Tag Archives: Politics 💼 🗳 🪖

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🪖 Taliban Assault on British Base was ‘aimed at Prince Harry’ 🇦🇫

15 Saturday Sep 2012

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HELMAND – Two American soldiers were killed during a Taliban attack on the British base of Camp Bastion in Southern Afghanistan  last night.

The assault involved between 18 and 20 fighters who used small arms, rockets and mortars to attack the perimeter of the British base.

Prince Harry was at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan during the attack and a Taliban spokesman said he was the target.

The Taliban spokesman had at first said that the attack was a response to a US-made film mocking Islam.

They released a video of the attack, a snatch of which is pictured above.

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The Prince, who is third in line to the British throne, is celebrating his 28th birthday and is in Afghanistan for four months on his second tour of duty.

He was not in any danger during this unprecedented assault on one of the world’s busiest airports.

Several other Nato troops were wounded, whilst one Taliban fighter was caught alive and the rest killed.

Camp Bastion which is situated in the middle of the desert is extremely heavily fortified.

An MoD spokesman said this was a significant attack adding: “there has been some damage to equipment which is still being assessed.”

“After swift action by ISAF forces, including UK personnel, the incident was contained.”

Three hundred and thirty coalition soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan this year, of which 252 are from the US.

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PROTESTS AGAINST FILM

11 September

1. US embassy in Cairo attacked, flag torn down and replaced with black Islamist banner

2. Mob attacks US consulate in Benghazi, US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans killed

13 September

3. Protesters break into the US embassy compound in Sanaa, Yemen, amid clashes with security forces

14 September

4. Sudanese protesters attack US, German and UK embassies in Khartoum and clash with police. Three killed

5. One person killed in Lebanon in protest at a KFC by Text-Enhance” href=”#”>restaurant

6. Protesters in Tunis attack the US embassy, with a large fire reported and shots heard. Two killed

7. Riot police in Cairo clash with protesters near US embassy. One person killed

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🪖 US Ambassador to Libya killed in Benghazi embassy Attack 🇱🇾

12 Wednesday Sep 2012

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TEMPLATE ANALYSIS

Anyone who met Christopher Stevens said he was a very nice man who had a lot of time for you. He was also proud of the role he had taken in ousting Colonel Gaddafi and in helping the Transitional National Council into Tripoli.

So, it is a cruel irony that he has been killed in a country he helped to free, in the place where the rebellion began and of course on the eleventh anniversary of those infamous attacks on America.

The cause for the rocket attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi is a film that clearly insults the Prophet Muhammad and the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt have today called for worldwide condemnation of the movie made by Israeli film maker Sam Bacile.

Post-Gaddafi Libya has of course been a disaster with the ruling government in Tripoli largely ignored as armed gangs control large parts of the capital, and outside.

Libya is in danger of breaking into three – all of which calls into question Nato’s decision to intervene as Gaddafi’s Libyan forces were amassed outside Benghazi.

Yesterday’s brutal actions that resulted in the deaths of Stevens and three other consular members have been condemned by Hilary Clinton. This was, of course, the same Hilary Clinton who jumped for joy on hearing of Colonel Gaddafi’s death.

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Obama calls for ‘patience’ at Democratic Convention

07 Friday Sep 2012

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TEMPLATE ANALYSIS

Four years ago, he promised change.

Today, the same man who had thrilled his nation with his presence and magnetism was now calling on those very people who had voted him into the White House to be patient.

A shot into his eyes showed the hunger and desire was still there.

Sadly, though there was little in terms of ideas as how he will tackle a national debt that because of his presidency was now 5 trillion dollars bigger.

Instead, the once great hope resorted to attacking his opponent, who he said offered little except tax breaks to the rich and was woefully short of foreign policy experience.

Obama’s only ‘triumph’ in the latter is of course the assassination of Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad in Pakistan.

Whist his predecessor was known for Guantanamo Bay, water boarding nd renditions, as well as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, this President will surely be remembered for the use of drone in targeted assassinations that often missed causing huge damage to civilians in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia,

So, if Mitt Romney is indeed inexperienced, recent history teaches us that, like Obama and Bush before him, he will catch up fast.

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China and India hold first joint military exercises for four years

04 Tuesday Sep 2012

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China and India are to resume joint military exercises that were halted in 2008.

The first military exercise was held in Kunming, China in 2007, and the second in Belgaum in India in 2008. However, a third session in China was postponed following a deterioration in relations, including over China’s refusal to offer a visa to a senior army officer stationed in Kashmir, the scene of one of the border disputes between the two developing nations.

Whether the resumption of these exercises will solve the long-running disputes between the two is unlikely.

India is unhappy with China’s infrastructure development in Kashmir, which she calls Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. The projects, which include road building,  worries India because she fears they could be put to military use, facilitating the movement of troops to the border with India.

India has also challenged China’s control of tens of thousands of square kilometers of land bordering its state of Jammu and Kashmir since 1962, when the two countries fought a border war, which Beijing won.

India also claims that China is illegally administering around 5,200 kilometers of land that Islamabad ceded to Beijing as part of a 1963 border agreement.

New Delhi, which claims sovereignty over the whole of Kashmir, has refused to recognize that agreement. However, this border agreement is not final, as it allows room for renegotiating the border “after the settlement of the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India.”

Other disputes include the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as its own, referring to it as south Tibet.

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🏦 So, what are your plans for the economy, Mr Obama? 🇺🇸

03 Monday Sep 2012

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TEMPLATE ANALYSIS

When Barack Obama broke the mould to become the first African-American to lead his nation, there were many tears – and many fears.

For the America, that this Democrat inherited from George W Bush was in a hole – economically, thanks to the banking crisis and his predecessor’s fiscal over spending.

There was also, some outside his nation told him, the problem with America’s foreign policy.

Of course, those voices don’t vote.

That left the economy, which was little more than a disaster.

Now four years on, the national debt is $5 trillion dollars bigger, whilst three million more Americans are also unemployed.

His supporters would point to healthcare reform, which gave more Americans access to medicare than before.

Trouble is, America already spent a colossal amount on health care, before this very expensive  intervention by the Democrats.

And this is a country where fifty per cent of the nation still does not pay tax and where the next biggest burden on the county’s finances – alongside healthcare – is welfare spending.

Over the weekend, the Obama camp ran a series of ads attacking Mitt Romney’s economic credentials and the result is that today, the two are tied for the race for the Presidency.

This week is of course the turn of the Democrats to accept Barack Obama’s nomination to run for as their candidate for the White House.

What he will need to spell out during this week is what exactly he plans to do with the American economy over the next four years – because the best that could be said of his last term is that it could have been far worse.

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Mitt Romney and the Polls

28 Tuesday Aug 2012

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TEMPLATE ANALYSIS

On first appearance, Mitt Romney appears to be the perfect foil for the current President of the United States of America.

What he lacks in charisma, he more than makes up for with clear business sense – you only have to look at his ideas for making the US a self-sufficient oil producer by 2020 to realise that.

Yet, if the polls are to be believed he trails behind when Americans are asked who they would vote for.

And perhaps more worryingly there’s a huge gulf between him and the man on the street when it comes whether he is easy-going and likeable.

That’s of course, something the slick Obama campaign has seized on.

This election campaign promises to be the dirtiest so far.

So, with that in mind what are we to make of his choice of running mate – Paul Ryan, someone who is proposing ruthless cuts to Medicare, and of course to plans to cut tax rates for the richest from 35% to 28.

And what are we also to make of his choice of advisers, some known as zealots and others moderates.

Of course, there is little to choose between the two when it comes to Foreign Policy, both men will coldly follow their national interest.

And yet on the crucial pillar of the economy, Rommey scores high, he is someone who gives the impression that he has his own mind and will listen to everyone. The final decision though is his.

That is in stark contrast to the present incumbent who like everyone all the way back to Ronald Reagan – and including the much hyped Bill Clinton – have been little more than figure heads behind whom are very powerful advisors representing very powerful interests.

America and her still powerful economy needs someone with fresh ideas.

Trouble is those ideas may not be very popular.

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What an attack on Syria would mean

22 Wednesday Aug 2012

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Insurgent rocket fire hits plane of US Army Chief

21 Tuesday Aug 2012

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An insurgent rocket attack on a US air base in Afghanistan has damaged the plane of America’s top military officer.

Gen Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff had arrved in the country following a spate of ‘green on blue’ kiilings.

He was not near the plane at the time.

However, two US maintenance crew were slightly injured.

The attack happened late on Monday night at the US air base in Bagram.

Gen Dempsey had arrived on Monday in a C-17 transport aircraft which was parked at Bagram.

Gen Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, had met Nato commanders and officials for talks after the death of a Nato soldier on Sunday who was shot dead by an Afghan in a police uniform.

The soldier was the 10th US soldier to die in this way in two weeks.

Two American soldiers were killed in another incident on Friday.

And six were killed in a single day on 10 August.

Some 130,000 (“blue”) Nato troops are fighting insurgents in Afghanistan, alongside 350,000 (“green”) Afghans.

So far, 40 members of the  International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) personnel – most of the victims Americans – have been killed by members of the Afghan security forces this year.

There were 35 such deaths in all of 2011

A statement from Nato’s Isaf force said shrapnel from “an indirect fire round” had damaged the plane as well as a Nato helicopter.

The general was in his room at the time of the attack, according to officials.

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34 killed after police open fire at strikers outside mine in South Africa

17 Friday Aug 2012

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ANALYSIS

Platinum, along with gold, has done very well during the current financial crisis.

Try telling that to the people of South Africa, where eighty per cent of the world’s platinum comes from.

Policemen fired at protesters yesterday who were demanding a better wage from the British-owned Lonmin platinum producer.

They were asking for the equivalent of a thousand pounds a month from a company who will no doubt continue to profit from the rise in the value of platinum, despite the value of its own stock taking a dive as a result of the protests that have engulfed all of South Africa’s mines recently.

The images of the dead bodies reminded many observers of the days of apartheid.

Well, there is a difference – under apartheid an efficient white elite ran a system that benefitted the whites at the expense of the blacks.

Today’s black elite is corrupt and inefficient and has resulted in large numbers of whites joining the already poverty-stricken blacks at the bottom.

All the while, South Africa has continued to prosper as a powerhouse of Africa.

Jacob Zuma has cut short his holiday to visit the mine where 34 people were killed.

Perhaps, he should forget about holidays and start listening to what black people are saying on the street – that life under apartheid was better than the one secured through freedom.

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Gore Vidal is dead

01 Wednesday Aug 2012

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Gore Vidal, the brilliant writer famed for his acerbic wit and often sharp political views, has died at the age of 86. He died at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening, his family has confirmed. The cause of his death is believed to be complications from pneumonia.

Gore Vidal wrote 25 novels –  including the best-selling Burr and Myra Breckenridge.

He also wrote more than 200 essays and several plays.

He ran for political office twice.

His circle of friends included Tennessee Williams, Orson Welles and Frank Sinatra. He was also closely linked to the Kennedy family, becoming a confidant of Jackie Kennedy, who was his stepsister. Vidal ran for a seat in Congress in 1960 and again in 1982, but lost both times.

He was deeply critical of George Bush’s administration and in 2008 said of the 2003 war on Iraq:

‘You can see little Bush all along was just dreaming of war, and also Cheney dreaming about oil wells and how you knock apart a country like Iraq and of course their oil will pay for the damage you do. For that alone, he should have been put in front of a firing squad… They – Cheney, Bush – they wanted the war. They’re oilmen. They want a war to get more oil. They’re also extraordinarily stupid. These people don’t know anything about anything.’

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