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Archives for March 2017

A Taste of Freedom – Palestine is shrinking and a population is getting lost!

30/03/2017 By ACOMSDave

In 1995 the Guardian Education supplement ran an article by Jop Glanville ‘A taste of freedom’, which looked at Israeli troops leaving from towns on the West Bank, an area which they had occupied by force since 1967. At this time the figures quoted by Jop Glanville incidated that the number of UN registered refugees by areas were:

Total West Bank

504,070

Gaza

643,600

Lebanon

338,290

Jordan

1,193,539

Syria

327,288

2,502,717

In 2010 the figures were:

A taste of freedom - 2

almost a 100% increase in Palestinian refugees.

So what is the situation today on the West Bank? Well today’s figures, nearly 22 years later, make harrowing reading:

Total West Bank

779,000

Gaza

1,100,000

Lebanon

425,000

Jordan

1,900,000

Syria

427,000

3,852,000

According to the IRIN, ‘Such is the scale and uniqueness of the Palestinian refugee problem that the UN has one agency for Palestinian refugees in the Levant countries and another for all other refugees across the world’…

But what is worse, is that systematically Israel is closing down the West Bank to Palestinians, there is no ‘taste of freedom’ as Jo Glanville wrote about in 1995; in February 2017, Israel authorised 3,000 more settler homes in the West Bank. According to Aljazeera, Israel, in practice, has confiscated Palestinian since its military occupation of the West Bank – including Jerusalem – and the Gaza Strip which started as a result of the 1967 Middle East war.

Israeli settlers in the West Bank

The following picture tells a more bleak picture of what Israel is doing:

A taste of freedom for Palestine - Not!

(Palestine Awareness Coalition)

In effect it is systematically depopulating and land-grabbing the West Bank – it is further isolating Palestinians from other parts of the world, an example being the law passed by the Israeli government on March 6th, which gives Israeli officials authority to deny entry to foreign nationals who have called for, or belong to organisation which have called for a boycott of Israel or Israeli settlements.

Palestinians are a race without a proper home, under continuous threat, and the world needs to take notice and help resolve this problem, which was created by the Western powers walking away from their responsibilities to both Palestinians and Israelis!

Further reading:

  • Israel/Palestine Events of 2016 – Human Rights Watch
  • Palestine Refugees – UNRWA
  • The United Nations and Palestinian Refugees

 

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Filed Under: Editor to ACOMSDave Tagged With: Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, West Bank. Gaza

When is a Conflict of Interest not a Conflict of Interest?

20/03/2017 By ACOMSDave

Conflict of InterestSo George Osborne is to become the Editor (for two days a month at a unknown salary, which I am sure is not a pittance)which if this was his only role would not raise an eyebrow from anyone; however he is a sitting MP with responsibilities to his constituents (especially in these dire times with Brexit on the horizon – we are just waiting for the ‘HARD’ date), so is there a conflict of interest?

According to Sky News he has currently six (yes 6) jobs running simultaneously:

  • He’s a speaker at the Washington Speaker’s Bureau, where he has a lucrative contract to perform after-dinner speeches around the world
  • He’s a chairman of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership (not an obvious position for the editor of London’s biggest newspaper)
  • He’s an advisor to the American fund management firm Blackrock. He’s thought to be paid £650,000 a year (yes, you read that right) for working one day a week for the company (yes, you read that right as well)
  • He’s a fellow at the McCain Institute, an American think tank
  • He will be (as of mid-May) the editor of London’s Evening Standard newspaper.
  • And oh yes … he’s (still) the MP for Tatton (a salary of £75,000 a year plus expenses).

Now we all think good on him for making a success of his life and looking after his family; but, and it is a big BUT, the Business Dictionary defines a conflict of interest as being:

  1. A situation that has the potential to undermine the impartiality of a person because of the possibility of a clash between the person’s self-interest and professional interest or public interest.
  2. A situation in which a party’s responsibility to a second-party limits its ability to discharge its responsibility to a third-party.

    (Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/conflict-of-interest.html)

It would clear to me, and to a good many others from the outcry that has arisen, that being an editor of a ‘Conservative’ ideological paper which clearly shows its stance as being in total support of Conservative doctrine, means that in all honesty he cannot be an editor who can give an unbiased editorial-ship to this paper. Never mind that as someone who has edited a paper and a magazine, I can tell you it is time consuming and tiring. I did it whilst doing my full-time job as an internal auditor and subsequent as a full-time student. I found it difficult doing two roles, and yet he is doing six – he clearly is superman!

It surely must now be up to his constituents to review his seat and decide whether he can and is fulfilling his MP duties fully, and they decide that he is isn’t give him guidance as to their needs, and if necessary request he stand down or give up these other roles which may be causing a distraction.

 

Further reading:

  • The Guardian – George Osborne facing calls to quit as MP over Evening Standard job
  • The Mirror – Every job millionaire George Osborne will do in between working as a part-time MP

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Filed Under: Editor to ACOMSDave Tagged With: conflict, editor, Evening Standard, George Osborne, interest, money, politics

Civil Liberties and the World Wide Web

13/03/2017 By ACOMSDave

Civil LibertiesIt is interesting to read this article, as it reflects the things that I have been writing and talking about over the last 20 years – of course I have been writing about Big Brother and the loss of civil liberties in part, and this is now encompassed in the world wide web and how government is using it to monitor and control what we do, see and hear.  I make no bones about the fact that I distrust government in its attitude and continued use of phrases  about we need CCTV to control terrorism, for your protection etc.  That we don’t need personal encryption, as if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide, and we won’t maintain personal data longer ‘that is necessary’.  There ares lots of more glib phrases, but they all come down to government control, and you losing your civil liberties  Civil Liberties - CCTV

It has taken all of us to build the web we have, and now it is up to all of us to build the web we want – for everyone

Source: I invented the web. Here are three things we need to change to save it | Tim Berners-Lee

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Filed Under: Community Journalist Tagged With: big brother, encryption, government, police, politics

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