THE HANDSTAND |
NOVEMBER-JANUARY2010
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edcell
So this is the European Union we joined - an EU
whose representatives have no use for truth and justice...the
utter disgust and horror I feel reading the following
list of "nations" who rejected or abstained
from a vote to accept the Goldstone Report on Gaza is
surely not mine alone. We all know that governments now
no longer represent the people - so what are we going to
do about it?
This is the UN vote record on the
Goldstone Resolution.
Vote on Report of Fact Mission on
Gaza Conflict/Goldstone Resolution:
The draft resolution on follow-up to the Report of the
United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict
(document A/64/L.11) was adopted by a recorded vote of
114 in favour to 18 against, with 44 abstentions, as
follows:
In favour: Afghanistan, Albania,
Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados,
Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Central
African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Comoros, Congo,
Cuba, Cyprus, Democratic Peoples Republic of
Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti,
Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador,
Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea,
Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Iran,
Iraq, Ireland, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait,
Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Lebanon, Lesotho,
Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta,
Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco,
Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger,
Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Portugal,
Qatar, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,
Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore,
Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Sri
Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Switzerland, Syria,
Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Trinidad and Tobago,
Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of
Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia,
Zimbabwe.
Against: Australia, Canada, Czech
Republic, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy,
Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States of), Nauru,
Netherlands, Palau, Panama, Poland, Slovakia,
The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Ukraine,
United States.
Abstain: Andorra, Austria,
Belgium, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia,
Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece,
Iceland, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Liberia,
Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg,
Monaco, Montenegro, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea,
Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian
Federation, Samoa, San Marino, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden,
Tonga, Uganda, United Kingdom, Uruguay.
Absent: Bhutan, Cape Verde, Côte dIvoire,
Equatorial Guinea, Honduras, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan,
Madagascar, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Sao Tome and
Principe, Seychelles, Togo, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.
New Zealand cartoonist Malcolm
Evans.
In Ireland we are
being driven down into ever greater segregation between
those who have more than enough money to live on and
those who don't. I even wonder what I will do this winter
- when diminishing the rent relief for tenants like
myself the government avoided any justice in the deed by
refusing to define to Landlords that they must reduce
their rent by the sum witheld. Propaganda soon followed
that landlords everywhere were reducing their rents - I
have not yet heard any true story of such reductions. I
sought another residence but was asked 800Euros per month
for unfurnished premises - 100 less
than I pay now and miles outside Dublin far from my
friends and the
"home " area I am used to in the city.
I attended the Penguin book sale for four journalists who
have firsthand knowledge of the scenes behind the surface
of public life and regretted that the public were not
given more time to make some statements - we were invited
to a "Debate" but that really did not happen...so
many in the audience who had hoped to leave with a good
understanding of NAMA, the Government Gamble that hangs
over us all, were frustrated. So few perhaps had read the
news last week that NAMA is to be a private majority
business set-up for Fianna Fail and that any government
thereafter shall have little strength to combat any
unwise runaway business on the foot of this great
property porfolio. When we understood there was to be
debate for one week on amendments only 9 or so TDs
actually went to the chamber while everyone else went
blithely on holiday. Information during that time and
afterwards has been scant and confusing. The merry-go-round
of loans of 57 billion on paper that comport gov. bonds
to the ECB loans and back into Bank vaults until lent to
government again - may never see the light of day until
the taxpayer will be robbed of real money in order to
"prove" it all happened. Meantime what business
deals are going to be made and by whom, with the actual
portfolio of property and land-sites?
Small Business firms are under
stress - the Irish are to have their resources of crafts,
and all entrepreneur's start-ups reduced or completely
destroyed ?; a generation of young people once again on
the move or in despair; and the farmers in the terms of
loss or gain simply redefined as "too small? then
get off the land" by big landowners. It is as though
Ireland is a target experiment for the Copenhagen Treaty.
See how the people take it - deliver or maybe use force?
Already bankstaff are in peril, from the Gardai (police)
system of response now in force, if kidnapped by any gang
of desperados. Is Company Law being broken up as hotels
and pubs go bankrupt that are taken over by Banks and run
by them illegally? Bankruptcy normally means no more
trade by any Company, a Law that it appears is being
thrust aside.
There are so many
points of dispute that it is difficult to make any
comprehensible sense or text of it all - except we know
that desperation from big income business has decided to
curtail our lives so we can pay debts big and small that
were seemingly their right, and also ours, to establish
and pay in time honoured fashion. Not so - in the time of
increase increase was always delayed in a Winter Budget
till the following autumn - but decrease is now immediate
and in January we await the penalty to be laid on us by
the speculators and by their puppets in Government.
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