No good guys in war. Assad is definately not the good guy, his fall from power has been rapid, but with over half a million killed since the civil war started in 2011 and six million displaced it couldn't hapoen to a nicer bloke. Time will tell if HTS are good to their word and want a transition of power, but as an ex al-Qaeda affiliate can you trust them? Doubtful. Iran losing even more influence in the region can only be a goud thing though, as well as Russia. There's going to be a power vacuum in Syria now - intriguing to see how it all plays out. As always, it's the common folk who lose the most in these conflicts, but hopefully some of the six million Syrian refugees can head home now that Assad has been dethroned.
Lot of noise on the twittersphere urging the Iranian populace to follow suit and rise up against the ayotollahs...that would definately be a bloodbath, the IRGC are much more disciplined than the Syrian army,
Lot of discussion on ‘news’ programmes about what ‘we’ (presumably the West) should do about Syria. Whatever ‘we’ do the odds are that it will not work for either the Syrians or ‘us’. Every intervention ‘we’ have made for decades, if not centuries, in these parts of the world has made life even worse for ordinary people. Including decisons to do nothing. Allowing, and actively helping, the Assad dictatorship to drag on from 1970, Obama not acting when the regime dropped chemical weapons on its own people, Cameron and Sarkozy actually making things worse in Libya, the failure to help the Arab Spring movements take root effectively etc etc, to say nothing of Iraq, the fiasco of relations with Iran, where we can’t even get obviously innocent women released from prison for years and years….the list goes on and on Makes you wonder why we get things so wrong so consistently. Then I heard a former head of MI6 on a talking heads show, and it became clear. When asked a very specific question about how we measure our defensive and offensive capabilities against cyberattack, he droned on about how important it is that democracies benefit more from technology than our ‘enemies’ and we need to innovate faster than them (he neglected to cover the obvious fact that the new technology is stolen as soon as it is invented). He gave a magnificent impression of being a well spoken moron. The reverse of ‘intelligence’.
A joint British/French/German police operation has resulted in the arrest of 13 Iraqi people-smugglers in Germany and the seizure of boats, engines, life jackets and cash. Since 2016, and up until now, it wasn't even illegal in Germany to traffic people to Britain, because German law only focused on trafficking to EU countries. So Brexit actually made it easier for these criminals to send people across the Channel. Ironic, eh Nige? A new agreement between Britain and Germany will close this loophole.
Donald Trump named Time Person of the Year again 3 hours ago Share Save Madeline Halpert BBC News, New York please log in to view this image Getty Images Time Magazine has named Donald Trump as their person of the year for the second time. "For marshaling a comeback of historic proportions, for driving a once-in-a- generation political realignment, for reshaping the American presidency and altering America's role in the world, Donald Trump is TIME'S 2024 Person of the Year," Time Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs said in a letter to readers. The Republican president-elect is set to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday to commemorate the honour alongside several of his family members. Trump was first named person of the year in 2016 after winning the US presidential election. Advertisement The magazine's tradition - which started in 1927 as "Man of the Year" - recognises a person or movement that "for better or for worse... has done the most to influence the events of the year". Other previous winners include climate change activist Greta Thunberg, former President Barack Obama, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Pope Francis and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Time Magazine editors ultimately decide who wins the award. The outlet was considering 10 people for the person of the year award, including Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Princess of Wales and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, now a close confidante of Trump set to lead an advisory board called the Department of Government Efficiency. In a description of Trump for the list of finalists, Time said he had won the 2024 election "in a stunning political comeback". "He has reshaped the American electorate, activating young male voters who propelled him to a decisive victory that saw him win the popular vote for the first time and turn every swing state red," the outlet said. "His 2024 win is history-making in multiple ways: he will be the oldest President in U.S. history, and he was convicted earlier this year by a New York jury of 34 counts of fraud, making him the first convicted felon to be elected President." Trump sat for interviews with the magazine in April this year during the campaign season. During the wide-ranging discussions, Trump talked about his plans for a second term, including his goals of reforming the US immigration system and deporting millions of people. Trump complained in 2015 when he was not chosen for the magazine cover during his first run for office, when the award went to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But after he was named person of the year following his election win, he called it a "great honor". "It means a lot, especially me growing up reading Time magazine. And, you know, it's a very important magazine," he said at the time. He has, however, continued to criticise the magazine's choices since winning, including the selection of Taylor Swift as Time's person of the year in 2023.
They all knew exactly what they were voting for, though.... Majority of Brexit voters ‘would accept free movement’ to access single market
Plainly they didn't.... Perhaps the most striking finding was that 54% of Britons who voted leave, including 59% of voters in “red wall seats”, said in exchange for single market access they would now accept full free movement for EU and UK citizens to travel, live and work across borders. This could be because the surge in net migration to the UK after 2016 meant that Brexit was no longer seen by its supporters as the answer on immigration, the report suggested. Scumbags like Farage convinced a lot of gullible racists that Brexit would mean fewer brown people. They now realise that it meant exactly the opposite.
please log in to view this image Badenoch says Starmer is 'about to giveaway our hard-earned Brexit freedoms'.
Starmer spending Christmas with his family at Chequers then jetting off ‘abroad’ with his family over new year. Presumably this leaves Angela Rayner in charge. Neat.
On the bright side it’s not Dominic Raab. It was Therese Coffey for about five minutes and she was almost certainly eating a pasty at the time.
