THE Daily Express today becomes the first national newspaper to call for Britain to leave the European Union.
After far too many years as the victims of Brussels larceny, bullying, over-regulation and all-round interference, the time has come for the British people to win back their country and restore legitimacy and accountability to their political process.
At a time of austerity throughout Europe the EUros have expanded their bloated budgets, pushing Britains disproportionate contributions even higher.
And despite not being part of the failing eurozone, British taxpayers have learned that under Brussels rules agreed to by Labour after it had lost the election they are liable to help bail out economies wrecked by the single currency.
But Britain is a land apart: A precious stone set in the silver sea, as Shakespeare so evocatively put it; a realm with a glorious island story stretching back a thousand years, with links to every continent and a language taken up throughout the world.
Our political class bought into the European experiment after losing confidence in our nation and accepting the inevitability of decline.
They viewed Europe as a life raft and clambered on board. The British people never took that view.
Now it is Europe that is in decline and Britain that is being held back. It is time to break free.
And our political class wants to make us more like...
[Chosun Ilbo] North Korea fired artillery shells on a South Korean island on Tuesday killing two marines just days after revealing a large uranium-enrichment facility to visiting U.S. nuclear experts. Experts agree that the move was a planned provocation.
While the attack on the Navy corvette Cheonan in March took place by surprise under cover of night, the large-scale artillery assault on Yeonpyeong Island happened in broad daylight. Both military installations and civilian homes were targeted.
In a TV broadcast, North Korea's top military command blamed South Korea for the assault and said, "The revolutionary armed forces undertook decisive military measures against military provocation by the puppet regime" [South Korea]. "Should the puppet group dare intrude into the territorial waters" of the North "even 0.001 mm, the revolutionary armed forces will unhesitatingly continue taking merciless military counter-action."
◆ Consolidating Control
Nam Joo-hong, South Korea's ambassador for international security, said, "The regime is trying to consolidate its grip on power by rallying its people around these radical measures." The North's uranium enrichment program and provocations are part of efforts to puff up the image of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's son Jong-un in line with the Songun or military-first doctrine.
"North Korea's field army, which is composed of hardliners, appears to be leading efforts to support Jong-un," Nam said. "They seem to be the ones behind the naval clash in November last year and the sinking of the Cheonan." General Kim Kyok-sik, the commander of North Korea's frontline fourth corps in charge of a Navy base on the western coast that covers the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea, is known as a key hardliner. The North Korea apparently put its military on full alert status since the attack.
◆ Internal Strife
Others suspect a power struggle between hardliners and moderates in the North. Yoo Ho-yeol, a professor of North Korean studies at Korea University, said, "The artillery attack came unexpectedly just ahead of inter-Korean Red Cross Talks scheduled for Thursday. There is the possibility of an internal conflict between hawks and doves."
And a senior North Korean defector said, "As the sinking of the Cheonan shows, a lot of incomprehensible things are happening. But there are suspicions that North Korea's top leadership may be suffering problems in its decision-making ability or process."
◆ Fishing for Peace Treaty
Still others feel North Korea is angling for favorable terms and talks with the U.S. about a peace treaty. Song Dae-sung, head of the Sejong Institute, said, "It appears to be a strategy to turn the West Sea into a conflict area and draw Washington to the negotiating table to demand a peace treaty." In other words Pyongyang could be trying to get Washington to abandon its policy of "strategic patience" with North Korea.
Lee Jo-won at Chungang University, said, "North Korea has always gotten what it wants through brinkmanship." One indication of this is North Korea's insistence that the de facto border, the Northern Limit Line, is invalid and saying it will only respect its own maritime military demarcation line in the West Sea.
◆ Political Manipulation
There are also suspicions that North Korea is trying to interfere in South Korean politics. "By creating a crisis atmosphere, North Korea is trying to foment disappointment in South Korea with the Lee Myung-bak administration's North Korea policies," a researcher at a state-run think tank said.
Having found that bullying and cajoling the South has become more difficult, Pyongyang could be trying to ratchet up tensions and stir up public sentiment against the government's hardline North Korea policy. "North Korea appears to be trying to sap support for the South Korean government's policies toward the North and gain control over inter-Korean relations," a Unification Ministry said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
can't believe nobody can say it's China.
it must be. it makes total sense.
i suspect Western powers do not want this to be the official reason because then there is pressure to demand action from Beijing. Which is the last thing anybody wants.
Avert eyes - nothing to see here... nothing to see. Just an internal power struggle no big deal...
#3
Look guys, China does NOT pull North Korea's strings. Throw that idea away, it's bullcrap. They have some influence, but NK hardly takes orders from Beijing.
#4
If control means the office in Beijing called and directed this current affair, I'd say you're correct. If control means that Beijing could, if it wants, put a world of hurt upon the players in Pyongyang, then they do in fact have that ability. If tomorrow the leadership from Beijing flew to Seoul to publicly announce that things are too far out of control in the North and that they are going to work an accord with Seoul, the wannabee monarchists playing kingmaker in the North would be sucking wind.
#5
I have a theory: It's a test. The North deeply believes that the south wants to invade them and the best time to do that would be during the transition of leadership. So they lob a few shells over and see what happens. If there is a response they call for everyone to rally to the new leader and if there is no response the new leader has shown that the south fears him. JMHO
#9
Again, I place the theory that the military is asking for our help. I am of the belief that the military leadership wants us to help them in removing this dictatorship. This analysis derives from the sinking of the corvette ship earlier in this year. After that incident, Kim Jung Il took a slow train ride to Beijing. Upon return, he fired top military commanders and executed his head intelligence official. It shows some dissension in the ranks.
Things have not been this bad in NORK in like forever. Grain stocks have recently been emptied from the Military so it is looking very bleak.
Hence, the best time to challenge the regime is right now. Kim Jung Il is seriously Ill.
#10
I love conspiracy theories, and the reasons/connections for things that are right in front of your eyes.
So.....think about the QE2 by the Fed, and the other actions we are taking to inflate the dollar and make foreign goods (China) more expensive, and our debt obligations worth less to the bond holders (China).
Think about the China Sea provocations by the Chinese to force, by near ramming, US and other nation vessels outside their self proclaimed 200 mile national waters, as well as numberous other disagreements with Washington.
Now think about the odd missle trail just off Los Angeles, outside the 12 mile limit, apparently from a maritime source, but with no visible ship, and the phoney baloney story about it being a plane contrail, but maybe from a sub in international waters firing away from the coast. Remember the Chinese sub that surfaced in the middle of a carrier battle group to everyones surprise a couple of years ago?
Now think about the NKOR kerfluffle here, worst in generations.
Is Bambi being sent messages openly but not apparent about muscle flexing from across the Pacific?
You nailed it. Why not do this kind of crap? The NorKs can amuse themselves knowing that nobody is going to do anything back. Their reasoning doesn't have to be all that deep.
#12
IMO KIMMIE is thinking far ahead into the future, even beyong the tenure of heir apparent KIM JONG-UN, + also the example of RE-UNIFIED GERMANY + SOLIDARITY POLAND.
The NOKORS/NORKOMS well recognize that CHINA will likely take over the DRPK in a major war wid the US-ROK-ALLIES on the Korean Peninsula, + that Chin will indirectly dominate or take over the DPRK as per the new SINO-DPRK FTA establishing CHIN-DOMIN FREEPORTS [EEZS=SEZS] = CHIN ECON ENCLAVES inside DPRK.
EITHER WAY, THE NOKORS AS A DPRK/KOREAN-SPECIFIC MOVEMENT UNILATER FAIL TO KEEP THEIR NATIONALIST PROMISES TO ORDINARY KOREANS, BE THEY NORTH OR SOUTH, i.e. FREEDOM FROM ANY + ALL FOREIGNERS, ETHNIC, LIBERTE'-EGALITE'-FRATERNITE', ....@ETC. that helped bring the NorKoms + aligned to power[Post-1945 USSR notwithstanding].
IMO KIMMIE = "THE TIME IS NOW", NOT 2050-N-Beyond, for DPRK "Manifest Destiny".
* SARAH PALIN GAFFE = "NORTH KOREA IS A US ALLY" gaffe.
* DER SPIEGEL > KIM JONG-IL HAS BOMBS FOR OBAMA.
ARTIC = Kimmie desires for the DPRK to be treated FAIRLY + EQUALLY + NICELY = PAR like Any + All other World Sovereign States, espec MAJOR POWERS = US + CHINA.
* CHINESE MIL FORUM > TENSIONS ON KOREAN PENINSULA + TENSION AGZ JAPAN [China's "LITNUS TEST" AS A [rising = post-US?]SUPERPOWER is [fast] APPROACHING.
* SAME > [WND] "COLD WAR" WID BEIJING NEXT HIT ON [troubled] US ECONOMY, ANALYSTS WARN OF [looming serious] CRUNCH OVER WORLD DEMAND FOR ELECTRICITY.
Peak Coal, besides "Peak --" everything else.
* SAME > ANLAYSTS WARN OF US-CHINA TENSION | [New] NORTH KOREAN ATTACK MASSIVELY RAISES TENSIONS BETWEEN US + CHINA IN REGION.
ARTIC = CHINA has had a LOUSY/UGLY YEAR IN ASIA as per GEOPO, ECON SETBACKS, + its situation isn't likely to lessen for the better anytime soon, US-CHINA-WORLD are ENTERING A DIFFERENT = DIFFICULT FUTURE???
-------------
* PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > [Swiss LE TEMPS] NORTH KOREA TO TEST URANIUM BOMB SOON.
ARTIC > broadly argues that the US-WORLD HAVE NO ALTERNATIVE TO MAKING CONCESSIONS TO NORTH KOREA.
IOW, NORTH KOREA IS TIRED OF WAITING + IS JUST CRAZY ENOUGH TO DO SOMETHING TO CAUSE A MAJOR WAR = "GREAT POWERS" MIL CONFLICT IN ASIA???
SUB-IOW, IIUC NOKORS = unlike ISLAMIST IRAN whose Radic Mullahs loudly proclaimed their desire for MAD from the beginning, NORTH KOREA is covertly or quietly warning that IT WILL INDUCE "MUTUAL DESTRUCTION" [MAD} IFF IT DOESN'T GET WHAT IT WANTS.
* SAME > SOUTH KOREA [preemptively] THWARTED A BIGGER ATTACK ON/FROM NORTH KOREA.
The only thing the KOREAN PEOPLE, North or SOuth, have to look forward to is LOSING NORTH KOREA = 1/2 OF LAST REMAINING ANCIENT KORYE KINGDOM [2-1/2 of 3 Kingdoms] TO CHINA, be it MILITARILY or ECONOMICALLY.
#13
PYONGYANG = STARVING NORTH KOREA controls the ball on unilater starting something militarily between CHINA = US-ALLIES, NOT THE LATTER.
DPRK = RUSSIA BUILDING A MAJOR MILBASE(S) IN FORMER-JAPANESE-KURILS-NKA-SOVEREIGN-N-PERMANENT RUSSIAN-TERRITORY = WHAT WORKS FOR RUSSIA AGZ JAPAN [US-Allies] SSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH ALSO WORKS AGZ CHINA.
ACTOR ROBIN WILLIAMS = [Political]CCCCCCCCCCC-orrectness ...DDDDDDDDDDDDeniability.
[Al Jazeera] When Israeli commandos killed nine mostly Turkish activists during a raid on a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Paleostinians last May, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the attack as a prime example of "state terrorism." ... Not, as you might expect, terrorist groups sponsored by states, but rather any action taken by a non-Moslem state that constrains the violent impulses of Moslems or their allies ...
"Even tyrants, bandidos and pirates have their own rules of ethics," he said, but not terrorists killing on behalf of a UN member state. He's referring to soldiers killing bad guyz on behalf of that UN member state...
And when several internationally renowned artists, including the rock band Pixies and British rocker Elvis Costello, responded by cancelling scheduled concerts in Tel Aviv, Shuki Weiss, one of Israel's leading promoters, called the growing boycott movement "cultural terrorism." ... an emotional boo-boo suffered by the sensitive when someone is mean to them ...
"Music and politics should not mix," he said, even as the Paleostinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was picking up steam. I'm guessing Shuki lost some money on that dead...
Perhaps not surprisingly, a UN Ad Hoc Committee to Eliminate Terrorism, created by the General Assembly back in December 1996, has remained deadlocked as it tries to reach agreement on a comprehensive draft convention to eliminate terrorism. Last month, it made another unsuccessful effort at drawing a distinction between "freedom fighters" and "state sponsored terrorism". "Freedumb fighters" usually translate to terrorists who're on your side. "State-sponsored terrorism" is defined above.
"One knows terrorism when one sees it," said Ambassador Palitha Kohona of Sri Lanka, a former chief of the UN Treaty Section. One's not always too sure whether one's looking at freedumb fighters or terrorists, though. Sometimes y'gotta wait for the press release.
The draft convention, tabled in 2001 by India, has won agreement by several delegations to a substantial extent. However, The infamous However... it is bogged down on a few crucial issues. For example, it has been proposed by some that state sponsored terrorism or certain acts of states be covered by the draft, Kohona said. "But only regarding states we don't like. Y'couldn't apply the same standard to, for instance, Libya."
Many others have resisted this proposal on the basis that acts of states are governed by other existing rules of international law and therefore, it was superfluous to cover this aspect under the draft. Similarly, said Kohona, a proposal has been made to exclude certain acts of liberation movements from the ambit of the draft convention. But this has also met with wide resistance. Perhaps because a civilian corpse is still a civilian corpse, whether caused by a terrorist or a "freedumb fighter."
The proposed new comprehensive convention was intended to provide umbrella cover for situations not already addressed by the 13 existing sectoral conventions on terrorism concluded under the auspices of the United Nations, aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society.
Mouin Rabbani, contributing editor to the Washington-based Middle East Report, said that achieving and applying an objective definition of terrorism is rather beside the point. He said terrorism has become a political epithet designed to place enemies beyond the pale as opposed to a technical term the purpose of which is to define certain criminal acts that violate the laws of war and for which the perpetrators can be held accountable. "Thus, in the Middle East, it has reached the point where Paleostinian or Arab armed activities that target Israeli military personnel are characterised as terrorist acts, while Israeli armed activities that deliberately target civilians are characterised as legitimate acts of self-defence," he said.
"We could even conclude that at least in the Middle East, terrorism refers to the ethnicity of the perpetrator as opposed to the perpetrator's actions," said Rabbani. "Thus we enter into the realm of the absurd, where campaigns to boycott Israel or more narrowly illegal Israeli phenomena, such as settlement products - acts that are by definition non-violent and don't require so much as a water pistol - are termed terrorism," noted Rabbani.
The collective punishment of the civilian population of the Gazoo Strip, an ongoing act that has cost numerous lives with the sanction of the United States and the European Union, is by contrast justified as a legitimate anti-terrorist campaign, he said.
Dr. Rohan Perera, chair of the Ad Hoc Committee to Eliminate Terrorism, claimed the only way to reach a consensus on the issue is to follow the path of adopting an operational or a criminal law definition of terrorism, rather than a generic definition.
The former approach has been followed in the 13 sectoral conventions on terrorism, and avoids the pitfalls of the latter approach which involves excluding certain types of conduct such as those committed by national liberation movements (NLM).
Accordingly, he said, the draft contains a criminal law definition. "The question of state terrorism will continue to be governed by general principles of international law, as it is not possible to deal with this aspect in a law enforcement instrument, dealing with individual criminal responsibility, based on an 'extradite or prosecute' regime," he said.
Similarly, said Perera, acts committed in the course of armed conflicts by NLMs will continue to be governed by international humanitarian law. "The negotiations started in 2000 and we were close to agreement in 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11 (terrorist attacks on the United States)". But since then, it has remained stalled, with little significant progress. He said that negotiations would resume within the framework of the UN's Sixth Committee dealing with legal issues.
Asked if there will ever be a new comprehensive convention to eliminate terrorism because of the continuing deadlock, said Kohona: "Of course, there will be a convention."
The international community has repeatedly condemned the use of terrorism as a tool of political expression and for any other purpose and therefore will seek to address the gaps in the existing international legal framework by concluding this convention. "It will also wish to send another unequivocal message to those who rely on terrorist force to achieve their goals," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2010 00:00 ||
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#4
indeed. Katrina Vanden Heuvel-ovitch is one of the most insufferable elitist commutards there is. A trustfund red diaper baby
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/25/2010 14:05 Comments ||
Top||
#5
(*shrug*)- So this hard-left nutcase joined a few of the other hard-left nutcases in calling out two hard-left nutcases for apparent assassination-of-character of a private citizen. It's like the Mafia leaving a 'civilian' out of their turf wars- it's nice, but they are still the Mafia.
Fair Use eight sentences or less except:
In early July, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation placed its two London-based "quality" dailies, the Times and Sunday Times, behind a paywall, charging £1 for 24 hours access, or £2 a week (after an introductory £1 for the first month.*) At the same time, News Corp also forbad the UK's Audit Bureau of Circulations from reporting site traffic*, so that no meaningful measure of the paywall's effect was available.
That situation has now been partially reversed, with News reporting some of its own numbers: they claim 105,000 total transactions for digital content between July and October.* (Several people have wrongly reported this as 105,000 users. The number of users is smaller, as there can be more than one transaction per user.) News Corp notes that about half of those transactions were one-offs, meaning only about 50,000 transactions in those four months were by people with any commitment to the site longer than a single day.
Because that 50K number includes not just web site transactions, but Kindle and iPad sales as well, web subscribers are, at best, in the low tens of thousands. However, we don't know how small the digital subscriber number is, for two reasons. First, the better the Kindle and iPad numbers are, the worse the web numbers are. Second, News did not report, for example, whether a loyal reader from July to October would count as a single transaction or several consecutive transactions. (If iPad sales are good, and loyal users create multiple transactions, then monthly web subscribers could be under 10,000.) End excerpt. You can find a discussion on another move to a paywall and how that went here.
Posted by: badanov ||
11/25/2010 06:39 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Al Jazeera] When Israeli commandos killed nine mostly Turkish activists during a raid on a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to 
by Glenn Greenwald
