This is an opportunity for GCC (or at least UAE/Saudi) to step in as peacekeepers. No military objectives other than keeping US/Israel/Turkey out and discouraging local militias. Then start rebuilding country.
Agreed and as I wrote yesterday the Area MUST be overseen by Arab States and Muslims.
The news that Isreal has annexed the Golan Heights and Isreal and US allegedly bombing areas in outskirts of Damascus is highly dangerous.
Netanyahu, Biden and Trump are as big a risk to Syria as Putin and Assad.
Between martial law in South Korea and the rapidity of the fall of Assad, you'd have to Eurmillions level odds of both being in anyone's prediction card for 2024.
Just to deal with the apparent western sophisticates who go on about Assad being better than other options or because he was in theory, a non religious nut job, he might be a better bet.
You are full of absolute shit.
The guy is a mass murderer and his entire regime and that of his equally mass murderer father was built on sectarian grounds. As ever when it came to it not that many people in his own country really supported him, they hated him. Ipso facto the world is better shot of his regime. As uncertain as the future may be, it is no excuse for one arsehole of a dictator surviving.
The dipshits in the West who thought 'well he might kind be kind of like us really, or 'he's a doctor who trained in Europe once' spent decades thinking they could somehow turn him into some kind Western oriented bloke. They failed miserably because, revelation everyone, he wasn't and they kept pushing that bullshit right up, believe it or not, to recent weeks. Yep, there were still US & European diplomats trying to pull a stroke that if he booted out the Iranian/Hezbollah influence, we'd cut him a bit of slack. These big brains completely missed the fact that those backers had already been absolutely battered by the Israelis so there wasnt much influence left.
They also forgot all those prisoners he got rid of to send to Iraq to fight US forces and the nascient Iraqi government (something many Iraqis havent forgot). Well Bashar, some of them came home and were involved in booting you out, you clown.
He should have been hung from one of da's statues.
You just paraded an entire regiment of straw men
At one point the choice was Assad or ISIS. That was the choice. Evil or even greater evil
Evil is superior to even greater evil; and plenty of us are concerned that Assad will now be replaced by an even greater evil - something truly horrific for syrias many minorities - Christians, Druze, Alawites - and also horrific for women if the reports of Taliban style beliefs are true
It seems the Americans feel the same way as they are busy liquidating ISIS on the ground with great urgency. I hope they take out every last one
The choice was not solely between Assad and IS at any point. How many opposition groups were involved over the last decade, do you know?
One of the great Russian propaganda coups of the last decade was to make people believe that anyone in Syria who was not with Assad was ISIS.
What people didnt notice was that Assad wasnt half as keen on eliminating IS as people would have you believe. He supported them plenty.
1. Syria was a conduit for IS fighters going Iraq, not just the ones Assad let out jail, but imports that travelled via Syria without interference 2. Anyone who looks as the Syrian , Iranian and Russian military effort during the civil war will notice that IS dominated areas got off fairly lightly. Others where IS was not in play in a sigificant capacity were the focus. Why was that, if the threat was seen as IS? 3. There was a also a good commercial trading relationship between the Assad government and IS, to the tune of hundreds of millions going to IS over the years
In fact, it was the Americans and aligned Syrian opposition fighters, again who did most of the work against IS. Does anyone remember the SAA, or the Russians or the Iranians liberating Raqqa from IS? No, they didn't lift a finger and had no interest in doing so
Assad's regime was also the biggest drug dealer in the Mediterranean.
There are some things I am willing to accept Neil as an authority on, and I know he's a former editor of the Times (Sunday) and the Speccie, but is he really sufficiently expert on Syria to write this? Genuine question.
Most journalists are amateurs. Some are gifted amateurs. A number are BS merchants. Andrew Neil believes himself an expert on a wide range of subjects, but in such speculation he is really one voice among many and has no particular credibility.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-syria-rebels-stars-aligned-assads-ouster-2024-12-08/ ..After 13 years of civil war, Syria's opposition militias sensed an opportunity to loosen President Bashar al-Assad's grip on power when, about six months ago, they communicated to Turkey plans for a major offensive and felt they had received its tacit approval, two sources with knowledge of the planning said...
.. the rebels sensed a stiffening of Ankara's stance towards Assad earlier this year, the sources said, after he rebuffed repeated overtures from Erdogan aimed at advancing a political solution to the military stalemate, which has left Syria divided between the regime and a patchwork of rebel groups with an array of foreign backers. The Syrian opposition source said the rebels had shown Turkey details of the planning, after Ankara's attempts to engage Assad had failed. The message was: "That other path hasn't worked for years - so try ours. You don't have to do anything, just don't intervene." Reuters was unable to determine the exact nature of the communications.Hadi Al-Bahra, head of the internationally-recognized Syrian opposition abroad, told Reuters last week that HTS and SNA had had "limited" planning together ahead of the operation and agreed to "achieve cooperation and not clash with each other". He added that Turkey's military saw what the armed groups were doing and discussing. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking in Doha on Sunday, said Erdogan’s effort in recent months to reach out to Assad failed and Turkey "knew something was coming". However, Turkey's deputy minister for foreign affairs, Nuh Yilmaz, told a conference on Middle Eastern affairs in Bahrain on Sunday that Ankara was not behind the offensive, and did not provide its consent, saying it was concerned about instability....
This is an opportunity for GCC (or at least UAE/Saudi) to step in as peacekeepers. No military objectives other than keeping US/Israel/Turkey out and discouraging local militias. Then start rebuilding country.
Agreed and as I wrote yesterday the Area MUST be overseen by Arab States and Muslims.
The news that Isreal has annexed the Golan Heights and Isreal and US allegedly bombing areas in outskirts of Damascus is highly dangerous.
Netanyahu, Biden and Trump are as big a risk to Syria as Putin and Assad.
I really don't see that. It's also curious that you don't mention the one country that is *really* interfering in Syria; Turkey.
Since I've had my heating on again, I haven't turned the thermostat higher than 18⁰C
It's reached 18 once; I turn it down to 12 when I go to work and 15 when I go to bed
I did the same before it all got more expensive
What temperatures do you do?
I used to have my thermostat set to 17C, and turn it down overnight. Then we left it on 17C, but used the timer on the boiler to only have it come on for a few periods during the day - this was because our thermostat was rubbish, and the system wouldn't hold our home at a constant temperature anyway, it would have to get quite cold before clicking on and then it would stay on until it was too warm.
Then I measured the temperature by the thermostat with a proper thermometer, and found that when the thermostat was set to 17C, it actually turned the heating on when it fell below 20C.
Now I don't believe anyone's thermostat stories unless they've independently measured the temperature with a properly calibrated thermometer.
What is it with people taking pride in their cold houses?
Madness - in this day and age a warm home should be considered a fundamental right.
As my story makes clear, my house wasn't as cold as I thought it was. But, also, we were renting at the time, and so we couldn't do anything about the uninsulated bay window or the leaky double-glazing, that made heating the place more expensive then it should have been. We were lucky that the old couple living below us received a winter fuel allowance, and so could afford to keep their home toasty warm, which provided heat to us above them.
And, as well as that, I'm a knitter. I like being cold enough to wear the jumpers I have knit myself, or the socks likewise. Now that I'm (hopefully temporarily) in a house that I don't set the temperature of, I'm finding it a bit weird that it's so hot that I'm in shorts and a t-shirt and feeling too hot, when we're forecast a frost overnight.
Fair point. We're currently renting an old cottage, which is as struggle to keep warm. Some mould forming on the window frames and ceiling in the bathroom - not good.
The house we are building will be super-insulated - every new house should be.
That of course will be approximately happening under the Future Home standards in 2025, which slashes carbon emissions by 75-80%. In effect it means we get net zero carbon when the energy supply is fully decarbonised. It does not say of course, but I think the 75-80% reduction is probably a saving over a 1990 Building Regs quality house.
I think it was one of the good bits of Boris that Truss, Sunak & co did not burn down in their cynical arse-saving campaign wrt the election. On the other side it was also delayed and somewhat diluted by the Boris Govt that introduced it.
it's worth a note that life in a traditionally (room by room) heated house where the temperature will drift by 3-4C during a day at work, really cannot be compared to one where the thermal envelope is the whole building, which falls by perhaps 1C in temperature if left alone with the heating off for 24 hours. It's a totally different animal; the latter is so stable that you have a single heating zone, a far smaller heating system and need very little control-gubbins.
Mine is somewhere between the two, and I rely on low energy use and solar panel offset to get me close to zero emissions, as I cannot easily super-insulate a house that was effectively rebuilt as recently as 2009 (three walls and a hole in the ground) - but only had 150mm of polystyrene equivalent insulation in the walls, and 170mm in the floor, for a wall u-value of 0.2 approx.
Government wants state to be more 'like a start-up'
McFadden will launch a £100m "innovation fund" to underpin his plans, which will be used to deploy "test and learn teams" around the country. Public services will be set a challenge and be allowed to experiment and try new things to meet it, in an approach more commonly used in the business world.
The government is also attempting to encourage workers from tech companies to join the civil service for six to 12 month secondments to help achieve the prime minister's goals.
Sounds rather like Big Dom idea being rehashed (hopefully less chaotic). Will they foot the full bill of said tech workers?
It also reflects the failure of Labour to prepare for government. They have ambitions but no policies and hope that #ClassicDom and ersatz tech bros might come up with something. For all our sakes, let us hope it works.
Haigh , Miliband , Phillipson have policies off the shelf ready and already being implemented.
Clearly the economic and fiscal situation came as a significant shock and independent bodies bought in have proven that. In the Home Office of course NO ONE could have legislated for the Riots orchestrated by Farage and the Far Right.
Of course none of that matches the "no plan claptrap" being peddled by right wing MSM.
Haigh's resigned.
Many of Phillipson's policies are misguided at best, likely to do even more damage at worst (the national curriculum review is already looking like a fiasco after she essentially handed it over to the loons at Oak National Academy).
That leaves Miliband, and his CCS nonsense doesn't inspire me with confidence.
Government wants state to be more 'like a start-up'
McFadden will launch a £100m "innovation fund" to underpin his plans, which will be used to deploy "test and learn teams" around the country. Public services will be set a challenge and be allowed to experiment and try new things to meet it, in an approach more commonly used in the business world.
The government is also attempting to encourage workers from tech companies to join the civil service for six to 12 month secondments to help achieve the prime minister's goals.
Sounds rather like Big Dom idea being rehashed (hopefully less chaotic). Will they foot the full bill of said tech workers?
It also reflects the failure of Labour to prepare for government. They have ambitions but no policies and hope that #ClassicDom and ersatz tech bros might come up with something. For all our sakes, let us hope it works.
Haigh , Miliband , Phillipson have policies off the shelf ready and already being implemented.
Clearly the economic and fiscal situation came as a significant shock and independent bodies bought in have proven that. In the Home Office of course NO ONE could have legislated for the Riots orchestrated by Farage and the Far Right.
Of course none of that matches the "no plan claptrap" being peddled by right wing MSM.
Haigh's resigned.
Many of Phillipson's policies are misguided at best, likely to do even more damage at worst (the national curriculum review is already looking like a fiasco after she essentially handed it over to the loons at Oak National Academy).
That leaves Miliband, and his CCS nonsense doesn't inspire me with confidence.
Its amusing, the only one of the lot of them yet who has come in and immediately done something sensible is Reeves in ending the absurd WFA.
So therefore she was the one not named.
However all the good that Reeves has done has been more than reversed by her increasing National Insurance.
Didn’t have this on my Covid bingo card, but there are plenty of viruses implicated in cancer.
The risk of pancreatic adenocarcinoma following SARS-CoV family infection
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-92068-4 This research aimed to evaluate the possible correlation between infection with SARS-CoV viruses and cancer in an in-silico study model. To do this, the relevent dataset was selected from GEO database. Identification of differentially expressed genes among defined groups including SARS-CoV, SARS-dORF6, SARS-BatSRBD, and H1N1 were screened where the |Log FC| ≥ 1and p < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Later, the pathway enrichment analysis and gene ontology (GO) were used by Enrichr and Shiny GO databases. Evaluation with STRING online was applied to predict the functional interactions of proteins, followed by Cytoscape analysis to identify the master genes. Finally, analysis with GEPIA2 server was carried out to reveal the possible correlation between candidate genes and cancer development. The results showed that the main molecular function of up- and down-regulated genes was “double-stranded RNA binding” and actin-binding, respectively. STRING and Cytoscape analysis presented four genes, PTEN, CREB1, CASP3, and SMAD3 as the key genes involved in cancer development. According to TCGA database results, these four genes were up-regulated notably in pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Our findings suggest that pancreatic adenocarcinoma is the most probably malignancy happening after infection with SARS-CoV family...</i>
Large scale observational studies ought to confirm whether or not this is a real concern.
Two of my friends have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer recently.
I sincerely hope that COVID infection does not significantly increase the risk of contracting it, because if so, we're all in big trouble.
The pandemic and particularly the social isolation of lockdown led many people towards more regular, heavier drinking, and that’s a direct cause of both pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. Thats a more likely effect of covid than actually having had the virus per se.
This is an opportunity for GCC (or at least UAE/Saudi) to step in as peacekeepers. No military objectives other than keeping US/Israel/Turkey out and discouraging local militias. Then start rebuilding country.
Agreed and as I wrote yesterday the Area MUST be overseen by Arab States and Muslims.
The news that Isreal has annexed the Golan Heights and Isreal and US allegedly bombing areas in outskirts of Damascus is highly dangerous.
Netanyahu, Biden and Trump are as big a risk to Syria as Putin and Assad.
Israel already held the Golan Heights. They are alleged to have gone further into Syria and have spoke about this being a fourth front in their war.
Any land they steal in Syria will be excused on here by their apologists.
This is an opportunity for GCC (or at least UAE/Saudi) to step in as peacekeepers. No military objectives other than keeping US/Israel/Turkey out and discouraging local militias. Then start rebuilding country.
Agreed and as I wrote yesterday the Area MUST be overseen by Arab States and Muslims.
The news that Isreal has annexed the Golan Heights and Isreal and US allegedly bombing areas in outskirts of Damascus is highly dangerous.
Netanyahu, Biden and Trump are as big a risk to Syria as Putin and Assad.
Israel already held the Golan Heights. They are alleged to have gone further into Syria and have spoke about this being a fourth front in their war.
Any land they steal in Syria will be excused on here by their apologists.
Their defence minister is fairly open about his territorial ambitions. It's not yet 100% clear they are shared by Netanyahu, whose principal concern seems to be his own political survival.
There are some things I am willing to accept Neil as an authority on, and I know he's a former editor of the Times (Sunday) and the Speccie, but is he really sufficiently expert on Syria to write this? Genuine question.
Pretty sure Brillo has one of those rooms with a wall of tvs piping in breaking news from round the world, so that would definitely make him an expert.
Him thinking Bosnia and Herzegovina were two separate countries was my favourite of his solecisms.
This I didn't know (from a thread on childhood deaths in the Congo).
When children are deficient in Vitamin A, measles mortality rates skyrocket by 1-2 orders of magnitude. Not suggesting this is measles, of course, but will not be surprised to see malnutrition a/the major contributor to the greatest severity cases... https://x.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1866008200686022730
Didn’t have this on my Covid bingo card, but there are plenty of viruses implicated in cancer.
The risk of pancreatic adenocarcinoma following SARS-CoV family infection
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-92068-4 This research aimed to evaluate the possible correlation between infection with SARS-CoV viruses and cancer in an in-silico study model. To do this, the relevent dataset was selected from GEO database. Identification of differentially expressed genes among defined groups including SARS-CoV, SARS-dORF6, SARS-BatSRBD, and H1N1 were screened where the |Log FC| ≥ 1and p < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Later, the pathway enrichment analysis and gene ontology (GO) were used by Enrichr and Shiny GO databases. Evaluation with STRING online was applied to predict the functional interactions of proteins, followed by Cytoscape analysis to identify the master genes. Finally, analysis with GEPIA2 server was carried out to reveal the possible correlation between candidate genes and cancer development. The results showed that the main molecular function of up- and down-regulated genes was “double-stranded RNA binding” and actin-binding, respectively. STRING and Cytoscape analysis presented four genes, PTEN, CREB1, CASP3, and SMAD3 as the key genes involved in cancer development. According to TCGA database results, these four genes were up-regulated notably in pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Our findings suggest that pancreatic adenocarcinoma is the most probably malignancy happening after infection with SARS-CoV family...</i>
Large scale observational studies ought to confirm whether or not this is a real concern.
Two of my friends have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer recently.
I sincerely hope that COVID infection does not significantly increase the risk of contracting it, because if so, we're all in big trouble.
The pandemic and particularly the social isolation of lockdown led many people towards more regular, heavier drinking, and that’s a direct cause of both pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. Thats a more likely effect of covid than actually having had the virus per se.
That's also likely to be evident in the figures over the next few years. Good public health records make such hypotheses testable.
This I didn't know (from a thread on childhood deaths in the Congo).
When children are deficient in Vitamin A, measles mortality rates skyrocket by 1-2 orders of magnitude. Not suggesting this is measles, of course, but will not be surprised to see malnutrition a/the major contributor to the greatest severity cases... https://x.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1866008200686022730
The effect is synergistic.
So vitamin A deficiency makes measles much worse, but also measles makes vitamin A deficiency worse.
Measles is often the precipitating factor in xerophthalmia in Africa, vitamin A induced blindness.
There are some things I am willing to accept Neil as an authority on, and I know he's a former editor of the Times (Sunday) and the Speccie, but is he really sufficiently expert on Syria to write this? Genuine question.
Most journalists are amateurs. Some are gifted amateurs. A number are BS merchants. Andrew Neil believes himself an expert on a wide range of subjects, but in such speculation he is really one voice among many and has no particular credibility.
He'd fit in here then with the commentary on Syria.
Good morning. Daily picture before I head off for a long walk. A pirogue through the bolongs of Casamance to a fetish village (lots of fetish action around here).
This area is an excellent place for a short holiday. Africa for beginners. It’s majority animist, extremely traditional - all the things you want to see in a West African trip: fetishes, the local king you can have an audience with, Tom Tom drums, village chiefs, palm wine, giant baobabs, the works. It’s also easy to travel around, exceeding friendly and welcoming. The society and tourist infrastructure is run largely on a form of community communism.
Casamance was colonised by Portugal then transferred to France at a later date but largely neglected by both. There are very few Brits here. About 50% French, 30% Spanish and the rest a mixture. The pervasive Francophony keeps the Brits away.
Between martial law in South Korea and the rapidity of the fall of Assad, you'd have to Eurmillions level odds of both being in anyone's prediction card for 2024.
Just to deal with the apparent western sophisticates who go on about Assad being better than other options or because he was in theory, a non religious nut job, he might be a better bet.
You are full of absolute shit.
The guy is a mass murderer and his entire regime and that of his equally mass murderer father was built on sectarian grounds. As ever when it came to it not that many people in his own country really supported him, they hated him. Ipso facto the world is better shot of his regime. As uncertain as the future may be, it is no excuse for one arsehole of a dictator surviving.
The dipshits in the West who thought 'well he might kind be kind of like us really, or 'he's a doctor who trained in Europe once' spent decades thinking they could somehow turn him into some kind Western oriented bloke. They failed miserably because, revelation everyone, he wasn't and they kept pushing that bullshit right up, believe it or not, to recent weeks. Yep, there were still US & European diplomats trying to pull a stroke that if he booted out the Iranian/Hezbollah influence, we'd cut him a bit of slack. These big brains completely missed the fact that those backers had already been absolutely battered by the Israelis so there wasnt much influence left.
They also forgot all those prisoners he got rid of to send to Iraq to fight US forces and the nascient Iraqi government (something many Iraqis havent forgot). Well Bashar, some of them came home and were involved in booting you out, you clown.
He should have been hung from one of da's statues.
You just paraded an entire regiment of straw men
At one point the choice was Assad or ISIS. That was the choice. Evil or even greater evil
Evil is superior to even greater evil; and plenty of us are concerned that Assad will now be replaced by an even greater evil - something truly horrific for syrias many minorities - Christians, Druze, Alawites - and also horrific for women if the reports of Taliban style beliefs are true
It seems the Americans feel the same way as they are busy liquidating ISIS on the ground with great urgency. I hope they take out every last one
The choice was not solely between Assad and IS at any point. How many opposition groups were involved over the last decade, do you know?
One of the great Russian propaganda coups of the last decade was to make people believe that anyone in Syria who was not with Assad was ISIS.
What people didnt notice was that Assad wasnt half as keen on eliminating IS as people would have you believe. He supported them plenty.
1. Syria was a conduit for IS fighters going Iraq, not just the ones Assad let out jail, but imports that travelled via Syria without interference 2. Anyone who looks as the Syrian , Iranian and Russian military effort during the civil war will notice that IS dominated areas got off fairly lightly. Others where IS was not in play in a sigificant capacity were the focus. Why was that, if the threat was seen as IS? 3. There was a also a good commercial trading relationship between the Assad government and IS, to the tune of hundreds of millions going to IS over the years
In fact, it was the Americans and aligned Syrian opposition fighters, again who did most of the work against IS. Does anyone remember the SAA, or the Russians or the Iranians liberating Raqqa from IS? No, they didn't lift a finger and had no interest in doing so
Assad's regime was also the biggest drug dealer in the Mediterranean.
Not just the Med, but the Gulf as well. They’ve been flooding the entire region with literally tonnes of amphetamine pills, and don’t care how many get picked up by customs and police.
This is an opportunity for GCC (or at least UAE/Saudi) to step in as peacekeepers. No military objectives other than keeping US/Israel/Turkey out and discouraging local militias. Then start rebuilding country.
Agreed and as I wrote yesterday the Area MUST be overseen by Arab States and Muslims.
The news that Isreal has annexed the Golan Heights and Isreal and US allegedly bombing areas in outskirts of Damascus is highly dangerous.
Netanyahu, Biden and Trump are as big a risk to Syria as Putin and Assad.
I really don't see that. It's also curious that you don't mention the one country that is *really* interfering in Syria; Turkey.
My perspective is that Turkey is as much an Arab State as it is a European State.
Which direction they focus on may well be determined from what influence they want lookin Eastwards as opposed to this side of the Bospherous
This is an opportunity for GCC (or at least UAE/Saudi) to step in as peacekeepers. No military objectives other than keeping US/Israel/Turkey out and discouraging local militias. Then start rebuilding country.
Agreed and as I wrote yesterday the Area MUST be overseen by Arab States and Muslims.
The news that Isreal has annexed the Golan Heights and Isreal and US allegedly bombing areas in outskirts of Damascus is highly dangerous.
Netanyahu, Biden and Trump are as big a risk to Syria as Putin and Assad.
I really don't see that. It's also curious that you don't mention the one country that is *really* interfering in Syria; Turkey.
My perspective is that Turkey is as much an Arab State as it is a European State.
Which direction they focus on may well be determined from what influence they want lookin Eastwards as opposed to this side of the Bospherous
It is predominantly neither of those things. The 'Arab' description would be set to offend the maximally great number of people with the fewest possible number of letters.
Footnote: When OTOH you have a border with Iran and OTOH you have a border with Greece; western bimbos sun on your beaches and also you are directly engaging with stone age fanatics on your southern borders, you have to face multiple ways.
This is an opportunity for GCC (or at least UAE/Saudi) to step in as peacekeepers. No military objectives other than keeping US/Israel/Turkey out and discouraging local militias. Then start rebuilding country.
Agreed and as I wrote yesterday the Area MUST be overseen by Arab States and Muslims.
The news that Isreal has annexed the Golan Heights and Isreal and US allegedly bombing areas in outskirts of Damascus is highly dangerous.
Netanyahu, Biden and Trump are as big a risk to Syria as Putin and Assad.
I really don't see that. It's also curious that you don't mention the one country that is *really* interfering in Syria; Turkey.
My perspective is that Turkey is as much an Arab State as it is a European State.
Which direction they focus on may well be determined from what influence they want lookin Eastwards as opposed to this side of the Bospherous
Why do you suggest that Turkey is an Arab state?
They are not, for example, members of the Arab league.
AIUI they would be Turkic - along with Azerbaijan etc. *
Just as Iran are not Arab, being Persian.
* Checking, Turkey has an Arab minority of around 2%.
Comments
The news that Isreal has annexed the Golan Heights and Isreal and US allegedly bombing areas in outskirts of Damascus is highly dangerous.
Netanyahu, Biden and Trump are as big a risk to Syria as Putin and Assad.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-syria-rebels-stars-aligned-assads-ouster-2024-12-08/
..After 13 years of civil war, Syria's opposition militias sensed an opportunity to loosen President Bashar al-Assad's grip on power when, about six months ago, they communicated to Turkey plans for a major offensive and felt they had received its tacit approval, two sources with knowledge of the planning said...
.. the rebels sensed a stiffening of Ankara's stance towards Assad earlier this year, the sources said, after he rebuffed repeated overtures from Erdogan aimed at advancing a political solution to the military stalemate, which has left Syria divided between the regime and a patchwork of rebel groups with an array of foreign backers.
The Syrian opposition source said the rebels had shown Turkey details of the planning, after Ankara's attempts to engage Assad had failed.
The message was: "That other path hasn't worked for years - so try ours. You don't have to do anything, just don't intervene."
Reuters was unable to determine the exact nature of the communications.Hadi Al-Bahra, head of the internationally-recognized Syrian opposition abroad, told Reuters last week that HTS and SNA had had "limited" planning together ahead of the operation and agreed to "achieve cooperation and not clash with each other". He added that Turkey's military saw what the armed groups were doing and discussing.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking in Doha on Sunday, said Erdogan’s effort in recent months to reach out to Assad failed and Turkey "knew something was coming".
However, Turkey's deputy minister for foreign affairs, Nuh Yilmaz, told a conference on Middle Eastern affairs in Bahrain on Sunday that Ankara was not behind the offensive, and did not provide its consent, saying it was concerned about instability....
I think it was one of the good bits of Boris that Truss, Sunak & co did not burn down in their cynical arse-saving campaign wrt the election. On the other side it was also delayed and somewhat diluted by the Boris Govt that introduced it.
it's worth a note that life in a traditionally (room by room) heated house where the temperature will drift by 3-4C during a day at work, really cannot be compared to one where the thermal envelope is the whole building, which falls by perhaps 1C in temperature if left alone with the heating off for 24 hours. It's a totally different animal; the latter is so stable that you have a single heating zone, a far smaller heating system and need very little control-gubbins.
Mine is somewhere between the two, and I rely on low energy use and solar panel offset to get me close to zero emissions, as I cannot easily super-insulate a house that was effectively rebuilt as recently as 2009 (three walls and a hole in the ground) - but only had 150mm of polystyrene equivalent insulation in the walls, and 170mm in the floor, for a wall u-value of 0.2 approx.
Many of Phillipson's policies are misguided at best, likely to do even more damage at worst (the national curriculum review is already looking like a fiasco after she essentially handed it over to the loons at Oak National Academy).
That leaves Miliband, and his CCS nonsense doesn't inspire me with confidence.
So therefore she was the one not named.
However all the good that Reeves has done has been more than reversed by her increasing National Insurance.
Any land they steal in Syria will be excused on here by their apologists.
It's not yet 100% clear they are shared by Netanyahu, whose principal concern seems to be his own political survival.
Clearly illegal in international law, of course.
Him thinking Bosnia and Herzegovina were two separate countries was my favourite of his solecisms.
When children are deficient in Vitamin A, measles mortality rates skyrocket by 1-2 orders of magnitude. Not suggesting this is measles, of course, but will not be surprised to see malnutrition a/the major contributor to the greatest severity cases...
https://x.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1866008200686022730
Good public health records make such hypotheses testable.
NEW THREAD
So vitamin A deficiency makes measles much worse, but also measles makes vitamin A deficiency worse.
Measles is often the precipitating factor in xerophthalmia in Africa, vitamin A induced blindness.
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1865870579519373572
These idiots always overestimate Russia's stronkiness.
This area is an excellent place for a short holiday. Africa for beginners. It’s majority animist, extremely traditional - all the things you want to see in a West African trip: fetishes, the local king you can have an audience with, Tom Tom drums, village chiefs, palm wine, giant baobabs, the works. It’s also easy to travel around, exceeding friendly and welcoming. The society and tourist infrastructure is run largely on a form of community communism.
Casamance was colonised by Portugal then transferred to France at a later date but largely neglected by both. There are very few Brits here. About 50% French, 30% Spanish and the rest a mixture. The pervasive Francophony keeps the Brits away.
https://www.thenationalnews.com/tags/captagon/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/9/what-is-captagon-the-addictive-drug-mass-produced-in-syria
Which direction they focus on may well be determined from what influence they want lookin Eastwards as opposed to this side of the Bospherous
Footnote: When OTOH you have a border with Iran and OTOH you have a border with Greece; western bimbos sun on your beaches and also you are directly engaging with stone age fanatics on your southern borders, you have to face multiple ways.
They are not, for example, members of the Arab league.
AIUI they would be Turkic - along with Azerbaijan etc. *
Just as Iran are not Arab, being Persian.
* Checking, Turkey has an Arab minority of around 2%.