Indo-UK: News & Discussion

[Sumeet]

dude those are BNP morons. don't worry about them.

[paramu]

The British people's view of chandrayaan was far more negative than any other people ! I wonder why !
And what kind of 'aid' is he talking about. isnt that 'aid' basically a loan which is repayed back with interest ?

India launches Moon mission & gets £800 million from UK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF5x-bS7 ... re=related#

They don't have one.

[Neshant]

The aid is flowing the other way. Lots of rich Indians have settled in the UK including Mittal.
Without that aid, what really is the UK exporting? The so called financial services industry in London is a crock.

[Philip]

Terror alert in the UK.Massive attacks planned according to authorities from Islamists/AlQ.The main secret enclaves are said to be centred around Luton,one of the three airports that serve as a gateway into the UK/London area.Luton generally handles low cost carriers like EasyJet and security at Luton Airport appears to porous and be less intensive than at Heathrow.Vehicles/coaches that provide links to the train station for connections to central London can gain access right upto the main terminal buildings.It would be very easy for a suicide squad to use the coaches with their luggage filled with explosives,as luggage loaded onto the coaches do not pass through any scanners.Uk security have atough job on their hands.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... laves.html

Report identifies UK terrorist enclaves
Secret enclaves of al-Qaeda extremists based in London, Birmingham and Luton are planning mass-casualty attacks in Britain, according to a leaked Government intelligence report.

By Sean Rayment, Security Correspondent
Last Updated: 10:55AM GMT 09 Nov 2008

News footage of the terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport Photo: PA

The document, which was drawn up by the intelligence branch of the Ministry of Defence, MI5 and Special Branch, states that "some thousands" of extremists are active in the UK. They are predominantly UK-born and aged between 18 and 30, and many are believed to have been trained in overseas terrorist camps.

Under the heading "International Terrorism", the report, which is marked "restricted" states: "For the foreseeable future the UK will continue to be a high-priority target for international terrorists aligned with al-Qaeda. It will face a threat from British nationals, including Muslim converts, and UK-based foreign terrorists, as well as terrorists planning attacks from abroad."

The report states that the threat from the Islamist extremist community in the UK is "diverse and widely distributed" but adds that the numbers of terrorist in Britain is "difficult to judge".

The document does state, however, that the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, which is based in MI5's headquarters at Thames House in London, estimates that there are "some thousands of extremists in the UK committed to supporting Jihadi activities, either in the UK or abroad".

A year ago Jonathan Evans, the director general of MI5, said in a speech that his organisation had identified that there were at least 2,000 individuals who posed a threat to national security and public safety.

Since 2001, over 1,200 terrorist suspect have been arrested, over 140 have been charged and more than 45 have been convicted of terrorism offences, according to Home Office figures. It is also estimated that there are some 200 terrorist networks functioning in Britain today who are involved in at least 30 plots.

But this latest security assessment appears to suggest that the number of individuals who now pose a threat to the UK is even higher.

The report continues: "The majority of extremists are British nationals of south Asian, mainly Pakistani origin but there are also extremists from north and east Africa, Iraq and the Middle East, and a number of converts. The overwhelming majority of extremists are male, typically in the 18-30 age range.

"The main extremist concentrations are in London, Birmingham, with significant extremist networks in the South East, notably Luton. Extremist networks are principally engaged in spreading their extremist message, training, fund raising and procuring non-lethal military equipment to support the Jihads in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, and sending recruits to the conflicts.

"UK-based extremists, either under the direction of al-Qaeda, or inspired by al-Qaeda's ideology of global Jihad, have also engaged in attack planning in the UK."

Although the document specifically names London, Birmingham and south east England as areas of extremist activity, MI5 believe that the threat posed by Islamist extremists comes from across the UK. In an attempt to deal with the growing number of terrorists, MI5 now has nine regional offices and has almost doubled its staff numbers from 1,800 in 2001 to 3,500 today.

There are around 1.5 million Muslims in Britain, a million of whom live in London. There are 150,000 Muslims in Birmingham and a further 27,000 in Luton. There are also an estimated 10,000 Afro-Caribbean Muslims or white converts.

Some of the terrorists involved in the plot to bring down airliners using liquid bombs came from London, where a bomb factory had been established.

Birmingham, one of the centres of Islamic radicalisation in Britain, was where a plot was formed to kidnap and behead a British soldier.

The plot was lead by Parviz Khan, an unemployed charity worker who formed a terrorist cell in the city. The extremists planned to video the execution and release the film on the internet.

Luton has a growing Muslim population and has been a hot-bed of radical activity. The extremist group al-Muhajiroun has also been very active in the town. The 7/7 bombers assembled in Luton, before travelling to London to carry out their attacks.

The document also reveals that many of the terror networks operating in the UK include extremists who have been trained in terrorist camps overseas and have "some ability to construct improvised explosive devices, incorporating home-made explosives".

It adds: "The availability of training/guidance and the necessary components to build improvised explosive devices (IED), allied with extremists' known targeting preferences, mean that IED attacks against crowded places, intended to cause mass casualties, are the most likely form of attack in the UK."

It is also made clear in the report that al-Qaeda cells are planning further attacks in UK with the so-called Government Security Zone (GSZ), an area which covers the Houses of Parliament, Whitehall, Buckingham and St James' Palaces, as a possible target. The threat level in the GSZ is described in the report as "severe".

Security officials are convinced that UK-based al-Qaeda cells will attempt to carry out another "spectacular" inside the UK with major transport termini, such as airports and train stations, being the most likely targets.

Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP for Newark, said al-Qaeda now had support in large parts of the country, especially around Luton which was the spot where the 7/7 terrorists assembled before travelling to London to mount the Tube bombings.

He added: "We know that subversion and support for al-Qaeda is taking place in campuses and prisons all over the UK. The fact that we have not been attacked for over two years should not be taken by anyone as evidence that the threat has gone away, in fact it is just the contrary."

[Avinash R]

'Law unto themselves' Islamic gangs create no-go areas for British jail officers

London, Nov 6 (ANI): Muslim gangs inside Whitemoor Jail have created no-go areas for British jail officers and are policing the areas themselves.

The Daily Star quoted guards as claiming that the Islamic mobs are "a law unto themselves," adding that the prison staff have passed a vote of no confidence in their governor.

MP Malcolm Moss, 65, said Whitemoor Prison, Cambridgeshire, was descending into turmoil. He added that staff blamed Governor Steve Rodford for pandering to political correctness and making the Muslims untouchable.

The Conservative MP warned that the unrest had created a "tense" atmosphere not seen since the 1990s when the IRA maintained an inner sanctum inside the maximum-security prison.

"Serious problems will arise if there is dissatisfaction among staff at top security prisons, as is currently the case at Whitemoor. There are no-go sections policed by Muslim inmates, not staff. In the 1990s officers couldn't do their jobs properly and prisoners did what they like. We may be operating a similar situation," he said.

A third of the 458 inmates at Whitemoor are Muslims. Moss claimed that they were segregated from other prisoners.

In May an internal review of the jail by the Prison Service's Directorate of High Security warned staffs believe that a "serious incident is imminent" as several wings had become dominated by Muslim prisoners.

Moss is waiting for Government answers to questions he has posed about the vote of no confidence and segregation of Muslim inmates at Whitemoor.

Earlier, Anne Owers, the chief inspector of prisons, has urged the prison service to do more to provide staff throughout the jail system but particularly in the top security prisons with help to deal with increasing Muslim numbers.

The number of Muslim prisoners in jails doubled in the ten years to 2006 to reach 8,243 - 11 per cent of the total prison population.

[Avinash R]

Communist bleeding heart Indrani Bagchi interviews british ambassador to afghanistan, check the nature of questions. this commie will give sheela bhatt of rediff a complex.

'Britain sees India as a partner in Afghanistan'

[Avinash R]

UK companies look to India to help offset economic gloom
http://www.livemint.com/2008/11/1913413 ... ia-to.html
Wed, Nov 19 2008. 1:41 PM IST

London: British companies are increasingly looking to India, China and other export markets to compensate for lower sales in Britain and western markets due to growing spectre of economic doom and gloom.

According to the International Trade Team at Derbyshire and the Nottingham Chamber of Commerce, September and October were record months for handling export documentation, which is considered an accurate barometer of country’s exporting health.

“While companies face difficult trading conditions at home there are huge opportunities to be seized in overseas markets,” said David Hood, head of the Chamber’s International Trade Team.

For example, Fast React Systems, a global supplier of software-based planning and sourcing solutions, specifically to the fashion industry, has reported booming business in India, China and other parts of Asia.

The company has been recruiting new experts to support its global expansion when several British companies are cutting jobs in thousands.

“We are busier than ever. In the current volatile economic climate, fashion businesses have to look to improve their control, flexibility and speed of response,” said Andrew Brown, the companys managing director.

Derby-based specialist print company BemroseBooth, is among many British companies who are looking to exports to drive their growth and profits.

[vsudhir]

UK top tax rate at 61%

Less anticipated though was the clawback of the personal allowance for higher earners, which will see some taxpayers effectively paying paying 60p in the £1, according to leading accountants. These changes will not just affect the 1pc of taxpayers earning more than £150,000 a year. It will potentially affect 650,000 people earning more than £100,000 a year. To further rub salt into the wound these higher earners will also pay an additional 1pc in National Insurance costs, giving an effective taxation rate of 61pc - a rate not seen since the late 1980s.

What incentives for the likes of LN Mittal and the Sterlite honcho Agarwal to paqrk at London for much longer then, I wonder.

[vina]

Oh. the brits have a law by which the profits earned from operations of companies earned and dividend payments are not taxable. I would definitely think so. No way in hell other wise that LNM, Agrawal and the Russian oligarchs would congregate in Britanistan.

This 61% tax is for Abduls who work and make profits/salaries in Britainistan.

[Stan_Savljevic]

Oh. the brits have a law by which the profits earned from operations of companies earned and dividend payments are not taxable. I would definitely think so. No way in hell other wise that LNM, Agrawal and the Russian oligarchs would congregate in Britanistan.

This 61% tax is for Abduls who work and make profits/salaries in Britainistan.

The Londonistan administration used to be smart in having the right laws to let these folks stay back with less overhead. If you are a non-domicile in London which LN Mittal is (LNM is Indian citizen afaik), you wont have to pay taxes. I remember reading a NY Times article as to why London is such an expat corner. The Russian, Roman Abramovich, is another example of a non-dom.

But his big payout comes as the debate over the non-domiciled status of 117,000 foreigners living in Britain reaches fever pitch. These so-called non-doms, who claim their main home is in another country, pay no tax on earnings made outside Britain.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... n-dom.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Story?id=3031613&page=1

[Singha]

do these oligarchs pay taxes in the countries where they have factories and businesses?

meantime the murderer of a british girl was caught by indian police
and duly handed over to face 24 yrs in jail there. he was a drunk
taxi driver that night or so he claims.

we ought to be extracting our pound of flesh in these matters. the
suspect in gulshan kumar's murder nadeem lives openly in london and
HMG refused to extradite him because being a musalman , he would
no doubt face a prejudiced court in hindu-majority india.

the sardar taxi driver would no doubt face a all-white jury in london.
these were enough grounds to keep him here.

[Ameet]

Its official, there is no hope for UK. They should just save everyone's time and change their names to Mohammad now.

Muslim prayer rooms should be opened in Catholic schools says the church

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... aders.html

Muslim prayer rooms should be opened in every Roman Catholic school, church leaders have said.

The Catholic bishops of England and Wales also want facilities in schools for Islamic pre-prayer washing rituals.

The demands go way beyond legal requirements on catering for religious minorities.

But the bishops - who acknowledge 30 per cent of pupils at their schools hold a non-Christian faith - want to answer critics who say religious schools sow division.

The recommendations were made in a document, Catholic Schools, Children of Other Faiths and Community Cohesion.

'If practicable, a room (or rooms) might be made available for the use of pupils and staff from other faiths for prayer,' the bishops said.

'Existing toilet facilities might be adapted to accommodate individual ritual cleansing which is sometimes part of religious lifestyle and worship.

'If such space is not available on a permanent or regular basis, extra efforts might be made to address such need for major religious festivals.'

The Islamic cleansing ritual, called 'Wudhu', is carried out by Muslims before they pray.

Islam teaches that Muslims are unfit for prayer if they have not performed Wudhu after breaking wind or using the toilet.

Wudhu involves washing the face, hands, arms and feet three times each, gargling the mouth three times and washing the neck and inside the nose and ears. Some Muslims also wash their private parts.

Catholic schools would need to install bidets, foot spas and hoses to facilitate such extensive cleansing rituals, Muslims say.

Daphne McLeod, a former Catholic head teacher from south London, said it would be 'terribly expensive' for the country's 2,300 Catholic primary and secondary schools to provide ritual cleansing facilities.

She said: 'If Muslim parents choose a Catholic school then they accept that it is going to be a Catholic school and there will not be facilities for ritual cleansing and prayer rooms.

'They do their ritual cleansing before they go to a mosque, but they are not going to a mosque.

'I don't think the bishops should go looking for problems. Where will it stop?'

But Majid Khatme, a Muslim who sent his children to a London Catholic school, said he was delighted by the gesture.

'It is very kind of the bishops if they give this facility for Muslims to pray,' he said.

'I would love to send a letter of thanks to the bishops, really. If they do this all Muslims in Britain will be thankful to the Catholic Church to have facilities to pray. It is very, very encouraging.'

The recommendations have been approved by Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Birmingham and the favourite to succeed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor as Catholic primate.

But it would be up to governing bodies of each school to decide whether to act on the guidance.

[Avinash R]

Britain faces humiliating Iraq withdrawal
December 15, 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 342926.ece

Deborah Haynes in Baghdad

British Forces will leave Iraq by the end of next July under a humiliating proposal that lumps the once-valued deployment with five smaller contingents, including those of Romania, El Salvador and Estonia.

Even as President Bush paid a surprise farewell visit to Baghdad yesterday to celebrate the passage of a bilateral accord with Iraq, Britain faced being only a part of a shared military pact after negotiators ran out of time to seal country-specific deals.

Under the US-Iraq status of forces agreement, drawn up after nine months of heated negotiation, US forces will leave within three years. The deal for Britain and the others was described by Muwafaq al-Rubaie, Iraq’s National Security Adviser, as a “mini-agreement for the six entities”.

The proposed legislation states that all duties performed by the contingents, which include 42 Australian officers and 200 troops from 15 Nato countries, as well as the larger British presence, must stop by the end of May. “There will be two months’ grace for the forces to leave Iraq by July 31,” Fawzi Hariri, the Iraqi Industry Minister, said. “There was no way we could have done a security agreement to the same level of detail that we had with the Americans in such a short period.”

The Iraqi Government has the option to ask certain elements to remain beyond July to help with specific tasks, such as training the small Iraqi Navy. “We believe this is a workable document and we discussed it at the Cabinet level,” Mr Hariri told The Times.

Ministers vote on the deal tomorrow. If passed, it will go before the Iraqi parliament later in the week.

Grouping Britain with contingents such as Estonia, which has only 36 soldiers in Iraq, and El Salvador, with a mere 200, is a far cry from the start of the invasion when British Forces were second in importance only to those of the US.

However, the pact will provide much needed legal cover for 4,100 British troops, largely based in southern Iraq, beyond the end of the year when the UN mandate authorising the presence of all foreign forces expires.

A British government spokeswoman declined to comment on “leaked” information.

Yesterday Mr Bush ducked – twice – as an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at him as he shook hands with Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister. “It is the farewell kiss, you dog,” Muntazer al-Zaidi, from the Cairo-based al-Baghdadia channel, said, before security staff took him away.

Earlier, Mr Bush defended the invasion of Iraq and heralded the US-Iraqi accord as a “reminder of our friendship and a way forward to help the Iraqis to realise the blessings of a free society”. Speaking after meeting President Talabani, hesaid of the invasion and the aftermath: “The work hasn’t been easy, but it has been necessary for American security, Iraqi hope and world peace.”

[putnanja]

Revealed: Glasgow plot - Kafeel ally found guilty of conspiring mass murder

[Kakkaji]

MJ Akbar in dailypioneer.com:

Biased Broadcasting Corp, also known as BBC

MJ Akbar

The butler who calmed his feudal lord by noting that the uproar was a mere revolt and not a revolution, had a point. A revolution needs the brains of a Gandhi or a Lenin, not to mention a replacement for the object of destruction. I would be loath to replace the BBC. I would not even dignify my little protest with the label of 'revolt'. Moreover, it was Gandhian, which makes it even less glamorous. Perhaps the only relevant part of my response was non-cooperation.

During the sixty hours of unabated terrorism in Mumbai, the one group that was almost as much in demand as security forces was journalists. With media desperate to fill space or time, a journalist could pass off any amount of gibberish as on-the-spot wisdom. Many international radio and television stations did not even demand, or perhaps expect, correct grammar: Mangled phrases and minced diction can sound quaintly ethnic.

It was after the last terrorist had been shot in the Taj that something snapped during a telephone conversation with an extremely polite news anchor from the BBC in London. I refused. I said that I would not cooperate with the BBC as long as it described the murderers of Mumbai as "gunmen" rather than calling them what they were: Terrorists.

The BBC is full of friends, with whom one has had a happy and fulfilling professional relationship since the 1970s. I am privileged to consider the father of the BBC in India, Mark Tully, as a friend. Rita Payne, who headed the South Asia service for television till recently, is another. It was suggested that I might consider writing to Richard Porter, head of BBC World News Content. Perhaps my language was angry, but it only reflected the rage one felt: "I am appalled, astonished, livid at your inability to describe the events in Mumbai as the work of terrorists. You have called them 'gunmen', as if they were hired security guards on a night out. When Britain finds a group of men plotting in a home laboratory your Government has no hesitation in creating an international storm, and the BBC has no hesitation in calling them terrorists. When nearly two hundred Indian lives are lost, you cannot find a word in your dictionary more persuasive than 'gunmen'. You are not only pathetic, but you have become utterly biased in your reporting ... Shame on you and your kind."

Mr Porter's reply was worded in far more courteous language. "The BBC's policies on the use of the word 'terrorist' have long been a subject of public discussion. The guidelines we issue to staff are very clear - we do not ban the use of the word terrorist, but our preference is to use an alternative form of words. There is a judgement inherent in the use of the word, which is not there when we are more precise with our language. 'Gunman', or 'killer', or 'bomber', is an accurate description which does not come with any form of judgement."

Mr Porter said that BBC policy, of "accuracy and fairness" helped "audiences to understand the world we live in. I believe those audiences can make their own mind up about the people who carried out the attacks in Mumbai and don't need us to give them any label to reach that judgement". This seemed a curious claim. Isn't there judgement in the use of the word 'killer'? It can hardly be considered a term of endearment. If the BBC called you a 'killer' or a 'gunman' or a 'bomber' you would tend to sue, would you not?

But there is a subtler point here, which, at least in my view, acts as implicit protection for terrorism.

There is a clear distinction between gunmen and terrorists. Criminals use guns, and can be called gunmen; they do it for a purpose, to steal or kidnap or loot. Terrorists use guns and bombs in the random killing of innocents in pursuit of a political or personal agenda. The killers at Chhatrapati Shivaji Railway Terminus, Taj, Oberoi and a home where Jewish people lived, did not come to steal art, or money, or railway property. I put this point as forcefully as I could to Mr Porter: "It is a shame that the BBC cannot see the difference between a criminal and a terrorist, and chooses in fact to protect the terrorist by giving him the camouflage of a criminal. This is not a matter of semantics. Terrorists are always happy to fudge the definition."

In response Mr Porter, once again with the maximum courtesy, urged me to read the Editorial Policy guidelines of the BBC, disputed the use of "camouflage" and argued that "our reporting from Mumbai was extremely effective in putting across the full horror of what happened even within the constraints of our policy. And to repeat what I said before, we do not ban the use of the word, and it has been used many times on our output in relation to Mumbai".

Yes, used by Indians, and by British commentators I am sure, but not by the BBC.

It is possible that Mr Porter's eyebrow shot up in hurt surprise when he discovered that a story on this protest had appeared on an Indian website.

He wrote, "I must therefore assume that everything I say to you will be published, although I did not know that was your original intention."

Actually it was not. I merely did not think that an individual's reaction would be considered important enough to become a story. But that did not mean that this exchange was in private space. I had no knowledge of Mr Porter's existence before this correspondence, and am equally certain he had none of mine. Why would I endeavour to enter into a private correspondence with the BBC? The BBC's policy is a public fact, not a private one, and affects the public discourse, not a private chat. One would also assume that there is nothing that Mr Porter would say privately on his corporation's policy that he would not be prepared to air publicly.

Institutions do not change their convictions on the basis of a single protest. But media giants need to remember that while the common viewer may not have the sophistication of their committees, or the acumen of their lawyers, or the weight of their power, he does have common sense. Common sense defines the difference between the criminal and the terrorist.

It would be interesting to find out if the BBC called the destruction of the twin towers of New York the work of "gunmen" or "killers" or "airplane bombers", or whether it called them terrorists. Did the BBC consider the men who killed innocents on London's trains and buses "bombers" in search of a little private excitement? I am not sure about the nature of the coverage.

What I am sure about is that to describe the terrorists of Mumbai as mere "gunmen" is mealy-mouthed, weak-kneed and just plain offensive

-- MJ Akbar is Chairman of the fortnightly news magazine Covert

[Singha]

if the british have any shame left, they should drown themselves in the thames
and save the islamists the trouble of cutting their throats.

[Chinmayanand]

if the british have any shame left, they should drown themselves in the thames
and save the islamists the trouble of cutting their throats.

The British have a certain degree of deep hearted inclination and liking towards muslims. Why ?i dunno. Can any scholar shed some light here?As far as shame is concerned, they lost it with the late princess.

[Kakkaji]

if the british have any shame left, they should drown themselves in the thames
and save the islamists the trouble of cutting their throats.

The British have a certain degree of deep hearted inclination and liking towards muslims. Why ?i dunno. Can any scholar shed some light here?As far as shame is concerned, they lost it with the late princess.

I think it is more of a a deep-hearted disinclination and dislike towards the Hindus instead. After we are the original heathen pagans who grate upon their sensibility.

[Lalmohan]

modern british psyche has been taken over by the disease of 'political correctness' - some sections in the society, particularly the left leaning intelligensia, social workers, etc., want to be ultra neutral and secular to the extent that they pander to the minority desires even before the minority has thought of them (a sort of christian anglo saxon arundhoti roy syndrome). the hindus and sikhs being industrious hard workers don't make much noise about their problems, but the 'poor disenfranchised, uneducated, unemployed' muslims of britian do rant and rave to a huge extent and whilst joe public may seethe in quiet anger, the politically correct mafia continues to appease the hardline muslims and pamper them in the greater delusional belief that they are doing the morally right thing.

a change is coming in british society - the 'Indians' are being assimilated, the 'Pakis' are not.

historically i think the british power structures felt more comfortable dealing with the muslim power structure of india and did not culturally and religiously understand hinduism, whereas they sort of understood islam. i suggest that any 'sympathy' may be more to do with islam being the de-facto 'standard' and hinduism was seen as the revolutionary force that would undermine british rule

[Gerard]

In the Islamic Emirate of England, Held-Wales, Occupied-Scotland and English-Administered-Ireland...
Ahmadinejad to give alternative Christmas message to Queen's on British TV

[vsudhir]

Book review: Friends of Al Qaeda in Europe —by Khaled Ahmed

Worthy read, IMHO. Lays bare Brit miscalculations w.r.t. extanding support to worst in radical islam.

ensoi.

[Div]

Airport security branded 'a total failure' after man flies to Pakistan using his SISTER'S passport
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... sport.html

Security at one of the UK's biggest airports has been branded 'a total failure' after a man flew to Pakistan using his little sister's passport.

Businessman Kasim Raja went unchallenged through three security checks at Birmingham International Airport using his sister Samina Raja's ID.

He then boarded a Pakistan International Airlines flight to Islamabad, where he was finally spotted.

He said the wrong passport was checked at the first desk and also at the boarding gate before he was waved through.

It was only when the 26-year-old finally reached the Pakistani capital that border control staff there noticed the mistake and ordered him home.

[Surya]

hate to say it but flew to an internal destination with my boarding pass having the correct last name but diff first name

Got swapped with another desi

only realised it when Ipicked the luggage and saw the name on it.

this only 7 months ago.

[RajeshA]

The astounding shallowness of Britain's Foreign Secretary by Melanie Phillips: Spectator

From the comments section, one which I found interesting:

"What I would appreciate is your analysis as to why our boneheaded leaders persist in down playing the threat and sucking up to/making excuses for the Islamists."posted by Geoff m.
Much of this is covered in Melanie's excellent "Londonistan".
Part of the problem is of course the "collective thinking" of Britain's leaders whether you call it "toeing the party line" or political consensus, it is a process that only gets worse the longer the party is in power. one could say the rot sets in.
In the case of "institutions" which are permanent quasi political systems. and are not subject to short term elections. the radicalisation is much worse indeed. The BBC for example may have been started as impartial reporter of news many years ago . The radicalisation did not happen overnight but is long process over many years involving the seizing of power by elements from within and the recruitment of like minded thinking personnel and the evolution of a BBC group think. The result of this is obvious today to the many individual thinkers in the UK who are free to think for themselves outside the yokes of political parties or the BBC.
It is the classic 'long march through the institutions."
When those brave enough to lose their jobs and political appointments, because they are at heart not group thinkers but free thinkers, shout out, they are mercilessly put down by the tribe. Is this what happened to W. Churchill in the years before WW2? But at least he may have succeeded because in the end he had a British public behind him who still held their moral principles intact.
So when top politicians and Oxbridge educated journalists and civil servants tell you that there is no Islamic Jihad to take over the west, they do so (sometimes but rarely out of complete ignorance) because of a consensus from above.
What that consensus lays down is at the root of the disasters that are now commonplace in Eurabia.
as an imaginary example :
IF our need for oil and the blowback business is so great that we are willing to allow the sacrifice of Israel to sharia and the continual threat of murder and mayhem on our street then that view must not be revealed directly to the public but down the tortuous paths of universities, media and politics until it is totally unrecognisable as a goal by the ordinary voter. These institutions are then used as dupes to mask the intentions which in a democracy cannot be openly expressed by the elites.Of course the time scale for this may well be decades and carry on regardless of changes in governments.
In totalitarian or stalinist regimes of course, there is no need to go to such lengths to mask the true intentions.

[putnanja]

Looks like Miliband tried to act like a school teacher. Wonder why he was left off without giving a whopping to his musharraf ...

Miliband’s ‘aggressive’ style upsets Delhi

Miliband’s ‘aggressive’ style upsets Delhi

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: It is unusual for the government to publicly criticise the views of a foreign dignitary on an official visit, especially before his trip to India is over. So when Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Vishnu Prakash issued a tartly worded statement on Thursday in response to a question about “certain views expressed by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband,” diplomatic eyebrows immediately went up. The assumption was that India was responding to the views expressed by Mr. Miliband in an op-ed in The Guardian or in his joint press conference with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Strident arguments

Senior officials told The Hindu on Friday the MEA statement was really the product of the irritation India felt with Mr. Miliband for the “aggressive” manner in which he conducted himself in his closed-door meetings with Mr. Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In particular, South Block took offence to his strident arguments that the Mumbai terror attacks were really the result of the Kashmir issue remaining unresolved.

“He’s a young man and I guess this is the way he thinks diplomacy is conducted,” said a senior official. “In both his meetings, his posture and style of talking were a little too aggressive. The PM and EAM are much older and this is not what they are used to,” he added, describing the meetings as “quite an episode.”

Mr. Miliband, they said, was also clearly unaware of all that India and Pakistan had done on the Kashmir front from cross-LoC trade to discussing ‘soft borders’ before terror attacks like Mumbai slowed down and brought the process to a halt.

Apart from Mr. Miliband’s demeanour, what irked the Indian side was his insistence on drawing a link between Mumbai and Kashmir. Officials said he berated Dr. Singh and Mr. Mukherjee on this point and said that whatever India may wish to say on the matter in public, in private they must accept that they had to do more to work with Pakistan to find a solution to the Kashmir issue. “Yes, there is a Kashmir issue and we need to resolve it,” the Indian side told the British Minister. “But when a group like the Lashkar, which says it supports ‘global jihad,’ attacks Mumbai and kills Americans and Brits and Jews, what does this have to do with Kashmir?”
Annoyed

Mr. Miliband also annoyed the Indian side by warning the two leaders that Delhi should not even think of taking any kind of military action against Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

All told, say Indian officials, the two meetings with Mr. Miliband were “pretty awful.” India had no objection to the British Foreign Secretary publicly disagreeing with the Prime Minister’s statement that “some official agencies in Pakistan” must be involved in Mumbai. ‘Sovereign governments can and will disagree with each other’s assessments,” an official said. “But he needs to know that we do not take kindly to being hectored.”

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had been “quite positive” on the issues which concerned India, during his visit to New Delhi last month.

[ramana]

Interesting. Poor MMS was an Anglophile priding himself on his Oxford education. I guess Milliband is an unwashed hoi-polloi!

i still think there is something about those atackers thats UK linked. The aggressive stance is to put India on backfoot.


Wasn't the ISI spy in Meerut calling UK on his cell phone? Why?

[sanjaykumar]

Miliband should start with something smaller-like Diego Garcia and the homeland question.

[surinder]

It is shocking how India is talked down to.

Here you have UK (In addition to USA) batting for TSP.

India should declare the topic of Mumbai off-topic with these guys, we should insist silence from foreign governments, it should be non-interference in our affairs.

[vsudhir]

GoI has announced 2 new programs as part of its 'govt-downsizing plan' - the Animal Mili-bandry program under the ministry of agriculture and the mili-nas-band-i program under the dept of family planning, ministry of health.

O yes, the milibanditry posing as milipanditry has caused even Dilli to shake off its bovine, Gandhian calm. no mean feat that....

[satya]

IIRC , Milliband was a challenger to Brown not so long when Brown's ratings were hitting lows as PM , one hand he can be playing to domestic audience , again might be wrong but haven't muslims specially mirpuris voted for Labor? He also goofed up big time during Russian-Georgian Crisis ending up as all talk no substance , somewhere like a teenager who wants to be taken seriously .
But its not so then it seems Brits are reading Indian Sub-continent leaves more closely and are seeing a collapse of TSP as an entity but are trying to make sure that access to CAR is denied again with Tailbunnies making sure in Frontier & trying to keep PoK somehow as an independent entity. We need to think of a scenario where in case of TSP collapse , PoK ending up either with NWFP/Pakhtoonistan or with Pakjab or maybe even independent ?

[JE Menon]

There is no doubt that the article by Varadarajan contains many truths, although most likely the exact tenor of what occurred may not have come through (hard to do anyway in such cases unless you get full video and even then you can't be sure). However, it is evident that Mr. Miliband will need to be educated and he will be. It is a tiresome and unnecessary business, and no doubt MEA will undertake it with a weary resignation, but it will be done. Pity, the fellow is quite well-intentioned.

[RajeshA]

There is no doubt that the article by Varadarajan contains many truths, although most likely the exact tenor of what occurred may not have come through (hard to do anyway in such cases unless you get full video and even then you can't be sure). However, it is evident that Mr. Miliband will need to be educated and he will be. It is a tiresome and unnecessary business, and no doubt MEA will undertake it with a weary resignation, but it will be done. Pity, the fellow is quite well-intentioned.

It is unusual, that an old 24-Hour-Sunshine Empire and a Great Game Warrior, would be having a Greenhorn Foreign Secretary, and especially sending one to talk on Subcontinental Matters without previous and proper briefing by old hands.

Secondly it is highly unlikely that he would state, that Pakistani perpetrators need not be extradited to India, an undoubtedly very pro-Pakistani stand, on the one hand, and allude to Kashmir, as simply well-intentioned. No the allusion to Kashmir is also headlong Pakistani Appeasement. Nothing Well-intentioned here. There remarks were by Design, and not Innocence.

Great Britain has shown its cards in full view. It is time for an Indian response of downgrading this third-rate power. Indian Leaders go to Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Warsaw, Brussels, but no need to stop in London. No need for any trade delegations. No need to allow British investments in our strategic sectors. No need for military acquisitions from Britain. NO Strategic Dialogue.

Mulli-in-Bund just had his last trip to India. Time to give the Poodle a real hard kick!

[JE Menon]

>>Great Britain has shown its cards in full view.

I disagree. We know from long experience that Britain (no longer great) never shows its cards in full view.

I think it was a first class cock-up on his part, and conclude this from reading and watching pretty much everything he said in public while in India. May have something to do with Labour's traditional soft-spot for Pakistan, but he is going to get his nuts roasted back home for this blunder.

He will almost certainly visit India again, in one capacity or another. Equally certainly he will be more circumspect. The nonsense about Kashmir will be quickly forgotten, by both sides. We have gone through this before.

The French are already making the most of the bad PR he generated for his country in India. But it will be shortlived.

[svinayak]

It is unusual, that an old 24-Hour-Sunshine Empire and a Great Game Warrior, would be having a Greenhorn Foreign Secretary, and especially sending one to talk on Subcontinental Matters without previous and proper briefing by old hands.

Secondly it is highly unlikely that he would state, that Pakistani perpetrators need not be extradited to India, an undoubtedly very pro-Pakistani stand, on the one hand, and allude to Kashmir, as simply well-intentioned. No the allusion to Kashmir is also headlong Pakistani Appeasement. Nothing Well-intentioned here. There remarks were by Design, and not Innocence.

Great Britain has shown its cards in full view. It is time for an Indian response of downgrading this third-rate power. Indian Leaders go to Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Warsaw, Brussels, but no need to stop in London. No need for any trade delegations. No need to allow British investments in our strategic sectors. No need for military acquisitions from Britain. NO Strategic Dialogue.

Mulli-in-Bund just had his last trip to India. Time to give the Poodle a real hard kick!

Once geopolitics is understood then all these unusual and unlikely events can be understood.

Since 12-18mths Pakistan has been isolated worldwide with its reputation. It has tried to bring a facade of democracy.
Nothing has worked.
This has been noted by UK and which is trying use the Mumbai incident to get a better diplomatic favor with Pak in distress.
It is a simple calculations since India does not matter in these areas.

[Mahendra]

It looks more like Milli buny trying to direct British Bakpakis India's way by indicating that he and his govt has a soft corner for Bakistan and Kashmiris. The brits are pretty much stretched to the limits snooping and following hundreds of Bakpaki sleeper cells, all they are doing is trying to pacify those who the MI5 isnt watching, hoping that if they decide to inflate themselves, they should rather do it in Yindoostan as Brittanistan is sympathetic to Bakis onlee.
Wonder what happened to all those stories about british born bakpaks being involved in 26/11, could it be that the 6 who seemed to escape during the 26/11 attack were Brit Bakpaks, could it be that these 6 have been arrested and are singing "Khuda save the Sheikh"

[Tilak]

Looks like Miliband tried to act like a school teacher. Wonder why he was left off without giving a whopping to his musharraf ...

Miliband’s ‘aggressive’ style upsets Delhi

Miliband’s ‘aggressive’ style upsets Delhi
Siddharth Varadarajan

Well its not the first time he's done it, the last time he did it to the Russians he earned himself a well deserved a** whooping.

David Miliband four-letter abuse from Russian foreign minister
Posted By: Andrew Porter at Sep 9, 2008 at 18:56:07

I have been told of an astonishing telephone conversation between David Miliband and his Russian counterpart, Sergi Lavrov in which the Foreign Secretary had to endure a four-letter word tirade.

Mr Miliband spoke to the Russian foreign minister - a veteran not known for diplomatic niceties - to express British unease at events in Georgia. It seems Mr Lavrov didn't like being lectured by young Miliband.

Such was the repeated use of the "F word" according to one insider who has seen the transcript, it was difficult to draft a readable note of the conversation.

One unconfirmed report suggested that Mr Lavrov said: "Who are you to f------ lecture me?"

He also asked Mr Miliband in equally blunt terms whether he knew anything of Russia's history?

One Whitehall insider told me: "It was effing this and effing that. It was not what you would call diplomatic language. It was rather shocking."

The Foreign Secretary had been putting forward Britain and Europe's objections to the actions of Russian which began when their tanks rolled into the breakaway region of South Ossetia last month. Mr Miliband has said that Europe should reassess its ties with Russia after its "aggressive" behaviour.

It is also understood that Mr Miliband was asked about Britain and America's invasion of Iraq, when Russian actions in Georgia were questioned, during the tense conversation that took place recently.

Sources at the Foreign Office confirmed there was swearing "but only from side". A spokesman for the Foreign Secretary said: "We do not discuss diplomatic conversations between foreign ministers."

Mr Lavrov, who was promoted under Vladimir Putin, has developed a reputation as the fearsome face of Russia's new aggressive foreign policy. When he held the position as Russia's man at the United Nations in New York he developed a reputation as fierce critic of other nations.

But Mr Miliband is unlikely to have experienced anything quite so bruising in his year as Foreign Secretary than being told some home truths by a grizzled veteran of the international scene. Even the slap down from MPs supporting Mr Brown after the Foreign Secretary's "leadership bid" article in July when he was accused of treachery, was not as bad.

Mr Lavrov has been highly critical of the way that the Russian move into Georgia has been portrayed by the West. He has criticised what he described as a "truly David and Goliath interpretation" of the conflict in which "the plucky republic of Georgia, with just a few million citizens, was attacked by its giant eastern neighbour".

After that sort of bawling out anything Gordon Brown and his allies can muster in response to Miliband's leadership ambitions is likely to be small beer.

'Who the f*** are you to lecture me?': Russian minister's extraordinary rant at David Miliband
By Michael Lea and Will Stewart
Last updated at 4:26 PM on 13th September 2008

David Miliband (Wikipedia)

Family

Born in London, David Miliband is the elder son of Polish-born Marion Kozak and the late Belgian-born Marxist intellectual Ralph Miliband.

Both paternal grandparents lived in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw. His paternal grandfather, Samuel, a trained leather worker, left Poland immediately after World War One, settling in Brussels by 1920[4]. His paternal grandmother, Renia (later known as Renée), also moved to Brussels, where she first met Sam, with the couple marrying in 1923[5]. Hitler’s invasion of Belgium in May 1940 as part of the Nazis’ Western Offensive split the Miliband family in half: Ralph and father Samuel fled to England, while Ralph's mother Renée and baby sister Nan stayed behind for the duration of the war. They were not reunited until 1950.[6]

For and insesensitive clod like Miliband, India should have reacted a bit more harshly. What was the point in having a "Joint Press conference" when our views are so divergent, and was used to abuse the hospitality only to give a clean chit to the thugs. It all stems from what seems to be PM's new policy "Hum sada aapke(Foreign Delegates) ke seva me rahenge" (John Kerry, Miliband, Us Senators, Mulford), after having relaxed the protocol completely.

[vsudhir]

Well, well.... could this be one reason behind britain's recently discovered aggro behavior...

Britain's banks deemed technically insolvent

Britains biggest banks are "technically insolvent", Royal Bank of Scotland said yesterday...

Analysts working for RBS, one of several British banks to have received emergency funding from the UK Government last year, told the City that "the domestic UK banks are technically insolvent on a fully marked-to-market basis".

The warning does not mean British banks are about to go bust, because the assessment is purely theoretical, and RBS said the position was "not unusual at this stage in the economic cycle".

When you have little to lose, risk-taking tendencies get exacerbated, research in behavioral economics posits.

I know, I know, long shot but just scrambling ideas onlee.....

[putnanja]

British Foreign Secy visit goes down as a lesson in diplomatic faux pas

New Delhi: British Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s controversial visit this week has clearly left a bitter afterstate in the Indian establishment with sources claiming that his conduct displayed a high degree of immaturity and arrogance.

His three-day visit saw him attempt to link the Kashmir dispute with Lashkar-e-Toiba and terrorism in the region, in front of a Mumbai audience as well as in an article in the UK-based The Guardian newspaper.

During his closed-door meetings with the Indian leadership, Miliband reportedly bragged about his conversations with the US President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team and said that India needed to “incentivise Pakistan” by showing some movement on Kashmir.

A stunned Indian delegation had to interrupt him with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee telling him that it would be a “mistake” to link Kashmir with what has happened in Mumbai. This, according to sources, did not stop Miliband who repeatedly interrupted the External Affairs Minister to make the point that the Pakistan state needed support and it would be wrong to raise the finger of suspicion at the Pakistani establishment.

Miliband then sought to rub it in by telling Mukherjee that he would make a statement on absolving the Pakistani establishment to the media, waiting outside for the joint press conference at Hyderabad House.

However, what stumped officials was the stark contrast between the manner and position taken by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown during his December visit. Brown had said that three-fourths of the serious terrorist threats investigated by Britain’s security services had had a Pakistan connection. Miliband also countered an Indian official who, referring to Brown’s earlier observation, said that the actual percentage was 90 percent. “Well, I would put it somewhere at 60 per cent,” he said.

In another bizarre observation in the backdrop of the Mumbai attacks, he insisted on lecturing Indian officials in Delhi on the need to concentrate on other important issues like climate change, pointing out that the fog in the Capital was due to it.

Miliband kept referring to Mukherjee, one of the senior-most politicians in India, by his first name throughout the more than hour-long-meeting while Mukherjee addressed the 43-year-old as “your excellency”.

Miliband condescendingly said that he would also praise India and the External Affairs Minister for showing maturity and restraint.

Seemingly ignorant of diplomatese, Miliband also put his hands on Mukherjee’s shoulders as they walked together, with their officials in tow. A source, who was privy to the goings-on remarked, “The British Foreign Secretary is in his 40s, looks like he is in his 30s and behaves as if he is in his 20s.”

Why do we show so much respect to these riff-raffs? How long does it take to judge a person when having a conversation with them? The Russian foreign affairs minister treated miliband as he should be treated. Pranab should have kicked miliband out without a joint press conference and ended the meeting abruptly.

[RajeshA]

After reading about Mulli-in-Bund, I think

where is the "What will I do if I was a Jihadi?" Poll Thread when you need one!

Awright, I could probably find it, but there is no Baseball-in-Bund-of-Mulli-in-Bund option there!

[AnimeshP]

Repeating what I have been saying in other forums...
then going by Mr. Milliband's logic .... England should adopt the Sharia and start flying the flag of Islam on 10 Downing Street ... after all that will rob the Islamic radicals in England of their agenda and stop jehadi terrorism in England ...