UPDATE
The site is just back up at 16.42 on 21 March having managed to slip like the Tardis into another dimension and thus dodge the massive DOS attack we are under. over 50,000 separate IP addresses simultaneously throwing up millions of hits. The attack has not actually stopped and does seem to have a human intelligence changing terms and directing it, which could make for an interesting afternoon. Once our excellent techs get a minute from fighting it, we will post the cloudfare graphs as evidence.
I just thought I might give you a little taste of what it means to your personal life to express dissent from the government line in the UK in 2018. Let me start with this combined effort from the UK’s most popular website, Guido Fawkes, which fanatically supports the government, and the Blairite crew at “The Guardian”.
The red ink is original.
Now it is true that, when I was sacked as Ambassador by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for blowing the whistle on extraordinary rendition and the Blair government’s misuse of intelligence from torture, I went into a terrible depression and voluntarily spent ten days or so in St Thomas Hospital (not a mental illness facility) for treatment. I have never tried to keep this secret, indeed it is a major part of my memoir “Murder in Samarkand”. It is also true, as I have always acknowledged, that I have had other less serious depressive episodes treated at home and been diagnosed as bipolar since I was 20.
That we stigmatise anybody who has ever had a mental illness, write them off and view their views, on anything, as invalid, is an attitude I had hoped we had moved past last century. Indeed, if this hatchet job was done on anybody writing within the Overton window, then the Guardian would be dedicating editorials to condemning it. We have in fact moved to the old Soviet position, where disagreement with the official line equals mental illness. I quite confess this sort of thing does in fact hurt me – if you cut me, do I not bleed?
The use of the term “conspiracy theorist” has been used to denigrate my views, ever since Jack Straw as Foreign Secretary lied to Parliament denying that the UK ever obtained intelligence from torture and denying the existence of the extraordinary rendition programme, which I was supposed to have fantasised. Anyone interested in this history can watch this series of videos of my evidence to a Parliamentary Committee on the subject. It explains why I start nowadays from a position of being so hated by the British state and its acolytes, and also of course enables you to judge for yourself whether I should be ignored as insane.
Ever since then, the state and corporate media have described me as a “conspiracy theorist”. Even though there is now acceptance that extraordinary rendition did happen and presumably they, somewhere inside, know I was telling the truth. I find people are taken aback to discover, for example, that I broadly accept that there was no US government involvement in 9/11 (other than minimising the Saudi role) and 9/11 discussion is banned on this blog – [warning it still is].
I cannot in fact conceive of a more outlandish conspiracy theory than that the Russian government secretly manufactured and stockpiled novichoks, hidden from the OPCW, and secretly trained assassins, only to blow the whole operation on a retired spy they let out of jail ages ago. Yet nobody calls Boris Johnson a “conspiracy theorist” for positing that.
But the abuse is not confined to what people publish about me. I receive some extremely unpleasant emails of which this is an example:
I do hope Mr Temis can get money back on his anger management sessions. But there has been rather a lot of this, including some by old fashioned mail. which I find myself prodding suspiciously before opening :-).
There is of course an open effort to extend the term “anti-semitic” to embrace any criticism of Israel. It is also particularly used by Blairites to attack anybody taking any position seen as supportive of Jeremy Corbyn. I am not in the least anti-semitic. Jewish people have made a disproportionate, indeed magnificent, contribution to the world in the fields of science, music, literature, commerce and others. That does not alter the fact that Israel is a rogue state when it comes to chemical weapons, the subject currently under discussion. It refuses to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and destroy its chemical weapons stocks, and refuses to join the OPCW.
Plainly someone attacked the Skripals. In stating that it is not the case that Russia was the only state who could have done it, I have included Israel amongst other possibilities. Israel might wish to frame Russia for the deed, as Russian actions in Syria have severely conflicted with Israeli ambitions in Syria and Lebanon. But I have never said it was, or was most likely to be, Israel – it could be the CIA framing Russia, it could be a non-state actor entirely (which I am inclined to think most likely – this could come from those close to a victim of Skripal’s treachery, though I still think the Orbis intelligence connection has been overlooked).
Some of the most vitriolic abuse has come from state and corporate media journalists. Falsely categorising me as an insane racist allows them to ignore any challenge to the establishment line on Salisbury and absolves them, in their own minds, from any dereliction of duty in not questioning it.
In a chilling example of the way they move to crush dissent, here a prominent Blairite corporate media journalist, James Bloodworth, attempts to ensure that consideration of other possibilities than the government line is not carried even in the private domain. He harasses and bullies an individual attempting to force him to accept Mr Bloodworth’s version of what I had said, rather than what I had actually said. When Mr Law (who as a lecturer in philosophy presumably has an attachment to intellectual honesty) refuses, Bloodworth sanctions him by pulling out of his literary festival.
It is very difficult to understand what is happening in the UK today, but when the BBC on its flagship news programme holds a discussion of the Salisbury attack under a huge photo-shopped picture of the leader of the opposition in a Russian hat standing outside the Kremlin, it is plain a fundamental shift has happened in society. The Salisbury attack has perhaps taught us something massively more important than any of the stuff about chemical weapons, and that is that Britain is further along the road to becoming an authoritarian state than we had realised.
Oh Craig. Don’t stop blogging ever. Those of us who have been suspicious of the mainstream media for years now (especially the Scots and especially since 2014), prefer to read your assessments of current affairs as a counterpoint to the establishment’s propaganda line as published by their media arms.
Love it, Book it.
I’m so glad the Secretary of State for Health gets it. Risk pooling. That’s when the government maintains a well-funded NHS and social care and benefits system which allows each of us to rely on the state to support them when they are unwell. What risk pooling does not mean is that we have to pay an additional insurance cost in order to allow private financial vultures to get fat and stress the sick and weak by refusing to pay the money or provide the care to which they are absolutely entitled from the welfare state.
You can fool some of the people some of the time…. It does appear that in the last cabinet re-shuffle Jeremy Hunt particularly wanted to deliver this kick in the balls to the UK electorate. Now fuck off and make way for Jeremy Corbyn.
This article in The Bell has, by far, the most scientific information I have seen on the “Novichok” group of agents:
https://thebell.io/en/the-scientist-who-developed-novichok-doses-ranged-from-20-grams-to-several-kilos/
While I’m not familiar with this publication, it’s a legitimate start-up according to this review:
https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/9554/media-start-up-elizaveta-osetinskaya-the-bell-russia-independent-media
Thank for the links. If true it does bolster the British Government’s case.
I didn’t read it as supporting the government, other than to acknowledge that these things exist. My big take-away was that Vil Mirzayanov doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and has overstated his position, yet what little scientific information is in media reports comes from him.
What it blows out of the water (again if true) is the Russian claim that they have no knowledge of such types of nerve agents. They can play word games interchanging the Soviet Union and Russia; what they cannot do is play a ‘nobody but us chickens here’ game. Every time such things happen, they resort to a convenient defence involving Russophobia. Why do they not offer a plausible defence that can be tested by scientific and legal experts? Now it is clear (from the interview), that only a highly capable entity can both manufacture, store and much more important deliver the deadly agent. Therefore the Russians are under suspicion whether they are in fact innocent or not. it is their duty to clear up the matter. Far too many suspicious deaths involving Russians, have occurred for the man in the street to blame the ‘Russian Mafia’ or ‘neocons’ or ‘Zionists’. That said, HM government went about this in a manner designed precisely to elicit a furious Russian denial. The Tories have their own game, but after all the smoke and mirrors the irreducible fact remains that as of now the Russians are the main suspect.
Ivan, “it is their [the Russians] duty to clear up the matter”. Wrong, it is the UK governments responsibility to follow due process, it is not the responsibility of Russia to prove their innocence, it is for the UK government to prove the Russians culpability through due process and through following the procedures set out in the Chemical Weapons Convention.
No, it does not, rather opposite
I’ve given my layman’s impression above.
No, it doesn’t, to the opposite. Vladimir Uglev is very clear in one point: To his knowledge there never has been a “chemical weapon” – program with the named four (!) substances in Russia. He exclusively knows about scientific research that precedes such a program. The substances weren’t weaponized until he left the research 1994. Uglev claims, the research, of which he knows, never led to the manufacture of stable and manageable precursors of a binary weapon and he holds this was the stage of things till 2008 and later:
Of course Uglev can’t speak of labarotories and production facilities designed to produce chemical weapons in the former Soviet Union and, later, in former Soviet Republics like the often cited Usbekistan and Ukraine. Those were kept secret and were in the responsibility of the successor states and the OPCW.
On the other hand The Bell and RIA are telling, that there is public knowledge of at least two cases, when products of the research laboratory were stolen and sold by staff members. What is more, Uglev claims, whith blood samples from the alleged victims (and, of course, the analitical results of Porton Down) it is possible to establish, if a Russian / Soviet research product was involved or not and even an exact manufacturing line. This underlines, that the UK is in gross violation of the OPCW-statutes by not conveying those samples and results to Russia and even sabotages a russian investigation that could lead to tracks of a possible rogue player,
As we all know, this is done with the fallacious supposition, that the Russian State itself could wipe traces of it’s involvement. This could and would be done without any information from the UK.
Moreover Uglev hints at some of the stolen and sold substances could have ended up in british or german laboratories and then would be relatively easy to repoduce – however their product would probably not have the forementioned properties which allow for an assignement to a known manufacturing line.
Quote: “The British, just like the Germans, are excellent chemists who can with one hint do what in Moscow is classified as top secret. In addition, the secret was already 20 years old in 1993. So the question should be directed to those specialists charged with protecting state secrets: is it possible to keep such information secret without any leaks?”
I want to add, that I strongly doubt Uglevs medical competence. First, generally there is a medical treatment in cases of a non lethal dose of those substance class. Second: IF the dose is lethal, then “life support” longer than a couple of days is impossible, because the heart muscle is destroyed, it degenerates. If, on the other hand, the heart functions to a supportable degree, there are chances of a recover to consciousness and communication. And if, on the other hand, Uglev knew of atypical poisonous properties of the old substances, why doesn’t he say so? And why would the UK hide it?
I have – literally – never heard of James Bloodworth. I’m going to hazard a guess that he’s an Oxbridge grad who writes badly, and constantly bemoans the state of ‘the left’ whilst constantly hand-wringing about war (which he supports, but can’t quite say so). Just a guess. He also appears to be a legend in his own mind, but in fairness that’s pretty standard among the journalist class.
I swear the world is going insane, though hopefully this is a temporary phenomenon. I blame the internet, and the neocons, in no especial order.
Not being able to sleep I looked him up. He appears to be a type of self-identified left winger who wrote a blog for The Spectator and seems to dislike Cuba and Venezuela and admire Boris Johnson to some extent (so is really an, unconscious right-winger or neo-liberal). I imagine he wrote his own wiki page (I don’t imagine anyone else would have done).
He’s the kind of person who stridently states the accepted view as if is was challenging and urgent.
I read an extract from his book, Hired, where he writes how nostalgia misleads and in reality people no longer have to face the dangers of working down ‘the pit’, whereas working for Amazon is relatively safe. Which is fair enough until’ you consider that there are many people working in mines and other very dangerous jobs (perhaps more than ever before) but they are just doing it in other countries; we’ve really just exported dangerous jobs.
He used to edit Left Foot Forward, a blog set up by Will Straw (son of Jack Straw) which again is fake left wing. I wouldn’t want to be associated in any way with Jack Straw (as he a war criminal) but that just shows how principled James Bloodworth really is.
‘Hired’, his recently released book is about his experience of working undercover in low paid jobs (such as Amazon, fruit-picking, care work) for six months. Stuff that has already been extensively covered in recent years so he is way, way behind the curve.
As a writer he is missing the more obvious story and that is Russiagate and he would have been much better off seeking to interview Craig instead of dropping off the bill.
I would guess James Bloodworth is a privileged person trying to get some working class cred as this seems to be a good career move. I would imagine he sees himself as a future Labour MP (and perhaps this ambition is the source of his concern about Craig; that associating, or appearing to endorse, Craig might come back to bite him [best shout loudly ‘unclean, unclean’ so no-one doubts where you stand]).
I would suggest that James follow up his book, ‘Hired’, with a sequel, perhaps called ‘Survive’, where he goes to other countries (such as Turkey, India, Indonesia, China, Congo, Ghana, Brazil) and works undercover as a miner; now that would be a book to read (if James lived long enough to write it).
Very good. You evoke a priveleged sociopath fascinated by things he can’t understand, a sense of trying to guess what working class (people) think and feel, as though puzzling over little machines which can be reverse engineered to become useful.
I am increasingly convinced it was MI6 who done it , as payback for the pollonium and to force Russia’s hand with the OPCW to make it relinquish the novichok it is developing. If I am right there was never any danger to citizens of Salisbury ,- lot of smoke and mirrors is all a part of the plot. I can describe in more detail if you like. All the known facts fit.
DS Bailey’s story is an odd one Mary Paul. The only other person in all of Salisbury to be poisoned outside if the crutial two. I would like answers or I’m heading for the swivel eyed crew. Not a nice thought!
You know there are doubts that Russia was involved with the Litvienko murder. On the same day he was poisoned Litvienko met with one. Mario Scaramella. It is alleged that on his deathbed Litvienko accused Scarmello of poisoning him. Scarmello has a shady past and appears to have links to western intelligence services (particularly CIA).
Links for you to peruse:
https://off-guardian.org/2018/03/17/litvinenko-and-the-demise-of-british-justice/
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Mario_Scaramella
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Scaramella
WTL
Very detailed analysis also provided by David Habakkuk who has also commented in this blog.
The inquiry was also carried out in a less than transparent manner, and with evidence standards that would not stand up to Court scrutiny.
At this point we are given too little information to make up our mind. All that we are told is that it is a ‘novichok’ of a ‘type developed by Russua’.
Although Craig has concentrated on ‘of a type developed by Russia’, the term ‘novichok’
Itself is vague. This has now been discussed by Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson of the Russian government quite eloquently. To identify something in this context you need to be more specific and May’s statement contains two generalisations that do not hold up in the face of the seriousness of the charge.
It is still possible that all this is made up theatre and although I do not subscribe to ‘stress actors ‘ type conspiracy theories, I am beginning to wonder as there is so little coming out about the victims.
100%. remember the Dudley councillor who got the EDL to plan a demonstration so he could get the credit for negotiating it not to happen. ‘ That’s normal politics these days ‘ he said when he was rumbled. Mrs May’ll say the same.
The questions is what exactly did they do? The silence is becoming increasingly deafening …
The longer it drags on, the more people will start to use their brains and see that the whole story is utterly illogical. I think this is already happening in some of the main British papers, as it dawns on them that the “38 people receiving treatment” don’t exist, that the theory of DS Bailey’s alleged contact with the poison makes no sense, and that the trail of a supposedly fast-acting, highly deadly nerve agent cannot possibly stretch as far, geographically and temporally, as the official story would have us believe.
Certainly the Guardian’s brief love affair with Boris Johnson seems to have already faded, and it looks like they’re hoping this story will just go away now.
“The longer it drags on, the more people will start to use their brains and see that the whole story is utterly illogical.”
Are you from a planet called “Wishful Thinking”?
Who do most people think was responsible for the Litvinenko job? Propaganda hooks emotion, not logic.
N-
You are probably right. A site like this makes you believe that people are changing their mind but all we might be is a small self-reinforcing circle and a useful list of people to ’round-up’ if the need arises.
That said I have read a number of posts (on other sites) that claim that a significant number of Daily Mail readers are posting very skeptical opinions in the comments section of DM articles relating to the Skripal poisoning. If so, then that is very significant. However, when I looked at the DM site (which is quite dense with a la number of articles including a large number of Reuters, Associated Press, & Agence France Presse articles) I couldn’t find much in the way of skeptical opinions (but the site is not so easy to navigate and the key articles not so easy to find). But I was impressed that DM site was a good source of various press agency reports.
Been their & suffered & learnt like you I return with new tools !
Thank God there are people out there like yourself who are prepared to stand up to these psychopathic warmongering criminals. I thank you Mr Craig Murray
So Bloodworth pulled out this guy’s literary festival? I gavd never heard of Bloodworth before (thank goodness) and he seems like a nasty piece of work. Any literary festival is better off WITHOUT him in it.
Bloodworth..
Bet that aint his real Name Born… Little shit…
Anyhoo.. Here is Maria. making a seemingly seasoned reporter Shake –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9pLd2YnOMI
She is brilliant. Why can’t we have someone like that on our side instead of Boris?
Your doing us all a great service Mr Murray.
I wonder if the “Nerve Agent” expose was just a “throw a dead cat on the table” moment to distract us from Cambridge Analytica and its direct links to Trump, Brexit, GE17 and possibly indyref14. They all have a similar Project Fear narrative running through them. There is also the Dark Money via DUP. Is this dead cat simply to avoid scrutiny of the tories and their “dark dealings”?
I think TM should ask The Donald to explain within 24 hours how he had won the elections, or else.
It woz Cambridge Analytica wot dunnit!
>
✔
Chairman of the DCMS Committee
@DamianCollins
Facebook was not deceived by Cambridge Analytica. They knew what they had done 2 years ago and only acted against them when it was reported in the press. Mark Zuckerberg needs to speak about this, but he won’t even answer questions from his own employees
10:15 PM – Mar 20, 2018
Inventor of the app that was used by Cambridge Analytica says he did not know it would be used in Trump’s campaign..
‘An academic who created an app which harvested data from 50 million users says he has been made “a scapegoat” for Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.
Dr Aleksandr Kogan completed work for Cambridge Analytica in 2014, but said he had no idea the data would be used to benefit Donald Trump’s campaign.
The psychology academic said he wanted the data so he could model human behaviour through social media.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43480978
Sharp Ears
What does ‘model’ mean ? Map? predict? understand? or even control? I have a friend who is a lecturer on the way by which the mind is affected by chemicals that are made in the body as a bi-product of different organs. There’s no doubt our digestive systems are all different. I don’t know how that affects our minds. Mine works best on brown bread, fish and free range eggs. Does that mean I am consuming a resource called freedom?
Mark Zuckerberg appears to me to be the kind of psychologist that wants to entrap, label, control and manipulate. His denials add to this impression of experimental mind control. it’s a bit more than experiment when it can be used to influence elections.
Cambridge Analytica is being condemned for its allegedly successful efforts in the Trump campaign and mock outrage is being stirred up about their use of psychology to target potential Trump supporters. What is interesting is that executives of Facebook, Twitter and Google have gone on record as being Hilary supporters and few are wondering whether the social media behemoths used their monopoly positions to influence the election. CA were perhaps just more competent and had more influence while working with a smaller data set than that available to Facebook itself. Is it possible that the targeting of CA is sour grapes by an establishment that lost despite having the support of social media and the overwhelming majority of the MSM?
Every election or plebiscite is about Better the Devil You Know (or “project fear” to use the buzzphrase put out from up-top for the chatterer “thinkers”) versus Time for a Change.
Very sorry to hear you are receiving abuse. People are very intolerant of other views it seems. Even if they disagree there is no need for abuse. I’m also disappointed but not surprised that they are slurring you in terms of mental health, I support everything you said here about that. Really shameful of that website. And correct, mentioning Israel does not make you anti-Semitic, in fact conflating Jews with Israel is antisemitic, which is what your detractors seem to be doing. No I don’t think it was Israel but I’m not going to call you names or threaten you over your mention of Israel.
It’s how people approach (or don’t) debate. When a disagreement exists, the ‘what’ of the matter is the primary issue that needs to be agreed on first. ‘who’ ‘how’ ‘why’ are secondary when the ‘what’ of the matter is not known. Anyone peddling speculation as to these, without combing over the ‘what’, is being either intellectually backwards or intentionally deceitful.
The attack on Craig for “antisemitism” is of course deliberately contrived to rubbish & detract from his comments regards Salisbury, however as one on the receiving end of being called a Kremlin Stooge & Putinbot by Craig himself, namely over his stance on the Ukraine Coup & Crimea, I must admit Karma has a mischievous sense of humour.
:
Yes, remarkably and sadly, Craig Murray is WRONG concerning the Ukraine and Crimea.
It makes me wonder how his analytical abilities seem to fail on this: The DEMOCRATICALLY elected leader of Ukraine was overthrown BEFORE his term ended – via American intrigue, as usual (funny how Ukraine got exactly the puppet the Gorgon Fascist Victoria Nuland indicated was the US’s favourite in private communications – thank heavens for WIkilieaks); in addition the ‘attachment’ of the Crimea to Ukraine back in the 1950s was PURELY an administrative affair of convenience – giving the geographic adjacency of Ukraine and Crimea – it’s probably lost from memory just how long the Crimea was part of Russia before then. IN any case, expecting Russia to give up its facilities and its people owing to a PUTSCH, is naieve in the extreme. Moreover, of course, they actually had a REFERENDUM in the Crimea as to whether to ‘stay or go’ – something I’m sure Westminster will fight tooth and nail to prevent Scotland from having again.
So Craig’s analytical ability concerning Ukraine & Crimea seems completely at odds with his excellent work ?everywhere else?.
.
Indeed. The Ukraine coup was engineered and carried out by US/Western powers. I would have thought this was abundantly clear to everyone by now.
Dennis, I agree with you tge UK Government through the Foreign Sec W Hague lied to Parliament , the Ukrainian parliament did not follow the constitution. Here is part of a letter I sent to the FCO at the time.
“Justifying UK support for the new regime in Kiev in the House of Commons on 4 March 2014, the Foreign Secretary said:
“Former President Yanukovych left his post and then left the country, and the decisions on replacing him with an acting President were made by the Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, by the very large majorities required under the constitution, including with the support of members of former President Yanukovych’s party, the Party of Regions, so it is wrong to question the legitimacy of the new authorities.”
The Ukrainian President had not resigned, he is still the legitimate President of Ukraine, therefore the Foreign Secretary’s statement was a calculated deception of the House of Commons, designed to give the impression that the procedure prescribed in the Ukrainian constitution for the removal of a president from office had been followed, when it hadn’t.
Because this statement was fundamentally wrong can I be assured that the Foreign Secretary will tell the House of Commons at the earliest opportunity, and through them the British people, that the statement he made on 4th March 2014, was false.
The Ukraine takeover was a coup here is why ..Article 111[of the Ukrainian constitution] obliges the Rada to establish a special investigatory commission to formulate charges against the president, seek evidence to justify the charges and come to conclusions about the president’s guilt for the Rada to consider.
Prior to a final vote to remove a president from power, it requires
(a) The Constitutional Court of Ukraine to review the case and certify that the constitutional procedure of investigation and consideration has been followed, and
(b) The Supreme Court of Ukraine must certify that the acts of which the President is accused are worthy of impeachment.
The Rada didn’t follow this procedure at all. No investigatory commission was established and the Courts were not involved. On 22 February 2014, the Rada simply passed a bill removing President Yanukovych from office.
Furthermore, the bill wasn’t even supported by three quarters of the members of the Rada, as required by Article 111 for the removal of a president from office – it was supported by 328 members, when it required 338 (since the Rada has 450 members).
Macky
it really aint the time.. This WORLD Threatening Situation Aint Craig’s Fault… I live a few miles away from the
u.k Nukes on the Clyde.. I will die a Quicker death than you..or Craig… or the rest of The Blob..Just saying –
Scroll to Benchmark 6…
See where I live..
https://vimeo.com/260518039
A quick death is preferable than for instance being burned alive or clubbed to death as were the victims of the Odessa Massacre, whom Craig smeared as “Russian thugs sent by Putin” in his unforgivable attempt to whitewash the crime & demonise Putin/Russia.
You are of course right, as are Macky and Dennis, but timing Trumps all such petty grievances just now. one would have thought.
“petty grievances” ?
May & the Boris Buffoon plainly lying over Salisbury trumps Craig’s excusing & support for the Neo-Fascists responsible for this ?!;
https://nsnbc.me/2014/05/10/odessa-massacre-detail-investigation/
Macky, just because Craig says he doesn’t believe Putin poisoned someone doesn’t mean he approves of him. Why is Putin in alliance with Turkey and turning a blind eye to Turkish nationalism against their neighbours the Kurds and others in Afrin? I’m wondering whether this is an agenda from China, since Turkish is one of the languages of China, because China wants to make a new Silk Road through Iran and Turkey after USUKIS wrecked the old one in Syria.
I can’t quite work out why the Brexit Tories want to leave the EU if they want a new trade deal with China. If they stay in the EU the goods will arrive by lorry or train through Bulgaria. Better to stay in.
That’s why people suspect Israel, because nobody else hates Muslims. Why else spend the last 30 years destroying Muslims when it is no good for trade, or peace, or world co-operation. The Chinese hate USUKIS Islamist terrorists. WTF do they want to antagonise the same people they want to make money from?
No need to point out logical fallacies to me iro Craig/Putin; Is there an alliance with Russia & Turkey ? Is Russia giving Turkey a free hand in Afrin because of some arrangement ? I sincerely hope not, and instead suspect it’s the same reason why Russia doesn’t do anything to stop Israeli bombing raids, or US attacks on the Syrian Army, namely the fear that doing so will mean that WW3 has started in earnest. That the entire political class, and MSM have not condemned the capture of Afrin by the Turks allied with the Jihadist terrorists, whom they have now allowed to plunder & terrorise those who were unable to flee in time, is a disgusting disgrace, and judging by past sentiments, don’t expect Craig to do so either.
I believe that Owen Jones, to his credit, has.
So he has, being the exception that proves the rule; he also tweeted about the British lady killed defended Afrin from the Turks.
I have been struggling all along with means motive opportunity for Russia particularly motive but MI6 could have all 3. Suppose they found out Russian federation is secretly stockpiling Novichok ,;or the components, ) despite officially having destroyed all their chemical weapons? This is a real danger to Europe. And that far from being retired Skripal was still in the game in some way? But now for Russia. Maybe daughter’s safety is his price, maybe it is blackmail, whatever.
His daughter arrives in UK on a visit. Plot set off. .The mock poisoning of him and his daughter with some specialist drug devised by Porton Down – nasty but not fatal – is part of the plot. They are whisked off to Porton Down isolation unit along with DS Bailey (collateral damage) and all this smoke and mirrors swings into action.
The doctor who worked on them who disappears, the sudden impounding of vehicles, the various misleading even conflicting stories put out by the Met (,they are good at that – indeed they may be in the dark themselves with MI6 as puppet master.) All the time Boris has evidence the Russians have novichok. So Porton Down makes a sample of Novichok for the OPCW inspectors while press is kept in dark and public opinion whipped up. False trail laid, Boris tours European heads of state who back calls for Russia to destroy it.
The sting is Russia do have but did not use it in this incident. So Russian novichok exposed, revenge for Litvienko pollonium incident achieved and of course no actual danger to citizens of Salisbury.You must admit if it is true and they pull it off, it is brilliant.
@MP, even the ‘fact-checking’ websites are having fun[*] with this NBC/CBRN fairy-tale, whoever planned it from their plastic-chaired basement tempest shield
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/putin-passport-salisbury-poison-attack/
[*]Not fun, obviously – but it’s good that at least the garrison town NHS staff treating the NBCW survivor/(s)/(?) are finally getting a pay-rise
Mary Paul
I understand exactly why the foaming Tories want to blame Russia. Saudi Arabian money underpins the leveraged money our economy relies on. Saudi Arabia wants to woo the UK to Islam, so it makes cash available, even though they realise that USUKIS have a plan with Russia to destroy the Muslims.
The puffed-up hooligans in Westminster are completely unaware of Saudis wooing them.
Unaware of the wiles of the snake-in-the-grass
And the fate of the maiden who topes
She lowered her standards by raising her glass
Her courage, her eyes and his hopes
She sipped it, she drank it, she drained it, she did
He promptly refilled it again
And he said as he secretly carved one more notch
On the butt of his gold-headed cane
But the British public understand that Islam wants to woo them, and would submit to their advances if the dirty old status quo cynics who do torture rendition were not constantly maligning Islam by creating Islamists by psychological manipulation and chemical brainwashing.
it’s a game.
I confess I don’t much understand how the dynamics of abuse dispear from our stories once they become generational, how history seems to leave the page to exigency alone. Probably a generational thing.
If that were true, who gives a toss that Russian “stockpiling of novichok” has been exposed? I don’t ask that question rhetorically. Propaganda is always aimed at certain markets. Which market has this been aimed at, in your scenario, and how is gain reaped from the change in perception in that market?
My take? The psychological warfare in WW3 began a long while ago.
As for “cold war”, I wish people would turn their heads sideways and slap that notion out of their ears. This is not “cold war”.
Not brilliant, just imaginative in a Midsomer Murders way. The basic script was written decades ago most notably in the Oded Yinon Plan and supported in PNAC writings and the US decision revealed to Gen Wesley Clark in 2001 to go to war with 7 countries in 5 years.
When people say they’re going to do something and then it happens, why look elsewhere for an explanation?
The whole affair is designed to gradually prepare consumers of the MSM propaganda (some 90-95% of population) to staged chemical attack in Syria and eventually to WWIII.
Step one – firmly plant “Putin’s done that before” in folks’ brain, then continue entertain public with all those different scenarios of “how Putin did that” (not WHO did that, but rather reroute attention to HOW they pulled that out), so gradually nobody would even question “who did that” but would instead start discussing HOW they did, for weeks.
Step two – stage “chemical attack” in Syria and film it. No doubt in public’s mind who helped and supplied chemical weapon because “Putin just recently did that” in London. Russkies did that again.
Step three – US/NATO enters Syria.
Step four – Russia expelled from UN.
Step five – WWIII.
Sounds like a plan.
Step four – Russia expelled from UN Security Council rather.
Apparently there is no mechanism for expelling a permanent member of the security council from the UN. If this is attempted it would lead to the demise of the UN.
The demise of the UN would be very little loss, going off its recent performances: like the IMF and World Bank these days it’s become more of a mouthpiece and a tool of the West than anything else – primarily of the United States of World Horror.
.
I’m sure all the “international civil servants” currently employed at the UN, World Bank and IMF would argue that their million dollar pensions would actually be quite a large loss. It’s probably why these organisations are self-perpetuating …
@Niels – Yes, you’ve got it right:
“The whole affair is designed to gradually prepare consumers of the MSM propaganda (some 90-95% of population) to staged chemical attack in Syria and eventually to WWIII”
That is likely to come around Easter/Passover time this year. (I wrote a comment about that but it wasn’t allowed through.)
And you’re right about questions that convey assumptions too:
“Step one – firmly plant “Putin’s done that before” in folks’ brain, then continue entertain public with all those different scenarios of “how Putin did that” (not WHO did that, but rather reroute attention to HOW they pulled that out), so gradually nobody would even question “who did that” but would instead start discussing HOW they did, for weeks.”
One thing I would say: Russia can’t be expelled from the UN. Expulsion requires recommendation from the Security Council where they have a veto. I’m sure the lawyers could argue until their wallets overflow about how under Article 27 of the UN Charter a “party to a dispute” shall abstain from voting in the Security Council, but in practice that isn’t going to happen – and if it did, it would be irrelevant.
Grist to Mill
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/03/20/attack-against-nord-stream-2-renewed-with-vigor-whose-interests-does-meet.html
When you have been struggling with a jigsaw and you suddenly find the box with the picture on it………………… interesting stuff indeed.
Keep up the great work, Craig. You’re the only person with access to inside sources and conflicting information on the Skripal affair who is countering the barrage of sanctioned media propaganda in the UK today. Of course people like Guido Fawkes and others are going to attack you. They’re attack dogs; that’s what they do.
F*ck ’em!
As someone noted earlier in this Skripal saga, very few of the main stream media stories opened a comments section for people to air their opinions about all this. Deliberate? Browsing yesterday there are now a couple of stories from MSM that do have comments and you get the feeling that about 50% are very sceptical about the governments motives behind all this. This tallies within my own group of friends, friends and work colleagues. If this is translated across to the whole of the UK adult population, and you have to assume that the MSM and government couldn’t possibly brainwash them all, that still leaves millions of people that Craig Murray’s website is representing. I only wish more of them would become a little more vocal.
Now on to the OPCW investigation.
Looking into reports of previous alleged chemical weapons use in Syria you find these statements. Slightly edited by me without changing meaning!!!!
The OPCW FFM’s (fact finding mission) mandate is to determine whether chemical weapons or toxic chemicals as weapons have been used in Syria; it does not include identifying who is responsible for alleged attacks.
A rigorous methodology was employed for conducting an investigation of alleged use of chemical weapons that took into account corroboration between interviewee testimonies; open-source research, documents, and other records; and the characteristics of the samples including those provided by the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic.
Principal methods for collecting and evaluating the credibility of information included: research into incidents and existing reports; assessment and corroboration of background information; conduct of interviews with relevant medical care providers, alleged casualties and other individuals linked to the reported incident; the review of documentation and records provided by interviewees; the assessment of the symptoms of victims as reported by interviewees; and the collection of bio-medical specimens and environmental samples for analysis.
https://www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-fact-finding-mission-confirms-use-of-chemical-weapons-in-khan-shaykhun-on-4-april-2017/
It’s role is not to apportion blame. It will be interesting to see if they maintain 100% integrity and how the statement is worded at the end. Their reputation is on the line with this one.
Dr Nott is on the front page of the Torygraph saying that his computer was hacked allowing the Russians to locate the hospital he worked in and then bombed it.
Hackers ‘led warplanes to Syrian hospital’ after targeting British surgeon’s computer
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/20/british-surgeon-helped-syrian-operations-hacked-reveal-secret/
It is the headline story and there is a large photo of him in his scrubs.
Dr Nott should be reported to the GMC for breaking his Hippocratic oath. He has advocated a no-fly zone in Syria with its implications. This is not a brief of a doctor in UK.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/20/omran-picture-turning-point-syria-war-aleppo-david-nott
In the bodycopy he also admits to only ‘suspecting’ his computer was hacked. Plus the hospital had been bombed several times, so it was obvious the coordinates were known anyway.
I can just thank you for this balanced and clear article about how double moral standards affect us all. There would be needed a lot of studies and books to answer how something like this could happen again (it did before, or course). For example a study concerning the Guardian, or in Germany “Taz” or “Spiegel”, and how they dealt with contradictory opinions and with facts through the last, say, 73 years since the Nazi-worldwar. Something changed again, obviously.
For people like myself, who thought highly of the Guardian, for example (I still very much like to read George Monbiot’s or Naomi Klein’s very good articles there and occasionally buy the printed version in Germany) – it indeed came as a shock to learn how the majority of articles disregarded, in a very unfair way, say Jeremy Corbyn and his campaign for the many, not the few. Same with “Spiegel” here, the german mag that is supposed to be a good one but mainly turned into a neoliberal nightmare since around 1999.
This is all a highly complicated matter. If I may, as a stranger, propose something, it would be this. After the next indeed horrifying letter or mail you get, after those “we are the good ones”-articles and their double moral standards – I would suggest you’d ask yourself “what would Bertrand Russell think about my opinion”. Or “what would Esther Béjarano think”.
Esther is a survivor of the women’s orchestra of Auschwitz, a socialist, and aged 93 us happy ones here in Germany can still hear her talk at demonstrations. These are rare hours, indeed, you stand there and are happy that you live to see her talking. Against G20 she spoke last summer, against western wars and against any kind of oppression, against anti-semitism since decades. I am more happy than words can say about being able to listen to Esther Béjarano.
And I often force myself to think about that as I read some next, sadly enough often distorted, reports from people like the Blairites and their “we are the good ones with our wars on terror”. The same examples can very easily be found in the german mainstream press.
There still is Esther Béjarano. These are the persons that would not fall as deep as to think in double moral standards, as Tony Blair and a lot of people in Germany too do and have done. It is maybe a good idea to go on and asking, what would Bertrand Russell and Esther Béjarano think. All the very best to you, and of course it hurts what such people dare to write instead of dealing with the facts as far as we can know them by now. All the best to you.
Simply because we believe that the mainstream media are bent, doesn’t necessarily mean that we will all share the same opinions on all matters – I understand, for instance, that Craig has opinions which are diametrically opposed to mine on e.g. 9/11 and Crimea, and I respect his right to be entirely wrong on that
I mention this because some of my strongest – and most informed – concerns relate to events occurring far to the East of Suez, and in particular China (where I lived for most of the past decade); as far back as 2008/9 I was locked in more or less daily argument with Peter Foster (the China correspondent of the Telegraph) and was aghast that a man with such conspicuous talent was for some reason repeatedly telling downright lies. Of course, the Comments section was heavily moderated, and for several years I played a game of Cat & Mouse, occasionally reinventing new accounts under the same name and icon, only for these to be systematically closed down no matter how many “Up” votes I got. I did this not as an obsession, but out of sheer surprise and disbelief that the Telegraph could be so misguided, know that it was misguided, and go out of its way again and again to suppress any form of dissent. To his credit, Peter came close to spilling the beans and explaining the rules of the game, and having played them to the letter, he was subsequently shuffled off to a high-level role in the USA.
At the same time a new specialist consultancy started to be heavily quoted in the Telegraph, spouting forth on all the economic woes China was about to experience, and repeatedly quoted by the house economist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. A little investigation revealed this outfit to be headed by AEP’s own son, less than two years out of University with a degree in an unrelated subject.
And finally, the BBC’s redoubtable “China Hand” Carrie Gracie – she of unequal pay fame; I can say, hand on heart, based on direct personal experience, that the overwhelming majority of what she reported was factually open to challenge, appeared heavily skewed and was typically negative, rather than balanced. Well, she stood up to those male ogres at the BBC, didn’t she! – and she’s now a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s flagship “Today” programme. It’s a hard life, isn’t it
My point is this: people like Peter Foster, Carrie Gracie, and the Evans-Pritchard family owe their livelihoods to promoting a particular narrative; they are richly rewarded and made famous for doing as they are told, not for being journalists or showing any degree of professional integrity or initiative. And, in return, their employers protect them against all forms of challenge or criticism – whether through causal censorship of dissident commentary, or by shuffling them around once the water starts getting too hot in any given location. It is a bargain with Devil which I sense we might all perhaps fall foul of, were we to be in their shoes. What is the alternative? – appear once on RT and you’ll never get a table at The Ivy again (as I sense Craig is now discovering to his cost, courtesy of the Guardian)
Such is the World we live in: it’s not nice, but its not unique – either to Craig, or indeed to Russia. These people are manipulating opinions all the time, across multiple domains. It would be nice to believe that they have some Master Plan, but I sense there are in fact just a handful of persistent themes (“Yellow Peril”, “Reds under the Bed” etc) which are used as prism through which to refract any and all news stories, and our only defence is to not fall for it. We are not going to change it, that’s for sure…
[I’m British, ex-Army and a Cambridge Law graduate by the way; despite repeated suggestions, I’m not paid by either Putin or Xi Jinping, and until last years General Election had always instinctively voted Tory. If “The Establishment” is alienating middle-of-the-road people like me, then either they are letting their guard down, or they are by now so cocksure they cant be bothered to keep up any pretence]
I’d love to hear more about what’s actually happening in China knowing how little I can trust mainstream historians and media. I would also counsel that history supports a concerted conspiracy over at least 2 centuries rather than chaos.
Hi John; wrong place, wrong time to get too involved in a lengthy discussion, but I think it’s odd that Theresa May appears to be going out of her way to antagonise the Chinese (sending a warship to the South China Sea and refusing to sign the Silk Road MOU) just at a time when the UK needs to be forging new relationships.
It’s the same with Russian gas; we apparently just closed down a major undersea storage facility, and more than half of the LNG imported so far in 2018 has come from Russia – particularly during the recent cold snap. Why on earth, therefore, are we doing everything possible to provoke these people, rather than trying to build bridges? I simply can’t believe that May actually thinks that this incident is an open & shut case, or that we are always Saints and the Russians are always unforgivable sinners.
As such, I’m not really worried about “the facts”, because I doubt I’ll ever get to know all of them: what baffles me is the underlying intention. What is the end-game?
John it is hard to find alternative views on China. As Zhanglan has implied, all Western correspondents seem to operate under the same set of instructions that go:
1. Find a problem.
2. Big it up.
3. If they’re doing something about it and you’re absolutely forced to acknowledge it, then do everything possible to belittle and denigrate their efforts.
Here are four articles you might care to read. They present an alternative view of the ‘Hong Kong Occupy’ protests that took place in late 214. (They don’t focus so much on events in Hong Kong as on how they were presented in the UK media.)
http://en.people.cn/n/2014/1021/c98649-8797411-3.html
http://en.people.cn/n/2014/1118/c98649-8810257-4.html
http://en.people.cn/n/2014/1127/c98649-8814771-3.html
http://en.people.cn/n/2014/1216/c90780-8823156.html
Carrie Grace is obviously speaking with forked tongue in the “equal pay” affair. It went like this
“I want more money.”
“Well you can’t have it.”
“Right, I’m going to kick up a fuss.”
“Oh all right, here you go, have some more money.”
“Oh, you think you’ve bought me, do you? Well more money isn’t enough! I’m fighting for women’s rights.”
What was it really about? Weapons contracts?
she had become persona non grata in China, and they needed a cover story to get her out and into a nice comfy job back in the UK
Who had she upset in China?
Cambridge University gets a LOT of dirty money from China.
After all, Britain is an important reference country for China – it probably has been since the civil service exams were organised on a Chinese model back in the 19th century – and as a networking choice for the brats of the Chinese elite Cambridge is above everywhere apart from a few US universities. It’s funny how the Foreign Office view the Chinese elite as fuzzy-wuzzies who’ll be awfully chuffed if they get their photos taken with a member of the “royal” family.
Gracie went to Cowley Tech, right? 🙂
I’d draw a parallel with the late 30’s and the heavy censorship the British government and the press barons applied over Chamberlain’s policy of Appeasement. Whole wodges of reporting on German atrocities were simply missed out – especially in The Times, the Mail and the Express. Chamberlain’s spin doctor Joseph Ball – who made Alistair Campbell look like a vicarage tea party – blackmailed reporters over homosexuality, adultery, and drunkeness. He ran a virulently anti-semitic magazine called (from memory) The Truth.
Relations grew so bad between editors and the few honest journalists that wanted to tell the truth that in the end an uneasy truce was reached and they were allowed to write one honest story in exchange for writing three lying ones.
But as you say, despite all this propaganda – being disseminated then as now by a small metropolitan elite (the provinces were always more anti-appeasement) – the British people turned, most strongly in the extraordinary Bridgwater bye-election of November 1938. I think most people have an instinctive ear for propaganda and can tell when they’re being lied to.
On British journalists in China, again the same parallels with the 1930’s. Most journalists ignored the Japanese aggression and the appalling suffering of the Chinese. But some brave souls – Jack Belden, Agnes Smedley, Freda Utley, Auden and Isherwood, Vernon Bartlett (later the victorious candidate at Bridgwater), George Hogg – did tell the truth. Their journalism, read today, is stunning.
Zhanglan I remember you. For my part, I have to say that I am aghast that you would describe Peter Foster as “a man of such conspicuous talent”. His English was absolutely hopeless – by the standards of any organ that had any standards he would barely have qualified as literate. Since criticising his views was a good way to get your comments deleted, I used to satisfy myself with poking holes in his English,and I never found myself short of material. This was my favourite ever example:
“In recent weeks, the amount of Western-inspired TV programmes such as talent and talk shows – “deemed trashy and vulgar” have been axed by two thirds during prime time.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8995123/Chinas-vice-president-orders-more-thought-control-over-students.html
A student of English would say there are five basic errors of grammar in those 28 words; a pedant might insist there are six.
I hope you are well. I always used to enjoy your contributions, and I’m pleased to encounter you again here.
Welcome back, Zhanglan.
Hao jiu bu jian!!
Hang in there, Craig. Know that many of us are following your pursuit of truth and common sense, which have become so rare these days, with deep gratitude. People like you and Ray McGovern are precious assets to the whole of humanity, even to those whose are too stupid and brainwashed to realize it.
Thanks as always for a reasoned intelligent and balanced argument. Unfortunately, those are qualities that have fallen out of favour. You’re either with us (no matter how ridiculously tenuous the accusation) or with THEM.
Elaborate
Logical analysis is clearly not a prized skill in Westminster or the lapdog media. Thanks for keeping it alive on the periphery.
I knew nothing about James Bloodworth before reading his tweets above but it’s clear to me where his allegiance lies as in not with the British public.
The word ‘decade’ has recently come to be used, by people, I suppose,
who think it sounds clever, to mean ten years. That is not the proper use
of the word. A decade is a period of ten years beginning with year …0 and
ending with year …9. The twenties, the sixtied, the nineties are decades.
The period from 2008 to 2018 is NOT a decade; it is ten years.
Properly speaking, the present decade is from 2010 to 2019.
The LAST DECADE is the years 2000 to 2009.
I know it’s easy to say this, but don’t let the bastards get you down,
There are many who appreciate your common sense in the face of the propaganda we have to put up with labelled as news
There are plenty of people that are glad that you are asking questions, Craig. It seems James Bloodworth is an ex-member of a tiny Trotskyist sect called the Alliance for Workers Liberty. He has form when it comes to propaganda – he used to write for their paper…
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/wl/192.pdf. I’m assuming I’m correct in thinking it is the same person.
James Bloodworth has in a few years gone from membership of a tiny Trot sect to being a corporate shill. I suppose it pays better than working for the AWL.
It’s an extremely well-trodden path. See Mandelson, Reid, Millburn, Hitchens, Aaronovitch, most of the Chicago school neoconservatives …..
I’m sorry you have to experience this, and thank you for your clear, well expressed and thorough posts, asking questions that you’d hope some investigative journalists would be asking. There’s a strange silence from reputable mainstream voices who know what they are talking about, though Mary Dejevsky and Kim Sengupta for the ‘Independent’ did careful and sceptical articles early on, and Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail (not my usual read!) is always critical of the Government/media line on Russia …. I’m enjoying Mary Dejevsky’s tweets.
It seems crazy to me that Teresa May jumped in so fast, before the investigation had got very far, and that the official line was trying to get us the public to agree passionately with the interpretation. After all if they’d just said ‘we have intelligence that we can’t reveal that proves our case’ we could not really have argued, though we might worry about it. It’s this ‘Stands to reason he’s guilty, look at our evidence’ that looks weird.
May I suggest, if you like reading, then YOU READ THIS FANTASTIC BOOK BY William Cooper – Behold a Pale Horse – and if you do read it all, you’ll understand
http://exopolitics.blogs.com/files/milton-william-cooper—behold-a-pale-horse.pdf
For all the tinfoil hatted conspiracy theorists, you have been proven correct in your suspicions:
Salisbury (dpo) – Last doubts over Russia’s guilt in poisoning former spy Sergei Skripal have been eliminated. As the British government announced today, the passport of Russian president Vladimir Putin was found at the scene of the dirty deed in Salisbury.
According to Prime Minister Theresa May, the passport was only now found in another search of the scene, as it had been hidden under a dollop of cowshite,hidden by fallen leaves.
There is a clear trail as with 9/11 passports and Charlie Hebdo passports. No need for Sherlock Holmes ,Inspector Clouseau, or the Belgian representative of the Constabulary, Dr Poirot.
Amateur sleuth Boris Johnson has been vindicated, He informed our roving Internation correspondent that His suspicions were first aroused when he found doo doo on his shoe.
Guilty as charged.
Things are certainly looking pretty sinister
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2018/03/20/scl-a-very-british-coup/
Nice work.
The number of known “royal” links to SCL appears to be growing.
That could explain why “independent forensic auditors from Stroz Friedberg” were in the CA offices last night removing info in a hurry. I thought the real client, rather than Facebook, might be a state, such as the US or Israel. But always always in Britain, different rules apply when the “royal” family is concerned. Smoking gun evidence showing a “royal” connection to SCL/CA activities could be what was being removed.
Nigel Oakes used to be the boyfriend of Helen Windsor, niece of the “Prince” Michael of Kent who has been pals with several “Russian” “oligarchs” (including Berezovsky and Khodorkovsky), runs a mysterious global “consultancy” (Cantium), and is Patron of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce. Mikey married the daughter of an SS officer.
Very interesting that “Lord” Ivar Mountbatten was on the SCL advisory board.
Also interesting that John Tolhurst, former “senior military officer at the Defence Export Services Organisation” who then went on the prive (all right for some, eh?), a one-time “naval aide-de-camp” to the “queen”, was or is a director of SCL.
SCL/CA clearly isn’t just one or two Old Etonians who became conmen and acted totally outside the purview of the oh-so-clean Foreign Office, MI6, Tory party, and “royal” family. On the contrary, SCL/CA appears to be basically an MI6 front, working closely with Israeli intelligence as was clear from the Channel Four tape, and enriching and implicating many with royal family connections.
So keep up the good work.
The royals were never going to be brought down by anything that doesn’t focus on their filthy business activities.
Stranger things have happened: this story has of course gone entirely unreported in the West, and you will search in vain for any reference to this incident on Google:
“On March 4 Austrian media reported that the Austrian Public Prosecutor’s Office for Combatting Economic Crimes and Corruption had launched an investigation into agents of the domestic counter-intelligence service in connection with the secret handover of North Korean passports to the South Korean authorities. It appears that in 2015 the Austrian state printing company received an order from the DPRK for the production of 200 000 biometric passports. In 2016, the South Korean special services, using the Austrian counter-intelligence service as an intermediary, secretly obtained possession of some of these documents.”
https://journal-neo.org/2018/03/17/the-unproved-involvement-of-the-dprk-in-the-killing-of-kim-jong-nam-is-now-the-dprk-s-use-of-chemical-weapons/
BBC Radio Shortbread
Tavish Scot wants amendment to Scot Gov Islands bill. That Scot Gov maps should put Shetland in its Geographical location.
What does this achieve
1. Reduces detail for mainland Scotland & it’s islands . . Including Shetland.
2. Gets it into people’s heads that Shetland is a long way from the mainland. Promotes independence from Scotland. Makes Scots feel that Shetland isn’t really part of Scotland.
By about 7am I’ve heard a clip of Ruthless. And interviews of the 2 FibDem island MSP’s Liam McArthur & Tavish talking down the Scot Gov’s Island Bill, how it won’t be acceptable without their amendments. Nothing from the SNP.
Nearly forgot Labour’s Monica Lennon pretending Sanitary Goods for women is her idea. Still nothin from the SNP. . .
Yes Clydebuilt. The BBC in Scotland doesn’t even make a pretence of politically balanced reporting anymore. The reason they don’t say ‘no spokesperson from the Scottish Government was available for comment’ is because they didn’t ask for one in the first place.
“Makes Scots feel that Shetland isn’t really part of Scotland.”
That’s exactly what almost everyone in Shetland thinks.
Is this assertion the result of a personal visit to Shetland, during which you acquired a substantial amount of empirical knowledge on the subject, or is it just based on something you read in the Guardian?