21st May 2015

Tendring Topics……….on line

……and in the rest of the World

            I have been preoccupied with the British General Election in recent weeks and have barely mentioned the two devastating earthquakes that have taken place in Nepal, and the appalling loss of life there.  They certainly demonstrated humankind’s helplessness in the face of the forces of nature, and our inability either to forecast the occurrence of natural disasters or to counter or modify their power. It may be that events in Nepal will teach us all a little much needed humility, but terribly sad that this should have been at the cost of so much destruction, so many innocent lives lost, and so much human sorrow.

            Then there have been the thousands who have seen Europe as a promised land of wealth and prosperity and have tried to reach it from African and Middle Eastern poverty and strife – and the hundreds who have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in the attempt. Our efforts have all been towards saving their lives and preventing their attempting that hazardous journey.  We may slow them down but they’ll still keep coming.    Ought we not to give some thought to the reasons for their flight and help them to make their homelands better places in which to live?

            There has been one unequivocally good thing that has developed on the world scene in recent weeks, and that is the restoration of normal relations between the USA and Cuba.  Ever since Cuban rebels overthrew the corrupt Batista regime in Cuba and, under their leader Fidel Castro, established their own Communist government, the USA has tried by one means or another to secure a regime change.  The failed Bay of Pigs invasion from the USA (which could certainly not have happened without United States help and encouragement) resulted in Castro asking for help from the Soviet Union.  They sent some missiles and we had the Cuban missile crisis that could have developed into a nuclear World War III.  Fortunately the Soviet Union withdrew its missiles and the US government made sure there were no further attempts at armed invasion from the USA.

Instead the USA cut off all diplomatic relations with Cuba, tried to isolate it from South and Central America and from the rest of the  world, and its CIA made several comic opera attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro Cuba’s President. These included, would you believe it, a gift of exploding cigars!   A new U.S. President stopped these assassination attempts.

With external threats reduced, the regime mellowed (it had long been a paradise of freedom and human rights compared with – for instance – Britain and the USA’s ally, Saudi Arabia.  President Obama, to his credit, is resuming normal diplomatic relations.

I had hoped that the commemoration of the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe might have brought about a similar effort on Britain’s part to bring an end to current hostility towards Russia.   Have we forgotten that from 1941 to 1945  Russia, or the USSR as it then was, was our ally – and had been our ally against Nazi Germany for rather longer than the USA?   What’s more, not only had the people of the USSR suffered far more than those of any other country at the hands of the invading Nazis, but they had contributed more than any other country towards Victory in Europe and the destruction of Nazism.  Winston Churchill acknowledged this when he declared that The Red Army tore the guts out of the Wehrmacht’

 I spent the final eighteen months of World War II as a POW at a ‘working camp’ (Arbeitskommando) in a small town in eastern Germany.  I well remember how our spirits rose when we heard artillery fire in the east during the bitter winter of 1944/1945, as the Red Army advanced through Poland into Germany itself.  At first a faint murmur, the sound increased almost daily to a roar.  We knew that the day of our liberation was close at hand.  And so it was.  On 7^th May 1945 we could hear the chatter of machine gun fire as well as the thunder of the guns as we were marched, with armed guards, southwest into the Zittau mountains and away from the battle-zone.  The following day our guards, having heard that the war was over, deserted us – and we made our own way home.  With a mate, I hitch-hiked through Soviet occupied Czechoslovakia at first to Prague, then on to Pilsen, where we encountered the American army. They transported us by air to Rheims and the British Army.  I walked through the door of my home in Ipswich at about 10.00 pm on the 18^th May – just ten days after VE Day.  By a fortunate coincidence it was my twenty-fourth birthday!

Had it not been for Hitler’s mistake in invading the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 I have little doubt that Britain would have been invaded and occupied.  Even if the USA had eventually won, the war would have dragged on for at least another two or three years.  Very likely I would never have returned home.  Many POWs didn’t.

I have never forgotten the debt that I owe to the Russian army and to the Russian people.  I am sorry that Angela Merkel, an East German who has probably learned from her parents and grandparents something of the horrors of modern warfare, was the sole ‘western leader’ who joined with President Putin and hundreds of others in the commemoration of Russia’s loss of tens of thousands of men, women and children, who had died in what the Russians call their Great Patriotic War.  I am not, of course, referring to the depressing display of military hardware on the anniversary of VE Day but the much quieter and more peaceful commemoration on the following day.

David Cameron quite thought, until he was corrected, that the United Kingdom was ‘junior partner’ to the USA in the struggle against Hitler in 1940.  I hope that all blog readers are aware that Britain ‘stood alone’ in that fateful year, that the USA was neutral and that many Americans (including the US ambassador to the UK – the patriarch of the Kennedy clan!) were determined that their country would remain neutral.  It follows that David Cameron may not be aware of the USSR’s leading role in Hitler’s defeat – or even perhaps, that they were our allies in World War II.  He certainly gives that impression.

‘The west’ is cold-shouldering Russia and applying economic sanctions because of Russian activities in the Ukraine. What on earth are they expecting to achieve?   Do they seriously hope to return the Crimea to the rule of the Kiev Government in the Ukraine against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the peninsula’s population?    The Crimea had been part of Russia since the rule of the Tsars.    It was ‘gifted’ to Ukraine by Nikita Khruschev during the period of his presidency of the USSR, without any thought of consulting the residents.  It made little difference at the time because both Crimea and Ukraine were part of the Soviet Union as they had both previously been part of the Tsars’ Empire. Crimea was recovered by Russia after a referendum established that that was the wish of the Crimean people.  David Cameron claimed that the referendum took place ‘under the shadow of the Kalashnikov’ but a recent opinion poll commissioned by the Ukrainian Government in Kiev emphatically confirmed that wish.

The people of the eastern provinces of Ukraine wished to retain their Russian ethnicity and the Russian language and traditions.  We saw on tv news bulletins the non-violent resistance of men, women and children to the incursion of Kiev government tanks and armoured cars.  The Kiev government used its military superiority to enforce its rule – and the eastern Ukrainians responded in kind.  Thus civil war broke out, costing thousands of lives.  Remorseless shelling of residential areas in rebel-held areas by government forces has resulted in over a million civilians crossing the border and seeking political asylum in Russia.

Peace overtures, supported by Germany and France but not by the UK, resulted in an uneasy ceasefire and the resumption of peace talks.  The Kiev Government insists that what is taking place is an invasion of eastern Ukraine by the Russian army – they criticised the Pope for referring to ‘the civil war’ in eastern Ukraine!  Since the cease-fire, UN observers and British journalists have been present in the rebel-held areas.  They would surely have noticed – and reported – the presence of Russian army units.  I think it quite likely that the Russians have supplied the rebels with arms and that Russian volunteers have strengthened the rebel forces.  We do know that the UK has supplied the Kiev Government with armoured cars and is sending British army units to train government forces in ‘defence’, although the rebels have neither the ability or intention of invading western Ukraine.  The Kiev government tries continually to involve NATO in the civil war that has resulted from its obstinacy.  I notice that the BBC’s news bulletin always refers to the Ukrainian rebels as the ‘Russian backed rebels’. Perhaps they should also refer to the Kiev government as the ‘British backed Kiev Government’.  The UK is, I think, the only NATO or EU country that is so blatantly backing one side in this civil war.

For goodness sake – it’s time that we reviewed the sanctions that are harming British interests as well as Russian, and made real efforts to bring about a permanent peace in the area.  We should be talking to the Russians.  It was Winston Churchill again who remarked that jaw, jaw is always better than war, war – and Churchill had had more experience both of patient negotiation and of the realities of warfare than most of us.   Both sides must make concessions.  The Kiev government must be made to realize that they can’t ethnically cleanse eastern Ukraine of Russian culture and influence and the rebels must, in the cause of peace, be prepared to accept something short of full independence.  With a permanent peace established, both the ‘west’ and Russia must come together to rebuild Ukraine and undo the damage done by this disastrous civil war …….or would we really prefer to walk blindly into World War III? 

   

 

           

25th March 2015

Tendring Topics……..on line

‘Dear Ernest……….

                                 …….. warm regards, Douglas’

            You would probably imagine that the above was the salutation and farewell of a personal letter from a close friend or relative, and that between that ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ there was a communication of great interest to both ‘Ernest’ and ‘Doug’.   It wasn’t; and although presumably it was of interest to the sender it certainly was not to me.

            It wasn’t a personal letter. I have never met, and almost certainly never will meet the ‘Douglas’ who addresses me by my first name and sends me his ‘warm regards’.  Nor was it a personal letter.  It was a circular letter, probably sent to every Tom, Dick and Harry and every Jane, Mary or Kate in the Clacton-on-Sea parliamentary constituency from Douglas Carswell once our Conservative MP but currently, thanks to a lightning conversion and an expensive and totally unnecessary by-election,  one of two UKIP MPs in the House of Commons.

            A remarkable feature of that by-election was the fact that Douglas Carswell the UKIP candidate, was the only one who seemed to make a real effort to get elected.  I was deluged by UKIP leaflets, brochures and at least one of those ‘personal’ letters from Douglas Carswell.  I received a phone call on behalf of UKIP and a canvasser who called at my front door.  He seemed a little shocked when I assured him that I would never vote for any UKIP candidate. There was also – so I believe – a well-attended public meeting addressed by both Douglas Carswell and his political boss Nigel Farage.   I received just one leaflet from the Conservative candidate, one from the Liberal Democrats and one from Labour.  There were also a Green candidate and two independents from whom I received nothing.

            The General Election is now only a few weeks away.  History seems to be  repeating itself.  During the past week or so I have received three glossy brochures or leaflets extolling Douglas Carswell’s virtues, a canvassing phone call, and today (21st March)  this ‘personal letter’ from the man himself.  The content of the letter confirms my opinion that, apart from leaving the European Union and reducing immigration, UKIP’s policy is simply to jump on any band-wagon that offers the promise of a few extra votes.   I have so far received nothing from any of the other candidates.

            Douglas’ circular letter promises that UKIP will abolish hospital parking charges, funding this by ’cutting overseas aid and EU payments’ (could be a vote winner – parking at Colchester General Hospital is difficult and expensive – and getting worse!).  They’ll also ‘defend the NHS, defend winter fuel payments, bus passes and tv licences for older folk’ (there are lots of ‘older folk’ with votes in this constituency) ‘stand up to big corporations’ (I don’t know quite what that means but it certainly sounds vote-catching!) and ‘introduce an Australian-style points system’ to control immigration (locally our most serious immigration problem is created by fellow-Brits driven from the London area by ridiculously high housing costs and the ‘bedroom tax').

             

            At the end of the letter there is a chart based on figures supplied by www. ElectoralCalculus.co,uk which suggests that UKIP can expect to gain 48 percent of the votes in this area in the general election, and the Conservatives 45 percent.  Douglas Carswell appeals ‘Only UKIP can keep David Cameron’s candidate out of Clacton’.  I’m inclined to reverse that message and proclaim.  Only the Conservatives can keep Nigel Farage’s candidate out of Clacton. 

            Regular blog readers will know that at the by-election I ‘voted strategically’.  For the first, and probably only time in my life I put my cross against the name of the Conservative candidate in the hope of denying the seat to Douglas Carswell.  It didn’t succeed!    The closeness of the two parties in the forecast tempts me to do the same in the General Election – but I won’t.  This time I’ll vote Green because I am convinced that it is only the policies of the Green Party that offer a cure for Britain’s ills.

           

Final Note:  

The reason that, in both the by-election and in the months preceding the coming general election I had so much potentially mind-bending material from the UKIP candidate and so little from the others, is not I am sure, because the Labour, Conservative, Green and Lib.Dem candidates and their supporters lack enthusiasm and conviction, but that they have limited funds – and good quality printing and distribution costs money.  UKIP presumably has some very wealthy and generous financial backers – or perhaps Douglas (as he uses my first name I’m sure he won’t mind my using his) has a very considerable personal fortune that he is prepared to use to secure electoral success.

An Anniversary

          We have recently seen the first anniversary of the annexation/recovery of the Crimea by Russia.  It was marked by a public opinion poll in the Crimea that revealed that 93 percentage of the population were happy to remain as Russians and had no desire to be once again citizens of Ukraine.   Ninety-three percent! That’s the kind of result that one would only get in a place like North Korea – it must have been fiddled or fabricated!   Well, that’s what ‘the west’ would no doubt like to believe.  The only difficulty with that explanation is that the opinion poll was carried out by a Ukrainian polling agency commissioned by the Ukrainian government.  That was not the result for which the government in Kiev was hoping!  Certainly in the 1950s when both Russia and Ukraine were provinces of the Soviet Union, the citizens of the Crimea were not consulted when Nikita Khruschev decided that their land (which had been part of Russia since Tsarist times) should become part of Ukraine.

            Meanwhile the fact that we have heard no recent news from the disputed region of Eastern Ukraine suggests  that the terms of the cease-fire are being observed; that hostilities have ceased and heavy weaponry withdrawn from the front line.   I hope that prisoners are being exchanged by both sides and that talks are in progress about the degree of autonomy to be granted to the Russian speaking eastern areas of Ukraine. Meanwhile the British Government, which played no part in the cease-fire negotiations, has supplied the Ukrainian Government in Kiev with armoured cars, and is sending units from our army (depleted by government cuts and by less-than-totally-successful campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan), to help train the Ukrainian army.  That’s our contribution to the cause of world peace!

            

           

           

           

     

30th January 2015

Tendring Topics……on line

‘Jaw, jaw is always better than War, war!’

            Sir Winston Churchill, the fiftieth anniversary of whose death was remembered last week, was best known as a great war leader.  Perhaps it was his own personal experience of two world wars, and the South African war before them, that inspired him to declare that ‘Jaw, jaw’ (negotiating with the perceived enemy), was always better than ‘War, war’ (confronting that perceived enemy with the weapons of death and destruction).

            It is advice that the world’s leaders really need to heed today.  The news that the Russian Ambassador had been summoned to explain why Russian bombing aircraft had flown round the United Kingdom some 25 miles from our shores, had been shadowed by our fighters and had disrupted air traffic over the English Channel wasn’t one of the first items in the BBC’s news bulletin today (29^th January).  It could well have been the most significant news story though, because it is just such provocative acts that could, unless those concerned are prepared to ‘jaw, jaw’,  trigger the outbreak of World War III.  

            One doesn’t have to be either a psychic or a James Bond to guess the answer of the Russian Ambassador. The flight of the Russian bombers was a direct response to NATOs provocative military manoeuvres in Poland and the Baltic States during the course of which I have little doubt that NATO military aircraft had on many occasions flown up to – and perhaps beyond – the Russian and/or the Belorussian frontiers.

            The NATO manoeuvres were a response to Russia’s recovery of the Crimean peninsula (which had been welcomed by the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants), and Russian support for the Russian-speaking rebels of Eastern Crimea demanding freedom from the rule of the Ukrainian Government in Kiev.  Tit for tat – just as in a primary school playground, but possibly with rather more dire results!

            The NATO response had not been to discuss the possibility of a joint demand for a cease-fire from both Russia and the NATO countries, and a discussion of possible remedies of the grievances of the people of Eastern Ukraine. Nor have they suggested a referendum, under United Nations auspices, of the people of Crimea to enable them have the same right of self-determination as – for instance – the people of the Falklands, Gibraltar and Kosovo.  Instead ‘the west’ immediately gave wholehearted backing to the Government in Kiev, decided that Russia was entirely responsible for the rebellion in the east, and imposed economic sanctions on Russia.   They gave no credit to the Russians when they managed to achieve a cease-fire and peace talks between the two sides, but now that the ceasefire seems to have been broken (by which side I wonder?) they are proposing further sanctions.

            As a lifetime supporter of the BBC I have been bitterly disappointed that they have reported nothing of the Kiev government’s relentless shelling and bombing of towns and villages under rebel control nor, as I discovered from quite another neutral source, of the thousands of civilian refugees from the shelling who have fled into Russia to seek asylum.

         
 I remember our foreign secretary (it was William Hague at the time) declaring darkly that Russia must realize that its actions would have consequences.  Indeed, and so they did.   But, of course, in the Kremlin other politicians were saying exactly the same thing – in Russian.  

            There’s no doubt that EU and American sanctions have damaged the Russian economy – but Russia has, as might have been foreseen, imposed counter-sanctions against us.   A few days ago we heard how British dairy farmers, struggling to keep their heads above water, had been hit a devastating blow by the Russian ban on the import of British dairy products.  A regular blog reader has suggested that the whole country, not just the dairy farmers, should bear the financial burden of this ban, perhaps by an increase in income tax, not likely to be a very attractive idea a few months before a General Election!

            Now the EU and NATO are meeting to discuss further sanctions on Russia.  How the terrorists of IS (Islamic State) Islamic State – in Syria and Iraq, Africa and  Afghanistan – must be laughing to see their enemies, in Russia and ‘the West’, impoverishing themselves, and treading the very dangerous path that could end in war.  How delighted they’d be if World War III did break out!  And all because the leaders of ‘the west’ were not prepared to ‘jaw, jaw’ with Russia the possibility that a substantial minority of Ukrainians should be granted the right to determine their own future; a right that ‘the west’ has supported in other parts of the world.

Eton and Oxbridge?   Try North Essex!

          I wasn’t particularly surprised when I read in the local Daily Gazette that exam results had revealed Colchester Royal Grammar School and Colchester’s High School for Girls to be the best schools in England.  They have both had an unrivalled reputation for years.

            I was totally astonished though to learn from the same Gazette that Yanis Varoufakis, a Ph.D graduate at Essex University (just on the Colchester side of the Colchester/Tendring District boundary) is the Finance Minister of the new Greek Government; that Rena Dourou, another Essex University Graduate who had been the elected governor of Attica (the part of Greece surrounding Athens) is also a member of that government, while a third Essex Uni. Graduate, Fotini Vaki, has been elected to represent the island of Corfu in the new Greek parliament!

            Nor, records the Gazette, is it only in Greece that graduates of Essex University have achieved distinction.  John Bercow, Speaker of our House of Commons, graduated there in 1985. Daniel  Libeskind, world-renowned architect and master-plan architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade Centre site in New York after the destruction of 9/11, graduated in 1972,  Lord Triesman who graduated in 1969 is Labour’s shadow minister for foreign affairs.  David Yates,  BAFTA winning tv and film director, who directed the final four episodes of the Harry Potter film series, graduated in 1987,  Oscar Arias Sanchez who graduated in 1975, was twice President of Costa Rica and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987; Baroness Virginia Bottomley, who graduated in 1970 was a Conservative MP for twenty-four years and held two Secretary of State roles in the ‘90s, and Sir Christopher Oissarides who graduated in 1971, was awarded the Nobel prize for his contribution to the theory of search frictions and macroeconomics!  (No – I’ve no idea what that means!)

            It is clear that Eton and Oxbridge isn’t the only route to the top.  Essex University may have arrived rather late on the scene but it has certainly made its mark. I have no doubt that, less than twenty miles from my front door, there are more future cabinet ministers and Nobel prize winners in the pipeline!

4th January 2015

An Unofficial 'Cease-fire'

            The ‘Christmas Day Truce’ between the opposing armies in 1914 has, quite properly, been remembered and celebrated on this centenary year.  Nothing like it, so it is said, was even attempted in World War II.  The reason is, I think, because nowhere were the soldiers of the opposing armies quite so close to each other as they sometimes were in World War I.  However, something rather like that ceasefire was observed between the British prisoners of war in the little German town of Zittau and the local Germans, during the final eighteen months of the Second World War.  Prisoners of war are instructed to divulge only their army number, rank and name to their captors, to maintain their enmity, and to seize any opportunity of escaping.  Number, rank and name was all that was ever required of me. They could always discover our home town by noting the address on our out-going mail!

            It had been easy enough to maintain our enmity to the Italians in the large concentration camp in northern Italy in which I spent my first eighteen months of captivity.  We were half-starved, louse infested and bored out of our minds – frozen in the winter and roasted in the summer.   Transported to Germany on the collapse of Mussolini’s government, I found myself in a small Arbeitskommando (working camp) within the town of Zittau. There were only 30 of us. We were employed, in parties of two to six, on loading and unloading railway wagons, and any other work in the area that required brawn rather than brain.  While working we mixed and (when we had learned some basic German) chatted freely with the German civilians and the Russian and Ukrainian conscripted ‘slave labourers’ who were our companions.  It isn’t easy to maintain enmity with people you meet daily and whom you realize under other circumstances could have been good friends.  Our guards were neither the brutal bullies nor mindless morons of film and fiction. They were remarkably like ourselves, had served on the Eastern Front and had either been wounded or frost bitten to an extent that made them unfit for front line duty.  Their only ambition was to ‘keep their heads down’ and survive the war.  That, as it happened, was our ambition too.  It would have been easy enough to get away.  Usually only an elderly civilian wearing an official armband was ‘supervising us’.  I remember one occasion on which I cut my hand quite badly. I said to our civilian ‘boss’ that I needed to go back to our ‘lager’ (the building in which we lived) to have it washed and bandaged.  He said he couldn’t leave the truck that was being unloaded, so I said that he needn’t bother. I’d find my own way back.  And so I did, walking boldly through the streets of Zittau with no-one raising an eyebrow.  The guard, when I hammered on the door, was just a little surprised to see me unattended but he washed and bandaged my injured hand – and I took the rest of the day ‘off’.

            None of us ever attempted to escape.  Take a look at a map of central Europe and you’ll see how far Zittau is from any then-neutral country.  The Eastern front was quite near as the war came to an end but none of us was sufficiently fool-hardy as to try to get through both the German and the Soviet front lines!  Furthermore we had neither the time, nor the opportunity to plan an escape.  We were usually exhausted when we returned from our day’s work and our guards lived almost ‘on top of us’. I think though that the main reason no-one attempted an escape was the knowledge that, whether or not successful, the lives of those who remained would have been changed for ever.  Our easygoing guards would have been sent to the Eastern Front and replaced by fanatical Nazis. Our every movement would have been observed by an armed guard.  There would have been no more bringing back from work coal for our stoves or potatoes to add to our rations; no more cosy chats with the guards about the stupidity of war!

            We maintained a friendly relationship with the troops stationed in the local barracks.  I once had a very painful rash round my waist.  I thought it was a sweat rash but it was obviously more than that.  A guard and I walked across the town to the ‘Kaserne’ (the barracks). The army medical officer was most interested in my condition and said I was suffering from ‘Girderose’ (I may have spelled it wrongly) which I  learned was shingles. He gave me some vitamin B Tablets and eventually my rash, and the pain departed.  He certainly treated me as effectively as any British Army MO would have. I did no work until the condition had been cleared. 

 

          During the winter of 1944/’45 in the middle of the night, one of our number was accidentally killed by a runaway truck on a railway siding.  I was with him at the time – only a foot or so away, and it was a traumatic experience.  No doubt there was an enquiry about it but I never heard the outcome.  I do know that he was given a full military funeral.  Looking as smart as we could manage, we slow-marched to the cemetery.  A Minister, presumably Lutheran, said a few words as the coffin was lowered into the grave.   We all walked round the grave throwing sprigs of yew that we had been given, onto the coffin.  A firing squad from the local barracks, fired a volley over his grave.  I don’t suppose that that funeral would have given much comfort to his parents and girl-friend but I think that we all found it very moving.  We also had a friendly football match with  German soldiers from the local barracks.  Folded jackets (khaki and field grey) served as goalposts and our biggest worry was of the ball getting kicked into the nearby fast flowing river Moldau.  They won (3 – 1) I think; but then they had a couple of hundred from whom to select their team.  We had just 30, and I wasn’t the only one who was useless at football!

            The most remarkable example of wartime Anglo/German co-operation was with the local branch of the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) whom we all thought of as being fanatical Nazis.  Their office was next door to our ‘lager’.  We had a gramophone and some records, mostly jazz, presumably from the Red Cross.   Hitler banned jazz as being decadent and the young men (mostly teenagers) listened to the sounds from our lager with envy.  Eventually they summoned up the courage to ask our guards and our ‘confidence man’ (official spokesman) if we’d agree to a swap – some of our jazz records for some of their officially approved folk songs and dance music.  To make sure that nothing about this arrangement became known to higher authority, only those who ‘needed to know’ were told of the swap.  I, for instance, knew that there had been some welcome additions to our record library – but it was years later that I learned how it had come about.  I think that we did the better out of the exchange.  I never missed the jazz records but several of the German ones were memorable and enjoyable.  I can remember the tune and much of the words of one of them – it was, I think, ‘top of the pops’ in Germany sometime in the 1930s : Regen Tropfen, die am dein Fenster klopfen, das merke dir, die sind ein Grüss von mir. (raindrops, falling on your window, seem to you to be a greeting from me.)   

            I now have good friends in Zittau and have been to see them on several occasions in recent years. In 2014 they all came to Clacton for my 93^rd birthday celebration.  It was the culmination of a friendship that began before any of them were born!

Impartial BBC?

          I have been – and to some extent still am – a strong supporter of the BBC.  I would hate it to have to depend on the whim of advertisers for its finance.  For over twenty years I wrote a weekly Tendring Topics column for a local newspaper.  Nobody told me what I could and couldn’t write – but I did know that the paper was dependent for its existence on advertisements for new or used cars and homes.  My survival instincts therefore ensured that I thought twice, and then again, before writing too strong a criticism of either estate agents or car salesmen!

            The BBC is pledged to impartiality on controversial topics and in some fields  leans over backwards to ensure that their viewers and listeners are presented with both sides of any argument.  For instance, the world’s leading scientists are all but unanimous on the urgent need to counter climate change (global warming) by phasing out fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and seeking out and developing sustainable sources of energy.  However, whenever the BBC has an experienced meteorologist on a broadcast programme explaining the importance  and urgency of combating climate change you can bet your life that they’ll find some has-been politician with no knowledge of the subject, or  an ‘expert’ with interests in the oil, gas or coal industries, to give an opposing view.

            How very different is the BBC’s attitude with regard to foreign affairs.   With regard to the situation in the Ukraine for instance, you’d never guess that the overwhelming number of inhabitants of Crimea wanted to be part of Russia.  But I remember before Russia’s ‘annexation’ the difficulty that BBC’s and other reporters had in finding a single Crimean who wished to remain within Ukraine.  The impression is given that the pro-Russian rebels (urged on by Vladimir Putin) began the civil war.  But I remember seeing news shots of the men women and children of eastern Ukraine passively resisting the tanks of the Kiev government, before the fighting started.

            BBC bulletins have ignored the fact that the shelling by the Kiev government forces of the area of the Malayan airliner’s crash delayed the UN inspectors from carrying out their investigation.  Nor have we heard how the relentless shelling of residential areas occupied by the rebels, has destroyed hundreds of homes, killed a great many innocent civilians and caused thousands of eastern Ukrainians to become refugees in Russia.  No wonder elections held by the Kiev government produce comfortable majorities for the supporters of that government – tens of thousands who would have opposed them have been killed or driven from their homes.

            But there – the BBC depends on the government for its licence fee, and the government unquestioningly supports the Kiev Government.  He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Week 17 2014

Tendring Topics…….on line

‘Treat other people as you would like them to treat you!’

            A couple of weeks ago I commented in this blog that this commandment, that Jesus said summed up the whole of the moral teaching of the Old Testament, applies as much to the affairs of nations as it does to those of individual men and women.  I have often regretted that he didn’t add its corollary (perhaps he thought it was so obvious that there was no need to spell it out) ‘Do not do to others what you would hate them to do to you’.   My comment came in connection with the current crisis in the Ukraine and the Crimea.  It seems to me important that both sides involved in this matter should ask themselves how they would feel and what they would do if they were in the situation in which their opponents find themselves.  If both did that, I think there might be a chance of their coming to a compromise acceptable by both sides.  

            A lot has happened in the past fortnight.  Crimea has been ‘annexed’ by Russia.   I have heard no reports of protests from the inhabitants at their change of nationality; no reports of Crimean citizens seeking political asylum in ‘freedom loving’ Ukraine, or begging NATO to free them from the Russians. Surely most people in ‘the west’ now accept that annexation as a fact even if they continue to claim it was ‘illegal’.  It was, no doubt, this that has encouraged the mostly Russian-oriented residents of East Ukraine to assert themselves, raising Russian flags and seizing police stations and government buildings. Probably some of them would like to become Russian citizens.  It seems though that many, perhaps a majority, would prefer to remain an autonomous region of Ukraine but retain the right to have Russian as the region’s ‘first’ language and to conduct their own economic relationship with their Russian neighbour.  Surely this offers ground for a compromise that would involve no bloodshed and could be accepted by both sides without 'losing face’.

            The Foreign Ministers of NATO and of Russia and of the Ukraine are to meet shortly, but the meeting will be fruitless unless both sides are genuinely seeking peace.  Our Foreign Minister William Hague has told the world that he is quite certain that the present unrest in eastern Ukraine has been created and orchestrated by Russia. It is surely much more probable that Russia has simply exploited a situation that already existed.  Their efforts would have been in vain had they not known that a substantial majority of Eastern Ukrainians regarded themselves as being treated  as second class citizens, and would welcome any support that Russia could offer them.  I am equally sure that NATO would have been helpless to support (as I am certain they did) the demonstrators and rioters in the cities of Western Ukraine had they not known that a substantial majority of Western Ukrainians wanted to get rid of their pro-Russian President.

            Has anyone else noted the sinister similarities between the situation in Europe today and the one that existed just a century ago in the summer of 1914?   Bosnia-Herzegovina was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  The ethnic Serb Bosnians deeply resented this, and one of their number – Gabriel Prinzip – assassinated the Austrian Grand-Duke Ferdinand and his wife while they were on an official visit to Sarajevo

            The Austrian Government was quite sure that the Serbian Government was responsible for this outrage (just as certain, I am sure, as William Hague is, of Russian responsibility for Eastern Ukrainian unrest today).   They presented the Serbs with a humiliating ultimatum that would have effectively robbed them of their independence. Surprisingly perhaps, the Serbs agreed to comply with every point but one of the ultimatum – but that one was sufficient for Austria to declare war on Serbia.

 Serbia had a powerful ally in Tsarist Russia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire had a powerful ally in Germany. Russia had a powerful ally in France.  France had a powerful (but perhaps a little hesitant) ally in Great Britain and, of course, Britain had its world-wide Empire. Immediately the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war in Serbia, Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary.  Then, like falling dominoes, Germany declared war on Russia, France declared war on Germany and, last of all, and only after the Germans had attacked France through Belgium whose neutrality had been guaranteed a century earlier, Great Britain declared war on German. The British Empire obediently followed its leader ……. and the senseless slaughter of ‘The Great War’ began.

            World War I could have been avoided had the governments concerned had the sense to meet together in a spirit of compromise, genuinely seeking a just peace rather than national advantage, before all those alliances were activated.

             It may be thought that the current situation is quite different.  There’s no thought of war – yet, and in any case, both Russia and NATO possess nuclear weapons ‘the ultimate deterrent’.  Surely no-one would be stupid and arrogant enough to start a world war with the nuclear threat hanging over all our heads.

            In June 1914 there was no thought of war either, except perhaps in the minds of a few power-hungry rulers.   There was no ‘ultimate deterrent’ in those days, but had anyone had the least inkling that that the assassination in Sarajevo would trigger a world-war resulting in over Sixteen Million (armed forces and civilians) dead, I am quite sure that a compromise would have been found.  God forbid that there should be any thought of war today – but if there were to be an armed conflict, we shouldn’t imagine that those ‘ultimate deterrents’ would actually deter either side.  They haven’t deterred any act of aggression yet!  Both sides might well decide to be the first with a pre-emptive nuclear strike that – they would probably delude themselves – would make ‘the other side’ see reason!  

Later News

          The meeting of Foreign Ministers appears to have been much more useful than I (or the Foreign Ministers themselves!) expected.  The pro-Russian protesters are to lay down their arms and vacate the Ukrainian government buildings and other property and an amnesty is offered them.   The Ukrainian provisional Government has promised to grant autonomy to the eastern region retaining only defence and foreign policy over the whole country.

            The US and UK foreign ministers have voiced cautious optimism about the final outcome while threatening further ‘consequences’ for Russia if the pro-Russian protesters do not fulfil their side of the agreement.  The only people who weren't represented at the Geneva talks were the pro-Russian protesters!  How extraordinary that the people most concerned weren't represented while the USA, on the other side of the world and with no possible national interest in the Ukraine, dominated the proceedings!

            The agreement was reasonable enough – if the Russian Government does control those protesters or can exert sufficient pressure on them to persuade them to comply with it.  I am by no means sure of either.  I recall that a similar ‘reasonable’ compromise was agreed to end the mirror-image demonstrations and protests in Kiev and other cities in western Ukraine that began this whole crisis.  The protesters ignored the agreement and carried on with their by-then violent protests until they had obtained all their objectives and had formed a new government with a new ‘interim’ President. I am still cautiously optimistic as I write these words (on Good Friday).  I may need to alter them before I post this blog on Easter Monday!

            Well, Easter Monday is here.   Some of the militant pro-Russian activists are refusing to disarm and leave the buildings they have occupied. True to form, William Hague tells us that Russia will face dire consequences.  Penalising the Russian government for the stubbornness of the pro-Russian activists is directly comparable with, and would be just as daft as, penalising the Irish Government for the activities of dissident republican groups in Ulster!

‘Blessed are the Peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.’

Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom ……….

          ……the Trussell Trust, to which most food banks are affiliated, has declared that during the past financial year 913,000 people required emergency food parcels for at least three days.  This is an increase of 163 percent over its figure of 347,000 during the previous twelve months. It was also reported that 83 percent of its food banks had reported that government benefits sanctions were driving people to seek food aid.

            The Church Times reports that the publication of these figures coincides with the sending of an open letter signed by 42 Anglican bishops and 600 other clergy and ministers of other Christian traditions, to David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband asking them to work with the parliamentary inquiry into food poverty launched two weeks ago, and to implement its recommendations.

            The letter says, As we approach Easter the mind turns to the hope of spring, the promise of resurrection and renewal.  Hope drives us to act.  It drives us to tackle the growing hunger in our midst.  It calls on each of us, and the government too, to act to make sure that work pays, that food markets support sustainable and healthy diets, and that the welfare system provides a last line of defence against hunger.

            Among the signatories were the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, nineteen other diocesan bishops and representatives of other denominations, including the Roman Catholic, Methodist, Baptist and United Reformed Churches.

            I very much hope that a representative of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) was also among the signatories.

         

           

Week 15 2014

Tendring Topics…..on line

Reviving the Poll Tax?

          It was the introduction of a Poll Tax, a government demand for an equal sum per head from every adult without consideration of ability to pay, that provoked the Peasants’ Revolt in the 14^th Century, a revolt that was put down only by the treachery and cruelty  characteristic of rulers in ‘the age of chivalry’.

It was the Poll Tax (the government preferred to call it the Community Charge) that in 1990 finally led to Mrs Thatcher’s downfall as Prime Minister.   She had long promised to get rid of the rating system – raising a proportion of local government finance from a local tax levied on households calculated on their home’s estimated rental value.  It wasn’t popular (no taxation system ever is!) and by the 1980s was out of date. It had been years since there had been a revaluation.   However, imperfect as it was, the rating system meant that there was at least a rough relationship between the amount on the ‘rate demand’ (that was an unfortunate word if there ever was one) and the wealth, or lack of it, of the ratepayer.

            Mrs Thatcher abolished the rates and, as had been promised in her party’s election manifesto, replaced it with the Poll Tax levied equally on every adult resident in every flat, bungalow, dwelling house, mansion, or palace in the local authority’s area.  The rate per head (per ‘poll’) was set by each local authority.  There were modifications.  The unemployed paid only 20 percent of the local poll tax for instance but generally speaking ‘the rich man in his castle’ paid exactly the same as ‘the poor man at his gate’ or in his tied cottage or squalid tenement.  ‘What could possibly be fairer?’ –  that’s what the rich man in his castle asked!

            As in the 14^th century there was fury among the have-nots. There were protests all over the country and, particularly in London, demonstrations that evolved into riots.  Mrs Thatcher faced a revolt from her colleagues in government. She resigned as Prime Minister and Party Leader and was replaced by John Major.  He abolished the Poll Tax and replaced it with ‘Council Tax’, very similar to the old ‘rates’ except that there were ‘bands’ according to the estimated value of the property; undeniably less unfair, though still very generous to those in really palatial homes.

            Now, Lord Warner, a Labour Peer and one time Health Minister in Tony Blair’s New Labour government is suggesting something very similar to the old discredited poll tax to fund the NHS which, he says, is facing financial collapse.

            He thinks it would be a good idea if every adult in the country paid £10.00 a month for their ‘membership of the NHS’ and their right to NHS services. He also suggests that adult patients should pay £20 a night for stays in hospital.  There are a number of exemptions including us pensioners!  I’d like to think that this is out of genuine concern for the old and not just because all politicians (including those who have safe seats in the Lords) are aware that it is us greybeards who actually bother to vote at elections.  We’re the ones who can decide election results. 

            Supporters of Lord Warner’s idea say that there’s a black hole of insolvency in the finances of the NHS – and how else is it to be filled?   I believe that this can be done, without reducing anyone into either homelessness or starvation, by using the income tax system.  Income tax is the one form of taxation that, by its very nature, can never reduce anyone to penury.  Thanks to the latest budget no-one whose taxable income is less than £15,000 a year has to pay it at all and even the highest rate taxpayers,  those with a taxable income of £150,000 a year or more, only have to pay in tax 45% of their income above that level.

            First of all I suggest that all state benefits – children’s allowances, disability allowances, job seekers’ allowances, attendance allowances, pensioners’ winter fuel allowances, free tv licences, NHS prescriptions and bus passes be added on to any other taxable income, and income tax at the appropriate rate charged.  The state retirement pension is taxable so why should other benefits be tax-free?    Those with an income below £15,000 a year (and there are plenty of those, both in and out of work) would be completely unaffected by this change.  The rest of us would have to pay a little extra.  I, for example would have to pay income tax at the standard rate on my winter fuel allowance, my attendance allowance (that I get because of my very limited mobility), my free tv licence and an estimate for the cost of my free prescriptions.  I wouldn’t have to pay it on the cost of my bus pass because my mobility is so limited that I can’t use one.  I think that that is all.

            I wouldn’t enjoy paying that extra tax, but it would only be a percentage of my total income and wouldn’t leave me either hungry or homeless.

            It may be that that reform alone would be sufficient to fill the ‘black hole’ in NHS finances.   If not, then an extra penny or two on income tax would certainly be unpopular – but not, I think, as unpopular as the imposition of a new ‘Poll Tax’ on every adult to fund the NHS.

            I am beginning to think that the big divide in our society is not between black and white, between atheists and believers, or even between rich and poor – but between those who believe that ‘fair taxation’ is achieved when everyone, wealthy and poor alike, has to pay the same amount (poll tax, VAT, customs payments and so on) to finance the purposes of central and local government, and those who believe that we should all pay the same percentage of our income   The strange thing is that those who are most opposed to taxation being based on an equal percentage of taxpayers’ income are those who are most insistent on percentage rather than flat rate pay increases!

‘We won’t play with you – so there!’ 

            That childish playground threat came to my mind when I learned from a tv news bulletin that, because of the Ukraine/Crimea crisis, NATO was ceasing all co-operation and ending all communication with its Russian equivalent.   I’d have thought that a time of crisis was just when it was important for the two sides to get together and each try to see the other’s viewpoint.  The Presidents of the USA and Russia have recently had an hour-long telephone chat and their foreign ministers have also met – sadly fruitlessly – but this is the time to try, try and try again!   It is not the time to draw apart, start to mobilise forces, and make vague threats.

            I had feared that, in suggesting that Russia’s claim to the Crimea might have some justification, I was a loan voice crying in the wilderness.  Agreement has come from unexpected areas. In an interview on tv, a right-wing American Republican Senator has affirmed from his visit to the Crimea last summer that most Crimeans were either ethnic Russians or wanted closer friendly ties with Russia.  He fears that NATO is dragging the USA into distant squabbles in which the USA has no interest.  I had thought that Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, was blinded by his Europhobia when he suggested that the EU was partly responsible for the riots in Kiev that had preceded Russia’s recovery of the Crimea. He had even found a kind word to say for Vladimir Putin, the current favourite bogyman of the press. However, a thoughtful email from a regular blog reader has made me wonder.  Here it is:

Crimea is a problem isn’t it?   I do think though there has not been much effort to see it from the Russian point of view. Putin sees the “enemy” – NATO – getting closer and closer – and in the end threatening to take over his main naval base.  The pattern is always the same; first of all the EU woos nations with promises of open markets, infrastructure investment, a stable currency etc.,  and then the NATO boys come in behind and sign them up to an organisation which was actually set up to confront the Soviet Union. So ‘annexation’ without a shot being fired has been a pattern of NATO for the last 2 decades.   As a result the Baltic States which border Russia and have large minority groups of Russian workers, become part of the enemy – in Putin’s eyes. Clearly he could see Ukraine going the same way, and I think he may have been right.  Even the EU trade deals will probably disadvantage Russia by cutting off its access to Ukrainian products.  He probably thinks Belarus might go the same way, leaving Russia isolated economically and militarily.   He comes over as “tough and dictatorial” but do you really imagine he could have secured his Naval bases in the Crimea by negotiation?

On top of that, the “democratic and legal high ground” is not all with the West. After all, the elected government of Ukraine was overthrow.  There has not yet been an election to confirm a new mandate, yet already deals with the EU are being signed. It looks very much as if when the Pro-Russian government came to power, the EU continued its discussions with an opposition that had no legitimacy. They thereby aided and abetted civil unrest. Now that Crimea is not part of Ukraine, remaining Ukrainians will probably vote to go West.  That might not have been the case while Crimea was still part of Ukraine.

  

The most important part of that email is right at the beginning.  No effort whatsoever has been made to see the Russian point of view.  Fortunately we do know how the USA would react under comparable circumstances.  In the Cuban missile crisis the then USSR wanted to put missile launchers on Cuba to protect it from the very credible threat of an invasion from the USA.  There had been such an attempt at the Bay of Pigs, that had been foiled.

            The siting of missiles capable of striking into the heart of the USA was sufficient for President John F. Kennedy to threaten the USSR with armed retaliation and the world with nuclear war.  Fortunately Nikita Khruschev, the Soviet President, was wise enough to communicate with John Kennedy, and to withdraw his missiles; but – no doubt as a result of that friendly chat between the two Presidents – there was no invasion of Cuba.

            ‘Treat others exactly as you yourself would wish to be treated’, is sound advice for Nations as well as individuals.   How many bloody conflicts might have been averted had governments followed that advice!

Late comment

I have this morning (7th April) heard on the tv news that there have been riots in several towns in the Eastern Ukraine.  The suggestion was made that Russian Agents had provoked them.  This just as likely (and just as unlikely) as the suggestion that British and/or American Agents provoked and encouraged the riots in Kiev and elsewhere in western Ukraine that led to the overthrow of the elected pro-Russian President.

I think the situation is a very dangerous one and I hope, for the sake of all of us, that both Russia and NATO will refrain from interfering and from encouraging either side.  Certainly this is not the time for threats or promises of reprisals or other 'consequences'.

           

                                                                              

           

           

           

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Week 14 2014

Tendring Topics………on line

Crimea – and after

            Has it occurred to you – as it certainly has to me – that the reaction of ‘Europe’ and of the USA to recent events in the Crimea has been out of all proportion to the events themselves?

            There has, for instance, been a general agreement that Russia’s claim to sovereignty of the Crimean peninsula has no validity whatsoever – and that Russia acted solely out of self-interest and in order to add a few thousand acres and some two million mostly unwilling Ukrainians to its enormous ‘empire’. This simply isn’t true.  Crimea was recognised as an integral territory of Russia, not of the province of Ukraine, during the time of the Romanov Tsars. After the revolution of 1917, the communist government of the Soviet Union continued to recognise the Crimea as being part of the Federal Republic of Russia, not of the Federal Republic of the Ukraine.  It was not until 1954 that Nikita Khruschev, then Soviet president, transferred its sovereignty to the Ukraine without any consultation with local people.  He presumably did this for administrative convenience – though the fact  that Mr Khruschev was himself half Ukrainian may have had something to do with it!

            A few weeks ago the Crimea’s pro-Russian faction, taking advantage (all right, using the pretext, if you prefer) of the ousting of a President who, whatever his faults, had been democratically elected, took control. Russian Forces entered Crimea and besieged the Ukrainian military and naval bases in the peninsula. They then organised a referendum which, although derided in both London and Washington, almost certainly reflected Crimean public opinion in producing a substantial majority in favour of becoming Russian rather than remaining Ukrainian citizens. Russia then ‘annexed’ the Crimea or, as they would probably prefer to put it, restored the situation that had existed prior to Khruschev’s arbitrary action in 1954. Eventually, the Ukrainian government in Kiev accepted the inevitable and ordered their besieged troops and naval personnel to return to Ukraine.  It seems too that the Russian and Ukrainian Foreign Ministers are now prepared to meet each other to discuss the situation.  I hope that they do so and reach a peaceful conclusion.

            All of the above was achieved with minimal bloodshed.   There were, in fact, far fewer casualties in the Crimea than in the demonstrations/riots in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities that had preceded the Russian action.

            Why on earth then did the EU, the UK and in particular, the USA make such a fuss about it; banning Russia from an international gathering in which they certainly had an interest and a contribution to make?  There have been limited ‘sanctions’ and threats of ‘further consequences’.  I notice that that in the field of space exploration and research, co-operation between Russia and the USA remains unchanged – possibly because Russia is now alone in being able to send material and personnel to and from the international space station! I can well understand the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania being concerned, as they have considerable ethnic Russian minorities whose members feel they are treated as second-class citizens.  Will those states face a fate similar to that of Ukraine?  

Our government seeks to quell those anxieties by increasing arms supplies to enable those states to defend themselves against any Russian incursion.  It’s no doubt good for the British arms industry, but it might also have been wise to urge that all residents in those countries, of whatever ethnic origin, are treated equally, and the Russian language accorded equal status with the local Baltic tongue.  Several countries in the world have more than one official language; Canada, Switzerland, Belgium and of course, Wales, come instantly to mind.  The Baltic countries would be wise to join them.

 Why is the USA so concerned about the Crimea?   Geographically the USA and Ukraine could hardly be further apart. I can think of at least one US President in recent years who would have had difficulty in finding either Ukraine or the Crimean peninsula on a map of the world! Could it have been because a compliant west-oriented Ukraine would have joined the NATO alliance?  They might then have welcomed a NATO naval base on the Crimean peninsula. This would have given the US Navy a presence in the Black Sea that Russia would certainly have seen as threatening.

At last week’s public debate about our membership of the EU, between Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrat Party and Nigel Farage of UKIP, Mr Farage made the extraordinary suggestion that the European Union was responsible for the demonstrations in Kiev that led to the overthrow of Ukraine’s President and – indirectly – to Russia’s recovery of the Crimea.  That’s almost as daft an idea as that of the UKIP disciple who wrote to our local newspaper claiming that the EU was responsible for the recent flooding of the Somerset Levels!

I have little doubt that those demonstrations and riots were what they purported to be – a genuinely popular protest against a President who, though democratically elected, had abused his office. However, those who love a conspiracy theory and are devotees of ‘cold war’ fiction could surely make a much more convincing case for the involvement of the CIA and its British counterparts in a successful effort to replace a Russian-oriented Ukrainian President with one more to NATO’s liking, than Nigel Farage’s attempt to blame it on the EU.

Further News

I have just heard (Saturday 29th March) that Presidents Obama and Putin have had an hour-long chat on the phone and have agreed that their Foreign Ministers' will meet to discuss the current situation and try to find a solution. Here are some ideas they might want to consider.

Russia should immediately cease its military manoeuvres and reduce materially its troop concentrations near the Ukrainian frontier and any other frontiers that seem threatened. In return, 'the west' should withdraw its sanctions, resume normal diplomatic and commercial relations with Russia and accept that Crimea is de facto and possibly temporarily, part of Russia.  In twelve months time hold another referendum among the people of the Crimea, asking  if they wish to remain within Russia or revert to being part of Ukraine.  This referendum to be managed and policed by the United Nations so that there could be no question of its being held 'under the shadow of the kalashnikov'.  All concerned would need to agree in advance to accept the referendum's verdict.

              Ukraine should then join neither NATO nor Russia in military alliance, and its future neutrality should be guaranteed by both.  This would not only be conducive to world peace but would also spare Ukraine maintaining armed forces on a scale that it can ill afford.
  

I wish that I really thought there was a possibility of anything as sensible as that emerging from the Foreign Ministers' talks!   It would be a bit tough on the armaments manufacturers (there’s nothing like a bit of international tension for pushing up the profits) Perhaps they could find out if there’s a demand for ‘plowshares and pruning hooks’ or their 21^st century equivalent!

Even later news

The Russian and USA Foreign Ministers have met - and, surprise, surprise - have not reached agreement.  The USA wants Russia to accept that its recovery/annexation of Crimea was illegal.  Russia wants Ukraine to be neutral (I'd endorse that) and to have a federal structure - presumably with East Ukraine as a federal state within Ukraine.

But what would happen if the Federal parliament of East Ukraine voted overwhelmingly to join Russia!  I've no idea - but I do know quite definitely that no possible outcome would be worth a war - not even a 'cold' one!

The real peril facing all humankind

          While humankind quarrels about who rules this that or the other piece of land, nature – oblivious to national frontiers, alliances, human rights and ultimate deterrents, and unconcerned with ethnicity or creed - inexorably proceeds with its own catastrophic plans for the future of  our planet and its inhabitants.

            Last year, the scientists of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the first part of their report on the impact that the changing climate will have on the world in the coming years.   It examined the atmospheric science and raised the panel’s level of certainty that climate change was being driven by human activity to an ‘almost certain’ level of 95 percent.  The second part, officially published today but well-leaked beforehand, translates that science into the physical impact likely to follow a further increase in greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide.

            Member states of the United Nations have agreed to take action to ensure that the global temperatures do not exceed two degrees above the pre-Industrial Revolution levels, the level described as causing ‘dangerous climate change’ by scientists.  Writing in the Church Times John Ware says that two degrees doesn’t seem much to ask, but  changes in climate currently being experienced are at a rate of 0.8 degrees.  Unless substantial action is taken in the next few years, that very modest two degrees target will not be met.

            The IPCC report points out that acidification of the world’s oceans is happening at a faster rate than at any time in the past 65 million years, a large number of species face an increased risk of extinction, and  climate change’s impact on food production is already visible in several regions.  Yields are expected to drop by as much as two percent during each decade from 2030.  Child malnutrition will be a key risk as not only food quantity but food quality will be affected. Small island-states will be at increasing risk from the rise in sea levels.

  The report predicts more rainfall in Northern Europe and that much of the infrastructure of North America will be vulnerable to extreme weather.  This is already happening with unprecedented floods in the UK, and unseasonal tornadoes, arctic conditions and snowfall in the USA.   Who can doubt that the heavy and continuous rain that caused the recent tragic mud-slide near Seattle in Washington State, was just one more local effect of climate change? It resulted in the destruction of a township and the loss of over 100 lives.

Coinciding with the publication of the IPCC report Christian Aid, always in the front line when catastrophes occur,  has published its own new report;   Taken by Storm: responding to the impacts of climate change.   This points out that this is not just a problem for future generations to solve. Death and destruction caused by climate change are affecting people here and now. World-wide communities are being forced  to change their way of life or to perish.