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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Israeli authorities are claiming a late night explosion in the city of Beit Shemesh was a pre-planned test by a government defence company. The blast occurred at eleven p.m local time at a factory that makes engines, rockets and missiles. A spokesman for the company said the test was carried out in a controlled, co-ordinated way and according to plan. Al-Jazeera |
Surprising really. You have to pay a lot of overtime doing tests that time of night on a normal weekday, but it's double-bubble with a day-off in lieu during the Sabbath. And, one has to say, not very neighbourly either, doing these damn test-explosions just when everyone's trying to get some shut-eye.
Also, not telling folks ahead of time about these things is fundamentally unwise. People are jumpy enough as it is. Let's hope the Israelis aren't going the same way as Russia where oil refineries are suffering a spate of explosions due to careless cigarette smoking on the part of the workforce.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I've always had a hankering to be the governor of a state. Nothing fancy, you understand. Not a biggie or anything. Too much like hard work. Somewhere obscure in the south will do fine. Mint juleps on the lawn with gracious ladies.
However, news in from Georgia that it has cost Rick Jackson eighty million dollars in the election to get into the run-off election to be a candidate for the actual election has given me pause for thought. Is it really worth it? Oh, go on then, it's only money.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I've always had a hankering to be prime minister of an obscure island in the western Atlantic but Andy Burnham's problems are giving me pause for thought. He has to be more red-fanged than the incumbent, a Mr Sir Keir Starmer, and that means going round nationalising things.
His problem is that putting things into public ownership costs money and there isn't any. If he borrows it, he will get the Liz Truss treatment and we wouldn't wish that on anybody. So he's come up with a formula.
You only have to 'control' whatever it is, you don't have to actually own it. It doesn't cost a penny to pass a law saying 'we control you' and with a nice hundred and fifty majority in the House when he arrives, that's no problem at all.
Unless it's the railways. They're already safely gathered in. Or the steel industry, they're begging to be taken over for nothing, so bankrupt are they. Everything else--water, gas, electricity, what have you--is already controlled within an inch of their lives. I think he means the buses.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| The BBC wrote: | Children in England to be offered free bus trips this August
Rachel Reeves is to reveal a £100m fare-free scheme designed to relieve some of the ongoing cost-of-living pressures. |
That's good. We're taking the kids on one of those Magic Buses to Kathmandu this summer to show them where one of them at least was conceived. Though we won't be telling them it was actually in a cubby hole at Victoria Bus Station while we were waiting for the driver to arrive. Those were the days.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| One point five million migrants claimed Universal Credit last year. Dia Chakravarty, Contributing Editor, The Telegraph on Newsnight |
Sitting between the Editor of the New Statesman and Gillian Tett, it took the latest Chakravarty to give us this astonishing statistic. I can understand a million and a half children-of-migrants going on benefit--they're as British as the rest of us and quite entitled--but so many people brought in to do the work we don't want to do going native so quickly is going to feed the maw of Reformism no end.
No wonder it's the first time I've heard this particular statistic. And, yes, I know the caveats.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Sitting between the Editor of the New Statesman and Gillian Tett, it took the latest Chakravarty to give us this astonishing statistic. I can understand a million and a half children-of-migrants going on benefit--they're as British as the rest of us and quite entitled--but so many people brought in to do the work we don't want to do going native so quickly is going to feed the maw of Reformism no end.
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Asylum seekers, and many others are not allowed to work by law, (employers must verify an individual's legal permission to work in the UK.before employment begins, to avoid a civil penalty of up to £60,000 per illegal).
The old refrain was they would take our jobs........
If we allowed these folks to take jobs then, we would have no need to provide folks with support, including UC after they received their Refugee decision.
Not sure this will be as popular as you think......But I would be in favour.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Wiley wrote: | | Asylum seekers, and many others are not allowed to work by law, (employers must verify an individual's legal permission to work in the UK.before employment begins, to avoid a civil penalty of up to £60,000 per illegal). |
You really think they spend their years awaiting a verdict doing nothing? I wonder why they come in that case.
| The old refrain was they would take our jobs........ |
This refrain has not been heard these many years.
| If we allowed these folks to take jobs then, we would have no need to provide folks with support, including UC after they received their Refugee decision. |
Defining them as 'non-asylum-seekers/ non-refugees because they've come from a safe country' i.e. France would avoid the need for any action bar removing them immediately. If we did, they would cease coming here at all.
But if you prefer paying them UC for several years and them doing nothing all that time, then sending them home, they will continue to come in their hundreds of thousands whether by boat or by any other means. N.B. If you're an illegal you might as well work and claim UC. That's what I'd do.
| Not sure this will be as popular as you think......But I would be in favour. |
It would be both totally ineffective and exceedingly unpopular. That's why only liberals are in favour of it.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: |
But if you prefer paying them UC for several years and them doing nothing all that time, then sending them home, they will continue to come in their hundreds of thousands whether by boat or by any other means. N.B. If you're an illegal you might as well work and claim UC. That's what I'd do.
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Asylum seekers, claim asylum support of £49.18 per person per week to cover food, clothing, and toiletries. They are not allowed to work (If they do it can impact their asylum application). On receiving a decision letter on their asylum application, (ie if it is determined they are a genuine refugee) this asylum support is cut off, and they are required to leave their asylum accommodation within 28 days. (they have no protection from eviction, they must go) Not suprisingly without a job or accommodation, many will attend a job centre, as a way of trying to get work, or get UC. They will also visit their council to apply as homeless. If their work coach cannot help them into immediate work, they will be directed to apply for UC, but only if they are thought to be genuinely available for work, ie attending interviews and coaching sessions etc.......
If they were not directed to claim UC, by the Job Centre, and with only a few weeks to get sorted, before thir eviction, many could become homeless and destitute.
The old days of tough, there is always a park bench, are long gone.......mainly as folks dont like attending parks and town centres full of homeless people.......
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Wiley wrote: | | Asylum seekers, claim asylum support of £49.18 per person per week to cover food, clothing, and toiletries. They are not allowed to work |
Let me ask you, Wiley, if you had spent ten thousand pounds on an incredibly difficult and hazardous journey, would you be content to spend several years living on £49.18? Do you know anyone who would? Can you summon up an anthropological image of someone who might? Can you imagine the attitude of the person or persons who loaned you the money if you did?
| (If they do it can impact their asylum application). |
I was wondering why the minority of applicant who fail failed. They seemed awfully like the ones that passed.
I will pass over the rest. You have ably captured the stupidity of the whole business. I am very surprised you appear to be in favour of it. But that is irrelevant. Too many people are not and we are all suffering the electoral consequences of its continuance.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Almost every day we receive assurances from either an American or an Irani or a Pakistani that the parties are getting near to a settlement of the war. Don't you believe it. I hope I'm wrong but it would be better to assume the parties are in fact nowhere near agreement.
| This is for an AE reason. |
Human beings hardly ever resolve their conflicts by agreement when there is no power above them who can force them to a settlement. Sovereign countries have no such overarching authority so, if they have decided on war, the conflict must be of sufficient importance to make one or other of them (or both) prefer to continue the war than give up whatever it is that will be acceptable to the other.
Only defeat in the war can do this.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: |
Let me ask you, Wiley, if you had spent ten thousand pounds on an incredibly difficult and hazardous journey, would you be content to spend several years living on £49.18?
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I would not. I would be desperate to work, earn proper money, house and keep myself.
I would also be very annoyed with those that I came across, on my journey, who were not refugees and gaming the system, as this is in effect delaying my application, and stopping me working.
The problem is the system does not allow me to work, until my application is determined sucessful or not, and is poorly equipped to prevent those gaming the system, for example folks that are refused refugee status, then claim they were trafficked and are given leave to remain anyway.
This is why I dont support the current arrangements, I am happy to support refugees and their dependents, fleeing persecution, but only if they work (if fit and able) and only until their countries are safe to return to. If they want indefinite leave to remain in the UK, they should have to complete period of a couple years of national service, to demonstrate their desire to become British.
There is plenty of work for them to do eg care working, agricultural picking etc in fact we allow, lots of folks in on work visas to do this at the current time, as employers claim they cannot fill vacancies with British nationals.
Just explain to me why I should pay for folks to sit around (or work illegally) instead......
Never fear..... I will turn this around.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Wiley wrote: | | I would not. I would be desperate to work, earn proper money, house and keep myself. I would also be very annoyed with those that I came across, on my journey, who were not refugees and gaming the system, as this is in effect delaying my application, and stopping me working. |
Surely you would be gaming the system yourself. How did you get from the country that was persecuting you or the refugee camp you were settled in to Britain?
| The problem is the system does not allow me to work, until my application is determined sucessful or not, and is poorly equipped to prevent those gaming the system, for example folks that are refused refugee status, then claim they were trafficked and are given leave to remain anyway. |
You are precisely describing why it is so loopy having a system where officials with almost no reliable evidence have to distinguish between asylum-seekers, refugees, economic migrants, temporary migrants, illegal migrants, students, tourists, overstayers and no doubt other categories I have forgotten. The officials are few, the numbers they are passing judgement on are staggering.
| This is why I dont support the current arrangements, I am happy to support refugees and their dependents, fleeing persecution |
Bogus list alert! Refugees include their dependants and are catered for without political rancour. Either they are welcomed in like the Ukrainians or put in squalid camps faraway like the Rohingyas. Sometimes they are being persecuted, like the Rohingyas; sometimes not, like the Ukrainians. That's not the migration crisis we're dealing with here.
| but only if they work (if fit and able) |
Why? If they are refugees, they are refugees.
| and only until their countries are safe to return to. |
They will presumably return to their homes if that is the case without any official assistance (save the air fare if that is necessary.).
| If they want indefinite leave to remain in the UK, they should have to complete period of a couple years of national service, to demonstrate their desire to become British. |
I don't see why. But if they want to and we want them too, I see no problem.
| There is plenty of work for them to do eg care working, agricultural picking etc in fact we allow, lots of folks in on work visas to do this at the current time, as employers claim they cannot fill vacancies with British nationals. |
Fine by me, it would be up to them.
| Just explain to me why I should pay for folks to sit around (or work illegally) instead. |
I couldn't begin to. It's just the present system, which you seem to endorse or at any rate won't support radical change to, has produced a situation which the natives pay vast sums of money towards, suffer a vast amount of dislocation from, get vociferously angry about, fear no obvious amelioration of, because everyone coming in claims to be either an asylum-seeker or a refugee when in my view (though not in the view of liberals, civil servants and judges) they are economic migrants. Of which we needs loads. Preferably bona fide ones that we choose.
| Never fear..... I will turn this around. |
I seem to have heard that before.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: |
Surely you would be gaming the system yourself. How did you get from the country that was persecuting you or the refugee camp you were settled in to Britain? |
No, I would not be gaming the system. The 1951 Refugee Convention does not require a person to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. The Convention focuses solely on whether an individual has a well-founded fear of persecution in their homeland, not on the route taken to their final decision.
In part the Refugee Convention was inspired and implemented by the experiences of Jews fleeing the war, who were turned down by various countries, and then ended up back in concentration camps. eg those on the St Louis.
https://2009-2017.state.gov/s/d/former/burns/remarks/2012/198190.htm
Its up to each signatory, where the asylum seeker presents, to ensure that the Convention is followed. They can of course, do this by forging joint agreements with other countries, and for these other countries to take asylum applicants in a safe planned way........as eg the UK decided to do with the now abandoned Rwanda scheme. The EU does this via the Dublin agreement, but note Dublin provides for a planned transfer for Asylum Seekers not just to return to a country, through which they might have travelled and show as having made an application.... but also to countries where they have relatives, which is why when the UK was part of EU, we had more asylum seekers referred in, (on the basis of the asylum seeker having UK relatives) than were ever referred back.......
From what I can see I would not be gaming the system, by claiming asylum in the UK, even if I had travelled through other countries, its really no different process wise to have flown into Heathrow as part of the Kazam basketball team, and not wanted to return because of threat of persecution.......the route taken is irrelevant.......?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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There is currently careful ignoral around Strait of Hormuz.
The US position is that shipping should have a right of transit as per UNCLOS.......(United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea)
It is therefore somewhat paradoxical to discover that the most strenuous defender of the "customary right of transit" established by UNCLOS, ie the US, has not ratified the Convention itself, whilst pushing the argument that Iran and Oman as signatories (bad luck guys!) are bound by its provisions.
Lets take a look. The Strait of Hormuz is about 22 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point between Iran and Oman. Both nations claim a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, which means their territorial waters overlap throughout the strait’s narrowest section. This enables Iran Oman to claim that the Strait is not an International Waterway, and ships have only the right of innocent passage.
Neither Oman or Iran have ever accepted anything other than the above other nations require prior authorisation for the transit of ships. They have ratified UNCLOS on a different understanding. OK its one that many lawyers might not agree with.....
Turkey happens to be another non signatory of UNCLOS, this meant that they could legally refuse permission for the transit of Russian warships from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, after Russia invaded UKraine. Wiley actually thought tht was good, did he complain, about freedom of navigation at the time....No....
Are we being crooked about Straits?
What is customry, self evident to one state might not be to another.
Once you get under 24 miles wide, there is no international water between the territorial water.
It is arguable.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Wiley wrote: | | There is currently careful ignoral around Strait of Hormuz. The US position is that shipping should have a right of transit as per UNCLOS.......(United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) |
I'm not sure this is 'a position'. It has applied to every international strait for a coupla hundred years, bar none.
| It is therefore somewhat paradoxical to discover that the most strenuous defender of the "customary right of transit" established by UNCLOS, ie the US, has not ratified the Convention itself, whilst pushing the argument that Iran and Oman as signatories (bad luck guys!) are bound by its provisions. |
Somewhat typical. As the world policeman, America has to bear in mind its own actions must be untrammelled by the 'laws' it is seeking to uphold. A bit like Reagan and Carter (of Sweeney, not the presidents) having to bend them to enforce them.
| Lets take a look. The Strait of Hormuz is about 22 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point between Iran and Oman. Both nations claim a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea |
They don't claim them. It is their automatic right. Or at any rate eleven miles in this case.
| which means their territorial waters overlap throughout the strait’s narrowest section. This enables Iran Oman to claim that the Strait is not an International Waterway, and ships have only the right of innocent passage. |
This is incorrect. The seas remain 'territorial waters' of the riparian state (or states) but so long as there are third parties needing to use the waterway, they have no rights over ships using it, innocent or otherwise. Unless there is some specific 'international convention' saying otherwise. I don't know of any that apply to the Strait of Hormuz.
| Neither Oman or Iran have ever accepted anything other than the above other nations require prior authorisation for the transit of ships. They have ratified UNCLOS on a different understanding. OK its one that many lawyers might not agree with..... |
I can't quite follow this but it is irrelevant. It is an International Waterway, and that's an end to the matter.
| Turkey happens to be another non signatory of UNCLOS, this meant that they could legally refuse permission for the transit of Russian warships from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, after Russia invaded UKraine. Wiley actually thought tht was good, did he complain, about freedom of navigation at the time....No.... |
As I understand it, Turkey as a signatory of the 1936 Montreux Straits Convention was acting in accordance with its provisions.
| Are we being crooked about Straits? |
We aren't. The parties engaged in the current war might be crooked about it if they find it a useful wheeze to bring the war to an end.
| What is customry, self evident to one state might not be to another. |
You'd have to admit that Iran treated the Hormuz Strait as a perfectly normal International Waterway before the war.
| Once you get under 24 miles wide, there is no international water between the territorial water. |
The whole twenty-four miles is international waters and territorial water.
No, it isn't. However I look forward to Oman arguing with Iran about its half of the toll money they've already collected. I also look forward to Iran arguing with ships who are going through solely in Oman's half of the Strait.
But in the end and quite soon, I firmly predict, the Strait of Hormuz will return to the status quo ante and will stay like that forever (o.n.o.). Our two World Policemen will insist on it. Three, if you count world opinion generally.
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