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Braverman set to defect to Reform (no, not that one, yet) – politicalbetting.com

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  • Penddu2 said:

    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.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,131
    edited December 2024
    Nigelb said:

    Assad's regime was also the biggest drug dealer in the Mediterranean.
    Captagon right?
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 3,321
    MattW said:

    There's also a risk of thinking it an end, not a milestone.

    To add:

    Josip Tito 1980
    Nicolae Ceaușescu 1989
    Slobodan Milosevic 2000 (approx)

    How are those doing?
    Tito died in his bed, fairly widely mourned. The fall of Yugoslavia happened 10 years after his death.
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 3,321
    viewcode said:

    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.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,830
    Interesting details about Turkey's involvement.

    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....
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 45,096

    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.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 26,149
    edited December 2024

    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.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,050

    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.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 23,216
    edited December 2024
    ydoethur said:

    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.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,933
    rcs1000 said:

    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.
  • TazTaz Posts: 17,130

    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.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,830
    .
    Taz said:

    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.

    Clearly illegal in international law, of course.
  • viewcode said:

    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.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,830
    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
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,830
    IanB2 said:

    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.
  • NEW THREAD

  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 50,738
    Nigelb said:

    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.



  • TazTaz Posts: 17,130
    Cicero said:

    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.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 45,096
    Convicted child sex offender Scott Ritter, on December 3rd, stating that the Syrian rebels were going to lose. "so this operation is doomed to fail."

    https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1865870579519373572

    These idiots always overestimate Russia's stronkiness.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 14,667
    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.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 56,022
    Nigelb said:

    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.

    https://www.thenationalnews.com/tags/captagon/
    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/9/what-is-captagon-the-addictive-drug-mass-produced-in-syria
  • 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
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 13,811

    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.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 26,149
    edited December 2024

    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%.
This discussion has been closed.