Cameron has often said Britain is open for business. What it seems he meant was Britain is open for sale. There is no other country in the world which would throw open its strategic industrial sectors to a foreign power. That is exactly what the Tories are now proposing to do with handing over the building and […]
Posts under ‘East Asia’
Energy supply is national security issue, not for flogging off to China
Jul 23rd, 2012 by Michael Meacher.
I’m a Seoul Man
May 15th, 2012 by David Osler.JW Marriott Hotel, Seoul: Over the last 30 years, I have watched from afar the transformation of South Korea from a military dictatorship to a parliamentary democracy, and from an emerging market to a card-carrying OECD member developed economy. This week I am getting a chance to see the country for myself, thanks to a […]
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The far left and capitalist crisis
May 1st, 2012 by David Osler.Recent capitalist history has thrown up sharper economic declines and higher levels of unemployment than the ones we are currently witnessing in Greece and Spain. It’s just that they haven’t occurred in nice Mediterranean countries that Britons visit for beach holidays and long weekends.
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Foxconn: right and left should stop apologising for China
Feb 16th, 2012 by David Osler.Barack Obama’s hot date for Valentine’s Day this year was none other than Xi Jinping, the man set to take over as president of China at the end of this year. The White House celebrated his visit with a level of razzamatazz not usually accorded to anyone short of the rank of head of state, […]
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North Korea: once and future Kim
Dec 19th, 2011 by David Osler.The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea certainly isn’t democratic. It doesn’t give a hang about the wellbeing of the bulk of its people, and it is a hereditary monarchy in all but name. Still, it is on the Korean peninsula, and by the standards of accuracy that prevail in the state media, one out of […]
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Cambodia: the trial of Brother Number Two
Dec 5th, 2011 by David Osler.You have to wonder whether Nuon Chea believes his own defence. But the man they called Brother Number Two in 1970s Cambodia now insists that it was the Vietnamese and unspecified ‘rogue elements’ that did the killing in the country’s now world famous killing fields.
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Marxism in China: it’s a museum piece
Nov 29th, 2011 by David Osler.Somehow the most vibrant capitalist economy on the planet still lends itself ideological legitimation by claiming adherence to Marxism. What is happening in China plays havoc with key theoretical assumptions of the socialist left and the free market right alike. How does the obvious disjunction between base and superstructure, at least at the level of […]
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Royal Wedding Special No 2: Tyrants on the guest list
Apr 27th, 2011 by Jon Lansman.The royal wedding is not a state occasion, or so it was claimed to justify the non-inclusion of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Perhaps that is just as well, since Westminster Abbey would have contained many more tyrants if it was. Neverthess the guest list still contains seven “royal” tyrants who are expected to attend […]
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Fukushima should end any nuclear revival in Britain
Mar 21st, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Angela Merkel rightly called Fukushima “a turning point for the world”. It is. This was no glitch in an unsophisticated backwater of a State that could be explained away by poor design or low operating standards; this happened in one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world with an unsurpassed reputation for detail and […]
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Don’t Take Wikileaks At Face Value
Dec 3rd, 2010 by Mark Seddon.There is a very real danger that some analysts, diplomats, commentators and politicians are taking all that is revealed by Wikileaks at face value, without questioning the veracity of some of the information gleaned from third sources and some of the information transmitted back by US diplomats, believing as they did that they were doing […]
