davecoggan
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Thanks. Hadn’t seen that. Will certainly SOYMB it.
Also out of interest:
EU approves Dutch plan to forcibly close farms.(Farmers Weekly)
https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/eu-approves-dutch-plan-to-forcibly-close-farms#:~:text=The%20European%20Union%20has%20approved,voluntary%20closure%20of%20their%20holdings.Bill Gates is the biggest private owner of farmland in USA
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/05/bill-gates-climate-crisis-farmlandAttack on Smolensk NPP may be retaliated by strike on nuke facilities in Europe – Medvedev
Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council added that Russia may hit nuclear facilities in Eastern Europe
MOSCOW, July 9. /TASS/. Russia may hit nuclear facilities in Eastern Europe if an attempted attack on the Smolensk Nuclear Power Plant with NATO missiles is confirmed, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday.“If an attempted attack on the Smolensk (Desnogorsk) NPP with NATO missiles is confirmed, it will be necessary to look at a scenario of Russia’s simultaneous strike on the South Ukraine NPP, Rovno NPP, and Khmelnitsky NPP, and on nuclear facilities in Eastern Europe. There is nothing to be embarrassed about,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
According to posts on several Telegram channel earlier on Sunday, Ukrainian troops tried to stage a missile attack on the Smolensk Nuclear Power Plant.
The nuclear plant, a subsidiary of Rosenergoatom nuclear power engineering company, is located three kilometers from the city of Desnogorsk in the Smolensk Region and some 150 kilometers from the city of Smolensk.
The nuclear plant said on its Telegram channel that its two power units are operating routinely, while the third unit is under scheduled repairs.
TASS 9 July
For those who don’t follow Twitter, this was posted by Alexander Boris de Pfeffel, 8 July. A quick scan of comments show that most respondents think he’s wrong. (Being polite so not to incur wrath of moderator).
There’s a phrase used on social media, “stunning and brave” to signify the delusional stance being taken.‘Joe Biden has taken a difficult but brave decision to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine. He is right. These are terrible weapons. But they have been used by Putin for over a year in his programme of indiscriminate slaughter of an entirely innocent people. The faster we help the Ukrainians to win, the more lives we will save all round. And never forget – it is the Ukrainians who will use these weapons on their own soil, and to protect themselves.’
Tell me your at war without telling me you’re at war.
These two reports are taken from RT. Accepting the obvious bias both nevertheless seem quite straightforward.
The statement from the US SecDef that ‘Kiev had promised not to use cluster munitions in civilian-populated urban areas and to keep records of where the weapons are deployed to make future de-mining efforts easier’.
My reaction to that is LMAO.
“Cluster munition deliveries to Ukraine could result in civilian casualties, a senior Pentagon official acknowledged on Friday, while stating that fears of Russian success on the battlefield outweigh these concerns.
Speaking to reporters, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl defended the White House’s decision to approve another $800 million security assistance package for Ukraine, which includes cluster munitions – which are banned in more than 100 countries because when they detonate, they release many small bomblets over a wide area, and the unexploded elements pose severe risks to civilians for years after the fighting ends.
When asked whether the Pentagon has assured its allies that these munitions will not cause excessive civilian harm, Kahl replied: “I’m as concerned about the humanitarian circumstance as anybody, but the worst thing for civilians in Ukraine is for Russia to win the war. And so it’s important that they don’t.”
He added that Kiev had promised not to use cluster munitions in civilian-populated urban areas and to keep records of where the weapons are deployed to make future de-mining efforts easier. The official also portrayed the deliveries as a stop-gap measure until Kiev’s Western backers can ramp up production of conventional shells.
In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, US President Joe Biden described the decision to supply the controversial shells to Ukraine as “difficult.” He said that it was in part motivated by the fact that both Kiev and Washington are feeling a deficit of ordinary ammunition, adding that Ukraine “needed” cluster munitions to prevent Russia from stopping its ongoing counteroffensive.
Commenting on the announcement, Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the US, called the move “a gesture of desperation,” adding that the West does not want to admit that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is faltering.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reacted by posting a clip of former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki from late February 2022, days after the start of the Ukraine conflict, saying that the use of cluster munitions could potentially be regarded as a war crime.”UN condemns cluster munitions
“They were banned by an international convention, the world body’s secretary-general has pointed out
A spokesman for the UN secretary-general called out the use of cluster munitions on Friday, as the US prepared to announce supplying artillery shells of that type to Ukraine.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “supports the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which, as you know, was adopted 15 years ago. And he wants countries to abide by the terms of that convention,” his spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.
“And so as a result, of course, he does not want there to be continued use of cluster munitions on the battlefield,” Haq concluded.
The White House has confirmed that cluster munitions will be included in the latest batch of military supplies for Ukraine. Kiev has hailed the delivery as having an “extraordinary psycho-emotional impact” on Russian troops, which the Ukrainian army has not been able to push back in a month of heavy fighting.
One of the reasons the Pentagon cited for providing the dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM) was that the US was running short of conventional 155mm artillery rounds to send to Ukraine.
Human Rights Watch and other groups have objected to the plan, noting that cluster bombs have a high rate of unexploded ordnance that continues to kill and maim civilians for years afterward.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions came into effect in August 2010, with signatories pledging to “never under any circumstances” use, develop, produce, or transfer the banned munitions, or assist, encourage and induce anyone else to do so. It has been ratified by 111 states so far – including most NATO members – though not by the US, Ukraine, or Russia.”
This is a link to the transcript of the press conference in question.
The SecDef was at pains to point out the positive failure rate of their cluster bombs to explode compared to the Russia ones.
It puts another slant on the cry, ‘won’t somebody think of the children’ and don’t lets forget civilians. Personal view, I found the press conference quite chilling.The Financial Times has a story that Farage’s account has been moved from Coutts to the NatWest.
Oh the ignominy, the shame! Does this mean he’s been downgraded and is now a paid up member of the working class? I suppose that would be more likely if he had downgraded to the Co-Op. At least then he could have picked up the divvy.
Note to moderator, this is an attempt at humour and is not intended to denigrate any individual or any banking organisation. Particularly not the latter.
When, not if, this happens again, will it become known as, ‘I’ve been faraged’?
Conspiracy theorist apparently dates from 1863.
There is some merit to the suggestion that it’s payback for Brexit.
Personally, I’m inclined to the theory that it’s the WEF sending out signals to any elite wavelets out there. Hang on, my foil hat needs adjusting.I totally concur.
I like the look of Count Binface in the by-election. Joke.
His polices from when he fought 2019 campaign include:
Nationalising model railways.
Allowing any Czechs on the Irish Border to remain.
Nationalising Adele, the English singer.
Abolishing the House of Lords. He had previously pledged the same in 2017 as Lord Buckethead.
Giving free broadband to everyone,
Stopping the sale of arms to repressive regimes.
Plus some other silly ones.
Perhaps someone should do a Mary Poppins and tell Fox and the other would be pols that promises are like pie crusts, easily made, easily broken.
Yes, it was Jonathon Swift who said that in a a better way.If everyone in the SPGB became a populist ranter could we all acquire three million quid too? Think of the advertising Socialism campaign we could mount with that combined sort of dosh!
I thought that BRICS was relatively recent but it was formed in 2009.
They’re having a summit in August to talk about a gold backed digital currency.(Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa).
Surprisingly it’s difficult to find some solid information about the NUM’s sequestered funds. I think Price Waterhouse may certainly have sequestered the South Wales funds. I think the NUM may have received money from Russia and a smear campaign suggested the it had had money from Libya too.
Lawrence Fox is now tweeting that he’s going into his bank on Monday morning and demanding every single penny he has with them back.
Good luck with that. You get Stasi interrogated nowadays if you want to withdraw what they consider to be too much . What do you want it for they demand.I accept your point, I’m not even going to suggest “allegedly” that that might be the case. Wings over Scotland is a long time critic of the SNP.
The Vicar has said it may very well be because he queried Yorkshire’s promotion of gender ideology. Obviously, anything in media needs a big pinch of salt. It does appear, though not in Fox’s case because nothing has happened there yet, that not very much notice was given and no explanations for the closures were forthcoming. All socialists adhere to the Voltaire principle, we do don’t we, but it does seem that ‘outrage’ at these institutions actions are muted because those at the end of it are perceived as being at the wrong end of the political spectrum.
Has the sequestration of Russia’s financial assets been discussed on the Russia thread? Not taking anyone’s side here obviously but do we know of historical instances where this ‘weapon’ has been used before.
Does it happen in China?I think that’s an excellent idea. And if he could be persuaded to talk to us elsewhere that would be bostin as we say. Or perhaps someone could conduct an interview with him by whatever means because I don’t know but I don’t think he goes as far as us because he calls for trades union action.
Apologies if this has already been posted. Hattip to hallblithe.
‘Well over one hundred years ago, the Scottish socialist John Maclean famously opposed the First World War, saying that a bayonet is a weapon with a worker on both ends. Nothing has changed in this respect over the last century.’
Working-class people only stand to lose from imperialist war, and we should neither support Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine nor Nato’s cynical proxy war against Russia in the name of Ukrainian self-determination.
‘While we should of course stand in solidarity with ordinary Ukrainians suffering from a war of aggression, we should not believe that pouring Western arms into that country will do anything but fuel the fighting and risk escalation. Worse, we should be aware that the UK is being consistently more aggressive and cavalier than even the US in terms of arming Ukraine.’
‘The human toll of the war has been huge. Leaked US documents in April indicated that 354,000 Ukrainian and Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded so far. That number will certainly have risen since then as the Russian military completed its gruesome capture of Bakhmut, and can only rise again with a Western-supplied Ukrainian counter-offensive imminent. Moreover, the economic costs of the war are staggering. According to World Bank estimates in April, the costs for Ukraine alone have reached $411 billion. Unsurprisingly, the costs to the world economy are also growing, with the OECD estimating last autumn that it would amount to $2.8 trillion in lost output by the end of 2023:’Here in Yorkshire, Victorian factories with signage declaring them to be ‘shoddy manufacturers’ aren’t uncommon. These signs look rather odd – why would anyone draw attention to the poor quality of their work?
It isn’t the case that these factories produced inferior goods. They were erected before the middle of the 19th century, before ‘shoddy’ took on its ‘second-rate’ meaning. At that time the word ‘shoddy’ was only used as the name of a type of woollen yarn produced by tearing old woollen rags into shreds and weaving the strands, sometimes with the addition of some new wool, to make a cloth, also known as shoddy.
The manufacturing process was by no means shoddy; in fact these days the businesses would be applauded as models of recycling and, back in the reign of Victoria, they had a reputation for the production of quality woollen cloth. The social reformer Henry Mayhew, in London labour and the London poor, 1851, even made a distinction between the genuine woollen shoddy of the north and the ersatz southern copy made from waste cotton:
To this stuff [cotton rags ground up] the name of ‘shoddy’ is given, but the real and orthodox ‘shoddy’ is a production of the woollen districts.
It was in the latter half of the 19th century that ‘shoddy’ began to move from the top to the bottom in our estimation.
Shoddy’s Achilles’ heel was that, as its raw material was effectively free, it was cheaper than cloth newly made from the fleeces of sheep. Some unscrupulous cloth manufacturers began adding shoddy to the weave of their woollen cloth to bulk it up.
MS, as a very new participant to this forum I would like to second and agree with Thomas More.
So that’s two votes you’ve got for starters.MS, that’s a theory that hasn’t shown up at all on my social media timeline. I’m familiar with the one about the Azov battalions and the thrall in which Stefan Bandera is held, although according to Wiki that would seem to be more in Western Ukraine than in the whole of the country.
Not a conspiracist but I can’t but help feel this whole thing is like an iceberg. No titanic reference intended. we only see what the media and states on both sides want us to see but there’s so much more hidden under the surface.
As this conflict/war has gone on I’ve pondered on why so much money, resources, effort has, and is, being directed at Russia.
Usual disclaimer of course. My conclusion, probably an erroneous one, is to apply Occam’s Razor. The western bloc of capitalist states see this as an ideal opportunity to eliminate a another global capitalist state with rich pickings at the end of it if successful.
A simplistic view to take so it’s back to the iceberg.
Whatever one thinks let’s not forget the awful human cost which has been, and which is being paid by thousands. Which is historically responsible for the most deaths and misery, religion or capitalism?
