It is really wonderful to be back home again after almost six weeks travelling. It is also a tremendous pleasure to be able to announce this:
ONE TURBULENT AMBASSADOR
A play by
Robin Soans
A World Premiere
Directed by
Jessica Swale
One Turbulent Ambassador follows the career of Craig Murray on
his appointment as Her Majesty’s Ambassador and Plenipotentiary
to the Republic of Uzbekistan in 2001.
Murray’s proximity to post 9/11 Iraq forces him into a political
minefield that neither he nor the Foreign Office could have
envisaged. When he walks into a bar in Tashkent late one
Monday night and sees a beautiful belly dancer arching her
limbs, his personal life threatens to become as turbulent as
the political landscape around him.
Don’t miss this opportunity to see the world premiere of Robin
Soans’s newest play, researched and developed in collaboration
with LAMDA students.
Please note that this production contains strong language and
scenes of an adult nature.
Lyric Hammersmith Ticket Office:
PLEASE NOTE BOOKING OPENS 1 MAY
0871 22 117 22* (Mon – Sat, 9.30am – 7.30pm, 5.30pm on
non-performance days) or book online at www.lyric.co.uk**
* Calls cost 10p per minute, plus network extras. **Agents, industry guests and LAMDA
Angels should continue to book through The LAMDA Linbury Studio Box Office.
Venue Lyric Hammersmith
Dates 7.30pm Mon 02 July
& Times 7.30pm Wed 04 July
2.00pm Thu 05 July
7.30pm Fri 06 July
2.00pm Sat 07 July
7.30pm Mon 09 July
2.00pm Tue 10 July
Another Ambassador:
http://news.reformjudaism.org.uk/2012-05-26/tikkun-leyl-shavuot-standing-at-sinai-people-place-and-purpose.html
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Aren’t we paying him to reverse our trade deficit with Israel? In Israel?
Hey There. I discovered your blog the use of msn. That is a very neatly written article. I will be sure to bookmark it and come back to read more of your helpful information. Thank you for the post. I’ll definitely return.
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[Return at your own risk, spambot!]
f off windows shite, we love linux here…
Jacks backer Lord Patel must be girating trying to get his best mate out of this quandary. Tough.
Straw is slick, he is now trying to get the whole judiciary behind him, the law society is feeding out of his hands.
Once you crawl into his festered past Komodo you will find corpses everywhere, the man is a walking nightmare. There is much top be dug up about Jack, the best years for digging are probably before they got elected in 1997, but you have a 34 year of guile and cunning to wade through, something smelly will eventually turn up for your supper, me ol’ dragon.
I came across this in my daily search for optomism,unfortunately it asks to post to as many people as poss,http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=44882
Thanks for the encouragement, Nevermind. It will be a pleasant occupation during this miserable weather. Straw’s good though; I never saw a better ducker and weaver. One good bite….
Cardiovascular exercising isn’t boring if you read a book or watch a video while you’re doing it.
Komodo, I had to laugh at one of the comments to the Daily Mail article you posted.
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‘Jack Straw……………. one of many inept labour politicians. In other words, for the benefit of our southern readers, a complete waste of space wi’ nowt int’ ‘ed. Apparently he is known in political circles as ” Bungalow Jack ” ( nowt upstairs ” )
– Fast Eddie, Rawtenstall, 19/4/2012 03:00’
That northern humour. Don’t you love it. Bungalow Jack. I think Rawtenstall is just in Lancashire. But the humour’s borderline.
Come on Craig, post something! I know you haven’t been home long, but people have started talking to the spambots! Hey, at least “Windows Seven” was polite, and almost grammatically correct. And it didn’t offer to “grab your (a)rrs(e)”.
Komodo, I’m sorry you’re not enjoying the weather. I love it at this time of year. Today I’ve had brilliant sunshine, light rain, blustery wind, torrential hailstones that made one hell of a racket against my front window, and one, sudden, very loud clap of thunder. Boring it isn’t! But it does make it difficult to decide what to wear before I go out.
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I see that Jack Straw has idiosyncratic ideas about how democracy works. There’s that game called Jackstraws, isn’t there? You pull out the straws one at a time, and whoever precipitates a big collapse looses. Go on, pull out that one there…
I’m sorry but that was absolute bullshit.
Giles, what BS are you refering to? Komodo’s dragon stench nuggets, Jack Straws current need for nappies and support from all other law benders, or your own sweet smelling odour?
Or was it just a bouncy Stonehenge on your behalf, a jesting of sorts?
As ever first let us remind ourselves that news around the clock is in fact the staged narrative that is gradually doing the thinking for the population at large. This “news” makes out the Syrian army to be a kind of an occupation army that is defying the UN Kofi Annan (the new guy and his chapped lips because of his intense sucking up to Yanks won’t do any more, so out of retirement the old Kofi is back at the coal face for the benefit of the wider international audiences).
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The Norwegian Terrorist is televised with his hatred of “Multi Culti” and Muslims alright, but then the rest of the trial goes dark.
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Also going dark is the news of the anti terrorist officers have been busy raiding and arresting across the Northern parts and there is not so much as a squeak out of the same bunch of villains who would be reporting the nonpayment of a parking fine by a Muslim and reminding us all yet again of the dangers of the “Multi Culti”.
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Arrests in internet race-hate investigation
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Five men have been arrested on suspicion of publishing material to incite racial hatred.
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Computer equipment and mobile phones are thought to have been seized by police during early morning raids in Tyneside, Birkenhead, Barnsley, County Durham and Holloway, north London.
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Two other properties in Leeds and Knaresborough, North Yorkshire were also searched.
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Counter-terrorism officers say they are questioning those being held.
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Those arrested include a 46-year-old in County Durham, an 18-year-man in Birkenhead, Merseyside, a 21-year-old in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and a 56-year-old Holloway, London.
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A 43-year-old from North Tyneside has now been released on bail.
Previous reports suggested the men being held were involved in a splinter group of the English Defence League known as the North West Infidels.
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However, the North East Counter Terrorism Unit would not confirm this.
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{http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17771768}
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BTW what is happening in the Knights Templar, and their Freemason orderlies in Norway? Are these to be “respectfully” maintaining their none existence as in the case of our parliamentary inquiry too?
Interesting that the British Geological Society are ‘discovering’ these Northern African aquifers now http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17775211 when Qaddafi had already created the Libyan water distribution system in the 80s.
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I see Brown and Root’s name here.{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Manmade_River}
British Geological Survey not Society.
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I see Big Oil is well represented on their advisory committee.
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/about/programme.html
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I was reading about the eyeless shrimps and other malformed marine animals now being found in the Gulf of Mexico. {http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/18/466660/legacy-of-bp-oil-spill-eyeless-shrimp-and-fish-with-lesions/?mobile=nc}
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Hayward CEO at the time of the Gulf of Mexico disaster is well away from the scene of BP’s crime.
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‘Hayward was a member of the Citibank advisory board, from 2000 to 2003. Hayward is presently senior independent non-executive director of Corus Group, appointed in April 2002, and a non-executive director of Tata Steel. Hayward is a committee member of Audit, Nominations and Health, Safety and Environment. Hayward was appointed a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute in September 2005.
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As of 22 July 2011, it is reported that Hayward has been hired by Glencore International to oversee environment and safety.
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On 8 September 2011, Hayward’s venture firm, Vallares, merged with the Turkish oil firm Genel Energy to create a $4.5 billion company with operations in northern Iraq.
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well spotted Fed up, we are now subjected to BBc propaganda on an unprecedented scale. Every news flash of Breivig shows him making Nazi salutes, we hear of his plans and what else this man had planned, calculated and cold. But mad?
The trickle charge of fascist messages from our broadcasters is insipious and it stinks of editors who must somehow be in league with a wider rightwing islamophobic campaign.
We had to expect that the EDL will get investigated, but I epect this to be a ‘shiner’, pretence, because our security service will have already found a few willing to help amongst them, usually such characters are in the second ranks and partial to internal agenda’s and arrangements.
despite his colourfull past, there is a derve of articles about jack. I worte the folowing to Ms Algars hidden column which did seem cleaned up of critical comments. Sorry to bore with the facts of Blackburn again, but now is the time to remind the MSM that Jack has an army of skeletons in the cupboard.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2012/apr/18/torture-victims-jack-straw-rendition?commentpage=last&msg=a#end-of-comments
They are willing to pay anything to cover up Jack Straws misdemeanour. JS has been an MP for 34 years in Blackburn and he has played off and sown up the locality’s other candidates something rotten.
I speak of experience having been electoral agent to the first woman Muslim candidate there at the last GE. He tried his best to interfere with our campaign, using the local police, City Hall administration from chief exec downwards and dare I say it, the local church dignatories. When I was assaulted a feet away from his private police, by the sacrister of Blackburn cathedral, physically shoved against a stone pillar because he did not want our candidate to participate in a public debate, they watched and di nothing. Jack fed 700 people during the campaign and a signed affidavit was delivered to the police by no other than ex ambassador Craig Murray, he had to wait for three hours before anybody was able to see him, despite him making an appointment, nothing happened, just as with our GBH complain.
Blackburn had a histroy f voting fraud and I tried to get the electoral commisssion to monitor the elections, they repeatedly refused stating their ‘confidence’ in the local administration. On election day there was intimidation at 5 polling station, groups of up to 30 men, all upstanding pillars of the community, dressed in long duffle coats, furtniture vans with supporters parking outside the polling station, inappropriate party literature plastered all over cars and within full view of voters earmarked the campaing, and a ‘blind chief executive proclaiming that ‘this was OK’.
I saw people coming out of houses with shopping bags and holdall’s full of postal votes and some 3000 of them went missing, ‘nere returned’ was the explanation, I presume that they were our votes and that they were disappeared.
At a live TV debate on the local Ummah channel the local Lib Dem candidate let somehow slip, that Jack Straw organised Nick Cleggs leadership campaign, it was later denied. A copy of that debate should still be available., I remeber jack cutting sort the debate because he got to much flack from the audience over the Iraq war and torture, off course he said that it was another engagement he choose to be at, rathjern than speaking to thousands via the channel, poppycock, he ran away from the facts.
So, we have an indication of a lawyer who took over from Barbara castle, she choose him for his ‘guile and cunning’, her words not mine, who operates cross party and who uses local ethnically diverse groups against each other for his advantage, who tried his best to discredit our candidate via the local media, spiked with his long standing pundits and backscratchers, who’s supporters ripped off our posters and assaulted my candidates husband, a picture of a man who will try anything to remain in power.
I hope that our placid and fed MSm will go to Blackburn for some time, practise some good old fashioned investigative journalism, because this man has more than one skeleton in his wardrobe.
This in the natural news, interesting little snippet. Hollow point bullets and radiation pills, wonder why….
http://www.naturalnews.com/035607_government_checkpoints_Martial_Law.html
Dear friends,
Uzbekistan’s dictator is forcing doctors to cut out women’s uteruses without their knowledge or consent to control birth rates. It’s a hideous and brutal attack on women by a US-backed dictator. Call on US Secretary of State Clinton, a champion for women’s rights, to immediately cut off her support to the dictator. Click below to sign:
Uzbekistan’s President is forcing doctors to cut out women’s uteruses without their knowledge or consent to promote “birth control” across the country. It’s a vile and bloody crime against women being orchestrated by an odious dictator, and now is the time for it to end.
Uzbekistan’s Karimov is one of the world’s worst dictators, he’s even boiled opposition activists alive. Yet he’s propped up by millions of dollars from the US government who pay him for military transport across the country. This latest round of brutality, this time against his country’s women, has turned the global spotlight on this monster. Let’s use this awful moment to persuade his biggest backer to ditch him.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can cut him off. She has already publicly condemned Karimov for human rights abuses and this most recent assault on women’s rights – a topic she champions – only ups the stakes. Sign the petition below calling on Clinton to end Karimov’s reign and stop the brutal attack on women:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/uzbekistan_sterilisation_meme/?vl
Activists estimate tens or even hundreds of thousands of women were sterilised secretly when they went into the hospital for a routine procedure or to give birth — waking up with no idea that their uterus has just been removed. One Uzbek gynecologist admitted, ‘Every doctor is told…how many women are to be sterilised … my quota is four women a month’. The use of arbitrary arrest and torture is so widespread that women don’t speak out for fear of reprisals, and foreign journalists and human rights activists are routinely thrown out of the country.
It doesn’t have to be like this — the US could play hardball with Karimov, who relies on the steady flow of money from transit to Afghanistan to fund his lavish lifestyle. The human rights horror show in Uzbekistan has gone under the radar for years — but we have a real chance to break the silence now, using the explosive BBC report that details forced sterilisations, and stand with the brave Uzbek women who have dared to tell their stories in the face of stunning oppression.
The human rights horror show in Uzbekistan has gone under the radar for years — but we have a real chance to break the silence now, using the explosive BBC report, and stand with the brave Uzbek women who have dared to tell their stories in the face of stunning oppression.
Join the call for a first victory for the good guys in the war on women — sign the petition to Clinton and forward to everyone:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/uzbekistan_sterilisation_meme/?vl
Time and again, Avaaz members have stood up for the rights of women around the world. Let’s join together now and remind the US that opting for human rights or national interest is a false choice — and that we’ll continue the fight for women’s rights wherever they are threatened.
With hope and determination,
Stephanie, Pedro, Morgan, David, Emma, Dennis, Lisa, Wissam and the rest of the Avaaz team
SOURCES
Uzbekistan’s policy of secretly sterilising women, BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17612550
Doctors in Uzbekistan Say Government Forcibly Sterilizing Women, PRI:
http://www.theworld.org/2012/04/doctors-in-uzbekistan-say-government-forcibly-sterilizing-women/
Uzbek crackdown on activists widens:
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/04/12/uzbekistan-activist-free-crackdown-widening
U.S. Suspends Ban On Military Assistance To Uzbekistan
http://www.rferl.org/content/uzbekistan_united_states_military_assistance/24470588.html
Clinton criticizes Uzbekistan’s human rights record, CNN:
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-10-22/asia/world_asia_tajikistan-clinton-visit_1_tajikistan-tajik-afghan-central-asian-country?_s=PM:ASIA
Bungalow Jack, roflmao.
Could also apply “as full of wind and piss as a bothy cat…”
Weather, yes, Clark, the blustery wet bit is very enjoyable if you aren’t commuting on a motorcycle. Oh, and, with the price of diesel what it is, why are lorry drivers so fond of leaving it on the road at roundabouts? Does nothing for the traction at all.
Nevermind, I think you have given a clear cue to watch Bungalow Jack and his cohorts with minute care next election (if he stands again, he’s getting on a bit, his consultancy with ED&F Man pays him £30K* for doing sod all; along with his pension, speaking engagements and whatnot he can probably get by)
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*1.
{http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/9000018.Blackburn_MP_Jack_Straw_takes___30k_consultancy_role/}
*2. If that’s what Straw’s press release told the Lancashire Telegraph, it lies. According to TWFY, it’s £55-60K. That’s not the half of it, as can be seen. Are we paying MP’s to swan off abroad and receive large lumps of additional income at agreeable conferences?
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/jack_straw/blackburn#register
@Clark…I assume he is extremely busy updating his notes after his India trip…no doubt Craig is thinking about the current situation in Bahrain and the Mayoral elections…Patience dear boy ..
A little simple addition reveals that in 2011, Jack received £49,750 in fees for speaking engagements, several abroad. This does not include freebie airline seats and expenses. He also trousered £5850 from articles at around £500 a pop for News International.
The Peoples Flag is palest pink.
It’s not as red as you might think…
…eh 😉
Jack Straw is bieng paid £123.000 advance for his memoires by Pan Macmillian..I am extremely interested in how Craig will be portrayed, but alas, I am certain he will only be afforded a paragraph as Straw glosses over his involvment in Ex Rendition..perhaps Craig will be receiving the usual threats and letters from Schiilings in advance of publication, threating him with all sorts if he objects to the accuracy of Straw’s slant on events. Comments anyone ?
Jack ‘Straw’ Strauss in 1970.
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http://www.sussex.ac.uk/fiftyyears/bulletin?id=11883
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Q As with Prescott did Jack have something on Blair to have survived for so long?
JackStrawrdinary rendition
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yhttp://johngossip.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/jackstrawrdinary-rendition.html
http://johngossip.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/jackstrawrdinary-rendition.html
Jack’s getting exercised about foreign donations to the Tories at the moment. Lest we forget:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6298788/Qatar-donates-1.5m-for-mosque-after-intervention-from-Jack-Straw.html
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Can’t have done his chances in Blackburn any harm. He wasn’t looking for BNP votes…
In case you did not hear this, it was truly vile. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9714000/9714808.stm
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Radio 4 Today have run this attack on Asma Assad twice now. Previously the Guardian attacked her for her shopping habits. Note that Sarah Montague is on first name terms with Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem The Biography. Montefiore is married to Santa sister of Tara Palmer Tomkinson of the royal hangers-on family! and Kinninmont is Chatham House. {http://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/directory/70767}
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From Medialens.
R4 sets up Asma (again)
Posted by MiriamW on April 20, 2012, 9:11 am
The Today programme re-ran the ‘ambassadors’ wives crap again this morning with the important question ‘can this make a difference?’
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I could only bear to listen to the beginning of the item but I did hear that ‘just because someone is beautiful doesn’t mean that they are good…’
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I dashed off this comment to the Toady programme before the Falklands war revival show began:-
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There is a precedent of sorts for the ‘appeal’ to Asma Asad by the ‘ambassadors’ wives’. Do you recall the (subsequently revealed) participation of the Kuwaiti ambassador in the US’s family in a concocted propaganda story about babies being thrown out of incubators and left to die by Iraqi soldiers in 1991?
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This current ‘ambassadors’ wives’ production is a disgraceful cheap patronising stunt designed to make us more comfortable with the idea that Asma has forfeited her humanity and we should therefore shed no tears should she die along with her husband when the NATO bombing starts.
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It was used on your programme by Montefiore to prepare the way by assassinating Asma Asad’s character and you should be ashamed of yourselves for conniving in it.
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Btw, Is Asma now deemed to have gone so native that English needs to be spoken to her as to a small child?
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I’m going out now before I blow up completely.
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Re: R4 sets up Asma (again)
Posted by margo on April 20, 2012, 9:49 am, in reply to “R4 sets up Asma (again)”
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I also needed fresh air after listening to the German ambassador’s haute couture wife banging on about Asma Assad during CNN prime-time news on Wednesday. Seeing this woman – given access to powerful media platforms in US and UK – wagging a manicured finger at the (equally) powerful, privileged Asma in the name of ‘human rights’ was nauseating. Unless, perhaps, I’ve got it all wrong and Frau Ambassador truly is a champion of human rights. Tell me she appeared on CNN and BBC in 2009, calling on Mrs Olmert to reign in her husband during Operation Cast Lead? Tell me she’s publicly called on Michelle to get her Nobel Peace Prize Winner husband to think – really think – about his role as Commander-In-Chief of the world’s biggest, most active military? Tell me Frau Ambassador not only cares truly and deeply about Syrian children, but about Gazan and Afghani children too?
Frazer, I wasn’t really intending to hurry Craig along; I hope he’s managed to reconstruct his lost notes.
Komodo, that donation from Qatar speaks for itself. That Jack Straw would endorse money from this absolute monarchy is par for the course. Qatar is a haven unless you happen to be a domestic slave or sex slave. Human rights are almost non-existent.
Usmanov is this year’s richest Russian Oligarch. It is believed that Usmanov is at present the most influential Russian Oligarch who manages assets for Putin and other Kremlin officials.
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Accidently, Usmanov was one of the first criminals who were pardoned by Karimov when Moscow transferred greater judicial powers to Tashkent in 1989. It is believed that he has close ties not only in Kremlin but also in criminal circles in both Russia and in Central Asia.
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Usmanov’s settling in London is no accident. In London Usmanov is trying to establish guarantees for ‘black’ Russian capital and investigate the best (safest) investment opportunities. There is no way British authorities (who are fighting to get capital to London) are going to investigate Usmanov, at least for the sake of hundreds of billions that are behind him.