All-purpose news and politics thread

[Charles RB]

Ken's campaign got compromised - playing the tax card and then being caught fiddling yourself is a no-no - while he was running against a charismatic opponent with personal popularity*. He couldn't win. It still was a close contest though.

* The Tories didn't win in London, it's just Boris.

They demolished half the town centre in preparation for Westfield to build a shopping centre which surprise, surprise is still "in the works" six years later.

Ours did that too.

[Iangould]

Syrians will be asked to vote Monday in a bizarre farcicial election for Parliament.

On paper, the electroal laws have been reformed to allow Opposition parties to run. On paper, the Syrian armed forces were required to withdraw from all cities three weeks ago.

Assad and company are probabyl hoping that enoguh peopel will vote that the eelctiosn will have soem shreds of credibiltiy and that they can then start the "political dialog" required under the peace plan with a parliamentary opposition that excludes most of the major opposition groups and that is still extremely weak relative to the Ba'ath Party and its allies.

[Iangould]

The "Great Firewall of China" effectively collapsed during Cheng Guangcheng's escape from house arrest.

Internet access within China is heavily censored but technically-sophisticated Chinese have always been able to get around the censorship by using proxies to access overseas sites.

They're also very good at using allusions and oblique statements to avoid automated censorship of domestic sites. So, for example, people talked about how "our friend" was "somewhere safe" to let others know Cheng was in the US Embassy.

You also have an ever-increasing number of Chinese people living or traveling abroad and either bringing news back or passing news to friends and family by phone.

link

At one point, after the official Beijng Daily ran an editorial on Chen's case even the search term "Bejing Daily" was banned. Which still isn't as funny as when people used the term "Chongquing hotpot" as code for the Bo XiLai scandal which led to a bunch of recipe sites being temporarily shut down.

[king mob]

What? Proposed by who, and were they drunk at the time?

Tony Robinson was by various Labour Councillors based upon the fact he's popular, is a Labour supporter and lives here. Carol Voderman was put forward by the Tories because she's popular (who with?), is a Tory and lives here. Banksy was put forward by the trustifarians who blight the city. I guarantee one of these people will be on a ballot paper.

[king mob]

Ken's campaign got compromised - playing the tax card and then being caught fiddling yourself is a no-no - while he was running against a charismatic opponent with personal popularity*. He couldn't win. It still was a close contest though.

It's also worth noting how much Johnson distanced himself away from David Cameron and the Tories in Westminster and that seemed to work for him, while Livingstone was a busted flush the minute his campaign started. His playing the tax card was a disaster which topped off a terrible campaign.

[Iangould]

Syria's "ceasefire" might not be a total waste:

More than a year after the uprising began, only 50 people were still around to protest in a Syrian town of burned buildings and pockmarked storefronts.

But for the residents of Anadan who came together to call for freedom and dignity on the morningSyria'scease-fire began last month, it was as though the revolution had begun again.

"We were willing to come out like it was our first day," said Abu Ghaith, an activist in the town near Aleppo that rebels seized and lost again to government forces. "Our strength is in being peaceful."

For months, activists who helped spark the uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad by nonviolent means had seen it slip away as others in the opposition took up arms and the conflict began to resemble a civil war.

Now the United Nations-backed cease-fire, which has seen numerous violations but also an easing of the bloodshed, is providing an apt anti-violence backdrop to activists' efforts to retake the revolution.

The week the cease-fire began, activists campaigned online for what to name the upcoming Friday protests, which is put up for a vote each week. In the end, the name "A Revolution for All Syrians" was chosen over a more militant one, and was hailed as a victory by peace activists.

Their position has been bolstered by the poorly armed rebels' inability to defend against brutal government crackdowns in places such as Homs and Idlib and the lack of any foreseeable outside military aid, underscoring the difficulties of trying to unseat Assad through force.

The activists point out that the armed revolution has only further alienated Syria's silent majority in cities such as Damascus and Aleppo who are horrified by the bloody images they see on state TV. Only through peaceful acts of defiance, they say, will this group join the revolution.

[Iangould]

Jordan's Prime Minister has resigned (actually he resigned over a week ago, hardly anybody otuside of Jordan seems tp have noticed).

Awn Khasawneh weas appointed six motnhs ago to implement democratic reforms. He's believed to have resigned because of opposition from conservatives in the government and the royal family to a proposed electoral law that ended a decades-old gerrymander in favor of rural conservative areas.

[Charles RB]

Osborn, of all people, is implying the Tories aren't going to back off marriage and Lords reforms.

-

You know those really long queues at airports? That's after people from the Border Force have beeen moved to passport control - and because they're there, they're focusing less on smuggling and security vetting. So it's just not fit for purpose.

[Cavemold]

Khaild is in court! This is the man who lead the 9/11 attack.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17966362


The poor guy was Tortured in cuba.... Honestly it should be much worse than what they did.

[dupont2005]

Does it look like Gay Marriage may be something the administration focuses on after Obama's reelection?
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/b...152035862.html

[Charles RB]

Hollande's won the French election.

Nothing so neat in Greece though: with 35% of the vote counted it looks like coalition has slumped badly, with Pasok going from the first party to third. New Democracy, now in the lead, is talking about a national salvation government and trying to amend their deal with the EU, while Pasok desperately talks about a pro-European coalition of multiple parties - since the main left-wing opposition (second largest) wants to form their own anti-austerity coalition and the right-wing Independent Greeks (fourth) don't like the coalition either and nobody's going to want to hang out with the neo-Nazis, that seems like a long shot.

So we're looking at:

Coalition negotiations can take place over three days. If they fail, the party in second place can try to form a coalition, and if still unsuccessful, the third party will receive the mandate.

If still no coalition emerges, Greece will hold another election - a prospect which would alarm heft country's international creditors.

The ability of any new government to carry on with the austerity programme will be crucial for Greece's continued access to bailout funds from the EU, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund - the so-called Troika.

Any political instability may prompt fresh questions over the country's place in the eurozone.

....

Othan Anastasakis, director of south-east European studies at Oxford University, said it would be unprecedented if no party won more than 20% of the vote.

"The whole landscape becomes even more unpredictable after the election. We don't know if there will be a coalition or how long it will survive. I don't see it surviving very long.

"Greeks are sending a very strong message abroad, which is 'enough with austerity'."

[Royal]

Hollande's won the French election.

aaawwww yeah. There's going to be some major baby eating tonight!!!!

[Iangould]

Essentially Greece has voted for banruptcy, poverty and a generation or more of lost opportunities.

[Matt Algren]

Does it look like Gay Marriage may be something the administration focuses on after Obama's reelection?
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/b...152035862.html

Considering that within the hour they had panicked and walked back Biden's statement, no I don't.

[Matt Algren]

Also, Americans don't torture, what the fuck, you Unamerican anti-patriotic asshole. You are the reason people don't trust the American military.