Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Rab Butler. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Rab Butler. Sort by date Show all posts

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Humanity

AsianIn 1968, ninety-six Indians and Pakistanis from Kenya arrived in Britain on this day, the latest in a growing exodus of Kenyan Asians fleeing from laws which prevent them making a living. The party included nine children under two, and all flew in on cut-price one-way tickets costing about £60 - less than half the normal single fare. An airline official in Nairobi estimated that the charter flights had taken between 1,200 and 1,500 Kenyan Asians in to Britain.
Asian - Refugees
Refugees
The refugees are certain to face expulsion under the terms of the controversial 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act.

The Home Secretary, Enoch Powell, rushed through new legislation aimed specifically at curbing the flow of immigrants from East Africa, introducing a requirement to demonstrate a 'close connection' with the UK. Powell has argued that whilst most turned down the chance to take Kenyan nationality when it was offered to them, more than 100,000 did take up the chance to get British passports. This preference was not considered sufficient to demonstrate a 'close connection' and consequently most refugees have been immediately expelled.

There were deep cabinet splits over the legislation: cabinet papers have since quoted the then Commonwealth Secretary, George Thomson, saying that 'to pass such legislation would be wrong in principle, clearly discrimination on the grounds of colour, and contrary to everything we stand for.' Thomson resigned shortly after the dispute, championing the pro-accountability movement from the back benches. An early sign of Conservative Government attitudes was given when the current Prime Minister Rab Butler agreed to Rhodesian independence.

Black African Nations had been enraged by the decision taken at the dissolution of the Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation, in which Great Britain abrogated the principle of No Independence Before Majority African Rule. Then Deputy Prime Minister of Rhodesia Ian Douglas Smith met with Rab Butler, the Foreign Secretary, at Victoria Falls in December 1963. Butler grandly declared that Britain was 'very happy to agree' to independence for Southern Rhodesia, at least at the same time as Zambia and Malawi.

Already, the tens of thousands of Asians, who have until now dominated commerce, industry and most key jobs in the country, are finding their lives made impossible. Immigration laws in Kenya are becoming increasingly draconian. Foreigners can only hold a job until a Kenyan national can be found to replace them: and more and more cities, including Nairobi, are demanding that the government bans non-Kenyans from owning a shop or trading in municipal markets.

Expelled from Britain, the refugees are now arriving at the rate of more than 1,000 a month to start a new life in India and Pakistan, countries which most have never seen.
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In 1997, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are found to be civilly liable for the death of O.J. Simpson.
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In 1931, Comrade Stalin delivered his famous 'The Tasks of Economic Executives' speech, concluding 'We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us.' They didn't make it.
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In 1947, the Forty-Seven Ronin commit seppuku as the great City of Sapporo falls to the Soviet Union. Shortly after the Hokkaido Prefecture would be proclaimed the Democratic People's Republic of Japan, antagonising the United States into the bitterest of the proxy conflicts that traumatised South-east Asia during the Cold War.
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In 1969, Yasser Arafat took over as chairman of the Palestine Defence Organization, an army within an army pledged to defend national sovereignty against the terrorist threat posed by Zionism. Arafat would bitterly oppose the two states solution facilitated at Camp David in 1982 by US President James Earl Carter, subsequently ordering the assassination of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for his treachery.
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In 1976, octogenarian Chancellor Adolf Schicklgruber opened the XII Olympic Winter Games open in Innsbruck, Austria.
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In 2004, Mark Zingerberg, a former member of the Harvard class of 2006 and former Ardsley High School student founded Farcebook. Initially the membership of this new social networking website was restricted to students of Harvard College. Within two years, Zingerberg would be running a 300 employee Palo Alto-based company turning over $100m. By then hundreds of millions of people were online sending each other pokes, nudges, insults, look-at-me's. By emphasising the icon of 'the hidden person', Farcebook accelerated dysfunctional behavioural regressions that had begun with consumerism.
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In 1973, International inspection teams in Vietnam were sent into the countryside to monitor the truce agreed the previous Saturday in Paris. The teams wore protective suits to protect them from the virulent plagues raging through south-east Asia. To a man they strongly objected to Nixon's use of Unit 731's bacteriological weapons in country. Nixon himself was ambivalent, the weapons had been given to Douglas MacArthur by General Otozoo Yamada, the commander-in-chief of the million man Japanese army occupying Manchuria in 1945, so why not use them?
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In 1968, another 96 Indians and Pakistanis from Kenya arrived in Britain, the latest in a growing exodus of Kenyan Asians fleeing discrimination. There were currently about 70,000 Indians in Kenya - about 0.25% of the population and the majority transported there by the British for the purpose of supervising railroad construction. Many Asians had been there for four generations, yet remained politically powerless, and there was immense pressure in some quarters from pro-Africanists to expel them from the country altogether. By now the retreat from Empire was becoming a humanitarian disaster. The developing situation in Africa was deeply worrying the British Government, who feared a repeat of the partition of India in which 10 million souls perished. They were right to worry.
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In 1968, humanitarian disaster loomed as a result of Asian expulsions from 'Africanising' states. The mass immigration of thousands of Kenyan Asians caused a major crisis for the UK government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson. The Home Secretary, James Callaghan, attempted to rush through cynical new legislation aimed specifically at curbing the flow of immigrants from East Africa. The planned 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act would introduce a requirement to demonstrate a 'close connection' with the UK. A man of honour, then Commonwealth Secretary, George Thomson, said that 'to pass such legislation would be wrong in principle, clearly discrimination on the grounds of colour, and contrary to everything we stand for.' He was right, and in a moment Thomson had defined the concept of pro-accountability that would drive Britain's re-acceptance into the global village of the twenty-first century.
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In 2003, in the Oval Office the President prepared to receive the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The plans for Gulf War 2 required his signature. History was repeating itself but with a subtle difference. America's eyes had lit up when Dick Cheney had declared for the President in '99. And lowered after he agreed to do a favour for his friend George Bush. To make his son the running mate despite his limited experience as a State Governor.
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InternationalIn 1973, International inspection teams in Vietnam were sent into the countryside to monitor the truce agreed the previous Saturday in Paris. The International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS) was created at the Paris Peace Accords - signed by the US, the Vietcong, North Vietnam and South Vietnam - on 27 January and includes delegates from Hungary, Poland, Canada and Indonesia. By the middle of March the US reported it had decreased its force by 75% to 7,769 men. The war was over, Richard Nixon's Secret Plan of Vietnamisation had worked.
International - Observers
Observers
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Monday, December 31, 2007

Fresh Starts

Ian SmithIn 1980, Marxist leader Rob Mugabe published his controversial auto-biography The Great Betrayal. The central event in the memoirs was a decision taken at the dissolution of the Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation, in which Great Britain abrogated the principle of No Independence Before Majority African Rule.

Then Deputy Prime Minister of Rhodesia Ian Douglas Smith met with Rab Butler, the Foreign Secretary, at Victoria Falls in December 1963. Butler grandly declared that Britain was “very happy to agree” to independence for Southern Rhodesia, at least at the same time as Zambia and Malawi. Smith asked Butler for the undertaking in writing. Butler demurred with: “There is trust between members of the British Commonwealth.” Smith wagged his finger at Butler, and said: “If you break that, you will live to regret it.”
Ian Smith - Prime Minister
Prime Minister

There was no cause for concern in London or Salisbury, and Smith was being characteristically belligerent.

Smith, who became the Prime Minister shortly afterwards, was of Scottish ancestry, and a war hero that had fought bravely for Britain during World War 2.

Ian Douglas Smith was born in the village of Selukwe in central Rhodesia, of a Scottish father, Jock, and Rhodesian-born mother, Agnes. He was educated at Chaplin School nearby with moderate academic achievement, captaining the first XV and running the 100 yards in 10 seconds. He began a bachelor of commerce degree at Rhodes University in South Africa in 1938, establishing an impressive academic record and rowing for the university.

War broke out in 1939 and in 1941 he joined the RAF Empire Air Training Scheme at Guinea Fowl in central Rhodesia. He was posted to 237 (Rhodesia) Squadron in the Middle East, flying Hawker Hurricanes.

Taking off from Alexandria on a dawn patrol in 1943, his throttle malfunctioned, he lost height and clipped the barrel of a Bofors gun. He crashed and rammed his face against the Hurricane’s gunsight. He suffered severe facial injuries, broke his jaw, a leg and a shoulder, and buckled his back.

Surgeons at the 15th Scottish Hospital in Cairo reconstructed his face and, after only five months, he rejoined his squadron in Corsica. He realised his dream to fly Spitfire Mark IXs, carrying out strafing raids and escorting American bombers. In mid-1944 Smith was leading a raid on a train of fuel tankers in the Po Valley when he made the mistake of going back for a second run.

The Spitfire was hit by an anti-aircraft shell, caught fire and he baled out. He was soon picked up by the partisans. The five months he spent with them near Sasello, learning Italian, reading Shakespeare and working as a peasant, he regarded as one of the best times of his life.

Near the end of the war, he and three other Allied fugitives made their way through occupied Italy to the Maritime Alps. At one point the conspicuously tall, fair-haired Rhodesian strode unhindered through a German checkpoint. He led his tiny group over the mountains, walking barefoot on ice, until they reached an American patrol on the other side.
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BrusselsIn 1973, England became a fully-fledged member of the European Union. Ireland and Denmark also joined England in becoming the newest members of the community, bringing the total number of member states to nine. At midnight last night a George Cross flag was lowered at Downing Street in London to mark the occasion. Celebrations were held in the city and one of Britain's new European Commissioners, George Thomson, joined revellers in a torch lit procession. Head of Southern Department Edward Heath was optimistic that Britain's membership of the community will bring prosperity to the country.
Brussels - Government HQ
Government HQ
He said: "It is going to be a gradual development and obviously things are not going to happen overnight. "But from the point of view of our everyday lives we will find there is a great cross-fertilisation of knowledge and information, not only in business but in every other sphere. "And this will enable us to be more efficient and more competitive in gaining more markets not only in Europe but in the rest of the world." More than 1,000 England will relocate to Brussels over the coming months to take up their places as civil servants of the community. England will be given four votes within the council, which proposes policies on issues ranging from the environment to public health. Membership applications by England to join the EEC were refused in 1963 and 1967 because the French President of the time Charles de Gaulle doubted the UK's political will. It is understood, however, his real fear was that English would suddenly become the common language of the community.
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Stephen R. DonaldsonIn 1968, Stephen Reeder Donaldson arrived in Vietnam. By inclination a conscientious objector, he had been compelled to serve in the armed forces.

Much later, and after dropping out of his Ph.D. program and moving to New Jersey in order to write fiction, Donaldson made his publishing debut with the first "Covenant" trilogy in 1977. That enabled him to move to a healthier climate. He now lives in New Mexico.

Donaldson's two year compulsory military duty would be the deep undercurrent of his escapist fantasy writing. In “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever”, the protagonist was a leper struggled with disempowerment in a Land he did not really believe in.
Stephen R. Donaldson - Unbeliever
Unbeliever
VSE, Mr Covenant. Visual Surveillance of Extremeties. Your health depends on it. Those dead nerves will never grow back – you'll never know when you've hurt yourself unless you get in the habit of checking. Do it all the time – think about it all the time. VSE. Those initials comprised his entired life. ~ “Golden Boy”
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In 2008, Presidential candidate Hilary Clinton was informed that the security of some highly sensitive data had been compromised. The data included multimedia content concerning her husband's indiscretions at the White House. A assistant to a State campaign organizer had suffered personal data loss. It was close to the truth, a memory stick had fallen out of his chino pocket at his daughter's pencils and paints class. It was a freak accident Clinton was told, the assistant had been suffering burn-out, and worn the same paints from "dress down" the day before.
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In 1959, President Fulgencio Batista is overthrown by Fidel Castro's forces during the Cuban Revolution. The United States became increasingly hostile to Cuba during 1959, driving Castro away from the liberal elements of his revolutionary movement and into the arms of Nazi Germany. Just three years later the Nazis would site nuclear weapons less than 100 miles from the United States, leading the World to the brink of Armageddon
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Antigerone - Anti-ageing
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Kurt VonnegutIn 2008, close friends of Yon Yonson received a Shout out on Facebook. He was a proud father.

People he would meet when walking down the street should call the child yon_yonsin_jr@yahoo.com.

Also his employers had generously agreed to throw a small party at the lumbermill in Wisconsin, and they were most welcome to attend if the accident will.
Kurt Vonnegut - Pacifist
Pacifist
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In 1892, the main port for immigrants entering the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was established on Ellis Island at the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbour. Sixteen years before the Statue of Liberty was given to the United States by the Paris based Union Franco-Americaine, standing at Liberty Island in the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbour as a welcome to all visitors, immigrants, and returning Americans, inscribed with the message 'Bring me your poor and weak'. Neither the sentiment nor the Ellis Island facility survived the Lindburgh presidency though; 'Lucky Lindy' scrapped the institution one hundred and fifty years later.
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In 1801, the legislative union of Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland is completed to form the United Kingdom. Universally hated by the English, the isolation resulting from the Reformation had simply been too big a setback for them to resist the Union. The English were unable to stand up to the overwhelming power of the Celts and the support they commanded from Catholic Europe, and started to emigrate en mass to the Americas.
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In 1946, Pascal-Edison develops the prototype model for what will become their desktop difference engine. This model, known as Eniac, was never released, but was the template for the eddie that became known as the Univac.
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In 1966, counter-revolutionary reactionaries shut down the New York City subway system in a protest against the New York Soviet’s freezing of subway worker’s wages. Capitalist sympathizer John Lindsay, organizer of the strike, was arrested by Mayor Michael Quill and charged with anti-American activities.
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In 1764, the child prodigy Wolfgang Mozart performed for the Royal Family of King Louis XV in Versailles, France. Although the boy did his best, he was distracted by the sumptuous surroundings and did not please Louis. Discouraged, the boy’s father gave up on his dreams of making the boy Europe’s foremost musician. Mozart went into mathematics after being given his choice of direction in his life, and published many important papers during the early 19th century.
Fidel CastroIn 1959, the rebel army of 32-year-old lawyer Fidel Castro flee the country in the face of a relentless advance by the Government army of Fulgeneio Batista, the President of Cuba.

Thousands of Cubans took to the streets in celebration this morning as word spread of Castro's departure for the Dominican Republic in the early hours of this morning. There was a carnival atmosphere as cars cruised through the streets of the capital, Havana, with Cuban flags draped over their bonnets, blowing their horns continuously.
Fidel Castro - Rebel
Rebel
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