Monsanto’s Roundup Glyphosate weedkiller on the shelves at a garden centre in the UK
The United Kingdom was among twenty European Union nations voting earlier this week for Monsanto’s controversial ‘Roundup’ weedkiller, it has emerged.
The vote, held on Monday 6th June 2016, failed to authorise the use of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and similar products from Synerga and Dow Chemicals.
Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Austria, Portugal and Luxembourg abstained from the vote in the EU’s Council of Ministers and Malta voted against. The abstensions mean the ‘yes’ vote did not meet the requirement of 65% of the EU’s population.
From the end of this month, weedkillers including glyphosate will be pulled from shelves in gardening centres and supermarkets across the EU.
Both David Cameron and Boris Johnson, in separate interviews on BBC’s Countryfile programme last Sunday (5th June 2016), expressed support for growing crops genetically-modified to be resistant to Roundup in the UK.
Fields of such ‘Roundup-ready’ crops may be sprayed with the weedkiller in the knowledge that the GM crop will stay standing while the weeds around it dies.
The German government is keen to ban Roundup. (‘Wurzel’ is the German for ‘root’)
The highest reading was 300 times the legal limit glyphosate in drinking water in Germany. The Institute concluded the results were ‘alarming’.
In March 2015, Glyphosate was classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an arm of the World Health Organisation (WHO), as “probably carcinogenic to humans”.
Were the high readings of glyphosate in German beer from residual levels of the weedkilling chemical in the soil, or is there another, more sinister route? Even with a ban on GM crops, Roundup may find its way into food by means of ‘dessication’. Farmers can spray fields of wheat, oats or barley with the weedkiller to kill and dry the crop to make it easier to harvest. The chemical is left on the grain.
SWITCH FOCUS TO WESTMINSTER
Monsanto actually recommends spraying with Roundup just before harvest to dessicate non-GM Canola (rapeseed), Flax (linseed), Peas, Lentils, non-GM Soybeans, Beans and Sugar Cane. It seems increasingly that the only way to be free of the stuff is to go organic. Or grow your own.
The EU Roundup affair and the comments of Messrs Cameron and Johnson illustrate the amount of work which will have to be done by environmentalists in the event of a vote later this month for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. The chemical is used liberally in the streets and parks of many UK towns and cities to control grass and weeds, as well as in agriculture and horticulture.
It would be a poor argument to remain in the EU because the UK Government can’t be trusted to protect the environment. Rather, activists and those who regard themselves as stewards of God’s creation will need to switch focus from Brussels to Westminster, if not now, then certainly if the UK votes ‘Leave’.
Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
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Boris Johnson is in trouble with the Guardian not just for saying the European Union is planning a new Roman Empire, but for saying Napoleon and Adolf Hitler had that dream as well.
We say there is actually no need to invoke Hitler and Napoleon. Neither of them was educated enough to go to Rome to start their project.
But some clever chap in the EU was smart enough to organise the perfect place for such an endeavour.
So is Boris right to say the European Union is reviving the Roman Empire?
Take at look at our video on this very subject recorded in Rome itself and decide for yourself. No-one has ever before joined up these particular dots. Prepare to be amazed:
MEP’s sitting the European Parliament. But is seat 666 vacant, awaiting the Antichrist?
You will read all over the web that in the 863-seat European Parliament, Seat 666 is vacant, awaiting the Antichrist.
The otherwise informative website linked above voices the thoughts of many: ‘Interestingly, the seat numbered 666 is never occupied. Perhaps they are leaving it open for someone special?’
CONSPIRACY IS FACT
Now, we don’t believe in conspiracy theories at Christian Voice. We believe in conspiracy as fact:
Psalm 2:2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, 3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. (KJV)
The number 666 certainly has notoriety. The Revelation to John says it is the number of the second beast, the one we know as the Antichrist:
Rev 13:11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. Rev 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
SO THE ANTICHRIST WILL BE IN SEAT 666?
So is seat 666 in the European Parliament vacant, awaiting the Antichrist?
Miroslav Mikolášik MEP occupied Seat 666
No it isn’t. The seating plan of the European Parliament shows seat 666 in Strasbourg is currently occupied by the Maltese MEP Roberta Metsola. Davor Škrlec, an MEP from Croatia, sits in the corresponding place in the Brussels chamber.
By the time you read this, different MEP’s may be in those two seats, because the seating changes every six months. Why the Brussels seating is different from the Strasbourg seating is an arcane EU mystery.
Previously, seat 666 has been occupied by Miroslav Mikolášik, a 63-year-old Slovak Politician. Before that, 666 was the seat of Italian (sorry, Sicilian!) politician Sebastiano (Nello) Musumeci, leader of the Sicilian Alliance. Neither Metsola nor Škrlec are the Antichrist, any more than were Mikolášik or Musumeci.
SO WHERE WILL THE ANTICHRIST SIT?
I predict that when the Antichrist does walk in to the European Parliament, he won’t sit at the back in seat 666. In fact, he won’t sit in the Euro Parliament at all, as it has no ability to initiate the legislation he requires. That power is reserved to the un-elected European Commission. So he will stand or sit right at the front and tell them what he has decided and what they are to do, Including the lowly inhabitant of seat 666.
Don’t get worried. Christian Voice has not gone soft. We still regard the European Union as a godless, corrupt, pretentious, expensive, wasteful, bureaucratic,oligarchic expression of Antichrist. It’s just that seat 666 of the European Parliament is not reserved for him. The Antichrist, the beast of Revelation, has something far grander in mind and that is world dominion.
Not that it will last. The Beast, the Antichrist, is heading for defeat at the hands of King Jesus:
Rev 19:11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. … 20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
If you are in Christ, you are on the winning side. Make sure you stay there.
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This is the first in what should end up as a series of videos on YouTube looking at Britain’s membership of the European Union from a Christian, Biblical standpoint.
We ask should the UK stay or leave and look at the matter of unity versus sovereignty.
(1) Two years ago, thank God, the House of Commons voted against bombing President Assad’s forces in Syria. If the vote had gone Mr Cameron’s way, Syria would be in a worse mess now, loss of life would have been greater, Islamic State would be far stronger and there would be far more displaced people queuing up in Hungary. The Christians in Syria would be history, as would the Druze and the Alawites.
(2) The Foreign Affairs Select Committee has heard evidence that airstrikes from Britain will make no difference whatsoever to the collective effort.
(3) The Foreign Affairs Select Committee has also heard evidence that airstrikes must be supported by ground troops. Mr Cameron gave a figure of 70,000 which he said came from the Joint Iintelligence Committee together with the impression that these could be those ground troops. Yet they include some ten groups and literally hundreds of different factions who are all in the far west of Syria. ISIS is based in the east and north. The 70,000, even if they could be persuaded to switch from fighting the Syrian army to fight ISIS and trek all the way from western Syria to the east is frankly preposterous. In short, they are in the wrong place with the wrong focus. It could well be, as Craig Murray argues, that no-one actually believes Mr Cameron, but few have challenged him on the figure, not even the official Opposition. ‘70,000’ wil be Mr Cameron’s ’45 minutes’, a figure which was also stated by the JIC.
(4) The Foreign Affairs Select Committee heard evidence in September that the Free Syrian Army is a ‘busted flush’. The evidence said it would be absurd to try to differentiate between radical and moderate Islamists among the opposition to President Assad.
(5) As David Winnick MP reminded the House on Thursday, the Prime Minister made the same sort of passionate arguments two years ago. He was wrong then and he has not made any case that shows he is right now. It is still the same old bluster.
(6) The Free Syrian Army have either given or sold equipment given to them by the United States to the Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda offshoot. I searched Thursday’s debate in vain for any mention of Al Nusra. Does the Prime Minister regard them as moderate or radical?
(7) The Foreign Affairs Select Committee also heard evidence in September that the only guarantor of stability in Syria is President Assad. ‘It’s Assad or the Deluge’, said one.
(8) If oil wells are liberated from Islamic State, whose will the oil be? There is no strategy or understanding.
(9) I noted the Prime Minister said in the debate: ‘(ISIS) … get their money from selling oil to Assad’. As Mr Denis Skinner pointed out, it is well documented that ISIS get far more money from selling oil to well-placed individuals in Turkey. It was duplicitious of the Prime Minister not even to mention Turkey and then when challenged to say that Turkey had ‘taken action’ about that. On the very same day that the Prime Minister made his statement, President Erdogan flatly denied Turkey was buying any ISIS oil at all. But the Guardian reported on Tuesday last week: ‘Turkish businessmen struck lucrative deals with Isis oil smugglers.’ The sum involved is said to be $10m per week.
(9a) One Mr George Haswani was identified in March as the middleman between ISIS and President Assad in an oil deal, but the sums involved in these alleged Syrian deals have yet to be spelt out. I am not actually surprised that enemies are doing deals with one another over oil resources. In one sense, it is better than blowing them up. But when a NATO member is profiting from Syrian oil and denying it, I should expect our Prime Minister to at least acknowledge that fact.
(10) On the subject of Turkey, if Mr Cameron is serious about ground troops including Kurdish fighters, what representations did the UK make to Turkey when Turkish forces attacked Kurdish fighters in July, killing hundreds of souls?
(11) This summer, Turkey sent three hundred air strikes against Kurdish forces fighting ISIS and only three against ISIS itself. What representations did the UK make to Turkey about that?
(12) In early September, Turkey violated Iraqi air space to attack Kurdish fighters and violated the territory of Iraq to pursue them as well. The only ones to gain from that were ISIS. Seeing Britain has an interest in Iraq, what representations did the UK make to Turkey about that violation of sovereign territory?
(13) In ‘The Independent’ on 4th October, Patrick Cockburn reported that the US had betrayed the Syrian Kurds in a deal with Turkey. This is despite the fact that the Syrian branch of the PKK has apparently been the most successful ground ally of the US at retaking areas from ISIS. Are these the same Syrian Kurds who are now expected to be the northern ground troops to follow up UK airstrikes? And will you support removing the UK’s ‘proscribed’ classification of the PKK, who pose no threat to Britain at all, under the Terrorism Act?
(14) Mr Cameron said he had learned the lessons of Iraq and Libya. The Iraq invasion was in 2003 and the first elections were held in 2005. Iraq was well known to be a disaster by at least 2007. The UK intervened in Libya in 2011. No lessons were learned from Iraq to be put in place in Libya, so north Africa is now flooded with Islamists and arms. Why should we believe the Prime Minister now? ‘Regime Change’ is illegal and ends in death and destruction.
(15) The issue of unintended consquences has not been remotely addressed. The most recent direct consequence of our intervention in Libya was the 22 deaths in Bamako in Mali.
(16) There are certain to be civilian deaths in places like Raqqa, violating at least one principle of the ‘Just War’ principle. In the war in Iraq, which was waged for regime change and nothing else, an estimated 165,000 civilians died. Those MPs who voted with Tony Blair for war in 2003 have that blood on their hands.
(17) I recognise that Air Chiefs of Staff want to see how their latest bits of technology work in the field and Mr Cameron wants to appear tough and militaristic when he meets other leaders but these are just positions of vanity.
(18) UK jets have been operating in Iraq, but the only success to date is the liberation of Sinjar. What other success in Iraq can Mr Cameron point to?
(19) At a time of continuing austerity, Mr Cameron has not even presented the cost of a Syrian operation to Parliament. Every two-plane mission with each plane discharging four Paveway bombs and two Brimstone missiles would cost the taxpayer £1 million. The cost could soar into billions all of which will have to be borrowed.
(20) No coherent strategy has been presented, let alone an exit strategy.
(21) United Nations Security Council resolution 2249 ‘Calls upon Member States that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures, in compliance with international law’. International law does not allow the United Kingdom to violate Syrian air space. The Prime Minister did not tell the House of Commons how or even if he proposed to seek permission from President Assad to overfly Syria. If he does not, the action will be illegal.
(22) Pursuant to paragraph (3) above, any force wanting to liberate Raqqa or other eastern Syrian towns will need the cooperation of the Syrian army under President Assad. Yet the Prime Minister has ruled out any approach to or support for President Assad, maintaining his ‘Assad must go’ mantra. Without the involvement of the Syrian army, we are wasting our time, as your colleague Dr Julian Lewis has said.
For all the reasons given, please urge your Member of Parliament to vote against UK air strikes in Syria.
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David Cameron’s assertion in the House of Commons on Thursday 26th November 2015 that there are ‘seventy thousand’ moderate Syrian opposition forces ready to back up UK air strikes is unravelling fast.
Dr Julian Lewis MP, chairman of the Defence Committee, said in the debate, ‘I have to say that the suggestion that there are 70,000 non-Islamist, moderate, credible ground forces is a revelation to me and, I suspect, to most other Members in this House.’
The Independent reported that Mr Lewis would be tabling a question in the House of Commons demanding Mr Cameron clarify the claim. The Prime Minister’s spokesman said the 70,000 figure was based on the “best intelligence and analysis we have”, adding: “The figure was provided to him by the Joint Intelligence Committee; they provided that intelligence and analysis independent of the Government.”
That will be the same Joint Intelligence Committee which apparently assured Tony Blair, after some arm-twisting, that Saddam Hussein could fire a long range missile with a chemical warhead at the UK in the famous figure of ’45 minutes’. It looks suspiciously as if ‘70,000’ will turn out to be Mr Cameron’s ’45 minutes’.
The Independent says Mr Lewis asked Sky News: ‘Where are these magical 70,000 people and if they are there fighting, how come they haven’t been able to roll back Isil/Daesh? Is it that they’re in the wrong place? Is it that they’re fighting each other? Or is it that in reality they’re not all that moderate and that there are a lot of jihadists among them?’ He urged the Prime Minister to start working with President Assad to defeat Islamic State. “Sometimes the best you can do is choose the lesser of two evils,” he said.
Writing in the Spectator, Charles Lister, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Doha Center and a Senior Consultant to The Shaikh Group, wrote to verify the figure. He came up with 65,000 fighters in ten separate groups with names like ‘Daybreak’ (Faylaq) and ‘Front’ (Jabhat) sporting memberships from 1,000 to 25,000. The biggest forces were the ‘Southern Front’ with 25,000 men in fifty-eight different factions and the ‘Northern Free Syrian Army’ with 20,000 in fourteen factions. Having coordinated meetings with up to a hundred other separate rebel militias, he counted a further 10,000 men in these groups.
Immediately, however, Mr Cameron’s claims start to unravel. He said the 70,000 were ‘principally of the Free Syrian Army’ whereas only 45,000 of them are. Then he said these are people ‘with whom we can co-ordinate attacks on ISIL’.
The first obvious problem is, these fighters are all in the extreme south-west and north-west of Syria. Now, according to a helpful map at the bottom of this article in the Guardian, Islamic State has a pocket of ground in the south-east, and another in the north-west. These are areas being patrolled by Russian aircraft from their base in Latakia, on Syria’s North-West coast.
The second obvious problem is that the ‘Free Syrian Army’ are just as interested in fighting the Syrian Army as Islamic State. Russian aircraft have been supporting Syrian army forces with air strikes against these very same forces. As Mr Lister said: ‘They remain focused on fighting the Assad regime, however, as it represents a more immediate priority for most, in terms of self-protection, the defence of civilian populations and of course, pursuing the revolution’s ultimate objective.’ Without British commanders on the ground prodding these men towards the Islamic State pockets, there is absolutely no guarantee they will follow up a British air strike against Islamic State on their manor, even if our air chiefs could gain an agreement with their Russian counterparts to avoid bumping into each other over this stretch of land. And British ‘boots on the ground’ have been rightly ruled out.
Working with groups such as the ‘Free Syrian Army’ has been a nightmare for the US. Equipment supplied to them by the US has ended up in the hands of the Al-Qaeda offshoot Jabhat Al-Nusra. The FSA either gave or sold the armaments to them. In addition, as Ewen MacAskill wrote in the Guardian article cited above, ‘the US spent $600m (about £400m) training rebels to go back over the border into Syria. In the end, only 58 went back. Asked in September at a Congressional committee how many of them were still fighting, General Lloyd Austin said: “We are talking four or five.”’
Islamic State also holds ground to the east of Damascus and in the north-east of the rest of Syria. None of the ‘70,000’ are anywhere near these areas. Around Raqqa, where French warplanes have been active, there is no moderate opposition at all.
Mr MacAskill reported that retired British brigadier Ben Barry, who he described as ‘a specialist in land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies’, estimated ‘a joint US-UK-French coalition would require 20,000 troops to retake Raqqa. He described the prospect as “challenging”, given that IS had been preparing its defences for the last year.’ In the absence of those troops, it can only fall to the Syrian army to retake Raqqa. Mr Cameron would have to speak to Mr Assad.
The 70,000 are nowhere near Raqqa which is also far from the extreme north of Syria where the Kurds are based. And on that subject, the Kurdish forces are allied to the Kurdish Peoples’ Party, the PKK, which the UK has proscribed as a ‘terrorist organisation’ to appease Turkey. The PKK pose no threat to Britain and it is high time that proscription was removed.
This is a time when Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition should be actively opposing and challenging the government. But according to Gary Gibbon in a revealing article on the Channel 4 website, the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition is not even opposing and challenging those in his own Shadow Cabinet who support Mr Cameron.
Labour MP Paul Flynn said on the BBC yesterday that Prime Ministers can get carried away with their importance. They can become possessed by a spirit of hubris while dreaming of their ‘place in history’. It happened to Tony Blair. Now it is happening to David Cameron. If this nation is not to waste millions on pointless air strikes, we need the Opposition to oppose him.
But more importantly than that, we need prayer. There was a massive outpouring of prayer before the Commons vote not to bomb President Assad’s forces in August 2013. The reasons for MPs to vote ‘No’ are different this time, but the need for prayer is still there.
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The UK Government is going to force firms to reveal the bonuses they pay to men and to women.
Apparently, in the UK, a woman on average earns around 80p for every £1 earned by a man. The Government will also make it a legal requirement for every company with more than 250 employees to publish the difference between the average pay of their male and female employees.
Earlier this year, business hit a target for the percentage of women on company boards. That was set at twenty-five percent by government adviser Lord Davies. Be in no doubt he will want that to go to fifty percent.
Our Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, has said: “You can’t have true opportunity without equality. There is no place for a pay gap in today’s society and we are delivering on our promises to address it.”
Maria Miller MP, who chairs the Commons Women and Equalities Committee chimed in, launching an inquiry by her committee into government strategy on reducing the difference between what women and men are paid.
Mrs Miller said unequal pay was predominantly a problem that affected women over forty and that measures already announced by the government did not account for this group.
I saw a video recently in which one Mike Buchanan was pointing to research indicating that having loads of women on company boards impacted negatively on their profitability.
GOD CREATED THE MAN TO WORK AND THE WOMAN TO HELP HIM
But I think my disquiet is more with the principle that gender pay equality is either achievable or desirable.
You see, in the beginning, God created the man, gave him some work, and then created the woman to be a helper for him. The pattern of a man as the head of the household, providing outside the home and women caring within it is still one which chimes with people and to which they aspire.
Even in what we regard as the most primitive societies, women stay near the camp, keeping their home smart, gathering stuff, looking after the children, while the men go out and hunt. The women usually cook what the men bring back.
Most women, in all the surveys I have seen, would rather be at home looking after their children than out at work. But sadly we have too many single-parent families today, and most of those are headed by a mother, and in two-parent households, governments have organised things so that today so many families need two incomes to survive.
GENDER PAY GAP IS A MYTH
I also want to suggest that this ‘gender pay gap’ might actually be a myth. After all, it’s illegal to pay a man more than a woman for doing an equivalent job.
So how do the Government come up with their 80% figure? Well, they just take a average of what every man earns and compare it with the average of what every woman earns, then round it up to the nearest 10%.
But men do more dirty and dangerous jobs, that pay more – and kill many of them. Many women – probably too many for the government’s liking – actually want to bring up their own children. Taking time out of a career inevitably impacts on earning ability.
And when you read about the real differences between men and women, you find that men are more driven and focused on achievements, while women are more concerned with relationships.
Lastly, if more men than women prioritise work, as the figures seem to show, won’t that, coupled with natural testosterone-fueled ambition, impact on relative earnings?
NEGATIVE PAY-GAPS
According to the Office for National Statistics, the gender pay gap is actually 9.4% for full-time employees. It only rises to 19.1% (not 20%) when part-time employees are included. And for part-time employees, they say, ‘the higher rate of pay for women than men results in a ‘negative’ gender pay gap’. The Government are not campaigning to address that problem, or seeking to raise the pay of young men to equal that of young women.
According to the Guardian newspaper, there is a negative gender pay gap among the young. ‘The pay gap is low or slightly reversed among 18 to 39-year-olds, but the gap for hourly earnings grows from the age of 40 onwards, reaching its highest point for women in their 50s’, said the paper. This is precisely the point where women are taking time out of their career for family reasons and men are nearing the peak of theirs.
The European Commission say: ‘A high pay gap is usually characteristic of a labour market which is highly segregated, meaning that women are more concentrated in a restricted number of sectors and/or professions (e.g. Czech Republic, Estonia and Finland), or in which a significant proportion of women work part-time (e.g. Germany and Austria)’. Both of those, to a certain extent, would apply to the United Kingdom.
Another pay gap is never talked about. It is the gap between what people earn in the private sector and in the public sector. According to ONS: ‘Private sector earnings have remained consistently at around 85% of public sector earnings since 2009.’
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The Russian air strikes in Syria have set fur flying in Westminster. But despite the strutting ministers, some people are speaking with sense and compassion, among them former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr George Carey and Crispin Blunt, a little-known MP who chairs one of the most influential select committees in the House of Commons.
Firstly, on Sunday 4th of October 2015, former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr George Carey was reported saying that the United Kingdom has a responsibility to Syrian Christians.
Lord Carey said: “Time is running out for Christians in the region. Successive UK governments have failed to do enough to support minority communities in the Middle East and now sadly, many Christians have concluded they have no future in a region where they have lived for nearly two thousand years.”
He did not condemn Russia’s air strikes, but our Defence Secretary did. Michael Fallon MP said Mr Putin was targeting the ‘Free Syrian Army’ and claimed: “He’s shoring up Assad and perpetuating the suffering.”
But also over the weekend, the Chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee said that Britain and the US were getting “in the way” of solving the Syrian civil war by calling for Assad to step down.
Mr Crispin Blunt MP said it was not “helpful” for David Cameron to compare Assad’s regime with the actions of ISIS terrorists. And he said the West was “in no position to complain” about Russian airstrikes in Syria.
We reported last month that Mr Blunt’s committee heard from experts on Syria, among them learned professors and journalists who agreed that Mr Fallon’s ‘Free Syrian Army’ is a busted flush and that the the Syrian Opposition is now totally dominated by Islamic State and Al Qaeda offshoots like the Al Nusra Front.
Much as one might dislike Bashar Al-Assad, said one expert, if he goes Syria implodes. There is no other guarantor of stability. It’s Assad or the Deluge, said another.
So when Mr Fallon complains that the Russians are shoring up Assad, I respond on the video, ‘You mean, they are preventing Syria from becoming a failed state like Libya is after our intervention? How inconsiderate of them.’
Our Government, including the previous gung-ho foreign secretary William, now Lord, Hague, bear much of the responsibility for the mass displacement of people by encouraging, supplying, training, even arming, Syrian rebel groups. It is we who have perpetuated the suffering, not Assad.
The sadness is, we can’t trust either our government or that of the US to tell us the truth.
The word of God tells us to support Christian brothers and sisters and to pray for our leaders. So I’m praying to hear from Mr Cameron that he is prepared to prioritise asylum to Syrian Christians, and that he will work humbly with Syria and its allies to defeat Islamic State and bring stability to Syria – and Iraq – so that the Christians, and the other minorities, can return to areas they and their ancestors have lived in, as Dr Carey reminded us, for two thousand years.
Please take a look at the video above and see if it is the prophetic voice I am praying it will be:
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Andrew Parker, head of MI5, the UK Security Service.
The head of Britain’s Security Service has said that the ‘situation in Syria’ affects the threat of terrorism in the UK.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on 17th September 2015, MI5 Director General Andrew Parker said terrorism is ‘a threat which is continuing to grow largely because of the situation in Syria and how that affects our security.’
It follows that President Assad is essential not just to defeat Islamic State, but his presence and a victory for the Syrian armed forces is necessary to minimise the threat to domestic UK security.
DRIVEN FROM CONFLICT ZONES
‘The shape of the threat we face today has changed in some ways because it is driven from conflict zones and the way people react to that,’ continued Mr Parker.
UK border police at Heathrow. But what of the militants who have slipped in unknown to them, or those entering illegally?
‘Because of the internet and the way terrorists use social media, including from Syria and the way we all live our lives using the smart phones in our pockets – the terrorists do the same.’
In answer to a question about the likelihood of extremists among ‘the migrants and refugees who are coming into Europe at the moment’, Mr Parker said guardedly he was ‘aware’ of that threat, but said he was concentrating at the moment on returning UK-based Islamic State fighters, who are probably already on MI5’s radar:
‘Of course it’s MI5’s job with others to monitor where the terrorists may be and how they are operating and how they are moving … we take an interest in those who have been to Syria and are coming back. So as far as the flow of migrants and refugees go of course it’s something we are aware of, it isn’t as we speak today the main focus of where the threat is coming from’.
ASSAD OR THE DELUGE
Professor Eugene Rogan
Either way, the unrest in Syria, which was encouraged by the United Kingdom, specifically by then-Foreign Secretary, the recently-ennobled William Hague, is putting at risk the safety of the people of the United Kingdom.
Foreign Affairs Select Committee member Mark Hendrick MP asked witnesses about what he described as ‘the so-called Arab Spring, that seems to have gone totally out of direction in a way that nobody would have predicted.’ Professor Eugene Rogan, Director of the Middle East Centre in Oxford, gave this response:
Professor Rogan: ‘I say this with a shared distaste for Bashar al-Assad and his methods of government, but I do believe he is an essential man. The policies based around the idea that Bashar al-Assad must go are ill-advised. They are unrealistic because those who advocate them do not have a champion they would put forward in his place and because recent history has shown us that when the state collapses you get a failed state.
Julien Barnes-Dacey appearing before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.
‘State-building in the context of a failed state has given us Afghanistan and Somalia, and great difficulties in Iraq—and Libya and Yemen right now. Seeing Syria go the route of another failed state seems to me to be the greatest threat to our interests, as an American, and to yours as Britons, because when the state is gone in Syria the Islamic State will take its place, and it will then be a reality as an Islamic state—we will not quibble over Daesh, and so on. It will be the caliphate that they declare it to be. I think that it is now Bashar al-Assad or the deluge.’
Julien Barnes-Dacey, Senior Policy Fellow, Middle East and North Africa programme, European Council on Foreign Relations, agreed: ‘He is a guarantor. I think that is analytically correct. With Assad going, there are no guarantees of what comes next. … If (the question) remains pivoted on the person of Assad, it will continue to fail.’
OPPOSITION IN SYRIA ‘DOMINATED BY IS AND AL-QAEDA
Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent, The Independent
The Foreign Affairs Select Committee also heard from Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent of The Independent, and freelance reporter James Harkin.
In an exchange which contradicted all the UK Government would have us believe, Mr Cockburn told a stunned Michael Gapes MP that there are no longer ‘numerous fighting groups’ in Syria, as Mr Gapes believed:
‘The armed opposition in Syria is dominated by Islamic State, which now holds more than half the country, and al-Qaeda type movements such as the official representative of al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, or Ahrar al-Sham and the others are now dominant in the armed opposition, and there are not too many others. The Free Syrian Army and others that people used to talk about are very weak these days,’ said Mr Cockburn.
Al Jazeera reports that the United State’s plan to train thousands of ‘moderate’ Syrians to fight Islamic State is in shambles, with only sixty having been trained and only four or five of them left.
Freelance journalist and Syria expert James Harkin.
Nadhim Zahawi MP asked James Harkin: ‘Very briefly, what secular or moderate groups have any major role now in the fighting or in the political arena (in Syria)?’
This was Mr Harkin’s response: ‘As I see it, the secular or moderate groups that we support are still ensconced in hotels in Istanbul, having nice lunches three or four years later. These people are largely meaningless to any political settlement, and that really should not be the question we are asking. We should be asking what Syrian people want, rather than who can be our friends’.
CONSEQUENCES OF SYRIAN REGIME COLLAPSE
The Committee chairman, Crispin Blunt MP, asked, ‘if the regime did collapse, what would be the consequences?’
Patrick Cockburn responded: ‘Well, we’ve got 4 million refugees already. I think you would probably have about the same number coming out, or trying to get out if they could. Most of the minorities would cut and run. So too would people associated with the army or with the Government, and a lot of the Sunni. You would have mass panic. Can you imagine what it would be like if Daesh entered Damascus or started taking other cities? I think you would have mass population movements. I think it would be very bad.’
James Harkin added: ‘As Patrick says, whether you are an Alawite or a Christian or a Shi’a, the people I speak to there do not particularly hold great store by analytic detail about hundreds and hundreds of different factions, they just see that these people are out to kill them, because they are heretics.’
UK GOVERNMENT AT ODDS
Astonishingly, even as the committee was hearing this evidence, David Cameron was preparing to tell the House of Commons at Prime Minister’s questions that ‘Assad must go’. Does the UK government have no access to anyone who knows anything about Syria?
Former British Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford.
Even back in April, the UK’s former ambassador to Syria Peter Ford denounced Mr Cameron’s attitude as ‘arrogant’ and ‘reckless’ in the Guardian saying that, ‘If David Cameron had had his way, we could have been embroiled by now, more than we already are, in yet another Middle East war. As it is, his Syria policy has still backfired, contributing to the rise of jihadism in our own back yard. If (he) had had his way, the jihadis could be in control of Damascus by now. Where is the accountability?’
The fact is, the more the UK and the US have undermined President Assad, the worse the situation in Syria has become, and the more refugees have been generated, not just from the Christian, Shi’a, Alawite, Druze and Kurdish minorities that the President has protected from the Syrian Sunni Muslim majority down the years, but also from newly radicalised but now displaced Syrian Sunnis, who threaten UK security.
More encouraging than Mr Cameron’s bluster was the contradictory evidence his new Foreign Secretary gave to the Select Committee as Mr Cameron was speaking. Rt Hon Philip Hammond signalled that the UK had actually retreated from its position of demanding that President Assad should relinquish power as a pre-requisite for UK assistance, according to this report in the Times of Israel.
The Foreign Secretary told the Committee that the solution of the crisis in Syria should be political rather than military, adding that London had sent a message to Russia and Iran, two countries backing the Assad regime, that it would be willing to consider a plan that sees Assad stay in power temporarily.
UK MUST WORK WITH SYRIA
Author and ex-SAS sergeant Chris Ryan
The policy shift came as Ex-SAS and writer Chris Ryan has said that the UK must work with Syria, Russia and Iran if there is to be any hope of defeating Islamic State.
“The best idea would be to hit them both sides with Europe and the United States one side and Russia on the other. The longer we wait, the stronger ISIS will get.”
Russia and Iran are President Assad’s strongest Allies. The Russians and Chinese have repeatedly blocked UN resolutions critical of the Syrian regime and have consistently opposed ‘regime change’.
It may be difficult to see how matters could be worse in Syria, and yet, as the Professor Rogan said, it President Assad were to be toppled, Syria would descend into the mayhem of Libya and the situation, especially for the Christians who remain there would be even worse and the refugee crisis unimaginable. Patrick Cockburn said ‘You would have mass panic … it would be very bad.’
We must give thanks to Almighty God for the stance taken by Russia and China and for the support Syria has received from Iran. Not least, we must thank God for the vote in the House of Commons in August 2013 in which MPs refused to allow the UK Government to bomb President Assad’s forces.
BRICKS NOT BOMBS
As to whether the UK should now enter into a bombing campaign against Islamic State in Syria, there was agreement among the witnesses that bombing alone would do little against Islamic State.
Mr Cockburn observed: ‘Where the Americans are supporting the Syrian Kurds and their militia, who are well disciplined and well organised, with air strikes, that is where Daesh (Islamic State) have suffered defeats. At Kobane, they lost about 2,000 men in a four-and-a-half-month siege. At another place, called Hasaka, also in the north-east, they also suffered a defeat, but there was a combination of efficient ground troops and American air strikes.’
He went on: ‘a lot of air missions by the Americans do not find a target. But above all, what you need is people on the ground who are calling in air strikes and who can see ISIS. If you don’t have that, it doesn’t really work very effectively. For the air strikes to work, you need people on the ground, giving the co-ordinates of exactly where Daesh is, and then they can hit those targets immediately.’
But Professor Rogan had a different and important take, telling Yasmin Qureshi MP:
‘Ms Qureshi, if I could put one plea forward, it would be to prioritise the sending of bricks rather than bombs to Syria, because I do not see how further air strikes or military action is going to do anything except further destroy the urban fabric of Syria. I tried to find some figures before coming to this meeting, and the most recent I could find suggest that 1.4 million Syrian homes have been destroyed. It is not West London prices—say it is £50,000 a unit—but that is £60 billion to rebuild the houses Syrians need to go home.
Prof. Raymond Hinnebusch.
‘You were asking previously what Syrians want. They don’t want to be in Europe. They don’t want to be in England, Germany or Hungary. They want to be home. The sooner we adopt policies that prioritise the needs of Syrians and provide not a safe haven but a safe habitat for them, with schools, hospitals and homes, the better, but that takes bricks, not bombs.’
NO NEGOTIATION
There will have to be a rebuilding effort when this conflict is over, but while Professor Raymond Hinnebusch, Professor of International Relations and Middle East Politics and Director of the Centre for Syrian Studies at the University of St Andrews agreed with Professor Rogan’s plea for a political settlement, it is difficult to see how that might happen.
Patrick Cockburn said: ‘… unfortunately the armed opposition is controlled at this stage by people who do not really want to talk, but want to win’.
There can be little prospect of negotiation with Al-Nusra and none at all with Islamic State, so even though bombing their positions might run the risk of radicalising even more Sunnis against those they will see as infidel invaders, there is no choice but to embark on smart bombing backed up by ground forces if Islamic State is to be defeated. Then, and only then, can those genuinely sympathetic to Syria and its people begin to discuss a long-term settlement in that country.
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Negotiations regarding Britain’s status in the EU will not take place while Juncker is in office.
Jean-Claude Juncker blockedEU referendum with Britain, saying that re-negotiations regarding Britain’s treaty with the EU will not happen while he is still president of the EU.
In January of this year David Cameron promised to hold a referendum to amend Britain and the European Union’s relationship. Any changes, if they come, will not be until the end of 2019.
Although Cameron promised a referendum on the UK’s membership, he wanted to stay in the EU if the negotiations went favorable. His goal was to change the relationship between the Britain and the EU.
If re-elected, Cameron will be forced to hold a referendum on EU membership without the option of reclaiming any power from Brussels. In this situation it will be more likely that Britain would leave the EU.
“No treaty change proposals are envisaged until after November 2019, the end of Mr Juncker’s mandate as president of the commission.”
In this case negotiations would not begin until 2020.
This incident comes after the Prime Minister very publicly tried to prevent Mr Juncker from becoming President of the European Commission and vowed that he would “reclaim powers from Brussels.”
The 2015 Conservative party election manifesto, which Mr Cameron spear-headed, states that Britain would “want national parliaments to be able to work together to block unwanted European legislation. And we want an end to our commitment to ‘ever closer union’ as enshrined in the treaty to which every country has to sign up.'”
In order to avoid a Labour Government supported by the Scottish National Party, Mr Cameron also told members of the United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) that they would need to vote conservative.
Nigel Farage, leader of Ukip, branded the Conservative manifesto a “work of fiction” as the treaty is change is non-negotiable by the Conservative part. He said:
“I challenge David Cameron to tell the British people this simple truth rather than dupe, delude and deceive them.”
European leaders in Brussels have already made clear that if Mr Cameron returns to Downing Street they will not accept any treaty changes before next year. Any amendments to the treaty would not be overhauled until 2025, and even that will require unanimous vote of all EU countries.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said that this statement from Brussels is nothing new. He also told the Times: “It was said there would be no changes after the Lisbon Treaty, but that was proved wrong. These latest claims will be proved wrong too.
“Commission President Juncker himself has said that answering the ‘British question’ is one of his key priorities.”
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Angela Merkel fears that Britian’s new immigration rules could be the last straw for severing UK and EU ties.
The German Chancellor has issued a warning about David Cameron’s plans to limit “freedom of movement”, hinting that she would rather see the UK leave the EU than for immigration to be curbed.
David Cameron, who has come under increasing pressure from anti-EU voters, has attempted to reduce the free flow of immigrants throughout the 27 member states onto British soil. But the German chancellor told Cameron that his proposed quotas could accelerate Britain reaching a point of no return.
Cameron is now looking on alternatives to setting quotas, such as limiting the time immigrants can be in the country without a job.
Merkel is not the only foreign leader that has expressed concerns on the subject. Stefan Lofen the Prime Minister of Sweden, believes that EU immigration policy could result in the EU unraveling.
“The fact that one country believes that one thing is wrong does not mean that we can change, because every country might have its own priorities and that may just ruin the European Union,” he announced.
“If you first create a common market with common rules and then if the individual countries are supposed to change that on their own, then, I mean, soon, we do not have a European common market,” Lofven said.
Even states that were championed by Britain to be part of the EU have reservations about Britain’s immigration reform.
Meanwhile, the British Prime Minister has attempted to appease his anti-EU constituency by claiming that the British people are his only boss, adding:
“What we need in Britain is a renegotiation of our relationship with the EU and then a referendum where the British people decide do we stay in this reformed organization or do we leave it.
“That’s what I will pursue, that’s what I will deliver, and at the heart of that renegotiation we need to address people’s concerns about immigration. I’m very clear about who the boss is, about who I answer to and it’s the British people. They want this issue fixed, they are not being unreasonable about it, and I will fix it.”
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The European Union has insisted that David Cameron hand over £1.7 Billion in what is essentially a prosperity penalty.
Britain must pay at least £1.7 Billion to help with recovery, the EU has announced.
The UK was targeted for the bill, due on 1st December, as a result of the country out-performing other economies in Europe since 1995.
The controversial bill includes retroactive payments that the EU assumes Britain owes them based on the country’s success over the last two decades. It does not include the £680 million that will be taken out of British taxpayers’ pockets to support an estimated increase for next year’s EU budget.
This backdated surcharge highlights how the price-tag for EU membership fluctuates depending on how well an economy is doing, with the more prosperous nations paying the most, all calculated depending on gross national income.
News of this pending payment is likely to add to the growth of groups demanding that Britain quit the EU.
Poorer Nations Get Rewarded
Part of the controversy over Britain’s bill is that it runs parallel to a practice of rewarding poorer nations in the EU block. France is getting handed 790 million for having a poorer and much more stagnant economy over the past year.
The Netherlands, which is scheduled pay 642 million for its own success, has highlighted the problem of rewarding the economies of stagnant nations with cash handouts. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, representing both the Dutch and the British, scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss the payment crisis and how it should be dealt with. His concerns were echoed by Bernard Jenkin, Conservative MP for Harwich and North Essex. “The EU punishes economic success and rewards profligacy and failure”, he said, adding that “Britain is right to support the world’s poorest countries we shouldn’t be supporting some of the richest.”
Illegal Economic Activities Are Include
Not all the money for this bill is coming out of the mainstay economy. Prostitution and illegal drugs make up about 10 million of the British economy and are being calculated in the EU payout. This has been criticized by Tim Worstall at Forbes Magazine who pointed out that “while it might be appropriate to use the total economy, grey and black portions included, as a measure of the economy for some purposes it simply isn’t for the purpose of working out how much should be coughed up to the EU. Quite simply because, by definition, those extra parts of the economy aren’t paying the tax which is what Brussels wants a cut of.”
£1.7 billion would allow us to hire an extra 60,000 nurses and fund their pensions. It’s more than is raised by the bank levy. It represents an extra £65 a year for every family in the direct payments they make to Brussels – on top of the £525 they are already paying.
I say “direct payments” because we are paying far more indirectly, through higher food bills (to subsidise the Common Agricultural Policy), higher fuel bills (to subsidise the EU’s carbon reduction programmes) and higher VAT bills (to subsidise – well, just to subsidise Brussels functionaries in general).
You’ll be lucky to find an elected representative in Britain prepared to defend the EU on this one. The additional £1.7 billion is being sought because, in essence, the UK economy is outperforming the rest of the EU. Several other countries are affected at the margin – bizarrely, debt-stricken Greece is being surcharged while wealthy Germany is getting a rebate – but no one else is being asked to pay anything like so much. Most of the adjustments are in the tens of millions, though the Netherlands is another big loser, and France and Germany are big winners. But the UK is the outlier: our hike would more than pay for the rebates of all 17 net gainers put together.
Why? Because, frankly, we stayed out of the euro and so – despite Gordon Brown’s best efforts to bankrupt us – we were able to recover more swiftly from the downturn than most of the countries that had surrendered their currencies.
The European Commission has made little effort to raise revenue by fining the Eurozone states that breached the Stability and Growth Pact, and thus contributed to the euro crisis in the first place. On the contrary, most of them are being rewarded while we are punished for having had the effrontery to have called monetary union correctly.
A prosperity surcharge is never a good idea. If you tax successful countries in order to subsidise unsuccessful countries, you end up with fewer successful countries and more unsuccessful ones.
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President Assad inspects damage left by Islamist rebels in the Christian town of Maaloula
Tobias Ellwood MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
Her Majesty’s Government is stubbornly blaming President Assad for the rise of Islamic State despite the funding and encouragement it sent to Islamist opposition groups in Syria.
In an obdurate letter sent out to Members of Parliament and forwarded to constituents, Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood MP says ‘Assad has been one of the leading causes for the rise of ISIL (Islamic State – SG) and other extremist groups in Syria. He has created the conditions that have allowed terrorism to flourish – by destroying the social and physical fabric of the country, fuelling sectarianism, and leaving a trail of insecurity and ungoverned space across Syria’.
3 The inability and unwillingness of any Syrian opposition group to guarantee the safety of the Syrian Christians and Shi-ite Muslims, including the Alawites,
President Assad inspects damage left by Islamist rebels in the Christian town of Maaloula
5 The reality, as President Obama confirmed in a meeting with Eastern Patriarchs last month, that President Assad protected the Christians (Mr Obama even referred to ‘the Syrian government; rather than ‘the Regime’),
6 That it is the UK which has fuelled the rise of Islamic State by the support it gave when the uprising started to anyone opposing Assad, including Al-Qaeda and its offshoots Al-Nusra and Islamic State,
7 That the destruction of Syria is not the responsibility of President Assad but of the UK and US Governments and NGOs encouraging a destructive uprising against a man who just fell out of favour with them,
The US funded Al-Qaeda-affiliate Al-Nusra Front
8 That the closure of the Syrian Embassy in London and the British Embassy in Damascus has made any possible defeat of Islamic State more difficult,
9 That the ‘Houla Massacre’, quickly used by William Hague to expel the Syrian Ambassador and his mission, was actually perpetrated by the Free Syrian Army and used to blame the Syrian government. (Der Spiegel & GlobalResearch)
Mr Ellwood concludes his letter by arguing that ‘Most of the opposition are ordinary people, fighting to protect their homes and their loved ones, fighting in the hope of a better future for their country. They deserve our support.’
No, Mr Ellwood, the ‘opposition’ is a fractured basket-case of rival groups, with the ‘ordinary people’ of IS and Al-Nusra competing with the ‘ordinary people’ of Islamic Front, the Free Syrian Army and the well-connected Syrian National Council (see this amazing article by Charlie Skelton for the low-down on SNC), with every armed faction fighting in the hope of an Islamic future for their country. All the militias will increase the possibility of terrorism on our streets and they all need to be opposed.
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Two top retired generals and the chairman of parliament’s intelligence and security committee are calling for collaboration with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in order to defeat Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL.
But HM Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs refuses even to pick up the phone.
Former army chief and committed Christian Lord Dannatt, General Sir Richard Shirreff and Sir Malcolm Rifkind have all called on Philip Hammond to work with President Assad.
Lord Dannatt told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme: “I think whether it’s above the counter or below the counter, a conversation has got to be held with him. Because if there’s going to be any question of air strikes over Syrian air space, it’s got to be with the Assad regime’s approval.”
Sir Malcolm, the chairman of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, and a former foreign secretary and defence secretary, said that the US and its allies must be prepared to work with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad to have any hope of defeating Isis. He said history had shown that “sometimes you actually have to make an arrangement with some nasty people in order to get rid of some even nastier ones”. Sir Malcolm also called for Saudi Arabia and Qatar to stop “the private funding and help that has been given to jihadi extremists by supporters in their countries for several years”.
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad
But Philip Hammond rejected the calls, saying: “We may very well find that we are aligned against a common enemy but it would poison what we’re trying to achieve in separating moderate Sunni opinion from the poisonous ideology of Isil if we were to align ourselves with Assad.”
“There can be no eradication of Islamic State as a threat without a regional approach,” he said. “Islamic State is operating and has spread into Syria and therefore, there is likely to be – or inevitably going to be – a need to sit down and talk to difficult bedfellows.”
Christian Voice believes that Mr Hammond, like his predecessor, over-estimates his ability to turn the Syrian rebels into some sort of democratic body respecting the human rights of minorities such as the Christians and Alawites of Syria.
The Syrian regime was destabilised at the bidding of fanatical pro-democracy agitators like George Soros. Soros funded Syrian activists directly and through his links to avaaz.org. (See March 2011 in the link) (More on Avaaz here). It was only by the grace of God that a government motion to take military action against the Syrian Government was defeated in the UK House of Commons on 30th August 2013. But US intervention and UK and European logistical support inevitably fueled the rise of ISIS. Weaponry delivered to the rebels has inevitably found its way into the hands of Al-Qaeda and now ISIS.
We have held a consistent view that only President Assad stood between Christians in Syria and a blood-bath, that the UK Government was wrong to support the Islamic militants trying to oust him. Our Government are responsible for a colossal loss of life and property, in fact for what Sir Malcolm calls the ‘destruction’ of Syria. They now have a face-saving opportunity to switch sides.
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Tony Blair should either apologise and accept responsibility for the mess that Iraq is in, or shut up, according to the Mayor of London.
Boris Johnson has described Tony Blair’s latest intervention, calling for bombs to drop everywhere from Baghdad to Damascus, as ‘slightly unhinged’ and ‘bonkers’.
In an interview, Boris was asked if he had any advice for Tony Blair. “My general message would be to put a sock in it really,” said the Mayor. “Paper bag on head time is my advice.”
Iraq intervention ‘tragic mistake’
Tony Blair and George W Bush oversaw the execution of Saddam Hussain. Hypocritically Mr Blair would never have voted for the death penalty in Britain. Furthermore they allowed the American ‘neo-cons’ to pursue a policy of destroying Iraq’s Bathist infrastructure. They hoped something stable would ‘evolve’ from the ‘democracy’ they imposed. But the chaos and sectarian violence that came instead persists in Iraq to this day.
Describing Britain’s Iraq intervention as a “tragic mistake” and a “misbegotten folly”, Mr Johnson seems at odds with William Hague, the Foreign Secretary. He still believes it was the right thing to do.
Christians are fleeing Homs as ISIS demands they pay a Dhimmi tax – Jizya – for ‘protection’
We continue to argue that Mr Hague has the blood of thousands of Syrians, including Syrian Christians, on his hands. Hague backed the Islamist rebels in Syria rather than President Bashar Al-Assad, with all his faults. He gave encouragement to Al-Qaeda extremists and turned Syria into a blood-bath.
Now the same ISIS extremists who are trying to overthrow Syria’s ruling Alawites, in order to massacre them and the Christians, are advancing in Iraq. President Obama is considering air strikes against ISIS in Iraq. What about ISIS in Syria?
‘Responsibility to Protect’
Her Majesty’s Government became involved at the instigation of pro-democracy activists like those at the George Soros-funded ‘Open Society’. Soros helped spread the so-called ‘Arab Spring’. It gave hard-line Islamists a foothold and left chaos in its wake by funding opposition movements around the Mediterranean. A doctrine invented by a Soros-funded think-tank, ‘Responsibility to Protect’, has given Western governments the excuse they needed to interfere and destabilise countries like Iraq and Libya.
Only in Syria was Western military intervention avoided because the House of Commons voted against it. We thanked God last August for such an answer to prayer. The Syrian Government has been able to fight the insurgents, despite the aid Britain and the United States gave the jihadists. And now the chickens have come home to roost wearing an ISIS black flag. Moreover, the Americans will have to fight the ISIS monster they have created in Iraq. But it’s high time we switched sides in Syria.
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Immigration levels are more than twice what David Cameron projected for the last year.
According to an official report released Thursday, immigration into Britain increased by 27% last year.
In fact, net immigration is currently twice Mr Cameron’s target goal of reducing immigration to “tens of thousands.” The results show that a net total of 201,000 EU citizens immigrated to the UK, as compared to the 158,000 immigrants last year.
The already strained relationship between the EU and Britain has been further weakened by these findings, with many people believing that immigration policy will not changeunless Britain secedes from the EU.
In 2013, a total of 526,000 people moved to the UK and 314,000 left, which resulted in the net figure of 212,000 immigrants. This is an increase from the 177,000 immigrants in 2012.
The ONS report further shows that the total number of people coming into the UK increased 5%, with 43,000 more EU citizens and 11,000 fewer non-EU citizens arriving. According to the Office for National Statistics, 125,000 of those immigrants came to find work, up from 95,000 in 2012.
In an Express report, Alan Murad, Deputy Campaign Manager of ‘Get Britain Out’ warned:
‘These figures demonstrate that while we remain in the EU we are completely powerless to control immigration to Britain. Unless Britain leave the EU the Government will continue to have no say on the hundreds of thousands of migrants entering the UK from EU countries every year. This is putting enormous pressure on our public services, presents a real threat to British jobs and is a major risk to our economic recovery.’
UKIP leader Nigel Farage condemnedDavid Cameron for “breaking a solemn promise to the British people to get net annual immigration down to the tens of thousands.” Mr. Farage further commented on immigration, which he called “one of the most important political issues,” saying that Mr Cameron “refuses to take back control of our borders in respect of more than 400 million people from more than two dozen countries on continental Europe.”
Mr Cameron recently “launched a full-blown attack” against Farage, saying that Farage is essentially an elite citizen who seeks to “‘destroy the Conservative party.'”
In addition to the changes mentioned above, there was a 150 percent increase in people coming from Romania and Bulgaria into the UK, even before work restrictions were lifted in January. The numbers increased from just 9,000 in 2012 to 23,000 in 2013. Approximately 70 percent of these immigrants came to find work.
Other increases came from countries like Poland (from 11,000 to 102,000), Italy (from 9,000 to 42,000), and Bulgaria (from 7,000 to 18,000).
Chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee Keith Vaz said: “Controlling EU migration is impossible without reform. It is clear that the Government’s aim is unrealistic and unachievable. The Government should drop its target now.”
Interestingly, reports in The Telegraph and BBC News UK say that net migration remains unchanged at 212,000 per quarter, although that number is still twice that of the Government’s target of less than 100,000 immigrants a year.
However, later on in the BBC News article, the reporter mentions the same figures as the other articles: 201,000 EU citizens migrated to the UK as long-term citizens, a statistical increase of 43,000 over the previous year. How does net migration remain the same if it increased by 43,000 people? Apparently the “movements of other categories of people” cancelled this effect, causing the net migration numbers to remain unchanged.
Mr Cameron is now drawing up new immigration laws to counteract UKIP and ameliorate anger over this rise in EU immigrants moving to Britain.
Not even David Cameron can reduce the number of immigrants to Britain, as long as immigration laws in the EU remain unchanged.
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They say his testimony in the case brought by one Caleb Orozco in an attempt to overturn Belize’s anti-sodomy law has ‘destroyed their trust in him’. The sub-text is that they all want Jamaica, Belize and other Caribbean Commonwealth members to legalise sodomy.
In his testimony, Professor Bain said that the risk of contracting HIV is significantly higher among men who have sex with men (MSM). He said this was true for Belize, as well as other countries, including those that have repealed the law that criminalises ‘anal sex’.
Responsibility to assess behaviours
According to Bain, some public health practitioners and agencies “have hypothesised that decriminalising the practice of anal intercourse among consenting adults would lead to a reduction in the incidence rate of HIV infections among MSM”. However, he said that to date, published data have not substantiated that hypothesis.
“As a physician and public health practitioner, one of my responsibilities is to assess behaviours for their impact on health and well-being,” Professor Bain said in his written testimony.
“When something is beneficial, such as exercise, good nutrition, or adequate sleep, it is my duty to recommend it. Likewise, when something is harmful, such as smoking, overeating, alcohol or drug abuse, and unsafe sexual behaviour, it is my duty to discourage it. Together with promoting individual responsibility, it is clear that environments that enable individuals to make and practice safe and healthy choices must be provided at family, community and governmental levels,” he said.
Bain added that another of his responsibilities as a public health practitioner is to assess the cost of behaviour, not just to the individual ‘actor’ but also to the community. “There are some private behaviours, either carried out by individuals or between consenting adults, that may either be helpful or of little adverse consequence to other persons in the community,” he said.
“Behaviours that are helpful to individuals and to the community are to be encouraged. On the other hand, there are instances in which private behaviours result in considerable public cost due to illness, with accompanying loss of productivity and social disruption and the prospect of premature death. The public cost of these private behaviours must be acknowledged and actively reckoned with,” Bain argued.
“The risk to MSM and their intimate sexual partners is not just to their physical health. The adverse physical and physiological consequences of STIs (including HIV) in MSM create significant and avoidable financial costs to individuals, households and governments. These important considerations must be included when considering whether to give public approval to risky behaviours such as are often practised by MSM,” Bain stated.
HAART AIDS Treatment costs UK NHS £1.5bn / year
Such a view is so obviously true as to seem uncontroversial in normal times. Since Highly-Active Anti-Retroviral Treatment (HAART) became available for those with HIV in the UK, ‘gay’ men have thrown responsible behaviour, caution (and their condoms) to the wind. The number of people living with HIV and having HAART treatment was almost 78,000 in 2012 and is likely to be over 85,000 today in 2014. Each one costs the Health Service £18,000 per year, according to AVERT. The total cost of HAART treatment is therefore £1,500,000,000 (£1.5 billion) per year and rising.
But Professor Bain’s opinion prompted the lobby groups to write to UWI Vice-Chancellor Professor Nigel Harris expressing displeasure with Bain’s testimony and asking for his dismissal. They did not claim that what he said was untrue, only that they had ‘lost confidence’ in him. Prof Harris is now considering the matter. The churches in Jamaica have rallied behind Professor Bain, but we can be sure that American universities with educational and financial links to UWI will be lobbying Professor Harris incessantly to try to force him to sack the honest Professor.
The condemnation of Professor Bain is being led by the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition, a well-funded grant-giving outfit with a huge board of directors seeking to advance the cause of street-children, drug-users, prostitutes and, of course, homosexuals. The CVC has wide international connections to groups advancing the gay cause, including to UNAIDS. We have so far been unable to discover who funds CVC, but wealthy US groups like the Ford Foundation and Arcus are likely culprits.
Government and University figures attend Caribbean pro-homosexual meetings
Astonishingly, in a region where only the Bahamas has decriminalised sodomy, pro-homosexual advocacy meetings are regularly held across the Caribbean, and are routinely attended by government ministers or representatives of UWI.
An estimated 600 Belizeans turned out in San Ignacio on July 10, 2013 to oppose the inclusion of ‘sexual orientation’ in the country’s gender policy.
The Rt Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas, St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister and Chair of the Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV and AIDS, opened the ‘Caribbean Consultation on Justice for All and Human Rights Agenda’, in Kingston, Jamaica, in April 2014. Naturally, Dr. Carolyn Gomes, Executive Director of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition, attended. Prof. Archibald McDonald, Vice Principal of the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies called for ‘social inclusion’ of homosexuals and an ‘end to stigma’. The notorious campaigning Australian homosexual activist, Justice Michael Kirby, delivered the keynote address. The Consultation was coordinated by UNAIDS, which one might expect, but also, astoundingly, by the Government of Jamaica and the University of the West Indies.
By the grace of God, Caribbean churches are beginning to respond. Church leaders in Jamaica rallied to defend their island’s anti-sodomy law last year and have also given strong support to Professor Bain, a committed Christian. In Central America Belize Action, led by the courageous Pastor Scott Stirm, is fighting a superb campaign against pro-sodomy initiatives from the Belize government which seems to have given up all hope that the country’s courts will uphold the law in the Orozco case.
Section 53 of Belize’s criminal code states that “every person who has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any person or animal shall be liable to imprisonment for 10 years”.
Please pray for Professor Brendan Bain to know the peace and strength of Christ at this time and for the Church across the Caribbean to stand firm holding their governments to account as ministers of God.
Romans 13:3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: 4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
Isaiah 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
Proverbs 14:34 Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.
Psalm 12:8 The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.
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Tony Blair has warned Western leaders they must put aside their differences with Russia over Ukraine to focus on the threat of Islamic extremism – and work with both Russia and China.
In a speech at Bloomberg in London the former UK prime minister – now a Middle East envoy –said powerful nations must “take sides” and back “open-minded” groups.
Mr Blair repeated his claim that Islam is a peaceful religion which has been hijacked by extremists, but it is encouraging that he has recognised the threat posed by militant Islam, even though a globalist agenda may be behind what he had to say.
In his speech, Mr Blair called on Western leaders to “elevate the issue of religious extremism to the top of the agenda”.
And they must co-operate with other countries – “in particular, Russia and China” – regardless of “other differences”.
He argued the threat posed by a radical view which “distorts and warps Islam’s true message” was “spreading across the world”.
“The Muslim population in Europe is now over 40m and growing. The Muslim Brotherhood and other organisations are increasingly active and they operate without much investigation or constraint. Recent controversy over schools in Birmingham (and similar allegations in France) show heightened levels of concern about Islamist penetration of our own societies.”
Tellingly, as one who has participated in meetings of the globalist Bilderberg Group, the alleged benefits of globalisation were not far from Mr Blair’s thoughts: “It (militant Islam) is destabilising communities and even nations. It is undermining the possibility of peaceful co-existence in an era of globalisation.”
Curiously, Mr Blair told the BBC ahead of the speech the West would pay a “very heavy price” for not intervening in Syria and that the opportunity to create “an optimistic solution” had been missed. Because Britain, the EU and the United States supported the rebels rather than President Assad, who they viewed as a Russian ally, Al-Qaeda and other Muslim militant groups have been able to siphon off that aid and now form the military opposition. The moderate opposition in Syria which Mr Blair had such faith in has been crushed by the very Islamic militants he is now warning against.
Islamist fighters, including some from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, had taken over part of Maaloula in December and held several nuns captive until releasing them in March in a prisoner-exchange deal.
President Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect, protected Syrian Christians and the Syrian Coptic Church. The militants which Britain has funded have persecuted them. Over Easter, David Cameron said his government would support persecuted Christians.
President Obama is currently touring the Far East. He will visit Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines – but not China.
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It is coming to something when the Russian Foreign Minister is more believable than your own.
Four days ago, The Rt Hon William Hague, talking about the unrest in Eastern Ukraine, said, ‘There can’t really be any real doubt that this is something that has been planned and brought about by Russia. … violation of the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine … There has to be a clear and united international response.’
Back in March, President Obama said ‘Make no mistake, neither the United States nor Europe has any interest in controlling Ukraine.’ (Was that before or after US officals were overheard discussing who they wanted to install as Ukrainian president?) That video is admittedly published by Russia Today but those are his words.
In contrast, the Russian Foreign Minister has denied that Russia has stoked up the problems. And the truth is, Russia did neither fund nor organise the pro-EU demonstrations and take-over of government in Kiev, ousting pro-Russian President Yanakovich in the process, which started the Ukraine crisis in the first place.
We have already reported how Western NGO’s financed the ‘Maidan Square’ protest movement. But Christian Voice has discovered that millions of dollars have been pouring into Ukrainian NGO’s and ‘civil society’ organisations for the last couple of years. Principal donors include the Open Society Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.
The Foundation Centre lists over $18 million of grants by US NGO’s to Ukrainian ‘civil society’ recipients. The breakdown can be seen by clicking on each recipient. To take one example, the Open Society Foundation for Ukraine – directly fingered in the pro-EU rioting – received over $535,000 jointly from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the National Endowment for Democracy. The Civil Society Institute, an EU sock-puppet, got $450,00 dollars. An Open Society front organisation, the Ukrainian Step by Step Foundation, was given $1,527,000. An organisation called Ednannia was given the most money, $1,550,000.
One grant of $250,000 from Mott to Ednannia was ‘to foster the development of community foundations in Ukraine.’ Indeed, one can read the whole grant profile (three-quarters of the way down this page) and be none the wiser what Ednannia actually do, apart from ‘social action’. The Mott Foundation’s own website says it especially likes ‘the development of community foundations’
What are those? Well, a click on the link reveals that they are ‘Rooted Locally, Growing Globally’ and are favoured for being ‘local leaders of positive change’. Call us cynical, but if positive change involves taking up arms, storming government buildings, ousting elected governments and trying to join the European Union by force, then it looks less than desirable.
Even Chatham House, an elitist body itself, admits that NGO’s in countries like Ukraine are funded entirely from the Western elite and almost entirely disconnected from ordinary people. Pretending to be ‘democratic’, they could not be less empowered with any semblance of a popular mandate.
William Hague said on Monday that the EU summit would focus on “how we support democratic institutions and the elections in Ukraine”. The EU’s idea of doing that is apparently funding exactly those NGO’s Chatham House identifies as the least democratic and overturning elected officials in sovereign states by force. It was Orwellian newspeak from Mr Hague.
The Bible says: Exodus 18:21 Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:
How many of members of the British Establishment would pass that test? Would William Hague?
What a sorry state we are in, when HM Foreign Secretary is the least believable man in Britain.
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