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When the CIA was trying to frustrate democracy in Central America, they used Moslem money, from the Saudis. (Cached)
In Indonesia, money from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf has been financing mosques and preachers demanding a 'purer' form of Islam. (Indonesian Democracy’s Enemy Within)
Beginning in the 1970s, "activists linked to the Saudi-sponsored Islamic World League began indoctrinating small groups at the prestigious Bandung Institute of Technology with Brotherhood materials". (Indonesian Democracy’s Enemy Within)
In 1998, there was the possibility that Indonesia would change its government and become a democracy like Malaysia, where there is no miserable poverty.
Unfortunately, Indonesia's American-trained military hijacked the 1998 protest movement.
The May 1998 riots which toppled Suharto were organised by the military; certain Chinese people were made the scapegoats for all of Indonesia's problems; most of the old elite, consisting of generals, Chinese-Indonesian businessmen, religious leaders and politicians, remained in power; certain factions within the elite lost out.
Now sections of the elite are using Islam to frustrate democracy.
Indonesia's Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) 'is Indonesia's version of the Muslim Brotherhood'. (Playing with Fire in Indonesia). It does not support Sharia law but supports 'Moslem values'.
"According to CIA agent Miles Copeland... the CIA began to cooperate with the Muslim Brotherhood... This signalled the beginning of an alliance between the traditional regimes and mass Islamic movements against Nasser and other secular forces." (aangirfan: The use of the Muslim Brotherhood by MI6 and the CIA in ...)
In the 2004 national elections, the PKS won 45 out of 550 seats in the Indonesian lower house (DPR). They also got 3 seats in the cabinet. (Playing with Fire in Indonesia)
At the local level, the PKS has won 88 out of 149 elections.
In April 2008, PKS candidates won the Governorships of West Java and North Sumatra.
West Java has a population of 40 million people and is home to Jakarta.
Why do poor Indonesians vote for the PKS? They are fed up with "corruption, poor public services, poverty, and the perceived lack of real political choice." (Playing with Fire in Indonesia)
The PKS may form an alliance with Indonesia's president Yudhoyono, a former Suharto general. Alternatively, the PKS might form an alliance with Suharto's old party called Golkar, the largest party in parliament; or with one of the Moslem parties such as the PPP or PAN.
Reportedly, the "founding manifesto" of the Justice Party that went on to become the PKS, called for the creation of an Islamic caliphate. (Indonesian Democracy’s Enemy Within)
1. Vladimir Nabokov found boys interesting, and there are gay characters in almost all of his 17 novels.
Vladimir came from a ‘liberal’ family which contained a number of ‘gay’ characters.
When Vladimir occasionally used ‘homophobic slurs’ this did not neccessarily mean that he was not fond of young males.
With Nabokov things are not always what they seem.
2. Some quotes from Nabokov’s novel ‘Pale Fire’:
"When he was a dark strong lad of thirteen ... he had several dear playmates but none could compete with Oleg, Duke of Rahl. In those days growing boys of high-born families wore on festive occasions ... sleeveless jerseys, white anklesocks with black buckle shoes, and very tight, very short shorts called hotinguens ...
"Both lads were handsome, long-legged specimens of Varangian boyhood... Oleg ... stripped and shiny in the mist of the bath house, his bold virilia...
"Oleg’s last visit, when for the first time the two boys had been allowed to share the same bed, and the tingle of their misbehavior...
"A secret passage... his soft blond locks ...his golden brows ... the downy warmth of that crimson ear ... dark passageways ... stealthy intrusion ... blind pokings ... penetrations ...dusky odor ...
"Oleg walked in front : his shapely buttocks encased in tight indigo cotton moved alertly, and his own erect radiance, rather than his flambeau, seemed to illume with leaps of light the low ceiling and crowding walls. Behind him the young Prince’s electric torch played on the ground and gave a coating of flower to the back of Oleg’s bare thighs... smooth entrance ...
"You’re all chalky behind," said the young Prince ... Both were in a manly state and moaning like doves...
"He inhaled the hair oil of the pretty page who had bent to brush a rose petal off the footstool...
"The King waded into the damp ...its odor, its lacy resilience, and the mixture of soft growth and steep ground...a bare kneed mountain lad like a tawny angel...
"The boy-handsome tousle-haired girlfriend...
"Some of his predecessors, rough alderkings who burned for boys...
"He saw nineteen-year-old Disa ..She had come in male dress, as a Tirolese boy...
"Gordon ... A slender but strong-looking lad of fourteen or fifteen dyed a nectarine hue by the sun. He had nothing on save a leopard-spotted loincloth... The graceful boy wreathed about the loins with ivy...
"The boy wiped his wet hands on his black bathing trunks... The boy striking his flanks clothed in white tennis shorts... The young woodwose had closed his eyes and was stretched out supine on the pool’s marble margin; his Tarzan brief had ben cast aside on the turf..."
3. In the 1950s Nabokov wrote Lolita. For six months it was the number one bestseller in America.
Nabokov liked girls, so long as they looked like boys. Lolita was the girl with the ‘puerile hips’, the girl wearing ‘shorts’.
4. A quote from Timon of Athens:
The moon's an arrant thief
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.
5. With Nabokov things are not always what they seem.
In Pale Fire, the commentator appears to be Charles Kinbote. But, Nabokov reveals in his diary that the commentator is Prof. Vseslav Botkin, a Russian and an academic. Nabokov was Russian and an academic.
According to Nabokov, in Pale Fire :
"reality is neither the subject nor the object of true art which creates its own special reality having nothing to do with the average ‘reality’ perceived by the communal eye."
Vladimir Nabokov's 1962 novel, Pale Fire, is about things not being as simple as they first appear.
Pale Fire, Kinbote, Zembla, Charles II, and Gradus, may be the elaborate creation of the Russian academic.
"As the Egyptian regime is confronted by an unprecedented series of strikes, demonstrations, and riots, an extremely timely new book argues that the country is about to witness a popular revolution." -New Book: Egypt on the Brink of a Revolution
"Dee says she was beaten, tied up, drugged and raped for four days in a pitch-black cellar of the notoriousJersey care home Haut de la Garenne... Dee ended up in the grim institution... after a troubled childhood in Portsmouth. Her father, a Royal Navy engineer, sexually abused her from the age of 12." - Naked, drugged, tortured, raped over and over again for 4 days ...
Segev tells us about historian Shlomo Zand of Tel Aviv University.
Zand has written "When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?" - published by Resling in Hebrew.
According to Zand:
1. There never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion.
2. The exile of the Jews never happened.
The Romans did not generally exile whole nations; most of the Jews were permitted to remain in the country; the number of those who left the country was at most tens of thousands.
3. Most of the Old Testament Bible stories about the Jewish people, including the exodus from Egypt and the conquest under Joshua, are fiction and myth.
4. When the Arabs conquered this area, many of the Jews converted to Islam.
The Palestinian Arabs probably have Jewish origins.
David Ben-Gurion, and others, believed this.
5. There are millions of Jews in the world.
In 1914, in Israel-Palestine, there were 731,000 Arabs but only 60,000 Jews. The Jews were only 7% of the population.
Why, in 1914, were most Jews living in places like Europe and America?
Zand says Jews emigrated from Israel of their own free will.
And many people, outside Israel-Palestine, converted to the Jewish religion.
According to Zand, the Jews in Spain were originally Arabs and Christians who converted to the Jewish religion.
People from the Khazar Kingdom in the Caucasus converted to the Jewish religion and became the first Jews of Ashkenaz (Germany).
6. Zand believes that Israel should be a "state of all its citizens" - Jews, Arabs and others.
Prior to World War I, there were several great empires and prospective empires, usually in competition with each other.
These empires and prospective empires included the British, the German, the American, the Austrian, the Russian, the Turkish, the French and the Zionist ( Zionism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).
Some people might add the empires of the arms dealers and bankers.
World War I was a disaster. It led to communism in Russia; it led to fascism in many parts of Europe.
Certain people were pleased to see the weakening of the old empires such as the Turkish; and that led on to problems such as Palestine.
World War II seemed to be mainly about which empire would control Eastern Europe and which empire would control the Pacific; some historians would also refer to the Middle East and other areas of the world.
After World War II had ended, the USA was the major power in the Pacific, Russia controlled Eastern Europe, the British Empire was in a state of collapse, and the state of Israel came into being.
Peter Hitchens, in UK's The Mail on Sunday, 19 April 2008, wrote about World War II.
Hitchens asks: "how can we be sure that Churchill's war was a good war?"
Hitchens refers to two books:
1. Patrick Buchanan's Churchill, Hitler And The Unnecessary War
2. Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke.
In relation to Baker, Hitchens writes: "many of the facts here, especially about Winston Churchill and Britain's early enthusiasm for bombing civilian targets, badly upset the standard view."
Was World War II fought to save the Jews from Hitler? According to Hitchens: "No facts support this fond belief. If the war saved any Jews, it was by accident."
The start of the war halted the safe transport of Jews out of Germany.
Hitchens quotes Churchill's description of Hitler in 1937: "A highly competent, cool, well informed functionary with an agreeable manner, a disarming smile, and few have been unaffected by a subtle personal magnetism."
According to Hitchens, Buchanan sees Churchill 'as a man who loved war for its own sake, and preferred it to peace'.
According to Buchanan, the First and Second World Wars are really one conflict. Who was going to control countries such as Iraq or Poland or Palestine or India?
One of the main results of World War I was that Britain was overtaken by the USA.
Did Britain save Poland? One of the results of World War II was that Russia, and not Germany, controlled Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe.
After World War II, Britain lost its Empire, many of its best export markets, what was left of its naval supremacy, and most of its national wealth - "gleefully stripped from us by Roosevelt in return for Lend-Lease supplies".
According to Hitchens: "The country most interested in dismantling our Empire was the USA. Hitler never built a surface navy truly capable of challenging ours."
During World war II, the most evil dictator, Joseph Stalin, 'became our honoured ally, supplied with British weapons, fawned on by our Press and politicians, including Churchill himself'. By Christmas 1940, Stalin had in fact murdered many more people than Hitler."
The richest 1% of humans own 40% of the planet's wealth. Who are these people? - Billion-dollar babies Top 7 exporters 4 are from Europe; 2 are from from Asia; Britain does not appear in the list. Merchandise exports 2007 (Source WTO)
1. Germany 2. China 3. USA 4. Japan 5. France 6. Netherlands 7. Italy
"Lord Kalms, .... accused William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, of behaving like an 'ignorant armchair critic' for criticising Israeli attacks on Lebanese army units and public buildings, and the high civilian death toll. He said that Mr Hague’s remarks were not just unhelpful, they were 'downright dangerous'." - Helicopters, money and Peerages
"The Bronfmans are the “godfathers” behind the political career of John McCain.
"In 1976 a crusading Phoenix reporter, Don Bolles, was murdered by a car bomb after writing a series of stories exposing the organized crime connections of a wide-ranging number of well-known figures in Arizona, including one Jim Hensley.
"Five years later “Honest John” McCain arrived in Arizona as the new husband of Hensley’s daughter, Cindy. “From the moment McCain landed in Phoenix,” according to Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity, “the Hensleys were key sponsors of his political career.” But the people behind the Hensley fortune are even more controversial.
"McCain’s late father-in-law was the owner of the biggest Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship in Arizona—one of the largest beer distributors in the nation. But the mainstream media has had nothing to say about the origins of the Hensley fortune that financed McCain’s rise to power. The Hensley fortune is a regional offshoot of the big-time bootlegging and rackets empire of the Bronfman dynasty.
"McCain’s father-in-law got his start as a top henchman for Kemper Marley, who, for 40 years until his death in 1990 at age 84, was the undisputed behind-the-scenes political boss of Arizona. But Marley was much more than a machine politician.
"The ascent of the cost of rice to $24 from $10 per hundredweight over the past year tracks the declining value of the American dollar. The link between the declining parity of the US unit and the rising price of commodities, including oil as well as rice and other wares, is indisputable. China has bid aggressively for rice all year, and last week banned rice exports, along with Vietnam and several other producers." - Rice, death and the dollar
"Asians can start by blaming themselves for the present mess in which their farmers remain poor, their poorest struggle to pay for basics such as rice, and their governments continue to pay economic allegiance to the has-been powers of America and Europe." - Bankrupt policies,empty stomachs
According to the News Of The World, one of the Madams Laidlaw does business with is called Sara. She helps run London escort agency Role Models.
"Sara has a string of international models plus well-known British actresses and TV presenters on her books, secretly working as part-time escorts," writes The News Of The World."
Sara said Laidlaw "liked her to send a selection of men over to see him".
Laidlaw was one of the donors to the Conservative Party who were questioned by police investigating 'cash for peerages" claims.
Reportedly, Laidlaw and wife Christine have a £4million vineyard near St Tropez, a £3million apartment in Monte Carlo, a £10 million estate near Cape Town, South Africa, a £2million home in London's Eaton Square, a Scottish mansion called The Royal Palace, and a £14million stately home in Hampshire.
Treaty of Union
2. James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry was very influential in bringing about the Treaty of Union in 1707.
The same evening the 2nd Duke was signing the Act of Union, his son, the Earl of Drumlanrig, is said to have roasted a servant boy on a spit in an oven in the kitchens of his house in Edinburgh. (CachedCached)
In 2007, Lord Carloway asked his fellow judges to investigate top Scottish defence solicitor Aamer Anwar after Anwar criticised the conviction of Mohammed Atif Siddique.
Anwar described some of the evidence against Siddique as "farcical" and said the trial had been conducted in an atmosphere of intolerance and repression against Muslims. The conviction was a "tragedy for justice and for freedom of speech." ( Judge calls for trial of terror case lawyer UK news The Guardian )
At Siddique's trial, computer expert Michael Dickson gave evidence about Siddique's laptop computer.
"The reason Dickson was upset has been erased from this version of the story, but his testimony pointed out that the incriminating videos found on the laptop all had creation dates LATER than the time the laptop was confiscated from the suspect!
"He told the court: 'An initial examination of this system revealed it was last activated between approximately 2219 BST and 2330 BST on 5 April 2006. This immediately struck us as being unusual as we were informed that the computer had been seized from the accused's possession at about 2000 BST the same date.'
"Mr Dickson said further examination revealed that the times and dates associated with more than 200 files on the system had been updated between these times."
Siddique was found guilty of providing training material on bomb-making and spreading terrorist propaganda on websites. He was given 8 years in jail. Anwar said Siddique was merely doing "what millions of young people do every day, looking for answers on the internet".
"The most celebrated names in the English legal establishment have savaged the Scottish justice system for undermining human rights and freedom of speech through threats to prosecute the Scottish lawyer Aamer Anwar for contempt of court in the wake of a terror trial."
Anwar faces being charged with contempt.
Gareth Peirce, who defended the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four, said the treatment of Anwar went against United Nations conventions which guarantee the independence of lawyers. (Legal luminaries defend Aamer Anwar)
Imran Khan, the London solicitor who acted for the family of Stephen Lawrence, said: "There should be no attempt to silence lawyers. If lawyers can't speak out then one of the bedrocks of justice - the right to highlight a miscarriage of justice - just goes. I could never anticipate such a thing happening in England. From across the border, this all seems bizarre. I hope common sense prevails."
Michael Mansfield, one of the top five QCs in England, said: "We need independent strong lawyers who will speak out."
Baroness Helena Kennedy said: "This is exactly the sort of thing a young lawyer does when they are describing what their client felt. To take it to the stage of contempt of court is excessive."
The Duke of Buccleuch and Prince George, Duke of Kent, were allegedly involved in a plot with Rudolf Hess and MI6.
In 1941 there was a large 'peace party' in Britain which allegedly included many aristocrats such as the Duke of Buccleuch, many MPs, many members of the security services and members of the Royal Family.
The 'peace party' wanted to do a deal with Hitler. Some members of the 'peace party' admired the Nazis; some did not. Prince George, Duke of Kent, was reportedly a member of the group that wanted peace.
Lynn Picknett writes: "in 1942 the Duke of Kent was acting as political advisor for George VI... It wasn’t so much that he was pro-Nazi or sucking up to Hitler; he was simply pro-peace.'
Double Standards: The Rudolf Hess Cover-up' by Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince & Stephen Prior argues that:
1. Hess flew to Scotland in 1941 with Hitler's blessing.
2. Hess was to meet with a faction of British royalty and the aristocracy who wanted to arrange peace between Britain and Nazi Germany.
Hess is reported to have landed at the Duke of Hamilton's home at Dungavel House.
According to one account, 'two Czech Hurricane pilots who intercepted a lone Messerschmitt heading towards the'Firth of Clyde on the evening of May 10 were told not to attack it...
'A member of the Womens Auxiliary air Force, stationed that night at Dungavel House, remembers the landing lights on the Duke's private airstrip being on, shortly before Hess's plane crashed, despite blackout regulations.'
The Duke of Kent was said to have been at Dungavel, waiting for Hess. The Duke of Kent was involved in a motoring accident with a coal lorry the next morning not far from Dungavel House. His passenger was the Duke of Buccleuch, 'well known for his anti-war, pro-German sentiments prior to 1939'.
According to 'Double Standards: The Rudolf Hess Cover-Up':
1. Churchill and his faction got to Hess first when his plane landed and locked him up, even though Hess had been guaranteed safe passage by King George VI.
2. It is possible that the Duke of Kent rescued Hess and tried to fly to Sweden to continue secret peace negotiations.
3. The Duke's plane crashed approximately two miles from where Hess was kept on the shores of Loch More. Hess may have died in the plane crash. The plane crash may not have been accidental.To many members of the 'peace party', the real enemy was the Soviet Union. They wanted Hitler to wage war on Stalin.
The Duke of Buccleuch was put under virtual "house arrest" for the remainder of the war.
Clive Prince writes: 'Churchill was in a very, very insecure position politically in May 1941. In fact, three days before Hess arrived, there had been a vote of no-confidence in Churchill. He didn’t have the support of the aristocracy or the support of MI6 and the King. But the Hess affair basically gave Churchill the opportunity to blackmail his opponents who were involved with the Hess flight into supporting him...
"He also used the Hess flight to ensure that Hitler went ahead with his attack on Russia six weeks after Hess arrived...."
"We’re certain that MI6 was totally involved in the Hess affair - they weren’t luring him over: they were inviting him over. This was because MI6 were supportive of the idea of ending the War with Germany. MI6 saw the real enemy as being Russia. Sir Stuart Menzies - the head of MI6 - advised Churchill to stay out of things and let the Nazis and the Russians get on with it.."
A new biography of Oscar Wilde claims that Wilde's trial and imprisonment was a cover up for a gay affair between the Prime Minister, the Earl of Rosebery, and Viscount Drumlanrig.
The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde, by Neil McKenna, suggests that the prime minister, the Earl of Rosebery, had a gay relationship for over two years with Viscount Drumlanrig, the older brother of Wilde’s own lover, Lord Alfred Douglas.
McKenna told the Sunday Times that, “Oscar was sacrificed to save Rosebery and the Liberals.”
The book says that the Marquess of Queensbury, the father of Drumlanrig and Douglas, was so furious that both his sons were gay that he threatened to reveal the PM’s own homosexuality.
Wilde’s trial was rushed through in order to “buy off” Queensbury and save the PM’s reputation, although Queensbury later called him “a Jew nancy boy” and “that bloody bugger”.
The book also suggests that the relationship between Rosebery and Drumlanrig was instrumental to Drumlanrig being made the PM`s private secretary and eventually a Lord.
The Sunday Times quotes Philip Hoare, who has himself written a biography on Wilde, as saying that McKenna’s theory was realistic, as he believed Wilde had been a political pawn. “The Liberals saw Wilde, as it were, taking all this decadence to the suburbs. They needed to stop it.” It also mentions Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland opinion that “Queensbury had lost one son to this ‘unmentionable vice’ and didn’t want another lost.”
On the morning of 11 September 2001, Shafiq bin Laden was in Washington DC for an investors' meeting of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, linked to George W Bush and family.
(April 26 2008) In a speech in London, Former Malaysian prime minister Dr Mahathir has called for an international tribunal to try Bush, Blair and John Howard for war crimes in connection with the war in Iraq.
"Don't forget to include in your tribunal, the appointments of Israeli and Jewish advisors to posts in the George W. Bush White House and Executive Branch administration many of which were instrumental in the planning stages of the Iraqi invasion and occupation, a planning that existed prior to September 11, 2001.
"The war crimes tribunal should include, but not limited to: Ari Fleischer, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Elliot Abrams, Dov Zekheim, Richard Haass, Henry Kissinger, James Schlesinger, Robert Zoellick, Marc Grossman, Robert Satloff, Mel Sembler, Joshua Bolten, Steve GoldsmithDaniel Saul, Adam Goldman, Joseph Gildenhorn, Christopher Gersten, Mark Weinberger, Samuel Bodman, Bonnie Cohen, Ruth Davis, Lincoln Bloomfield.
"This is only a partial list of the Zionists in the Bush Administration. Bush, Howard and Blair are just sacrificial scapegoats whose role it is to deflect attention from the true mover's and shaker's behind the travesty in Iraq." - Readers' Comments Call to charge Howard with war crimes
A Swiss firm found prion proteins in homogenized and pasteurized milk that's being sold in supermarkets. - Bad Mad Cow Week
"Pennsylvania exit polls - The difference between five percent and ten percent is the difference between Hillary having to drop out and Hillary staying in to help McCain win in November" - permanent link
"Egypt could become a leading gold producer within the next decade following the discovery of large reserves in the country's Eastern Desert, the Le Progres Egyptian newspaper said Monday. 'With annual output of over 30 tons of gold, sales could exceed revenues from tourism, agriculture and even oil,' the newspaper quoted the country's Oil and Mineral Resources Ministry as saying. Proven reserves at the Wadi Hudain deposit alone exceed 50 million ounces, worth around $50 billion. - Egypt Could Become Major Gold Producer in Next Decade
"The British withdrawal of its forces from Basra and the handing over of security in southern Iraq to Iraqi security forces reflectstwo British predictions for the future. On the one hand, that the defeat of US-led coalition forces is a foregone conclusion; on the other, that a US military strike against Iran is in the near offing and that Britain wants its own forces well out of range of what would be one of the immediate targets of an Iranian retaliation...
"The US has engaged in various high- profile displays of muscle in which thousands of US and Israeli troops engaged in joint exercises to test new ways of intercepting missiles... In addition, Israel recently carried out the largest training manoeuvre in its history. On 20 March 2008, diverse military formations staged simulated conventional and non-conventional assaults on various Iranian targets...
"Overall, the factors against war seem to outweigh the factors propelling towards war. But since when has logic had the upper hand in determining the behaviour of the Bush administration? " - Can Bush attack again?
"Scottish manufacturers enjoyed a rebound in both total new orders and output in the three months to April, and hiked their domestic prices at the strongest pace for 17 years, a survey from the Confederation of British Industry revealed yesterday." - Manufacturing boost north of border
According to an article at Wikipedia: "RBS has been involved in an increasing number of environmental and human rights controversies since Sir Fred Goodwin took the helm in 2001.
"RBS is heavily involved in financing large oil, gas and mining projects world-wide that environmental organizations like BankTrack, PLATFORM , Pacific Environment, The Cornerhouse, and Rainforest Action Network call 'dodgy deals' that they say severely damage the environment and local communities, and that contribute significantly to climate change.
"Sir Tom McKillop and Sir Fred Goodwin, chairman and chief executive of RBS, may be responsible for the biggest absolute reduction in shareholder value in Scottish corporate history.
"How did they 'arise' to this accolade; by irresponsible lending in bubble markets, by paying a grossly inflated price for a major European bank during the biggest financial squeeze for 40 years and by becoming the last of the big spenders on head offices and advertising.
"Sir Fred has shredded the RBS share price and his chairman has presided over it. Both will, no doubt, put it down to the worldwide credit crunch. It's not – it is down to poor management." - ROBIN RAE - RBS chiefs at fault
~~
"Among banks that have capital concerns are Barclays and HBOS, which JP Morgan reckons will need £8 billion and £11 billion respectively." - Look Ma, no capital
2. "Some years ago I was a guest at a charity lunch in Glasgow's City Chambers where Sir Fred Goodwin was the principal speaker and where he delivered his perceived wisdom on the world in general.
"One of the main thrusts of his speech was to question why anyone should be concerned about the loss of our manufacturing industries. His point being that at that time it accounted for less than 20% of the economy and was dwarfed by the banking sector.
"I wonder if the realisation has now dawned that banking, like the country's economy, cannot survive indefinitely on the shifting sands of ever-increasing personal debt;
"that the money loaned by banks needs to contribute to tangible growth in the economy and not just fuel an increase in the price of houses far beyond their true worth - a level where most new buyers will have little hope of ever achieving outright ownership..." - Gregor Egan, Barrhead. (Letters )
3. "The chairman assures the shareholders that no single person is responsible for this apparent catalogue of disaster.
"That may well be the case but, if so, the responsibility must lie across the board and executive management of the bank and be accepted by them all...." - Graham Mathewson, Stirling. (Letters )
4. "Britain's debt culture, the millionaire bankers who have profited from it and the ministers who have allowed it have all dangerously strained the fabric of society, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.
"In a pessimistic analysis of modern British life and the economy Gordon Brown has overseen for a decade, Rowan Williams said the Government should impose tougher rules on lenders and demanded action to close the wealth gap between rich and poor.
5. "Collins Stewart rounded off what is likely to be the worst week in its history with another 9 per cent fall in its shares yesterday, closing at 379p. The brokerage, which specialises in small company stocks, has seen £208m wiped off its value since the start of the week.
"The dramatic slide in share value was the City's reaction to the emergence last weekend of a dossier alleging insider dealing, share ramping and biased research at the company compiled by one of its former analysts, James Middleweek.
"Mr Middleweek has gone from being a little-known media analyst to one of the most talked about figures in the City in the past six days.
"His claims include that the share prices of a number of companies, including Epic Brand Investments, Numerica and Millfield, were maintained at 'artificially high'.
"Mr Middleweek's former colleagues Paul Hodges and Jimmy Durkin are accused of being prepared to 'do everything possible to maintain share prices of companies in which their clients are involved, including withholding relevant information'.
"He alleges that he was stopped from covering Numerica, an accountancy group, and Millfield, which owns a chain of independent financial advisers, after he had been "too even handed". He was allegedly prevented from downgrading Numerica late last year." - Allegations prompt fresh slide in Collins Stewart - Business News ...
4. "Currently under construction by Qatari Diar, the development arm of the Qatar government, the $600 million Al Houara Resort is designed to be the most opulent and stylish resort in Morocco...
"Situated on the picturesque stretch of coastline that runs from Tangier to Asilah, the Al Houara Resort will attract the most exclusive visitors to this privileged location. The attractive design of this project reflects the best of Moroccan architecture combined with a design that incorporates the comforts of 21st century living.
5. "Crime in Morocco is a serious concern, particularly in the major cities and tourist areas. Aggressive panhandling, pick-pocketing, purse-snatching, theft from occupied vehicles stopped in traffic and harassment of women are the most frequently reported crimes.
"These are more likely to occur in crowded market areas, transportation centers, parks and beaches. Criminals have used weapons, primarily knives, during some street robberies and burglaries.
"These have occurred at any time of day and night, not only in isolated places or areas less frequented by visitors, but in crowded areas as well." - Morocco
"Since March 2008 a number of Europeans, including British citizens, have been attacked and robbed at knifepoint, mainly late at night, near the centre of Tangier in the area from Blvd Pasteur/Mohammed V leading down to the beach, and in and around the Kasbah/Medina.
"You are advised to avoid those areas late at night and not to carry valuables with you at any time in those parts of town.
"A British tourist was injured in an apparent knife attack at a hotel in Marrakech on 9 May 2007. There has also been an increase in reports of other violent attacks, including some shootings, and of car jacking in Casablanca." - Travel Advice
Muhammed VI
6. Some people see Andre Azoulay, counselor to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, as the most important person in Morocco.
Andre Azoulay is Jewish.
Morocco is one of those Moslem countries that appears to be run by the military and the secret police.
Morocco is one of those Moslem countries that appears to be friends with Israel and the Pentagon.
The King of Morocco and his generals are very, very rich.
The bulk of the population is very poor.
There are huge slums on the outskirts of cities such as Marrakech which the tourists never see.
In 2003, when a Moslem party began to win support among the poor, bombs went off. No Jews or Israelis were among the casualties. The bombs were blamed on the Islamists. There was a crackdown on opponents of the military. More than 3,000 people were arrested.
Morocco occupies a strategically important position and is useful to the Pentagon.
Some people suspect that the CIA recruits Moroccans for some of its work.
Tourists should be very careful in Morocco.
7. The Sunday Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2036185_2,00.html reported 12 February 2006, that, according to intelligence sources, the USA is involved with the building of a new interrogation and detention facility at Ain Aouda, near Rabat.
Locals said they had often seen American vehicles with diplomatic plates in the area.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other groups critical of the policy have compiled dossiers detailing the detention and apparent torture of radical Islamists at the DST’s current headquarters, at Temara, near Rabat.
A recent inquiry into rendition by the Council of Europe, led by Dick Marty, the Swiss MP, highlighted a pattern of flights between Washington, Guantanamo Bay and Rabat’s military airport at Sale.
French intelligence and diplomatic sources said the most recent such flight was in the first week in December, when four suspects were seen being led blindfolded and handcuffed from a Boeing 737 at Sale and transferred into a fleet of American vehicles...
The secret police HQ at Temarahas a fearsome reputation among former inmates. Binyam Mohammed, an Ethiopian-born Briton later sent to Guantanamo Bay, told Amnesty International that interrogators there cut his chest and penis when he refused to answer questions.
STONES were being thrown at me. There was blood on my hand. I was standing at the entrance gate to the Moroccan city of xxxxxxxxx. The teenagers who were throwing the stones were presumably not wildly keen on the sight of a rich western tourist who was carrying a large camera.
I reported to the police station on three occasions after being threatened or hit.
On the third occasion the police officer in charge decided to give me a hard time. He suggested that my passport might not have been properly stamped or might be out of date.
I began to get the impression that something was seriously wrong with Morocco. I came across a small malnourished, ragged child staring at some postcards outside a shop. I gave the boy a few coins. He kissed my hand gravely and thanked me many times. Not all Moroccans are louts.
In my 4 star hotel, the barman was arguing with his colleagues. A hotel employee decided to empty his nostrils of mucus as my drink was being served. The restaurant was full of flies.
The streets of Fes were full of litter and insects. There were huge piles of refuse at every road junction.
Moroccan cities also seem to have more than their fair share of the mentally backward (caused by inbreeding?) and the mentally ill (caused by poverty and powerlessness?)
Figures for March 2002 show a 35% drop in the number of package tourists arriving at Agadir airport.
I was in the main square in the Moroccan city of xxxxxxxxxx one sunny morning (May 1st 2002). There were riot police, and ordinary police and soldiers stationed in the square. There were riot police down the various side streets and sitting in cafes. There were plain clothes police and uniformed officers on all the major roads. In the square there were speeches given by the smartly dressed leaders of one of the 'left-wing' parties. These leaders were dressed like the mafia.The crowd which had gathered to listen was small and their applause was less than lukewarm.
Tangier
Riots are common in Morocco.
In 1955, Berber tribesmen descended on the village of Oed Zen and killed every Frenchman they found.
On 20 June 1981, up to 600 people were killed in rioting in Casablanca (Le Figaro 1 July 1981, page 2).
In 1984, up to 200 people were killed in rioting in cities such as Tetouan (Le monde 26 Jan 1984, page 4).
A greater danger than riots is the driving in Morocco. My taxi driver drove with either one hand or no hand on the steering wheel and he loved going right up close to the vehicle in front. France has 2.6 deaths per 1000 vehicles. Morocco has 25.6 deaths per 1000 vehicles, making it the second most dangerous country in the world in terms of motoring.
While I was cycling in Morocco, I was chased by savage dogs and savage children demanding money. The children terrified me as they looked very hungry and as tough as slum kids from Liverpool.
9.HASSAN
So what is happening in Morocco?
Morocco's former king, Hassan, was said to be worth $40 billion.
Out of the 100 richest people in Morocco, 'the top 50 are in the armed forces or police.' 'The fortune amassed by the 20 richest army officers would be enough to pay off Morocco's foreign debt of $17bn.'
I visited a shanty settlement. I am not brave; I simply wandered in by accident. This was a place of barking dogs, piles of rubbish, home made shacks with no water supply or sewage disposal, and ragged children who looked seriously malnourished. A high wall hid the shacks of the poor from any tourists on the main streets.
Almost 65% of the population l ive below the poverty line 'and the situation is deteriorating'.
At least 25% of Morocco's population of 29 million are unemployed.
More than half the population is illiterate (70% of women) and two-thirds of people living in the country do not have access to drinking water, 87% are without electricity and 93% receive no medical care.
Morocco makes its money from the receipts sent home by Moroccans working abroad (most Moroccans want to get out of Morocco because of its corruption), from cannabis (sold in Europe), from smuggling (stolen cars and other goods), from phosphates (used in farming), from fishing (sardines), from farming (most of the best land is owned by a small rich elite, including army officers and politicians), from textiles (most Moroccan industry is still medieval and there is much competition from cheap-labour countries such as Turkey), and from tourism (Morocco gets about 2 million tourists per year while Spain hosts 45 million; Morocco has surprisingly few hotel beds).
The farms of the elite have been given much help and produce lots of oranges and vegetables intended for export to Europe; but Europe would rather buy its fruit and vegetables from the likes of Spain or Portugal. Morocco is no longer self-sufficient in wheat but has more oranges than it knows what to do with.
The farms of the poor suffer from having too many people and not enough water. The rural poor escape to the cities -Tangiers, Rabat, Casablanca and Marrakesh - where they crowd into shanty towns on the outskirts or even in the centre.
I visited a poor farming area. The children's faces looked pinched. Few of the girls went to school. The houses had no water or toilets or electricity. Transport was by donkey.
The 5 star Gazelle d'Or hotel, near Taroudant, has been visited by the likes of the Duchess of York and Michael Portillo. It refused to let me in. Rooms cost hundreds of dollars. Not far from the Gazelle d'Or I came across villages with falling down houses and ragged children.
10.Muhammad VI came to the throne in 1999. In all the main towns and cities there are large posters showing his face. (A bit like Baby Doc's Haiti?) His concern for his fellow citizens is very different from the attitude of his father, and his nickname is "king of the poor". The king heads the Muhammad V foundation, which acts like a humanitarian NGO, and sometimes travels to outlying villages to bring tanks of water to drought victims, and support micro-development projects. "He visits the sick and takes care of the destitute. Numbers of stories are told of his goodness, compassion and generosity, and some people literally worship him."
According to Moroccan Professor Muhammad Tozy, "His attitude to ordinary people is undoubtedly sincere, but in addition it is politically astute since it cuts the ground from under the feet of the Islamists, who had until now monopolised charitable work in the poor neighbourhoods. This made them very popular. Now the king appears as a major rival in terms of religious legitimacy, since he is the descendant of the prophet Muhammad and 'commander of the faithful', but also in terms of solidarity with the deprived and excluded."
The new king has also taken an interest in the issue of freedom and human rights. Less than a month after the death of Hassan II, he spoke about the "disappeared" and the "victims of arbitrary arrest". Speaking in Casablanca he underlined the need to respect "human rights and individual freedoms". He dismissed Driss Basri, former minister of the interior and mastermind of a policy of repression that lasted almost 30 years.
Will the new king be able to prevent an Iranian-style revolution?
Islamism is spreading at a fast rate, taking advantage of the poverty and misery. The elite in the army are hardly likely to allow changes that will deprive them of their wealth! The politicians are deeply divided and there are over 30 political parties.
When he came to power, the new socialist Prime Minister, Youssoufi, undertook to straighten out the economy, decentralise administrative bodies, clean up public life, fight corruption, reform justice, combat poverty, develop low-income housing for the very poor, introduce a national pact for employment and, of course, find a solution to the dispute over the Sahara. Not much has been achieved. The figures for illiteracy, poverty and healthcare have scarcely changed. Many reforms are incomplete, though some of them, such as electoral reform, changes to legal procedure, labour law or the law on public freedom, are vital to the continuation of the transition process. And there is still high unemployment, as well as discrimination against women, corruption, feudal authoritarianism and sporadic human rights violations.
In the poorest neighbourhoods people are turning to the Islamists and not the socialists. The Islamist Justice and Welfare association founded by Sheikh Yassin visits the sick, helps them to buy medicine, contributes to funeral expenses, organises evening classes for the schoolchildren and supports single women, widows and divorcees.
What do the Islamists stand for in Morocco? How many are there? A big crowd - almost 100,000 - turned out in Casablanca for a demonstration against government plans to change women's status. The Islamists are very well established in the towns and suburbs and, increasingly, in the country as well. They are close to the people, helping the poor, sick and students, and they have networks all over the poorest neighbourhoods. They are active in welfare, whereas the left, even the far-left, no longer bother.
The left "has lost contact with the people." A quote from Le Monde Diplomatique: "Latifa, aged 45, teaches maths in a secondary school in the suburbs of Casablanca. She says "The middle classes account for barely 5% of the population, compared with more than 35% in Tunisia. Morocco's dominated by a system of networks, nepotism, clans, interconnected families who would rather give a job to an unsuitable, incompetent relation rather than a highly qualified young person from a poor background."
In May 2003, there were bomb attacks in Casablanca. Over 30 people died. Islamic militants were blamed. The government was then able to have a clampdown and 'hundreds' were arrested.
Enough of politics.
11.Moroccan cities are full of female prostitutes. But they are generally for the Moroccans (soldiers and those not yet married) and not for the tourists.
AIDS is very widespread.
My male guide, Hamid, walked ahead of me with his male friend. Hamid spent most of the time gently rubbing his friends back or holding his friend's hand. According to the experts, Moroccans like spending time with a single friend of the same sex. Same sex friendships are very important for Moroccans all through their lives. There are few limits to intimacy in same sex friendships. Moroccans 'usually marry out of a sense of duty.'
According to 'Culture Shock- Moroc co' by Orin Hargraves (Kuperard), "Homosexual relations among boys and young men are common." "Pederasty is exceedingly prevalent" wrote Edward Westermack in "Ritual and Belief in Morocco." In Morocco, homosexual sex by tourists is heavily punished; and sex with minors is very heavily punished with long jail sentences. In any case, tourists are not loved by the average Moroccan who sees the tourist as an alien
The hotel, the Gazelle D'or, at around £600 a night, is rather special. Visitors have allegedly included Michael Portillo, Jacques Chirac, Fergie, Rory Bremner, Mick Jagger, hosts of pop stars, statesmen, politicians, personalities, and 'the world's wealthiest closet Queens.'
According to Scallywag magazine, "As far as Westminster is concerned, the Gazelle D'or was first "discovered" by the notorious gay MP Sir Charles "Charley" Irving who died from aids in 1993. Irving, who chaired the Commons catering Committee, was famous for his private parties in the Pugin room in Westminster where he outrageously flirted with the male members of staff. Many of the 100-plus gay Tory MP's who inhabit "The Palace", often furtively, were fellow guests........
The REAL attraction of the Gazelle D'or is not just the exclusivity, or the fabulous luxury. It is, quite simply, that they boast one of the most superlative men-only Turkish baths, Sauna and Massage Parlour in the world, manned by hand-picked and specially trained swarthy Berbers who are most willing to accommodate every whim of their customers. The whole concept of the place is designed to be a veritable paradise for gays."
12.Some educated young Moroccans admire all things French and Western. But a large number of Moroccans reject all things Western and non-Islamic. The latter group can be very hostile to tourists.
Sorcery plays a big part in Moroccan lives. There seems to be as much belief in 'magic' as in Islam. The kid who thinks you are a foreign 'devil' may be frightened of the evil eye. The shoeshine boys troubled me.
If I had my shoes shined and paid 30 pence, then six other boys would appear and they would follow me, requesting money. If I gave money to a kid whose photo I had taken as he sat on a donkey, then six kids, then twenty six kids would appear, all demanding money. One group of boys threw stones at me after I had refused to give them cash.
There is a law against troubling tourists; but it has not entirely solved the problem! Moroccans seldom seem to feel guilt or shame. They do not seem to feel guilty when they have cheated you. They may only feel shame when they have been sent to Coventry by their fellows, for example for breaking Islamic rules.
How do I explain the 'rough' conduct of moroccan boys? The Moroccan boy is expected by his mother to be spontaneous, demanding and egotistical. The boy is king. The mother is of lowly status. The father has either gone off with another woman or is out at the cafe or is somewhere else. "The father typically remains absent from the household through major portions of each day in his child's life," according to 'Images and Self Images' by Dwyer (Columbia University press). The father and the mother seldom love each other. Their marriage was one of convenience.
13. Morocco is for the holiday that is exciting and adventurous. It is a trip into the Third World. It is not necessarily going to be stress-free. Morocco needs tourists. It's economy is in trouble and tourism is one o f the few areas where expansion can take place.
But, not all Moroccans welcome tourists! So, it is probably best to avoid places like Casablanca, because of the violent crime, and Tangier, because of the hustlers and occasional muggings (I got mugged at knifepoint on a main street in Tangier in broad daylight).
Agadir is generally geared up for sunshine worshippers, but is not very Moroccan. You'd be better off in the Canary Islands.
Fes is fascinating, but expect a lot of hassle and a lot of litter and filth. An Imperial Cities Tour would be a good bet as you would be escorted most of the time.
Marrakech is probably your best bet, but go with an organised tour which will protect you from hassles. Choose your hotel carefully. Generally the higher the price, the better the hotel!
Ouarzazate would be a bit too hot for my liking, but you might like it. Don't expect to find much to do, other than organised trips.
Essaouira is a pleasant fishing village. But you might get bored after a week.
Taroudannt is a good base for organised excursions into the mountains, but the town itself has little to offer. There are lots of 'adventure' trips into the mountains. Remember it can be cold and primitive up in these hills full of scorpions. And there are few toilets.
14. Most Moroccans, especially those over 40 years of age, are reasonably kind and helpful. Don't be put off by the stone throwers.
1. "The police officer leading the inquiry into alleged abuse at a former children's home in Jersey is to step down from his post.
"Deputy Chief Officer Lenny Harper has headed the investigation since child skull fragments were found in February.
"Jersey Police said Mr Harper, 56, would retire in August whatever the progress of the Haut de la Garenne probe." -Jersey home officer to step down
2. "Northumbria Police deputy chief constable David Warcup is on the verge of confirming his appointment to replace the man currently in charge of one of the UK’s biggest ever child abuse inquiries.
"Last night, Jersey Police would only confirm it was in talks with Mr Warcup, who has been with Northumbria for 32 years, but an official announcement is understood to be a matter of days away." - Police chief in move to Jersey
3. Northumbria Police
"Seventeen police employees are suspended on full pay for allegations including assault, burglary, deception and being drunk and disorderly...
"Figures obtained by the Chronicle under the Freedom of Information Act revealed Northumbria Police has 12 police officers, a special constable, a community support officer and a civilian member of staff currently suspended on full pay.
"These include two sergeants accused of assault and PCs accused of dishonesty, attempted burglary and inappropriate behaviour.
"One PC has been suspended for 25 months - on a salary of £29,029 and in total these suspensions alone have so far cost the force £215,635.
"The figure is much higher than neighbouring Durham Constabulary where just one officer and one support staff member are suspended on full pay...
"Deputy Chief Constable David Warcup, who takes the final decision on suspending officers, defended his approach." - Cached
4.Northumbria Police
Operation Rose saw more than 200 people investigated but in the end only six convicted.
"The £5m inquiry led to 558 claims of assault, rape and other sexual abuse from 277 residents or former residents of 61 care homes.
"The methods used by Northumbria police have been referred to the Commons home affairs committee, which is studying the handling of hundreds of similar child abuse allegations in care homes.
"The scale of the north-east inquiry has emerged with the lifting of a legal gag. The two years of reporting restrictions on the trials of 32 north-east care workers and teachers linked to 142 allegations of child abuse, ended on Tuesday with the collapse of the final case in Newcastle crown court." - Cached
5. "OPERATION Rose was one of the country's biggest investigations into historic sexual and physical child abuse.
"The inquiry was launched in August 1997 when a woman in her 20s disclosed to a social worker that she and a friend had been both sexually and physically abused as children while living in a children's home in the Northumbria Police area.
"After a meeting between police and social services, an investigation was launched, centring on council-run care homes in the North-East and stemming from initial allegations in Newcastle and Northumberland.
"Officers manning a confidential telephone line for people who were in care between the mid-1960s and mid-1980s received 23 calls in the first 24 hours, from people complaining of sexual and physical assault.
"Initial inquiries revealed six victims alleging abuse by eight suspects who had worked in homes across the region going back to the 1960s.
"As the inquiry continued, the number of alleged victims escalated.
"In 1998, the inquiry was broadened to include renewed allegations concerning carers working at Witherwack House, Sunderland, which had been subject to an earlier investigation in 1992. Over the full three-year life of the police investigation, almost 200 care workers were the subject of allegations and 32 were charged.
"In total, 260 residents and former residents of 61 children's homes came forward to make allegations of physical and sexual assault.
"Six people were eventually found guilty of a variety of charges, of which five were jailed." - How Operation Rose began
6. "How many masons I wonder were involved in the child abuse cases at Witherwack Estate, Sunderland. Why were masons at the Sunderland Civic Centre trying to hush the whole thing up?" - Cached
"The forms of punishment employed by the staff at Witherwack House included restraint techniques... I often heard screams of other residents being abused. Indeed I witnessed a rape of a girl who was eight or nine at the time - I tried to intervene but I was beaten senseless for my trouble - it was the best kicking of my life." - Cached
3. The CIA, with Pakistan's General Zia ul-Haq as its foremost ally, and Saudi Arabia as its principal source of funds, openly recruited Islamic holy warriors in the 1980s. ( Cached )
"Since the 1980s, Bangladeshi society has been affected by the rise of Islamic fundamentalism...
"Madrassahs (Islamic schools) and welfare societies have mushroomed, some pushing radical doctrines and attacking secularism and secularists." (Cached )
4. Today, in 2008, 60 million of Bangladesh's poor are struggling to feed themselves.
They have to spend about 40% of their tiny income on rice. (The Economist 17 April 2008 A different sort of emergency )
Rice yields are only half what they are in India.
5. There has been a state of emergency since 2007. The people who run Bangladesh are the military.
The two main political parties are (1) Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party and (2) Sheikh Hasina Wajed's Awami League.
Islamists recently went on a rampage to protest against a draft law giving equal inheritance rights to men and women.
The government claims it might prosecute those who sided with the Pakistani army in the 1971 struggle for independence, when 3 million died. A large number of leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh's largest Islamist party, might stand trial, but Saudi Arabia objects to this.
Saudi Arabia helps keep Bangladesh afloat financially.
6. In 'Fulcrum of Evil ISI - CIA - Al Qaeda Nexus' (2006) , Maloy Krishnathe Dhar 'has traced the intricate connectivity between the Pakistan intelligence service ISI, the CIA, Royal Saudi Intelligence and Al Qaeda.' (Fulcrum of Evil ISI - CIA - Al Qaeda Nexus).
Bangladesh is now thought to be part of the nexus.
"Fulcrum of Evil seeks to expose the supposed links between the ISI, CIA, Saudi intelligence and various Islamist outfits linked with Al Qaeda..." Cached
"Monday, 27 August 2007 - Initial investigations into the twin blasts in the southern city of Hyderabad have pointed the finger of suspicion to Pakistan and Bangladesh-based terror groups, according to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy." - Cached
"The Jewish Daily Forward has openly identified 'some of' Hillary Clinton's biggest donors as a 'cadre' of Jews with the power to 'influence' the Democratic Party's decision to prolong the fight between her and Obama until the convention, or not. - Mondoweiss: Jewish Press Is Honest About Hillary's Jewish Money ...
"Hillary Rodham Clinton might have the endorsement of two of the top Jewish names in Pennsylvania politics — Governor Ed Rendell and Rep. Allyson Schwartz of Philadelphia — but 70 other leading Jewish professionals from the Keystone State would rather see Barack Obama at the top of the Democratic ticket.
"Josh Shapiro, the deputy speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, drafted an open letter to the state’s Jewish community on behalf of Mr. Obama, the candidate who boasts what Mr. Shapiro calls a '100 percent voting record on Israel issues.'
"In an interview, Mr. Shapiro said it’s time to, 'as Jews, stand up and say how much we admire Senator Obama for condemning the words of his pastor and making sure he is Israel’s ally in the Middle East.'" - Pa. Jewish Leaders Praise Obama in Letter
"Lieberman ... says that McCain understands how significant the establishment of the state of Israel was. He is an avid reader of history and also has 'a sense of history.' He is familiar with the story of the country. He will not do anything that will 'compromise Israel's security.'" - Why lovers of Israel should vote for McCain (according to ...
"The Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI) linked her dancing with their fatwa against pornography, and the East Javanese branch declared her performances haram (forbidden).
"She was even banned from performing in Jogjakarta, the 'cultural center' of Java." (dangdut)
Indonesia is becoming more like Saudi Arabia (rule by a rich pro-American elite who use Islamism to stay in power) and more like Bangladesh or Haiti (lots of increasingly poor people) and more like Burma (rule by the military).
According to Index on Censorship:
There is a “creeping application of the Islamic sharia legal code. This has seen a growing number of local governments enforce bans of various kinds, such as the one on several performers of the hugely popular dangdut music in the city of Tangerang, west of Jakarta.”
According to Freemuse, dangdut "is a very popular Indonesian music genre derived from Indian, Arab and Malay styles, but it often incorporates a variety of other world influences as well.
"It has long been associated with the lower-classes of Indonesia (musik pinggiran), and consequently became seen as 'the music of the people.'
"The lyrics often address issues of love, heartbreak, and poverty. Dangdut has long been ripe with sexual innuendos and suggestiveness..."
Chastity belts are coming back and school girls are wearing the veil.
"Half an hour's drive from Indonesia's parliament, the civilian police in the district of Tangerang go on patrol every evening.
"A dozen men, crammed into the back of a pick-up truck, cruise the dimly-lit streets, looking for anywhere serving alcohol...
"Lilis lives with her husband and two children on the outskirts of Tangerang. Just over a year ago, she was arrested by the civilian police while waiting for a taxi on her way home from work. The police could not reach her husband, so Lilis was fined and jailed as a prostitute." - BBC NEWS Asia-Pacific Islamic law by the back door
"The vast majority of Indonesian citizens living in abject poverty facing daily uncertainty in finding work, food, education, decent health care and a future for their children.
"There is a very palpable anger against the misery and degradation of their lives that is caused by the ineptitude and corruption of the small layer of rich.
"In turn, the elite have a real fear that they are sitting on top of a social volcano that could explode anytime.
"Hence, it is no coincidence that the government, religious organisations and individuals consciously and cynically seek to co-opt the basic religious beliefs of Indonesian citizens and the resurgence of Islam in public life for the simple reason that Islam, like all religions, is an excellent instrument to control and coerce the population..."
"The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has found a new African best friend in the head of Khartoum’s national security agency, Saleh Gosh, someone who is notorious for human rights abuses and who has been accused of war crimes.
"Among the ‘successes’ attributed to Gosh and Khartoum’s intelligence bodies by Steve Paterno in an article published in the Sudan Tribune on 18 September 2007 are:
"In Britain, Dawood’s businesses are taken care of by Iqbal Mirchi - who is himself ranked among the top 10 global drug barons- from Hornchurch in Essex. Dawood’s henchman in America, Feroze Rashid Mohd Khan handles his Canada drug business."- All the don's men: Who and where are they?
Crewe and Nantwich General Election Result May 2005: Dunwoody (Lab) 21,240 (48.8%); Moore-Dutton (C) 14,162 (32.6%); Roberts (Lib Dem) 8,083 (18.6%). Majority 7.078. - Dunwoody death triggers crucial by-election in UK
the Canadian peace-keeper murdered by the Israelis in Lebanon, had spent the days before his execution emailing details to Canada of Israeli war crimes against civilians in Lebanon.
Jersey Attorney General Sir Philip Bailhache allowed Roger Holland to remain in the police service, despite a 1986 conviction for indecent assault against a young girl. Holland, 42, went on to assault three girls. - Call for top official to resign
Ian Fleming (1908 -1964), grandson of the banker Robert Fleming, wrote the James Bond novels.
In Dr No Bond meets Honeychile Rider whose bottom is "almost as firm and rounded as a boy's".
What do we know about the real Ian Fleming?
The source for most of the following is the excellent Ian Fleming -The Man Behind James Bond by Andrew Lycett.
BEFORE WORLD WAR II
1. William Plomer's Turbott Wolfe was published in 1925.
In this novel, the homosexual Plomer tackled gay relationships.
The teenage Ian Fleming was so impressed by Turbot Wolfe that he wrote a fan letter to the author.
Ian and the gay William Plomer became very close friends. (Lycett)
2. Ian Fleming attended Eton, the all boys private school. Some poems he wrote there are signed with the 'sexually ambiguous name Cary Anan'. (Lycett)
3. After Eton, Ian Fleming studied in Austria.
He decided to translate the text of Anja and Esther, a play by Klaus Mann, the homosexual son of Thomas Mann, the author of Death in Venice .Anja and Esther was Ian's first publication. (Lycett)
Ian's favourite book was The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann.
4. In Austria, Ian found that a number of young women threw themselves at him. He wrote in his notebook about how these heterosexual couplings of Austrians with Anglo-Saxons could be 'so distasteful'.
Ian hiked in the Austrian hills with his male friends. Sometimes they spent a couple of nights in Alpine huts. (Lycett)
5. In the summer of 1929 Ian and his mother were on holiday in Corsica. Ian met up with two homosexuals with whom he passed the time playing bridge. (Lycett)
6. Back in London, while strolling down Bond Street, Ian spotted, in the window of a bookshop, a book of poetry entitled Pansies. Ian entered the bookshop to make enquiries about the book. (Lycett)
7. In 1935 Ian went to work as a stockbroker with the firm of Rowe and Pitman in London. Lancy Hugh Smith, the firm's senior partner was a bachelor. Lancy got on well with Ian who was good at charming older men. One former colleague of Ian's described Ian as being 'a hell of a tart'. (Lycett)
8. In his late twenties, Ian was still living at home with his 'overbearing' mother. Eventually he bought a central London flat. (Lycett)
9. One of Ian's female friends was Lady Mary Pakenham. According to Lady Mary, Ian was feminine and nervous and he often had a look of melancholy and loss.
According to Lady Mary, "the average girl simply did not like him." At parties, Ian would initiate a conversation with a put-down. (Lycett)
10. In some of Ian's erotic fantasies, there were schoolmistresses who whipped people. According to Lycett, Ian had a large collection of books about flagellation. (Lycett)
THE WAR YEARS
11. During World War II, Ian worked for Naval Intelligence.
12. At this time, two of Ian's friends were Ann O'Neill, who strongly fancied Ian, and Sefton Delmer, an expert on black propaganda.
According to Ann, Delmer "rouses all Ian's brain mania, plus his sublimated homosexualism." (Lycett)
On the subject of marriage, Ian told a friend Peter Smithers: "I can't see anything in it for me." (Lycett)
Ian was eventually persuaded or manipulated into marrying Ann when he was aged 43. It was not a happy marriage.
13. One evening in London, in 1943, Ian stepped into a pub off Piccadilly and got talking to a stranger, who turned out to be the homosexual poet James Kirkup. Ian asked for Kirkup's address. (Lycett)
14. At a Christmas day party, in 1943, Ian gave each of the female guests a book of Verlaine's poems, with suitable passages marked by Ian. Ann O'Neill found that her passage referred to lesbian love. Paul Verlaine's poetry celebrates homosexuality. (Lycett)
15. One of Ian's American contacts was Lieutenant AlanSchneider of the US navy. Ian told Schneider that "men were the only real human beings, the only ones he could be friends with." (Lycett)
16. Ian attended an Anglo-American naval conference in Jamaica. He told his friend Ivar Bryce: "When we have won this blasted war, I am going to live in Jamaica ... and write books." (Lycett)
Jamaica was to become, for a time, a place that attracted many famous gay men, such as Ian's friend Noel Coward.
According to Ian, Kingston, the capital, "would provide you with every known amorous constellation and permutation." (Lycett)
1945-1952 16. Ian went to work for The Sunday Times as foreign manager. Many of the journalists he worked with, such as Antony Terry and Henry Brandon, had links to the intelligence services. According to Anthony Cavendish, a former British agent, the newspaper group for which Ian worked was happy to take on MI6 people as foreign correspondents. (Lycett).
17. In 1946, aged 38, Ian was smoking 70 cigarettes and drinking a bottle of gin each day. (Lycett)
18. On Jamaica, Ian built a house called Goldeneye. Ian employed a houseboy and other staff for this bachelors' paradise. When Ivar Bryce and John Fox-Strangeways came to stay with Ian, the three of them would swim naked before breakfast. (Lycett)
Ian's first tenant at Goldeneye was his gay friend Noel Coward.
19. Around 1948, Ann O'Neill wrote a fictionalised account of her relationship with Ian. In this story, Ian is called Gervase. Ann explained that Gervase (Ian) was attractive to both men and women and his services were solicited by "middle-aged men of medium eminence."
Ann once told Evelyn Waugh that Ian's "only happiness is pink gin, golf clubs and men." (Lycett)
20. Ann divorced her husband Viscount Rothermere. In 1952, she became pregnant. Ian, aged 43, decided to marry her.
1952 - 1964 21. Marriage led Ian to start writing his Bond books. It was a form of escape.
22. Ian and Ann often took separate holidays. 23.Ian traveled to Jamaica as often as possible. Among the guests at Goldeneye at this time was Angus Wilson who lived in Jamaica with his companion Odo Cross, a former Guards officer who liked to wear his mother's pearls. (Lycett) 24. Ann and Ian were friends of the reportedly gay writer Somerset Maugham and they visited him at his villa in the South of France. Ian adopted a 'fawning role' with Maugham and Ann was struck by the similarities between the two writers. Both liked exotic-smelling soaps in their bathrooms. Ann had "a curious feeling that they both regarded 'women' with mistrust". (Lycett)
25. Truman Capote stayed at Goldeneye and Ian described him as being a 'fascinating companion'.
Errol Flynn was another visitor to Goldeneye.
The north coast of Jamaica was seen as having a growing gay enclave. (Lycett)
26. Ann began a long relationship with Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the United Kingdom's Labour Party, and seen as being a possible future Prime Minister. Ann reported to her friend Beaverbrook that Gaitskell was a "changed man - all he wants is wine, women and song". (Lycett)
Meanwhile, Ian was having a relationship with a wealthy Jewish woman in Jamaica, called Blanche Blackwell.
27. When Ian's four-year-old son Caspar came out to Jamaica, Ian noted that Caspar wore a hibiscus flower in his ear and called himself Mary.
When the family went to Austria, Caspar was dressed in lederhosen. (Lycett)
28. In 1957, Ian found himself in a Dean's Bar.
This was a gay bar, in Tangier in Morocco.
Ian had chosen Tangier as a place to meet retired MI5 agent John Collard who was based in South Africa.
In 1963, Cyril Connolly wrote a parody of Bond for the London Magazine. This was called Bond Strikes Camp and it seemed to suggest that most British spies were secretly gay. 31. In the early 1960s, Ian would spend evenings with John blackwell.
Blackwell was a bachelor school teacher who had a house in the grounds of Wellesley House school at Broadstairs in Kent. The school takes boys up to the age of thirteen.
On Sunday afternoons Ian and Blackwell would take some pupils from the school on a car outing to a local golf course. Ian would give the boys Bond memorabilia. (Lycett)
32. Hugh Gaitskell died rather mysteriously in 1963.
After the 1988 Lockerbie bomb, the police assembled evidence linking the explosion to Abu Talb. Later the police changed their minds. Reportedly Abu Talb had links to a drugs ring allegedly run by the CIA.
On BBC Radio 4, Simon Cox investigates the drug problem in UK prisons. He explores the smuggling techniques used by prisoners, inmates and even prison officers. - LISTEN
Governments and politicians often have links to organised crime.
1. THE USA
In 1992 mob boss Sam Giancana's nephew and brother wrote a book called "Double Cross: The Explosive, Inside Story of the Mobster Who Controlled America."
Reportedly, Giancana rigged the Cook County vote for President Kennedy.
The book also linked Giancana to a total of 7 US Presidents.
William Colby (1920 – 1996) was the boss of the CIA from 1973 until 1976.
William Colby was an officer of the Nugan Hand Bank, 'which was a CIA bank in all but name'. Reportedly, the bank financed drug trafficking, money laundering and international arms dealings. (CIA and Drugs WBLUM)
In 1995, John McCain sent birthday regards to Joseph 'Joe Bananas' Bonano, the head of the New York Bonano crime family, who had retired to Arizona.
Charles Keating was convicted of racketeering and fraud. John McCain intervened on behalf of Keating after Keating gave McCain at least $112,00 in contributions.
In the mid-1980s, McCain made at least 9 trips on Keating's airplanes, and 3 of those were to Keating's luxurious retreat in the Bahamas. McCain's wife and father-in-law also were the largest investors in a Keating shopping center.
McCain
2.ITALY
The Italian aristocracy has long made use of the mafia to help to keep the ordinary people in order.
"In March 1981, the Italian police found a list of the 962 members of P2, the 'fascist' Propaganda Due Masonic lodge, the Grand Master of which was the 'fascist' Licio Gelli."
The list contained the names of: 3 government ministers, 43 members of parliament, 43 generals, 8 admirals, secret service chiefs, hundreds of top bureaucrats and diplomats, the police commanders of Italy's four largest cities, industrialists and financiers, the editor and publisher of the newspaper Corriere della Sera and 24 other journalists and TV personalities.
"With the help of Masonic cardinals, the lodge 'had turned the Vatican into a money-laundering institution and the lodge was also the strongest branch of the legendary Italian Mafia'."
Ex-Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky in 'The Other Side of Deception',1994, wrote that Licio Gelli, P-2's Grand Master, was the ally of Mossad in Italy and that Gelli also had a close relationship with the Gladio group.
According to Glenny, in the Balkans, politicians talked about nationalism while getting involved in organised crime.
"The criminal elites of the Balkans cheerfully did business with one another, exploiting sanctions, even as they urged their humble supporters to kill each other." (The Economist - Who uses whom? )
Montenegro's economy was 'based on cigarette smuggling and stolen cars', but the USA and its allies turned a blind eye to this because Montenegro was on their side in the struggle with Milosevic.
4. INDIA
In 'McMafia', Misha Glenny writes about India, where 'terrorism' is a problem and the security services of both Pakistan and India make use of gangsters to do their dirty work.
In a sense, the security services seem to merge with the gangsters.
Iqbal Mirchi is wanted by police in India for murder and his part in a terrorist bombing campaign.
He is allegedly among the top 50 global drug barons; according to the US authorities he is the right-hand man of Dawood Ibrahim, head of the 'D' company, a worldwide mafia.
Dawood Ibrahim
Bombs in Mumbai in 1993 killed over 300 people. Mirchi's name was linked to the bombings.
According to Mirchi: 'a senior police officer told me that my name would be attached to false charges unless I paid millions of rupees in bribes. I refused and moved to Dubai. '
Mirchi admits having met Dawood Ibrahim in Dubai.
Dawood has been described as 'the most dangerous man in the world'. As well as drugs and terrorism, the D company is involved in gold smuggling, gambling, counterfeit currency, diamond trading, contract killing, extortion and film financing. It is said to have a 60 per cent stake in the Bollywood film industry.
Dawood is also known to have met Osama Bin Laden and, in the aftermath of 9/11, allowed his smuggling network to be used to enable senior al-Qaeda operatives to flee Afghanistan.
According to The Hindu: "The United States showed a 'lack of enthusiasm' in getting underworld don Dawood Ibrahim deported to India from Pakistan despite making some initial efforts, says senior BJP leader L K Advani. "Advani, in his memoir 'My Country My Life', notes with deep disappointment America's reticence in pressing Pakistan to hand over Dawood, wanted in connection with 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, to India." - 'US showed lack of interest in Dawood's deportation'
5. RUSSIA
During the Yeltsin era, the Russian government allegedly allowed certain Jewish gangsters to steal a lot of the countries wealth.
"The fact is that Yeltsin was a hired tool whose job it was to turn Russia's wealth over to the same cartel of Jewish racketeers who controlled Clinton." Digg - Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin dies
6. BULGARIA
According to Misha Glenny, 80% of western Europe's heroin used to pass through the hands of the Bulgarian government's secret service.
7. CHINA
Misha Glenny writes about the snakeheads, the Chinese agents who smuggle peasants into the West.
Reportedly, the Chinese government likes them because they relieve unemployment and, with their remittances, help fuel the Chinese economy.
8. UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian, 28 March 2006, had an excellent story about heroin.
Police are investigating Michael Howard's role in a royal pardon for two of Liverpool's most dangerous gangsters, John Haase and Paul Bennett, who were granted a royal pardon in July 1996 on Howard's orders.
The decision came 11 months into 18-year sentences.
The Metropolitan police is about to launch an investigation into the 'circumstances leading up to the granting of a royal pardon for these individuals'.
Was the Home Secretary duped into believing Haase and Bennett had provided vital information about arms caches across Liverpool, arms they had arranged to be planted themselves?
Michael Howard's cousin, Simon Bakerman, is an associate of Haase.
Bakerman was released from prison on the day Howard became leader of the Conservative Party in November 2003.
Bakerman received a three-year sentence in 2002 for running an illegal factory making amphetamine and ketamine pills.
Haase claims that Bakerman received large sums of money from Haase before the pardon was granted, though even his lawyers admit there is no evidence of where this money ended up - if it was paid in the first place.
The arms caches were a set-up, planted on Haase's instructions from a mobile phone he had smuggled into prison.
Witnesses from within Haase's organisation now claim that bribes totalling £4.5 million were paid by criminals to officials involved with the case.
Haase and his associates have often been held responsible for bringing gun culture to the streets of Liverpool.
9. DRUGS
According to Misha Glenny: 'If the UN is right and drugs account for 70 per cent of organised criminal activity, then the legalisation of drugs would administer by far the deadliest blow possible against transnational organised criminal networks.'
The following was found on a laptop computer bought at a market in the east end of a certain city.
Report of the meeting held on 1 April 2008 at Erewhon House.
Colonel S - Our Embassy in London reports that Scotland may break away from the United Kingdom and become a rich little oil state like Norway.
As you all know, we have an interest in Scotland's military bases and in its oil.
We have invited Colonel J to update us on plans to destabilise Alex Salmond's Scottish National Party.
Colonel J - Gentlemen, we have a number of assets within the Scottish media. They will be presenting Salmond and his party as friends of the 'terrorists'.
Colonel S - Salmond is against the Iraq War. That doesn't make him a terrorist.
Colonel J - Salmond's government in Edinburgh has been praised by Iran for its anti-war stance.
So we get our friends in the Scottish press to present Salmond as a friend of the terrorists who kill Scottish soldiers in Iraq.
Salmond is to be seen as a friend of the mullahs and an enemy of the West.
Colonel S - Just how much money does Scotland get from England?
Colonel J - Scotland actually pays its own way and could become the third richest state in Europe. At least half the oil is still left.
However, we want to get our journalist friends to get across the message that an independent Scotland would be so poor that it would be seeking economic help from countries like Venezuela or North Korea.
Colonel S - What's the Moslem situation in Scotland?
Colonel J - There's 60,000 of them and they're mainly from a moderate part of the Indian sub-continent. However, we have some Moslems recruited to our organisation.
Mr Osama bin Liner - I think we need to mention the Caliphate and Sharia law.
Colonel S - Just refresh our memories.
Mr Osama bin Liner - The Caliphate was the old Turkish Empire, which collapsed in 1924. It was a bit like the European Union, a mixture of peoples.
Colonel S - The Caliphate is unlikely to be revived?
Mr Osama bin Liner - I cannot see the Turks joining up with the Kurds; or the Moroccans with the Algerians; or the Shias with the Sunnis; or the Malaysians with the Indonesians.
Colonel S - What's your view on Sharia?
Mr Osama bin Liner - The aim of Sharia is supposed to be a peaceful society where there is the freedom to practise religion. The old Turkish empire was actually quite civilised and tolerant. However we can emphasise the eccentricities of those extremists we keep in power in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
Colonel J - There is a certain Scottish Moslem called Mr Ali Baba.
Osama bin Liner - Ali Baba has spoken out strongly against terrorists and terrorism.
Colonel J - Ali Baba has spoken in favour of the idea of a caliphate, a sort of Moslem common market. Ali Baba has links to an organisation which has links to the Moslem Brotherhood.
Colonel S - We have friends in the Muslim Brotherhood, of course. They have helped us topple certain leaders. So, tell us more about Ali baba.
Colonel J - Ali Baba might just become the Scottish National Party Memeber of parliament for the Scottish constituency of Kelvinistan.
Colonel S - Ah, can we discredit the Scottish National party because it has a Moslem as a candidate?
Mr Osama bin Liner - The Labour Party has Mohammad Sarwar as its Moslem Member of Parliament for Glasgow Central. His son Anas Sarwar hopes to follow his father.
Colonel S - Are we thinking here of some terror incident that can be blamed on someone in an important position within the Scottish National Party?
"The Iraqi Resistance has condemned and condemns attacks on civilians; we do not blow up markets filled with innocent lives.
"This is a propaganda tactic by the occupier to discredit us.
"Suicide bombings against Iraqi civilians, beheadings, car bombs and the rest are all the work of the Occupation, the mercenaries, the Mossad, the Iranian militias and its sectarian squads.
"On many occasions, cars have been stopped at checkpoints only to find out that during their search they (US forces and militias) have planted bombs in them without the car owner’s knowledge." - Notes from the Iraqi Resistance.
"The newspapers will now be making their own investigations to see if they can find more information about Mr Murat in order to justify the allegations they printed." - Madeleine suspect to sue media
'Twelve-year-old Mohamed Samer Elhaz Mouss, photographed in October 2006, was injured by Israeli cluster bomblets delivered by Israeli warplanes during the recent Israeli aggression on Lebanon.' - electronicintifada.net/v2/article6430.shtml
"CITIGROUP and Merrill Lynch will ...this week... reveal additional sub-prime write-downs totalling $15 billion (£7.6 billion) or more... Deutsche Bank is attempting to offload some of its €35 billion (£28 billion) of toxic debt to a consortium of private-equity firms." - US banks Citigroup and Merrill Lynch reveal...
"41% of Scots want the SNP government to negotiate an independence settlement, compared to 40% who are opposed to breaking up the UK." - 41% of Scots back the break-up of the union
"Italian prosecutors said that 50,000 ballot papers among those sent out to Italians living overseas had been marked in favour Mr Berlusconi's People of Freedom movement, and offered for sale to the party." - Berlusconi on course despite claims
"Royal Dutch Shell is facing pressure from the Nigerian government and increasingly violent opposition in the Niger Delta oil-producing region, raising questions over its long-term future in the country...The government of President Umaru Yar'Adua ... is taking a harder line on historic oil contracts.... The difficulties for Shell and other western oil producers, including Chevron and Agip, could push oil prices to new heights." - Shell's future in Nigeria in doubt
In London, the house where JM Barrie is believed to have written Peter Pan is up for sale for £6.75m.
"The six-bedroom Victorian property in central London is opposite Kensington Gardens, where James Matthew Barrie met five boys who inspired his creation."
Moat Brae has lain empty for the past eight years and has been vandalised.
Windows, mirrors, baths, sinks, and a chandelier have been smashed.
Constable Iain Aird, of the notorious (Lockerbie investigation) Dumfries and Galloway police, said: "It seems that youngsters have been breaking in and hanging about in the property and over a few weeks the building has sustained a substantial amount of damage."
Barrie moved to Dumfries in 1873 at the age of 13.
Two of his friends lived at Moat Brae.
"Our escapades in a certain Dumfries garden which was an enchanted land to me was certainly the genesis of this work," he wrote, in 1904, about Peter Pan.
Dumfries is a poor, almost 'ThirdWorld' town. It needs world-class tourist attractions. And Peter Pan is known worldwide.
Perhaps the Scottish Government will buy Moat Brae and turn it into a major world-class tourist attraction, like the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal.
"Israel isn't slaughtering its innocent neighbors for the simple reason that, for the first time, its innocent neighbors can fight back... Can the Hizbollah shoot Israeli jets out of the sky in the event of another conflict?" - permanent link
The Mail reports that, on 10 April 2008, video of the moments two of the alleged July 7 suicide bombers allegedly brought death and carnage to London were shown for the first time to a court.
1. One sequence showed "Hasib Hussain, 19, bending over his rucksack as he seems to suffer a technical hitch with his bomb's trigger device."
No proof here that Hussain had a bomb or was intending to kill people.
2. Hussain "then strolls into a branch of W H Smith, apparently to buy a new battery for the device, before mingling with passers-by outside Kings Cross Tube station."
No proof here that Hussain had a bomb or was intending to kill people.
3. "Hussain then explodes his bomb on the No 30 bus at Tavistock Square and pictures from another camera show two people blown from their seats in a nearby building."
Note that the pictures do not show Hussain 'exploding his bomb'. The pictures show two people blown from their seats.
The Times reported a little more accurately:
"The jury watched Hussain who, the prosecution said, appeared to have suffered a technical hitch with his bomb. He was seen buying an item, said to be a battery, from WH Smith in King’s Cross station.
"Wearing sunglasses, he leaves the station and briefly visits a McDonald’s.
"Minutes later cameras from the British Medical Association in Tavistock Square show a number 30 bus shortly before Hussain detonates his bomb on the upper desk. Pictures from a bus just ahead show panicking passengers struggling to get off as they see the vehicle behind them explode."
4. "Another sequence shows passengers at Aldgate station moving from the platform into the train where student Shehzad Tanweer, 22, is (allegedly?) waiting to explode his bomb.
"Soon, the busy platform is empty and the train pulls out of the station. Thirty seconds later, a bright flash of light is seen in the tunnel into which the train has just disappeared. This is fast followed by clouds of dust which obscure the camera view for a few moments.
"Those few still on the platform run away and it is deserted until police officers race into view."
No video of Tanweer getting on the train or exploding a bomb.
"Hasib Hussain was reported to have been making the phone calls whilst walking down a street at 9am, and also sitting in McDonalds having a meal at 9am.
"Yet when a CCTV image of him was released on the day after the Bali bombings, exiting a chemist’s onto the main concourse of Kings Cross station, the timestamp at the bottom was 9am. According to other reports, Kings Cross was already being evacuated by 9am.
"A passenger on the bus, Richard Jones, described how an ‘agitated young man’ rummaging in a small bag had made him decide to leave the bus between stops, just before the bus exploded.
"However, it is clear that the man Richard Jones saw could not possibly have been Hasib Hussain, not just because Richard Jones says he was on the bottom deck of the bus whereas the bomb was at the back of the upper deck, but because the description he gave of the young man that he saw does not match the physical description of Hasib as given by the police and shown in the CCTV pictures which were released.
"Another oddity is that Hasib was identified due to the apparently unique injuries sustained by suicide bombers due to the explosives they strap on to their bodies. It is perhaps strange that he would have been identified by these unique injuries caused by strap on explosives when it was stated that he was carrying his bomb in a rucksack."
Mohammad Sidique Khan is the alleged suicide bomber concerned.
Reportedly, Khan's wife Hasina was in possession of a video made by Khan in 2004.
Hasina gave the video to a friend who later passed it on to police after the July 7 bombing.
In the 2004 video, Mohammad Sidique Khan reportedly tells his daughter Maryam, then just a few months old:
"Sweetheart, not long to go now. And I'm going to really, really miss you a lot. I'm thinking about it already.
"Look, I absolutely love you to bits and you have been the happiest thing in my life. You and your mum, absolutely brilliant.
"I don't know what else to say. I just wish I could have been part of your life, especially these growing up - these next months, they're really special with you learning to walk and things."
The messages were made shortly before Khan travelled to Pakistan in November 2004.
A London court has been told that Khan recorded the video because he was preparing to die while fighting jihad in Afghanistan.
It is possible that Khan's video message to his daughter simply meant - I'm off to Pakistan to visit family and I will miss an important part of your early development. Or, I'm off to Pakistan to do work with the security services and it's always possible I may not come back.
What has been alleged about Khan in the past?
According to a report in the Guardian in 2005, a 'friend' of Khan told the BBC that Khan had travelled regularly to Pakistan and Afghanistan to attend military training camps. [3]
According to Rohan Gunaratna, a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, Khan is alleged to have been trained with Indonesian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah and to be directly involved with the 2002 Bali bombing[5].
Gunaratna is suspected of being a disinformation agent for the security services ( Cached ).
1. They are often 'directly tied to big semi-feudal landholding interests'.
2. They are usually supported by the western 'imperialists' (who do not want strong independent-minded democracies to emerge as rivals.)
3. Their policies often involve "vicious patriarchy and bigotry, religious warfare, 'honor killings', and the promotion of unscientific, superstitious ignorance."
Taylor notes that support for the fundamentalists grows stronger, the more the USA gets involved in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The U.S., despite all its talk about coming to the aid of women oppressed by the Taliban, has continued to back and install reactionary clerics and sectarian religious forces in the countries it has occupied."
He wrote: "the Saudi regime was a 'major financial backer of the Reagan administration’s 'anti-Communist campaign in Latin America,' as well as its efforts to destabilize the Soviet Union by supporting the Islamic fundamentalist forces in Afghanistan."
4. Indonesia is the world's biggest Moslem country and provides the best example of what is happening.
Indonesia, until the mid 1990s, had a mainly moderate and liberal form of Islam.
The world's biggest Moslem organisation, the Nahdlatul Ulama, particularly under the leadership of Abdurrahman Wahid, has been in favour of liberal democracy.
However, during the 1990s, Indonesia's President Suharto began to worry about:
(1) The growing movement to replace the corrupt elite with a democracy that would do more for the poor.
(2) The loyalty of certain generals, some of whom were close friends of the Pentagon.
Suharto began to promote Islamism, in the hope that it would counter the forces of democracy and counter the disloyal sections of the military.
The fall of Suharto, in 1998, eventually increased the power of the military.
After Suharto's fall, the policy of the elite was to maintain the feudal system by (1) promoting Islamism (2) keeping the military as the power behind the scenes.
There are strong links between the militant moslem groups and the military.
According to Dr Damien Kingsbury, head of philosophical, political and international studies at Deakin University, the Indonesian military's special forces regiment, Kopassus, set up the Islamic organisation Komando Jihad. (We must not get back in bed with Kopassus - theage.com.au)
Kingsbury has explained that:
1. Komando Jihad became Jemaah Islamiah, which has been linked to the Bali bomb.
2. Kopassus has murdered and tortured political activists, trade unionists and human rights workers.
3. It has trained, equipped and led militias in East Timor, West Papua and Aceh.
4. Kopassus members trained the notorious Laskar Jihad Islamic militia, which stepped up conflict in the Ambon region, leaving up to 10,000 dead.
"Violent extremism's renaissance began with police using vigilantes to extract protection money from reluctant bar owners and blossomed withthe military's logistical support to send thousands of jihadis to the Malukus and central Sulawesi to undermine Abdurrahman Wahid's presidential election victory in 1999... Government reluctance to stand up to thugs gives the impression of implicit approval, or that the extremists serve a higher authority."
The Islam Defenders Front (known as FPI) is a militant Moslem group believed to be working for elements of the police and/or military.
Gary LaMoshi, in the Asia Times ( a counter-offensive ) 14 June 2006, wrote about an attack of former president Wahid on 23 May 2006:
"At an interfaith forum in the West Java town of Purwakarta, members of FPI and other radical groups forced Wahid, virtually blind and limited physically because of a series of strokes, off the stage. The radicals cited Wahid's opposition to the anti-pornography bill as an insult to Islam."
A study in TURKEY "covered the locals’ perception of the foreign residents and revealed that generally they do not want the foreigners to reside in Antalya.
"About 63 percent of those polled were not comfortable with the foreigners buying real estate, and 73 percent of them would prefer to sell their assets to Turkish citizens only.
Abu Obaidah Al-Masri is alleged to have recruited, trained and directed the July 2005 London bombers, and officials also believe he played a role in the liquid explosives bomb plot to blow up transatlantic flights bound for the U.S. and Canada in the summer of 2006. - Al-Qa'ida leader dead, US claims
Indonesia could be considered the classic new world order state.
Indonesia has an increasing number of billionaires and an increasing number of starving people.
It was the USA that put the military into power in Indonesia in 1965, and the military still pulls the strings.
The Indonesian elite increasingly use militarism and religious FUNDAMENTALISM to keep the FEUDAL SYSTEM in place.
Andre Vltchek, at Japan Focus (here), has written an excellent article about Indonesia:
"The New Face of Indonesia’s Islamic Fundamentalism: Pornography Ban Ignores the Starving" "While the nation was off guard, distracted by soaring food prices, a collapsing road system and general hopelessness, the House of Representatives on March 25th 2008 passed a bill banning all pornographic websites, threatening to jail users and providers who will now face up to three years in prison or a substantial fine...
"At dark intersections, street children are begging, some offering themselves to exhausted motorists. Women carrying infants are begging next to the exhaust pipes of the cars...
"Several parts of the country have introduced Islamic sharia by-laws banning unaccompanied women from leaving the house after sunset. Muslim women are ordered to wear headscarves...
"Fully covered little girls are now a common site in some Jakarta neighborhoods as well as in many rural areas of Java...
"Of course the fight against corruption has stalled. It is too much to expect Indonesian Representatives to fight against graft, considering that many if not most amassed their own fortunes illegally.
"It is easier to attack images of lovemaking or sex than powerful people who are robbing the poorest of the poor...
"Just a few days before the bill was passed, I drove through the crowded and depressing streets of Jakarta. Howling sirens pushed me to the curb.
"Several escort vehicles and motorbikes drove by, protecting a brand new Porsche Cayenne 4WD. It was a vehicle of a legislators, a man who should be saving for a Honda Civic on his official salary. A few feet away, street children were playing barefoot in the gutter, one of them showing clear signs of malnutrition. Forgive me, but I call that pornography.
"While the government is fighting Internet porn, tens of millions of Indonesian women are forced by poverty and hopelessness into the countless brothels in Surabaya, Batam and Jakarta.
"Millions of women who are raped or get pregnant out of wedlock are abandoning their infants and children, some of whom are left in the garbage bins or on the street.
"Country girls go or are sent by their families as 'maids' into sexual slavery in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East. As they leave Indonesia, they wear headscarves, so the state need not worry about their fate..."
(Andre Vltchek—novelist, journalist, filmmaker and playwright—is a Japan Focus associate. His recent novel – Point of No Return –shows the New Order through the eyes of war as a correspondent.)
Malnourished Indonesian Photo of Billionaire Indonesian government minister Bakrie
In 2006, Aburizal Bakrie was number 6 on the Forbes list of Indonesia’s richest people ( he was worth $1.2 billion )
Bakrie is a government minister. He is the Co-ordinating minister for the Peoples’ Welfare.
Now, in 2007, Bakrie is Indonesia's richest person.
Aburizal Bakrie and family (Bakrie Group): $5.4 billion Sukanto Tanoto (April and Asian Agri): $4.7 billion R. Budi Hartono: $3.14 billion Michael Hartono (Budi and Michael Hartono, part owners of Djarum and BCA): $3.08 billion Eka Tjipta Widjaja and family (Sinar Mas Group): $2.8 billion Putera Sampoerna and family (Sampoerna Strategic): $2.2 billion Martua Sitorus (Wilmar International): $2.1 billion Rachman Halim and family (Gudang Garam): $1.6 billion Peter Sondakh (Rajawali Group): $1.45 billion. Eddy William Katuari and family (Wings Group): $1.39 billion (Sources: Aburizal Bakrie1forbes )
Mysteriously, the Suharto family does not appear on the list.
In 2004 Bakrie was Indonesia's chief economic minister.[4][5]
Bakrie was accused of nepotism. [6] In 2005, he became the Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare.
In May 2006 a drilling hole at Porong, Sidoarjo that was constructed without protective casings by PT Lapindo Brantas, a mining company of the Bakrie conglomerate, started a continuous release of hot mud that made many people homeless and threatens the local economy in East Java.
The May 1998 riots in Jakarta, apparently organised by the CIA and elements of the military, changed very little in Indonesia.
In 1998 Suharto stepped down and elections were held.
But, the generals, and families like the Suhartos, still pull the strings.
Indonesia's President Yudhoyono is a former Suharto general.
Melody Kemp, at onlineopinion.com, 10 January 2008, has an utterly brilliant article on Indonesia entitled:
The old town known as Kota (in Jakarta) ... is now a no-go area where violence and drug taking have escalated...
Toll roads still owned by the Soeharto family, are groaning with cars...
People look more stressed than before. As the cost of living hikes leave more and more poor behind, crime and meaningless jobs multiply alongside each other...
And the rich are richer... We stayed at the very popular Novotel... The hotel is now surrounded by multimillion dollar homes. Huge mansions bristling with stainless steel three-storey high windows and doubtless, an alarming number of bathrooms. I wondered hopefully if the owners paid taxes.
For the first time an Indonesian, the Minister for Social Welfare, made the list of Forbes 100 richest men. He is at the centre of the case of the ongoing destructive mud eruptions in East Java that have made life misery for many Indonesians. And for which the good Minister for Social Welfare refuses to take any responsibility.
Indonesia’s problem is not poverty but distribution. And the powers-that-be continue to refuse to acknowledge this - as do aid donors, including Australia. Policies that favour the rich, such as education fees, are still promulgated by the World Bank, eager it seems to live up to its reputation as an instrument of blind capitalism...
The World Bank, we were told by one of their consultants, had earmarked a US$800 million loan, ready to go.
Apparently no planning guidelines, or projects had been identified, nor guidelines for disbursal, monitoring or evaluation. It was simply a “give ‘em the loan and saddle ‘em with debt” strategy...
Soeharto, in effect, turned Indonesia into one huge franchising operation from which he and his family profited; and continue to do so.
The recent Bali Climate Carnival was held in Soeharto-owned hotels. While Sadam killed thousands and was hanged, Soeharto stole from and killed millions, and lives on. Justice is not a notable feature of Indonesia, or of American patronage...
The ABC Asian news services recently trumpeted that Jema’ah Islamiya had a membership of 9,000 ... What they failed to add was that in a population of 260 million, 9,000 does not represent recruitment success.
Repeatedly Islamic parties do poorly in the elections. Radical Islam is less popular than Family First.
But that could change. Officials in the Ministry of Religion are beginning to acknowledge thatIndonesia could soon be an Islamic state given current Western inspired wars, impoverishment of Muslim communities, ongoing judicial corruption and mismanagement of community conflicts and misdirected aid...
Islamic schools are free and are used increasingly by the poor in the wake of user-pays education cost rises...
Indonesian’s major complaint to me was that user-pays education excludes the poor ... Into this come the Muslim carpetbaggers from Malaysia and Saudi Arabia using Syhari’a principles to influence Indonesian children to take up the puritan form that they espouse.
I noticed a greater number of swathed heads and long gowns as well as an increase in the number of tragic threadbare beards...
But the message is the Saudi influence is biting.
The way to combat radical Islam is not by weapons, spies and training police, but by supporting the majority of moderate Muslims who want a good education for their children to open the doors of opportunity for which they don’t have the key.
There are lots of palatial new mosques being built in Indonesia, the world's biggest Moslem country.
Meanwhile state hospitals and state schools are as neglected as any in the Congo; the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer.
Indonesia is a democracy and its government opposes Islamic extremism?
No.
Indonesia's President, Susilo Bangbang Yudhoyono, was one of Suharto's generals. Yudhoyono was trained in America.
Suharto married a Catholic and some of his key generals were Christian.
Suharto used the Islamists to do his dirty work, frustrate democracy and help keep the elite in power.
Suharto sided with the orthodox Moslems against the pro-democracy moderate Moslems.
President Yudhoyono, friend of America, may be little different from Suharto.
"In 2004-06, there was a spate of attacks by hardline Islamist militias, such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI)... The FPI’s 2005 march on the Liberal Islam Network headquarters and verbal threats to their leadership was not prosecuted by the state...
"Jemaah Islamiyah, the regional terrorist group, is not a proscribed entity in Indonesia. Mere membership in JI is not a crime and many JI leaders, such as Abu Bakar Ba’asyir and Muhammad Iqbal Rahman (Abu Jibril), freely proselytize..." - Islamist Thuggery and Official Complacency Challenge Secular ...
The British military, the American military and the Indonesian military have long used the Moslem extremists to promote their right-wing agenda.
"Cabinet papers show that British spies, including MI6, supported Islamic guerrillas in order to destabilise Sukarno." (Revealed: Healey admits role in British dirty tricks campaign to overthrow Indonesia's President Sukarno, By Paul Lashmar and James Oliver, The Independent - 16 April 2000) The Secret State: MI5 (Home Office/MoD), The Security Service and ...
Indonesian special forces regiment Kopassus is trained by the Americans.
Kopassus 'set up a Moslem terror group called Komando Jihad.'
According to Dr Damien Kingsbury, head of philosophical, political and international studies at Deakin University: "Kopassus... has engaged in... hostage rescue missions. The first was in 1981, when a Garuda aircraft was hijacked.... Kopassus... set up the Islamic organisation Komando Jihad that hijacked the plane in 1981 and which has since emerged as Jemaah Islamiah." We must not get back in bed with Kopassus - theage.com.au
Jakarta human-rights activist Bonar Naipospos told Asia Times Online: "General Suparman is one of the generals who was behind the extremist Jihad groups. He set up militias composed of gangsters and religious fanatics to counter student demonstrations in 1998. One of these militias, Pram Swarkasa, became the embryo of Laskar Jihad." Asia TimesWe must not get back in bed with Kopassus - theage.com.au
According to a news story in the Sydney Morning Herald, November 2, 2002:
"Some time around the 30 October 2002, senior officers in the Indonesian military HQ gave a piece of information to a military attache from a Western embassy in Indonesia -the source of explosive used in the October 12 bombing in Bali was the head of the counter-terrorism unit with the army's special forces."
The father-in-law of the officer concerned is Hendropriyono, Indonesia's spy chief.
Allegedly, Kuwaiti citizen Omar Al Faruq played a part in the Bali bomb plot. Al Faruq was arrested in Bogor on June 5, 2002 and handed over to US authorities. Al Faruq was able to escape from custody.
Former Indonesian State Intelligence Coordinating Board (BAKIN) chief A.C. Manulang was quoted by Tempo as saying that Al-Faruq was a CIA-recruited agent.
The airline manifest of Garuda airlines shows that at least two generals from Jakarta visited Bali three days before the bombings and that they returned to Jakarta one day before the Sari Club was blown up. This was confirmed by armed forces chief General Sutarto, who claimed that General Djaja Suparman was on vacation, while General Ryamizard Riyacudu, chief of staff, was said to have gone to Bali for health reasons.
According to the BBC, 9 April 2008, "Islamic preacher Abu Qatada has won an appeal against deportation from the UK which could lead to him being freed.
"Qatada - in prison pending deportation to Jordan - has been dubbed 'Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe'. (Preacher Abu Qatada wins appeal )
Among the scores of young militants who came to visit him in London was the chief suspect in the Madrid train bombings.
His followers also included Richard Reid, the shoe bomber.
A ruling by the Special Immigrations Appeals Commission revealed that there was evidence to show that Abu Qatada “has been concerned in the instigation of acts of international terrorism”.
MI5 agents held meetings with the cleric.
He disappeared from his family home in West London just before the UK's terror law came into force.
Indignant French officials accused MI5 of helping the cleric to abscond. While he remained on the run, one intelligence chief in Paris was quoted as saying: “British intelligence is saying they have no idea where he is, but we know where he is and, if we know, I’m quite sure they do.”
Almost a year later Abu Qatada was found hiding in a flat not far from Scotland Yard.
Mr Justice Collins ruled that the cleric was “at the centre in the UK of terrorist activities associated with al-Qaeda”.
He is a Jordanian national who arrived here with a forged United Arab Emirates passport in September 1993 claiming asylum.
Jordan told Britain that he had been convicted for terrorist attacks in Amman seven months before September 11.
Spanish investigators produced evidence that a militant they had in custody in Madrid — Abu Dahdah — had visited the cleric more than 25 times, bringing him money and new recruits.
Bisher al-Rawi is a British resident being held at Guantanamo.
In the letter, seen by The Independent on Sunday, Mr al-Rawi alleges that:
* He was recruited by MI5 weeks after 11 September and was in contact with Abu Qatada.
* MI5 always knew where Abu Qatada was hiding after he fled his home in west London hours before new powers to detain suspects without charge came into force in December 2001. He lived at Elephant & Castle, close to MI5's headquarters, for nine months before being arrested.
* Throughout this time, Mr al-Rawi had 'numerous' meetings with three MI5 agents - 'Alex', 'Matthew' and 'Martin' - in hotels and bars in London, passingmessages between them and Abu Qatada.
* After Mr al-Rawi expressed anxieties his safety was at risk from his contacts with MI5, a service lawyer "assured" him that it would "aid him in his defence [and] would appear as witnesses on his behalf".
"The £7m inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed has finally returned the only verdict that anyone could reasonably anticipate on the basis of the evidence...There was no conspiracy involving the Duke of Edinburgh, MI6, Mossad, visitors from Mars or the man on the grassy knoll." - Guardian Editorial - About this article
Alan Hamilton, at The Times, 8 April 2008, writes a news item entitled: "Diana, Princess of Wales... some questions remain."
Hamilton writes:
1. What exactly caused Henri Paul to lose control of the Mercedes has never been made clear... The white Fiat Uno, of which much was made but which has never been found, may or may not have been a factor...It is still unclear whether there was another vehicle which got in Paul’s way and then sped off...
2. Why Dodi chose to have the car driven by Henri Paul, who was the acting head of security at the Ritz and not a professional driver, when fully qualified chauffeurs were available, has never been satisfactorily explained.
3. Major doubts still cloud the question of how much Paul had had to drink, as much of his evening remains unaccounted for. With suspicious speed, the French authorities rushed out a statement that he had been three times over the French drink-driving limit.
The possibility remains that the blood samples from the postmortem examination were switched, whether by accident or design. Professor Robert Forrest, an expert toxicologist from the University of Sheffield, told the jury that the French routines for safeguarding samples and sending them for analysis were slack by British standards...
4. Would the Princess have survived if medical procedures had been different?...
From crash to operating theatre took nearly two hours...
5. A ring that Dodi had bought the previous afternoon...
Unfortunately, Hamilton seems to have been persuaded to slant his story to fit in with the views of the Establishment. Hence the headlines -
"Professor Atholl Johnston, a clinical pharmacologist, said one of the blood samples that appeared to show the chauffeur had drunk alcohol was probably not his... 'The most likely explanation is that it isn't Henri Paul's blood.'" - Paul blood samples 'could have been cooked'
3. This former director of security at Harrods is John Macnamara.
Macnamara :
1. Is a former Scotland Yard detective chief superintendent.
2. He was in charge of Fayed's investigation team for five years after Diana's death in August 1997.
3. He has made sworn statements to the police suggesting there was a criminal conspiracy to murder Diana.
4. He told a television interviewer 10 days after the crash that there was no evidence that Henri Paul, the couple's chauffeur, had been drinking.
No unanimous verdict in Diana trial. Court accepts majority verdict."Princess Diana was unlawfully killed due to the 'gross negligence' of driver Henri Paul and the paparazzi, an inquest jury has found." - Princess Diana unlawfully killed
It was all the fault of the driver. Gavrilo Princip was not in Sarajevo that day.
No unanimous verdict in Diana trial. Court accepts majority verdict."Princess Diana was unlawfully killed due to the 'gross negligence' of driver Henri Paul and the paparazzi, an inquest jury has found." - Princess Diana unlawfully killed
"One of the main root causes of the American Recession/Depression ... is the disruption to the debt markets caused by the necessity of financing the disastrous attack on Iraq using entirely borrowed money... The only beneficiary of the attack was the (Israeli) Settler Movement and its American operatives" -permanent link
"There are some high-stakes games being played out around Russia, primarily between the criminal oligarchs who stole Russian national assets after the fall of the Soviet Union, and the current Russian government. Another example is the recent arrest by the Russians of mafiya leader Semyon Mogilevich." - permanent link
Two Belgian paratroopers were photographed "roasting" a Somali boy
On 6 April 2008, The People reported that at a UK army base, Catterick Garrison, a 15-year-old girl was involved in 'a sickening roasting sex session with up to seventeen soldiers'.
Reportedly, the mobile phone video footage was made at Bourlon Barracks in North Yorkshire and 'has brought shame on the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment'.
According to one soldier: "They pushed two campbeds together to have sex with her and then gathered around.
"Many of them were filming it and were pumped up on booze."
A North Yorkshire police spokeswoman 'confirmed officers have seen the footage and had traced and interviewed the girl involved'.
The spokeswoman added that no arrests had been made.
~~
Louise Jensen
In Cyprus, in 1994, three British soldiers kidnapped, raped and murdered a girl called Louise Jensen.
Louise was repeatedly raped and then beaten to death with a shovel.
They were released in August 2006 after spending only a few years in custody.
On 3 February 2008, nine British troops serving in Cyprus were arrested and charged after allegedly smashing up a pub and attacking locals in the holiday resort of Ayia Napa.
This is at a time when the Cypriots are increasingly keen to kick the British military out of Cyprus. (PLOTS IN CYPRUS)
Baha Mousa
Private Stuart Mackenzie was in Iraq in 2003 ( Diary of a squaddie: Sunburn, sore feet and three more Ali Babas ... ) He was attached to the Queen's Lancashire Regiment which ran the detention centre in which Iraqi hotel worker Baha Mousa was held before dying from the 93 injuries he sustained.
Mackenzie kept a diary and extracts were produced at the court martial of the seven soldiers who were acquitted of abusing prisoners.
Mackenzie wrote:
Leg and a winged [threw] Ali Baba into Shat al Arab [Shatt al-Arab canal] for stealing wood. Piss funny....
On 4 hour patrol - ... found anti-aircraft gun ... Horse bit me. Found 3 Ali Babas at WTP7. Beat them up with sticks and filmed it - good day so far...
House raid, for hours, nothing found. Caught 3 Ali Babas - beat fuck out of them in back of Saxon. 1 had a punctured lung + broken ribs + fingers. 1 had a dislocated shoulder + broken fingers...
The British military have a growing reputation for behaving like Nazis.
According to some historians, Britain bears “significant responsibility” since 1945 for the direct or indirect deaths of 8.6 million to 13.5 million people throughout the world from military interventions and at the hands of regimes strongly supported by Britain. (Unpeople, Dirty Wars and a Web of Deceit – Britain’s Foreign ...)
From an article by Harvey Thompson at WSWS 16 November 1999:
A typical case is that of Harry Farr, who joined the British Expeditionary Force in 1914 and fought in the trenches.
His position was repeatedly shelled, and in May 1915 he collapsed with strong convulsions.
In hospital, his wife Gertrude—who was denied a widow's pension after the war—recalled, “he shook all the time. He couldn't stand the noise of the guns. We got a letter from him, but it was in a stranger's handwriting. He could write perfectly well, but couldn't hold the pen because his hand was shaking.”
It is now thought that Farr was possibly suffering from hypacusis, which occurs when the eardrums are so damaged that the auditory nerve becomes exposed, making loud noises physically unbearable. Despite this, Farr was sent back to the front and fought at the Somme. After several months of fighting, he requested to see a medical orderly but was refused.
In Farr's Court Martial papers, the Sergeant Major is quoted as saying “If you don't go up to the f*****g front, I'm going to f*****g blow your brains out” to which Farr simply replied “I just can't go on.”
The Court Martial was over in 20 minutes. Harry Farr had to defend himself. General Haig signed his death warrant and he was shot at dawn on October 16, 1916.
Prior to World War II, elements of the British military were fans of Hitler.
According to Admiral Sir Barry Domville, a pre-war head of UK Naval Intelligence, Hitler was "absolutely terrific."
Wing Commander Frederick Winterbottom, a pre-war head of MI6's air section, reportedly hoped Britain and Germany would unite against Stalin's Russia. (Hackitectura Advance - [History of M15)
Photo: British concentration camp.
Giles MacDonogh has written After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation. (A hellish peace)
According to MacDonogh's evidence, at the end of World War II, the British military and its allies went in for rape, torture and murder.
One of the British torture centres was at Bad Nenndorf, near Hanover. 372 men and 44 women passed through the Bad Nenndorf torture centre during the 22 months it operated before its closure in July 1947.
A Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Tom Hayward, investigated Bad Nenndorf.
He describes how prisoners were systematically beaten and exposed to extreme cold; some were starved to death and, allegedly, tortured with instruments that his fellow countrymen had recovered from a Gestapo prison in Hamburg.
Many of the prisoners were simply German leftists.
Others were Germans living in the Russian zone who had crossed the line, offered to spy on the Russians, and were tortured to establish whether they were genuine defectors.
One of the men who was starved to death, Walter Bergmann, had offered to spy for the British, and fell under suspicion because he spoke Russian.
Another man who starved to death, Franz Osterreicher, had been arrested while attempting to enter the British zone in search of his gay lover.
Ingrid Groth, then a seven-year-old, said locals claimed that if you crept up to the barbed wire at night, you could hear the prisoners' screams.
The commanding officer was Robin "Tin Eye" Stephens of MI5.
The inmates were starved, woken during the night, and forced to walk up and down their cells from early morning until late at night. When moving about the prison they were expected to run, while soldiers kicked them.
Prisoners could be stripped and repeatedly doused in water. This punishment could continue for weeks, even in sub-zero temperatures.
Naked prisoners were handcuffed back-to-back and forced to stand before open windows in midwinter. Frostbite became common.
One victim of the cold cell punishment was Buttlar...an anti-Nazi, he had spent two years as a prisoner of the Gestapo.
"I never in all those two years had undergone such treatments," he said.
Reportedly, the British military also got into bed with the Nazis.
After the war, "British authorities called off the hunt for the man who organised the Nazi Holocaust just 17 months after the end of World War II, files have revealed. The files relating to Adolf Eichmann were released by The National Archives. They show that at the time the decision was made, Eichmann was hiding in the British-controlled zone of Germany. He went to Argentina in 1950." - Eichmann search was ended early
Horst Kopkow, one of Hitler’s top spies, who ordered the murders of more than 100 British secret agents in concentration camps, was spared execution as a war criminal and went to work for MI6. Evidence emerged in the 1980s that Britain had become a refuge for suspected war criminals. - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1611185,00.html
Historian Mark Curtis has written: 1. 'Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses' (2004) 2. 'Web of Deceit: Britain’s Real Role in the World' (2003) Published by Vintage.
According to new research, Britain bears “significant responsibility” since 1945 for the direct or indirect deaths of 8.6 million to 13.5 million people throughout the world from military interventions and at the hands of regimes strongly supported by Britain.
Curtis said he came up with the term “Unpeople” because he thought it adequately described the British government’s attitude towards people who are expendable in Britain’s pursuit of economic and political goals.
“Last year,” Curtis said in a phone interview, “there was a British army officer who was quoted in Iraq as saying the Americans view the Iraqis only as Untermenschen, the Nazi concept of subhuman. In a way, the British have no real different regard for Iraqis than Americans."
Mark Curtis says that in 1971 an official British investigation found that the British army's torture techniques "played an important part in counter-insurgency operations in Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus and the British Cameroons (1960-1), Brunei (1963), British Guiana (1964), Aden (1964-7), Borneo/Malaysia (1965-6), the Persian Gulf (1970-1) and in Northern Ireland (1971)".
In KENYA, the British used beatings, sexual humiliation, hooding, sleep deprivation, and bombarding with white noise.
32 Whites were killed by the Mau Mau during the five-year state of emergency. More whites died in traffic accidents in the capital city, Nairobi.
Kenyans were forced into concentration camps and routinely tortured. Some 150,000 Africans died as a direct result of the British policy.
There was a "constant stream of reports of brutalities by police, military and home guards", wrote Canon Bewes, a British missionary. "Some of the people had been using castration instruments and two men had died under castration."
Other brutalities included slicing off ears, boring holes in eardrums, flogging people to death, pouring paraffin over suspects and setting them alight and burning eardrums with cigarettes.
A British district officer admitted, "There was outright abuse of power and some of the crimes committed were horrific. One day six Mau Mau suspects were brought into a police station in the neighbouring district to mine. The British police inspector in charge lined them up against a wall and shot them."
A mobile gallows travelled the country. Over 1,000 were hanged, their bodies displayed at crossroads and market places.
MALAYSIA
The British used terror in Malaya.
This involved aerial bombing, massacres of villagers, dictatorial police measures and the "resettlement" of hundreds of thousands of people.
CYPRUS
During the state of emergency, from 1952 to 1957, the British army used torture.
Cypriot Nicos Koshies:
"They took me to the Special Branch and they started beating me. They took off all my clothes, they tied my hands and feet. They asked somebody to come in. He was taking a stick to put up my bottom, he was putting cloths in water and putting them on my face so I could not breathe, he threw me down and danced on my stomach when he was wearing boots. After 12 days I could not recognise myself."
James Callaghan in the House of Commons:
"On 29 June 1957 an inquest was held into the death of Nicos Georghiou. Dr Clearkin said in evidence that bruises in the head were sufficiently severe to have caused the injuries to the brain, perhaps bumping the head against a hard object."
IRAN
In 1953 a coup organised by the British and the USA overthrew Mossadeq and gave power to the Shah.
British SAS forces trained the Shah's Savak secret police.
SAS officers helped train the Iranian army in special operations against the Kurds.
The Shah's regime used torture until it was overthrown in 1979.
ADEN/SOUTH YEMEN
In Aden, later known as South Yemen, SAS squads used terror against local villages.
An official investigation found that from 1964 to 1967 detainees at a British interrogation centre were routinely tortured. Their eardrums were burst.
Others were forced to lean against walls with their fingertips for day and subjected to white noise for hours.
BAHRAIN
Former detainees in Bahrain have described being beaten, electrocuted, whipped, tied in excruciating positions for days on end, kept awake, starved and having their toenails torn out.
NORTHERN IRELAND
The Compton official inquiry acknowledged that the army hooded suspects, fed them on just bread and water and blasted them with noise.
An Amnesty International report said, "It is because we regard the deliberate destruction of a man's ability to control his own mind with revulsion that we reserve a special place in our catalogue of moral crimes for techniques of thought control and brainwashing. Any interrogation procedure which has the purpose or effect of causing a malfunction or breakdown of a man's mental processes constitutes as grave an assault on the inherent dignity of the human person as more traditional techniques of physical torture."
A European human rights report found that British army techniques amounted to "inhuman and degrading treatment" causing "at least intense physical and mental suffering".
Indonesia is still run by the military. "Former militia leader Eurico Guterres — the only Indonesian jailed for the destruction of East Timor that claimed about 1500 lives in 1999 — has been acquitted by a Jakarta court. The decision means all the men, most of them Indonesian military officers, charged by Indonesian prosecutors over the violence during the 1999 independence referendum have now been acquitted." - Jakarta judges clear ex-militia leader over Timor carnage
According to the Sunday Express, 6 April 2008, "MI6 'lied' about spying on Diana."
Lee Sansum, a former military-police sergeant from Elgin in Scotland, was one of Princess Diana's bodyguards in St Tropez.
According to Sansum, quoted in the Sunday Express, the security services "had surveillance on the Fayed house and then in St Tropez where Diana and Dodi went on holiday.
"This was just four weeks before they died.
"So when the Government says Diana was not under any surveillance, then I have to say 'I don't believe you'...MI6 know what happened on that night in Paris because they were there."
Samsun says, "Myself and another member of the protection personnel spotted someone we know well from the special forces working on a building site near the Al Fayed house....
"I spotted Government agents following the princess while on holiday in St Tropez."
~~
An MI6 team was at the UK's embassy in Paris at the time of Princess Diana's death, the former ambassador has said.
Lord Jay told the inquest into Diana's death he did not think the intelligence service's presence had anything to do with the car crash which killed her. - BBC NEWS UK 'MI6 in Paris' when Diana killed
~~
"Fresh accounts include the astonishing claim that the Queen’s most senior and trusted courtier was seen in Paris, at the British Embassy, half an hour before the crash.
"Furthermore, they include a baffling allegation that the RAF crew which flew Tony Blair from his Sedgefield constituency to London to greet the Princess’s repatriated body had been on continual standby to make the flight from two days earlier — when Diana was still alive...
"Richard Billing Dearlove - the incoming Head of MI6 in September 1999 - was in Paris two weeks before the Aug. 31, 1997 crash." - http://jya.com/mi6-list.htm
"A child born in the west of scotland will die younger than a child born anywhere else in Europe...
"The study puts forward several theories which could explain the poor health, such as greater inequalities in society or Scots choosing to adopt damaging behaviours, for reasons which could be related to deprivation...
"When Scots emigrate 'down under' they have similar disease and death rates as Australians within two generations.
"'In Mediterranean countries, the extended family unit and a young man's role within it seems to have remained stronger and it may have protected them from some of these effects.'"
"Though political control went south in 1707, economic control did not - not until 1914. It was from then that Scotland's relative decline began.
"It will probably continue until we have a government capable of repatriating a measure of economic control to Scotland.
"In other words, independence (under a government that does not see us as a milk cow for England's benefit) is a necessary precondition to recovering from our decline." - What makes Scotland so sick?
"Scientists have shown that in the earth’s geological past, concentrations of carbon dioxide have been up to 20 times higher than they are at present and temperatures have been considerably warmer. The two most recent warming periods occurred during Roman Times from 200BC to 600 AD and Medieval Times from 900AD to 1300AD, when Greenland was green and grapes grew in England. The Little Ice Age followed.
"Current temperature trends show a warm period between 1920 and 1940, followed by a cooling phase. There was a sudden warming surge from 1976 to 1978 and another in 1998. Since then the weather has been cooler. The year 1934 has emerged as the warmest of the 20th century. This, along with the evidence of those historical warm periods, confirms that man-made greenhouse gas emissions cannot possibly be the cause of the earth’s warming.
"The very latest scientific research shows that the climate operates on a 1,500-year cycle and is driven by a complex interaction of solar activity including sunspots and cosmic rays, winds, deep ocean currents, as well as cloud and precipitation cycles..." - Unstoppable Climate Change
"Scientists have produced further compelling evidence showing that modern-day climate change is not caused by changes in the Sun's activity.
"The research contradicts a favoured theory of climate "sceptics", that changes in cosmic rays coming to Earth determine cloudiness and temperature.
"The idea is that variations in solar activity affect cosmic ray intensity.
But Lancaster University scientists found there has been no significant link between them in the last 20 years." - 'No Sun link' to climate change
"I found myself at first, naturally, being pessimistic about it. Big shock there.
"But I was soon frantically underlining passage after passage, while feeling wonderfully connected and understood.
"He is not trying to say that if we all think happy thoughts, we'll receive magnanimous good fortune, as I was expecting.
"But rather that if we just stop being so stressed out by every little issue that arises and simply soak up the present moment, we will see and feel a change. The little things will become more valuable and meaningful to us.
"I began reading passages out loud to my husband, who does not need such a book, as he is the Tigger to my Eeyore- perpetually positive, bouncy and accepting of whatever comes his way. But for me, there was such a resonance in the author's dissection of what plagues society, namely the quest for more, more, more. And I was clearly a part of the problem." - A Pessimist's New Earth
"He blames the world's ills on the ego - I blame negative energies and bad intentions.
"Additionally, I am not entirely convinced that the entire purpose of my life is to remember that I came from a big soup of consciousness. The fact is, if we are eternal souls, we'll be going back to God soon enough. I have no problem with people "losing themselves" in the material, as long as they are happy and not hurting other people.
"I look at it like this: Sometimes I like to watch a movie or play a video game as a way to get out of my head and experience another reality. We're here on the planet to experience reality. There's value to connecting to spirit, but I don't think we need to go so far as to completely negate the sense of past, present, and future that gives our lives a sense of movement and purpose. There's a reason why movies and books have conflict: It makes for a better, more interesting story.
"Thus, because my underlying philosophy is different, I did not come up with an 'a-ha' from reading A New Earth. At the same time, I felt his deconstruction of the ego will be helpful to very many people who are caught up in external things and need a way to articulate a method of connecting to spirit. For many people, this book will provide a deep resonance.
"For myself, I find that The Work of Byron Katie is more practical and useful when it comes to unplugging from my 'story.' Byron Katie, also, seems to have achieved more of a transcendence of dualism than Tolle himself has. Would Byron Katie say 'the ego is pathological'? No. She would ask us to question: 'Is that really true?'
"And thus, while I did find that the ultimate goal of peace as provided by Tolle is a good one, I'm not sure if focusing on my ego, if just to destroy it, is a good path for me personally. That might almost put me more into my head. I find I can achieve those moments of 'Presence' and serenity simply by meditating, doing my energy work, practicing yoga, and learning how to let go of that which no longer serves me. It's a simple formula that works for me." - "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle: Book Review Feel Good Girl
The Asian Development Bank has warned Indonesia a large part of its population is still vulnerable to shocks from staple foods inflation, as nearly half its citizens still live on less than US$2 a day. - Economic growth fails to spur employment: ADB
It would appear that it was both Israel and the USA that tried to sink the USS Liberty in 1967.
The objective of this false flag operation was to provide an excuse to attack Egypt.
The following appeared in MILITARY HISTORY BOOK REVIEW MH-122 December 2003
"President Lyndon B. Johnson and some key officials, seeing the increasingly Soviet-leaning Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser as a threat, made secret arrangements to help Israel in its coming June offensive with the intention of toppling Nasser.
"As part of Operation Cyanide, USS LIBERTY was sent to operate off the Sinai coast, where it was to be sunk with all hands by unmarked Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats, after which the United States would blame the attack on Egypt and launch carrier airstrikes against Cairo...
"The stubborn refusal of LIBERTY'S crew to die or let their ship sink after 75 minutes of air and sea attack - in spite of two American carrier sorties to aid her being inexplicably called back - led to the cancellation of Operation Cyanide, Israel's apology and offer of restitution for a 'tragic mistake,' the Johnson Administration's swift acceptance of that explanation and an equally quick, reassuring 'hot line' telephone call to Soviet premierAlexei Kosygin." -
Information about Operation Cyanide has been uncovered by former BBC investigative journalist Peter Hounam. Allegedly, the American plan was to sink the Liberty and blame Russia and Egypt.
According to an article in American free Press, "It now it appears that American political, intelligence and military persons played a key role in setting up the Liberty...The plan... was to sink the defenseless, unarmed American ship sailing in international waters off the coast of Egypt. The Soviets and their Arab allies (in particular Egypt) would then be blamed for the event.” - American Free Press , Liberty Attack Part Of Grand Scheme
~~
OPERATION CYANIDE: Why the Bombing of the USS Liberty Nearly Caused World WarIII, by Peter Hounam, Vision, a division of Satin Publications, Ltd, London,2003, $24.95
It would appear that Wilfred Krichefski, a senator in Jersey’s government who 'regularly visited Haut de la Garenne to abuse boys until his death in 1974' was a freemason and jewish.
According to a report in the News of the World (Jersey beast? News News of the World), a boy called Simon suffered abuse at Haut de la Garenne over a period of 18 months between 1962 and 63 when he was just 12.
"He said he and another boy were regularly taken into a room at the back of the orphanage where they would be used for the vile pleasure of two men who came to visit—who he nicknamed The Fat Man and The Old Posh Gent."
It has been reported that TV and radio star Sir Jimmy Savile, 81, visited the home during the early 1970s—'but had no knowledge of the horrors taking place'.
Pakistanis know that Osama was always a CIA agent.
In April 2008, the trial began in London of eight Moslems accused of trying to blow up airlines over the Atlantic.
The BBC reported, on 4 April 2008, that a man described as defendant Abdul Ahmed Ali was heard saying: "Sheikh Osama [Bin Laden] has warned you many times to leave our lands or you will be destroyed, and now the time has come for you to be destroyed." ( 'Plotters made martyrdom videos' )
Is Abdul Ahmed Ali the only Moslem left who does not realise that Osama always worked for the CIA?
The scripts of the so-called martyrdom videos seem to have been written so as to persuade readers of tabloid newspapers that (1) Jews are good and (2) Moslems are mad and bad and deserve to have their countries bombed.
The jury in London heard a man, said to be defendant Umar Islam, speaking of a desire to kill non-Muslims. ( 'Plotters made martyrdom videos' )
"We are doing this in order to gain the pleasure of our Lord, and Allah loves us to die and kill in his fires," he was heard saying.
He was shown describing his plans as "revenge" for the actions of the United States and its "accomplices such as the British and the Jews".
Lieutenant-Colonel (ret.) Nigel Wylde, a former senior British Army Intelligence Officer, has suggested that the police and government story about the "terror plot" revealed on 10th August was part of a "pattern of lies and deceit." - The Raw Story
"Martin Bright (?) seems to have missed the point - it's about time he researched 'False Flag' operations, like 'Gulf of Tonkin 'Incident'', Pearl Harbour ( known about and desired by Roosevelt; all Japanese Naval codes were broken; the Japanese task force was tracked all the way to Pearl (Robert Stinnett, 'Day of Deceit)); 'USS Liberty', 'Operation Northwoods' & 'Gladio'. "Then he may be ready to look again at 9/11, 7/7 (Where is the evidence? Why do you think the Govt. won't hold a proper public enquiry?), Bali & Spain.
Hidayat Nur Wahid, founder of Indonesian radical Islamic party PKS (Indonesian Democracy’s Enemy Within)
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Photo: British concentration camp.
