This Rush To Bloodshed Is As Embarrassing As It Is Dangerous

Was Jill Dando Murdered Because She Knew About A Paedophile Ring?
Murdered television presenter Jill Dando tried to alert her bosses to a paedophile ring at the BBC ­involving “big name” stars, claims a former colleague.
The friend and retired BBC worker said the late Crimewatch host was told DJs, celebrities and other staff were involved in organised abuse.
But the anonymous source says “no one wanted to know” when Miss Dando raised concerns about the alleged ring and other sexual abuse claims at the BBC.
She is said to have passed a file to senior management in the mid-1990s, but they never carried out an investigation.
The 37-year-old TV presenter was shot dead on April 26, 1999, on the doorstep of her home in west London.
The crime remains unsolved.
The source said: “I don’t recall the names of all the stars now and don’t want to implicate anyone, but Jill said they were surprisingly big names.
I think she was quite shocked when told about images of children and that information on how to join this horrible paedophile ring was freely available.
Jill said others had complained to her about sexual matters and that some female workmates also claimed they had been groped or assaulted.
Nothing had been done and there seemed to be a policy of turning a blind eye.”
The former colleague said female BBC staff confided in Jill, one of the best-known TV faces of the day after fronting primetime shows including Holiday and the Six O’Clock News as well as Crimewatch.
The source said: “I think it was in the mid-1990s. She was seen as the face of the BBC and a magnet for women with problems.”
Miss Dando compiled a file of complaints but was a television presenter and “not really an investigative journalist”, the source said.
“She passed the information on to someone else and they gave it back. No one wanted to know. I do remember that she gave a file to senior management. I don’t think she heard any more. Other women who complained told Jill they didn’t want to risk their careers by making official statements against individuals as they would lose their jobs and that bosses seemed to ignore it.”
A BBC spokesman said they would always investigate any allegations of this nature, but added: “We’ve not seen anything that substantiates these claims.”
( John Carr, 21.07.2014 )

The United Nations Condemns Israel’s Attack On Sleeping Children In School Building.
United Nations officials described the killing of sleeping children as a disgrace to the world and accused Israel of a serious violation of international law after a school in Gaza being used to shelter Palestinian families was shelled.
At least 15 people, mostly children and women, died when the school in Jabaliya refugee camp was hit by five shells during a night of relentless bombardment across Gaza.
More than 100 people were injured.
The UN said its officials had repeatedly given details of the school and its refugee population to Israel.

At the UN school the first shell came just after the early morning call to prayer, when most of those taking shelter were asleep, crammed into classrooms with what few possessions they had managed to snatch as they fled their homes.
About 3,300 people had squashed into Jabaliya Elementary A&B Girls’ School since the Israeli military warned people to leave their homes and neighbourhoods or risk death under intense bombardment.
Classroom number one, near the school’s entrance, had become home to about 40 people, mostly women and children.
The shell blasted through the wall, showering occupants with shrapnel and spattering blood on walls and floors.

Palestinians fled their homes after Israel warned that failure to do so would put their lives at risk.
Those at the Jabaliya school were among more than 200,000 who have sought shelter at UN premises in the belief that families would be safe.
Analysis of evidence gathered at the site by UNRWA led to an initial assessment that Israeli artillery had hit the school, causing “multiple civilian deaths and injuries including of women and children and the UNRWA guard who was trying to protect the site. These are people who were instructed to leave their homes by the Israeli army.”
( The Guardian, 31.07.2014 )  ..  theguardian.com

Cluster Bombs Used By Ukraine Kill Red Cross Employee.
A report drawn up by the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), based on interviews with witnesses and physical evidence, claims that cluster bombs have been used against the civilian population of Donetsk.
Use of this weapon is banned in 114 countries but not in Ukraine, Russia and the US, which did not sign the agreement banning its use in 2008.
According to information published on October 20, 2014 in the New York Times, which cites the aforementioned report, the Ukrainian army made ‘widespread use of cluster munitions in fighting in more than a dozen urban and rural locations’.
Human Rights Watch also claims that ‘evidence points to Ukrainian Government forces’ responsibility for several cluster munition attacks on Donetsk’, while also confirming that the International Red Cross employee killed on October 2, 2014 died as a result of being hit by cluster-bomb fragments.
Source:  europarl.europa.eu

This Is Not A Christian Country Any More.
Actually, I suspect the Prime Minister knows this quite well, as he and his Nasty Party have never done anything to defend the national religion from its attackers.
Then there’s the problem of his children’s education.
His well-publicised attendance at a London church miles from his home has helped him and one of his senior colleagues to insert their young into one of the best primary schools in England.
Too bad for any children of poor Christian parents who couldn’t get in because the school is crammed with Tory infants.
Of course Mr Cameron could afford a private school, but since the Tory Party was taken over by left-wingers, its leaders, like Labour’s, have to pretend to love the state system.
Both parties have kicked Christianity when it was down.
Their joint support for easy divorce effectively cancelled the Church of England’s marriage oath, in which husband and wife swore to remain together for life.
Their joint backing for abortion on demand undid one of the greatest advances made by Christian civilisation, which ended the pagan practise of murdering unwanted children.
They quietly allowed the teaching of Christianity as the national religion to disappear (illegally) from hundreds of state schools.
Religion is now taught as a sort of oddity which other people do, and which you can laugh at provided they are not Muslims, who must be treated with respect in case they get angry.
Pupils are now ignorant of the faith that formed their nation, but are force-fed green propaganda, and dangerously bad advice about sex and drugs.
But for now, until the church is turned into a mosque or a bar, the faith schools are still jolly good, if you can wangle your sons and daughters into them.
( Peter Hitchens, 27.04.2014 )

Israelis Are Taking To Social Media Calling For A Higher Body Count In Gaza.
Israel’s latest assault on the Gaza Strip has been accompanied by yet another sharp increase in incitement against Palestinians and solidarity activists on social media outlets, such as Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook groups have been set up to call for the collective punishment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Others host incitement against Palestinian students at Israeli universities, including posting pictures of and personal information about individual students.

There have been no Israeli deaths as a result of rockets fired by Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza, though much of the mainstream media have focused on the impact of rocket fire on Israel rather than the staggering death toll in the Gaza Strip.
As Israel’s latest military offensive enters its sixth day, the Ministry of Health in Gaza reports that 170 Palestinians have been killed and more than 1,000 injured.
Four thousand civilians in eight UNRWA schools are fleeing the heavy bombardment in the north.

During Israel’s Operation Cast Lead (December 2008-January 2009), more than 50,000 Palestinians took shelter in UNRWA installations across the Gaza Strip as Israel’s bombs destroyed buildings and homes.
The main office of UNRWA was directly struck and the main warehouse was burned to the ground after Israeli military forces fired white phosphorous.
Approximately 1,400 Palestinians were killed by Israel’s military during the three-week long military assault.
Meanwhile, Israelis are taking to social media to call for a yet higher body count in Gaza.
( Patrick Strickland, 13.07.2014 )  ..  electronicintifada.net

Russia Has Been Subsidising The Ukrainian Economy To The Tune Of Several Billion Dollars Each Year.
The European Union is trying to bring Ukraine into the West without reference to economic reality or the willingness of European publics to bear the enormous costs involved, and at a time when the EU itself is in deepening crisis.
Russia is suffering badly as a result of Western economic sanctions – but Ukraine’s situation is far worse, with a predicted fall in GDP of 7% this year.
If this decline continues, the Ukrainian state will face collapse.
Throughout the 23 years since the end of the Soviet Union, too many members of the Western media and policy worlds have ignored or misrepresented key aspects of the Ukrainian-Russian economic relationship.
This allowed them in turn to ignore crucial features of the economic balance of power in Ukraine between Russia and the West.
In their zeal to denounce Russia for putting pressure on Ukraine over gas supplies, Western commentators usually neglected to mention that, through cheap gas and lenient payment terms, Russia was in fact subsidising the Ukrainian economy to the tune of several billion dollars each year – many times the total of Western aid during this period.
This allowed the same commentators not to address the obvious question of whether Western states would be willing to pay these billions in order to take Ukraine out of Russia’s sphere of influence and into that of the West.
Russia has also been responsible for preserving much of the Ukrainian economy.
Russia remains Ukraine’s largest partner, with trade in 2013 exceeding that with the whole of the EU.
( Anatol Lieven, 04.12.2014 )  ..  bbc.co.uk

Police Ignore Child Sex Abuse.
A senior police officer who warned that vulnerable children were being sexually groomed says she was ignored because her bosses were more interested in fighting car theft.
Detective Inspector Meriel Buglass, who headed a unit dealing with sex offences, claimed her superiors failed to act on her findings for eight months, during which girls continued to be abused.
Ms Buglass blames the ‘target driven culture’ that existed at Greater Manchester Police.
To meet performance targets, she says officers were urged to concentrate on ‘acquisitive’ crimes rather than sexual offences.
Details of how white children were groomed for sex by predominantly Asian gangs in Rochdale were included in a report Ms Buglass submitted in April 2010, which included a desperate plea for more resources.
Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk said, “The scandal of how police and other agencies failed children being raped on an industrial scale is getting worse every week. Police leadership have completely lost touch with ordinary people’s values.”.
Ms Buglass, who ran Rochdale Police’s public protection unit, collated intelligence from many sources and sent her report to her superiors, who reported to Assistant Chief Constable Terry Sweeney.
The day after she submitted the report, she had a meeting with Superintendent Martin Greenhalgh.
But when she raised the subject, she claims he used words to the effect of, “If I choose to investigate it, we will.”.
Ms Buglass claims she was told to concentrate on domestic violence because the crime ‘featured on performance targets’.
( Paul Cahalan and Ian Gallagher, The Mail on Sunday, 14.09.2014 )

Israeli Forces Accused Of Sexually Abusing Palestinian Children.
At least 600 Palestinian children were arrested in Jerusalem since June 2013.
Of these chlidren, nearly 40% were reportedly exposed to sexual abuse during arrest or investigation by the Israeli authorities, according to a report by the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS).
The PPS says that the daily arrest campaigns constitute a collective punishment against Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.
Attorney with the PPS, Mufeed al-Haj, said that other violations were reported during the apprehension of children, including but not limited to night and predawn raids on family homes, physical and sexual abuse.
( IMEMC News, 21.11.2014 )  ..  imemc.org

This Rush To Bloodshed Is As Embarrassing As It Is Dangerous.
Why are we always the first country to be so outraged at a foreign situation that we want war?
Why is the British Prime Minister announcing (via Twitter) that he will be seeking approval from the UN to start bombing Damascus?
How many other parliaments are being recalled today to debate intervention in a far-off, religious civil war?
Are they doing it in Australia, Germany, Russia, Sweden or Mexico?
No. Just London – despite the fact that we have no historical or cultural ties with Syria and it offers no discernible threat to our security.
Ah, but it’s in our national interests, say the politicians.
That’s despite a poll showing that only 9% of us are interested in entering another un-winnable conflict.
Unlike those Oxbridge graduate Westminster advisors telling their political paymasters how “being decisive” could play well for them with the voters.
The only interests (apart from arms and coffin suppliers) that another Middle East war suits are politicians like Cameron and William Hague.
Well, they’d finally be recognised on a global scale wouldn’t they?
Which didn’t do Tony Blair’s retirement pot any harm.
For the rest of us this rush to bloodshed is as embarrassing as it is dangerous.
( Brian Reade, 29.08.2013 )

The Prison System Is In Chaos After Government Cut Prison Officer Numbers By 41%.
The number of officers at public-sector prisons in England and Wales has been cut by 41% in less than four years, figures obtained by the Howard League for Penal Reform reveal.
Research published by the charity shows that there were only 14,170 officer grade staff working in prisons run by the state at the end of June 2014.
There were more than 24,000 at the end of August 2010.
Cuts include 1,375 officer posts that were lost when 15 public-sector prisons were closed during the period.
The drop in officer numbers nationwide has coincided with a deepening prison overcrowding crisis and an alarming rise in the number of self-inflicted deaths in custody.

Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said:
“The prison system is in crisis, and these figures reveal why. While the prison population has grown, officer numbers have been cut without any thought for the consequences. A shortage of governors makes matters even worse, because officers are being taken off the wings and asked to ‘act up’ to fill vacancies. Having made prison officers redundant, the Ministry of Justice is now apparently struggling to recruit. These are desperate times, and ministers are resorting to desperate measures.”

In July 2014, the Howard League warned that prisons were at breaking point as it revealed figures showing officer numbers had been cut in all prisons – public and private – by 30% in three years.
The charity’s findings were supported by the Prison Governors’ Association and the prison officers’ union, the POA, who urged the government to act.
Since then, the damaging impact of staff cuts has been highlighted in a series of inspection reports published by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons.
Safety concerns were raised in reports on Ranby, Glen Parva, Hindley, Isis, Wormwood Scrubs, and Swaleside prisons.
Today’s figures show how staffing levels are getting worse, not better, and how public-sector prisons have borne the brunt of the cuts.
( Howard League For Penal Reform, 20.10.2014 )  ..  howardleague.org

Muslim Activists Taking Over Schools.
I am puzzled by the fuss over Muslim activists taking over schools.
You might as well deal with a burst pipe by changing into dry socks and shoes, and walking straight back into the water.
Muslims, many of them very serious and devout, now live in this country in large numbers.
They do so because our elite for years pursued a liberal policy of wide-open borders.
Among those who support this policy are the very same neo-conservative types (also keen warmongers, seldom happier than when Western bombs are falling on Muslim cities) who now shout and squawk about Islamists taking over schools.
They are having it both ways.
If we hadn’t wanted Islam to flourish in this country, we shouldn’t have encouraged Muslims to live here.
Now we have done so, we are just going to have to get used to it.
( Peter Hitchens, 20.04.2014 )

Human Rights Watch Accuse Ukraine Government Of Using Indiscriminate Rockets Near Populated Areas.
Unguided Grad rockets launched apparently by Ukrainian government forces and pro-government militias have killed at least 16 civilians and wounded many more in insurgent-controlled areas of Donetsk and its suburbs in at least four attacks between July 12 and 21, 2014, Human Rights Watch said.
The use of indiscriminate rockets in populated areas violates international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, and may amount to war crimes.

Grads are unguided rockets that cannot be targeted accurately, and are often fired in salvos from multi-barrel rocket launchers to saturate a wide area.
Human Rights Watch called on all parties to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, particularly Ukrainian government forces, to stop using Grad rockets in or near populated areas because of the likelihood of killing and wounding civilians.
Insurgent forces should minimise the risk to civilians under their control by avoiding deploying forces and weapons in densely populated areas.

Although Ukrainian government officials and the press service of the National Guard have denied using Grad rockets in Donetsk, a Human Rights Watch investigation on the ground strongly indicates that Ukrainian government forces were responsible for the attacks that occurred between July 12 and 21, 2014.
( Human Rights Watch, 24.07.2014 )  ..  hrw.org

We Cannot Say We Have Not Been Warned.
The current campaign of violence being waged by Islamic fundamentalists around the world is a toxic phenomenon fed by increased personal mobility, the rapid improvement in communications and a grotesquely distorted view of history.
It threatens both Muslim and non-Muslim states alike, and eats away at equality, democracy and pluralism.
It is a blasphemous interpretation of Islam which sanctions the killing of citizens of all nations and religions.
From Bali to Madrid to Manhattan, it is probably the world’s first truly global terror phenomenon and will require prolonged international co-operation to contain or defeat it.
Fundamentalist Muslims define themselves as different (and better) than their co-religionists, who are then labelled unbelievers and thereby targeted for conversion or death.
They pit moderate against extremist and Sunni against Shia – a truly dangerous ideological divide and a key element in the Syrian tragedy.
They then look outwards and divide the world into two – the land of Islam (dar al-Islam) and the land of war (dar al-Harb), which ultimately, of course, needs to be subjugated or destroyed.
Today, groups influenced by these ideas have a growing global presence and include Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, some Chechen and Uzbek groupings, and Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia.
These groups attempt to subvert moderate Muslim states and have become adept at using the legal systems and liberal sensitivities of the West to give themselves maximum room to manoeuvre.
We cannot say we have not been warned.
( Liam Fox, 08.09.2013 )

It Is What Doesn’t Shock Us That Is Now So Shocking.
Not all that long ago, news that aborted babies were being burned in furnaces to heat hospitals would have caused a major national storm.
But in our callous, distracted and unimaginative society, it passed by like a momentary gust of cold wind on a warm day, faintly disturbing but swiftly forgotten.
What has happened to us that we no longer really care, either about the massacre of the innocents that goes on day and night in our midst, or about the disposal of human remains as if they were rubbish?
Lots of people must have known, and found it convenient.
But the campaigners for the killing of unborn babies are proud and assertive.
Their horrid deeds are, to them, a ‘right’ and a ‘choice’.
None of this evil drivel could even be expressed if we admitted the babies involved were fellow humans.
But that’s the key to the whole thing.
Whoever sets out to destroy any class of humanity will always begin by claiming that his victims aren’t really human.
Every time you hear an unborn baby described as a ‘foetus’, you’ll see this in action.
The cold, rather contemptuous Latin word robs the baby of its humanity.
The lie has to be sustained by hiding the truth.
British TV will show almost any act of violence, but it is hugely reluctant to screen pictures of what an aborted baby actually looks like.
If it did so, everyone would know what the words ‘foetus’ and ‘termination’ really meant.
But we have now pretended so hard and so long that it isn’t so, that people, who no doubt viewed themselves as kind and decent, were able to shovel violently abused human remains into a furnace, and then go home happy.
( Peter Hitchens, 30.03.2014 )