The war might be illegal, but removing Saddam was legitimate
I am still a bit bemused by this whole Iraq War inquiry. Like the ones before it, the outcome is known in advance, although T.Blair’s act was the best when the circus came to town. Is it worth the money spent?
(more…)
Believe it or not, we did laugh, twice, during the Prime Minister’s monthly presser this morning.
(more…)
OBITUARY: GENERAL ALI HASSAN AL-MAJID;
Having had my work (whether books, news reports, commentary or analysis I contributed in newspapers, TV or Broadcast) plagiarised by fellow hacks – yes they have no f***** morals – I decide to publish this obituary of Saddam Hussein’s cousin General Ali Hassan Al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali, who was executed today in Baghdad, on my blog as more than one obituary that will appear in the National papers tomorrow arelikely to be plagiarised from my work. I did in fact publish an obituary of Gn Al-Majid in the Independent on Tuesday 8th April 2003, after he had faked his own death and we fell for it.
(more…)
This is the original piece, which was printed in Arabic in Asharq al-Awsat Saturday January 2, 2010, but then they back-translated into English (http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=19420 )which made little sense, hence I had to put it on the blog ( which I normally wouldn’t do with pieces published in the media)
ONCE AGAIN the derogatory term “Londonstan”, resonated among world security chiefs referring to Britain as soon as it was revealed that that Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who tried to trigger explosives on a passenger flight approaching Detroit airport, had been radicalised by Islamists extremists during his three years study in Britain.
(more…)
This year loudest shot in one-self foot award should sure go to the BBC, for providing the BNP leader Nick Griffen with the best publicity a fascist right wing party could dream of since Mosley’s Black Shirts defeat in Cable Street, and I believe the prize should be shared with New Labour government under Gordon Brown for non policy on the subject ( Downing street line on Friday was ‘ the Prime Minister doesn’t watch Question Time,’ prompting a fellow lobby hack to comment: ‘perhaps because he can only see one side of the argument.’)
(more…)
London september 4, 2009
Prime Minister Gordon Brown in his dealing with the shambles of operation Megrahi seemed to be more of a Mr Muddle ( as in Mr men books) than a statesman. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer who was found guilty, by a Scottish court in 2000, for plotting the explosion that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in1988 killing over 200, was released by Scottish justice minister Kenny McCascail ‘ on compassionate’ grounds with 19 years remaining of his sentence; after three doctors ( paid by the Libyans) decided he had a terminal prostate cancer.
(more…)
6 July 2009
When former Prime Minister Tony Blair was giving oral evidence to a House of Common Select Committee last month, a leading New labour figure was overheard whispering to a colleague ‘ my god, what have we done !’.
Appearing in his current role as the Middle East Peace Quartet (EMEPQ) envoy before the all party Foreign Affairs Select Committee (FASC) Mr Blair articulated his assessment of how to overcome obstacles impeding the peace process towards the two state solution in Palestine, while remaining in a calm control of the two and half hour session.
(more…)
This is the full version as space restrictions in the Middle East Magazine rquired a much shorter one.
The 21st League of Arab Nations summit in Doha, was supposed to be a two day summit of conciliation and dealing with issues ranging from Iranian threats to world financial crisis as wells as the customary Israeli Palestinian settlement, and Palestinian/Palestinian conciliation; but it was cut into one day, most of the agenda ignored.
(more…)
The Libyan leader Colonel Mummar Gaddafi lived up to his reputation yesterday by suggesting that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was ‘ propelled by fibs towards his grave’ during an Arab summit in the Qatari Capital Doha.
(more…)
I was not planning to put this information on my blog, since I thought it to be a personal matter. but since my name has been mentioned, in the past few days, in the media both in print and in blogs and forums, in association with Just Journalism, an organisation from which I resigned as a director on 31 December 2008, I had to alert every one to the fact that I have nothing to do with the organisation any more.
A significant part of the information published was wrong and some claims were false regarding both my identity and my association with Just journalism.
(more…)