ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ

Cnnot get your program. Do appreciate your dao;u "Newsnight"

Iran wants nuclear material.
I say give it to 'em.

You are wondering why the helicopter from HMS Cornwall did not remain on station throughout the boarding of the merchant ship. It couldn't. The Lynx helicopter is restricted to 40 minutes flying time in the conditions found in the Gulf due to problems with its titanium rotor head. No way are the Navy going to risk losing an airframe when they have so few in theatre. It was the same in 1991, and cannot change until the Navy's re-equipping with the new EH101 Merlin is completed. Until then we keep on 'blagging' it.

Tonight I tried watching Newsnight for the first time in months. I switched on as your interviewer was showing his ignorance towards the end of the paedophile item. After an advert for tomorrow's progamme, which contained a few swearwords, then an advert for what was coming on the programme later, I switched off. If you're going to cater for cretinous halfwits with an attention span of seconds you're wasting your time and the licence payers money.

Concerning the debate of souldiers offering thier stories to the press:

I think the one thing we have forgoten in this whole argument is that in Iran, the people will know nothing about the details of this insident other than what thier governmant has decided they will know.
However in the UK we are now being allowed to here the real story from the individuals that suffered the treatment that the rest of us would fear so much.
Yes I agree that the Iranian government appears to have won the political and madea battle in this subject. However this is only because the only people that they are trying to win the battle with will never hear what the captives have to say, (IE the iranian people).

The only reason that we are having this argument in Britain is because we are democratic and we all can have a say.
Lets not run ourselves down. The rest of the world is 'oh so' capable of doing that.

We know what the truth is and realy there is no battle!!!!

Nick Sarahs

Britain says the ship was in Iraqi waters. Iran claims it was in Iranian waters. Who do the world believe?

25 years ago, during the Falklands campaign, only the Spanish media believed the Argentine fiction. Now most of the World shrug and say we don't know who to believe.

Has Labour's spin finally caught up with it?

I was intrested in the programme on Iran .
Would the 15 British sailors been allowed even if they had of wanted to tell their stories according to Iranians accounts of their detention.

It is highly not to diplomatic for the Iranians to be talking about wiping Israel of the face of the Earth .
What about Palestine is it not a nation been effectively wiped of the faceof the Earth and one has to look at this from that angle Irans view .
I think for a long time Muslims suffered so much in their Good Friday but Easter Sunday is beginning to dawn that so many Muslims will see the followers of Jesus address the problems that are so well known

Iran has seen how Hisbollah has been able to counter attacks into Lebanon and that does give Iran alot of confidence should their be attack and could the US turn of Anti American resentment and retalation and the Iranians see that the British and Americans them to establish peace in Iraq .

The Iranians could go to UN Security council and drive a wedge in the international community and say we will not be told by Nation that we cannnot have peaceful nuclear programme but we are prepared to request China, Russians , India, Maybe Pakistan couple mid East countries to provide inspectors and that would leave Iran in the moral high ground against the UK,US, and Israel but it would be the difference in peace and war noone wants war I thinkthe Americans and British seen enough to do them with out making a bad situation in Iraq into a world disaster should they attack 600,000 square miles in Iran

I was intrested in the programme on Iran .
Would the 15 British sailors been allowed even if they had of wanted to tell their stories according to Iranians accounts of their detention.

It is highly not to diplomatic for the Iranians to be talking about wiping Israel of the face of the Earth .
What about Palestine is it not a nation been effectively wiped of the faceof the Earth and one has to look at this from that angle Irans view .
I think for a long time Muslims suffered so much in their Good Friday but Easter Sunday is beginning to dawn that so many Muslims will see the followers of Jesus address the problems that are so well known

Iran has seen how Hisbollah has been able to counter attacks into Lebanon and that does give Iran alot of confidence should their be attack and could the US turn of Anti American resentment and retalation and the Iranians see that the British and Americans them to establish peace in Iraq .

The Iranians could go to UN Security council and drive a wedge in the international community and say we will not be told by Nation that we cannnot have peaceful nuclear programme but we are prepared to request China, Russians , India, Maybe Pakistan couple mid East countries to provide inspectors and that would leave Iran in the moral high ground against the UK,US, and Israel but it would be the difference in peace and war noone wants war I thinkthe Americans and British seen enough to do them with out making a bad situation in Iraq into a world disaster should they attack 600,000 square miles in Iran

So Thailand is breaking patents on a number of drugs, if this spreads eventually what will happen is the major pharmaceutical companies will simply say " Why should we spend the money developing new drugs." If they all announced that no more research would be done on anti-virals, HIV or antibiotics, just watch the panic from politicians, because as resistance to the older drugs grows, the death count will rise very rapidly.

I was intrested in the programme on Iran .
Would the 15 British sailors been allowed even if they had of wanted to tell their stories according to Iranians accounts of their detention.

It is highly not to diplomatic for the Iranians to be talking about wiping Israel of the face of the Earth .
What about Palestine is it not a nation been effectively wiped of the faceof the Earth and one has to look at this from that angle Irans view .
I think for a long time Muslims suffered so much in their Good Friday but Easter Sunday is beginning to dawn that so many Muslims will see the followers of Jesus address the problems that are so well known

Iran has seen how Hisbollah has been able to counter attacks into Lebanon and that does give Iran alot of confidence should their be attack and could the US turn of Anti American resentment and retalation and the Iranians see that the British and Americans need them to establish peace in Iraq .

The Iranians could go to UN Security council and drive a wedge in the international community and say we will not be told by Nation that we cannnot have peaceful nuclear programme but we are prepared to request China, Russians , India, Maybe Pakistan couple mid East countries to provide inspectors and that would leave Iran in the moral high ground against the UK,US, and Israel but it would be the difference in peace and war noone wants war I thinkthe Americans and British seen enough to do them with out making a bad situation in Iraq into a world disaster should they attack 600,000 square miles in Iran

To his shame,Liam Fox repeated the western distortion about Iran when he said President Ahmedinejad "wants to wipe Israel off the map." President Ahmedinejad wants, like anyone with a sense of justice, to see an end to the racist, apartheid State of Israel, which is a rather different thing. Fox deliberately confused anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.They are not the same thing. The president held a conference to bring world scholars together to discuss the Holocaust - he did not deny the Holocaust.
Fox asks,"in the light of them (Iran)taking 15 hostages,can we trust such people with a nuclear weapon?" Iran has treated its detainees more humanely than the Americans have treated their detain ees at Guatanamo Bay. Can we trust Bush with his vast arsenal of nuclear weapons? Likewise Israel, with the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East: Israel refuses to accept the State of Palestine,detains thousands of Palestinians( including children) without trial, systematically tortures detainees,regularly bombs civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza, mercilessly bombed the Lebanese people last summer -can we trust them with nuclear weapons? Why does Fox have one set of principles for Iran and quite another for USA, UK and Israel?

To his shame,Liam Fox repeated the western distortion about Iran when he said President Ahmedinejad "wants to wipe Israel off the map." President Ahmedinejad wants, like anyone with a sense of justice, to see an end to the racist, apartheid State of Israel, which is a rather different thing. Fox deliberately confused anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.They are not the same thing. The president held a conference to bring world scholars together to discuss the Holocaust - he did not deny the Holocaust.
Fox asks,"in the light of them (Iran)taking 15 hostages,can we trust such people with a nuclear weapon?" Iran has treated its detainees more humanely than the Americans have treated their detain ees at Guatanamo Bay. Can we trust Bush with his vast arsenal of nuclear weapons? Likewise Israel, with the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East: Israel refuses to accept the State of Palestine,detains thousands of Palestinians( including children) without trial, systematically tortures detainees,regularly bombs civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza, mercilessly bombed the Lebanese people last summer -can we trust them with nuclear weapons? Why does Fox have one set of principles for Iran and quite another for USA, UK and Israel?

Grief! I'm a fan of Newsnight, no really, I am, but bloody hell!

The tabloids took the interesting story from you, so you concentrate on building the minor point of whether the sailors should get paid for their stories into something - anything about the affair you can talk about. Sorry, most people could care less, it's just another thing only the 'Westminster village' is interested in.

I despair at, so called, serious journalists who don't do any research before they start asking questions. I laughed out loud when Prescot took John Sopel apart on the Polotics show and Paxos drubbing by the American writer who refused to acknowledge his sarcasm, but tonight Gavin Estler just came across as an ignorant twit on the 'Sarahs law' piece.

Why the hell does the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ news dept. feel the need to compete in making news entertaining? Why not try something radical and just give us a balanced presentation of the facts?

Why not be the one news source we can go to for the unvarnished truth, intead of Humphreys and Paxman (and their endless imitators) playing semantics in the hunt for headlines?

Stop trying to 'make the news' and just present it.

I am one of the millions of Iranians who are deeply concerned with the government’s provocative announcement yesterday. But I am also utterly astonished to hear John Bolton’s remarks about a β€˜regime change’ in Iran. What does this statement supposed to mean, exactly? Making an Iraq of Iran?

However unhappy we Iranians might be with the current regime, we are not having American Army’s golden touch! who traditionally leave a wasteland of a country in their wake.

And how is Iran going to β€˜wipe’ Israel off the map – exactly? That is a small land shared by the Palestinians too. Are Palestinians going to live in the β€˜dirty’ wasteland left after a nuclear attack? Are they going to survive it? And with the international community already turned against Iran, how could Iran possibly survive such an attempt before actually being destroyed by a dozen of other countries?

What is this narcissistic paranoia with the Western Media. We all know the 45 minutes WMD scandal; what gives Mr Bolton a right to decide for another nation’s form of government? Iran has never actually β€˜started’ a war in the last century. America and Europe (repeatedly) have. And America has used nuclear weapons - not once, but twice! Whose record is worse? American Army has always made sure the target country goes back to the β€˜Stone Age’ so it can’t retaliate. They’d promised to turn Iraq to Stone Age and they did. But now it truns out, Iran is the dangerous, worrying threat!

Now please don’t give me a pile of ready-made answers articulated by the brainwashed media consumer here; the media and the press are shouting 24/7 how very very very dangerous Iran really is!

American and Israeli Ammunition Industry will actually make profit by using thousands of tons of bombs used to flatten the southern Iran. So John Bolton is not that crazy then, after all.

The sheer shallowness of some of the comments these politicians make really intrigues me.

And just a technical point to Newsnight: The fearsome, strange, slightly schizophrenic piece of music that you play before showing a track on Iran does not in any way represent Iran or its culture and music! Where did you get that from? Please try a bit harder next time.

Dear Newsnight

Just caught the end of the programme tonight and the youtube feature but was a bit puzzled. why did the interview with the internet video person from America consist of a still photograph and a phone interview and wasn’t fast streamed?

mmmmmmmmmmm

general point about Iran and the nuclear issue. I heard someone ask what would happen if the Pakistan leader is overthrown by extremists as might happen who would then have access to an arsenal of nuclear bombs plus missiles.

Has the West allowed this situation to develop and could this be a very serious (another one) miscalculation?

Perhaps our countries should introduce a law banning cowards who have refused to serve their country in time of war from holding high office

Yours
Bob Goodall

No profit, no drugs. Why do you think so many diseases remain untreatable in poorer countries! If patents are threatened then so will your health in the long run.

Paedophiles....we are totally motivated to get rid of everyone like it... we wish someone would do the politics..they enjoy the power of incapability to do anything about it!..from a young man trying to understand it...

Paedophilia is understood specifically to be the application of adult educated moral beliefs to young people ....to enjoy their distress of being incapable to do anything about it!

For the paedophiles to work out their grievences hatreds social unfairnesses sado masochistic impulses and tragic jealous lusts for justice...

..on young people ...often by setting kids up with situations we as young people don't or couldn't often understand...

... working out punishments on vulnerablised people to make the incapable suffer their fun..

...knowing that though we can argue back ....the more we do ...the more trouble we will get in ...at a risk of all we are dependent on eg food water shelter education money etc...

...and the more the paedophile can make them suffer...by lying to get us set up and turn the world against us to make it worse and get away with it...

There has been politically legitimised economic hatred of young people...

Reigned by the medical teaching psychiatric and police professions to support the beliefs of government...

Of obedience to their whimsical moral idealist beliefs that others should be made to be inferior ..

..so that no one can get past them and anyone who does not admire them can be mocked to sh!t and economic physical and social inferiority...

General medical stories we have heard of.... feminisation ...

Kids drugged when they played with their penises..some still have child willies that stopped maturing with drugs

Kids made to lose aggression wantonness and opportunism and made obedient to women instead

Kids "drugged to lose prejudice" until they lost the ability to answer back without really fighting for it....

Kids they were made idle and exhausted to slow down their sportingness and abilities to run away

Some even had their facial characters turned off with drugs because they looked too keen interested and enthusiastic for their class of people...

And some were prevented from getting hot and sweaty till they chilled on a cold day

Still more were instilled with the instincts of fighting with drugs...

Drugs that made bodies collapse

Drugs that made people lose their memories and ability to pay attention

Stds were spread by adults around teenagers who looked too healthy...

And other narcissistic paedophilic abuses....

Bizarre moral methods were used to decide who would be who based on the teachers and doctors and establishment premeditations of an era of pride and revenge of pitiable people who had to cheapen everybody...

The methods?.... drugs can be in food water school drinks or during doctors visit... what was in your sugar cube or vaccination??

So while most of us achieved as challenged competitively some were suffering and humiliated for years if not for ever!!

And since then they have been made to believe in psychiatry....many psychiatrists are in an international ring of paedophiles daily abusing young people... giving young women drugs to take down young men ... and old women drugs to make young women anorexic ...spreading thinking that encourages conflict and forcing those that do not understand on to drugs to repeatedly abuse their healthy defiance of the crimes against them...

Photography and social approval of the young is not paedophilia ...

instead the government severely investigates the innocent who would discover the abuse paedophiles have perpetrated...

Back at our school an innocent history teacher was retro investigated against our wishes ..we enjoyed his photography of us...

....yet politically ordered medical abuse and ethnic discriminations resulting in disabilities have been kept officially secret uninvestigated and unprosecuted ...

...even when one teacher who would have discovered and argued for us against their politics and drugging was bumped off with drugs ..

...his death was covered up as a fall out of a window that might have been suicide!...

>>Queen's organist died<< for uncovering the paedophilic medical abuse of us...no-one will investigate our suspicions!!!

Paedophiles we know had obvious but maybe not evidenced effects motive and method: Head George Hill, Housemaster Peter Thackeray, Dr Briscoe, Dr Stephen's and team, several managers and police, family members...

Government often seems institutionally paedophilic ..Blair Hain Davis Howard make us puke...Blair is a classic jackal and hide paedophile trying to make you follow his beliefs into getting abused! as is typical enjoying the power that people are in distress and incapable of doing anything about it!

Because of the term paedophile...it becomes disturbing to care for kids at all... a girl was left walking in the road at risk from car accident because no-one could deal with the anticipated mother abuse...and young lads often look for approval in their war against their wicked feminist mothers!

Those who do not stand up to paedophilia are pathetic ..we go to war against anyone who makes us obey or tries to victimise us or anyone... i have been doing so for 25 years since the Falklands the minors strike and the IRA appeared on TV...we are totally motivated to get rid of everyone like it... we wish someone would do the politics ...

BCD TLC

Such is the nature of the political regime in Iran, that foreign media is intercepted prior to reaching the populace, in addition to linguistic barriers. The fascist propaganda maintains this situation to further its own cause. The Iranian public is therefore ignorant of western findings, and the probing of the Iranian government, which is itself limited. The Iranian public is also largely oppressed by the regime, and afraid to stand up to it, as it appears to be acting in their interests and any challenger is persecuted with accusations of espionage and the like, punishable with torture and the death penalty. The Iranian Ayatollahs have a grip on the nation not dissimilar to the religious monarchies of mediaevil european governments. They believe they have the divine right to their authority, and will persecute disbelievers.

Can satellites identify rogue activity in the Gulf ? This would at least provide damning evidence to the world about Iranian activities in the Gulf. This would also help to warn Gulf traffic of rogue activity. Can satellites be used to better military activity in the Gulf ? Can mines be spotted by vehicles before they blow victims up ? They have got to be laid in the first place, can the culprits be caught in the act and information of locations be forwarded to military etc. Can the Iranian public be informed of their country's acts of torture and murder by supplying them with evidence ? Do many Iranians watch Al Jazeera ? Surely Alalam is not a popular channel. Iranians have a right to know the truth, not no be denied it by not being allowed to have satellite television and censored media that would supply information from abroad.

What exactly is 'industrial production of nuclear fuel'? Nuclear fuels are inherintly small due to their use of atomic forces, therefore not requiring 'industrial production'. I suspect Ahmadinejad actually knows very little about Uranium refining, and thinks they are more advanced than they in fact are. Such is the nature of a deluded fascist. Are they working on Fission bombs, or the fusion Hydrogen bomb that led to the cold war ? The magnitudes are considerably different.

There is some form of democracy in Iran, the election is due in 2009. I suspect his election is only successful as a consequence of George Bush and his military aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan. When he's gone in 2008, they might no longer find that Ahmadinejad is the lesser of the two evils for their interests, and better presidents in America and subsequently Iran will appear. The hardliners may no longer hold public favour. If there is a problem with the Islamic monarchy in Iran, then democracy should suppress it. In Britain, the Scots and English were in religious civil dispute where protestants and catholics persecuted one another. However, this was a royal and serf persecution in a feudal country. Unfortunately Iran has little agriculture for that. Civil disorder restored our democracy and later scientific enlightenment provided lateral secularity. What started the revolution ? Who pushed the first domino ? The tyrant is invariably the culprit, do we want to play that role ? Academics have been sacked by Ahmadinejad in Tehran. Ahmadinejad is the hardliner who would has such harsh policies of government. Corruption in government and the Revolutionary Guard maintains his power. The supreme leader calms the aggression. He answers to Islam and his country's people. Ahmadinejad is a substitute for a decent leader, someone who has a poor opponent, and deludes the needy. This corruption will eventually fail. The needy proletariat are sufferring from sanctions by America and the UN. A proletariat reliant on oil revenues and fooled by propaganda. A country disregards science to its disadvantage. It will stagnate, and religion will provide false hopes. The public will challenge such false contradictions. We need to supply an alternative, a tonic to the soup, a smile to the austerity. We do not want to be the enemy, when Ahmadinejad and his corrupt cronies are the real criminals.

Contributor 4. When the information you have released to the public is translated into a hostile powers modus operandi I hope you sleep well at night.
Unless its misinformation in which case its hats off to Charlie.

Why wasn't the issue of 'Sarahs law' put in any context? Merely comparing it to Megans law, a different thing, in the US doesn't cut it.

Of the 10,000 or so on the sex offenders register, how many are peadophiles (hands on abusers not picture collectors)?

What proportion of Child porn collectors are hands on abusers?

What proportion of peadophiles are strangers to their victims?

We know the numbers of children snatched by strangers and raped is very small and hasn't changed for at least a decade, but this 'hysteria' around child sex abuse grows and grows.

Isn't it about time we had some attempt at defining the scale of the problem?

I am old enough to remember the fall of the shah and was teaching Iranian students in London who were concerned about being exiled in Britain at that time Another fear expressed was being arrested for any show of affection/intimacy such as a kiss in public, (in tehran I mean of course.)However I must sympathise with the iranian who commented above that western narcissistic journalism perpetuated here and in the U S A is appaling.THe disgraceful mess left in Iraq and destruction of its heritage (temples historic sites etc) is criminal and should be prosecuted in the highest international court. NO to turning Iran back to the stone-age

as there are only 7 [or 36] basic plots every news story is a re enactment?

Trying to fill 50 mins a day is a daring enterprise story which sometimes fails which is why we get Ytube stories? Perhaps the real story here is how open source broadcasting is taking over from prescription broadcasting? A million views is something some bbc 4 shows can only dream about?

Meanwhile in the real world a story one could look at is the 200 people who have a 5 hour fight outside a mosque in burton which shows the militants still see mosques as strategic [and winnable?] targets?

perhaps another interesting question is why people find the 1970s popular? Is it because it is the last decade when the english knew who they were and had a strong self identity? when people could leave back doors and cars unlocked? It would be hard to imagine a 1977 style street party in the terror/blame-claim/health and safety/suspicious streets of today?

Is the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ news Dept. too insular? Do you have anyone, who is really independent, playing the Devils advocate at editorial meetings?

I'm sick to death of media concerns being the 'top story', as I'm sure many others are too.

If we want every little thing spun into controversy or facts cherry-picked and mixed in with opinion, we can get more than enough of that from newspapers. There are never mistakes anymore always catastrophes, never confusion, always chaos, never a problem always a crisis.

Bad news is emphasised and any contextual information that might leven that is minimalised or even ignored entirely.

Even with a glass that is nine tenths full, if all we see is the empty tenth, then we come to believe that the glass is entirely empty. Now what kind of attitude, in the general public, would that kind of reporting lead to? Cynicism?

I believe the 'journalistic culture' in this country actually undermines our democracy, how can we make informed decisions, when the information we have is entirely sensationalised and presented without any consistant balance?

Context is only paid lip-service on many reports, usually a side note, if it is mentioned at all. This is not balanced reporting, it is sloppy, headline hunting.

Didn't the MMR fiasco cause alarm bells to ring? That put childrens lives at risk, all for the sake of headlines. Don't polls that show a massive difference in peoples experience and what they are told by the media(as with NHS services), make editors think, maybe, just maybe, they are not giving a balanced presentation of the facts?

If any news organisation can break free of the 'Journalistic culture' that never lets the truth get in the way of a good story, then it is the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ news Dept. But it seems you just shrug off any criticism, pat each other on the back and then it's back to work as usual.

Is the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ news Dept. too insular? Do you have anyone, who is really independent, playing the Devils advocate at editorial meetings?

I'm sick to death of media concerns being the 'top story', as I'm sure many others are too.

If we want every little thing spun into controversy or facts cherry-picked and mixed in with opinion, we can get more than enough of that from newspapers. There are never mistakes anymore always catastrophes, never confusion, always chaos, never a problem always a crisis.

Bad news is emphasised and any contextual information that might leven that is minimalised or even ignored entirely.

Even with a glass that is nine tenths full, if all we see is the empty tenth, then we come to believe that the glass is entirely empty. Now what kind of attitude, in the general public, would that kind of reporting lead to? Cynicism?

I believe the 'journalistic culture' in this country actually undermines our democracy, how can we make informed decisions, when the information we have is entirely sensationalised and presented without any consistant balance?

Context is only paid lip-service on many reports, usually a side note, if it is mentioned at all. This is not balanced reporting, it is sloppy, headline hunting.

Didn't the MMR fiasco cause alarm bells to ring? That put childrens lives at risk, all for the sake of headlines. Don't polls that show a massive difference in peoples experience and what they are told by the media(as with NHS services), make editors think, maybe, just maybe, they are not giving a balanced presentation of the facts?

If any news organisation can break free of the 'Journalistic culture' that never lets the truth get in the way of a good story, then it is the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ news Dept. But it seems you just shrug off any criticism, pat each other on the back and then it's back to work as usual.

IT WAS A SLOW NEWS DAY FOLKS

Tuesday lead news story from the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ was the failed court appeal, on a woman wanting to use her eggs that are in cold storage, but the appeal took into account her ex partners wishes; not wanting his ex partner to have the use of these eggs. This was clearly a slow news day (although a bad day for the lady in question) but another good years pay for lawyers, and the judicial system is used to a level unimagined 10 years ago, Arthur C Clark could not have predicted that one.

Some comments are suggesting that newsnight are slacking in its usual vigor to inform us on current affairs or god forbid, dumbing down.
On occasions, newsnight, like other news programmes will find themselves scrambling around for stories, like tuesdays edition, but nothing juicy comes through the news network, leaving the producers to do some 'filling in', hence some light stories, with the stretching out of some news reports. Gavin was going through the motions on tuesdays newsnight, and his interview with the chap regarding the 'megan laws' was not typical of Gavin; leaving himself wrong footed on occasions with the chap he was interviewing.
Hopefully for some, a horrid news story will happen for all of you who were falling asleep or switching off tuesdays newsnight edition, and by Thursday you can get your teeth into a real horror story or a political scandel, say for example, the deputy PM was found in an ................(insert your imagination here)... position. Well i am sure newsnight will probably give its usual first class treatment, certainly once paxman, wark and the rest of the team have parked up their caravans and are back refreshed from the long easter break. Poor Gavin was having to make it up as he went along on tuesday night, with half a back room team for support i guess.
I like days when nothing really bad happens , but tuesday must have been a very dull day for our journalists. I wonder what news stories will come our way today? let me get my crytal ball out and see...oooooh, i see Des Brown looking like a bozo, no surprises today or anything interesting happening just yet.

ah my dinnerjacket must be laughing his head off. what fools we are, thinking selling your 'story' was a good idea...ooh that cash incentive really back-fired didn't it able seaman faye turney ,and that "percentage for the coventry" will not wash with the chaps or the rest of us...change of career is your best alternative, kick back and rest a while faye, you can afford it....am i envious of her windfall? of course i am, but i am not on the good ship Coventry. Tip for the day: if your going to sell your soul, your integrity and your honour, sell to the highest bidder ,it's a no brainer.
As for the MOD,can you raise the "entrance bar" just a little bit higher please.

Last week there were some heated words about women's rights in Iran and some parallels drawn with South Africa and opposition to apartheid, and given some other comments on Iran, I thought it may we worth posting something.

/blogs/newsnight/2007/04/tuesday_3_april_2007.html

South Africa's politics *and* those of Iran's seem to be largely beyond
the ken of many of this politically apathetic 'liberal democratic'
generation(just as Iraq's seemigly were before the Neocon's walked in to allegedly 'liberate' Iraq's people).

Perhaps we should take a closer look at 'free' South Africa, 'Rhodesia' and Iraq today, and just give some thought to what such 'freedom' comes down to. To get a taste, one could just watch the film "Enron" which gives a chilling picture of 'deregulation', or for the wider global picture "Commanding Heights" is quite good (it's on the web too). Even the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's Adam Curtis had a shot at highlighting this thorny issue recently in his ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ2 trilogy "The Trap".

Islamic Iran clearly doesn't want western 'freedom', and for essentially the same reasons that the USSR never wanted it (and in the wake of the disastrous "Shock Therapeutic" 1990s, Putin still resents 'NGOs' there pressing for 'Human Rights').

Western 'liberal democracy' (Trotskyism/the free-market/Consumerism take your pick what you call it) appears ultimately to destroy cultures in pursuit of internationalism or globalism, and if you want to see its ugly modus operandi, just take a look at the 'hyperbolic discounting principle' which is now central to behavioural economics and give a moment's thought to how predators market 'choice' to folk who find it hard to say no.

The fact that many western European states are not replacing their populations (UK TFR averages out at 1.71) has forced us to import large numbers of relatively unskilled (low IQ) 'breeders' and 'labourers' from elsewhere in the world just to keep the rest of us employed and our economies going. We are collectively to blame for that are we not?

The case can be made (although it will be understandably resisted in some quarters) that a major determinant of the progressive decline of western culture in the late C20th can be attributed to the emancipation of women and its consequences. Those who promoted this (largely East European political activist immigrants in the early C20th, either knew how to undermine the status quo or were merely 'useful idiots' to the
perpetrators.

Seen from that perspective, can one blame 'Stalinist' Iran (and other
Islamic and now South American socialist countries) for saying "thanks but no thanks"? They can see what's on offer just as we can, and we do spend a lot of our time lamenting the rise in crime, corruption, economic disparity etc do we not?

Why does Iran (and somuch of the Arab world talk so disparagingly of the big and little Satan? And why do ex diplomats like Craig Murray say things like this (his remarks on the 'cash for stories' saga are also worth a look):

"Let me summarise Nick Cohen's book for you. β€œIf you are against eating
Muslim babies, you are a supporter of Islamofascism. If you are
perturbed by Guantanamo Bay, you would not have fought in the Spanish
Civil War, are probably a fan of Hitler and have no right to call
yourself a Liberal. Neo-Conservatism is the New Left.”

There, now you don't have to read it. Believe me, I have done you a
favour."

Last week there were some heated words about women's rights in Iran and some parallels drawn with South Africa and opposition to apartheid. I thought it worth posting those remarks here given some of the above comments.

/blogs/newsnight/2007/04/tuesday_3_april_2007.html

South Africa's politics *and* those of Iran's seem to be largely beyond the ken of many of this politically apathetic/naive 'liberal democratic' generation(just as Iraq's were before the Neocon's walked in to
allegedly 'liberate' that country's people).

Take a closer look at 'free' South Africa, 'Rhodesia' or Iraq today, and give some thought to what 'freedom' seems to come down to. To get a taste, watch the film "Enron" or "Commanding Heights" (which is on the web), Even Adam Curtis has had a shot at highlighting this issue recently in his ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ2 trilogy "The Trap".

Islamic Iran clearly doesn't want western 'freedom' for essentially the same reasons that the USSR never did (and in the wake of the disastrous "Shock Therapeutic" 1990s, Putin still doesn't).

Western 'liberal democracy' (Trotskyism/the free-market/Consumerism take your pick what you call it) appears ultimately just to destroy cultures in favour of internationalism or globalism. If you want to see its modus operandi take a look at the 'hyperbolic discounting principle' which is now central to behavioural economics, and give a moment's thought to how predators market 'choice'. The fact that many western European states are not replacing their populations (UK TFR averages out at 1.71) has forced us to import large numbers of relatively unskilled (low IQ) 'breeders' and 'labourers' from elsewhere in the world just to keep the rest of us employed and our economies going. We are collectively to blame for that are we not?

The case can be made (though it's understandably unwelcome in many quarters) that a major determinant of the progressive decline of
western culture in the C20th can be attributed to the emancipation of women and its consequences. Those who promoted this (largely East European political activist immigrants in the early C20th, either knew how to undermine the status quo or were just 'useful idiots' to the perpetrators.

Seen from that perspective, can one blame 'Stalinist' Iran (and other Islamic and now South American socialist countries) for saying "thanks but no thanks"? They can see what's on offer just as we can, and we do spend a lot of our time lamenting the rise in crime, corruption, economic disparity etc do we not?

Why does Iran and the Arab world talk so disparagingly of the big and little Satan? And why do ex diplomats like Craig Murray say things like this (his remarks on the 'cash for stories' saga are worth a look too):

"Let me summarise Nick Cohen's book for you. β€œIf you are against eating Muslim babies, you are a supporter of Islamofascism. If you are perturbed by Guantanamo Bay, you would not have fought in the Spanish Civil War, are probably a fan of Hitler and have no right to call yourself a Liberal. Neo-Conservatism is the New Left.”

There, now you don't have to read it. Believe me, I have done you a favour."

Kieran Murphy at al.
Yes, the Brits really like to say everything twice (at least).

Last night (April 10th) Gavin Esler got his fine rows of teeth into most of his interviewees in an aggressive tabloid style which really didn't elicit much "analytical depth" that's supposedly your programme's aim. But at least Laim Fox avoided Esler's bait of calling for Des Browne's resignation, without first having more information about where the responsibility lay for the payment for the servicemen's stories decision. And then the MP wishing to help information on paedophiles who might prey on single mother families, to be made available (apparently just for those mothers on request), was equally able to withstand with some dignity, GS's clumsy and sensation seeking "nashers" attack.
But what we really need to know and urgently, is what the US's intention is for sending to the Gulf (on their way right now)the massive fire-power in two aircraft carriers including the Nimitz.
This really could be a desperate last throw of a discredited set of power maniacs just willing on Armaggedon...