From Karachi to Caracas 914


I am finding Karachi an interesting place from which to view the world. Four US Presidents have visited Pakistan – Eisenhower, Nixon, Clinton and Bush Jr. Each of them visited a military dictator, in the friendliest of terms. No American President has ever visited a civilian government of Pakistan. The Americans have always been far too busy plotting the next coup.

More recent neo-con practice has of course been to eschew open espousal of military dictatorship and to present CIA-organised coups as democratic revolutions. I was of course aware of their hand behind Juan Guaido in Venezuela, but I had not fully taken on board the extent to which Guaido is purely their creature. If you have not seen this superb article on Guaido’s history in Consortium News, please do read it. Guaido has been US-funded since 2005 specifically to undermine the socialist government of Venezuela. Notably the US sponsorship of this far right puppet started at a time when Chavez’ democratic and human rights credentials were impeccable, which rather undermines the current excuse for Guaido’s elevation.

In Caracas we are seeing an attempt at a colour revolution – quite literally. Here, from a US government propaganda website (not Bellingcat, another one), we have a photograph of the overwhelmingly white opposition group in the Venezuelan National Assembly.

And here, we have from the BBC a shot of Maduro’s new pro-Government citizens’ assembly – overwhelmingly of different ethnicity.

I should be plain, that I did not accept Maduro’s ruse to set up the Constituent Assembly. But neither do I accept the CIA’s ruse to overthrow the elected President. These photographs are helpful because they crystallise the fundamental issue – what is at stake is the West’s attempt to reimpose economic apartheid on the people of Venezuela.

Here in Pakistan, I am anxious to avoid the journalists’ disease of claiming expertise on a country after a few days. But it has been very instructive, and I am impressed by the start Imran Khan has made to addressing the complex and intractable problems that have hamstrung this state of 200 million talented people. Every Pakistani government has claimed to be making efforts to tackle corruption, and the colossal misapplication of state funds, and pretty well every government has been lying about that. But Imran Khan does seem to be fighting the hydra, and with an extraordinary level of application – I heard yesterday direct and separately from a Federal Minister and a Provincial Governor examples of how remarkably closely Khan is following their work.

Internationally, the move to open dialogue with the Taliban appears, coupled with Trump’s determination to pull out, to point the way to some hope of a settlement in Kabul which must inevitably include an element of power-sharing. The conundrum of accessing funds from Saudi Arabia and China without becoming a client is very well understood. Those funds help ward off over-dependence on the World Bank and IMF, whose vultures are already hovering around the usual demands for privatisations and vast hikes in utility prices to poor people. At the same time, a relationship with those institutions is unavoidable. It is an unenviable path to tread.

Attempts to reform Pakistan always encounter massively wealthy entrenched interests. If you are trying desperately hard to do good for your country, against opposition that is often viciously self-interested, it can be hard to remember that freedom of speech must also extend to the ill-intentioned and malign. Equally, while the government may feel this is hardly the time for fissiparous forces to be given play, those with secessionist views should be allowed to express them. Where there is terrorism and political violence, it can be easy for the line to be blurred between when force is and is not legitimate, and between violent extremists and peaceful dissenters advocating similar end goals. It is particularly not easy to tackle these questions where intelligence and military have enjoyed and abused excessive long term autonomy. Getting a grip on fundamental human rights is not easy, but it has to be done.

So the government faces massive challenges in making progress in areas where Pakistan has rightly been criticised in the past, but I feel much more confident they will make progress than I did before I came. I should also say that the overwhelming kindness and hospitality I have received from people at all levels has been very touching. It is a fascinating country to visit and in the next few days I shall be seeing a large number of historical sites, following in the footsteps of Alexander Burnes.

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914 thoughts on “From Karachi to Caracas

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    • bj

      My own scenario runs a bit like that.
      Since the ‘counter-revolutionairies’ are staying home, a Tonkin Gulf incident needs to be created.

      Hence Guaido’s corpse will be found in a ditch one of these days.
      Grassy knolls plenty.

  • Sharp Ears

    February 5, 2019
    Gaza Rallies for Caracas: On the West’s Dangerous Game in Venezuela
    by Ramzy Baroud

    Hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets of besieged Gaza to show their support of the democratically-elected government of Venezuela and it’s legitimate leader, President Nicolas Maduro.

    https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/05/gaza-rallies-for-caracas-on-the-wests-dangerous-game-in-venezuela/

    This is what gets up some people’s noses –

    ‘The relationship between Venezuela and Palestine has been particularly strong under the presidencies of late Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez and current president Maduro. Neither leader has missed an opportunity to show their solidarity towards the Palestinian people, a fact that has always irked Tel Aviv and its western benefactors.

    The Gaza rallies, however, were more than a display of gratitude towards a country that had enough courage to break off ties with Israel following the latter’s 2008-9 war on Gaza – a bloody campaign known as “Operation Cast Lead”. Thousands of Palestinians were killed in that one-sided war. No Arab government that has diplomatic ties with Israel severed its relations with Tel Aviv. While Caracas – over 10 thousand kilometers away – did. Then, former President Chavez, accused Israel of “state terrorism”.’

  • Sharp Ears

    There is no show without Bellingcat

    Bellingcat Member Likely Behind Toronto-Based Venezuelan Pro-Opposition News Outlet
    The “open-intelligence investigation network,” Bellingcat, is infamous for its biased reporting and forwarding the mainstream media narrative. Its connections to the Institute of Statecraft and its pet project the Integrity Initiative are also no secret.
    https://www.mintpressnews.com/bellingcat-member-behind-toronto-based-venezuela-pro-opposition-news-outlet/254374/?

    ‘Other comments called out Twitter users who were initially claimed to be “in the reality of it” in Venezuela, such as one user who claimed to be starving and lining up in Venezuela for five hours for a loaf of bread, while a comment several days earlier from the same user showed they were living in an apartment in Paris and studying fashion.

    Another user pointed out an interesting dynamic – the wealthier class are usually “Westernized” and speak English, while poorer classes need to have their social media accounts translated from Spanish. More often than not, Venezuelan pro-opposition social media reports are disseminated in English.’

  • Dave

    Being only 1%, they are outnumbered, and so by custom and practice, they don’t operate in their own name, but hide behind other professed motives, hence the dreaded Double-Speak, that permeates the controlled media.

    Therefore you get the humanitarian intervention and destruction of defenceless countries to save lives, dressed up as R2P, which is a de facto abandonment of international law. And on the thread there was an item saying Palestinians support Maduro, which is why he has been targeted dressed up as an oil grab.

  • Republicofscotland

    This didn’t happen in some far off oppressive apartheid regime such as Israel, no this happened in Romford London.

    “The police have fined a man £90 after he covered his head with his jumper to avoid a police trial of facial recognition technology (FRT). Other people were stopped by police during the trial, for trying to hide their face to avoid the cameras.”

    https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2019/02/02/police-fine-man-90-after-he-covers-his-head-to-avoid-facial-recognition-technology/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

    Big Brother wants to see your every move, and will fine or imprison you if you fail to let them.

    • Sharp Ears

      Quite openly, the plods used to film us on the marches for the Palestinians in London at the time of the Israeli wars on Gaza – Cast Lead etc

      • Republicofscotland

        Yes but I wonder if the state wants to watch us constantly now, not just when we demonstrate. FTR could be deployed remotely just about anywhere the Subway or the High street etc.

        I predict a rise in the sales of head wear. ?

        Imagine walking down the street, FRT recognises you, your image is then cross referenced with everthing else they know about you, whether you have tv licence, or parking tickets. You could then be approached in the street by the authorities within minutes, and issued a fine or worse still detained.

        • Dungroanin

          Technology is already developed to identify people by their gait – the way they walk.
          Of course sensors which read rfd chips, phones, tablets, laptops, car computers… mean that there will be no need for a secret police spy network to find us trouble makers.
          The drone operator will just zap us where we stand.

          • Vivian O'Blivion

            A human can certainly identify individuals by their gait even at distance and in poor light, but that is in conditions where the target individual can reasonably be expected to be present. “I would not be surprised if J. Smith would be in the High street in the middle of the afternoon and low and behold, there he is”. I would doubt whether the gaits of individuals are sufficiently differentiated and fixed for an AI system to identify individuals where the database of millions is concerned.
            Humans are also capable of identifying the status of an individual (but not the identity) based on how that individual “sets themselves” in their environment, the gravitas of their location and stance. That shouldn’t be difficult for an AI system to replicate.
            At present, facial recognition systems running on AI are easily thrown by simple measures of disguise and the quality of the feed from CCTV cameras.
            All that said, I agree, facial recognition systems are a moot point as we routinely flag our location by our ubiquitous devices.

          • Tom Welsh

            “The drone operator will just zap us where we stand”.

            Oh Boris, would you mind holding my phone for a moment while I pop around the corner?

          • David

            check out Google project “Maven” ( a Pentagon project ) where Google/’slurp’ recruited many people to their company “Figure Eight” which was used to train military Machine Learning systems, such that AI can easily distinguish between humans and other objects. more on this yesterday at http://www.theverge.com or theintercept.com

            “microworkers” – new take-home word of the day

        • N_

          Facial recognition technology is very widely used. Assume that every time you are filmed by a surveillance camera there is facial recognition software running. GCHQ, the NSA and the CIA front company Facebook have big computers.

          Also they know where almost everyone is from the microwave trackers that most people carry in the belief that the devices are “convenient” and make them “free”. (Rather than getting paid, the mugs pay. You couldn’t make it up.)

          A few years ago there were naive “Black Blocers” who thought if they changed SIM cards in their beloved devices they would fool the state, and that they would be even safer if additionally they went into one of those horrible High Street shops selling phones where there are always lots of cameras and bought a burner phone for cash and gave some false details. Such ignorance about real security must have caused some smiles at Thames House.

          Say 95% of people in a city centre or other sensitive location are known real-time from voluntarily carried trackers and 4.995% real-time from FRT and other information points (e.g. it is known that a person bought a ticket from X to Y and before that they went to public library Z and before that they bought a cup of coffee in café W and chatted with known persons V and U).

          That leaves 1 in 20,000. Secret state computers will spot these “pistachio nuts” and spend a bit more processing time than they usually spend, say up to a millisecond. That identifies 9 in 10 of those 1 in 20,000.

          That leaves 1 in 200,000. Bit more processing. Still unknown? Even if there’s no positive intelligence suggesting a risk, the absence of ID itself constitutes a risk. If it’s somewhere like a railway station the person will get stopped in the street within minutes if they aren’t identified.

          Regarding camera surveillance, the Shomrim boast that they have better access to footage in some parts of London (and a much faster response time too) than the police. (Source.)

          As for libraries, I am getting robbed by my local library. They are whacking up previously notified charges at the time of collection and redefining terms in patently absurd fashion while wearing the most innocent looks on their faces, acting like thieving tradesmen and this is the public sector.

          • Tom Welsh

            “Rather than getting paid, the mugs pay. You couldn’t make it up”.

            Most people couldn’t make it up. Aldous Huxley did – nearly 90 years ago.

          • Deb O'Nair

            “I thought the police trial was not a success; 98% failure rate and no convictions.”

            The civilian police are acquiring surveillance tech that has been around for years and the gradual roll out of in-your-face surveillance state infrastructure by a liberal democracy governed by the rule of law and where free speech is highly valued will not need to be openly discussed and people should not be concerned because reports suggest it’s a failure.

    • Tom Welsh

      If a person were to turn around on learning about the cameras, and walk away, could he be arrested and fined?

      Pretty soon everything you do, say or think will be either compulsory or forbidden. Just like in the USSR, in the old joke.

      And they go on talking about “the free world” and its “values”.

  • Sharp Ears

    Did anyone watch Part 2 of this series last night?

    Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002fgg

    The EU gangsters were shown scuttling around trying to save the Euro. Sarkozy. Hollande. Berlusconi. Strauss-Kahn. Merkel. Even Gideon too. It was quite scary seeing all those faces again.

    Notice that it was a ‘cast’. Ac-tors in a play?

    ‘Going for Broke
    Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil
    Series 1 Episode 2 of 3
    ‘This episode takes us inside the room at crucial summits where leaders and their Ministers battle to avert financial disaster. At its heart is a clash between the cautious Angela Merkel and the feisty Nicolas Sarkozy over how to deal with the near bankruptcy of Greece.
    It is a story that sees billions of Euros being pumped into the economy, riots against austerity, and the election of Europe’s first populist government.
    The cast includes some of Europe’s most powerful figures, like Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schauble, UK chancellor George Osborne and the radical Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, as well as top leaders Donald Tusk, Francois Hollande and Matteo Renzi.
    As the EU’s most ambitious project, the Euro, teeters on the brink of collapse, Greece narrowly escapes being forced out.’
    ____
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_debt_crisis

    The bailout was massive and we have paid for it since in nine years of OS TERRI TY.

    • Dungroanin

      I don’t have a licence so am spared the goggle box.
      I have an extreme distrust of any ‘official’ history programming.

      In a choice between Sarcrazy and Mutti – or Madcrone and her – she always gets my vote.

      The EU didn’t implode, the rightwinger neocon puppets failed to oust Merkel. As ot looks like brexit will fail in overturning the cart. The Euro is a feasible alternative to the $.

      The Fed is progressing with their next stage of the new NWO.

      The fight for the truth about money and government spending is moving from a cold to a hot war – if a Labour government is to make the systematic change to how the rich get ever richer and the poorest nevet rise above some form of modern servitude – that war must be won.
      Professor Murphy takes on the pretender neolib ‘economists’ currently residing in Labour clothes. In a series of articles and tweets – FIGHT!
      http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/

      • Sharp Ears

        Then you will be spared Episode 3 next week which moves on to immigration.

        ‘This episode exposes how Europe’s leaders fought over how to deal with the migration crisis that reached its peak in the summer of 2015.
        As hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants arrive from North Africa and Syria, Europe divides. The decision by chancellor Angela Merkel, Europe’s most powerful leader, to keep Germany’s borders open tests the fundamental principles of the EU to the limit.
        Top leaders, from Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker to prime ministers Matteo Renzi and Mark Rutte, and president Francois Hollande, reveal some of the biggest clashes the European Council has ever witnessed.
        As Europe is split over whether to share the burden of migrants or toughen up borders, a controversial deal with Turkey – aided by shutting down borders to keep migrants out of Europe – brings the crisis out of control. But the political damage is grave.’

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002jn8

      • Tom Welsh

        “In a choice between Sarcrazy and Mutti – or Madcrone and her – she always gets my vote”.

        In one of Jerry Garcia’s very infrequent remarks about politics, he said that a choice of evils still means choosing evil.

        • Dungroanin

          Devil and the deep blue sea.

          Actually – Angela is that thing that Hillary wanted to be, or Maggie was claimed to be – a great leader and a woman, who improved peoples lots overall

          AdF – like ukip and all the alt-right ‘populist’ groups which sprouted across the EU, funded and run by the Atlantists, using their Military intelligence and social media manipulations – has one ultimate task – destroy the ever closer union and the Euro, whilst keeping a single market to privatise and rip-off.

          They failed. It took Merkel 4 months to reform a government. Now she is free to carry on doing what she is the best most qualified leader on the planet to do. E.g. Syria is settled because She and Putin talked and decided.

          • Mistress Pliddy

            Yes, agreed about all this. It is still amazing that traffic-directing hand of the US is omitted from discussions about the “migrant crisis”, even now when we half-awake people ought to know better, even if we fooled ourselves at the time. Some of us tried to point it out at the time. Likewise “brexit”. Honestly, there are still normally sensible people around who believe that Obama flying out to stansted and urging people to vote remain was intended to persuade people to vote remain. It couldn’t have been more obvious even at the time.

    • N_

      I didn’t watch it (haven’t got TV), but the slant chimes well with this article in today’s Express: EU REVELATION: Expert claims bloc ‘ATTACKED Britain’s local government and took CONTROL’.

      THE EU attacked Britain’s local government structure and went about seizing control over several areas including the environment and health and safety regulations, an investigative author claimed in a throwback documentary.

      The documentary is from 2004. Its author is Lindsay Jenkins, whose website is here:

      Lindsay Jenkins (…) specializes in the history and current operations of the European Union. She has dedicated years of research to exposing the rising power of the European Union, the waning power of the member nation states and the decline of freedom, liberty and democracy(…)

      Lindsay’s first book, Britain Held Hostage, reveals for the first time who created the EU and why.(…) Her second book, The Last Days of Britain, starkly illustrates how far ‘Brussels’ has already taken over Britain’s former national life. Her most recent book, Disappearing Britain, The EU and the Death of Local Government, exposes how local government in Britain and across the EU is being replaced by the EU’s own local government of regions, sub regions and sub sub regions and thus marks the end of the nation state.

      Lindsay previously worked for British and American investment banks in the City of London and as a senior civil servant in the British Ministry of Defence (…) She lives in both the UK and US.” (emphasis added)

      • Republicofscotland

        The EU has its faults, however the BBC’s propaganda take on the EU’s troubles is the last one I’d swallow. Along with the Telegraph, Daily Mail and Express newspapers points of view on the EU, the BBC’s take, is more akin to a Humphrey Jennings WWII British propaganda film

        • David

          yep, there was no BBC mention last night that partly the “greek bailout” was to stop French banks & then serially German banks from collapsing – as they had over-invested in Hellas, no mention either about how the “greek bailout” was needed so the Greece could pay for the several German made submarines that Greece had needlessly ordered, but not then paid for. Some of the ‘trillion dollar’ attacks on the euro sniffed a very lot of “MAGA”, or “PNAC” at that time, they require full spectrum dominance in all eminent domains… don’t like competition, no even ‘playing-field’ approach

          certainly half a story,

          • Geoffrey

            A bit more than half a story I think. It did show Merkel and Sarkozy trying to make the banks take a haircut and it did show Stauss-Kahn saying they were mad. It also said that the attempt to make the banks take a haircut led directly to the bail-outs of Portugal and Ireland and very nearly Italy.

      • Blunderbuss

        “THE EU attacked Britain’s local government structure and went about seizing control over several areas including the environment and health and safety regulations…”

        I think this might be connected to a sinister outfit called Common Purpose. Brian Gerrish has been campaigning against it for years and has made lots of videos about it. Look up Brian Gerrish on YouTube if you are interested.

    • John A

      It wasn’t Greece that was bailed out, it was the banks that had lent money to Greece that were saved from collapsing. Big difference.

    • Geoffrey

      Yes, I did, by BBC standards it was objective. Reminds us how close the Euro was to collapse and that UK support was required to bail out Greece.
      It remarkably starkly showed how a Greek referendum which rejected the terms of the conditions of the Greek bailout by 64 to 36 held by Tsipras was ignored. The EU said that unless you accept the terms you will be thrown out of the EU , Tsipras folded the EU imposed even harsher conditions than those rejected by the Greeks in the referendum, Tsipras accepts these terms and then gets reelected !
      The Greeks could not afford to leave the EU they knew that they had no choice but to accept the hegemony of Merkel and Sarkozy, they had to do what they were told like good little boys and girls or their pensions would be paid in worthless Drachmas.
      That is what happens when you accept benefits from more powerful entities, you have to what you are told !

      • Ian

        Yes, it is a good series, and well-timed. The first one was v good at demonstrating Cameron and the Tories utter cluelessness about the EU, and how all that mattered to them was the internal politics of their party, and selling a ludicrous version themselves to an electorate that was similarly misinformed. Their ineptitude is staggering, as is their determination to force the EU to conform to the desires of a divided tory party, a miserable failure of course, but how that set in motion the circus that we have now, and the continuing cluelessness about what the EU is, how it functions and what benefits it has brought to the UK.

    • Geoffrey

      On further thought the big lesson from programme is much more relevant to Scottish independence ie it is very difficult to extract yourself from a union, and even more difficult if you share a currency and have large debts.

  • Republicofscotland

    Meanwhile a top QC, suggests that the PM could have broken the laws surrounding bribery.

    “Prime minister Theresa May could be in contravention of the Bribery Act 2010. A leading QC has argued just that. And an examination of the law appears to show that May could have committed a criminal offence by ‘bribing’ Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party MPs and, more recently, Labour MPs.”

    https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2019/02/04/gotcha-a-qc-claims-theresa-may-is-bang-to-rights-under-the-bribery-act-2010/

    • N_

      This is a nice line to explore. The public function that the bribe receiver has to have a responsibility to discharge can be “any function of a public nature” (section 3(2)(a)). If this goes any further, it will probably be argued that it is for the Commons to regulate its members’ behaviour.

      Citizen’s arrest!

    • Tom Welsh

      “Meanwhile a top QC, suggests that the PM could have broken the laws surrounding bribery”.

      Those laws are only for the pondlife. The strangely neglected case of Jean-Charles de Menezes proved conclusively that HMG and its servants can do whatever they wish, and break any laws, without any fear of being brought to justice. After all, if several people can surround a perfectly innocent civilian on his way to his job and shoot him deliberately a dozen times, without the slightest legal repercussion… the conclusion is obvious.

      “The Attorney General has determined that it would not be in the public interest to prosecute”.

          • J

            I remember at the time reports about of ‘terrorists’ shot in Canary Wharf though nothing more was forthcoming.

            Even more interesting at that that link, Pete, are the responses. Most tacitly accept the context ‘suicide bombers’ or ‘terrorists’ shot in Canary Wharf, even if in denial. Rather than the more neutral and accurate rendering of ‘police shootings’. Then there are several mentions of ‘screens’ put up by police to obscure the aftermath of whatever it was that had happened. Is this usual procedure? Has any one else ever seen such a thing? I’ve seen the aftermath of stabbings and there were definitely no screens.

            I’m just noting, the way we describe things demonstrates how our attention and our perception has been directed. In any case we’re certainly not often reminded of Menezes, or at the very least that the Met lied to make him appear guilty of getting himself shot, rather than having been shot.

            We’re seldom reminded that former police officer Peter Power, by his own admission, was running simulations of terror attacks on behalf of a company called Visor Consultants while at the same stations at the same moment the 7/7 attacks were occurring. Here he is describing events:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKvkhe3rqtc

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGE9FiuM06o

            Even more remarkably, here he is alongside Michael Portillo in a BBC Panorama special hosted by Gavin Esler just over one year before the events of 7/7. A broadcast simulation of three simultaneous tube bombings and one truck bombing, a tanker filled with chlorine. What are the chances?

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7uIjg9dtoI

            We aren’t often reminded of these events, just as we aren’t reminded of the murder of Jo Cox right before the EU referendum or the three terror attacks immediately before the last general election. Or the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes.

          • Kempe

            The story originated with the New Zealand Herald, they’d really have their finger on the pulse of what was going in central London. All of the “witnesses” in Pete’s link are re-telling stories allegedly told to them by unnamed co-workers.

            Powers was conducting a paper exercise in a board room with a handful of other people. Such contingency exercises are conducted every day. I can’t see how it’s evidence of a conspiracy, false flag or whatever.

    • able

      Chavez’s eldest daughter is worth $4 billion despite never having had a job.

      An absolute masterclass in socialist principles right there.

      • able

        [They’ll be along in a minute – “But it’s a CIA plot to give her all this money to discredit socialism”.]

        • Garth Carthy

          “Chavez’s eldest daughter is worth $4 billion”:
          So say the Mail and the Sun – using that ever so reliable source – the right wing, Neo-Lib Forbes Rich List.
          Of course, the source may be truthful but I think ‘able’ and ‘loony’ need to be more circumspect about relying on such biased sources before they jump to conclusions. Then, of course ‘able’ and ‘loony’ are always so desperate in their attention seeking to shoot down anyone here who is critical of the corrupt Neo-con values that permeates the world.

          • Eric the Half Bee

            Even if they’re out by a factor of a thousand she’s still worth $4 million and is still a beneficiary of kleptocracy.

          • Tom Welsh

            Where did you get that “factor of a thousand” from? Why did you choose that, rather than a million or a billion?

            There are apparently no reliable facts, so why not admit that we just don’t know?

          • able

            And why not? Alejandro Andrade, who served as Venezuela’s treasury minister from 2007 to 2010 and was reportedly a close associate of Chavez, was discovered to have $11.2billion in his name sitting in HSBC accounts in Switzerland, according to documents leaked by whistleblower Hervé Falciani.

            Don’t you support whistleblowers?

          • Loony

            Not quite amigo.

            I merely invited people to look at a set of photographs and draw their own conclusions.

            Interestingly many people have been capable of drawing conclusions from the photographs posted by Mr. Murray. Not so many people are able to draw conclusions from these particular photographs, but have in fact urged caution as to the source of the photographs.

            It would seem as though readers of this blog are largely in favor of photographic apartheid – where some photographs enjoy privilege and favor over other photographs. It is all quite informative as to the level of atavistic prejudice that seems to exist among those who are so quick to label themselves as “liberal” “tolerant” “progressive” etc. etc. all designed to signal their own virtue and morality and disparage all those who disagree as being “literally Hitler”

            Que broma

          • Ingwe

            able and looney get their information from the newspapers that ran headlines like
            “Bean eating alien’s bum explodes” and “London bus found on the moon.”

            I take their comments with the same level of seriousness.

          • Loony

            @Ingwe Congratulations for taking the time to prove my argument.

            …and so you have managed to demonstrate to your own satisfaction that you are as pure as Mother Theresa and I am literally Hitler.

          • Deb O'Nair

            “Alejandro Andrade, who served as Venezuela’s treasury minister from 2007 to 2010 and was reportedly a close associate of Chavez, was discovered to have $11.2billion in his name sitting in HSBC accounts in Switzerland”

            “Chavez’s eldest daughter is worth $4 billion”

            Step back and ask why they may have such huge amounts in private accounts. One answer is that they are using private accounts to circumvent the US imposed financial embargo against Venezuela. This is something the North Koreans did/do all the time in order to finance deals with overseas entities. Suggesting that it is pure theft seems rather fanciful given the huge amounts, i.e. billions moving about would come to the attention of a lot of people within the treasury and presumably the leadership as well.

    • Hmmm

      And? Communism or capitalism still results in cronies stealing wealth. So your exact point is? Really please your exact point?

      • Loony

        In broad terms Capitalism is designed to reward risk takers or entrepreneurs. So people that establish a successful business can expect to reap material rewards. Conversely if they establish a business that fails then they can expect to lose all of the capital invested in a failed business.

        Communism does not seek to reward risk takers and its broad philosophy is encapsulated by the slogan “From each according to his ability to each according to his means.”

        A successful capitalist may do what he chooses with his money – perhaps use it to fund a wholly vacuous playboy lifestyle of his progeny, or to engage in open nepotism. A Communist would not have such choices to make as he would be busy redistributing the fruit of his talents to those of more limited means.and would be busy allocating people to roles in society based on their abilities and not on their family connections.

        So my exact point is that the ruling oligarchical clan of Venezuela appear to be acting in the same way as a Capitalist may be expected to behave. The only difference is that a Capitalist would have created his own wealth, whereas the Venezuelan oligarchy appear to have assembled their wealth by stealing the wealth of an entire country.

        Claro?

        • pretzelattack

          in broad terms capitalism is designed to benefit crony capitalists who feather their own nests and leave the ordinary people stuck with the bill of failure. claro?

          • Loony

            That is not true.

            Crony capitalists exist, and they are always and everywhere a product of the government. It was governments that chose to rescue bankers in addition to the banking system. No free market would have rescued these people and any operating legal system would have punished them.

            Crony capitalists may be many things but they are not omnipotent. They have no ability whatsoever to force ordinary people to pick up the bill of failure. Only the government has that power.

            The problems in market economies are mitigated by the fact that there remain areas of life and areas of commerce that do not involve the government. In communist regimes the government is active in all parts of society and all parts of the economy and so the problems are worse because they are widespread.

            The government is not your friend. It never has been and it never will be. It does not make any difference who the government is or where it is domiciled. It is not your friend period. Your only protection comes from the rule of law which restricts the power of government. Naturally communists understand this which is why they are interested in subverting the rule of law, and to ultimately reconstitute the law as an arm of government power.

          • pretzelattack

            bullshit, crony capitalists buy the government, just as they did in late 19th and early 20th century america, and just as they began doing right after the new deal. then some kind of correction is made as they destroy the system, till they can start all over again. capitalism is a metastasizing disease that eats itself, and we can survive it much longer–we’re living in a finite world with finite resources.

          • Tony

            Loony, crony capitalism was expanded on industrial scale under Thatcher’s ‘free market’ economics. It has continued to expand under Blair’s Red Tories and the subsequent Tory/coalition governments, to the point that such enterprises are now putting a far bigger strain on the economy than brexit or anything else could. Supposedly free market economics have allowed this cancer to run riot. Corbyn proposes reigning it in. What is YOUR solution to this? Keeping the same people in power who have actively allowed this to get out of control?

          • Karel

            I am apalled by loonys statement that “The government is not your friend. It never has been and it never will be.” Well then, I must have been fooled by the establishment all my live. Why do we vote, my loony friend, to elect our enemies.? Is the saintly May your enemy? I will have to inform the police soon, if you go on writing like this.

          • Hmmm

            Exactly. There is no tangible difference. I agree with Loony in that governments are not your friends, in fact paying for them is a considerable drain on resources.

        • Hmmm

          Loony, I never took you for one who believes in pink fluffy unicorns but your description of capitalism and law… I’m disappointed mate. I expected far more cynicism.

          • Blunderbuss

            I favour a mixed economy. It worked pretty well in Britain for about 30 years from 1945.

        • J

          I can imagine a Socratic dialogue of sorts:

          Do capitalists employ workers?

          — Yes.

          And are the workers educated by these capitalists?

          — No. They’re educated by the state to a certain level or they pay for it themselves.

          Don’t the capitalists pay the state for the use of this education?

          — No. They don’t pay taxes any more, they’re entrepreneurs, brave risk takers.

          So if I risk my life by jumping off a building, I should be rewarded for it?

          — Of course not, you haven’t made anything or built anything.

          And these capitalists make and build things?

          — Yes.

          And these things are novel and interesting and desired by others?

          — Yes.

          So the $570 billion spent this year on Public Relations is a measure of the value of the things these capitalists make?

          — Yes, I suppose it is.

          Well, do these capitalists move things around?

          — What things?

          Let’s say products and such.

          — Yes.

          And how do they do this?

          — On roads. By train. By plane. By ship.

          Do these roads build themselves?

          — No, of course not, they’re built by the state.

          Do these vehicles of land sea and air operate by magic?

          — Don’t be silly they run on fuels, such as petroleum or diesel or electricity generated by burning coal and so on.

          And the capitalists secure these fuels by their own effort?

          — Of course.

          So these fuels are not subsidised to the tune of $2 billion dollars each year, according to the IMF?

          — Well yes, perhaps they are.

          And these capitalist entrepreneurs, these risk takers do they communicate?

          — Yes of course, they depend upon it.

          And how do they do this?

          — By phone, internet, post, that sort of thing.

          And did these capitalists pay for their means of communication?

          — Yes, of course, everyone does.

          But don’t most of these things require considerable infrastructure?

          — Yes.

          And isn’t this infrastructure mostly built with public money? The internet is such an example is it not?

          — Yes but the capitalists pay for them like everyone else.

          But they do pass laws to get favoured access to these things don’t they?

          — Well, yes, but because everything else depends upon their goods and services.

          But they don’t have to start from scratch, they rely on the same infrastructure as everyone else, do they not?

          — That is true.

          Then shouldn’t they pay taxes like everyone else?

          — That might be true except the communications infrastructure is also owned by businesses themselves, for example.

          But they didn’t have to construct it with their own money.

          — No, that is true. But they did purchase it from the state.

          At a loss to the state?

          — Yes, that is true.

          And they have grants from the state and preferential agreements with the state to develop and implement new infrastructure from which they draw sole benefit?

          — I suppose that is true.

          And yet the capitalists don’t need to contribute to the state?

          — Why no, they employ people, give them jobs.

          Give them jobs? You mean they have need of work and people agree to work for them at a given rate?

          — Yes.

          But having received all these benefits, they are the one’s taking risks and so should not have to pay taxes proportional to the benefits they receive?

          — That is true.

          Do capitalists benefit from state funded investment in science and technology, in research and development?

          — Why yes they do. In every field, from pharmaceuticals to materials science and much else.

          But they don’t share the benefits of these great and good discoveries and inventions by making them available to everyone?

          — No of course they don’t. They copyright and trademark and defend their intellectual property, as well they should being the fearless risk takers they are. They charge the highest price they can according to the laws of each state as is only right, they have taken the boldest risks after all.

          And do all of these entrepreneurial activities have other costs, to water supplies, to the natural world, to ecologies and to the ability of life itself to flourish?

          — Yes.

          And do they pay to correct their damage? Or pay taxes to do so?

          — Yes of course.

          Except when they can pass laws to exempt themselves, or ‘go out of business’ before such costs are due, or convince others that they themselves are to blame.

          — Except in those cases, yes.

          And if they are as grand and important as you say, should they be allowed to go out of business?

          — Not if they are vitally important to everything else, no.

          So the state should underwrite their losses. They shouldn’t be out of pocket?

          — Not if it stops them from continuing to be entrepreneurs and taking risks.

          But we have established that most of what they do, what they make, what they make it with and how they move it is through public works and that when their risks fail at some stage, being too important to pay the costs, everyone else must do so. Is this correct?

          — Yes, that is true.

          So who is actually taking their risks?

          • Blunderbuss

            “And these capitalists make and build things? – Yes.”

            Err, no. Nowadays they don’t make or build anything. They just increase their stock of money by pushing up the “value” of existing assets.

          • J

            And that’s $2 trillion in fossils subsidy not $2 billion, and that ‘estimate’ was in 2013.

          • Hmmm

            Beautifully done J. Supporters of capitalism are always guilty of what they accuse communists of – utopianism. They paint a rosy picture that doesn’t chime with reality. I’d be a capitalist extremist if it delivered what these people promised!!

        • N_

          @Loony

          In broad terms Capitalism is designed to reward risk takers or entrepreneurs.

          Funny there’s inheritance of wealth, then. It’s rubbish to say the members of the capitalist ruling class receive their benefits from taking risks. And capitalism wasn’t “designed”.

          Communism does not seek to reward risk takers and its broad philosophy is encapsulated by the slogan ‘From each according to his ability to each according to his means.’

          You got that wrong too. “Where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” is a good definition.

          I won’t bore you with a definition of capitalism because you appear neither to have nor to want any horizons that stretch outside of it.

    • Isa

      That story is old and it has been refuted many times . Needless to say that Forbes never produced evidence either . Just fake pictures of a fake bank account .

  • Republicofscotland

    One wonders if the US puppet Guaido, is intended to be a interim Venezuelan president, and that the favourite fir the presidency of Venezuela is the imprisoned Leopoldo Lopez, whose wife, Lilian Tintori, is currently doing the rounds with regards to world leaders who favour her husbands release from prison.

    López is said to be the great-great-great-grandson of the country’s first president, Cristóbal Mendoza. He is also the great-great-grand nephew of Simón Bolívar.

      • Republicofscotland

        As far as I can tell Lopez is under house arrest. Or he’s held at Ramo Verde prison.

    • bj

      The counter-revolution is stagnating.
      A Tonkin Gulf incident is needed.

      Guido is the perfect target of a bullet.
      The video’s of him, wife & kids are already circulating, the global outrage will be according.

      The bullet will be CIA.
      Grassy knolls abound in Venezuela.

    • Isa

      Gaido(g) is meant to become a CIA martyr soon I’d say and all will be blamed on maduro . You only have to look at him speaking to the crowds or posing for pictures to see that he makes a good grafitti or cover page of the economist but not a good public speaker or or natural . He’s just an image and will be used until he’s no longer necessary should the coup success . Leopoldo Lopez will be the USA chosen man . In saying this , this coup will not succeed . It’s a tragi-comedy so far designed by idiots .

  • Vivian O'Blivion

    O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
    To see oursels as others see us!

    Snarlene Foster accuses the EU of “intransigence”. The DUP have rendered “just say no” into an art form.

      • Geoffrey

        Yes, it appears the organised crescendo on avoiding No Deal goes on and on as you probably saw on the front page of the last Sunday Times we heard that the Royal Family may have to be be evacuated in the event of there being NO DEAL.
        Do we have any idea who is financing this rather obvious and consistent propaganda campaign ?

        • Blunderbuss

          Apparently, we can’t have border control because terrorists would attack the customs post. I assume the terrorists want an open border to facilitate their escape after the attacks. Isn’t that rather a good reason for closing the border?

          • IrishU

            Blunderbuss,

            The issue of the border has nothing to do with terrorists, so you assume wrong.

            The issue is to do with politics and trade. Politically, Irish nationalists and republicans living in NI do not want the re-introduction of a hard border as, in their opinion, it would negate the concessions won during the talks leading up to the Good Friday Agreement (dual citizenship, drawdown of British Amry forces, opening of border routes).

            In terms of trade, hauliers and businesses across Northern Ireland and the Republic have stated that a hard border with customs would inflict delays and charges on businesses which would ultimately be passed on to the customer.

          • Blunderbuss

            @IrishU

            So let’s separate politics and trade. People could cross the border unhindered but lorries carrying goods would be stopped for customs checks.

  • Dave

    It takes great skill to cope with the trained and angry interviewer, but I’ve noticed those who do, are far more convincing as a result. If they keep interrupting, just slow down and ask them questions and watch them lose it as a result.

    • Garth Carthy

      I absolutely agree. When confronted with angry interviewers, the interviewee should go into Jordan Peterson mode.
      I can’t stand Peterson – he’s a purveyor of meaningless BS but he gets away with it because he just sits there calmly like a cool cocky little b*****d and simply turns the tables on the interviewer.

    • freddy

      JD is a bit of a star. I would love him to meet Trump and be broadcast nationwide. I think that would be interesting.

  • Republicofscotland

    So Trump flew out to a US airbase in Iraq in December last year, but he didn’t bother his backside to pay a visit to the Iraqi government which in my opinion is rather disrespectful.

    Now the U.S. President Donald Trump recently stated he would use his country’s base in Iraq to closely watch Iran, however this has infuriated the President of Iraq Barham Salih. Don’t overburden Iraq with your (US) own issues said Salih.

    President Trump was asked if he would employ the Iraqi base to launch a future attack on Iran, to which he responded, no because I want to be able to watch Iran. All I want to do is be able to watch.

    However, recently, the White House’s request for a document outlining military options to strike Iran was reported by the Wall Street Journal, for the first time.

    • Tom Welsh

      The USA invaded Iraq (for the second time) 15 years ago, in a flagrantly illegal unprovoked war of aggression (the supreme international crime).

      Since 2003, the USA has legally been the occupying power in Iraq – a role which bears a number of legal duties and responsibilities.

      No one should be under any misapprehension that the so-called “Iraqi government” has the slightest power to do anything Washington doesn’t want it to. (Or not to do anything that Washington does want it to do).

  • Republicofscotland

    So the Lima Groups raison d’être is to establish a peaceful exit to the “Venezuelan Crisis” which if anyone has been paying attention has been further exacerbated by their actions.

    This democratic group of nations, as they bill themselves to be, (If Stalin were alive today he’d call them the Thieves Kitchen, as he did the League of Nations) wouldn’t even allow Russian or Venezuelan news reporters into their latest gathering, very democratic indeed.

    • softech Steve Abbott

      The Lima Group is a subset of the OAS, specifically formulated in order to exclude the other members of the OAS who would have objected to the intervention in Venezuela. Its supposed legitimacy to pass judgement on Venezuela should be viewed in this light.

  • mark golding

    The “troika of tyranny” communicated by Bolton surely resolved into the certain harsh economic and political sanctions on Venezuela under the pretext of alleged human rights abuses and threats to US national security. A neat plan no doubt by Putin and his aide de camp, Trump to establish a political outpost in the Western Hemisphere.

    Venezuela’s still-formidable defense force, once an exclusively US client, is now equipped with Russian missiles, guns, tanks and planes, financed with prepaid oil deliveries to Russian clients. $6 billion in investment and deals is a small price to pay to boost Russia’s gold. Thank-you Mr Trump for a ruse nobody imagined.

  • Susan O'Neill

    Hope to be better off later in the year, but not right now.
    Am keen to find out if Imran can follow up on his idealistic hopes for the many homeless and vulnerable children he has been trying to help. Certainly the Pakistan military has been appalling towards the tribal areas that border Aghanistan without knowing, or it seems, caring whether or not they have any affiliation to the Taliban. The border lands are very porous and brutality against tribal peoples inevitably brings a bout the chaos which ensued – that’s the problem with adopting Washington thinking, it never ends well – for anybody. Looking forward to more posts.

  • Garth Carthy

    There’s an excellent new article on the Media Lens website re: the US led propaganda war against Venezuela’s President Maduro.

    • mark golding

      Thank-you Garth. This from Media Lens is particularly lamentable:

      Consider the elections held in Iraq on January 30, 2005. On the BBC’s main evening news that month, reporter David Willis talked of ‘the first democratic election in fifty years’ (Willis, BBC News at Ten, January 10, 2005). A Guardian leader referred to ‘the country’s first free election in decades’. The Times, the Financial Times, the Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph, the Observer, the Independent, the Express, the Mirror, the Sun and numerous other media repeated the same claim hailing Iraq’s great ‘democratic election’.

      But this was all nonsense. Iraq was not just under illegal, superpower occupation; invading armies were waging full-scale war against the Iraqi resistance. Just weeks before the election, Fallujah, a city of 300,000 people, was virtually razed to the ground by US-UK forces. Six weeks before the election, the UN reported of the city that, ’70 per cent of the houses and shops were destroyed and those still standing are riddled with bullets.’ A quarter of a million people had been displaced from this one city alone by the onslaught. One year later, The Lancet reported 655,000 excess Iraqi deaths as a result of the 2003 invasion.

  • softech Steve Abbott

    I appreciate this article. I believe that deeper consideration and knowledge of the unconstitutional acts of the Venezuelan National Assembly, adequately explain why the Supreme Court found them in violation of the constitution. It justifies the use of the Constituent Assembly under the constitution. If this qualifies as a “ruse”, then let the ruse be seen as an essential measure under the constitution. As the photos adequately illustrate, neither the National Assembly, nor their primary constituents were concerned with the well-being of the vast majority of citizens, just as their collusion with murderous sanctions and hoarding of essential goods, have continued to disregard the needs for survival of people of all ages and classes.
    As has been noted in the Scripal case, the repetition of rote lines without variation by various players on the political and security scene was an indication of carefully scripted lies. One finds the same stock phrase, “…as per the Venezuelan constitution.”, used by members of the Lima Group, most especially the dishonourable Chrystia Freeland, and of Canadian Senator Peter Boehm. This use of rhetoric to mask the actual content of documents referred to, is also a standard ruse of politicians who know full well that their listeners are not likely to rush to fact-check their statements.
    Similarly the frequent references to article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution carefully avoid quoting the actual article, as it does not allow the deposition of the president, except through the actions of the supreme court.(Supreme Tribunal of Justice). They can count on most listeners and readers, not to bother to look up what the article actually says

  • Sharp Ears

    ‘US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and European Union deputy diplomatic chief Helga Schmid also participated in the talks by video conference.’

    I bet they did.

    Latin American countries call for Venezuelan military to back opposition leader Juan Guaido
    The Lima Group, which has 14 members, expressed its support for a “peaceful transition through political and diplomatic means”.
    https://news.sky.com/story/latin-american-countries-call-for-venezuelan-military-to-back-opposition-leader-juan-guaido-11628691
    5 February 2019 12:10, UK

    The members – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_Group
    Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Saint Lucia.

  • johnf

    Thanks to there being no coverage whatsoever of this in the MSM, no one here seems to have noticed what is happening in France today. A full General Strike. The Yellow Jackets have linked up with the CGT – the largest French trade union group – and are demanding a rise in the Minimum Wage and a whole lot of other things.

    Now the students are coming out on the streets as well.

    At the rate things are going France is going to be out of the EU even before us. There are demos going on in many more cities and towns than on the Gilet Jaune Saturdays.

    https://twitter.com/hashtag/GreveGenerale5fevrier?src=hash

    • freddy

      My take is that this blog is pro-globalist and the YVs are not. The movement is not confined to France, far from it. Nor, is it a simple left-right phenomenon – despite attempts to portray it as otherwise. It is an expression of dissatisfaction with elites.

      I would have thought this movement has significant interest for anyone without an axe to grind..

      • freddy

        Heard this the other day – what happens when your representative democracies, don’t actually represent you? They represent corporations, trans-national entities, or simply their own self-interest and so on.

        Burkean principles and all that.

  • Sharp Ears

    No wonder Theresa pushed off to NI. This is Lammy v Javid tpday in the HoC’ on the Windrush scandal.

    ‘Mr Lammy
    Home Secretary, I have asked you to make a statement to the House on the operation of the Windrush scheme. Your Department’s treatment of the Windrush generation has been nothing less than a national scandal. In November, we learned that at least 164 Windrush citizens were wrongly removed, detained or stopped at the border by our own Government. Eleven of those who were wrongly deported have died. You have announced three more today. Every single one of those cases is a shocking indictment of your Government’s pandering to far right racism, sham immigration targets and the dog whistle of the right-wing press. You have spoken about being a second— ‘

    At which point Bercow intervened on Lammy’s use of 2nd person terminology. Must stick to 3rd person. Of course Mr Bercow.
    https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2019-02-05/debates/42CB5979-2771-437A-B169-2CDC0BB48480/WindrushScheme

    • Sharp Ears

      ‘Home Secretary Sajid Javid has defended the deportation of about 50 people to Jamaica on Wednesday – the first such flight since the Windrush scandal.
      He said they were foreign nationals who had committed “serious crimes”.
      But campaigners insist some of the men are being unfairly targeted by the government’s “hostile environment” immigration policy.
      Five of them, including an ex-British army soldier with PTSD, were granted a last-minute reprieve, a lawyer said.
      The five is also believed to include a man who has applied to remain in the UK under the Windrush scheme, which was set up to assess the cases of those who may have been caught up in the scandal involving wrongful deportations. ‘

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47123841

      Javid is going for the job as führer .

  • Tony_0pmoc

    If you want to discover the real Cuba, learn to speak a liitle Spanish, or take a Spanish friend with you. We went to Cuba in the Year 2000, and had a most wonderful time.

    I found this article from nearly 5 years ago completely fascinating, and I suspect the vast majority of it is true. This is what the CIA do. They are just more obvious now. They are not nice people.

    ” Ex-CIA Agent Reveals How Venezuelan ‘Students’ Get Their Putschist Training ”

    https://www.sott.net/article/406508-Ex-CIA-Agent-Reveals-How-Venezuelan-Students-Get-Their-Putschist-Training

    Tony

  • David

    So this is not an idea from Pakistan’s dreaded Inter-Services Intelligence agency, nor from Maduro’s feared Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia Nacional, but an idea pushed by our plucky GCHQ. They will subvert technical standards to ensure that ‘ghost procedure’ “full-capture intelligence” is coming soon to all your devices/PC’s.
    https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/consumer-privacy/spies-want-make-facetime-eavesdropping-bug-feature

    So, what could possibly go wrong with their/our stolen “intelligence”?
    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/01/ipco_annual_report_2017_18/

    Of the 18 “error investigations” carried out by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office (IPCO) into the misuse of legal snooping powers by [UK] State agencies, the vast majority of wrongful police raids and arrests came about because police workers transposed vital data (such as dates, times or IP addresses) or even made careless typos when writing out applications for search warrants.
    These blunders led to innocent people being arrested and accused by police of the most vile crimes

    [UK] Government hackers and bug-planters broke the law 83 times during 2017-2018 while carrying out “property interference”, IPCO found.

    One family had their home raided three times in six months by police who had convinced themselves a paedophile was sharing child abuse images from their IP address. After the third fruitless raid and seizure of computers and phones, PC Plod eventually thought to check the family router – where they “found an anomaly with the IP address assigned to it”. They eventually figured out that the local ISP had crossed some wires in the local street cabinet.

    This did not stop the State from seizing the family’s children – referred to in the dry language of the IPCO report as enacting the “safeguarding protocol”. Their case is due to be heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which is the secret court that investigates and occasionally rules in public on misuses of Britain’s surveillance laws by State agencies.

    you’ll have read all this in the many MSM reports, watched the BBC Panorama investigation into this bad spookery, No?

    rounding off TheRegister’s news, (a rare website that carefully follows the security/privacy balance), they finally comment:-

    There was nothing in the IPCO report to suggest that any State worker or agency was held to legal account for getting things wrong or not complying with the law.

  • N_

    It really takes your breath away, how crazy the DUP are. They want no difference between Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain, and they want a completely open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Fine. That adds up to Remain. But wait – they also want a rock hard Brexit. Nutters.

    Sometimes you have to decide what you think is most important and sacrifice other stuff to get it or keep it. Most grownups know that. It’s called getting your priorities right.

    That applies (doesn’t it?) even if you’ve got a tattoo saying “1690 – No Surrender”.

    In the DUP’s case, what they think is most important is probably staying in a Britain that isn’t run by the Catholic church. If that means they have to accept a hard border in Ireland, they should suck it up!

    But their hatred of the Catholic church is so great as to make them highly irrational – which is what great hatred does to people. This is the reason that, contrary to logic, they are opposed to British membership of the EU. What they’ve got against the EU is that they think there are too many Papists in it.

    One remarkable thing is that people from Northern Ireland will keep the right to be EU citizens. That in itself is a big difference between NI and GB. Got any objection to that, Arlene? It may not have been mentioned much in the media but we can be sure it is considered important by EU27 strategists. It means for example that in any consideration of British citizens’ rights on the territory of EU states on the continent, the population of Northern Ireland don’t have to be considered because they must certainly retain such rights, given that the EU does not dispute the Republic of Ireland’s citizenship law.

    • Dungroanin

      I keep saying. NI is a internationaly recognised legal unicorn.
      The fact Stormont is 2 years suspended makes no difference!

      • IrishU

        Dungroanin,

        ‘NI is an internationally recognised legal unicorn’, could you explain what you mean please?

        • Dungroanin

          The Belfast Agreement is an International Treaty. Recognised at the UN and has international guarantors.

          It guarantees amongst other wonders that every NI person – the whole million odd, regardless of their sectarian history – has a guaranteed right to identify themselves as British, Irish or BOTH. – Unicorn

          So even as the majority voted remain, a handful of DUP MP’s that represent a minority, is hand in glove with the British govt in London to remove the rights of EU membership from the mainland, while knowing that right is enshrined in the GFA, for these who can claim NI residency and ancestry! A mythical cake and eating win win for the unionist flunkies. – unicorn.

          Along with exemptions that mean westminster made laws are not automatically applicable to NI you have the not so longer mythical magic state but a UNICORN.

          You’re welcome.

    • Twostime

      Damn, just about to post that too, Sharp Ears is up to speed 😉 I thought this interview was fairly balanced and gave Maduro space to explain Venezuela. Really not sure what Craig’s issue is with the constituent assembly given the ruling body is in contempt of Venezuelan high court? Perhaps he can explain…

  • Tatyana

    This date 95 years ago, February 5, 1924 BBC transmitted time check signal for the first time.
    “Six dots” – bip bip bip bip bip beeeeep 🙂

  • Sharp Ears

    For Interserve, read Carillion ???

    ‘The government has raised objections to a rescue plan designed to stave off a Carillion-style collapse at Interserve, the contractor whose public sector contracts include hospital cleaning and serving school meals.

    Lenders to the company, which employs 45,000 people in the UK, are trying to thrash out the terms of a plan under which they would agree to cancel nearly half of the company’s £807m net debt for shares in the company and effectively take control of it.’

    Interserve’s lenders go head-to-head with Cabinet Office over rescue options
    Public sector contractor employing 45,000 people in UK faces Carillion-style collapse over £800m debt
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/05/interserves-lenders-go-head-to-head-with-cabinet-office-over-rescue-options

    45,000 jobs at risk. Whatever next?

    The occupants of the Cabinet Office are: Lidington, Dowden, Lewis and little Chloe Smith of Norwich North infamy in 2009. G.d help us all.
    https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/cabinet-office

    • Tony

      And if you look at the assorted payments such as director dividends and senior staff bonus payments, etc, that have gone out of Interserve since it obtained all the government contracts, you will see where the £807m (and then some) has gone. Yet more legalised fraud on an industrial scale which will go unpunished.

      • Sharp Ears

        ‘They’ did their deal quickly!

        ‘Its rescue plan will see the company’s debt cut from around £600m to £275m, as it places £480m in new shares with its existing lenders.

        The new equity would account for 97.5% of the company’s share capital, hitting current stock holders who have already been battered by the collapse in Interserve’s market value to less than £20m.

        Shares rose 2.5% in early trading after the announcement.’

        https://news.sky.com/story/interserve-agrees-rescue-deal-with-lenders-11629421

        Amazing.

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