All-purpose news and politics thread: One Step Beyond!

[Spike-X]

Going off what the woman in charge has publicly said when defending the decision, "being members of UKIP" is pretty much it. They were worried about getting into legal trouble or facing criticism because UKIP members were fostering children from outside the UK; the couple in question aren't being accused of anything.

That being the case, then it is a horrible decision.

[dupont2005]

Hamas and other paramilitaries have rockets, mortars, and surplus Iranian missiles. The Palestinians may also take a dim view of being called "peasants".



Gaza is going to be getting a large amount of money from Qatar, and when the last batch of fighting broke out it was getting support from Turkey and Egypt, particularly Egypt. Those are some pretty good states to have funding and politically backing you.

In the West Bank, most of the Earth recognises the Palestinian Authority or has some diplomatic relation with it and it has trade agreements with foreign nations (including Israel).


Palestine is in heavy shit but they're not the Cursed Earth.

Has anyone given them an F18 fighter? There's kinder ways to describe them, but why sugar coat it? Americans who have things a hundred times better would pretty much be considered peasants.

[Michael P]

Warren Buffet: Enact A Minimum Tax On The Wealthy

If it happens, I'll eat my W-2 form. But it's nice to dream.

[jmc247]

As for the chemical weapons, I'd bet money there are already western special forces units inside the country securing them.

That could explain why the press in al-Anbar is reporting tons of C-130 Hercules take offs and landings out of al-Aasad airbase. If we are moving the WMDs out of Syria they would be flown out by that airbase.

U.S. troops possibly redeployed in Iraq: reports

BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi media has recently circulated unofficial reports about the possible redeployment of units of U.S. soldiers in Iraq over fears that the Syrian crisis could spill over into Iraq.

Earlier, the private Independent Press Agency (IPA) quoted "a well-informed source" as saying that "Dozens of giant U.S. airplanes C-130 Hercules had carried out successive flights to the once second largest U.S. military airbase al-Aasad in Iraq's western province of Anbar."

However, On Sunday, a member of Anbar's provincial council told Xinhua on condition of anonymity that "I have no information about any U.S. troops in the province."

The provincial council member also refused to give his opinion about any possible U.S. troops' presence in the province and said he is not authorized to speak to the media about such sensitive issue.

http://english.sina.com/world/2012/1125/530508.html

I get the feeling we are likely building up forces in Western Iraq also as part of contingency planning for the fall of the Syrian regime. We are in offical talks to negotate another offically SOFA, but unoffically U.S. troops have been given totally immunity to operate in Iraq by Maliki.

[Charles RB]

On top of all the actions in Syria, the deputy political head of Hamas has openly told Iran to reconsider its support of Assad or it'll be lose influence in Arab states. Now Hamas had already come out against Syria but rebuking Iran like that is new.

And the FSA have reached true with the Kurdish militias.

[Charles RB]

Mursi's backtracking seems to be leaving the Constitutional Court protected - so he's not completely retreated.

[Iangould]

I get the feeling we are likely building up forces in Western Iraq also as part of contingency planning for the fall of the Syrian regime. We are in offical talks to negotate another offically SOFA, but unoffically U.S. troops have been given totally immunity to operate in Iraq by Maliki.

It wouldn't surprise me but it might also be weapons or other equipment going in for the FSA.

Iraq has to be incredibly careful in all this: the government is a messy coalition with all three factions - the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shia - also represented inside Syria.

[Iangould]

Those horrible capitalist oppressors are once again beating up poor little Greece:

European finance ministers eased the terms on emergency aid for Greece, declaring after three years of false starts that Europe has found the formula for nursing the debt-stricken country back to health.

In the latest bid to keep the 17-nation euro intact, the ministers cut the rates on bailout loans, suspended interest payments for a decade, gave Greece more time to repay and engineered a Greek bond buyback. The country was also cleared to receive a 34.4 billion-euro ($44.7 billion) loan installment in December. Greek bonds rose.

[Charles RB]

The Crown Prosecution Service and Greater Manchester Police have both said that Sir Cyril Smith sexually abused children, and that they should have charged and sentenced him.

[Charles RB]

Those horrible capitalist oppressors are once again beating up poor little Greece:

It's just like the Nazis (and that's why thousands of Greeks are naturally voting for Nazis - wait, hang on...)

[king mob]

Going off what the woman in charge has publicly said when defending the decision, "being members of UKIP" is pretty much it. They were worried about getting into legal trouble or facing criticism because UKIP members were fostering children from outside the UK; the couple in question aren't being accused of anything.

If that's true then it's an enormous fuck up even if UKIP are a bunch of swivel eyed racists.

[king mob]

The Crown Prosecution Service and Greater Manchester Police have both said that Sir Cyril Smith sexually abused children, and that they should have charged and sentenced him.

Which was something that the establishment were told 35 fucking years ago!

Meanwhile on Twitter.......

Lord McAlpine will be spending the money gained from ITV & the BBC not naming him as a paedophile on violins for under-privileged children.








This is because he likes to fiddle with kids.

[king mob]

The government's work programme has actually now been proven to be worse than doing nothing at all.

Now, this doesn't surprise me one bit as I've not long emerged from a year or so of working for what was an ethical training provider getting kids into jobs and training and the amount of crooks in this sector are enormous, thanks mainly to the fact the government left some whopping great loopholes in the system which has made some people millions.
The government have been told about this frequently and whistle-blowers have reported the failure of the system often but it's taken this huge failure of a programme to drive home that the coalition are singularly failing to actually create growth and encourage business to create more jobs because they're so stuck on austerity that if they even admit they've fucked up they've lost what little credibility left.

[Charles RB]

The government's work programme has actually now been proven to be worse than doing nothing at all.

That's not what the article says. Ed Miliband says that but there's nothing about where the stat came from.

3.5% is fucking pathetic though, even if you don't compare it to other programmes.

[Charles RB]

The new governor of the Bank of England will be Mark Carney, former head of the Bank of Canada - the first time we've ever had a non-British governor. George Osborne is apparently a big fan of how Canada, during Carney's time, didn't need to bail out any banks.

Problem is, as the Bank of Canada's governor before Carney points out, Canada and the UK have different banking systems:

Carney will face a far different structure in England, Dodge said, noting that Canada’s central bank has no responsibility for regulating this country’s commercial banks, a role the British central bank is about to assume.

As well, he said the Bank of Canada enjoys a much closer relationship with other players in the financial system.

“The various branches talk to each other here. In Britain, they don’t,” Dodge said.

That's on top of Canada having better regulation than us, and the governor has to work with Osborne. Carney will have his work cut out.