London - Undemocratic, this is the right word describing the British electoral system which excludes its citizens living abroad and EU citizens in UK from general elections. Look at the electoral register and see people from Antigua, Bahamas, Botswana, Zimbabwe and all the Commonwealth countries can have their say on who rule the UK.
The ‘post-imperial’ electoral system gives ex colonies citizens the right to vote in the country which once exploited their own, and this is absolutely right and fair. But it is utterly unjust citizens from the neighbouring countries living in the UK and the British abroad (who lose the right to vote after a number of years) are excluded from the democratic process by the law since 1969. Why? Is it just for chance or this is the result of the British crossparty establishment's 'domestic defence policy'?
The answer is complex and touches the very founding process of democracy. Every political establishment, in every country, defends itself from whom considers, and wrongly classifies, as defector. This means those who flee their countries of origin are perceived as potential political defectors able to detect the structural, systemic failures of political systems in the countries they left: people emigrate when understand there is no hope for change. But why then Indian or Pakistani, for instance, living in the UK take part to national elections and have MPs representing their communities in the House of Commons while European origin and British expats don't?
Firstly because they are from former colonies and Commonwealth citizens, secondly because nearly all Commonwealth countries (except for Australia, Canada, New Zealand and perhaps few others), are not democracies comparable to the EU ones (exceptions here as well starting from Hungary) therefore people from Nigeria or Malawi have de facto a different political awareness and might not be able to promote changes in the structural system of an advanced democracy such as Britain.
Today the campaign to give British citizens living abroad and EU citizens in UK full political rights launched by Another Europe is Possible, The 3 Million and British in Europe marks a radical change in support of democracy in Great Britain, and goes far and beyond Brexit. The fight is for a fair and just society representing all and for a political system no longer allowed to hide and perpetrate exclusion in the name of a dead ‘post-imperialist’ establishment.
Let Us Vote: campaign and petition launched by Another Europe is Possible, British in Europe and The3Million
African unsustainable development between EU grants and China loans
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Photos from video Copyright @Aljazeera
On May 13th 2021 Israeli army announced an operation in the strip of Gaza while Hamas said launched from Palestinian territories more than 1.500 rickets in an escalation of conflict which already caused 109 dead of which 27 children. UN Security Council will meet this Sunday.
Brussels, 13 May 2021 - As Israel has been created by the UN after the persecution and the genocide of Jews by the Nazi during WWII, a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only be found within the UN.
Though the UN established the partition of Palestine's territory in 1947 to give the Jews their own land after the Holocaust and put an end to centuries of diaspora, it did not recognize Palestine as a state. Still today the UN does only reckon Israel as a state.
Thirty years of intifada, a row of violent conflicts the territorial disputes and the inhumane, illegal, violent, evictions of Arab Palestinians from their own homes in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, root in that grey area of unenforceable international law where justice is replaced by the launch of stones, rockets, bombs, heavy artillery and high tech weapons regularly sold to Israel by US and UK and, on the other side, rockets smuggled by Iran, Turkey and Russia into Palestinian territories through Syria and Lebanon.
Yes the conflict is a proxy war. But today it’s also a civil-war raging in towns and cities between local communities, splitting Jewish and Arab Israelis, far and beyond the territorial dispute and out of the control of western and eastern powers and international lobbies.
Meanwhile in the Gaza strip the armed conflict is escalating to war: at 9pm of today Thursday 13th May Israel is deploying heavy weapons, troupes and tanks to ‘protect the edge’; 9,000 reservists are being sent to the front.
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We risk a new 2014 bloodshed which counted over 2000 dead.
London - Instability in neighbouring countries and a substantive latency of the UK as active member in the EU decision making processes due to Brexit, gave way to fostering the Union Common Foreign and Security Policy taken into account that British have always opposed strengthening a common defence.
This political phase led to the creation of many instruments starting from the (IcSP) and CBSD and now the European Peace Facility (EPF), a recent step forward in the progressive shift of the EU from its role of traditional ‘soft power’ to one of decisive action in foreign policy taken under the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini. The EPF has been approved last 30 March 2019 and will include military capacity building and deployment replacing the Athena mechanism to give the Union “the capability to contribute to the financing of military peace support operations led by international partners on a global scale” the EU states.
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But it’s still unclear what military means would be deployed and the scale of EU members backed military defense actions albeit aimed at preventing conflicts. Though the text approved does not mention lethal weapons, EPF could result into weaponisation of peace operations (prioritising north Africa and Sahel region), de facto buying weapons for partner countries. This raises doubts on the effectiveness of peacekeeping and conflict prevention strategy and on the very founding principles, purposes and role of the EU as peaceful mediator in conflict and crisis zones.
EPF, the fund of discord that will arm third countries.
A coalition of 14 charities warns over EU inability to maintain peace
Brussels - Today some media are asking whether it’s right Greek police is launching tear gas against undefended Syrian refugees trying crossing Turkish border to enter the EU: we reached the bottom of the barrel after years of international actors’ inability to stop the war in Syria and take responsibility for its consequences: over 400.000 dead of which 225.000 civilians between March 2011 and September 2019 (figures United Nations); 5 million refugees in the neighbouring countries and 13 million internally displaced.
On Saturday at least 10.000 Syrians, many of them mothers with children, tried to cross the Northern Turkish border with Greece and Bulgaria after ErdoÄŸan’s decision to stop EU-Turkey agreement by which Ankara held so far within its borders 3,7 millions Syrian refugees escaping war. Under the agreement 6 billion euros have been paid by he EU to Turkey in exchange of containment of the immigration from Syria and influx of refugees in the 27 countries.
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But over these hours refugees are being stopped from entering Greece: more than 100 of them were arrested, while hundreds are trapped between Greek and Turkish borders as Ankara won’t take them back.
After Turkey lost 33 soldiers in the heavy fighting in Idlib, Erdogan breached agreement with the EU by allowing thousands of Syrian refugees to cross Greek and Bulgarian borders and enter the EU.
Looking for regional standing: Erdogan uses Syrian refugees
as political weapons while challenging NATO, US and Russia
London - We can no longer content ourselves with breaking news or TV debates on terrorist attacks. Suicide bombing is a complex issue deeply rooted in our history, ingrained in international links, infecting the wounds of a political, social and economic global system that does not work. An expert such as Iain Overton, investigative journalist, executive director of AOAV (Action on Armed Violence) leads us step by step along the way of understanding the nonsense of men ready to blow up themselves and pay with their lives 'The Price of Paradise'.
A book: 500 pages like five hundred steps towards the meaning (that is never a justification) of what leaves us shocked and powerless, every time, whether in New York, Baghdad, Paris, or Colombo.
For us to understand, he made investigations, followed the paths of history, travelled to talk with them: to suicide bombers who survived. Yes, also with Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka telling of a time when killing civilians wasn't their strategy, and why things, then, have changed.
Interview with Iain Overton
Behind the explosive belt: Iain Overton leads us to understand The Price of Paradise
