Britain shows utter disregard to the right of self determination of the people of Diego Garcia, yet claims it as inalienable for the Falklanders. Evidently it is a vital universal right, except for rather dusky people.
The corporate media have universally demonstrated their inability to understand any complex situation, in reporting the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf’s determination on Argentina. Here is a quick guide to what really was decided.
Every state is entitled to claim a territorial sea of up to 12 miles, which is treated legally as part of the territory of the country. Every country can also claim an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of up to 200 miles. This is an area where the law of the country does not apply except in relation to its exclusive right to the economic exploitation of the mineral and living resources of the sea and seabed.
It is worth mentioning a few caveats. Obviously where there is another country nearby, boundaries are to be determined either bilaterally or by an international court. There is no right to obstruct innocent passage of marine vessels, although traffic lanes and other safety measures are permissible. Finally only inhabited land can generate an exclusive economic zone. Uninhabited rocks and artificial islands are both specifically excluded by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which is why China’s extravagant claims in the South China Sea are rubbish. China is a party to UNCLOS.
But beyond the 200 mile EEZ states may also claim the right to minerals in the seabed within the limits of the continental shelf. This is where there is a natural submerged projection of the same geological structure as the land, which proceeds out more than 200 miles. As this submerged shelf generally was once dry land, there is a chance it contains hydrocarbons. The UK is possibly the biggest beneficiary of the continental shelf margin provision, with its shelf stretching into the Atlantic (mostly Scotland’s shelf, in fact). It was the UK which led the inclusion of this provision for continental shelf beyond 200 miles.
Incidentally the continental shelf provision does not give rights to the fish above it beyond the 200 mile EEZ.
Past the limit of the continental shelf, there is very little chance of hydrocarbons (though some, by seepage). In this area, known as the deep sea bed, licences for mineral exploitation are to be given by an international authority which will also levy taxes to be used for the general good of mankind. For twenty tears American objection to this provision stalled the entry into force of the whole of UNCLOS. I am proud to say that I played a leading role in negotiating the protocol that resolved this dispute, as a member and sometimes Head of the UK Delegation to the negotiations. But minerals from the deep sea bed (of which manganese was viewed as most viable) remain a future prospect.
Obviously, there needs to be international agreement of where continental shelf limits lay and the deep sea regime starts. The large majority of eligible continental shelf states have submitted their claim to the UN for approval. Argentina was simply following absolutely normal procedure in doing this. The determination of the limit of the continental shelf is a geological question decided purely on scientific grounds. The UN committee has stated that Argentina’s continental shelf extends 350 miles (this will not be uniform; there will be a map).
There is no reason at all to question this. Indeed this gives Argentina a very similar shelf to the UK’s (really Scotland’s) in the Atlantic. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Falklands.
The Falklands are sat on this continental shelf. The UN simply note the continuing dispute between the UK and Argentina over ownership. But the vast majority of Argentina’s continental shelf is unaffected by the Falklands. Even if the Falklands are viewed as a separate state with full maritime rights, it would not affect more than 5% of Argentina’s continental shelf.
In fact, the UN has simply ruled on where the continental shelf lies, and noted that part of its ownership is disputed. The orgy of UN-bashing in the British corporate media is based on the totally false notion that the UN has stated that Argentina owns the shelf around the Falklands. It has not said that.
Personally I find the British hypocrisy over the Falklands nauseating, particularly when contrasted to the deplorable ethnic cleansing of the Chagossians from their islands to make way for the US military base on Diego Garcia, which the British government refuses to reverse. To make a dispute ever more intractable through militaristic jingoism is not responsible behaviour.
On the centenary of the Easter Rising, it is extraordinary that from Thatcher in the Falklands to Blair in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Sierra Leone, to Cameron in Libya and Syria, we should be living through such a resurgence in British Imperialism.
Lysias re 15:40, an Apple consumer product is one thing; idiosyncratically-compiled Grsecurity or Subgraph is something else again. The open-source community has greatly improved its response to state subversion. The NATO Pact Stasi is betting that most will take the easy way and trust a corporation with their private life. Their most inimical dissidents will not do.
Netanyahu tries to get around BDS actions, by agreeing a bilateral trade deal with China.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/03/30/netanyahu-and-chinas-vice-premier-open-talks-on-free-trade-agreement/#
Will you therefore condemn China?
Actually, I believe you might (you are rather sound on China) but most others (eg Node, this blog’s BDS spokesman) will almost certainly not. Curious.
I’m not condemning China or Israel, trade is trade old boy, I was merely pointing out, Netanyahu’s astuteness.
Is this what you would call ‘intelligent discourse’?
Is it not clear that Craig is saying that China’s actions in the SC Sea are not to his taste?
And what does it matter what Node or anyone else might be said to think?
The problem is that the actions of China are only understandable within the context of centuries of history and, in particular, its determination not to allow itself to be victimised by Japan and the Euro-American Empire as it was throughout the C20th.
Your interest, however, is simply to trap people into taking their places on one side or the other of your Manichean catalogue: “Pro China wrong; Pro US right.”
That isn’t intelligent discourse its fifth form debating society time wasting. Intelligent discourse is aimed at understanding and preventing conflicts. What you are engaged in is designed to promote wars and justify the casualties and miseries they cause.
Thus you apologise for a succession of imperial military adventures which have ruined millions of human lives and justify crimes carried out to breed more crimes.
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/03/israeli-soldier-filmed-executing-wounded-palestinian-man/
Very robust response that.
News flash from an ex-gendarme, Paul Barril (known to our amis Francais as Superflic) formerly of France’s Gendarmerie Nationale: It wasn’t the dastardly Putin and his secret service agents that killed Litivenko after all.
William Dunkerley – Pascal Najadi – Paul Barril : well, they would be in a position to know, wouldn’t they.
PS – I love the “Operation Beluga” title – was it chosen to add a gobbet of authenticity to this dubious story?
Silvio.
Thank you for that link, I can’t quite yet make my mind up if there’s substance to it or not, the publishing company is however 100% genuine as is John D. Wren, the CEO, of Irish/Catholic descent.
Mr Dunkerley however, a genuine person from New Britain Connecticut USA, appears to make his living from anti-Western articles and books. Not that, it makes the articles any less genuine, of which I can neither prove, nor disprove.
Keep posting them Silvio, I always read them.
http://russia-insider.com/en/users/william-dunkerley
Sounds like a convenient diversion from what actually happened, i.e., Sasha Litvinenko was killed by militant anti-Putin spies Andrei Tolchachev and Sidelnikov for telling tales about the Anglo-American spooks murdering Olof Palme in a set up of the USSR, and for saying too much about Soviet spies in Italy, especially UCHITEL apparently aka Romano Prodi.
Was it he who killed Sasha, according to Paul Baril’s article about Operation Beluga, or was it Mario Scaramella who was investigating for the Italian Senate who had been working for the Soviets?
For those interested in my article about the murder, consult this link:
http://cryptome.org/litvinenko-kill.htm
Both Craig and Clark, might understand a bit of this…
Clem,
You wrote that far better than me, which is why yours got published and mine wasn’t, but I simply wrote it wrong..I used the wrong word – I meant empathize not sympathize. I know what its like – I’ve been there myself.
I wish Chris all the best. Been there – done that. My Girlfriend was worried like hell, but stayed with me. My sister was brilliant, and I found out that I actually did have a few friends,,and they all helped pull me out of the hole…mainly just by being there – and actually agreeing with me.
The world is fcked – I knew that in 85, but I ain’t gonna change it, and neither is Chris..
Tony
That was a very interesting and informative article. I have to agree with you on your remarks regarding The Falklands and the breath taking hypocrisy that we tend to display in the furthering of our own interests. Up until today, I had had no idea that we had forcibly evicted an island population in the 1970’s to build a military base. I only learned of this while listening to the radio, and yet what was humbling was that a native Chagossian who was speaking bore no malice, but just expressed a desire to see his elderly motjer return home. I think it’s the very least he can do, and we should compensate them handsomely at the same time.
I am used to being banned. There is only one website I can think of where I have not been banned…but I do understand..
Yes, I know this is a bit strong…but they are the words I wrote last night when completely sober, and I seriously did not mean any harm
Christopher Spivey,
I’m getting a bit worried about you. You remind me of me in 1985. I made almost a complete recovery after about 6 months, but I had to completely give it up. I’m still a bit nuts particularly after drinking large quantities of alcohol, but most of the time, I am sober, or I would have been dead long ago.
Its possible that you have been spiked, without your knowledge. Do you remember David Shayler. He was supposed to turn up to a Festival I went to about 10 years ago – called Eastern Haze in Suffolk with his girlfriend Annie Machon. They were both Ex-MI5 – and he was jailed for awhile for spilling some beans. She turned up – though I didn’t actually see her but I did talk to the bloke running the 9/11 truth tent. David Shayler didn’t turn up cos he had gone off his head and turned into the equivalent of a pink rabbit on LSD. I would think it highly likely he was spiked. Incidentally, a very quick check via google seems to indicate he has made a full recovery and is making sense again.
I am not going to go through all your points, about Princess Diana never having existed “as the fact that Diana: Princess of Wales never existed – except on photo paper”, but what would be the point in faking her from even before she was married in 1980, and publicly very accessible to when she was assassinated in 1997. Why use a fake Diana, when it would be much easier to use a real Diana? I have never seen her, but my wife has, and loads of people I used to work with in Fulham from 1982. She used to go to the gym, opposite to where we worked. No one could give a toss. Lots of famous people lived in the area, and were on TV all the time. So what, its no big deal. Most people, even if they are very famous, are actually fairly normal, even if most of them do seem to at least to some extent have their head stuck up their own arse – but that just goes with the territory. To be honest, I think being very famous must be absolutely horrible. Who wants to be recognised when you just want to go to the bog and have a crap?
Of course its possible, that you haven’t been spiked at all, cos you have been under absolutely unbearable pressure – for years now.
I wouldn’t necessarily advise going to see the doc, but I was forced too, if I wanted to work again, and maintain my relationship with my girlfriend (now wife). I was prescribed these anti-psychotics, and they made me incredibly depressed for a few months. However, they did stop me behaving like a complete loonie, and imagining all sorts of crap, that simply could not be true.
I went back to work and got my head back together.
Good luck Mate. I will still probably write crap here when I am very drunk, which will make your stuff seem sane in comparison.
Tony
Well then maybe you should get your own weblog for the self-indulgent me-me-me ramblings. Myspace, or emowire. It’s really quite annoying to page down past all that crap.
Would it be fair to characterize this blog with having an interest in world affairs and human rights issues? If so how strange that the most important issue of the day is the self titled “Falklands Nonsense”
Surely now would be an appropriate time to congratulate Russia for its seminal role in assisting with the prizing of Palmyra from the hands of ISIS. This represents the first significant military defeat for the Islamic State and potentially allows Russia to facilitate the recapture of Raqqa.
A few more victories on this scale and the Islamic State will be vanquished from Syria, and this of course is a necessary first step for creating the conditions whereby the wave of refugees flooding Europe can return to their homeland.
Perhaps people may like to use this forum to publicly thank Russia and Vladimir Putin for their unwavering determination in confronting the horrors of ISIS and thereby helping the EU in achieving its stated strategic aims.
Alternatively you prefer more silent contemplation of the likely fate that awaits any forces you agitate to be deployed to Ukraine in defend Nazis. Or as a further alternative perhaps someone can advise as to how happy/unhappy sheep are in The Falklands as compared to sheep in Argentina.
Bevin @ 20;09
Cheers for that.. Re the evil Murder –
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/29/patrick-leahy-seeks-probe-israels-gross-violations/
Lets see how that pans out… There are laws against this… Then there is the Spineless U.N
Drone shows ancient Palmyra relics following end of IS siege –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMRpKPI45SE
Rest in Peace Aleksandr Prochorenko –
Compounding the enormity of Prochorenko’s courage are the revelations provided by former US Marine combat veteran, Gordon Duff, in a recent article. Comparing the effectiveness of Russia’s air campaign in Syria to its US counterpart, Duff writes: “What we saw in Syria was Russia set up a forward command in days at a small airstrip, move in 4 dozen aircraft, invite media to watch the whole thing, and begin combat operations with an air force that hadn’t flown against an enemy in over 25 years.”
He goes on: “We watched planes that cost nothing wipe out targets America had missed or overlooked or that, according to American pilots, they weren’t allowed to hit. American pilots can bomb, they have the experience, they have the equipment but for some reason, at least to each other and those they trust, they will tell you, against ISIS it has always been “hands off.”
“Not so for Russia.
“For day after day, Russian pilots hit command posts, training camps, wiped out convoys Americans claimed it didn’t see, ammunition storage and eventually the thousands and thousands of oil trucks American pilots had been begging to attack for months.”
Read more
A general view taken on March 27, 2016 shows part of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, after government troops recaptured the UNESCO world heritage site from Islamic State (IS) group jihadists on March 27, 2016. © Maher Al MounesIf US-led coalition really fought terrorism, Palmyra wouldn’t have fallen – Assad’s adviser to RT
Most tellingly, Duff informs us: “What isn’t reported is that the real Americans who fight wars admire their Russian counterparts and what they have done. American pilots wish they had been given the hot targets Russia destroyed instead of being forced to drop payloads of bombs on abandoned villages north of the Jordanian border as a Russian command report outlined in November 2015.
When I think of what makes American pilots angry, I think of Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Graham and his close friend, John McCain are good friends of “moderate Syrian rebels” which, just by accident, seems to include both ISIS and al Nusra.”
In just the few short months of Russia’s intervention in the Syrian conflict, which, it should never be forgotten, was embarked upon at huge risk given the number of countries involved, whether directly or indirectly, and the logistics and planning required, the world has been witness to the hypocrisy and double-dealing of Western governments and their allies in the region.
In this regard, Aleksandr Prochorenko gives lie to the myth that Russia’s part in the conflict has been a negative one. On the contrary, this young Russian serviceman joins the ranks of those whose very names are a testament to the power of the human spirit in defiance of injustice and tyranny.
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/337774-russian-soldier-aleksandr-prochorenko/
Many of us have known the ‘Coalition’ wasn’t bombing IS in earnest; in fact, both America and the UK have lost aircraft while airdropping or aerial supplying arms, ammo and provisions to IS in Iraq.
And then there was the massive supply of vehicles, terrorists and weaponry across the Turkish border, with Turkey’s MIT taking some 2,000 truck loads of weapons into Syria.
And all the while, the MSM and governments were crying crocodile tears over the ‘barbarities’ committed by their proxies…
@ lysias March 29, 2016 at 16:50
‘Peter Hounam made a plausible case in his book Operation Cyanide: How the Bombing of the USS Liberty Nearly Caused World War Three that the attack on the USS Liberty was the result of a conspiracy between Lyndon Johnson and the Israelis to widen the 1967 Middle East war and bring in the U.S. into it on the side of Israel, after the public had been told that the Liberty had been sunk by the Egyptians (or by the Russians). There is evidence that a nuclear strike by the U.S. on Egypt was being planned.’
Not only was a nuclear attack on Egypt planned, but the nuclear-armed planes from the Sixth Fleet (as well as some from a North African base) were on the way to bomb, and were recalled just three minutes from their targets.
At a meeting of representatives of all the principal countries involved, 25 years later in the US, Ephraim ‘Eppie’ Evron, who in 1967 was the Deputy Israeli Ambassador to the US (and almost certainly the Mossad Chief of Station) told how he had been summoned to see LBJ less than two weeks before the Six-Day War, who told him: ‘“I, Lyndon Johnson, have to get congressional approval if I want to act as President of the United States. Otherwise, I’m just a six-foot-four Texan friend of Israel.” (That description stuck in my memory.) “But you and I, the two most powerful people in Washington, are going to get Congress to pass another Tonkin resolution.”….
The Gulf of Tonkin resolution was also based on lies; the attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on the USS Turner Joy and USS Maddox did not occur; it was a lie to massively escalate the Vietnamese War (JFK had planned to get the troops out before he was assassinated).
‘The Most Incredible Story Never Told: LBJ’s Order to Destroy the USS Liberty’:
http://nationalvanguard.org/2015/04/the-most-incredible-story-never-told-lbjs-order-to-destroy-the-uss-liberty/
(I have read most of the books on the ‘Liberty’, including Ennis’ and Hounam’s; here is a good BBC documentary:
‘Dead in the Water’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjOH1XMAwZA
Re the takeover and remote flying of aircraft, it can also be done to cars (search ‘Boston Brakes’, and think about Princess Di (in conjunction with military strobe torch), Michael Hastings, Danny Jowenko (who said Building 7 was brought down by controlled demolition) and many more highly suspicious ‘car crashes’.
In reply to the guy who said he believed that MH 370 was landed in Diego Garcia, I also believe that, as do many people who have followed the story.
Re Craig’s earlier post on Diego Garcia:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/03/end-this-british-atrocity/#comment-581230
Sabrina Jean is has still not had a reply from John Ward or the Mods:
@ Sabrina Jean March 3, 2016 at 16:13
‘Hi John Ward
Do you have any picture of the island please and can I have your contact details
Thanks
Sabrina
As John seems to have missed her request, could a mod please contact John to let him know of Sabrina’s request?
Why did the U.S. military obey LB|J’s orders over the Liberty? Was he blackmailing them for their role in the JFK assassination?
Very few of them would have known. SACEUR chief, Lyman Lemnitzer, of Operation Northwoods infamy, would have no probs sacrificing US lives; one of the supposed ‘recall’ radio messages to the Liberty (which as per plan, did not receive them) was routed through Europe.
Many were very unhappy about the attack, not knowing of LBJ’s complicity, but rejecting Israel’s ‘mistaken identity’ excuse, including America’s highest ranking Naval Officer Admiral Thomas Moorer : http://www.ussliberty.org/moorer3.htm
The Captain of the USS Liberty knew there was dirty business involved, but kept his info to himself, with the exception of one incident near the end of his life, when he blurted out something indicating dirty tricks.
Robert McNamara, JFK’s Defence Secretary as well as LBJ’s later, would have almost certainly been privy to LBJ’s plan, but he had no scruples.
I believe that ‘Eppie’ Evron’s recounting in 1992 of LBJ’s remarkable statement to him pre the Six-Day War was not a slip, but a shot across the bows of anyone trying to get the Liberty case reopened.
Check the ‘Dead in the Water’ video; it will bring the case back into focus.
Anglo-Americans are back in the business of tryin to overthrow Chinese President Xi, with The Guardian taking the lead about an anonymous letter appearing in the media, claiming that he is “not fit to rule.”
The letter has apparently been written by a Chinese nationalist, living overseas, and recalls the attempts by MI6 agent Neil Heywood trying to overthrow the regime a few years back in the hope that he could get Bo Xilai through bribes into the Party’s Standing Committee, and he would take over after President Hu stepped down. Then China would be hit by some disaster which would prove so bad that he would seek peace with Washington and London.
Xi took the lead in bringing down Heywood’s plot, and little wonder that he is concerned always about its recurring.
Of course, there is no mention of in The Guardian now,
There is far less for the Anglo-Amercans to work with now, though a new disaster, like the 2008 man-made earthquake in Sichuan would prove a real test for him, much better than the anonymous letter, the alleged clamp down on dissidents, and his show of conventional military strength on the 70th anniversary of VE Day.
Just amazing that we pay most of our taxes so that fun and games like this can occur.
That’s right, we should all stand in solidarity with the leadership of the Chinese People’s Republic, to protect the leaders of the Worldwide Worker’s Revolution against counterrevolutionary machinations!
But seriously, even if MI6 were plotting against secretary-general Xi, why exactly would that be a bad thing?
Would seeking the overthrow of China’s government prove to be a good thing, like the overthrow of Saddam, Gadaffi, Assad, Putin, Iran’s Mullahs, etc., ad nauseam.
Seeing regime change as a solution to the world;’s problems has proven pure lunacy.
Ah, yes…
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!
If you wish for not only your own death but the death of many others, you’re crazy. Let us hope world leaders do not share your lunacy (although I fear the neocons do).
Doing nothing because of all the bad things that might happen isn’t a very good way to make the world better. A revolutionary like you should understand that.
War is a good way to make the world better? You’re crazy.
The Washington Post is strangely not reporting on what is happening at the nuclear security summit currently going on here in D.C. (although it is reporting on the resulting transit disruptions).
Meanwhile, RT is reporting: Xi warns Obama against threatening China’s sovereignty & national interests :
Who said anything about starting a war?
O, and yes, sometimes the way to make the world better is to start a war. Some wars are worth fighting.
Agreed China’s expansive plans in the region are not just a threat to surrounding nations, but to nations further afield. China appears not to acknowledge Western maritime laws.
How best to pressurise China, is the burnng question at hand.
And since when did the West acknowledge other countries’ Sovereignty, like for instance, the right not to be invaded (directly or with Western proxies like the Contras or ISIS) or bombarded?
‘Our rights are what we say they are; everyone else’s are what we afford them’.
Absolutely Paul, I agree, with that, the West has broken just about every rule in the book and then some. But I don’t just berate the West for unscrupulous actions, I don’t condone Chinese or Russian action that I or others deem inappropriate.
See no mention of typhoon Haiyan which got the Philippines to completely change its course to what Washington wanted, and Japan doing the same thing after the Fukushima disaster occurred because of the Tohoku earthquake.
The first was the result of HAARP turning a tropical storm into the worst cyclone on record, and the earthquake was the result of one of the American special attack subs shaking up the sea floor until the Boeing X-37B said it had done enough to cause one.
@ Republicofscotland April 1, 2016 at 18:29
I take your point, but when you write: ‘…How best to pressurise China, is the burning question at hand’ , our governments have lost all ‘moral high ground’, and are left to simply ‘throw their weight around’, old ‘Law of the Jungle’.
Like the US berating Cuba for Human Rights abuses, whilst committing the most heinous crimes in Guantanamo (which they illegally and immorally forced Cuba to cede) and whilst having condoned, and in some cases is continuing to condone, abominations committed by their ‘friendly’ Military Dictatorships across Latin America and elsewhere.
“Personally I find the British hypocrisy over the Falklands nauseating, particularly when contrasted to the deplorable ethnic cleansing of the Chagossians from their islands to make way for the US military base on Diego Garcia, which the British government refuses to reverse. To make a dispute ever more intractable through militaristic jingoism is not responsible behaviour.”
Me too. Recently if I recall you were chewing over the fact whether we Brits have actually become fascists. Not all, but certainly the Tories, and many in Labour. It can only get worse. We have for a foreign secretary the deplorable Philip Hammond who is a total embarrassment to the rule of law. Without a legal background he has condemned international lawyers for their advice over Julian Assange’s arbitrary detention. Then he has criticised Russia for its actions in Syria. I cringe every time I hear his name – almost as much as when I hear Thatcher’s name. Or Trump’s.
Our defence of fascists is disturbing. The fascist dictator and torturer, Pinochet, was defended by the wicked woman, who would not allow his extradition to Spain to face charges. That’s what we do – the country whose forefathers died to oppose the same thing in Hitler’s Germany bend over backwards to protect people like Pinochet and Poroshenko – both of whom have waged genocides against their own people.
11th September has been such a good year for the Yanks it makes you wonder if things are not so much ordained in heaven as planned on earth. Sometimes a Guardian reporter is there to cover the story.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/07/chile-coup-pinochet-allende
I suspect Sept. 11 was chosen for the events of Sept. 11, 2001 because 9-1-1 is the emergency telephone number here in the United States, and therefore the phrase “9/11” automatically calls up thoughts of an emergency.
9-1-1 had already been chosen as the emergency number by the American telephone company AT&T in 1968, but it took some years for knowledge of that number to become widespread in the United States. “In 1968, 9-1-1 became the national emergency number for the United States. Calling this single number provided a caller access to police, fire, and ambulance services, through what would become known as a common public-safety answering point (PSAP). The number itself, however, did not become widely known until the 1970s, and many municipalities did not have 9-1-1 service until well into the 1980s.[citation needed] For example, although the City of Chicago, Illinois, had access to 9-1-1 service as early as 1976, the Illinois Commerce Commission did not authorize telephone service provider Illinois Bell to offer 9-1-1 to the Chicago suburbs until 1981.[11] Implementation was not immediate even then; by 1984, only eight Chicago suburbs in Cook County had 9-1-1 service.[12] As late as 1989, at least 28 Chicago suburbs still lacked 9-1-1 service; some of those towns had previously elected to decline 9-1-1 service due to costs and—according to emergency response personnel—failure to recognize the benefits of the 9-1-1 system.[13]”
So I very much doubt that Sept. 11, 1973 would have been chosen as the date for the coup in Chile for that reason.
Thanks for that interesting information Lysias. Must just be one of life’s little coincidences. 😀
I know you’re being serious.
I used to work for AT&T and I learnt a valuable lesson at the time. All the source code was developed, and I don’t doubt still is, on a stand-alone computer (mainframe) which was not connected to the internet. I guess the old mainframes have been replaced by now – having been out of the industry for more than 20 years.
Incidentally I cannot understand why 9-1-1 took so long to cover the country. We’ve had 999 here for all my life.
I think 9-1-1 demonstrates the advantages of a planned economy (or at least nationalised emergency services) over the free-market, where according to your statistics, Lysias, not wanting to pay is a criterion.
@ John Goss April 1, 2016 at 21:54
‘…..I cringe every time I hear his name – almost as much as when I hear Thatcher’s name….’
The ‘Labour Stalwart’ Mandy doesn’t agree with you!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/brexit-northern-ireland-lord-mandelson_uk_56e7f672e4b03fb88ede1e77
‘….Reflecting on the last vote the UK had on its membership of the EU, the former Labour Cabinet minister (Lord Mandelson) made a surprising admission when he said: “Who made the central political argument that remaining in the European Community, as it then was, was absolutely vital for Britain because it would multiply our strengths and amplify our voice in the world? Yes, Margaret Thatcher made that argument in 1975.
“I wish she could come back, I wish she would come back.”
He then added: “There are limits to my power.”
Reminds me of something I read many years ago (I can’t find it on the net) that after Tony Bliar made his maiden speech in the Commons, Ted Heath approached him after and asked what party he represented; when the Bliar said ‘Labour’ , Heath said he sounded like a Tory.