Tuesday, 10 July, 2007
- 10 Jul 07, 06:13 PM
Tonight's presenter is .
IRAQ
Could a US troop withdrawal from Iraq be announced sooner rather than later? With his popularity ratings falling and his own Senators threatening revolt, President Bush is under mounting pressure to announce a change of tack. Our Diplomatic Editor Mark Urban will be assessing how the US strategy is changing and we're hoping to speak to one of the leading Republican rebels in the US Senate.
FAMILY
Is it now all about the family? As the Conservatives demand the tax and benefits system loses its "anti-marriage bias", Labour claim the Tory plans will discriminate against lone and unmarried parents. Our political correspondent David Grossman will look at what could become one of the key battlegrounds of the next election.
BOTTLED WATER
People in New York are being encouraged to give up bottled water to help save the environment. City officials have launched an advertising campaign encouraging people to drink tap water - which they say cuts down on waste and saves on transport. What about us in Britain? We鈥檒l look at the environmental cost of bottled water and the cultural embarrassment in restaurants of asking for tap water. We'll also speak to the drinks manufacturers live to see what they're doing to reduce their carbon footprint.
Do you ask for tap water in restaurants? Click here to join this debate.
BAE
These are difficult days for Britain's biggest arms dealer, BAE Systems. No sooner has the British government called off a Serious Fraud Office investigation into their arms sales to Saudi Arabia than the Americans have stepped in with their own inquiry. Meanwhile, British fraud investigators are still looking into BAE's deals in six other countries, including billions of pounds in sales to South Africa. Peter Marshall has been investigating the South African deal - and how it's brought rancour and suspicion to the new democracy.
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Reportedly "Gordon Brown, has banned his ministers from using the word 鈥楳uslim鈥 鈥 and presumably 鈥業slamic鈥 or 鈥業slamist鈥 鈥 in connection with the terrorist crisis. He has also put an end to the phrase 鈥榳ar on terror.Jacqui Smith, referred to them as 鈥榗riminal鈥 acts rather than Islamic terrorism and talked about 鈥榗ommunities鈥 that are involved rather than Muslims."
WHY? are we still in denial of the facts!!...We must accept we know the enemy before we can defeat them.
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The morality of Dubya weighing up his popularity against the continuation of the "righteous war" in Iraq has a good Christian feel to it. Small wonder, then, that America intends to pick up the investigation of BAE corruption that we "judiciously" dropped. When they next need to screw Britain, they can use the termination of that enquiry as a Christian bargaining chip. Is it any wonder that, between us, we make puritan folk of other persuasions vary angry?
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This has shades of back to basics and I can see it backfiring.
I believe in marriage, we have been for 50 years. Four sons and two daughters later, plus all their offspring gives me at least a better platform to speak from than most.
Our children are all well educated, mainly professional and one in particular an extremely successful business man, he being the only one who was neither university nor college educated.
The secret of all this was being brought up by two parents, one of which the children hardly seen as he was either working every hour that God sent or down the garden making sure that everything that could be planted was planted to feed them all. Money was always very tight, make do and mend was the norm.
Discipline which was down to me was the order of the day, plus an active interest in all the children鈥檚 schoolwork, homework, outside activities etc and a very close eye on the company they kept.
Not always easy as the lads were rather big one being twice my body weight and one, 1鈥.6鈥 taller than me at 18 years old, they knew better than to disobey as the punishment was being grounded not abuse, however being grounded in our home really meant being grounded. They got no quarter and they expected no quarter.
That worked for us but it would not do for everybody. Society has changed not always for the better, but then not always for the worse.
Why should the children of co-habiting parents suffer because their parents have not had the benefit of clergy? They make just as good parents as we were, why should they be penalised?
We never needed tax-breaks to stay together. Good parenting solves these problems, not governments, until people in this country learn that when they bring children into this world they are their responsibility until their offspring leaves the nest, we are going to have a broken society. Tax- breaks are not going to mend it either.
If people need tax-breaks to get married and stay together I would suggest that the relationship is not as strong as they think. This is not the answer.
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For any newborn to survive they must achieve social competence above all else. Our culture progressively attends to turning infants into units of work and consumption (and voting) to the detriment of competence of any sort. One of Tony Blair鈥檚 memorable deceits was: 鈥淭ough on crime AND THE CAUSES OF CRIME.鈥 Politicians are now shouting about being 鈥渢ough鈥 on symptoms of social incompetence while having no idea of the causes. Science tells us that, genetically, we are mostly chimp. I see us as a chimp confused by language. TV frequently shows us baby chimps being suckled by their own mother, protected by her and other females when necessary; subsequently making small forays into the world and then learning to forage, crack nuts etc by observation, and trial when self-motivated. What you don鈥檛 see is bottle fed cr猫che-chimps while mother rushes back to work. You don鈥檛 see chimp academies, where they are institutionalised to suit chimp leaders鈥 dreams of world status. Their culture reinforces their nature; ours does the opposite. It is not marriage that is missing in our society, it is an overall acknowledgement that you cannot buck nature. Early years (a lot of them) should be given over to nurture AS CLOSE TO NATURE鈥橲 PRESCRIPTION AS POSSIBLE. That way we might produce socially competent individuals who have wisdom, from which comes integrity, altruism and honour. Currently we are dog-eat-dog and driving each other mad. Our leaders tend to be chosen for charisma 鈥 a purely animal attribute 鈥 rather than genuine ability and wisdom. Oliver James plays the part of Cassandra, but we are now blind drunk, ipod deaf, retail anaesthetised, TV tired and emotionally illiterate; he goes largely unheard. Not looking good is it?
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Bae piece was a travesty. It opened with a reference to THE BAe scandal which certainly told us what the 麻豆约拍 editorial take ws.The CAAT has a point of view and are entitled to make it but whatever any arms manufacturer does the CAAT will complain. But that does not entitle it or the 麻豆约拍 to induce that BAe has been guilty of some offence when the Saudi deal was an intergovernmental deal not just a commercial one You should also have known that BAe cannot legally debate the business in public while legal action is pending in the US. and should have avoided the THE in your standfirst.
Next, understand that the business of America is business and that US businessmen, politicians and lawyers will reach for any stick to beat a competitor. They were as miffed as hell when BAe got the Yamammah contract which they wanted and are trying to get their retaliation in first before any more contracts get signed. They also wish to extend US legal oversight to companies outside the US (witness the Natwest three) and we should be facing down that one instead of wittering about alleged bungs to Saudi VIPs decades ago.
I have no interest in BAe except that like most of us I suspect my pension has a bit of money in it and that I was very grateful to its products for stopping the Germans killing me 65 years ago. How about a period of silence on this topic?
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I think the Tories will have a losing battle on thier hands and may lose the election with this ridiculous idea of giving tax breaks to married couples. Not all single parents chose to live like that. I know children from two parents families and they behave far worse than children from single parent family. They have left school at 16 with little or no education.
The key is for the goverment to look at the underlying courses of breakup and try to offer counseling and teach children from a younger age about relationships and how to sustain it. I think relationship counselling must be made compulsary before the wedding takes place.
Last but not the least, Christain Values must exist in the home for a marriage to work and for children to flourish and behave, but nonetheless marriages will break down due to unforseen circumstanes.
I for instances amd a single parent with 2 boys.My partner left me, when our first child was born to go and look after his ailing father. He came back after 4 years and when we had the second child he left to go and take care of his ailing mother and never came back. He listened to his mother and he thinks his mother is more important that us. I have brought my 2 sons up well and they are the model children and the older one wants to study Aeronautical engineering and the younger one wants to be a Doctor and a footballer. Both of them are working hard towards thier goals.
Am I going to be punished because am single parents. Twenty pounds or not will not keep families together. Educate people, counsel them and offer support. Wake up David Cameron
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The show tonight was less Ambridge Dog and Duck and more Camden Coffee House with the esoteric topics of internal republican politics, minor treasury rules amendments and south african domestic policy.
I don't get to North London much these days. Do the luvvies still go around and pretend to kiss people on the cheek saying mwah mwah darlings?
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Bottled water has always been unnecessary.infact this debate is long overdue.do you know that in Nairobi a litre of water costs much the same as a litre of petrol.The economics doesnt make sense but even more, the water has less oxygen.i stick to my tap water and I am never ashamed.
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I am fed up with single parent families being singled out.We have been through decades of snide comments about "troublemaking" children usually coming from bad homes or being brought up by single mums. I was divorced quite early on and brought up my three children alone. Their father lived half way around the world and showed no interest in their upbringing.
Among my friends, relations and acquaintances I am always being praised for how my children have "turned out" and how "proud" I must be of them as though, by being a single parent, they all naturally assumed my children would turn out to be "yobbos" and truants.
Many single mums and dads make wonderful parents, often a great deal better than two unhappy parents who stay together "for the sake of the children". I only wish politicians could realize this.
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Caroline Kennedy writes: "I only wish politicians could realize this."
Hi Caroline! I think you will find they "don't do realise". Well, not until they have done "on message" "please the leader" and "does my majority look big in this?" It is all down to party politics. With all the current crowing about "all the talents" and "cross party" they still don't realise that if this or that situation calls for dropping the party nonsense, EVERY SITUATION is worthy of the same. Here we are, at war apparently, and under threat of attack, yet we can still find time for factional dilution of issues.
If I might borrow from you: "I only wish politicians could realise this."
At the next election, ask each candidate to come out from behind their rosette and stand as themselves. Then watch them squirm.
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Brian #1 "WHY? are we still in denial of the facts!!...We must accept we know the enemy before we can defeat them."
Do we have all the facts? Are you *sure* you know who the enemy is (rather whom some would like us to think it is)? Brown's steps seem quite healthy to me.
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In my comment (that you decided not to publish??)I suggested, in support of Brian (post 1), that the Enemy (both within and without) would be clear to all who read the publication 'Towards Understanding Islam' available free via
https:// www.idci.co.uk, the Islamic Dawah Centre International. Their own document shows quite bluntly the arrogance and intolerance of this ideology, not only in its blunt statement that "we are all born Moslem whether or not we know it" but in its statements demeaning the role of women and reveling that its holy prophet "has positively and forcefully forbidden Muslims to assume the culture and mode of life of non-Muslims". How can Gordon Brown and others in denial still believe that we should try harder with bend-over -backwards attempts to integrate our multi-cultural society. The Enemy clearly require the indigenous UK citizens to do the integration - into Shari'ah Law. That's not just the radicalised speaking - its the international organisation, based in Birmingham UK.
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Is newnight trying to help the government, by creating more brown field sites for building homes, by the closure of BAE works around the country. What is newsnight here for, to promote Italian aircraft, and destroy British firms, then report on the decline of British industry.
No proper comparison was given between the two aircraft, or the two deals in terms of service, and maintenence etc. Even if the Italian deal looked better from first glance, why do we have a British tv programe practically showing a British firm in this light, and acting like agent for an Italian firm. We have to start asking the reason for the need of newsnight, if it carries on like this. Same goes for the self rightous SFO. Who's intrest are they acting for, especially when 10,000 workers lose thier jobs.
As for American involvement, is it time Britain investigated all American companies that operate in Britain, and look at thier dealings with other countries then. America has no juristiction outside it's own little country. As for BAE shaking South African democracy, I wouldn't think one firm is involved, and can undermine this Government, it goes be deeper than one deal.
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Is newnight trying to help the government, by creating more brown field sites for building homes, by the closure of BAE works around the country. What is newsnight here for, to promote Italian aircraft, and destroy British firms, then report on the decline of British industry.
No proper comparison was given between the two aircraft, or the two deals in terms of service, and maintenence etc. Even if the Italian deal looked better from first glance, why do we have a British tv programe practically showing a British firm in this light, and acting like agent for an Italian firm. We have to start asking the reason for the need of newsnight, if it carries on like this. Same goes for the self rightous SFO. Who's intrest are they acting for, especially when 10,000 workers lose thier jobs.
As for American involvement, is it time Britain investigated all American companies that operate in Britain, and look at thier dealings with other countries then. America has no juristiction outside it's own little country. As for BAE shaking South African democracy, I wouldn't think one firm is involved, and can undermine this Government, it goes deeper than one deal.
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The man seen in your RFK-CIA segment number 1, at the above link on your site, escorting the man (holding something in his hand and hiding it inside of his suit jacket), is this man named below, one Virgilio Gonzalez of Watergate fame. Incidentally, David Morales was one of the Watergaters as well, right along with Virgilio
Gonzalez.
See the resemblance of him at the below link.
I am convinced it is actually him. Stop the segment of the tape right after Virgilio waves his left hand as he is escorting the man conceraling something in his jacket while leaving out of the Ambassador, and then compare to the 1972 mugshot of Virgilio Gonzalez at the provided link and you shall see that it is indeed him.
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