that this reflects the apparently weak military position of the Assad regime at that time and the then extant threat of western military intervention. There has been a radical shift in those factors against the western side in the interim. Expect Russian interpretations now to get more hardline.
Given the extreme ambiguity of the text, Iran has, as it frequently does, shot itself in the foot diplomatically by refusing to accept the communique as the basis of talks and thus getting excluded from Geneva. Iran should have accepted the communique, and then at Geneva issued its own interpretation of it.
But that is a minor point. The farcical thing about the Geneva conference is that it is attempting to promote into power-sharing in Syria “opposition” members who have no democratic credentials and represent a scarcely significant portion of those actually fighting the Assad regime in Syria. What the West are trying to achieve is what the CIA and Mossad have now achieved in Egypt; replacing the head of the Mubarak regime while keeping all its power structures in place. The West don’t really want democracy in Syria, they just want a less pro-Russian leader of the power structures.
The inability of the British left to understand the Middle East is pathetic. I recall arguing with commenters on this blog who supported the overthrow of the elected President of Egypt Morsi on the grounds that his overthrow was supporting secularism, judicial independence (missing the entirely obvious fact the Egyptian judiciary are almost all puppets of the military) and would lead to a left wing revolutionary outcome. Similarly the demonstrations against Erdogan in Istanbul, orchestrated by very similar pro-military forces to those now in charge in Egypt, were also hailed by commenters here. The word “secularist” seems to obviate all sins when it comes to the Middle East.
Qatar will be present at Geneva, and Qatar has just launched a pre-emptive media offensive by launching a dossier on torture and murder of detainees by the Assad regime, which is being given first headline treatment by the BBC all morning
There would be a good dossier to be issued on torture in detention in Qatar, and the lives of slave workers there, but that is another question.
I do not doubt at all that atrocities have been committed and are being committed by the Assad regime. It is a very unpleasant regime indeed. The fact that atrocities are also being committed by various rebel groups does not make Syrian government atrocities any better.
But whether 11,000 people really were murdered in a single detainee camp I am unsure. What I do know is that the BBC presentation of today’s report has been a disgrace. The report was commissioned by the government of Qatar who commissioned Carter Ruck to do it. Both those organisations are infamous suppressors of free speech. What is reprehensible is that the BBC are presenting the report as though it were produced by neutral experts, whereas the opposite is the case. It is produced not by anti torture campaigners or by human rights activists, but by lawyers who are doing it purely and simply because they are being paid to do it.
The BBC are showing enormous deference to Sir Desmond De Silva, who is introduced as a former UN war crimes prosecutor. He is indeed that, but it is not the capacity in which he is now acting. He is acting as a barrister in private practice. Before he was a UN prosecutor, he was for decades a criminal defence lawyer and has defended many murderers. He has since acted to suppress the truth being published about many celebrities, including John Terry.
If the Assad regime and not the government of Qatar had instructed him and paid him, he would now be on our screens arguing the opposite case to that he is putting. That is his job. He probably regards that as not reprehensible. What is reprehensible is that the BBC do not make it plain, but introduce him as a UN war crimes prosecutor as though he were acting in that capacity or out of concern for human rights. I can find no evidence of his having an especial love for human rights in the abstract, when he is not being paid for it. He produced an official UK government report into the murder of Pat Finucane, a murder organised by British authorities, which Pat Finucane’s widow described as a “sham”. He was also put in charge of quietly sweeping the Israeli murders on the Gaza flotilla under the carpet at the UN.
The question any decent journalist should be asking him is “Sir Desmond De Silva, how much did the government of Qatar pay you for your part in preparing this report? How much did it pay the other experts? Does your fee from the Government of Qatar include this TV interview, or are you charging separately for your time in giving this interview? In short how much are you being paid to say this?”
That is what any decent journalist would ask. Which is why you will never hear those questions on the BBC.
“That’s a bit of an amalgam, isn’t it?”
Of course it is. Inflation is multi-determined, the three main factors being an increase in money supply beyond best fit or debasement, an increase in prices for imports and increases in wages.
All are present in the post-war period.
The only period when wage rises became overly problematic was in the 1970s and this was because Britain was in decline in terms of its currency, increasing import costs, the price of oil and its inability to compete with a reemergent Germany and Japan, with the other Asians fast looming upon the horizon.
So, Britain went banking and services.
Bomber Harris and his chums on Enola Gay were in many ways the father and mother of US and UK post-war boom in auto production.
“Who is this Sunny Hundal and what are his antecedents? Anyone know?”
He’s a Sikh. I think they’re under represented in public life, but anyone who thinks that NATO or the Arab League have the best interests of Syrian people in their hearts needs their head examining.
Best thing to reduce the conflict in Syria would be to get the West to call off its dogs!
ESLO
29 Jan, 2014 – 2:52 pm
Me:
“There are no anti-Jewish racists on this blog.”
ESLO:
“Only because you are defining being anti-Jewish as not being racist I fear.”
That is a typical Zionist response; a lie!
If you have evidence of anti-Jewish racism on this blog please provide details.
When have I defined anti-Jewish as not being racist?
I don’t expect an answer.
Inflation is a tool of bankers. Only bankers cause inflation and they do it deliberately.
“Russian Bank Halts All Cash Withdrawals”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-28/russian-bank-halts-all-cash-withdrawals
Here’s a paper from the Cleveland Fed, of all places, which argues as I do above that wage rises are a function of higher prices, that is, they follow from higher prices rather than causing them.
http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/policydis/pd1.pdf
Remember the Flame?
Now we are getting the Queen’s Baton Relay.
Will the sheeple accept this latest exercise in propaganda, this time for the Common-‘Wealth’ (there’s a name to conjure with) Games rather than the Limp Ics?
Commonwealth Games: Queen’s Baton Relay route announced
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25942640
5,000 tickets are being given free to the young, sports organisations and the disabled.
Glasgow 2014 Ltd Directors http://companycheck.co.uk/company/SC325245/GLASGOW-2014-LIMITED/directors-shareholders
The big cheeses seem to be Lord Smith of Kelvin (a recent recipient of the Order of the Thistle LOL) and Sir William Gammell.
‘Robert Haldane Smith, Baron Smith of Kelvin, KT (born 8 August 1944) is a British businessman and former Governor of the British Broadcasting Corporation before the advent of the BBC Trust. He is the present Chancellor of the [[University of Strathclyde)]and Chair of the UK Government-backed Green Investment Bank.’ Wikipedia.
‘[..]Gammell followed his father into business. Using venture capital, he founded Cairn Energy in Edinburgh. The company invested in several unsuccessful oilfields in the US before making a modest strike in the Pennsylvania oilfield. Gammell was appointed Cairn’s Chief Executive on its initial listing in 1989. In the mid 1990s he led the company in a radical reallocation of its assets, moving out of US and North Sea oil and gas concerns and into neglected fields in South Asia. The company’s fortunes soared in 2004, when a field it had bought in 2001 (for $7.5 million) from Shell in the Indian province of Rajasthan was found to contain close to 1.1 billion barrels of oil,[1] catapulting it into the FTSE 100.
Gammell was paid an annual salary of £552,000 for his role as chief executive at Cairn Energy. On 1 July 2011 Gammell assumed the role of non-executive chairman.
Gammell’s father invested in US oil company Bush-Overbey, owned by future US President George H. W. Bush. The two families became friends, with George W. Bush spending the summer at the Gammell’s farm in Scotland. George W. attended Bill Gammell’s wedding in Glasgow in 1983. The two have remained close friends. When George W. Bush assumed the Presidency, both he and Blair reportedly called their mutual friend Gammell to ask his opinion of the other.
Bill Gammell is a director of the Scottish Institute of Sport and Artemis AiM VCT plc., and in 2004 he was awarded UK Entrepreneur of the Year. In the 2006 honours list, Gammell was made a Knight Bachelor “for services to Industry in Scotland”. In 2011 he was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Business Administration by Robert Gordon University.’ Wikipedia.
~~~
Emetic needed please.
“Prosecutors drop case against men caught taking food from Iceland bins
CPS reverses decision to charge three men after outcry, saying it no longer believes prosecution is in public interest”
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/29/prosecutors-drop-case-men-food-iceland-bins
In a more open world we’d have an explanation of the thinking that led to the first decision and a futher explanation as to why they subsequently changed their mind.
Deciding that things are or are not in the public interest is quite an important power and in the absence of openess I’m not altogether sure I’d trust these bozos and their reasoning.
I’m sure Iceland’s going public has had some impact on their reversal but I really would like to know how prosecuting people for feeding themselves from wastebins is in the public interest. Are they thinking we’ll be seeing more and more of this in the near future and there’s some policy to take a stand now. Is that it?
In any event whoever made the decision and their reasoning ought to be made public, and if it’s found wanting they should be moved to less onerous dutiesd that don’t involve too much thinking.
I strongly suspect though that public interest is as malleable a phrase these days as national security, and every trick in the book will ultimately be used by the gangsters in charge to further impoverish and break the very victims of their scorched earth economic policies.
Dad.
“But I am old enough to remember noticing the high inflation of the 1960s and 1970s (I believe it was 25% in 1975?) and that was certainly caused by large groups of industrial and public sector workers gaining high wage increases without any corresponding increases in productivity.”
Well I’m not a fossil, but I’m old enough to remember 2013 when Uk Executive pay rose by 14% contrasted to 0.7% for most workers. I’ll let you work out where the thieves are…
http://www.myfinances.co.uk/pensions/2013/11/18/ftse-100-bosses-see-pay-rising-20x-faster-than-average
And while we’re on the subject of thieves, consider this. Bankers conjure money into existence by giving out loans with money they don’t actually possess. So that kind of “ money” is in fact debt certificates. Our Pounds, Dollars and Euros are simply tokens, with no commodity backing.
In any other area of human interaction such fraudulent printing of money and fractional reserve banking would be considered criminal and the perpetrators would be held to account in a court of law.
All of which dovetails back into Mary’s 8 24am link,
“We need to do more than put these issues on their agenda . . . The corporate elite represented at Davos cannot be allowed to meet in luxury and pretend they have the answers to the world’s problems. They are the world’s problems”.
Here it is again , http://politicalcleanup.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/bill-gates-myth/
Jonathan Cook on Oxfam, Scarlett Johansson and Sodastream.
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2014-01-29/oxfams-silence-on-johansson-reveals-all/
He links to the Guardian poll where Hasbara is obviously piling in. This afternoon the answer ‘Yes’ to the question ‘Do you think Oxfam should sever ties with Scarlett Johansson?’ was polling 86%. Now it is down to 66%.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/poll/2014/jan/28/communications
“Gagging Law”
http://www.scriptonitedaily.com/2014/01/29/the-government-just-passed-a-gagging-law-to-outlaw-critics-ahead-of-2015-elections/
Herbie
“..and its (ie, the UK’s) inability to compete with a reemergent Germany and Japan,..”
______________________
And with most other European countries – no good trying to lay all this at the door of just those two countries. But WHY do you think the UK was unable to compete, despite the depreciated currency you rightly point to and the fact that the entire West had to pay more for oil? Why was the UK so uncompetitive? Whence this lack of competitivity? Anything to do with excessively high govt spending and powerful groups of industrial and public sector workers extorting excessively high wages out of their employers without corresponding increases in productivity?
Mr Scourgie
“If you have evidence of anti-Jewish racism on this blog please provide details.
When have I defined anti-Jewish as not being racist?
I don’t expect an answer.”
___________________-
I’ll give you one answer whether you expect it or not, Doug.
The “loving” detail with which certain posters expose any possible Jewish connections of the people they slag off on this blog : married to a Jew….good friends to a Jew or two (that was about Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor)….pointing out that Venezuelan Presidential candidate Enrique Capriles’ full name (in the Spanish mode) is Enrique Capriles Radonski…etc, etc. And not to mention those unfortunates who actually are Jewish.
Now, anti-semitism has a certain staying power, but what is porbably mosy objectionable is the sheer cowardice of those posters who daren’t come out with their prejudices openly but just provide a steady drip, drip, drip of allusions to Jewishness.
Too many drips become a drivel.
PS – Mary being by far the worst (but not only) offender, as the record clearly shows.
Mary
that Sunny Hundal character seems to be everywhere.
He even pops up on a thread of Tweets about Assange…arguing that J.A should have been Carted off to Sweden Regardless of innocence, Or Guilt,…wee Dickhead. –
“Doesn’t matter if Julian Assange hasn’t been formally charged: he should go to Sweden and answer allegations. Ludicrous to argue otherwise” – Sunny Hundal
By the Way..That is a Strange, and interesting tread of Tweets … almost Everyone turns up… George Monbiot, Wikileaks, Suzanne Moore, John Rentoul, Medilens, Jemima Khan, Glen Greenwald, Even Bianca Jagger, amonst many others. i wouldn’t call it a must read…but many show themselves for whom they are…Cretins.
http://assange.fivefilters.org/
From Mary
“He links to the Guardian poll where Hasbara is obviously piling in. This afternoon the answer ‘Yes’ to the question ‘Do you think Oxfam should sever ties with Scarlett Johansson?’ was polling 86%. Now it is down to 66%”
_________________
Which shows that once they inform themselves a little better, people are seeing through the hype and noise put out about Scarlett Johansson by anti-semites like yourself?
“…2013 when Uk Executive pay rose by 14% contrasted to 0.7% for most workers.”
______________________
Throughout the 1970s the annual inflation rate in the UK averaged 13%, with a peak of 25% in 1975.
Executive pay rises or wage rises obtained by large groups of industrial and public sector workers?
“On Death and Derivatives”
http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2014/01/on-death-and-derivatives/#comment-143508
A lot of deaths there!!!.
Syria gov’t slams US rearmament of rebels
The Syrian official delegation to the Geneva II conference slammed on Tuesday the U.S. decision to restart sending non-lethal help to the Syrian rebels, saying the move aims to thwart the success of the peace talks, according to the state-run SANA news agency.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said the U.S. decision “aims at thwarting the conference,” stressing that the side which provides weapons to terrorist groups doesn’t care about the conference’s success.
“The U.S. decision is a very bad message because Washington has launched this conference, and it should not support the armed terrorist groups as they know that the weapons, which had been previously sent, flowed into the terrorists,” Mekdad said, according to SANA.
The remarks came a day after Western reports said that Washington has restarted sending non-lethal aid to the “moderate” rebels in Syria, after suspending its previous aid for a month.
The latest move raised the ire of the Syrian government.
Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said that the U.S. decision reflects Washington’s backtracking on the political solution.
He wondered: “How can the U.S. position be supportive to Geneva II and aim at reaching a political solution when at the same time it supports, creates and backs up terrorism, violence and the military option?”
For her part, Syria’s Presidential Political and Media Advisor Bouthaina Shaaban said that the U.S. decision is contradictory to the efforts exerted by Russia, the U.S., and the international community for launching the Geneva II conference.
She refuted the U.S. allegations on so-called “non-lethal weapons,” saying that all of the weapons that are being funneled inside Syria, end up in the hands of the radical groups.
http://www.china.org.cn/world/2014-01/29/content_31338181.htm?
Latest
Do you think Oxfam should sever ties with Scarlett Johansson?
Yes down to 64%
No up to 36%
The power of the lobby at work.
“But WHY do you think the UK was unable to compete, despite the depreciated currency you rightly point to and the fact that the entire West had to pay more for oil? Why was the UK so uncompetitive?”
The UK has never been competitive in the economic sense. That’s not what they do. They certainly needed to expand and build infrastructure in the post-war period, and they did that, taking advantage of Germany and Japan being a bit behind, and of course the total absence of most of Eurasia. The British elites aren’t primarily interested in an economy based on making things better than the other chap. That’s why there’s always been this snobbishness about trades. The clou really is if you look at how other European countries fared in terms of their welfare provision in the post war period, the British were way behind even in terms of that. They weren’t interested. You see the same thing in the squandering of North Sea oil revenues, where other countries have sovereign wealth funds. There’s a difference in mentality. Some countries will save for a rainy day and other more powerful countries will tend to take things as they come, quite literally.
The British elite skill lies in banking and foreign adventure, and they’re back doing that now.
As I showed above wage rises are themselves caused by higher prices rather than being the cause of higher prices, but you can certainly create a feedback loop.
As ever it’s not the people who cause the problems. The shift from manufacturing to banking and services will have been planned well in advance, and even Healey’s IMF loan was little more than a ruse.
In any event, wages aren’t the problem now. It’s the growing gap between rich and poor and the casino economy.
If you have the faintest clue how the world works you’d know that any explanation that blames the peeps on the ground is invariably bollocks.
As I just said.
Vote at the Guardian: Should Oxfam sever ties with Scarlett Johansson?
Henry Norr on January 28, 2014
“Sure, Oxfam. Let’s keep the dialogue going. What could happen?”
Palestinian Loss of Land 1946-2010
http://f8wee1vvia32pdxo527grujy61.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ScarJo-in-front-of-maps.jpg
The Guardian just launched an online poll on the ScarJo controversy. So far it’s a blowout: 87% of voters (number unspecified) says yes, Oxfam should sever its ties with its recently appointed “brand ambassador.” I suspect, though, that SodaStream’s friends have not yet mobilized their forces – look for a big surge in the “no” column when they do. Still, we should be able to win this one – vote now, and spread the word.
Poll closes in seven days (Tuesday, Feb. 4).
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/01/guardian-scarlett-johansson.html
“Prosecutors drop case against men caught taking food from Iceland bins”
Result.
Habbabkuk
That will be prominent Venezuelan Israeli supporter Henrique Capriles Radonski who even has his own page under that name at The Times of Israel. Perhaps you could be a good chap and pop over there and tell them not to use “Radonski” and not to point out his Jewish ancestry or you’ll report them as anti-semites.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/topic/henrique-capriles-radonski/ (Note URL)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/venezuelans-to-elect-new-president-following-chavezs-death/
Btw, Habbabkuk I knew virtually nothing about the man until you got me to go Googling.
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6998
“Cut orf their heads! Cut orf their horrghghgaaaaahhh. . . . .”
When all the UK’s vast duplicity is laid bare, will the gagger herself get de-gobbed? One must ask oneself.
“Gold Price Exploding In Emerging Markets”
http://goldsilverworlds.com/price/gold-price-exploding-in-emerging-markets/
Alcanon (Squonk)
“Btw, Habbabkuk I knew virtually nothing about the man until you got me to go Googling.”
_____________________
This shows, my dear Squonk, that you have not been following Mary as assiduously as I should have expected you to. I hope she will not be offended by this revelation…:)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“That will be prominent Venezuelan Israeli supporter Henrique Capriles Radonski who even has his own page under that name at The Times of Israel. Perhaps you could be a good chap and pop over there and tell them not to use “Radonski” and not to point out his Jewish ancestry or you’ll report them as anti-semites.”
_________________
I don’t find it especially surprising that Capriles’ full name (with the supposed Jewish connotation) should appear on his page in The Times of Israel or that it is cited in Israeli publications. It is, however, somewhat more surprising to find it lovingly pointed to in a UK-based blog, the majority of whose readers are probably Brits. What was the point of that? It cannot have been a love for accuracy on Mary’s part since she was/is happy to refer to the winner of the Venezuelan election as Nicolas Maduro rather than by his full name (again, in the Spanish style)of Nicolas Maduro Moros.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
““in addition, our (opposition) disposition to reestablish relations with the State of Israel under a new government presided by Henrique Capriles Radonski”.”
___________________
This indicates that the current govt of Venezuela does not have diplomatic relations with Israel. In general, would you think it good if many more states did not have diplomatic relations with Israel and what conclusion do you draw about the overwhelming majority of the world’s states that do have such relations?
Stop playing the ingénu, Squonk – why do you support the anti-semitic Mary?
********************
“Life is getting better, life is getting merrier” (J. Stalin, ca. 1932)
““Gold Price Exploding In Emerging Markets””
______________
Not surprising really, Someone, since the currencies of those countries are going down the pan rapidly (check out the peso, the rupee and the real)
Herbie
“If you have the faintest clue how the world works you’d know that any explanation that blames the peeps on the ground is invariably bollocks.”
________________
I’ll forgive you the slightly patronising tone of the above but – while recognising that being present on the ground does not necessarily bring greater insight (Sir Walter Raleigh in the Tower, projecting a History of the World – you’ll understand the reference) – I should like to ask you how old you were in, say, 1975. I think you can guess why I’m asking.
Habbabkuk,
Quite simply Habbabkuk I do not believe Mary to be anti-semitic. I do believe you to be anti-Mary. I have never seen Mary criticise anyone Jewish who supports the Palestinian cause as I’ve said to you before. As there are many prominent Jewish critics of Israeli policy, it would seem certain that Mary would have attacked one of them by now if she was genuinely anti-semitic.
All the evidence to me points to Mary being pro-Palestinian and an opponent of Zionist policies. It is therefore no surprise to me when she points out people she believes to have views strongly opposed to her own. Just as The Times of Israel points out the same people for effectively the same reason (ie supporters of current Israeli government policy).
Your repeated accusation of anti-semitism against Mary is a false accusation.
By the way I am currently reading “From Beirut to Jerusalem” by Dr Swee Chai Ang (Dr Ang Swee Chai) about the massacres of Palestinians she witnessed as a Doctor which occurred under direct Israeli authority in 1982 in Palestinian refugee camps. Even she was subjected to a mock execution by Israeli soldiers. As a foreigner she survived but thousands of Palestinians didn’t including many she had personally treated. It really is painful to read her first hand account account of multiple atrocities she witnessed carried out by forces consisting of Israeli units and mercenaries under their direct command. Perhaps you should read it? If Mary hadn’t mentioned the book I would never have known of it.
Pick up a used copy from £2.81 including P&P or Kindle edition for £3.21.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0586205241