THE HANDSTAND

NOVEMBER-JANUARY2010

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 We all know that governments now no longer represent the people - so what are we going to do about it?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 People’s 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 People’s 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 d’Ivoire, 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.