alanjjohnstone
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The UK however, broke European ranks on Thursday and sided with the US.
“This regime has done untold damage to the people of Venezuela, 10% of the population have left Venezuela such is the misery they are suffering,” the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said in a statement issued in Washington before a meeting with the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and Vice-President Mike Pence.
“So the United Kingdom believes Juan Guaidó is the right person to take Venezuela forward. We are supporting the US, Canada, Brazil and Argentina to make that happen.”
The statement stopped just short of echoing US language on recognising Guaidó, however. “It is UK policy to recognise states, not governments,” a British official said.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/24/venezuela-maduro-guaido-defense-minister-civil-war
Considering how much we have complained that we are excluded from the media, I certainly hope we do have a volunteer to contribute to LBC, Max.
I’m sure, ALB, you wish this topic to remain focused on disproving Venezuela’s claims to be a progressive socialistic state but already the situation has grown into a diplomatic dispute. For many of Maduro’s foreign support it is economic interests determining policy.
I stand to be corrected but has the US ever actually recognized an opposition as the official government as they have now done.
The Left are indeed going to say as they did about Allende and Chile that any elected government will be overthrown by a coup or whatever, engineered by the USA. No doubt the similarities with Ukraine will be raised.
But as you imply there are two myths.
One that is state-capitalism which the Right call socialism is guaranteed to fail and we sort of accept that position and the subsequent breakdown began under Chavez when oil prices no longer could support the government spending.
So they went after the tax income from the wealthy and it resulted in a powerful anti-Bolivarian opposition.
But is it really a myth that the American policy was always to undermine Venezuela’s government and encourage regime-change? Things just happened to go their way and they easily took advantage of the instability that resulted from the economic mis-management and the heavy-handed state repression of protests. I think the democracy of the ballot box with Chavez can be accepted, less so with Maduro but how many nations have exhibited a similar lack of democracy where there is little protest from the Americans.
Pope Francis suggested on Wednesday that hostility to immigrants was driven by irrational fear, as he headed to Central America.
“Fear makes us crazy,” Francis said.
Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaidó has declared himself the interim president. Guaidó was quickly recognised by the US, Canada, Brazil, Colombia and other US allies in the Americas.
US officials made clear that the White House would look at ways to transfer Venezuelan assets and oil revenues to Guaidó and the opposition-run national assembly.
Why is it that dictators are drawn to such female regiments?
I have seen the North Korean female military parades and I recall Gaddafi had an all-female bodyguard or palace guard.
I also heard from an ex-SLL/WRP member when he was at one of their “White House” conventions he saw Gerry Healey in the company of a strikingly attractive young woman and when he asked who she was, he was informed she was his driver, not the burly bodyguard he would have expected him to have.
Yet another climate change threat surfaces, this time from below ground.
Mark Cuthbert of Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences and Water Research Institute commented, “Groundwater is out of sight and out of mind, this massive hidden resource that people don’t think about much yet it underpins global food production.”
Yet another report that confirms a lack of urgency by governments.
The European commission warned that the total subsidies for coal, oil and gas across the EU remained at the same level as 2008. This is despite both the EU and G20 having long pledged to phase out the subsidies, which hamper the rapid transition to clean energy needed to fight climate change. Across the EU renewable energy received 45% of subsidies and fossil fuels 33%.
The total fossil fuel subsidies in the EU were €55bn in 2016, the report concluded. “This is a very high number, given we are reaching the deadline for some of their phase out promises,” said Ipek Gencsu, subsidies expert at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).
It found €12bn (£10.5bn) a year in support for fossil fuels in the UK, significantly more than the €8.3bn spent on renewable energy. Along with the UK, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland all gave more to fossil fuels.
Shelagh Whitley, also at ODI, was dismissive of the UK government’s claim to provide no fossil fuel subsidies. “They are lying,” she said. “It’s absurd. They are playing games and continuing to prop up a centuries old energy system.”
“Obviously the removal of Netanyahu will change middle east political history…”
Not 100% sure if that is said with tongue firmly in cheek. Irony and sarcasm rarely succeeds on web-posts.
But will any future Israeli government be any better or worse?
Netanyahu has repeatedly said he will not step down even if indicted.
But perhaps a sign of the times is the new Israel Resilience Party’s slogan, “Israel Before Everything,” and its echo of “Deutschland Uber Alles” (Germany above all).
Benny Gantz, is a former army chief of staff who announced months ago he would challenge Netanyahu, recently stood before a video camera — and uttered a total of 17 words, six of which were “I think I spoke too much.”
Gantz is largely unknown to Israelis, who observed from afar his bemedaled military career. He has no known policy positions and has tried to cultivate the mystique of a successful, competent and disinterested officer who led Israel’s army from 2011 and 2015. He is also a political neophyte stepping into a raucous, some say merciless, political arena.https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-israel-election-season-20190118-story.html
But Israeli governments are always coalitions so victory goes to who can make deal or no deal.
Kamala Harris, California senator and the state’s former attorney general, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, announced her campaign for president.
Yet another study that reveals that scientists don’t quite comprehend the consequences of ice-melt which is more severe than previously thought.
“The only thing we can do is adapt and mitigate further global warming – it’s too late for there to be no effect,” Michael Bevis, lead author of the paper and a professor of geodynamics at Ohio State University said. “This is going to cause additional sea level rise. We are watching the ice sheet hit a tipping point.
“We’re going to see faster and faster sea level rise for the foreseeable future. Once you hit that tipping point, the only question is: How severe does it get?”Richard Alley, a geologist and glacier expert at Pennsylvania State University added that while there are uncertainties over future sea level rise “if the big ice sheets change more rapidly than expected, they could drive faster or much faster rise than expected”.
So can we also assume that Trotsky would have been a Remainer having written United States of Europe
No, ALB. You decided that, I think. I simply agreed that we are omnivores and a mixed diet where meat is not consumed in large quantities as it is now is probably the best suited but under capitalism the food industry remains detrimental to the envifonment, to individual health and is instrumental in creating a demand for meat and sugar and salt.
I did recognize it as the piper saying but thought I would apply to the food industry and the market for non-meat products.
I touched on it in a previous post when I referred to Greggs vegan sausage roll being a best seller for them and that when the food industry offers tasty alternatives to meat and promotes it, people readily adopt it.
But when the food industry is reluctant to make available alternatives and sometimes campaigns against them then people are more prone to accept the arguments that vegetarianism/veganism infringes upon their freedom of choice in what they eat, not acknowledging that the actual lack of choice is prevalent in the current food industry, presenting a limited menu.
The public end up singing from the same song-book as the industrialised livestock business.
As for the German protest, I fully recognize the flaws in many of the participants’ claims i.e. that small is better and local is good, as implied by Matt’s turkey reply. However, on the positive side, there was a recognition that food is not a personal question of individual choice but a much wider one within the context of the economic system and that it requires a social solution, not a life-style option.
I’m sure we all know Ludwig Feuerbach famous phrase, “We are what we eat” but he also stated, “A man who enjoys only a vegetable diet is only a vegetating being.” 🙂
