Agenda 2019

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jun/18/al-jazeera-employees-among-six-people-sentenced-to-death-in-egypt Al-Jazeera employees among six sentenced to death in Egypt   The obscenity of Egyptian "show trials" since Al-Sisi, with outside help and encouragement, staged the coup of   3rd July 2013 and overthrew a democratically elected President. For as long as western governments and Israel continue to support and bolster this tinpot dictator, loathed by the majority of Egyptians, so will he continue his program of imprisonments, show trials, persecution and executions of any people or groups opposed to his despotic regime.  He has been give "carte blanche" by the west to crush any opposition, real or imagined, to permanently extinguish all traces of the "Egyptian Spring", to re install a military dictatorship in the country. In December of 2013, I wrote in New Agenda under the heading of "T he Egyptian people are th...

The inquiry completed its public hearings in 2011 Sir John Chilcot opened his two-year inquiry in 2009 There are a number of examples, particularly over recent years, where issues of great interest or even concern to the public, have been ignored, delayed or even stopped from investigation (as was the case of the BAE Systems involvement in bribery and corruption in Saudi Arabia). The badly worn clichés of "not in the public interest" or insufficient evidence", have been trotted out by the "authorities" as if in some way these weasel words will pacify people into accepting the government or the DPP or who ever know best and we should not press the matter further. We all know however, that the reasons for delay or abandonment of investigations into these matters, is usually more to do with avoidance of possible exposure or embarrassment for government or individuals, than with informing the public of facts. The Hillsborough investigation is perhaps t...

Censorship at the Independent, Guardian and Huffington Post (to name but three) is working overtime at the moment predominately it seems on the subject of the Israeli air strikes and naval bombardment of Gaza and the killing of civilians. Any article, comment or observation even remotely critical of the Israeli government in Tel Aviv, is removed swiftly and without any reason or explanation to the author. The posts just disappear, rather like Palestinians in Hebron or Nablus or Ramalah or a hundred other towns in the occupied territories. This morning I have had personal experience of the Independent, Guardian and Huffington Post censors. I posted the text of, “The "collective guilty conscience" of the governments in the western world.” ( http://new-agenda2012.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/european.html ), in the comments section of an item published on their pages. In the case of the Independent, the item was in response to an article by their Yasmin Alibhai Brown. The paper...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/12/un-security-council-gaza-ceasefire-call?guni=Keyword:news-grid%20main-1%20Main%20trailblock:Editable%20trailblock%20-%20news:Position5 UN security council calls for Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire  There is a war going on in Palestine.The has been an an army of occupation in Palestine sine 1967 or as many would argue, since 1948. Although to judge by the words and actions of the western powers, the observer would be excused for thinking that no one has really noticed. Over the course of the last 7 days, more than 120 civilians have been killed in Gaza as a result of airstrike or naval bombardment from ships blockading the area. The latest killings and military attacks are but the most recent events in an almost endless stream of "tit for tat" reprisal and counter reprisal which have been going on for nearly 50 years, littered with a few full scale military invasions of both Palestinian lands in the form of the Gaza strip and ...