peak4

I've not seen anyone here defending the Iranian regime's actions against its own citizens, and others within Iran; just folk explaining their reactions against Israeli provocation. On the other hand, how many contributors here have heard of Administrative Detention? https://www.addameer.org/israeli_military_judicial_system/administrative_detention or aware of this; Bombs and viruses: The shadowy history of Israel’s attacks on Iranian soil Al Jazeera From cyberattacks and assassinations to drone strikes, Israel-linked plots have targeted Iran and its nuclear programme for years.

Not personally, but you could try reading the link, or the 10 page thread on the subject

Indeed so; Most country's inclusion I can almost understand, but Australia?? After rewriting disqualified song, Israel gets final approval to appear at Eurovision Times of Israel Kan public broadcaster next week to reveal ‘Hurricane’, which received nod from EBU after it barred the original submission, ‘October Rain,’ over charges it was too political

Does she include allotments?? Questions asked over curious case of allotment used for Rugby election candidacy Warwickshire World. Allotments are typically used for growing vegetables, flowers and maybe some soft fruit – but it now emerges they can be used for growing a political career.

It should be the same wherever you live, but increased rental costs in some areas may have bearing. In the order of 38% of Universal Credit claimants are in work, with various other benefits paid out as well to many people in work. When I was young, a single breadwinner could (sometimes only just about ) support a family. Now the taxpayer seems to be funding businesses who underpay their staff.

The more you read, the dafter the story becomes; Read all the way down to the last paragraph Tory MP loses whip after claims he used party funds to pay ‘bad people’ Guardian. Mark Menzies allegedly spent £14,000 of campaign funds on medical costs and demanded £6,500 from aide to ‘escape captors’

Given that there's north of 4000 homeless in Sheffield, you're going to need a lot of busses. Have you thought this through, or do you have shared in a bus company?

Unfortunately the original story is behind a paywall in The Times www.thetimes.co.uk Revealed: Tory MP allegedly demanded campaign cash to pay ‘bad people’ Billy Kenber, Senior Investigations Reporter A Tory MP is under investigation over allegations that he misused campaign funds and abused his position after making a late-night phone call saying he’d been locked up by “bad people” who were demanding thousands of pounds, The Times can reveal. Mark Menzies, the Conservative MP for Fylde and a government trade envoy, rang an elderly local party volunteer at 3.15am in December saying he was locked in a flat and needed £5,000 as a matter of “life and death”. The sum, which rose to £6,500, was paid by his office manager from her personal bank account and subsequently reimbursed from campaign funds raised from donors. £14,000 given by donors for use on Tory campaign activities had previously been transferred to Menzies’s personal bank account A bit on Sky; I wonder if will will push Rayner off the front page of tomorrows Mail?? Mark Menzies MP gives up Tory whip while claims he misused campaign funds are investigated

On the other subject - pdf to download RE and collective worship in academies and free schools HMG Guidance on religious education (RE) and collective worship for academies and free schools. It applies to academies and free schools. All schools must provide religious education and daily acts of collective worship as set out in legislation for local-authority-maintained schools and funding agreements for academies and free schools. This guidance provides information for academies and free schools with or without a religious designation. For local-authority-maintained schools read ‘Religious education in local-authority-maintained schools’.

I'm not sure how Halal meat/slaughter is relevant in discussion about this school. (other than to reinforce some prejudices perhaps) As far as I'm aware, they serve vegetarian food, with fish on Fridays, for those who want it. There also seems to be a certain amount of misinformation generally about Halal slaughter; pre-stunning is acceptable to many, though not all. According to the RSPCA about 65% Halal meat is pre-stunned, though I don't think Shechita rules permit pre-stunning at all. Personally I'd be happy to back the RSPCA's campaign on this one. Religious slaughter Current UK law requires animals to be stunned before slaughter, so they don't feel pain. However, Jewish and Muslim communities aren't required by law to stun animals before slaughter. All Shechita (Jewish) and some Halal (Muslim) slaughter involves cutting the animal's throat without stunning them first. ....................................... The UK government doesn't have a legal requirement to ensure all animals are stunned before slaughter. Around 65% of animals slaughtered in the UK for Halal are stunned first. All animals slaughtered under the Shechita (for Kosher) are non-stunned.

Indeed so, as my previously linked Pilger article explains; maybe Geared hasn't read it yet. The Afghanistan coup with its subsequent policy of education for all, a generally popular government, and increased life expectancy, seemed largely irrelevant to the US & UK who recognised the possibility of the using the newly emerging country to destabilise The Soviet Union. From Pilger again, but various other sources available; this article just pulls many of the points together. In August 1979, the U.S. embassy in Kabul reported that “the United States’ larger interests … would be served by the demise of the PDPA government, despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future social and economic reforms in Afghanistan.” Read again the words above I have italicized. It is not often that such cynical intent is spelt out as clearly. The U.S. was saying that a genuinely progressive Afghan government and the rights of Afghan women could go to hell. Six months later, the Soviets made their fatal move into Afghanistan in response to the American-created jihadist threat on their doorstep. Armed with CIA-supplied Stinger missiles and celebrated as “freedom fighters” by Margaret Thatcher, the mujahedin eventually drove the Red Army out of Afghanistan. The mujahedin were dominated by war lords who controlled the heroin trade and terrorized rural women. Later, in the early 1990s the Taliban would emerge, an ultra-puritanical faction, whose mullahs wore black and punished banditry, rape and murder but banished women from public life. Excerpt from Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski U.S. President Carter's National Security Adviser The source Marxists.org might not be to everyone's taste, including mine, but it's about the interview, not the hosting website. Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct? Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention. Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it? B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would. Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today? B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire. Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentlaism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists? B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war? Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today. B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries. Source: Killing Hope, by William Blum. Article translated from the French. I believe his comment "liberation of Central Europe" refers to the rise of Solidarity in his native Poland (amongst other politics in Europe at the time). Maybe the Soviets involvement in Afghanistan did prevent them getting involved in Poland, but at what long term cost to the whole of the Middle East, the rise of al-Qaeda, & ISIS, Islamic fundamentalism in parts of Africa, etc.

Cheers, I'd quite like to read that, but I'm between cataract operations at the moment; maybe I should look for an e-book version I suspect Brandolini's law comes into play here regarding explanations to some folk, as it so often does on internet forums, so I'm limiting this post to one cup of coffee. link from Wiki I touched on some of this in a previous post where I also provided a link to an article by John Pilger The Great Game of Smashing Nations. The 2003 Carlton TV video linked to in the article is hard to find these days, but is still available; I've not viewed it for a little while. From the linked article; The Washington Post reported that “Afghan loyalty to the government can scarcely be questioned.” Secular, modernist and, to a considerable degree, socialist, the government declared a program of visionary reforms that included equal rights for women and minorities. Political prisoners were freed and police files publicly burned. Under the monarchy, life expectancy was 35; 1-in-3 children died in infancy. Ninety percent of the population was illiterate. The new government introduced free medical care. A mass literacy campaign was launched. For women, the gains had no precedent; by the late 1980s, half the university students were women, and women made up 40 percent of Afghanistan’s doctors, 70 percent of its teachers and 30 percent of its civil servants. See also This post on here (291) and note the name Zbigniew Brzezinski. I [John Pilger] quoted to him his autobiography in which he admitted that his grand scheme for drawing the Soviets into Afghanistan had created “a few stirred up Muslims”. “Do you have any regrets?” I asked. “Regrets! Regrets! What regrets?” The Myth of the “Afghan Trap”: Zbigniew Brzezinski and Afghanistan, 1978–1979 article abstract He admitted that the administration had “knowingly increased the probability” that the Soviets would intervene militarily, and maintained that he had no regrets as the “secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.” He added that on the “day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, in essence: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving the USSR its Vietnam War,’” and boasted that “for almost ten years, Moscow had to wage an unbearable war for the regime, a conflict that led to the demoralization and ultimately the breakup of the Soviet empire.” Also bear in mind the US led coalition were essentially funding ISIS sympathisers in their efforts to cause problems for Assad in Syria, and also that Bin Laden was initially funded by The US. The US/UK were actively promoting Islamic terrorism to cause problems in the southern Russian states (I'm using "Russian" loosely here) Also Bashir al-Assad wasn't the chosen successor in the Syrian regime, his brother was killed in a car crash, so he had to return home from London. The regime as a whole was never going to kowtow to the US, but I personally believe that had the US come out more in support of Bashir, rather than trying to ferment trouble in Syria, the whole situation in the Middle East could have been quite different to what we have now. Is the world really ready to rehabilitate Bashar al-Assad? Telegraph for some explanation of Bashir al-Assad's history. Syria has seen over a decade of murderous civil war – yet recent overtures suggest a sudden shift in international attitudes to the dictator Who bombed Libya and created the power vacuum there; from where now do so many asylum seekers now set off for Europe?

Well worth booking a ticket if there's any left. Mark's an excellent writer and speaker, as well as being one of the Guardian's "Country Diary" authors for many years.

Looks like the conference in Belgium might be going ahead tomorrow. As Farage spoke, the crowds dashed for the exit – but there was a good reason Telegraph via archive.is Despite a moment of disarray there is an air of confidence that the conference will continue into its second day at the Brussels venue List of speakers here, not sure who's scheduled for tomorrow https://nationalconservatism.org/natcon-brussels-2/

To a degree they already are, but not by threats of military action (for the most part anyway). They are wandering around the globe signing treaties; encouraging less well developed countries to be in debt to them in exchange for infrastructure projects, whilst giving the Chinese the rights to their mineral resources.