Extract from Robert Stuart, regarding the BBC Saving Syria's Children:

Dear All

BBC Panorama has produced a follow-up to Saving Syria's Children (SSC) entitled Syria's Schools Under Attack (SSUA), which can be viewed here: BBC iPlayer - Panorama - Syrias Schools under Attack<https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000tkj8/panorama-syrias-schools-under-attack>

The new programme contains a number of anomalies. I am in the process of drafting a post outlining them.

In the meantime tomorrow Thursday April 1st at 5pm UK time the director of both SSC and SSUA, Darren Conway, will be taking part in a webinar. This will include a screening of an extended version of SSUA and a panel discussion hosted by BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson and including Dr Saleyha Ahsan, who appears in SSC and SSUA.

Details of the event are here<https://twitter.com/AdamCoutts/status/1375512859921113089> and you can register here<https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_soP_gmNzQ8ug42n1u-nJvg>:

Robert Stuart is hoping to pose some questions to the BBC about their involvement in this saga.

You can read more here: https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com

Important Petition concerning Venezuela

 If the European Union were to truly bet on being a conduit of peace in a world of turbulence, it should not support the path of violence and confrontation in Venezuela.

That is why we ask the European Union to respect the electoral result of next December 6, and to support the democratic will of the Venezuelan people.

 

https://www.les2rives.info/petition6d_eng

Seventh Anniversary of Saving Syria's Children

Robert Stuart has compiled summarised notes on the BBC's Saving Syria's Children which was first broadcast on 29 August 2013.

 https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/2020/08/13/saving-syrias-children-notes-for-editors-2/

Strange Events Corner

Just in case you think that the UK is going around the twist...

Below is a link to an article which is confirmation of that. At least the Court of Appeal still has some sanity!

My mother is not alive to read this article from The Guardian but I think he would be amused by it.


https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/29/transgender-man-loses-appeal-court-battle-registered-father-freddy-mcconnell
 

Update from CAAT

I have been a bit remiss lately in updating my blog. Sorry about that! Here is an interesting item from CAAT (of which I am a keen supporter). It concerns several items and in particular, the recent Supreme Court ruling on the ability for pension schemes to divest from the 'defence industry' and firms operating in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel.

Their email is below:

Dear friends,

We're pleased to have some encouraging news to share in these
difficult times, as well as a date for the diary with the UK's
largest arms company.

Ethical Investment win in the Supreme Court

Congratulations to our friends at Palestine Solidarity Campaign
for their Supreme Court victory 
( https://crm.caat.org.uk/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4003&qid=2182776 )
 this week! The successful action means council pension funds
can continue to divest from firms operating in Palestinian
territories occupied by Israel, and also from the arms trade.

CAAT made submissions in support of this important case and we
are thrilled about its success, which protects fundamental rights
and freedoms.

Your voice was heard on arms trade corruption

Allegations about corruption in a £2 billion deal to supply
equipment to the Saudi Arabian National Guard first surfaced in
2011, and in 2018 we heard that the Serious Fraud Office had
finally requested permission to prosecute. But the Attorney
General’s office, whose permission is needed, has been sitting on
it ever since.

In February, when a new Attorney General was appointed, we asked
for your help to put the pressure on 
( https://crm.caat.org.uk/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4004&qid=2182776 ) – and
thousands of you responded.

This week, a Parliamentary Question was asked about the progress
of the case, and the Attorney General told Parliament: "that case
was one of the first matters, if not the first, to cross my desk,
so it is a priority for me and I will not rest until we find an
appropriate resolution."

In fact, we know that, thanks to you, this case has now ‘crossed
her desk’ more than 3,500 times!

We’ll need to keep pushing 
( https://crm.caat.org.uk/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4004&qid=2182776 ) for
there to be more progress but for now it’s important that the
government knows the issue won’t go away quietly. Thank you!

Protest against BAE online 11am Thursday

Every year, CAAT supporters attend the Annual General Meeting of
BAE Systems, the UK’s biggest arms company, to hold the company’s
leadership to account. This year, the meeting (understandably)
cannot take place as normal but, unlike many other AGMs in the
same situation, BAE is hiding from any scrutiny and
won’t hold proceedings online either.

The company will be glad to avoid awkward questions about its £15
billion in revenue 
( https://crm.caat.org.uk/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4005&qid=2182776 )
 from Saudi Arabia since 2015. Yet, as Yemen faces its first
coronavirus deaths, with a health system already devastated by
five years of war, these questions are as urgent as ever.

So we’ll be holding our own 'meeting' online to expose its dodgy
deals. Follow from 11am on Thursday 7 May, on CAAT’s blog 
( https://crm.caat.org.uk/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4006&qid=2182776 ), Facebook 
( https://crm.caat.org.uk/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4007&qid=2182776 ), and Twitter
( https://crm.caat.org.uk/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4008&qid=2182776 ).

In other news

We’ve been speaking out against ‘Sportwashing’ 
( https://crm.caat.org.uk/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4009&qid=2182776 )
 as the Saudi ruling family leads a deal to try to buy Newcastle
football club.

And, as global military expenditure reaches highs not seen since
the Second World War, we’re calling for a shift in priorities 
( https://crm.caat.org.uk/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4010&qid=2182776 )
. Just one of the 138 F-35 warplanes the UK government is buying
could pay for 3,000 ventilators.

Thanks as always, for your continued support for CAAT,

Campaign Against Arms Trade ( https://crm.caat.org.uk/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4011&qid=2182776 )

Loud and Clear

This edition of Sputnik's Loud and Clear contains many important issues, including developments on Julian Assange's case and the OPCW.

https://video.img.ria.ru/Out/MP3/20200123/2020_01_23_LoudClear988_vtiytlv2.e4e.mp3

Peter Hitchens' article on Syria

A leaked email last night dramatically indicated that the UN’s poison gas watchdog had butchered and censored a critical report on an alleged chemical attack in Houma, Syria. If substantiated, the revelations will be severely embarrassing for Britain, France and America, which launched a massive military strike in retaliation without waiting for proof that chemical weapons had actually been used.

Unconfirmed reports and videos, showing the corpses of adults and children foaming at the mouth in Douma, a suburb of Damascus, shocked the world in April 2018 and led to a joint Western attack on the supposed culprit, Syria, in which more than 100 missiles, including nearly 70 Tomahawk cruise missiles, were fired.

Although the reports and films could not be independently verified, as the alleged events took place in a war zone then under the control of brutal Islamist militants, Western governments, and many Western media, took them at face value.

Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7718627/Sexed-dossier-furore-alleged-poison-gas-attack-Assad.html

Julian Assange Update

This is the day that Sweden finally closed the 'preliminary' investigation into the allegations against Julian Assange, a case resumed on 1 September 2010. That's 9 years, 2 months and 19 days to do what Finné accomplished in 12 hours.

https://wlcentral.org/node/3011