Monthly Archives: August 2012

News review

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  • Craig Murray writes on UK threats to invade the Ecuadorian embassy for its insolence in granting asylum to Julian Assange. Of course UK Neo-Cons in support of US Neo-Cons have absolutely no right to invade the embassy. Assange has not even been charged with an offence FFS.
  • Former friend, Murdochist and spin doctor to Prime Minister David Cameron – Andy Coulsdon – appeared in court yesterday on phone hacking charges. Murdochist friend and associate to Prime Minister David Cameron – Rebekah Brooks – due to appear at seperate phone hacking hearings in September.
  • Louise Mensch’s seat of Corby to be lost to Labour
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This will be, beyond any argument, a blatant breach of the Vienna Convention of 1961, to which the UK is one of the original parties and which encodes the centuries – arguably millennia – of practice which have enabled diplomatic relations to function. The Vienna Convention is the most subscribed single international treaty in the world.

The provisions of the Vienna Convention on the status of diplomatic premises are expressed in deliberately absolute terms. There is no modification or qualification elsewhere in the treaty.

Article 22

1.The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter
them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.
2.The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises
of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the
mission or impairment of its dignity.
3.The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of
transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution.

Not even the Chinese government tried to enter the US Embassy to arrest the Chinese dissident Chen Guangchen. Even during the decades of the Cold War, defectors or dissidents were never seized from each other’s embassies. Murder in Samarkand relates in detail my attempts in the British Embassy to help Uzbek dissidents. This terrible breach of international law will result in British Embassies being subject to raids and harassment worldwide.

The government’s calculation is that, unlike Ecuador, Britain is a strong enough power to deter such intrusions. This is yet another symptom of the “might is right” principle in international relations, in the era of the neo-conservative abandonment of the idea of the rule of international law.

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Dark day for Andy Coulson and Co as wheels of justice begin to turn

Andy Coulson, David Cameron’s former spin doctor, was among seven former News of the World employees who saw their normal roles reversed yesterday as they sat together behind a glass panel in Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

The veteran editors and reporters will have watched dozens of court cases in their long careers, but always from the press benches. Yesterday the six journalists, together with the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, were in the dock, being stared at by a huge, curious throng of members of their old profession.

The prosecutor said the six journalists were accused of conspiring to hack the phones of as many as 600 people. In addition to the general charge of conspiracy, Coulson, a former editor of the now defunct News of the World, is also accused of being implicated in targeting the phones of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, the former Labour Cabinet ministers David Blunkett and Charles Clarke, and the footballer George Best’s son Calum.

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They spoke only to confirm their names and addresses, but what might have been a very brief court appearance became substantially longer when Westminster’s deputy chief magistrate, Daphne Wickham, decided that the full list of charges should be read out.

The list – so long that it took a clerk a full 20 minutes to get through it – was studded with famous names of alleged hacking targets, including four Cabinet ministers from the Tony Blair years – Mr Blunkett, Mr Clarke, Tessa Jowell and John Prescott – the fire brigade union leader Andy Gilchrist, the former Liberal Democrat MP Mark Oaten, as well as such household names as Jude Law, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Sir Paul McCartney, Heather Mills, Sven-Goran Eriksson, Wayne Rooney and Delia Smith.

Although none of the defendants is accused of hacking everyone on that list, each is accused of targeting some of them.

The defendants sat impassively through this litany, except for 72-year-old Stuart Kuttner, a News of the World journalist for more than 30 years, who shook his head repeatedly when the three charges against him were read.

The name of News International’s former chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, also cropped up in the indictment. She is due to appear at a separate hearing on 3 September. Coulson and his fellow defendants were bailed to appear at Southwark Crown Court on 26 September.

 

Tories facing heavy defeat in Mensch seat by-election poll by the party reveals

 

David Cameron is facing a resounding defeat by Labour in the Corby by-election, the Tories’ own polling revealed last night.

The seat is being fought after the sitting MP, Conservative A-lister Louise Mensch, decided to leave Northamptonshire for New York to spend more time with her American husband and three children.

Labour looks set to seize Corby in November after a survey commissioned by Tory tycoon Lord Ashcroft put Labour support at 52 per cent, the Conservatives at 37 per cent and the Lib Dems at 7 per cent.

Lord Ashcroft said Labour was set for a ‘comfortable win’ but added he was surprised that Labour’s lead was not bigger.

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27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

 

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Demon of the night, come set me free

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Demon of the night, come set me free

Demon of the night it’s you and me

Demon of the night, come set me free

Let me see

Demon the night, set me free

Show me the light

Let me see

Oh, demon of the night and light and all

Let me go

Let me be my all

 

You are free to be all you wish

Yours is the freedom of the dark and light

Shine, shine so bright

You are all, you are the light

 

 

Continue ReadingDemon of the night, come set me free

News review

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  • ConDem Conservative and Liberal-Democrat Conservative coalition government protects Tony Blair by refusing to release pre-Iraq war cabinet minutes
  • The corporate press promotes Tony Blair

Tony Blair’s Iraq meetings to remain secret after government veto

The government has vetoed an order by the independent freedom of information watchdog to release the minutes of cabinet meetings held immediately before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The decision was announced on Tuesday by Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, the only minister to have access to papers of a previous administration, in this case Tony Blair’s Labour government.

Grieve said he issued a certificate under the Freedom of Information Act vetoing disclosure after consulting former Labour ministers, his cabinet colleagues, and the leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband.

He described the case as “exceptional” and one where, in his view, the public interest demanded the papers should be kept secret. He says he took into account “serious potential prejudice to the maintenance of effective cabinet government”.

The attorney said he also considered the fact that “the issue discussed was exceptionally serious, being a decision to commit British service personnel to an armed conflict situation”, that the issue “remains the focus of both domestic and international interest”, and that “Iraq remains very much a live political issue in its own right” with links to the “overall security situation in the Middle East and the perceived link between the terror threat to the UK and military action in Iraq”.

Grieve noted that most of those present at the cabinet meetings in March 2003 were still MPs or “otherwise active in public life”.

Christopher Graham, the information commissioner, had argued that the “exceptional gravity and controversy” of the matters discussed meant that minutes of the cabinet meetings on 13 and 17 March 2003, days before the invasion, should be disclosed.

One of the reasons Grieve gave for vetoing disclosure was that the Chilcot inquiry meant the invasion of Iraq was still a “live” issue. Yet the panel chaired by Sir John Chilcot is being prevented by Whitehall mandarins from disclosing key documents relating to the decision to invade Iraq.

The March 2003 cabinet minutes are believed to be among them. The continuing dispute between Chilcot and Whitehall officials over disclosure is a main reason why his report has been delayed.

In a separate move last week, the Foreign Office appealed against a judge’s ruling that extracts of a conversation between Blair and George Bush days before the invasion of Iraq must be disclosed. It argued that revealing Blair’s comments to Bush on the telephone on 12 March 2003 would present a “significant danger” to UK-US relations.

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Tony Blair and Ed Miliband

 

The Return Of The King – Tony Blair And The Magically Disappearing Blood

By David Cromwell

How many war crimes does a western leader have to commit before he is deemed persona non grata by the corporate media and the establishment? Apparently there is no limit, if we are to judge by the prevailing reaction to Tony Blair’s return to the political stage.

On July 11, it was announced that Blair would be ‘contributing ideas and experience’ to Labour leader Ed Miliband’s policy review. He will apparently provide advice on how to ‘maximise’ the economic and sporting legacies of the 2012 London Olympics.

The Guardian described the announcement mildly as a ‘controversial move’; not necessarily in the country at large, the paper claimed, but ‘perhaps especially within the Labour party’. One Guardian headline declared ‘Return of the king’.

The ‘left-wing’ John Harris did his bit in the Guardian to smooth Blair’s path:

‘He’s only 59, the picture of perma-tanned vitality and keen to “make a difference”. Could a fourth stint in No 10 even be on the cards? We shouldn’t rule it out.’

Harris declared ‘that for all his mistakes, transgressions and howling misjudgments, there remains something magnetic about his talents.’

Blairs and Milibands
Blairs and Milibands

When Blair appeared at a Labour fundraising dinner at Arsenal’s Emirates stadium, Harris noted that:

‘He was greeted by the obligatory crowd of protesters, still furious about his role in the Iraq war.’

That’s the curious thing about peace protesters; endlessly ‘furious’ about the country being dragged into an illegal war that led to the deaths of around one million people, created four million Iraqi refugees, devastated Iraq’s infrastructure, generated untold suffering and burned obscenely huge sums of public money in times of ‘austerity’. Perhaps we Brits should simply display that famed stiff upper lip and move on. Certainly that’s what Richard Beeston, foreign editor of The Times, suggested in 2009:

‘All this happened six years ago. Get over it.’ (‘The war went wrong. Not the build-up. Stop obsessing about the legality of invading Iraq. The campaign itself was the real disaster’, The Times, February 26, 2009.)

A recent Times editorial welcomed Blair’s return:

‘Labour is coming together, drawing on its best available talent and starting to get serious again. (Editorial, ‘A year in politics’, The Times, July 14, 2012)

The second coming of Blair was launched by a friendly chat on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show. Marr, of course, is well-known as a totally impartial political analyst and a ‘congenial and knowlegable [sic] interviewer’ (to quote a cable from the US embassy in London to Hillary Clinton).

The PR onslaught continued when London’s Evening Standard published an interview with the former PM on the day he ‘guest-edited’ the paper. Would he like to be prime minister again one day? ‘Sure’, he replied. A supportive Financial Times interview with editor Lionel Barber proclaimed:

‘Five years after leaving power, Tony Blair wants back in. He is ready for a big new role. But what exactly is driving him? And can he persuade the world to listen?’

Unnamed ‘friends’ and ‘allies’ were quoted, no doubt passing on the Blair-approved message:

‘Friends say he is desperate to play a bigger role, not because he has any ambition to run for high office but because he wants to be part of the argument. “He would really like to be the centre of attention again,” says one long-time ally.’

A Guardian editorial did its bit to help:

‘he seems to have mellowed a touch since his book [‘A Journey’, published in 2011]; maybe he’s even learnt a little respect for international law.’ (‘Unthinkable? Tony Blair for PM again.’)

The paper continued:

‘Besides, this is no time to fret about the policy details – there is the showbiz to consider. In 2007 John Major likened Mr Blair’s long goodbye to Nellie Melba; the coming comeback must demonstrate he is more like Sinatra and Elvis. There can only be one true heir to Tony Blair, and that is Tony Blair II.’

Could the vanguard of British liberal journalism really be making an editorial call for the return of Blair? It shouldn’t be a total surprise. Recall that even in the wake of the supreme international crime of invading Iraq, the Guardian still called for its readership to re-elect Blair at the 2005 general election.

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