Nick Clegg today is proudly announcing a coalition housing policy which is perhaps the maddest thing the government has come up with yet (though that is a tough competition). Apparently the answer to housing problems is to find ways to enable people to take on yet more debt, being helped by government to find deposits which they will however ultimately have to repay in addition to the ordinary mortgage.
In effect the government thinks that the only problem with the housing market, is that it is not as it was in early 2008. The government supports ludicrous inflated house prices, giving the economy an entirely fictional huge monetary value asset base, sustained by mortgages of 100% or more on the inflated value, amounting to many multiples of the debtor’s income.
The answer to housing availability is not for the government to find ways to enable young people to take on unrealistic amounts of debt so they can afford fake prices. The answer in the owned sector is for house prices to crash down to realistic levels which people can actually afford.
These government proposals are the precise opposite of what is needed.
The primary answer in the rented sector is for local councils to build public housing and rent it to people at genuinely affordable prices. There are a huge number of brownfield sites which can be utilised and a huge number of empty buildings ripe for conversion – including many of those empty shops. 50% of the “printed” money created by the Bank of England in the last round of Quantitative Easing exercise, and given to the banks, would have built 400,000 family homes if given to local authorities for that purpose. Think of the employment that would have created.
The UK is every bit as indebted as Greece, both as a per capita absolute and as a percentage of GDP. The difference is that Britain has more private and Greece more individual debt. But it is equally impossible to pay it back in the long term. That incredible mountain of personal debt is what has sustained Britain’s ludicrous house prices. Just as the bamks have had to take a 50% haircut on Greek debt, so also they are going, in the end, to have to take a massive haircut on their UK mortgage portfolios.
The extraordinary thing is, that those mortgages – based on totally unreasonable house valuations – constitute not liabilities but “assets” on a bank’s balance sheet, and the banksters have been able to “leverage” those assets to make speculative financial transactions – or bets – to the valuse of 12 times the “asset”.
These are some my policy prescriptions:
Give local authorities money to build 400,000 new council houses for truly social rent levels, using cash from quantitative easing
nationalise all housing association property and give to local councils as council housing
wipe off 50% of all outstanding mortgages
watch house prices crash, and cheer!
That may sound extreme to some of you. But I promise you it is infinitely more sensible than the incredible folly the government has just produced.
23 November 2011 Last updated at 06:55
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Egypt unrest: Army concessions fail to end Cairo unrest
Lyse Doucet in Tahrir Square: “There has been a constant wail of ambulance sirens”
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Thousands of Egyptians have continued to occupy Cairo’s Tahrir Square despite an offer from the military for a speedier handover to civilian rule.
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After four days of violent clashes, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi said presidential elections would be held by July 2012.
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But many protesters in the square said the concession was not enough and have demanded the field marshal step down
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15848602
This time its for real mary, field marshall Tantawi’s appearance on TV yesterday does not seem to amount to very much at all, maybe he is slowly running out of CS gas, far more pungent and skin irritating than teargas.
The revolution is in every major town whatever little the BBC is reportring and there is not turning back, its the people versus the self serving generals, they are hardly beleiev a general who is known only for his lying so we can expect more death and injured.
Our Governments response is bland and sad, have they said that the sale of riot equipment to Egypt has seized? Are they asking for a democracti Government?
NO, they are hoping that whatever comes out of this nightmare will be bending to their rules, which means BICONM’s best interests, odious and despicable.
I have not seen a better reason for Egyptian to flock to the Muslim brotherhood than this military occupation by Mubaraks fettered generals, they clearly have no clue whatsoever of canvassing for next weeks election.
The charge sheets have been written for these plotters, according to the Newsnight report last night, in that way they are far ahead of bringing justice to their crooks, we here are pussycats compared to the Egyptians. There is still far too much salt on the butter, whatever has to happen before the brits get enough fo their rightwing rabble? Maybe a Government minister has to stomp on the head of a puppy dog, or slaughter a horse for its meat to get the public welling up. Mind you, not before Xmas please, Oxford Street needs the trade of their hooray henry’s.
This is an incident I was unaware of and certainly ought to have been. Who gains from having military bases in the Pacific?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2Eui6ij34Fo
Tahrir Square:
“The protesters and the doctors told the Herald that some of the tear-gas being
used on the crowds appeared to be particularly injurious.
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“It is some kind of neuro-toxic nerve gas,” said Dr Mohamed Aden, who usually
works at Cairo University Hospital. “We are seeing people whose
upper-respiratory tract is in convulsion.”
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A man was rushed into the clinic, unconscious and fitting, as the doctor
spoke. For at least five minutes, it was touch and go as medics crowded around
him and administered treatment. Finally he drew breath and the team moved to
one of four patients who had just been stretchered in, a young man with
gunshot wounds to his leg.
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An opthamologist, Nermeen Refaat, said that since Saturday night she had
treated about 40 people who had “ruptured eyes” caused by rubber bullets.”
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http://www.smh.com.au/world/protesters-defy-teargas-and-bullets-20111122-1nsxi.html
‘ON THE TEAR GAS BEING USED IN TAHRIR’
http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/11/22/on-the-tear-gas-being-used-in-tahrir.html
Glen
Organisations like the ADL did too.
Yes Israel likes the sound of occupy wall street. But the thing is, they already do.
Just as they occupy the American government.
Maybe not with Israeli passport holders, but with sympathisers to Zionism.
Off the subject: please read this and if you agree sign the open letter to the Health Minister. The idiot is calling us Zombie for disagreeing with proposed changes.
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/open-letter-to-simon-burns#petition
I was flabbergasted when I heard about this. This is totally ass backwards from what is actually needed. The reason the average age of first time buyers is now 43? is because houses are too expensive. Sensible people like me who have never borrowed a penny in their life (and Im nearly 42) havent bought a house for this reason. Why are houses too expensive? Because any fool with a pulse can turn up at a bank and walk out with a six figure loan that they cant actually afford on the assumption that the house can be sold on to the greater fool in the future and that will make up the shortfall.
Actually I would pass a law that the maximum total new mortgage loan on any property is 2x average earnings, boom, instantly affordable housing for all. All the greater fools with huge mortgages can suck it up, default/get foreclosed, go through the bankruptcy that thier idiocy deserves, then all that inventory can go back on the market at sane prices.
O/T
In the town of Urgench, Uzbekistan, there are energy problems, including lack of electricity, inflated prices and queues for petrol.
http://www.fergananews.com/article.php?id=7184
(in Russian)
Did you notice the criticism of ‘carers’ on the media today from another of the fascists in the Health department, Paul Burstow? Every week good people who work hard in the NHS and the Community Health Services take their turn to be demonized. I speak as a retired NHS employee and from recent experience as a patient.
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After I fractured my left wrist and right humerus in a fall in March, I needed an operation to pin and plate my wrist. I was discharged from the ward of my local general hospital where the care and skills were of the highest standard and I received nothing but kindness from all of the staff.
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I was not allowed to go home until I had been assessed and a care package had been arranged to help me wash and dress and to make hot drinks etc as I had one arm in a splint and the other in a plaster cast. The carers who came in were efficient, kind and dutiful. I cannot speak too highly of the service. It was run by a non profit mutual funded by the NHS but has now been given to Branson’s outfit, Assura.
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I am afraid to say that I do not know what has happened since to the original staff and their conditions. I must find out.
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8e187d7c-e2cc-11e0-93d9-00144feabdc0.html
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{http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15836500} Basic home care breaches human rights.
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So let’s privatize the whole shooting match and then see what happens.
“The Gurudian offers the same state-inspired propaganda as the BBC, which is not surprising since, as explained here, it is owned by the Scott Trust which is headed by Liz Forgan, a former Director of Programmes at Channel 4 and Managing Director of BBC Radio.”
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This is possibly relevant, but probably not the whole reason that all the media in this country carry essentially the same stories on a given event; the spin varies, but the information is common to all. I blame the rise of the electronic office, the recruitment of sweet little girls as “reporters” (ie presenters or rewriters) straight from journalism college, and the availability of agency reports which spare anyone the effort of actually researching a story themselves. It is much cheaper per column inch, for instance, to reprint entire or somewhat modify an agency piece, a government handout or blatant PR material than it is to send a traditional hack with a whisky habit and a notebook to go and see for himself. And this laziness/cost effectiveness is seen right across the UK media board. If you want to see half decent journalism, look at Ha’aretz or the CSM…even the Wapo on occasion. None of them face any less interference from government than ours do. It’s possible to do it. It’s just not convenient.
And the Grauniad may currently have its problems with free reporting, but it has produced some excellent campaigns, even in the recent past. Not sure I can wean myself off Martin Rowson and Steve Bell, either…
Please sign the petition that Azara mentioned.
Just think of the contempt the Tories have for us, the general public – I am reminded of the duchess who thought her soul must be worth those of several hundred ‘common people.’
I’m a ‘common person’, and so, Mr Simon Burns, are you. And if either of us is a zombie, I know it isn’t me!
Komodo – Messrs Bell and Rowson are the only people who keep me looking at the Guardian.
Their Gadarene rush to the right has inspired this group, who remember, why the Guardian was founded all those years ago.
http://otmpeterloo.wordpress.com/
Craig said, ..to find ways to enable people to take on yet more debt..
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Is the production of money a conspiracy? – Of course it is!
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A small group of dominant men dictate the direction of society.
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This small group, called the 1%, have a dominant aim – to perpetuate their existence in a connected world where public incredulity is diminishing and big secrets are harder to conceal. That aim is to covet resources, a survival lust, a required to keep the door closed on their system of creating money from nothing.
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Resources are their competitor, their assassin, their exterminator, because resources have real value and they are aware, money could be created from real value, from lucrative trade which could (and would) form a no profit service to society.
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So, towards the end of the last century the 1% needed a plan for more wars because strife, struggle and hostility saturate people’s minds and a create a fog, a fog of war that hides the hegemony, the power to ensure the survival lust is fulfilled; this by gaining the resources of others to a point where continuance is guaranteed and world domination cinched and control of populations infinite.
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The falling towers were in fact the birth of modern slavery on a grand scale enforced by the system and their henchmen, their followers and collaborators, those that guard the domain of the few from the the inside and out.
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Are you one of them?
What I am saying, is the fight against the bankers is the same fight as the one against the Zionists.
If we look closely, we will see they are the same people.
They mind us noticing this, and try to shout us down with every kind of insult when we mention it. But this is completely clear.
We can say the Bankers buy politicians, and make them do the bankers biding.
We can even say, Zionists buy politicians and make them do Israel’s biding.
But notice that these Zionists who buy politicians are also bankers.
And notice that the bankers that buy politicians are also Zionists.
Come to the conclusion that they are the same people, and the struggle against the bankers is the same struggle that is fought against Zionists.
And to mention it becomes forbidden.
Mark,
“The falling towers were in fact the birth of modern slavery on a grand scale”
It was in early 2003, a couple of months before the Iraq invasion started. I was at work at the time, on a quiet afternoon, and I was reading an obscure website the name of which included the work serendipity.
I had never really accepted the official story about 9/11, but then in an instant I was 100% sure that the official story could not possibly be true, because it did not conform to the basic fundamental laws of physics and maths that I had studied many years previously at university.
It hit me right to the depths of my soul, and physically as well as if someone had kicked me very hard in the guts.
I immediately told everyone I knew at work, and showed them the evidence, and explained how the official story was impossible. I told everyone, including all my friends outside of work.
Everyone, except one person who is actually a French Architect, thought I was having a Nervous Breakdown.
They thought I had gone mad. Some of my friends pretended to agree with me, but I could tell that they were only doing so, to “humour” me, to be kind, whilst thinking I had totally lost the plot.
In a second when this revelation really hit me, it was like discovering the devil amongst my own culture and my own society.
I could no longer pretend to believe that this had come from an evil foreign culture that I did not understand that was nothing to do with me.
This evil was ours.
I understood all the implications in an instant.
I then had to live with this knowledge alone, without having a nervous breakdown myself.
Some of my friends got incredibly angry with me, so I eventually learnt to keep my mouth shut, and let them live within whatever comfort zone that they needed.
But ignoring it, doesn’t make the evil go away. It just spreads and envelops everything in its path.
I have no solutions except the Truth.
Tony
Not quite the same. but when you substitute the names of Huhne for Fox and Trimingham for Werrity, you get the picture.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8908585/Chris-Huhne-his-partner-and-her-contacts-with-ministers.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
On a more positive note, my wife and I today, did not go into London to see artificial exhibits of art.
Instead we went to a place in the country we had never been to before.
She was like a little Alice in Wonderland…and completely ecstatic at the natural beauty…exclaiming extremely loud versions of WOW etc…
I was too completely amazed.
I had never seen anything like it…well except artificial copies – hand decorated.
This was the real natural thing – absolutely loads of them growing out of the ground.
We treated them with complete respect, and no we didn’t touch them.
A young woman walked past with an emormous smile on her face, obviously understanding the joy that my wife expressed.
Tony
Follow up of a previous topic.
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November 2011 Last updated at 17:42
Ex-NoW reporter Sean Hoare ‘died after liver disease’
Sean Hoare told Panorama that phone hacking was ‘endemic’ at News of the World
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Continue reading the main story
Phone-hacking scandalHacking scandal: Who’s linked to who?
Q&A: Phone-hacking scandal
Key people and profiles
Timeline
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News of the World whistleblower Sean Hoare used alcohol “as a crutch” to cope with the phone-hacking scandal, an inquest has heard.
Coroner Edward Thomas said Mr Hoare died of natural causes after suffering alcoholic liver disease.
Mr Hoare, 47, who claimed phone hacking was rife at the Sunday paper, was found dead at his home in Watford in July.
He had told the BBC the then NoW editor Andy Coulson asked him to hack phones – something Mr Coulson denies.
The Hertfordshire coroner said Mr Hoare had done “extremely well” in abstaining from alcohol and did not drink for a year after being diagnosed with liver disease.
He began drinking again in December last year as he became caught up in the phone-hacking scandal, the inquest at Hatfield Coroner’s Court heard.
The coroner said: “He was indicating that he was using alcohol as a crutch as he was under stress due to the interest generated by breaking the News International story.”
He added that there was then a “steady decline” and he was told he had irreversible liver disease in May.
Mr Hoare’s body was found after his father called police because he was concerned that nobody had heard from him in several days.
When the police went to his flat in Langley Road, Watford, on 18 July, they forced their way inside after seeing a body through the letterbox. They found Mr Hoare lying on his back across his bed.
Detective Chief Inspector Mark Ross said there were no signs of forced entry or foul play inside the flat.
The post-mortem examination found Mr Hoare showed advanced stage alcoholic disease, the coroner said.
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Drink problems
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Mr Hoare had worked on the Sun before being recruited by former News of the World (NoW) editor Andy Coulson to News International’s Sunday title.
He was dismissed from the now-closed NoW because of his drink and drug problems.
When he first spoke out about phone-hacking, he told Panorama the then NoW editor Andy Coulson had asked him to hack phones – something Mr Coulson, who went on to be Prime Minister David Cameron’s press chief, has denied.
The former journalist also told the New York Times that hacking was far more extensive than the NoW acknowledged when police first investigated hacking claims in 2006.
Mary,
Different people react differently to drinking alcohol, both in their behaviour and their body’s reactions.
I find that if I drink absolutely loads of alcohol, I can’t get it up the next morning.
I gave up getting it up the same night, about 30 years ago.
When I was a teenager and in my twenties, it didn’t seem to be a problem. I could drink all night and still do it.
Of course, I could give up alcohol completely, and have sex every day.
But my wife doesn’t want sex every day.
As strange as it may seem, I never get violent on alcohol…I just get all lovey dovey with everyone I meet.
Most people need cannabis to do that, but I can do it on alcohol alone.
I realised an extremely long time ago, that the way to stay alive was not to Really annoy other real people I meet in the real world…
And also to stay completely sober for at least 3 days a week, by not drinking any alcohol and clearing all the shit out of your system.
I have no idea if colonic irrigation has any value whatsoever.
But being completely sober makes you feel alive and want to go on long walks in the country after you have made love to your wife.
Give it up completely if you like.
I know many people who had to in order to live.
They still live the same kind of lives as they did, except that they come to the pub and drink Tap Water, which is Served For Free.
That is Perfectly O.K.
Everything is OK, Providing It is Non Violent
I Don’t Do Violence
The Last Person I Hit Was My Best Friend 44 Years Ago
Tony
A little too much information there Tony! I put up that sad report on Sean Hoare’s death for general info as there was much discussion here when he died. I did not mean it to be directed in any way at you.
After the death of Bunthorne there was nothing in the Guardian for me.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Smithies
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My favourite was a Christmas special where the solutions were the names of the inshore fishing forecast meteorological areas, positioned on the crossword grid in approximate accordance with their geographic location (but you had to guess all that). That took till about 2am on Boxing Day, even with sister helping.
I have yet to meet anyone, who doesn’t like a good blow job, however even this needs to be done only occasionally.
The most intense one I have ever experienced was completely amazing, but I knew I couldn’t take this on a regular basis.
It was about 10 years ago in Amsterdam. We had gone there with our 10 year old daughter. We went to see Ann Frank’s museum and all the delights of Amsterdam including seeing Van Gough’s Sunflower. We cycled everywhere. They didn’t let us into any of the coffee shops. There was no hard alcohol available in the shops.
But my wife bought these lollipops.
She gave it to me.
We had been planning a dirty weekend.
Tony
Off Topic: Blair and Bush found guilty of war crimes in Kuala Lumpar.
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/23/bush_and_blair_found_guilty_of_war_crimes_for_iraq_attack/
I occasionally write comments on Truthdig. I actually rather like a lot of the things that Chris Hedges and others write on this website, even though I often disagree on some of the datails.
I wrote something completely out of character, on Sunday afternoon, after I had seen the Psycho Spraying All The Kids With “Laughing Gas”
I didn’t find it funny.
Whilst I think my comment has probably been deleted, or been drowned amongst thousands of others.
I wrote what I felt.
I really did want to blow his fucking brains out.
It is how I felt
You see, it is an emotional reaction to what I witnessed.
Not something I have a capability to do, and not an incitementment to violence.
In fact I also compared what these kids are doing with Mahahatma Ghandi by their Total Non Violent Reaction…
But That is No Excuse
And I Feel Ashamed
Although I Still Want To Blow His Fucking Brains Out
You Simply Do Not Do That To Peaceful Protestors Linking Arms on The Ground on Their Own Fucking Campus
That is Liable To Cause a Violent Revolution.
And We Don’t Want That
We Just Want To Arrest The Violent Psychopaths, and Put Them Through a Fair and Honest Justice System
We want to bring them to Trial
Because They Have Been Committing Crimes Against Humanity Across The Planet and Are Now Doing It To Their Own Children
How Can We Stop It?
Tony
Craig Murray got nominated as one of about 10 people over 10 years as whistleblowers. I posted a link to it above last night.
And David Lindoff was it who wrote the article, says well that is the last of the whistleblowers.
There is no point in blowing a whistle any more, because all the completely illegal and immoral behaviour amongst those in control of our World has now been legalised and as Deek Jackson has been pointing out for the last 5 years on his FKN Newz
No one Gives a Fuck
If we are down to 10 people amongst 7 Billion who actually Care, then we might as well give up the idea of the human race NOW and simply accept our own self destruction.
We do not deserve anything else
Bring on The Cockroaches after Our Self Imposed Holocaust of Ourselves
It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way
Tony
Mentioned in Private Eye today, is Murray lad.
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There’s always room for more debt. Look at Greece, up to its ears in the stuff and still laying orders for new tanks and stealth destroyers from the French and Americans.
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So, then Craig, are you saying that what’s needed in this specific area is some good, old-fashioned socialism? :))
Excyse length but this was sent on a pdf by the newly widoewed Swee Ang, an orthopaedic and trauma surgeon and a fighter for justice for the Palestinians.
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Francis Khoo Kah Siang, 23 October 1947 to 20 November 2011
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It must be so bizarre that the one person who loves you beyond words and whom you also love the most in this world goes on to make you a widow – and without polite notice!
So it is the case with my beloved. As I stepped off the plane, I received a text message sent a few hours ago that he “cannot come”. As I came into the house, I smelt delicious chicken macaroni soup freshly cooked in the kitchen. There was some left in a bowl which he must had eaten from to stem his hunger as the plane was delayed. But there was no answer to my call, except from our agitated cats. Yes, my beloved had died in the room upstairs.
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Did he choose to die before I got to him to spare me the pain of resuscitating him? Was it Divine Mercy that he was taken home to God so painlessly, silently, and alone before medical science complicated his humanity? Was it to spare his wife anxious moments waiting at the hospital intensive care? Could I not just cradle him in my arms in these last precious moments on earth? Only at our re-union with our Maker and with each other can these questions be answered. For now, I am grateful to be able to look after him on this last lap of his earthly journey as he returns to the One who created him.
As news of his death broke out, thousands of emails, letters, text messages, phone calls, flowers poured from all parts of the world and all walks of life. From heads of states, diplomats, politicians, and friends employed and unemployed. I am not only overwhelmed by the volume but by the affection and admiration they held for him. Friends and family are flying in from all over the world. I have managed only to reply to just over a thousand messages over the last 48 hours. The rest might have to wait for their reply until the funeral is over.
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So who was this Francis Khoo?
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He was the fourth generation of an established Singapore Peranakan family. It is a close knit family. As a boy he sang in the Singing Khoos with his brothers Lawrence and Victor, and the family is devoutly Catholic. As he grew up he began to acquire a strong sense of justice – beyond merely legal. Of course he was a lawyer, but even in University as Vice President of the Students’ Law Society, he served a greater justice. He opposed the introduction of the Suitability Certificate, the abolition of the jury system, and later on the heavy bombing of Hanoi on Christmas day. His other
interests include photography – he patented a pocket camera at the age of nineteen. He loved drawing, writing and ran the St Joseph Institution school paper and the university Undergrad.
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Despite all the above “distractions”, he qualified and was called to the bar. Within months of arriving as a junior lawyer in his firm, he took on the legalities of forming a Citizens’ Co-op to save the Singapore Herald, the liberal English daily closed by the government.
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In 1974, I met him at a Justice and Peace meeting. His deep commitment to social justice was to him a Christian obligation. The first commandment is to love God; the second is to love your neighbours as yourself. Two weeks later I read in the Straits Times that my new acquaintance was to defend a controversial trial in which factory workers and a student leader were charged with rioting. I called him to ask him to re-consider since he might invite personal repercussions. Despite being Malaysian born, I had lived long enough in Singapore to be a “kiasu” (law-abiding. timid, please do not rock the boat ) coward. I sensed that the government wanted the workers and the student leader imprisoned, and to defend them would be seen as being anti-government and the consequences would be dire!
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He patiently explained that everyone is entitled to legal defence – and no one should be deemed guilty until proven beyond reasonable doubt. These workers were poor and established lawyers would not take their case on and someone just got to do it, in the interest of justice. If he had to pay the price of doing so, he would accept it!
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I am still not sure when my admiration for him turned to love. In 1976 when I sensed that he might be detained under the Internal Security Act I asked him to marry me, so that if he were to be arrested I can visit him in prison and at least be his link to the outside world. We married on 29 January, 1977.
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The arrest came, and he managed to escape. I was detained shortly afterwards and questioned about him. Upon my release I joined him in exile in the United Kingdom.
Francis started his live in exile as a cleaner in a Central London Hotel. He then went on to work as an administrator in a British Charity, Medical and Scientific Aid for Vietnam. Two years later he was journalist for an international third world magazine, South. From there he went on to direct War on Want, a prominent international NGO founded by the late British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson. Apart from chairing numerous
charities he was co-founder and Vice Chairman of the British Charity, Medical Aid for Palestinians from 1984 to 2007. He had to step down as new British Charity Commissioner Legislation advised against office bearers serving more than 9 years , He had served 23 years!
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From War on Want he returned to legal practice in London until his failing health forced him to stop work. Despite this, his work for many charities continued.
He wrote many poems, songs and articles. He sang for many including the wives of the striking miners. One of his songs Father Christmas in the Slag Heap brought the whole of Hemsworth, a town faced with pit closure, to tears during their poverty stricken Christmas in 1984. He also sang at canteens catering meals for the aged. His songs and writings are available to the Singapore public for those who are interested.
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He suffered renal failure from 1998, went on dialysis, but had a successful renal transplant on the NHS in July 2011 – the generous gift of an anonymous British woman donor. The day before his death he was at the Annual General Meeting of Living Stones, a charity to which he was trustee. His diary is full of future engagements including the Haldane Law Society, charities for the homeless, Medical Aid for Palestinians, the Scottish Parliament, and the House of Commons – plus supporting me in dozens of public lectures and talks. It is full of engagements until end of September 2012.
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His untimely death left a huge void in all our lives. We are all in a state of shock. But by God’s grace, time will make it possible for his memory to overwhelm the pain of our loss. My tribute to him will be to continue to serve the cause of peace and justice. I also hope to be the widow who will take his ashes back to his beloved Singapore after his 34 years of exile.
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Dr Ang Swee Chai (Mrs Khoo)
22 November 2011
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_Aid_for_Palestinians
Correction. Excuse length but this was sent on a pdf by the newly widowed Ang Swee Chai, an orthopaedic and trauma surgeon and a fighter for justice for the Palestinians.
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Dr Ang Swee Chai FRCS – A founding Trustee of Medical Aid for Palestinians, she is an orthopaedic consultant surgeon at the London and St Bartholomew’s hospital trust. Working in Beirut during the 1982 invasion, she also witnessed and survived the massacre at Sabra and Shatila, writing “from Beirut to Jerusalem” about her experiences. She returned to London to help form MAP and as the first chair of the projects committee helped launch the volunteer programme in 1985. She has also co-authored the “Manual of War Surgery” and received the coveted ‘Star of Palestine’ award from the late President Yasser Arafat.
Excuse length