Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

MT ponderds the disparity between western countries’ reactions to political suppression in Iran and Georgia, two countries with records of human rights abuses and rigged elections. Simultaneous to the demonstrations in Iran, “masked police beat dozens of demonstrators in Georgia after they held a protest outside Tbilisi’s main police station demanding the release of six opposition activists who have been held since last Friday”. “We are told that the values of democracy and human rights are universal. The British government spends a great deal of money promoting these values abroad and lecturing other governments about the need for accountability and transparency in the electoral process. We regularly summon ambassadors from African and South Asian dictatorships to lecture them about their treatment of ethnic or religious minorities, the need for fair elections and the importance of a free press. But time and time again we have shown that we are prepared to turn a blind eye whe...

By Ian Knox. In today's Irish News.

Satire is the only sane response to Jeffrey Donaldson’s remarks on plans to reform the Act of Settlement. O’Neill’s post on ‘Unionist Lite’ is, therefore, especially nicely judged. The DUP junior minister’s religio-constitutional musings would be funny, if they were not so serious. Donaldson is, after all, a leading representative of Northern Ireland’s biggest pro-Union party. There is an argument, based on constitutional conservatism, which can be invoked to defend the status quo. Cranmer, good Anglican that he is, makes a fist of it . It does not involve inferring that Catholics cannot show sufficient loyalty to the United Kingdom because of their religion, nor does it bizarrely imply political, rather than merely religious, allegiance to the Vatican as a component of Catholicism. Personally I am more readily persuaded by Henry McDonald, and his contention that the constitutional impairment of Roman Catholicism is to the detriment of the Union, particularly in Northern Irela...

Georgia’s president, Mikhail Saakashvili, has his own singular methods for dealing with opposition to his corrupt regime. Recent history which has been conveniently forgotten in the rush to acclaim his country as a bastion of freedom in the Caucasus. Saakashvili is not the only American client in the region. Azerbaijan is corrupt, anti-democratic, repressive and an important strategic ally of the US and Nato. Ilham Aliyev is currently holds the presidency which was conferred on him in much the same fashion as a family heirloom. On Comment is Free, Nina Ognianova highlights continued abuses of human rights, oppression of press freedom and the lack of democratic credibility which will attend forthcoming elections. Don’t hold your breath for a storm of western opprobrium. Azerbaijan is too conveniently placed geographically and too rich in oil and gas to consider rocking the boat. Now if the regime were pro-Russian, that would be a different matter.

Who says that American don't do irony? GamePolitics.com is a website of the Entertainment Consumers Association and covers topics “where politics and video games collide”. A blog entry notes that Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly has provided his blessing to the Byron Review which deals with children’s use of the internet and violent video games. “We can’t help but noting Kelly’s Wikipedia entry, which reports that he was found guilty of conspiracy in regard to a 1973 terrorist bombing in London which killed one person and injured 200 more. He subsquently escaped prison, shooting a guard in the process. It’s good to see that he’s concerned about violent video games.”

Ian Paisley Junior has finally fallen on his own sword , hastened by his own party colleagues and with a distinct lack of good grace. He may not be the first politician to unwisely entwine his private affairs and public life and I’m sure he will not be the last, but the sheer volume of evidence suggesting Junior was conducting his duties partly with regard to self-interest has finally caused him to be adjudged a liability to the DUP. In the wake of their defeat in the Dromore by-election the party wished to be seen to be doing something decisive and Paisley is the scapegoat . With a lawyer’s eye for a loophole Paisley Junior has been conducting his affairs within the letter of the law, but blatantly without the spirit. His position as a public servant, who is supposed to command a degree of trust was becoming untenable. That his father was implicated in the latest controversy, over rent payments claimed for the pair’s Ballymena constituency office, threatened to bring the whiff ...

There is always a hoot to be had from the hypocrisy of Irish republicans and the Derry Journal produces an editorial rich in just such hilarity . The subject matter of the article is of course extremely serious. Rejuvenated attacks by republicans against members of security forces and particularly against members they perceive to be part of their own community. The newspaper’s conclusions however are ripe with irony. To begin with we have a ringing endorsement of Martin McGuinness based on his republican credentials and the rather sinister condoning of his having “walked the walk”. The article then develops into an attack on those who are currently er… “walking the walk”. The distinction the newspaper draws between one set of violence and another? “The community” no longer supports it. Who or what this "community" the paper so adamantly evokes comprises is not stated. If it refers to the community in Northern Ireland as a whole, well I am bound to point out that that co...

Republican hypocrisy is a rising ocean in constant flux, forever swamping fresh swathes of the antediluvian pastures of Northern Irish life, but even so this takes some beating. http://www.derryjournal.com/journal/Brother-of-IRA-man-demands.3169693.jp Danny Bradley, brother of IRA scum who the British army killed in a no go area, wants an apology as little Seamus was “off-duty” that day! Bless! SF / IRA will be snowed under by the workload of apologising for a campaign which was predominately based on murdering the security forces when they were off duty.