How much is it costing us to protect a genocidal state? "… British forces are ready to act against Houthi rebels that target cargo ships in the Red Sea." Grant Shapps "said the UK was 'willing to take direct action' to protect the key shipping lane."https://t.co/zhJWxAEKnI
🇺🇦 In Kyiv, they announced the destruction of more than half of the city’s energy infrastructure in a year
The Kyiv authorities decided to take stock of the outgoing year 2023 and announced the destruction of 63% of energy infrastructure facilities by the Russian army.
I remember visiting the UN Centre in Vienna sometime in the mid-1980s; cannot recall exact year now. I knew someone who was doing some temporary work there. I spent a couple of hours in the Centre. Various impressions, but my overall impression (of what — admittedly little— I saw) was that the place was a huge waste of space (and money). What is it for?
There is a daily tour for visitors but I did not experience it (because I was not a “tourist” visitor officially, though really I was).
“They” have control of the strategic or key areas of public life in the USA— the politicians, the mass media (especially TV), the film industry, the legal milieu (in the states that matter most: California, New York etc), publishing.
I believe I read somewhere, years ago, that Israelis are often cruel to donkeys, which are such gentle animals, so ready to be friendly with humans. It is true that donkeys are over-worked and abused in other countries too, including Arab countries, Pakistan etc.
The Jew settlers in Israel/Palestine (often from the USA) are horrible, though, fully displaying the malice for which “they” have always been well-known.
In the village of Al-Jab'ah, Hebron District. A Palestinian oldman in tears after Israeli settlers cut down his 300 olive trees and order him to vacate from his own farm. Why do Israelis hate Palestinians this much? Why do they do such inhumane, indescribable and unthinkable… pic.twitter.com/vaFQWPlkQy
The moment the Yaara barracks in the Western Galilee was targeted, which led to 5 casualties among the ranks of the Israeli army. pic.twitter.com/e1OU8i4jEU
Ukraine is just a tool in the hands of the collective West, which is using it to fight against Russia, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. He stated this at the military hospital in Moscow where he met with Russian soldiers wounded… pic.twitter.com/eKFO3asiup
Hard to believe, but there it is: “normal” life, or a semblance of it, despite the fact that that area, 2-3 miles north of Gaza City, has been attacked heavily from the air for two months, and despite the fact that heavy ground fighting has occurred recently at Beit Hanoun, only a mile or so away.
Reuters:
A US official said: Israel's decision to withdraw some of its forces from the Gaza Strip is the beginning of a gradual shift, indicating a slowdown in the pace of operations in the northern Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/FODK46dwmP
So Vallance has morphed from being a “Covid” scaremaster and “vaccine” cheerleader to being a “climate change”/”net zero” propagandist. That fits, as one would expect. I wonder what he thinks about “Black Lives Matter”, Ukraine etc.
Yes, wake up, English “conservative nationalists”! The Indians are not your allies, any more than are the Pakistanis; incidentally, neither are the Jews and/or Israel. Don’t be fooled.
😡Jeezo do they not understand main reason for bankers bonus cap was to reduce excessive risk-taking. We need a steady ship in these stormy times Instead weve got a bunch of anarchic ideological psychopaths loading the ship with dynamite and sailing us towards a firework display https://t.co/VJ6FFAlA8i
So speaketh the “Levelling Up Secretary” and, prior to that (incredibly), Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
When you look at the pack of cretins now running this unbelievable bad joke of a government, you realize anew how truly unfit for purpose our political system has become.
💬 President #Putin: No one will ever be able to ban or cancel our unique civilisation and Russia's rich culture, just as it is impossible to rattle or even less so to destroy the values that make Russian society one and make us one big, united nation. pic.twitter.com/M9eziboKNW
💬 FM Lavrov's interview with the @Newsweek magazine
❗️ Washington is not interested in establishing peace and tranquillity in Ukraine. That became clear already in March, when Moscow and Kiev came close to reaching mutual agreements.
The UN Centre in Vienna (actually on the edge of the city) is an odd place; at least that was my impression when I saw it in the mid-1980s. A concrete fortress or “island” (not literally, though actually on a large island in the Danube), set in quite a green area between the old Vienna and a newer section.
I used to swim, almost every day during my visit, at the not-far-away Alte Donau Strandbad, a closed-off section of the Danube that is either an “oxbow lake” or an artificial version of one. Superb place. Clean river water, a green park, properly-run facilities for changing etc and, best of all, few people. I was there on weekdays, when even in high summer the bulk of the hardworking population were at their jobs.
You cannot just wander into that UN Centre. Even in those days you had to have a pass issued by the security kiosk there. I did not have to get a tourist pass because someone I knew who worked there got me a different kind of visitor pass. The difference was that tourists get a guided tour, whereas I was fairly free to wander around.
A large collection of buildings.
I remember trying to get a sense of what is quite a confusing set-up. I remember seeing a noticeboard with ads for various kinds of local staff. The rates of pay, as far as I could see, were far better than the same people would get in Vienna itself, and were of course not taxable (UN employees do not pay national income tax but only a kind of UN tax, which is far lower).
Another thing that struck me was the Commissary, which no doubt had its origins in the immediately postwar 1940s days when almost everything was unobtainable, but what is odd about that is that the UN Centre in Vienna was established only in 1980, a mere few years before I visited! So a mystery. Maybe there was an earlier, smaller mission.
That Commissary, about the size of a medium-level convenience store, sold duty-free food and drink (including booze) to anyone who was a UN employee or, I think, accredited diplomat. A strange “boondoggle”, in the American phrase. I noticed (I think on a Friday), a couple of (from their stature and looks) East African women, buying Scotch.
[UN Centre, Vienna]
[Alte Donau from the air; UN Centre in distance]
[Alte Donau, Vienna; when I swam there, far fewer people were around]
Not sure I would call them “happy days”, but not very unhappy, anyway.
Comparison
The Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation is Sergei Lavrov.
Now let us examine his present opposite number in the UK, James Cleverly, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs.
[James Cleverly]
Cleverly, a “half-caste” (in the old term), with a British father and a mother from Sierra Leone, seems to have wanted an Army career.
According to Wikipedia, Cleverly “trained in the Army“, whatever that may mean (no detail of whether he was training to be an officer or as an enlisted soldier, presumably the latter, nor of where he trained, nor in what regiment or corps), but suffered a leg injury in 1989 and had to drop out. He would have been 19 or 20 at that time.
Cleverly was involved, not terribly successfully (one can surmise) in business and executive activities during the years up to about 2008, but by then was involved in two side-activities which proved more fruitful for him— politics, and the then Territorial Army (now, Reserves).
Cleverly’s leg injury had obviously been resolved by the time he was commissioned in the TA as 2nd lieutenant in 1991. He stuck at that for the following 14 years, reaching the rank of Lt. Col by 2015.
In politics, Cleverly was a London Assembly member for 8 years from 2007. Cleverly then benefited from the scandal around the ineffectual Jew sex pest and pervert Brooks Newmark, who had to stand down as MP for Braintree (Essex). Cleverly replaced Newmark.
Cleverly’s time as MP has not been distinguished, but the upheavals within the Conservative Party led to him being appointed as a Minister of State in 2020 and now, under Liz Truss, as Secretary of State. His appointment dates from 6 September 2022, about two weeks ago.
Well, there it is. Sergei Lavrov’s background, languages, and 18 years of experience (and many successes) in post, as against James Cleverly’s background, lack of success (other than in narrow career terms), two years of arguably relevant experience, and time in post as Secretary of State five minutes (putting it flippantly).
It will be recalled that when (also absurdly) Liz Truss was Foreign Secretary, Lavrov easily made a fool of her, inducing her to say that quite well-known cities in Russia should be given “back” to Ukraine (the stupid woman had no idea that they never had been part of Ukraine; one was not far from Moscow).
Liz Truss was an embarrassment as Foreign Secretary; she is just ludicrous as Prime Minister. Now someone even less educated is Foreign Secretary. This country is screwed.
Sergei Lavrov will win no plaudits for his kindly good nature, but on whom would you bet your money?
Late afternoon music
[“The Golden Wheat”]
More tweets
Excess deaths: Nearly 90,000 more people died at home from non-Covid causes during the pandemic. We need some answers as to why this has happened.
While it may seem cruel to mock someone who, quite obviously, is not always compos mentis, that person, Biden, heads the most powerful country on Earth, with enough nuclear weaponry to send us all permanently into orbit. It is all very well to say that he is not really in charge, but that simply raises the question, “who is?” or “what cabal is?“, and what is the real agenda?
1/2 .@alastairromanes. So 30 years of NATO expansion, of arming & equipping Ukraine,of billions spent on 'civil society' orgs, culminating in the violent overthrow of Ukraine's legit government because it woudln't align with the West, neither affected events nor were intended to? https://t.co/QfOe1GQZ65
2/2 .@alastairromanes And pouring in military equipment, real-time intel, ammunition and (I think we may confidently say ) 'advice', since February has not in any way lengthened or sustained the war? Golly. Cause and effect must have changed a lot since I were a lad. https://t.co/QfOe1GQZ65
It can use its diplomatic heft to begin peace talks. Ukraine's government, probably the only body which might now oppose seeking peace, would not get far in opposing such a move. @GaryFlo29335543https://t.co/ChUniwCIfB
Ian Robert Millard 