Bibi on proportionality
Israeli opposition leader Bibi Netanyahu wipes the floor with a BBC interviewer on proportionality [More >>>]
Category: International Affairs
More Jottings (with additions of 13 Aug 06)
Still paying our wartime debts to Uncle Sam, and other recent items [More >>>]
Farewell to Swan Hellenic and superior cruising
The impending demise of the up-market, culture-vultures’ formerly British cruise-line, Swan Hellenic, at the hands of its philistine American owner, Carnival Corp., deserves a regretful obituary. But it was always a smug middle-class affair [More >>>]
Israel and that ‘immediate cease-fire’: Bush and Blair are right, for once
Bush and Blair are right about Israel and the demands for an immediate cease-fire. The humanitarian clamour for an instant end to the fighting is misconceived, however widespread. The Israeli response to constant low-grade aggression may yet open up an opportunity for some kind of interim and provisional settlement, but only if Israel is allowed time to build up pressure on Hezbollah to sue for peace. [More >>>]
US-UK extradition: US ratification would make things worse, not better
As Owen has pointed out, the real objection to the US-UK extradition agreement is not that the US hasn’t ratified it or that it’s easier for the US to extradite from the UK than vice versa: it’s the agreement’s denial of basic rights and due process to those whom the US wants to extradite [More >>>]
The Blair war on our civil rights: Henry Porter and the US-UK extradition treaty
In a recent item in Ephems , I reported as a recent news item from the asylum that — A man called Steve Jago has been arrested in Whitehall for carrying a banner bearing...
Globalisation of cruising: some penalties for the Brits
A message to Carnival, US owners of once-British Cunard and Swan Hellenic, about some of the penalties paid by British customers when an American carnivore gobbles up a whole British species [More >>>]
Blair then and now
Tony Blair’s long letter of 1982 to Michael Foot and his Guardian article of June 2004 constitute an ironical counterpoint, but the shallowness of both and lack of understanding of basic Labour values in either are consistent with the disasters and defects of his premiership [More >>>]
Gordon Brown and the future of UK nuclear weapons: some questions
Gordon Brown’s strange commitment to retaining Britain’s ‘independent’ nuclear deterrent prompts many penetrating questions to which we’re unlikely to get answers. The decision to replace trident has probably already been taken, despite denials [More >>>]
Life in the asylum
The news increasingly reads like self-parody or April Fool’s Day spoofs. Some of the following examples make you want to cry, others to make you laugh. Mostly cry [More >>>]