I am feeling particularly hostile to Donald Trump after his incendiary move on Jerusalem. But it remains the case that I have enough direct knowledge of events to be aware that the entire premise of the Russophobic “election-hacking” conspiracy theory is simple nonsense. I am therefore most amused that my friend Randy Credico, who stayed with Nadira and I in Edinburgh a few months ago, has now been subpoenaed by the Senate Inquiry on Russian meddling as the alleged go-between for Roger Stone and Julian Assange, on the brilliant grounds that he knows both of them.
I can tell you from certain knowledge this is absolute nonsense. While Randy is a delightful person who hides a shrewd political mind behind a deliberate crackpot façade, he is the most indiscreet person in the world. He is not anybody’s conveyor of secrets, he would tell it all impulsively on his next radio show! Where Russia fits into this mad conspiracy theory I have no idea. If I had any belief that it was the genuine intention of Senate or Special Counsel inquiries to discover the actual truth, I would be surprised they have never made any contact with me, as opposed to my fleeting houseguests. But as I am well aware the last thing they want to know is the truth, I am not surprised in the least.
On a personal note I have just emerged from a really harrowing period. I had to leave the High Court a month ago straight to Heathrow and fly out to Ghana. Here I have been battling for the last year to save Atholl Energy, a company I chair which had some US $50 million worth of debts. The reason for this was that it had built an extension to the power station it originally constructed for the Ghanaian government, and the Ghanaian government had failed to pay for the extension after Atholl pre-financed it. In line with company philosophy, Atholl had both completed and handed over the extension, despite the non-payment, as the aim is to supply power to the people of Ghana.
The massive debt of course threatened Atholl with going bust. That would mean redundancy for our staff, and potentially many scores of redundancies at local sub-contractors we had been unable to pay in full. The thought of inflicting that mass misery on families, many of whom I know, has stopped me sleeping for months.
The current government of Ghana took over in January and inherited a huge fiscal deficit due to – and there is no other way of saying it – wholesale looting by the last government on a scale which Ghana had never witnessed before. To give an example from our own sector, we install power plant using Siemens equipment at about 1.2 million dollars per MW for a turnkey plant including fuel supply and power evacuation infrastructure. The last government of Ghana were contracting large projects at three times the unit cost or more, using inferior equipment. For $150 million per project to be added corruptly was not unusual.
On top of this, despite having imposed some of the world’s highest electricity tariffs – higher than British tariffs, for example – the revenue collected was mysteriously vanishing. As a result, our $52 million owed was part of a US$2.5 billion energy sector debt the current government inherited.
In effect this has been rescheduled, by the launch of bonds to raise the money to pay off the debts. The bonds are serviced by a levy on petrol and diesel. As usual in Africa, the IMF and World Bank were extremely unhelpful, refusing to sanction a government guarantee on the bonds, which means the energy levy is now to be collected by a new corporate structure and the bond is a corporate one. This structure necessitated an increase in the bond interest rate to 19.5%, which will benefit the financial institutions who have bought them, to the detriment of the Ghanaian public. In my experience every IMF and World Bank policy intervention in Africa always, on analysis, benefits corporations to the disbenefit of the African public.
It is also a gross double standard – if the energy debt had been treated as government debt, Ghana’s “unacceptable” debt to GDP ratio would still have been substantially less that that of many developed countries, including the UK.
The government of Ghana is to be congratulated on its persistence and the brilliance of its financial engineering that enabled it to tackle a huge problem despite obstruction rather than help from the international agencies – the energy sector debt had been threatening to crash the Ghanaian Banking sector, to the benefit of the large international banks.
For our company, we had to take a haircut because the payment was made not in the cash dollars which were owed, but in a mixture of bonds and local currency. We owed banks and suppliers in dollars, so we have been structuring sales and taken the odd hit on discounting. But we have got through it, and as of yesterday have paid off all our creditors in full. There is not a single job loss caused by us, either in our company or at our suppliers and sub-contractors, and that has removed a fear which has been haunting me. I cannot express how tough this period has been – I did not receive a single penny from my major source of income for nearly four years, and as of this morning still haven’t. I am not going to be a millionaire, but I am now going to be OK.
2017 has personally been really difficult. But I can now look forward to the New Year with lightened shoulders, and pick up the rest of my life again.
I am truly sorry that for the last few months speaking invitations and book orders have gone by the wall. I have 21,253 unopened emails!! Not to mention over 5,000 donors to my legal defence fund I have not thanked yet. I promise I shall be less elusive in future.
The ubiquitous Israeli elephant strikes again;
http://mondoweiss.net/2017/12/jerusalem-israels-capital/
As I stated yesterday, I don’t think this is just down to brainwashing indoctrination & propaganda, as the psychological need to feel superior runs deep;
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/07/26/britain-proud-its-empire/
“they also tend to think it left its colonies better off”
This lot needs to study history a bit more;
https://crimesofbritain.com/
Macky,
It is completely obvious, on even the limited research that I do, that the Crimes of Britain, run very deep NOW..possibly even worse than the crimes of The USA and that unmentionable country in The Middle East.
Maybe it has always, been this way, and us British, are just a lot better than the other really evil bastards across the world at writing the history books.
John Lennon, didn’t seem to think us British were THAT evil, and at the time he was assassinated, neither did I.
But we certainly are now.
http://phocks.org/stumble/lennonUSAflag.php
The British Establishment did employ both Craig Murray, and my uncle as Diplomats, and whilst I have never met Craig Murray, I have met my uncle, and he seemed a really nice man. I think my Grandmother was too. She became a Medical Missionary in Africa.
Tony
@Tony, if my original Post had not vanished, you would have seen that I stated that there were many things us Brits could rightly be proud of, in the fields Arts & Literature, Science, British inventiveness, etc,, but pride in the British Empire is not one of them.
Funny enough, look at what I just noticed;
http://www.watersidetheatre.com/events/byevent/651
Nice line-up of Speakers too !
Macky,
I think that I had replied to you along that thread and my reply mysteriously disappeared.
I wonder why…huh?
I can confirm that Macky did write that there were many things the British could be proud of and I am happy to second him in that opinion.
Like railways in Africa .. which the Chinese are now making a great job of replacing!
As this happenned to my wife just over a year ago, this news upset us both very deeply. In my wife’s case, the car driver not only stopped, but he phoned me up to say “Sorry, you don’t know me, but your wife has just been run over”..then the phone went dead – I thought she was dead, but I knew exactly where she was – on the way to her dance class. She was lucky, an ambulance just happened to be passing, and she was already in it, when I got to her a minute later.
This lady was not so lucky. She got run over 4 times in South London, and none of the drivers stopped. well, that is what all the newspapers say, and I think it is probably true.
What has happenned to our society. The world we live in?
There is absolutely no way any of the drivers could not know.
A few years ago, a pheasant ran out in front of me. there was no way I could stop..but I knew it was a pheasant cos in a split second I saw it and I felt the car go over it.
Maybe the South London story, isn’t true, but if it is, which I suspect it is, then our civilisation is lost, and its simply going to get worse. If 4 random people don’t care enough to stop in such circumstances, then there is little if any hope left for our future.
I have massive respect for the ambulance crews and the police, who do their best in such circumstances. If they can save lives they do, otherwise they just have to clear up the mess – and they do that too – and get paid very little for doing it – because its a vocation – they are amongst the last of the human race who care.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/11/four-drivers-ran-woman-did-not-stop-multiple-hit-and-run-horror/
However, on previous history of national newspaper reports, it is entirely possible that this story is not true, or only partially true.
Tony
“Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes between 500 and 700 children in military courts each year”
“”There is simply no reason for a country that prides itself on being a democracy to use its powerful military to target and systematically abuse children under their control,”
http://www.dci-palestine.org/first_ever_bill_on_palestinian_human_rights_introduced_in_congress
Macky.
Gary Lineker has been getting a hard time, because he tweeted that it was unacceptable that Palestinian children were put in cages by the IDF.
He’s been called everything from a Putin stooge to a anti-semite. Even though his tweet only referred to the welfare of the children.
https://mobile.twitter.com/GaryLineker?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
All because he’s opposed to child abuse by tweeting this Youtube clip
https://mobile.twitter.com/benabyad/status/940249957587701761
Similar to the one I posted a day ago;
https://twitter.com/nujaidyy/status/939916989526659072
Action of the “State” that is a stain on the civilised World.
Thinks are hotting up, as the (OIC) Organisation for Islamic Cooperation, declares East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_of_Islamic_Cooperation
Things could get pretty ugly pretty quickly, unless some respected mediator steps in soon.
The US cannot not now mediate as it has openly chosen a side.
RoS
On the contrary – far from “hotting up”, things have calmed down surprisingly quickly in the West Bank. The “day of rage” has remained just that – a day – and the second intifada called for by some Palestinian leaders (sitting comfortably out of harm’s way themselves) has of course not materialised.
As for the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation declaring East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.: well, of course there can be no objection to anyone or any organisation declaring this, although in the case in point it does seem curious that Jerusalem should have been declared the capital of a state that does not exist (to date at least). It is also curious that it should have been an organisation other than the Palestinians themselves that so declared.
Not surprisingly mass demonstrations start again.
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-intense-clashes-breakout-israeli-forces-palestinians-bethlehem/
The fact that this Cop was found not to have done nothing wrong, embolden him to state that he would do exactly the same in a similar circumstance !; simply unbelievably, and has rightly caused outrage on Social Media;
Warning, it is a disturbing thing to see;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bUwF-n6Jag
A country that lost the thread somewhere along the way.
Yes Macky I saw that a few days ago, in my opinion, American law enforcement openly seeks out and employs men like him. Aggressive semi psychotic shooters who have no empathy, and who shoot first and ask questions later.
They are protected by the judicial system, the shoot first policy in my opinion has been in force in the US for some time now, it’s very easy to find a video online of a US policeman shoot someone unjustly.
Philando Castile’s death is a prime example.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K_J3sYIgvUE
Warning *** this is pretty graphic as well.
“openly seeks out and employs men like him”
Well it’s often debated whenever it’s more that the Police/Army/Security jobs attracts aggressive types, or does the power to control people prove too tempting to resist & so turns some into egoist control freaks, & brings out the bully in them; I guess the answer is a bit of both, and for some others, I think that basically they are cowards, and they are too scared to take even the slightest risk, even though basic commonsense tells them they are behaving stupidly, often unfortunately with fatal consequences.
Can you post any corroboration of this video? See below.
I have found corroboration myself; see below.
This is utterly tragic and horrific, but I can see how it can happen in a society bristling with guns, where police have a far more dangerous and terrifying job than police in the UK. Shaver had been reported because other guests in the hotel had seen him pointing a rifle out of his window.
So maybe it’s not such a great idea to propagate stories that all the mass shootings in the US are either hoaxes or false flag operations. Maybe calls for gun control aren’t merely a plot to enforce the NWO, eh Macky?
He wouldn’t get away with it unless he fairly represented the culture (of the police, the jury and the community) itself. With that level of evidence he wouldn’t. Apart from shooting an unarmed young man who was clearly afraid and confused by events. With little or no reason to fear for his own safety (you see how we’re invited to join in with the bullshit festival just thinking about it) P B clearly understood where he wanted to go in this encounter.
To me the malicious intent was present from the outset. He can be heard anticipating what he’s going to do when he recounts his unreasonable rules to the young man and woman knowing they’d be quoted as exonerating evidence after the fact. He’s enjoying himself, excited that he’s going to kill somebody in the next few moments. He knows it and in my view it was premeditated murder. He also knew he’d walk away. P B speaks like a child acting out a role throughout, as though reciting a cherished movie scene, with a level of studied petulance only a child might imagine in the stead of motive. There’s no one home. He’s not there at all. He certainly shouldn’t have been entrusted with a weapon yet the man remains free to do as he pleases while his victim does not.
I might ask when his co-workers will grow the balls to stand up against one of their own? But the answer could only be never. They probably judge each other by their own standards in order never to have to ask the question, “who would I be when I listened to a piece of music?”
If they had, they’d be standing firmly against the shit which besmirches all of them.
Does letting P B walk suggest that to a degree his actions were also a fantasy of the jury? It probably does. The implied level of rage in their failure to empathise with the victim, that is off the scale.
@Edward, thank you for your comments; I agree when you state “He wouldn’t get away with it unless he fairly represented the culture”, which is a frightening indictment of where the US is right now, and the obvious parallel is Israeli society, where the shooting of unarmed Palestinians is accepted as normal, and in the rare occasions where the soldier is given a mild symbolic slap on the wrist punishment, massive rallies are held for them, with the crowds chanting that the soldier is a hero, plus of course the ubiquitous “Death to Arabs”. In both societies, “protective” agents of the State are so elevated, especially the Military, that they literally cannot do no wrong, in that it cannot be admitted even when they do. Here in the UK, despite the fig-leaf of the Complaints Procedure against the Police, we are not so far behind, from the military”Shoot to Kill” policy followed for Northern Ireland, to the many Police killings in recent years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_Kingdom
The Jury’s acquittal is almost as shocking as the murder itself; every fair-minded person simply cannot comprehend the Jury’s failure to empathise with the victim, which so easily could be one of them one day; was it due to some sort of societal peer pressure, where to criticise protectors of the State , is considered unpatriotic ? That’s probably the closest I can come in thinking of a rational explanation.
Agreed.
According to that list the majority of UK police killings take place after 2004 with a noticeable surge beginning in the nineties. Interesting, thanks.
I disagree. This is not like Israel. Shaver had been seen pointing a rifle out of the window, so the police officer had reason to believe Shaver was armed; Palestinian children just throw stones. The US cop was both fired and tried for murder; I don’t think that happens much to the IDF. And there was no ethnic/religious divide as in Israel.
Actually there’s often a ethnic divide when it comes to these official killings.
Can you imagine how much of a chance a black man would have had in the same circumstances? He wouldn’t even have had that charade of a bunch of confusing and contradictory orders, never mind a trial for the pig who shot him. Just bang, dead, case closed.
Was he actually brandishing a shotgun? I haven’t seen the video but others say he was crawling on his hands and knees. If that’s the case, I find it hard to imagine he could be carrying a rifle. Should police be allowed to act on hearsay, to the point of lethal force? Mackys comparison with Israeli police isn’t so far fetched considering the relationship with US and Israeli law enforcement. It’s been widely reported that Israel has been advising and training US police on crowd control and anti terror tactics.
@duplicitousdemocracy,
From Wiki;
“According to a police report, Daniel Leetin Shaver (December 29, 1989 – January 18, 2016), a pest-control worker and resident of Granbury, Texas, had been staying at a Mesa La Quinta Inn & Suites on business. He invited two acquaintances to his room for drinks. There he showed them a scoped air rifle he was using to exterminate birds inside grocery stores. At one point the gun was pointed outside his hotel window, prompting a witness to notify the front desk; the police were immediately called. Upon arrival, police gave Shaver and his acquaintance’s detailed orders for several minutes, with frequent admonitions that failing to comply with them would get them shot. Eventually, Shaver was ordered to crawl on the floor towards them. While complying with their request, Shaver, who was intoxicated and could be heard sobbing, begging officers, “Please don’t shoot,” brought his hands toward his waist. Brailsford yelled at Shaver that if Shaver did anything that deviated from his instructions he would shoot him and he probably wouldn’t survive. The officer told Shaver to put his hands up in the air and not to bring them down for any reason. A few seconds later, the officer ordered Shaver to crawl towards him, to which Shaver complied. Shaver then reached his right hand back towards his waistband, at which point Brailsford can be heard yelling “Don’t!” while simultaneously opening fire with his AR-15 rifle, striking Shaver five times and killing him almost instantly. Shaver was unarmed.”
The comparison between the US & Israel that I made was iro the culture of elevating the Military/Police so high, that it effectively gives a license for wrongdoing, and also makes it difficult to punish, or sometimes, even acknowledge, when an individual does wrong. As to Israeli training of Polices forces, that is a good point, and I believe they also trained UK Met Police; indeed Operation Kratos which killed Jean Charles de Menezes, was operating on new rules of engagement after training & advice from Israeli security services.
It’s illustrative that the Cop in this particular shooting, already had a history of using excessive force, to such a degree that somebody commented & predicted that he will kill somebody one day;
http://www.newsweek.com/cop-who-killed-daniel-shaver-had-history-excessive-force-video-shows-746683
Edward, you wrote one thing I agree with; Brailsford should not have been doing that job.
Beyond that, psychological experiments have demonstrated that aggression is a response to perceived threat, and it seems inevitable that Brailsford felt under threat. His whole job was about repeatedly facing threat in a society where danger from firearms is endemic, where tens of thousands of people are shot every year, and where much media “entertainment” is based on very graphic depictions of killings with firearms. About 150 US police officers are shot each year.
Any jury in such a society will have had to consider that a police officer must feel free to shoot, especially when the public have reported someone with a firearm. Brailsford himself is only 27; he will have to live with what he did as he becomes mature enough to understand it. Making an example of Brailsford would be incongruous and ineffective, possibly even counter productive. Rather, it is the gun culture, and violence as entertainment that need to be addressed.
“Rather, it is the gun culture, and violence as entertainment that need to be addressed.”
You agree, he fairly represented his culture. And that’s why he got away with it. Google the name Daniel Shaver. If it is a fake, all the news networks are showing exactly the same video.
I am not yet convinced that this video is real.
Firstly, it appears to be taken from the position of the weapon, which would make it a police camera. How was this footage released? There must be some documentation, report of the incident, FOIA request, something. All I get from Macky’s link is a YouTube video, convincing though it looks. Surely the police wouldn’t release a video like this without being pressured.
Secondly, it is posted by YouTube user “Spooky Hollows” whose user page advertises “Animations, Games, Vlogs and more”. It does not look like a civil rights activist’s page; more a novelty channel. Here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/SP00KYH0LL0WS/videos
Macky, can you show this to be real?
This appears to be the killing of Daniel Shaver by Mesa Police Department officer Philip Brailsford:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Daniel_Shaver
Brailsford was charged with murder. Incredibly, a jury acquitted him.
Tory weeps afer hearing stories of sheer destitution of children due to Universal Credit poverty.
https://www.bigissue.com/news/tory-mp-weeps-universal-credit-poverty/
Do Tories even have tear ducts?
The normal server for the blog crashed last night and did not respond to reboot attempts leaving the live database volume locked to it and therefore inaccessible. A new server was started with the latest daily backup.
The previous database is still attached to a frozen server as the provider’s support has been more useless than a chocolate tea-pot so far.
@Squonk, Thanks for the belated explanation; not the first time this has occurred; this blog seems to be strangely jinxed with both technical & moderating issues.
Because it would double the hosting cost there is no hot standby or distributed cluster to take over if the server node goes down hard.
This is the first time a backup has had to be restored since moving to the current provider a year or two ago. Daily backups are kept with a completely different provider of storage mirrored across multiple datacentres so are always available. More frequent backups could be done but that also adds cost.
Curiously the first replacement virtual server also hung during startup but a third server started successfully. Support tickets were answered saying they had fixed the issues but two servers remain stuck.running up costs – they say they are looking into it. The provider is a very large European hosting provider.
Macky,
Someone doesn’t like Craig Murray and likewise the friends he hangs out with on this blog. So – they are trying wipe him off the face of the internet – or – some such explanation. Foul play and Murray being a target – would not be a far-fetched ‘conspiracy theory’ – rather, it would be what states and authorities do when an individual becomes too much of pain in part of the state’s anatomy.
But, like old Gadaffi – I think that Murray is a lion – but a reasonably tame one. Speaking of which – look at what they did to Gadaffi; sorry for drawing the analogy.
Sincere thanks to Squonk for his pre planning and replacement of the server, a very wise move if I may say.
Keep it to the technical, Macky, we do not want another round of moderator arguments, accept that non of us is perfect, it is as it is here. Maybe in future we will get edit buttons and are able to take our own posts down should we so wish, but as for now, this blog has had hundreds of thousands of hits and is serving a great purpose.
That there are multiple interests that are trying to shut down a liberally minded blog that carries fierce and to the point articles/ debate, is a mirror to the extraordinary efforts that are being undertaken to spread perfidious material and fake arguments to engage the public, there is an information war raging out there.
The printed and even TV media are not reaching all of us anymore, the dumbing down is out of control and nobody cares much about real causes, their effect on others, or knows why they have become causes in the first place.
try raising your chi by arching your legs and raising your arms as high as you can next time your comment is in moderation.
Eva Barlett early FaceBook casualty in the Battle for the Internet;
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DQ-XywbVwAEcVg0.jpg
VK seems to be an alternative FB, maybe worth checking out.
Update; It was a 30 suspension; blamed on ” Arbitrary and high handed ‘moderation”. Funny how that sounds so familiar ! 😀
Lest we forget. Lafarge in cahoots with ISIS.
http://www.france24.com/en/20160621-france-lafarge-islamic-state-group-jalabiya-syria
“A Scots MEP has cheered Dundee losing its chance to be the European Capital of Culture.”
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/dundee/563790/scottish-mep-shouts-good-german-politician-expresses-regret-collapse-dundees-capital-culture-bid/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
What pr*ck David Coburn is.
What were Dundee’s grounds for believing itself deserving of that title? I used to live just across the river and don’t recall any cultural attractions at all.
https://dundee2023.eu/about-dundee-2023/
You should have got out more, Carl. Also, I don’t think you understand the motivation behind this initiative – unless you were just being sarcastic with your post?
Meanwhile.
Branson’s Virgin Care awarded a £104 million NHS contract in England, no debate on the private sector contract was held beforehand.
https://www.lep.co.uk/news/silence-on-lancashire-county-council-s-health-contract-with-virgin-1-8906239/amp?__twitter_impression=true
If you thought that the EU ” refugee deal”, ie bribe to Turkey was shameful enough, this will further disgust you; how can anybody be puzzled by the strong anti-EU sentiments that many ordinary people have ?:
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/13/amne-d13.html
Macky,
Subject to correction, it seems to me that Gadaffi had effectively prevented persons from crossing into Europe for many years.
Now that he has gone, not only has Libya disintegrated into a failed state but an attendant refugee and slave trade problem comes in the wake of the US/NATO liberation.
@Courtenay, Indeed; Gadaffi gave warnings & correct predictions that not only would Europe have a refugee problem if the Jihadist terrorists trying to topple him succeeded, but also that Europe would suffer Jihadist terrorists attacks.
“Subject to correction, it seems to me that Gadaffi had effectively prevented persons from crossing into Europe for many years.”
Not quite Courtney, Gaddafi was all for flooding Europe, he even spoke about it in speeches.
“We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe—without swords, without guns, without conquest—will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.”
Muammar Gaddafi.
“We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe—without swords, without guns, without conquest—will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.”
Muammar Gaddafi.
Gadaffi’s words do not mean that he wished to flood Europe with Muslims. He was observing that where migration is permitted, the obvious truth of Islamic Monotheism will be conveyed automatically to everybody in Europe by the few who practise Islam.
To which the Zionists respond by torturing and brain-washing Muslims in order to create Islamist monsters , in order to denigrate Islam, leaving Russia and China to sort out the Islamist problem
.
BTW The latest news from Kurdistan is that Mossad’s Barzani has not stood down and is proposing instead to replace himself with his nephew. He has already embezzled so many billions of Kurdistan oil dollars that he is not affected by Baghdad’s Obadi’ taking the oil, import and airport revenues away from him. Barzani is plotting to take advantage of Baghdad elections to re-group with Maliki who was kicked out on a multi-million pension for corruption and unfairness to the Sunni population. Obadi has reduced Kurdistan’s budget to 6% from 17.5% of Iraq’s income, in order to deprive Barzani of funds. But the only people who will suffer is the people of Kurdistan who have not been paid for six years by the expired Barzani regime.
This is the policy of Zionists, to turn the Muslims into desperation and install Islamists who send them the oil revenues in exchange for brutalising the population. Hard words of reality, and well worth my contribution to Craig’s defence fund.
“leaving Russia and China to sort out the Islamist problem”
Giyane, you’re gravely mistaken if you think China has any love for Muslim’s indeed China has in recent years tried to force Muslim’s to abandon traditions such as Ramadan.
Indeed in historical terms the Dugan Revolt led to the slaughter of millions of Muslims in what is now China.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/ramadan-2017-china-xiniang-uyghur-muslim-holy-month-islam-fasting-a7765836.html
Russia has also persecuted Muslims from the Northern Caucasus.
RoS
” Giyane, you’re gravely mistaken if you think China has any love for Muslim’s ”
China has not only funded Russia to destroy Syria’s Islamists but is going to send forces of its own to complete the job.
China has a large Muslim population and the CIA and MI5 have succeeded in luring many Sufi sects to Islamist jihad. Islam is far too deeply rooted in China for it to be ignored. Capitalist Chinese millionaires had Muslim grandparents. It’s one of those unspoken things under Communism, but a fact of life like Putin’s Russian Orthodox faith.
The Zionist sect of Islamism, created by chemical brain-washing and funded by USUKIS is another matter altogether. Otherwise known as eating one’s own vomit, This is an important part of Tory policy during the time Mrs May has served in cabinet.
Please don’t say you thought those two things were one and the same religion.
Islamism or political Islam declares that anyone outside its own sect is a kafir and therefore their human rights and property can be forfeited, their family enslaved and they can be put to death.
Funnily enough Islam does not say that. it says that Muslims have aright to defend themselves against Islamists who take the non-believers and Zionists as military allies, such as USUKIS. Islam also says that the type of lying that is politics is totally forbidden. Therefore there is no such thing as political Islam. There is only Islam or politics.
“Islamism or political Islam declares that anyone outside its own sect is a kafir and therefore their human rights and property can be forfeited, their family enslaved and they can be put to death.”
Giyane what of this then.
“Kafir does not necessarily denote a non-Muslim; thus, someone who makes good deeds without expectation of worldly rewards would not be a kafir.”
Though I hold your above chapter to be true also.
“Funnily enough Islam does not say that. it says that Muslims have aright to defend themselves”
Surah 4:75. Seems more fitting.
http://www.alim.org/library/quran/ayah/compare/4/75/make-jihad-to-help-the-oppressed
Gadaffi was about to launch an African interest-free bank which would have started to keep the refugees in their home countries. The fact that Cameron and Hague proceeded to employ Islamists in order to prevent the financing of Africa suggests to me that they thought that they had complete control of the Islamists and had already conceived and planned the Islamists prisons.
Something to consider when you think about the gamble of Brexit. Tories think that the risks of their political stupidity can be controlled by extreme control measures. If MPs realised that , they would probably all be rebels. We always assume that someone in power has got as grip on things. But No, Fascist brutality is the only plan B when their stupid policy goes wrong.
It is time to stop giving the benefit of the doubt to the mad-cow-disease Party, about which Dorrell said: ” Nobody could have known how badly things could go wrong. We should get Corbyn in power now because this time they are gambling with us and our futures when really they don’t have a plan for a plan, except to make their stupid policies which their stupid politicians dreamed up work when everyone knows what will happen. I feel particularly agGrieved that we are being asked to use yesterdays vote in HoC as a question of numbers. No. Half the Tory Party can see that the steering wheel for the UK has been chucked out of the car because it’s weight was slowing the car down.
We must not listen to these public school shite like Cameron and Boris Johnson who have enough money to retire to their gipsy caravans and write books when their policies go horribly wrong..
” fight in the cause of Allah ”
Since when was USUKIS interchangeable with Allah. They might have nuclear weapons. May Allah melt their nuclear weapons.
Kafir means somebody who covers up the truth. I don’t know where your definition comes from. There are many dodgy translations of the Qur’an. A Muslim must believe in God and help humanity as instructed by all the prophets alaihim assalam. I would define someone like Erdogan to be a Muslim even though he has stolen billions of oil dollars and set up a terrorist group in order to do it. but the expectations from a Muslim ruler are far higher than the rest of the people because he is responsible for so many people.
Currently many millions of Muslims are refugees, dead or imprisoned as a consequence of his actions and he has no authority to do that to people in Islam. It is compulsory to get rid of a tyrant in Islam. We have to get rid of him. But first we are instructed to kill or remove the collaborators with the enemies of Islam. No 1/ Al Qaida No 2/ the tyrants No 3/ the invaders of Muslim lands. Saudi Arabia trained 300,000 Myanmar jihadists to attack the military of that country on purely religious grounds. They retaliated against the Rohingas’ families. The Saudis are to 100% to blame. This the problem when the MUslim leaders become collaborators with the enemies of Islam : Islam gets the blame.
Some analysis of the SNP’s current position – it’s confused – from the Morning Star:
http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-9826-State-of-the-Nationalists
From the entirely true general –
THESE are difficult times for centrists. Stunned by Brexit, their reactions are confused and inconsistent.
On a wider political front, faced with multiple and overlapping crises in public services, wages and housing, they offer only managerial solutions where radical action is called for*. Then they wonder why the tide seems to be flowing in Jeremy Corbyn’s direction.
To the particular –
Few groupings exemplify this more than the Scottish National Party….Ian Blackford MP, the former investment banker leading the nationalists in Westminster, opined that, in the event of either a no deal Brexit or one which left the UK out of the customs union and single market, the SNP government in Edinburgh “would have a conversation with the people of Scotland and we would be asking the parliament in Edinburgh to put in place the mechanisms for a second referendum.”
As threats go, this one is bizarre. Let’s try to follow the logic here. The SNP wants the UK to remain in the single market and customs union.
To try to put pressure on the government it is saying that, if that doesn’t happen, it will call another independence referendum (Indyref2 as we say in these parts).
Staying in the single market and customs union should therefore prevent Indyref2, but the SNP also separately say they want Indyref2 — and independence obviously. (continues at gleeful length)
*Emphasis mine – BZ.
Before the election they told us their number one priority would be education. They lied, they have only one priority and they don’t give a damn about anything else.
A third of primary school children falling behind.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/a-third-of-pupils-falling-behind-at-primary-school-say-teachers-zxvv53rzk
They have money to pay the tuition fees of students from other countries though.
The SNP Growth Commission is publishing a 400 page report outlining the case for independence, where is the 400 page report on the mess they have made of education.
Both Labour and Tory have only one policy for education, which is to uneducate the masses so that they are tame and obedient, amenable to being lied to and manipulated by self-interested politicians and will not complain when their salaries and wages are too small to live on.
Yes Fred, targets aren’t being met in other
Home nations either, oh the igmony.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/oct/12/gcse-shakeup-leaves-many-schools-missing-national-progress-targets
Still the DUP and Trident don’t seem to be suffering.
Oh look Fred, I’m sure youll be raging, that England, Wales and NI haven’t met key cancer targets for more than 18 months.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41656667
But hey, it must be the SNP’s fault right?
” they offer only managerial solutions where radical action is called for ”
The management at Unite Students in Birmingham have solved the problem of its maintenance budget by merging the overbusy Compliance dept. with the Maintenance Dept. and sacking the Maintenance Supervisor who was doing a fantastic job keeping the building from disintegrating on a minimal budget.
Because there are no funds to repair anything by outside contractors he has been changing 10th storey windows by himself and another member of the maintenance team. Don’t mention rats.
My advice to Christmas shoppers in central Birmingham is to duck when a plate glass window swoops down on them. We all know that modern management only know how to compound their problems by ” only offering managerial solutions where radical action is called for”. Yet it is hoped that holding a memorial service for the dead of Grenfell Tower in St Paul’s guilt-sepulchred Cathedral will keep the proles happy for a time.
Oh look a diehard Labour rag attacks the SNP.
Jeez the Daily Record, Guardian, Morning Star, so predictable.
Of course the Morning Star, has been described by some as a “Mad Red under the Bed”
“The Morning Star retains “its reputation for bone-headed Stalinism”, according to Paul Anderson, a former editor of the left-wing Tribune weekly. “It runs articles extolling the virtues of single-party “socialist” states on a regular basis – North Korea, Cuba, China, Vietnam.”
No wonder it has only a 10,000 or under readership.
Dave Spart still faithfully buys his copy every day.
Ha, ha, nice one reel guid.
Seconded in spades – let’s have more of the same, please.
Jeez reel guid the Morning Star’s editor’s ideal country (economically) is China.
After leaving university, Chacko lived in China for a few years. The country, according to him, is evidence that “you can run a society without surrendering to the idea that the market is always right”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Chacko
“you can run a society without surrendering to the idea that the market is always right”
Do you agree or disagree with that statement?
He’s quoting China as an example, where SOE’s are the norm,and those who posses capital are desperate to send it overseas, without the government finding out, in that context no.
In another context yes.
Ros
Mr. Chacko the editor. Raised in Cheltenham. Attended grammar school. Brother a barrister. Graduate of St. John’s College Oxford, where he read Mandarin.
I say, just the sort of chap the precariat can relate to, what?
I don’t think he is saying that China is the perfect economy but it is evidence that planning cannot only be effective but is becoming more effective due to advances in AI.
Think about the government taking on the East Coast Main line and making a success of it. 30 years ago running the railways was a huge challenge. Now it’s a fairly simple task complicated by private sector greed.
“you can run a society without surrendering to the idea that the market is always right”
Suppose I made my toy building blocks out of some sticky substance and entered a competition against normal plastic blocks…
So, with the West’s control over the sale of global assets, the market is rigged, so how can the market be right? The market in this case rewards the richer nations who control the markets. Thatcher and Savile sorted it all out. Kids enjoy sex. The poor like being robbed.
Suggest interest is directed to the editor of the Daily Heil and its new CEO, Zwillenberg ex Boston Group.
Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre’s pay jumps 50% to almost £2.5m
Editor-in-chief of Mail titles earns £1.45m in salary plus £856,000 payout from company’s long-term investment plan
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/dec/11/paul-dacre-pay-as-daily-mail-editor-jumps-50-to-almost-25m
They have a point. Either we want independence for it’s own merit or we do not. Attaching conditions about the status of the UK muddies the waters. The SNP currently won’t talk about a time scale for a second referendum and even on issues where it is blatantly obvious Ministers are clearly avoiding comparing Tory austerity to better funding in an indepedent Scotland.
The SNP have two problems (1) A Labour revival kills any chance of a majority for independence stone dead which is why you two are so spiteful about Corbyn (2) They don’t have any ideological grounding beyond independence so are extremely pliant to lobbyists which leads to awful incoherent policy much of which has to be binned. The SNP’s centrism with anti Tory edge is going to look very dated shortly.
If the tide is with Corbyn then the most recent yougov poll putting the Tories 1% ahead would indicate that it’s a strangely behaving tide. If you can’t beat the Tories when they had the worst ever election campaign. When you aren’t well ahead of the Tories in opinion polls after it has been shown that they don’t have any proper brexit plans.
Corbyn’s just treading water now. Same as Miliband was treading water.
In truth reel guid Corbyn only seen a small bounce in Scotland, when he realised he needed to start spouting about already implemented SNP policies.
We in Scotland don’t need what we already have, but we do need independence something Corbyn opposes.
I believe this Yougov poll as much as the ones 10 months ago putting the Tories 20 points ahead. Craig has wrote a lot about Yougove and as we all know polls are used as propaganda as much as attempts to gage public opinion (see the 50:50 Indyref poll also by Yougov).
Election campaigns are what counts and outside those periods the vast majority of voters are disengaged. All the trends are pointing towards Labour though and that isn’t going to change unless the Tories implement policies to spread wealth more fairly (won’t happen) and manage to kickstart UK productivity (won’t happen).
Productivity is a management problem, not a worker problem. It is one of those fashionable excuses for why people who sit on their bottoms all day and draw charts on computers to present to others also sitting on their bottoms are drawing enourmous salaries compared to the people doing the actual work.
“The Morning Star retains “its reputation for bone-headed Stalinism”, according to Paul Anderson, a former editor of the left-wing Tribune weekly….
*Oh look a Blair apologist (PPE Balliol, Oxford) attacks socialism…*
But never mind the messenger. How about the message? Institutional managerialism, and no radical alternatives? And we’re still waiting for the business plan, as it appears to be a given that the neo-Blairite SNP will go right along with the corporate vision of unsustainable consumption and accelerating inequality, in or out of the UK, in or out of the EU.
Seems to me you might with advantage start hearing the critics rather than indulging in endless self-congratulatory circle-jerks, RoS. It’s a country you’re talking about. Not a vision, not a conceptual paradigm, not a nexus of transformative change, but a country, with people.
“But never mind the messenger. How about the message? Institutional managerialism, and no radical alternatives? And we’re still waiting for the business plan”
Oh please give me a break your energy would be better spent on complaining about the £1.7 trillion national debt, growing at around £5 grand a second, or the utter shambles that is Brexit, such is the incompetence that no impact assessments were carried out be see were told they were. The SNP’s White Paper now looks like a masterpiece compared to the Tories fagpacket politics.
Or the trillions that are to be spent on WMD’s or the running down of the English NHS, that the Red Cross deemed to be a humanitarian crisis last year. This year though NHS bosses areto hide the figures of those turned away at A&E. Or the £7 billion spent on aircraft carriers, to take the war on whoever at the behest of your governments master the US, whilst rough sleeping and homelessness doubles at home.
I could go on but whats the point, itwould just fall on deaf ears. Sure the SNP don’t get it right all the time how can they with three opposition parties loyal to a foreign countries government . However even with onehand tied behind their backs they’re doing a far better job than Westminster.
Cue the nasty nationalist rhetoric.
How can the USA claim it is a functioning democracy when twice as many people oppose its tax giveaway to corporations and the disgusting rich than support it?
It’s a vile plutocracy! Should be overthrown!
How can the UK claim it is a functioning democracy when twice as many people oppose its tax giveaway to corporations and the disgusting rich than support it?
It’s a vile plutocracy! Should be overthrown!
True Trowbridge, and with the Pentagon’s first ever audit coming up, in which at least 2500 personnel are required to carry out the audit, I wonder how many trillions of dollars will be unaccounted for?
True, Ros, but the problem is much bigger than just the Pentagon.
For example, the National Reconnaissance Office, the prime builder and operator of those laser satellites, causing quakes in Iran, Turkey, China and North Korea, judging the six there as nuclear tests, pocketed so much money in weapons development overruns that it built a palatial headquarters for itself with its own money, and without Congress knowing about it or approving. It even committed a murder about it, that of a potential leaker security guard Tina Ricca, to keep the public ignorant about what it was doing.
What about all the other fiefdoms?
Trowbridge.
It’s also interesting that Trump signed of on the $700 billion dollar defence budget, but, a 2011 law states that the Department of Defences budget is capped at $549 billion dollars.
Trump has called on Congress to lift the cap.
I wonder if the audit will reveal to the public just how many dollars have went to “unknown” causes, ie slush funds, regime change kittys and so on.
As Assange enters his 8th year of captivity(!), positive news iro Wikileakes;
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/dec/14/wikileaks-recognised-as-a-media-organisation-by-uk-tribunal?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
If the CPS does not say that it no longer seeks Assange’s prosecution because of the ruling, and its destruction of evidence regarding his incarceration, Bartlett’s ruling means nothing. Assange is currently imprisoned.
Macky.
It’s a step in the right direction, however Pompeo is determined to lay hands on Assange, who he claims is a Putin stooge.
As long as the Great Satan desires Assange it will be difficult for his to gain his liberty.
Macky, thank you for that link. The article links to another significant article:
– UK prosecutors admit destroying key emails in Julian Assange case
– Correspondence between CPS and its Swedish counterparts about WikiLeaks founder deleted after lawyer retired in 2014
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/10/uk-prosecutors-admit-destroying-key-emails-from-julian-assange-case
– Adding to the intrigue, it emerged the CPS lawyer involved had, unaccountably, advised the Swedes in 2010 or 2011 not to visit London to interview Assange. An interview at that time could have prevented the long-running embassy standoff.
– The CPS, responding to questions from the Guardian, denied there were any legal implications of the data loss for an Assange case if it were to come to court in the future. Asked if the CPS had any idea what was destroyed, a spokesperson said: “We have no way of knowing the content of email accounts once they have been deleted.”
Really? If the CPS doesn’t keep running backups, that’s institutional negligence. We can be sure GCHQ have copies, obviously. And I thought ISPs had to keep copies under UK law. This stinks of cover-up.
Is no-one going to applaud Dominic Grieve for his highly principled stand for UK parliamentary democracy last night? Give credit where it is due. He has successfully brought Brexit under parliamentary control. The Nice Party should make him his leader should it need one soon.
Pity he refused to grant an inquest for Dr Kelly. An application for a judicial review of his decision was later refused.
On whose orders was he acting?
Well Grieve was Cameron’s Attorney General, and it seems like he turned down the request for an inquest into Dr. David Kelly’s murder on order of Home Secretary Theresa May, another favor that she did for the Israeii government.
Well said, old Timer. Exactly. I agree.
My cynicism is slowly ripening into maturity since I turned 60, but I am waiting for next month’s post Xmas superstore shelves of reduced price , past their sell-by-date, over-mature, stinky Christmas cheeses. Then I’m going to roll in them like a dog on a dead fish. Your cynicism is delicious. Thank you.
The Daily Mail front page shows the pictures and names of the 11 Tories remainers who voted against the government yesterday, branding them traitors. This after there were threats made to MPs a few weeks ago when the Mail did something similar. And vile UKIP MEP David Coburn has retweeted today’s Mail front page along with some remark in enthusiastic support of the paper.
Der Spiegel’s online edition has a piece by one of its reporters who visited EU nationals in England. A Polish woman in Great Yarmouth was talking to her kids in Polish in public and was told by a woman to “Speak English. This is England”. The Polish woman told Der Spiegel that she and her family had lived happily in Great Yarmouth for over ten years but have experienced a far less friendly atmosphere since the EU ref in 2016.
Der Spiegel also cites a German who was denied a request to test drive a car by a dealership in Stockport. He was told his German driver’s licence was no longer valid in the UK because of brexit.
Scotland remains a friendly place I reckon. We don’t want to be saddled, through too close association, with the kind of reputation England is earning. That’s reason enough to seek independence.
That’s even before the economic argument to stay in the single market with independence.
Scottish independence will help Labour a wee bit too. Since there are six more Tory MPs in Scotland than there are Labour MPs in Scotland.
That’s even before the economic argument to stay in the single market with independence.
Which is?
Yes reel guid I saw that particular front page, in my opinion, the likes of the Daily Mail and the Express newspapers have underlying right wing agendas.
They tend not to stray too far from the imperialist right wing government policies of the day.
reel guid
The UK and the EU have no plans for anything other than a single market. But the UK doesn’t want to be restricted by the rules of the existing single market. People didn’t vote for leaving the single market. They voted to leave the undemocratic Federal governance of the EU which wants to increase its autonomy, run an army and tell us what to do.
I would have thought an independence enthusiast would have understood those wishes. Mrs May was lying when she said she wanted Hard Brexit, which she had no intention to deliver, and we didn’t want anyway. Her true deviousness as a politician threw that in as a total red-herring so that things like 1/ immigration caused by our own illegal war-mongering 2/ market rigging from our colonial past, 3/ City financial irregularity and 4/ Zionism guiding UK foreign policy would all be masked.
It is rather frustrating that you separatists don’t lend your weight to the main task, which is to kick out Tory lies and Tory Liars. you never stop picking holes in Jeremy Corbyn. Two people fighting over the steering wheel is going to land the car into a tree. Why not please desist?
giyane
There are untold legions of people in England who do want a hard brexit. They think it will teach Johnny Foreigner a lesson or some such sad delusion. Since these people had the power to bring about first an EU ref and then a Leave win it’s probable they’ll bully their way to a hard brexit. Even a soft brexit is a lousy prospect and Scotland didn’t vote for any kind of one.
“But the UK doesn’t want to be restricted by the rules of the existing single market. People didn’t vote for leaving the single market. They voted to leave the undemocratic Federal governance of the EU which wants to increase its autonomy, run an army and tell us what to do.”
No it doesn’t want free movement of people Giyane however it wants access to the Single Market, but Scotland voted to remain as did NI. A very good reason to leave this union.
As for your second point, the Tory oneupmanship infighting brought the non binding vote about in the first place.
The idea is to limit foreigners, create their own laws (British bill of Rights) privatise privatise, privatise and return if possible the esteem of the empire.
I suggest Scots after leaving the union, should also vote on whether or not to leave the EU, EFTA, is my preferred stance.
RoS
Racism is not one=sided in the UK. My neighbour who is originally from Bangladesh is converting a large house into bedsits and yet insists that he does not have to inform Building Control. His Indian architect has advised him to press ahead without bothering with council regulations. On the other side. I see jobs advertised for apprentice-trained electricians which I take to exclude most immigrants without saying so openly. As the racism increases, so the bizarreness of the excuses for sacking you increases on the UK racist side.
The world is full of arseholes, who know full well how to behave, but choose ignorance as a political tool. Threatening others is never going to succeed. The Tory gaffers will be screaming for the return of the Poles who have decided not to be threatened by Mrs May and left. So will the racist workers when they are forced to do the work the Poles were previously doing.
Der Spiegel has gone steadily downhill since Rolf Augstein and the Josef Strauss case.Though voluminous in content it is now just the educated man’s Bild Zeitung. Brexit horror stories are much the same as those heard from the pre 89 German minority in Poland or elsewhere and sound cooked up in five minutes’ Kaffeeklatsch/Stammtisch .Time to kill a Mocking Bird?
Neue Zuricher, in contrast, has some good articles on joint negotiating positions to the EU by Switzerland and UK. The German speaking cantons,in particular, have a healthy skepticism about the EU and the current German situation borne of close knowledge.
Was sagt die Neue Zuericher ueber das Schweizer Steuermodel? Spezial das der angewanderten Schweizer Auslaender.
Nicht viel,
ein wenig
oder ueberhaupt nichts?
If der Spehel is as bad as the Bild Zeitung? how bad is the Bild Zeitung? Do people still need to be able to read at all?
Floskeln nichts als floskeln,
Nevermind,
My argument was basically about Spiegel’s so- called reporting on Brexit as exemplified by the story abou t verbal slights on non -UK EU citizens, which I think just a rehash of old yarns.With the Spiegel as with the Guardian, I am more critical because of disappointment after years of reading them. NZZ has more meaningful articles on Brexit ecause of some similarities in the Swiss and what should be the UK;s negotiating positions(as borne o t over at EU referendum.com).
As to the US /CIA campaign to plant stories and distortions in the German media , Udo Ulfkotte the murdered former editor or hte Frankfurter Algemeine who spoke out on this including planting stories of Libyan gas attacks) certainly took the view that this was an ongoing active project continuing from Mockingbird.
It seems to be that the Irish and Swiss press are targeted to a lesser degree than the German, British or French newspapers and that both Ireland and Switzerland pursue taxpolicies intheir national or cantonal interests.
RoS … Reel Guid, etc
A friend thinks this is very significant :
https://www.reddit.com/r/Scotland/comments/7jiwt5/house_of_commons_rejects_amendment_158_to_the/
To save me researching it for myself, I checked in here to see your take. Is your lack of take significant?
Aah, I see you have commented on it. As you were …
Is it any wonder independence is back on the cards with straight up lies like this.
https://news.sky.com/story/amp/income-tax-rises-for-people-in-scotland-earning-over-24000-a-year-11170623?__twitter_impression=true
Lies, lies, lies.
https://mobile.twitter.com/_/status/941322589401763840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwingsoverscotland.com%2Fthe-torn-coupons%2F
Sky even refers there to the Scottish Government as “Holywood”. Sky News is for people who get outwitted by their dog.
What can we expect from a unionist/foreign media, they’ve been prevaricating so long now, that they don’t give a damn.
Update from Neil Clark on his Court case against the odious Oliver Kamm:
https://fundrazr.com/stories/cD4nZa
Please support if you can.
In my opinion the odious one in this affair is the self-important Neil Clark. Far from supporting Neil Clark people should be supporting Oliver Kamm as the representative of vigorous debate and free speech.
Habbabkuk
At least you didn’t say ” In my humble opinion “
You have to laugh, since the odious Kamm went behind the Times paywall, nobody really bothers with him anymore, so that he’s now taken to spending his time on becoming a grammar bore, fussing over apostrophes,semi-colons & what not ! 😀
The little Stalker Kam..Tries it on with Finkelstine – Ends Bad For Kam –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiXxp89Lzks
Apparent Putin has just down a live 5 hour press Conference in front of 1000 journalists, no holds barred. It must have been quite a dazzling display judging by this comment:
“I can’t even imagine any western leader giving a press conference like this. No notes no script no idea of questions to come no prompters no earplugs he speaks from the heart. I’m amazed by his vast knowledge of every aspect of his country. What a Leader.”
Can you imagine May doing the same ?! 😀
He does it every year. Usually the BBC ask a stupid question and he spends a few minutes refuting their vacuousness with simple facts.
Just checked twitter and he blanked the BBC this year which is disappointing.
Maybe a tit for tat, Russian journalists have been routinely ignored for years at speeches by western leaders or at briefings by their spokespeople.
She is better turning over the running of the country to foreign governments.
See that the American DoD is to run its drone program out of RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire according to Alan Turnbull and John Young’s Cryptome.
Britain has been flying drones from RAF Waddington, with the help of the US for years.
The drones couldn’t fly without the use of US satellites.
Trowbridge.
What on earth is going on with this “net neutrality, as the FFC, might create a two tier internet access system.
In my opinion these giant telecommunications companies are attempting to damage free speech, and attack democracy.
The two tier system will see smaller websites charged more, it’s an attack on free speech.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/14/net-neutrality-fcc-rules-open-internet
Ending net alleged neutrality is ending comments by critics like me. Used to be that the mods here got rid of my claims like the Anglo-Americans spooks got rid of poor Jphn Lennon to make sure that looney Reagan got elected, now my inyernet provider Safari, a part of Comcast, freezes up this laptop when I get started in commenting like this.
It’s worse than the old USSR.
And thanks for the perceptive comment about my efforts, Glyane.
Yes, as Stu says, it’s an annual event, in which he provides detailed answers to every question/accusation from western journalists. I saw some of last year’s one on RT and it was a real eye opener.
Putin struggled badly on anti-doping and corruption, police brutality etc, within Russia, the whole spectacle was on RT today I watched some of it. If it was meant to convince that Putin/Russia, is a open and fair in my opinion it failed. Or to portray Putin as accountable again in my opinion, it appeared to give of more heat than light.
Still as the comment says, no western leader would do the same.
ROS: “Putin struggled badly on anti-doping ”
I didn’t see any of it, but reading the brief write-up in the Telegraph, doesn’t give me the impression that he struggled baldy or otherwise, on the shameful & politicised IOC decision, which is a total betrayal of the what the Olympic Games represent; they obviously need reminding that during the original Olympic Games, States that were actually at war with each other, entered in truces, so that they could take part.
“Mr Putin argued that Russia was the victim of double standards and said the government would bring lawsuits in civil courts to “defend the honour” of its athletes who had been banned for doping violations. “It’s strange, some people are getting an advantage, some are allowed to take these medications and others are not,” he said of the exceptions made for some athletes with pre-existing conditions.
Asked about whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Moscow anti-doping lab, Mr Putin said he had “psychological problems” and “worked for American special services”. Mr Rodchenkov and his sister had been guilty of doping themselves, he added.
“It’s hardly strange that he barked about the doping suspicions,” Mr Putin said. He said Russia’s international competitors were “having a hard time, so they’re putting pressure on us”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/14/vladimir-putin-kicks-election-campaign-annual-press-conference/
Agreed Macky other nations (trainers or athletes themselves) ARE doping, but so is Russia. Whataboutery when your are caught doesn’t really cut it now does it?
It doesn’t help any that the head of the Russian Olympic Committee, is supposed to have said that the whistleblower should be shot.
“Rodchenkov was head of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory between 2005 and 2015, and caused a sensation last year when after fleeing to the US he claimed he had helped dozens of Russian athletes in a state-sponsored doping system that ran “like a Swiss watch”.
“He fed athletes cocktails of banned drugs dissolved in whisky or vermouth.”
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/nov/17/russian-olympic-official-says-doping-whistleblower-should-be-executed
Finally whistleblowing and defecting is a two-way street, Snowden to Russia, god knows what the CIA/NSA want to do to him. Likewise Rodchenkov to the US, but we already know what Russia wants to do to him.
And don’t forget that Litvinenko was blackmailing former Italian PM and EU Commissioner Romani Prodi for being Russian spy UCHITEL, and British leaders like George Younger, Geoffrey Howe, and MI6 Directors for assassinating Swedish PM Olof Palme.
RoS, do you think any Western TV station would give our leaders the same type of questions? ?
JOML.
They already have Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon were grilled and judged in the British media for up to two years before the 2014 indyref. Even now Sturgeon is attacked in the British media on a daily basis.
At least Putin’s media isn’t hostile in the most part, he’s got it easy in my opinion.
As for Western leaders holding a similar Q&A to Putin, no I doubt they’d feel the need to legitimise and air their considerable misgivings, which like Putin’s can mostly be found online.
“which like Putin’s can mostly be found online”
You keep making these fact-free anti-Putin statements, yet whenever challenged to back-up any of your negative assumptions, you never do; the editors over at Off-Guardian keep pulling people up on this, and nobody has yet delivered any thing like reasonable anti-Putin evidence; the latest example of this is on this thread, where the commentator “candideschmyles” is eventually forced to concede, “to question my own initial assumptions.”.
https://off-guardian.org/2017/12/10/watch-the-president-a-profile-of-vladimir-putin-from-russian-tv/
Jeez oh Macky, it takes a special kind of person, who doesn’t recognise their own hypocrisy.
You post a link to the Telegraph newspaper, a known British government mouthpiece. I post a link to the Guardian, and you have a go at me.
Of course the Off-Guardian, with its handful of members from the US, Britain and Eastern Europe must be correct in their alternative assumptions on matters surrounding Putin.
There’s is unfetted access to Putin, whose been in power since 1999, because he’s a very nice and likable man.
@ROS, Seems I’m not allowed to pursue the irrationality of your anti-Putin stance, as my last comment just disappeared !
In short, you must be prepared to provide reasonable evidence for the many fact-free comments you make about anybody, not just Putin.
Macky.
I’ve never seen such blind loyalty, from Putin’s early days as leader, of course it can’t be true.
I’m sure the handful of Off-Guardian watchmen strewn across the globe have irrefutable evidence, to the contrary.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2000/06/01/russian-atrocities-chechnya-detailed
@ROS, What OffGuardian & I object to is making unsubstantiated fact-free personal slurs on Putin; even if the report from the dodgy HRW, is correct, how is this different than holding Trump responsible for the acquittal some weeks ago of US soldiers involved in a massacre in Iraq, or for holding Obama, or Bush, responsible for similar cases under their watches. Have you ever made personal attacks on anybody other than Putin on the grounds they are responsible for the light or non-existent repercussions for their soldiers when they have committed war crimes, because if you have I must have missed it !
Funny thing is when Putin critics are pressed, they always fall-back to the Chechen War, yet these same critics either don’t seem to know, or care that many more Chechen were killed under Yeltsin, than under Putin, which is why these same people never hold Yeltsin responsible, as they always do for Putin.
So I repeat, if you have incriminating evidence of personal wrong-doing by Putin, please bring it forward.
Of course Macky to you and the “Off-Gang, this is just anti-Putin propaganda.
Alexander Litvinenko was a former KGB agent who died three weeks after drinking a cup of tea at a London hotel that had been laced with deadly polonium-210.
A British inquiry found that Litvinenko was poisoned by FSB agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, who were acting on orders that had “probably approved by Mr Patrushev and also by President Putin.”
Litvinenko was very critical of Putin, accusing him of, among other things, blowing up an apartment block and ordering the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist who was critical of Putin. In her book “Putin’s Russia,” she accused Putin of turning his country into a police state. She was murdered by contract killers who shot her at point blank range in the lift outside her flat.
Five men were convicted of her murder, but the judge found that it was a contract killing, with $150,000 paid by “a person unknown.”
Anna Politkovskaya
Natalia Estemirova
Natalia Estemirova was a journalist who sometimes worked with Politkovskaya.
She specialised in uncovering human-rights abuses carried out by the Russian state in Chechnya.
She was abducted from outside her home and later found in nearby woodland with gunshot wounds to her head. No one has been convicted of her murder.
Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova
Human-rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov represented Politkovskaya and other journalists who had been critical of Putin.
He was shot by a masked gunman near the Kremlin. Journalist Anastasia Baburova, who was walking with him, was also shot when she tried to help him.
Boris Nemtsov
Boris Nemtsov was a former deputy prime minister of Russia under Boris Yeltsin who went on to become a big critic of Putin — accusing him of being in the pay of oligarchs.
He was shot four times in the back just yards from the Kremlin as he walked home from a restaurant. Despite Putin taking “personal control” of the investigation into Nemtsov’s murder, the killer has not been found.
Boris Berezovsky
Boris Berezovsky was a Russian oligarch who fled to Britain after he fell out with Putin. During his exile he threatened to bring down Putin by force. He was found dead at his Berkshire home in March 2013 in an apparent suicide, although an inquest into his death recorded an open verdict.
Berezovsky was found dead inside a locked bathroom with a ligature around his neck. The coroner couldn’t explain how he had died.
The British police had on several occasions investigated alleged assassination attempts against him.
Paul Klebnikov
Paul Klebnikov was the chief editor of the Russian edition of Forbes. He had written about corruption and dug into the lives of wealthy Russians.
He was killed in a drive-by shooting in an apparent contract killing.
Sergei Yushenkov
Sergei Yushenkov was a Russian politician who was attempting to prove the Russian state was behind the bombing of an apartment block.
He was killed in an assassination by a single shot to the chest just hours after his political organisation, Liberal Russia, had been recognised by the Justice Ministry as a party.
@ROS, yes a list of murders, but nevermind the smoking gun, where is the strong circumstantial evidence that indicates that Putin was personally behind any of these ? As usual, just unsubstantiated assumptions & speculations; I could just as easily speculate that a lot of murders, especially of journalists maybe linked to the various Russian mafias. whose did not appreciate their activities being reported on, or how about somebody was behind bumping off Putin opponents to seem like he must be doing it ? Yes, I can’t prove anything, and neither can you, the difference is I know that I don’t know, yet you seem so certain that you do !
“Politkovskaja was a journalist who was critical of Putin. In her book “Putin’s Russia,” she accused Putin of turning his country into a police state.”
Bearing in mind that before then Yeltsin’s Russia was a mafia state, would you say that was an improvement ROS?
Litvinenko was being paid £10,000 a month by MI6 to say negative things about Putin. He claimed Putin is a paedophile FFS. Berzesorky killed himself are losing his farcical legal action against Abramovich as he was soon going to run out of money.
The promotion of the conspiracy theory that the Russian government is responsible for the Apartment Bombings comes directly from the CIA via right wing think tanks. When Americans complain about Russians interfering with their election they should be asked why their government is propagating this lie.
@Stu, funny you mentioned Litvinenko, as this just appeared on the OffGuardian site;
https://off-guardian.org/2017/12/12/the-litvinenko-inquiry-a-legal-critique-and-alternative-view/
RoS, I had all the comments referring to RT as being the Kremlin’s propaganda machine in mind when I posted. I know there’s an element of truth there but no worse than Teresa May got away with at the last election, where the various UK stations allowed their questions to be vetted and their microphone be controlled if they went off script…
Meanwhile, Sturgeon and Salmond will never get a fair crack of the whip from the same media.
” their microphone be controlled if they went off script…”
You mean, the strong and stable mantra was pre-recorded and played whenever she was starting to put her foot in it, which was, most of the time in the election interviews?
JOML.
I stand up for Putin in matters such as the US and its minions trying to regime change, such as in Syria. Who are they to topple governments and lay waste to countries.
However I also have no illusions that Putin domestically has closed down opponents in many ways I think there’s one radio station that isn’t pro-Putin the media, RT, Sputnik etc are all pro-Putin, just like the BBC, is pro-British government.
Racism is also big problem in Russia, in my opinion there are no “good guys” governments in power in say China, Russia, Britain, the US, France etc, there’s only positive or negative actions from theses and many other governments.
In short levels of complicity.
Anyone in Scotland earning less than £33 000 per annum will be paying less tax. Yet Sky News persist in saying everyone over £24 000 will be paying more.
Either in their zeal to put out a knock the SNP story they haven’t scrutinised the budget details properly or else they know fine well but want to spread the falsehood for a few hours in the knowledge that not everyone who saw their false story will see the revision.
They have at least corrected their reference to the SNP government in their sub-heading from Holywood to Holyrood. Until next time.
So the FCC, has voted down net neutrality, they’ve finally found a way of clamping down on free speech on the web. The open internet will from now on, become a thing of the past.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/14/net-neutrality-fcc-rules-open-internet
RoS
Since I became aware of various Salafist individuals monitoring my internet use, which is haram in Islam, as is reporting it to others, I have always made a point of looking at what would most break their rules. it gives me a small childish pleasure that people who think themselves my betters are huffing and puffing with rage, thinking that they are controlling me , when I am controlling them and making them look fools.
Government and corporations are exceedingly stupid. That’s why the people that work for them get a daily brown-nose.
Giyane, I think you’re missing the point of my above comment, if the abolition of net neutrality isn’t repealed, then smaller blogs and websites will find themselves at the back of the queue and cost more to run.
Some of these sites often put up important info, so in essence the FCC’s decision will affect our access to information, and or freedom of speech, it’s a direct attack on our ability to counter establishments/regimes around the globe.
Sorry, I wasn’t addressing your point. I find my search engine worse than useless as it is. It has become more an more rubbish. The more they find out what you want to find out about, the less they give.
Mr. Murray, has the CIA, FBI or anyone else in the US government questioned you regarding your part in the Wikileaks scandal?
It seems that they have been studiously avoiding you.
Funny you should ask that;
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48390.htm
I really can’t see Emily Thornberry being Foreign Minister when Labour get into power;
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/labours-foreign-spokesperson-emily-thornberry-endorses-israeli-racism
I agree but sadly Corbyn has been snookered.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/13/jeremy-corbyn-does-not-support-boycott-of-israel-bds-movement
Corbyn cannot afford another snake in the grass Hillary Benn type undermining; he has the support of the overwhelming majority of Labour members, so there will be a massive internal civil war within the Labour Party if the Right Wing keeps pushing him into corners on unpopular policies, and the result will be their leaving, either voluntary or otherwise.
Good speech by JC that I must have missed if was ever reported in the MSM;
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/12/15/the-greatest-threats-to-our-common-humanity/
@Craig
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5181677/Corbyn-heckled-Chanukah-party.html
Poor old Jeremy, incurring the wrath of a certain religious sect.
The word ‘liar’ being bandied about carelessly. Maybe you know of some lawyers who will willingly and pro bono take on a libel case for him!
Nope, didn’t think so ..
Corbyn’s announcement that he doesn’t support BDS was tactically unsound. It announces that he is worried by the pro-Is*** l propagandists (representative of a vanishingly small section of Britons), and that he is prepared to accommodate them. He would do worse than to read this:
https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/dane_geld.html
And take the position that we represent Britain, not Isr***l, and Israel sucks. If you can’t get on with that, you have the option of joining the Tories instead. (The only times I have heard the term ‘J**-boy’ used in public, the speakers were Daily Mail-reading Tories, but presumably if you don’t say anything nasty about Is***l, that’s fine)
There’s altogether too much pandering to diversity these days. And altogether too many people with dual allegiances. A house that is divided itself cannot stand.
While this is pure antiba’alic propaganda, it’s worth bearing in mind.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+12%3A22-28&version=NKJV
…divided against itself. Need coffee.
This is hardly surprising;
“The 29,000 babies born each year in the US whose mothers live within 1 km of a fracking site are at risk of serious adverse health effects, likely due to the pollution produced by the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) technology, claims a new massive study”
https://www.rt.com/usa/413251-fracking-newborns-health-weight/
Macky
December 14, 2017 at 21:50
” @ROS, What OffGuardian & I object to is making unsubstantiated fact-free personal slurs on Putin; even if the report from the dodgy HRW, is correct, how is this different than holding Trump responsible for the acquittal some weeks ago of US soldiers involved in a massacre in Iraq, or for holding Obama, or Bush, responsible for similar cases under their watches ”
We lost Reply in that discussion so it seems better to start over down here.
Islam sees any absolute difference between the party/ies that started violence and the party/ies that acted in response with violence. So does UK Law. What Henry Kissinger called ” covert operations ” are taken by our side, USUKIS, the Zionist side of the war against Islam, are taken to be rightful and legitimate. The Gospels and the Qur’an make it clear that the covert operations against the true religion of Islam, either manifested by Jesus pbuh or our prophet SAW or any other true prophet of Islam.
The Gospels are not the original Injeel, but they document a comment by Paul that he refused to accept that Judaism was finished. Looking back through 2000 years of history, why would he make that comment if that was not what was being claimed by Christians at the time? The Qur’an abrogates the Bible as a source for Divine guidance. I am using it as historical evidence only. The evidence is compelling, that neither the “overt ” nor the ” covert ” operations of the previous, adulterated creeds’ followers are legitimate against the truth of Islam.
It’s absolutely clear in the Qur’an that it is forbidden to confederate with the illegitimate operations of those rejected modifications to Islam. It was totally wrong of those Muslims who were persecuted under the Soviets to confederate with the West against Russia. USUKIS hegemony, which this country sees as legitimate, is totally illegitimate in the eyes of Islam.
I know, because I have been told by one of them, that Islamists reject my argument, which means they reject the teachings of Islam. To them, they have to confederate with USUKIS against Russian Imperialism, whether in Chechnya or more recently in Syria. This is what we mean by Political Islam, as opposed to those who follow the teachings of the Qur’an. What follows, if you take your enemies as friends, as in Chechnya or Libya or Syria etc, is that your enemies cheat you and you are left with a blood-bath.
The Zionists then use that blood-bath to demonstrate the uncivilised nature of Islam to its own populations. and this in turn justifies increasing violence against Muslims. Allah is categoric about not turning to the enemies of Islam for assistance. And it seems as though Allah knows what will happen if you do, which is not surprising because He is All-knowing and All-wise. I have repeated many times that the main justification for slaughter that the Islamists use is to kill the confederates with the enemies of Islam, i.e. those who work with dictators like Assad. But they are themselves confederating with USUKIS, and USUKIS were previously working with Assad to rendition torture Muslims!
UK politicians talk about not being able to end Islamic State because it is a philosophy and you can’t kill a philosophy. What they don’t tell you is that it is a philosophy of their own creation, and it is very hard to kill it but not impossible. Survivors of chemical brain-washing by the USUKIS rendition program will not be able to change unfortunately. I was brain-washed by USUKIS doctors chemically to learn to accept my wife’s adultery. It worked: my brain is mashed by their chemical brain-washing.
The rendition torture and chemical brain-washing is still going on. The Kuffar think they are on a great game, changing the mindset of Muslims in covert prisons and blaming the torturees for the resultant violence to justify more of the same.
Giyane
Some of the great benefits resulting from The Enlightenment were rationalism, scientific analysis and tolerance. Because religion is a system of beliefs would you consider that it should be completely disengaged from politics and governance. Thereby we can all share equality as human beings whilst those of us who wish, can enjoy their religious beliefs in private.
SA
Sorry I was busy today. This word politics, which now means the art of lying and deceiving not only other countries but also your own population, never used to have this meaning. It used to mean human endeavour for the benefit of humanity and the worship of God and that was very much the business of religion. There is no place whatsoever for lying in Islam except for three occasions.1/ Telling your wife she’s beautiful which is true because Allah says He made all humans in a beautiful form. 2/ Making peace between quarrelling parties because of a missed understanding 3/ In the heat of battle to lead the enemy astray.
Heat of battle in my opinion does not include getting a main stream Zionist media outlet like the BBC to film actors pretending to have been chemically poisoned. That would seem to me to be lying in the very long calculation. Who is there except the laws of Allah to defend the absolute rights of human beings. Not apparently the Islamists, not the Israelis, not the US or UK. France and Germany have criminal records. Where are you going to find justice except in Islam? Which does not include the false religion of Islamism created by the enemies of Islam in order to disgrace the name of Islam..
@Giyane & SA, The role of religion for religious people is I think much misunderstood; I think I’m correct in stating that all the main religions emphasize that our earthly mortal life is a transitory preparation for heavenly immortal life, and that a person’s conduct can have adverse consequences for the afterlife. Therefore for believers, there is no higher authority to obey, other than that of their God. This inevitable brings them into conflict with the societies in which they find themselves living in, which seeks impose its own laws & standards of behaviour, which often go against the perceived teachings of their religions. These problems have increasing exacerbated as Religion has lost its central position in Society, as recently best illustrated by the resignation of Tim Farron as Leader of the Liberal Party who stated he could no longer carried on as doing so was incompatible with his Faith.
The problem is that trying to secularize Society, as the Russian Communists tried & failed to do, and as Western countries are still trying to do, with France leading the way with their “laïcité , is that is doesn’t work, for two very good reasons: Devote religious people will always defy the State if it’s in conflict with their Faith, because as mentioned above their mortal life here is just preparation for their heavenly immortal life, and secondly just like Man is a social & political animal, he is foremost a religious animal; people have a need to believe in something, be it God, a Force, being Righteous & Just, etc We need it to cope with the unknowable mystery of the Human Condition. Yes there are millions of self-acclaimed Atheists, but even they have moral principles with which they conduct their lives accordingly, others may say that these principles are just substitutes for religions, and others may say that God is behind these principles.
Macky
Thank you for accurately summarising my own conclusions. As to socialism, I realised when I had some problems in my own life that the problems were merely symptoms of a spiritual crisis, and therefore it would be ridiculous, in regard to helping other people, to apply secular solutions. God stresses out those who ignore Him. And He tells us in the Qur’an that by no means does He make any wrong on His Creation, just to rein them in to the correct belief that he is One and in control over everything.
Former NSA employee and now a member of Veteran Intelligent Professionals for Sanity, Bill Binney, interviewed on the current anti-Russian hysteria promoted by US politicians and in the mainstream US media.
27 minute video: https://youtu.be/Sv0-Lnv0d0k
I believe Craig is a friend of Bill Binney.
Sounds like the kind of leaker CM would know and like, one who resigned after failing to make NSA illegal spying more effective with the Thin Thread program rather than Trailblazer.
Difficulties in interpretation
“Not one inch” might seem on the surface quite clearcut and to the Russians apparently meant pretty mutch what your average Westerner would probably also take it to mean. However, to the CIA/MI6 types, Pentagon and NATO war planners, and Western politicians it apparently means: ‘”On your front doorstep,” Mikhail and Vladimir’. Too bad for the Russians that at the time of the USSR’s collapse they were using incompetent interpreters apparently not sufficiently skilled in translating all the subtleties of the English language into Russian for Gorbachev and his staff.
Newly-Declassified Documents Show Western Leaders Promised Gorbachev that NATO Would Not Move “One Inch Closer” to Russia
The U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union at the time it broke up and many other experts have said that the West promised Gorbachev that – if the USSR allowed German re-unification – NATO wouldn’t move “one inch closer” to Russia.
While Western leaders have long denied the promise, newly-declassified documents now prove this.
The National Security Archive at George Washington University reported Tuesday:
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2017/12/70372.html
With liars, just add a not and you get an approximate truth. Russian translators should remember to add the negative when translating from USUKIS into Russian. It is mandatory with liars or you will get problems in understanding. Right now NATO is using its proxy Saudi Arabia to poke China by its trained jihadists attacking Myanmar. Not not one inch = as many inches as we like. Easy to understand. Gorbachev understood exactly what USUKIS ” not one inch ” was intended to mean.
Similarly with Mrs May’s ” hard ” brexit. Not hard = Soft. It’s so easy once you get the hang.