Proving George Orwell’s dictum that “Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks the whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns somersaults when there is no whip,” significant sections of our free press and many so-called independent experts faithfully echoed the government’s official line.
“The missile uses a low-powered but highly focused explosive warhead to reduce shrapnel hitting civilians,” noted the Telegraph. “The Brimstone is capable of hitting moving targets travelling at speeds of up to 70mph” and “can be launched from an aircraft up to seven miles away from as high as 20,000 feet.” The Daily Mail transformed from a newspaper into a sales brochure: “The missile that never misses: watch the incredible moment a drone launched Brimstone hits a car moving at 70mph from seven MILES away’. The Sun was equally enthusiastic just a week before the parliamentary vote: “Raining hell on IS: RAF missile will pinpoint jihadists SEVEN miles away.” The online media watchdog Media Lens accurately dubs this kind of overexcited narrow focus on the technical aspects of weaponry as “war porn”, with the BBC a big culprit.
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Author Archives: Lin
UK’s role in Saudi-led bombing campaign
A United Nations panel investigating the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen has uncovered “widespread and systematic” attacks on civilian targets in violation of international humanitarian law, raising questions over UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia and the role of British military advisers. Continue reading
The U.S. “is effectively the biggest tax haven in the world”
After years of lambasting other countries for helping rich Americans hide their money offshore, the U.S. is emerging as a leading tax and secrecy haven for rich foreigners. By resisting new global disclosure standards, the U.S. is creating a hot new market, becoming the go-to place to stash foreign wealth. Everyone from London lawyers to Swiss trust companies is getting in on the act, helping the world’s rich move accounts from places like the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands to Nevada, Wyoming, and South Dakota.
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The $2 trillion redline
During the 1980s, the Cold War and the global nuclear arms race propelled total military spending in the world higher than ever before. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the idea of the “peace dividend” got hold and for a short while, it did indeed look like that was where the world was going and that global military spending would gradually normalise to a much lower level, appropriate for a reduced-conflict, non-confrontational, uni-polar world. The two biggest spenders saw the biggest drop in their spending. Russia simply could not afford the Soviet level of spending after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and its economy went from crisis to crisis, further diminishing their ability to spend. In the United States, without any notable enemy and significant military threats to their national security, military spending gradually came down while the economy boomed. It came down to the lowest point in recent history in the middle of the Clinton years. Since the USA is the largest military spending nation by far (accounting more than one thirds), it coincided with the lowest point in global military spending too.
NHS spending too low compared to EU-14 and OECD countries
Over the next few years spending on the NHS increased substantially, pushing total (public plus private) spending to 8.8 per cent of GDP by 2009. By then, however, the EU-14 spend (weighted for size of GDP and health spend, and minus the UK) had moved on to 10.1 per cent of GDP. Still, the gap between the UK and its European neighbours was closing.
Since then, however, the gap has started to widen (particularly against countries that weathered the global financial crisis better than the UK) and looks set to grow further. UK GDP is forecast to grow in real terms by around 15.2 per cent between 2014/15 and 2020/21. But on current plans, UK public spending on the NHS will grow by much less: 5.2 per cent. This is equivalent to around £7 billion in real terms – increasing from £135 billion in 2014/15 to £142 billion in 2020/21. As a proportion of GDP it will fall to 6.6 per cent compared to 7.3 per cent in 2014/15. But, if spending kept pace with growth in the economy, by 2020/21 the UK NHS would be spending around £158 billion at today’s prices – £16 billion more than planned.
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UK government is cutting Police number guarding nuclear plants
The Tories are axing 200 frontline staff from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary this Parliament. This amounts to a 16 per cent cut in numbers, Continue reading
J-20, F-35, F22: How China developed its fifth generation stealth fighters
This is probably oversimplified, but Yang is certainly an influential individual in the development of China’s modern military aircraft. Beckhusen argues that Yang has basically invented the Chinese evolutionary approach to designing and building combat aircraft. Instead of designing and building a brand-new aircraft from scratch, it “borrows” from other countries’ design, integrate some imported and/or indigenous technology, and produces it at a fraction of the price.
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German gun maker targets more sales to U.S. civilians
German gun maker Heckler & Koch will try to sell more guns to civilians in the United States, forced by Germany’s restrictions on arms exports to the Middle East to look for revenue growth elsewhere, its majority owner told a newspaper. …
“If politics force us to generate practically no sales in the Middle East, we have to look for alternatives,” daily Die Welt quoted Andreas Heeschen, who owns 51 percent of Heckler & Koch, as saying.
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London is de-privatising its rail services
This is intereting. We know that the Conservatives have been ridiculing the idea to re-nationalising the national railways, but when the elections come calling and leadership ambitions to be fulfilled, free market/privatisation will have to take back seat. The Tansport for London is in the process of taking over the running of most if not all of London’s rail network routes. Continue reading
Philanthrocapitalism
Two reports.
And a study (pdf) just out from the Global Policy Forum, an international watchdog group, makes the case that powerful philanthropic foundations—under the control of wealthy individuals—are actively undermining governments and inappropriately setting the agenda for international bodies like the United Nations.
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Netherlands: Estimates of F-35’s Costs go much higher
The Joint Strike Fighters are intended to be the successor of the F-16’s in the air force. In September Hennis already wrote that the purchase of the 37 fighter jets may cost 550 million euros more than expected. She did not adapt her budget at the time to include the new estimate, because it would mean drastic measures when it is still uncertain whether they’d be necessary.
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UN Human Development Report: UK most unequal Western country
The United Nations Development Programme, which published the Human Development Report, said last week: “The United Kingdom, unfortunately, has an exceptionally high degree of inequality.”
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Davos Class: a silent global coup d’etat
The real concern about the WEF, however, is not the personal hypocrisy of its privileged delegates. It is rather that this unaccountable invitation-only gathering is increasingly where global decisions are being taken and moreover is becoming the default form of global governance. There is considerable evidence that past WEFs have stimulated free trade agreements such as NAFTA as well helped rein in regulation of Wall Street in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Less well known is the fact that WEF since 2009 has been working on an ambitious project called the Global Redesign Initiative, (GRI), which effectively proposes a transition away from intergovernmental decision-making towards a system of multi-stakeholder governance. In other words, by stealth, they are replacing a recognized model where we vote in governments who then negotiate treaties which are then ratified by our elected representatives with a model where a self-selected group of ‘stakeholders’make decisions on our behalf. …
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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Civil Rights and Peace movement
King addressed the issue of the relationship between the struggles for peace and civil rights in his Riverside Church speech. He began the speech by addressing the criticisms of those who suggested that it was not his “place” to speak out against the war:
“”Peace and civil rights don’t mix,” they say. “Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people,” they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known my commitment, my calling or me. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.” Continue reading
Some Reflections of the Taiwanese Presidential Election 2016
Tsai Ing-Wen’s recent election as Taiwan’s first female president and the first female ethnic Chinese head of state, has seen the international media full of praise of this historic moment. However, we should not get carried away. This is a historic moment similar to Barack Obama’s election as the first Black president of the United States of America and, if it comes to pass, Hilary Clinton’s election as the first female US president. In times of prosperity and stability, these are s that are worthy of wide celebration and even euphoria, in times such as ours -uncertain and going from crisis after crisis – the impact has a rather different effect. This is why Obama’s election, apart from some notable exceptions ie diplomatic foreign policy in the case of Iran and the Affordable Care Act, was largely symbolic, with business going on as usual. Apart from some fines levied on the Wall Street banks, there are no criminal convictions of bankers. It was the first time in American history that no criminal bankers have been brought to justice after a major financial fraud; an enormous opportunity missed to reform a not-fit-for-public-service financial system. The West is still mired in the Middle East, even though military interventions were restrained. US military spending experienced hardly a dip despite of sequestration (automatic cuts to federal spending) because of the liberal use of the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund to make up any shortfalls. Profits of major defense contractors actually went up significantly during the Obama years and US arms sales to the rest of the world has gone from strength to strength.
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Martin Luther King Jr.’s Critiques of Capitalism and Militarism
America’s celebrations of Martin Luther King Jr. typically focus on his civil rights activism: the nonviolent actions that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The last few years of King’s life, by contrast, are generally overlooked. When he was assassinated in 1968, King was in the midst of waging a radical campaign against economic inequality and poverty, while protesting vigorously against the Vietnam War. Continue reading
An analysis of the ‘Davos Class’
This is worth a look, not only because I helped this research.
TNI takes a close look at the World Economic Forum’s Board to see who they represent, their economic interests and political beliefs. Might this be the future of global governance?
ProjectsSeriesThe research showed that:
- Only 6 of its 24 Board members are women (25%)
- 16 are from North America and Europe (67%). There is not one African Board member.
- Half of the Board (12) are currently corporate executives. However if you look at their careers, 16 have a corporate background (67%)
- 22 of the 24 went to universities in US and Europe; 10 went to the same university (Harvard)
- Only one member can be said to represent civil society (Peter Maurer of Red Cross). There are no representatives of trade unions, public sector organisations, human rights groups, peasant or indigenous organisations, students and youth.
Why we should not renew Trident
‘diplomatic relations and arms sales trump the lives of Yemen’s children’
According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), the UK has sold more than £5.6 billion of arms to Saudi Arabia since 2010, including combat aircraft worth £1.7 billion last May.
The arms trade also receives generous state backing. The UK Trade and Industry Defence and Security Organisation, which exists to promote arms sales, gets far more funding than other UKTI sectors, even though the arms trade is responsible for only 1.5 per cent of UK exports.
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Corbyn is right on Trident
Simon Jenkins is spot on on this:
Corbyn was right on Iraq. He was right on Syria. He is right on Islamic State. On the idiocy, waste and vacuous drivel that constitutes “the case for Trident”, he has been right. Fighting him on it just to make Labour seem macho makes no sense.
Tipping Point North South 