Tuesday 21 November 2017

Mayor Shonk and Ramgate Town Council collapse

Hi Trevor




As Mayor can I raise the following writtten questions for the Town Council agenda this Wednesday: please advise:




1. Pleasurama corruption: who owns the site and likely clearance before the Summer season of 31st March onwards - and given the Panama Papers etc tax haven involvement and Manston air pollution monitors/fines eg




http://iandriverthanet.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/margate-dreamlands-offshore-tax-dodging.html







2. Vote of no confidence process before May 2019 elections: you've done nothing at KCC and TDC and now RTC and should resign

3. Police update: foot-car patrols ie rough sleepers on High St with a tent for c.14 weeks - also street drinkers, parking on pavements/pedzone etc

4. Pegwell Bay UNESCO site improvements: old Hoverport clearance, NEMO megapylons twice the height of existing ones and disused wind turbine near MT Energioe

5. RTC staff salaries/pensions/expenses/reserves for the £400k budget - the staffing seems to have grown from one to 8 with nothing done

6. Slipways at Listed Harbour update: cancelled but signage

7. Harbour St £1M fund from a year ago

8. Xmas lights upgrade and 2018 events

9. £17M in tax paid by Ramsgate public (plus national tax etc) but only c.$400k received from TDC £30M budget, KCC £2BN budget and Kent Police £250M budget etc - clearly the funds are being spent elsewhere or wasted

10. Manston Parkway £20M airport rail station update

11. SHP £1 Manston airport purchase: who owns the site - and aquifer update

12. Ramsgate broken sewers update

13. Pavilion sale update to Werhrspopons wiohtout councilor involvement and awful Sunday Times review "don't order the food"

14. Thor mercury and Margate TOwn council/East Kent council update/TDC reductions

15. Kent Police gun and knife amnesty update

16. Rapes and traffic accidents in Ramsgate and East Kent

17. Channel shipping air and water pollution and radioactive waste update




Copy on my blog.




Time for Change

@timg33

Monday 20 November 2017

US Army Europe can’t rely on UK military?


As an adjunct to my previous article on the malaise afflicting UK defence, with General Hughes the main US Army general in Europe citing concerns over UK defence spending and NATO inter-operability the problems seem deeper-seated.

Both UK and USA hardly covering themselves in glory in voting against the UN ban on nuclear weapons last month - and surprising that Holland is the only non-nuclear power to also vote against the ban. Perhaps a few US military nukes are still on Dutch soil (a few teensie-weensie ones that have accidentally been lost on purpose?) - are some of the Saddam 15 minute nuclear howitzers there?

It would hardly be as unusual as the Trident mishap of nearly nuking Disneyland in Florida last year and not releasing the details until after the parliamentary debate on Trident?

And what is it with the US military building their own golf courses - surely some crazy gold ones would be cheaper and easier and free up the Seabees?

And despite the vigorous efforts of Carolina’s Nikkei Haley and new DFID head Matthew Rycroft, UN concerns over Syria’s chemical weapons – the first and hopefully last use in the 21st century – have been sunk by Russian efforts.

And as with UK aircraft carriers the Russian Defence Minister citing them as only a larger target which is true in the age of submarines and drones for such vanity projects – and at best job creation schemes for the shipyards of the North east and Virginia. And it shows an undue Russian emphasis on viewing the West through the binoculars of the Cold War.

Putin’s possible re-election in 2018 hardly a shoo-in with threats now from public protests and other candidates, and expansion of the Magnitsky sanctions with Latvia now joining Canada and UK, that relying on the KGB playbook of old won’t suffice. Hillary Clinton citing Putin’s interest in Siberia and bears perhaps more relevant in the Bering Strait road-rail tunnel and China’s OBOR in boosting Russia’s economy beyond the sunset industries of oil and gas.

Here in East Kent one would question KCC council and its $3BN annual spend still investing in tobacco and fossil fuels for its public sector pensions – and sure-fire way to increase Climate Change and reduce the value of its payouts.

And for Parliament and the May government not to recall the military to explain does suggest both an Empty Parliament and May gone before May (who wants a Winter election with more excess OAP deaths from the cold to put an x next to some empty manifestos? - foxhunting though, everybody wants foxhunting or sell your granny and her house for dementia?) as in office but not in power.

New defence Minister Gavin Williamson’s sharpened carrot perhaps only of use for UK’s frozen pensioners and food banks. Could the German government do better – their economy surging and defence spend below 1.3% and even ending conscription. Albeit all 6 of its subs out of action suggests a greater burden of patrolling for UK and the US navy already crashing in Asia from fatigue.

Surely he UK and German car and defence industries should be able to come up with a viable parts supply chain between them for NATO?

US Amry Europe and their logistics and engineering teams might well want to ensure thats in place as well as a review of the functionality of Europe’s rail systems. If Brexit did happen – stop laughing at the back – then Dover and Rotterdam would grind to a halt. Those beans and bullets would be rotting and rusting on the dockside.

And in shunting US and NATO troops eastward and south US Army Europe would be best-placed to advise on bottlenecks it faces in defending Europe? Already the European Medicines Agency and European banking Association likely headed east to Bratislava and Austria even Greece.

A trend likely to continue in what I describe as a Sarajevo Shift policy. Why is US Army Europe quartered safe in the wealthiest and safest parts of Bavaria rather than redistributing those US tax-dollars and Cold War dividend in boosting the Visegrad and Balkans nations?

US Army Europe is more than welcome with USAF and USN to boost its troops in UK – although 8,000 seems about right – and no doubt a welcome alternative to the Yankee Go Home culture of many parts of Europe.

Certainly a Greece and Turkey conflict a hidden disaster for Europe and NATO of far greater impact than Russian ethnic border-nibbling in Donetsk – hence Greece going bust in overspending on defence, and the Cyprus divisions continuing. Both hardly a success for NATO and EU after over 40 years.

The Royal Navy seeming to use most of Latin America's cocaine in fuelling its submarine orgies. The Minister for Sex Toys Mark Garnier (heir to the shampoo fortune too?) might want to take a sneaky peek through the porthole if he’s too busy to help Liam Fox drum up trade. While the Tunbridge Wells Kinky Sex Festival – sort of like Burning Man in Nevada with a damp cagoule although one dead and one medevaced to hospital suggests a wider need of SAR helicopters for those empty aircraft carriers or not – could feature a Royal Navy parade along with the Notting Hill carnival fun and games on the rates during the hurricane season.

And the UK military allowing junkies to continue military training - and the only NATO nation with child soldiers- suggests some US Army rigour is needed after the Lariam malaria scandal (another one for you Ambassador Woody? Or GAVI and Unilever or P&G?).

Even Ramsgate's General Lord Dannatt, hardly no goddam-pinko-commie-fag-peacenik, seems to think UK troops seem in more danger from their own generals than anyone else's. While Surrey Police and the Deepcut barracks murder-suicides have killed more UK soldiers than Putin.

And they get free dental care which is unusual now in the NS and USA's medieval healthcare system - Shadow Trade Minister Chi Onwurah pulled away from Newcastle (UK not Sydney) celebrations of Martin Luther King to detail the shocking statistic of hospital A&E used for emergency dental repairs. Should US Army Europe airlift in some dentists to the NHS?

While German troops in Eastern European perhaps an unwelcome reminder of pre-NATO years but all six German subs out of action for want of spare parts suggests a lack of NATO planning. And selling Israel subs without escape hatches surely won't be the first time the German state has put Jews in confined spaces with no escape?

Liberation Route Europe developed by Martin Schulz of SDP - and now launching in USA - surely a greater vision of Europe in the 21st century from the dark years of the last century. Certainly more than the backward-looking Brexit silliness.

While ISIS taking back control of Iraq ad only now after 3 years the last ISIS town in Iraq being defeated – and ASEAN ISIS surges eg Marawi in Philippines -suggests a lack of USA and UK effort on reconstruction rather than just bombing wedding parties or Kent's useless idiot Sally Jones.

Both as welcome as Agent Orange or white phosphorous - and UK is still selling cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia along with is Sangcom and GPT and Al-Yamamah guns-for-bungs projects? Saudi Arabia with more RAF jets than the RAF or the RN Bahrain base suggests MOD funds have been spent on dodgy deals in Arabia rather than defending Europe.

Only NATO Turkey shooting down Russian military jets for border incursions. Presumably NATO will be more circumspect over Russian frontiers too. While the Russian Defence Minister rightly suggesting UK aircraft carriers are merely a bigger target speaks volumes for Russian scepticism of the West and NATO military planning.

Europe’s enemies in recent decades have been the military dictatorships in Africa and Arabia whether Saddam or Gadaffi - and broken nations from Sierra Leone to Somalia to Afghanistan.

A Cold War of tank battles and tactical nuclear weapons over Germany and Poland thankfully now unlikely.

UK troops based in Germany now simply funding the bierkellars of Bielefeld rather than Broadstairs. While the MOD Manston fire station here in East Kent more bloat and duplication with its Hampshire duplicate. Surely UK MOD firefighting along with the military police overdue mergers and reductions, and clearer civilian police oversight rather than the military kangaroo courts that would shame even One Essex Court, rather than inter-service budgetary bunfights.

Prince Mo taking the helm on Neom (and Desertec-style projects in North Africa) suggests his Vision 2030 of peace and prosperity can be realised. Indeed how long before North Africa and the Levant are members of the EU? A decade at most?

US tourists might want to find it easier to holiday in the Med as well as India with UK support?

GCHQ now steaming open every email and Facebook post must be able to do better than that? Perhaps not as the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall and 9-11 took our expensive security services by surprise. Next even Mugabe or Obiang will fall without notice?

Those UK chiefs of staff Barron and Zambellas hardly inspiring in suggesting North Korea might nuke London unless parliament coughs up more cash for failure or the revolving door arms companies they front. And Lord West not backward in coming forward on the potential threat of the Swiss or Andorran Navies. The Royal Navy little more than a water-bus for the Royal Marines in future?

An argument surely for detente and disarmament - the UN nuclear inspector were right after all on the lack of Saddam's nukes. Surely theit should inspect reductions in USA's and Russia's arsenals?

And the list of nuclear accidents form Godthaab to Palomares Spain or Damascus hardly inspires confidence. Nor the sabotage threat on Douel in Belgium and safety scares with Kent's Dungeness closing down sooner rather than later. Another one for US Army Europe review must be Europe’s nuclear plants – an NBC backpack bomb all too feasible?

The UN nuclear ban, must also pose a tricky problem in the threat of war crimes or crimes against humanity, for nuclear powers now? Certainly without any reduction and disarmament programme.

And NATO's first active missions have hardly been a success in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Mediterranean refugee crisis. It's a lot of tax-dollars to do so badly from the shores of Tripoli to the Horn of Africa.

And the USA taxpayer may earmark their own inquiries of why 90% of US troops are based in the Lower 48 much as every UK soldier is sat in their barracks in UK. While practising digging trenches and graves couldn't our uniformed Johnny Appleseed's make themselves useful and plant some of UK's 11M new trees too?

And surely Panther Gold with the Irish Guards on the Kwai river on the Thailand-Myanmar border is a template for wider UK efforts given the ready availability of Shan heroin as well as Helmand heroin - and the highest ever Uk and USA drug deaths. They’ll be back bearing shamrock for St Patrick’s Day in March and engineering return visits for their Thai comrades?

Perhaps a US Army Europe remit now Russia is contained within its borders may well be the flood of heroin and cocaine into Fortress Europe through organised crime gangs. Forza Italia's election win in Palermo Sicily and rumours of Mafia funding is hardly likely to reduce the flow of drugs through the narco-states of West Africa and Southern Spain, France and Italy.

Surely it's absurd for US Army Europe not to have details of Europe's organised crime gangs and police activity? Malta’s unsolved half-dozen car bombs linked to drugs and people trafficking and ISI funding.

A platoon or two of US Army Europe troops are always welcome to visit Chief Pughsley's Kent Police and Dover Europe's largest port as part of Operation California - perhaps with Europol and Frontex and DEA and FBI a wider effort is required? 90% of EU illegal drugs seized around the Golden Triangle of London, Paris and Amsterdam. Could you bring a Starbucks and Dairy Queen shop or two too?

Doitung surely a template not just now in Colombia and the FARC peace process but more widely in Latin America and the Caribbean rolling back the drugs crops and routes?

And the medical divisions of US Army Europe must surely be the flag-carriers for the 21st century whether TB in Europe or Ebola in West Africa and plague in Madagascar. Bill Gates can't do it all - and surely it's absurd that USA's largest Marshall Plan investment, Pfizer-Discovery Park science labs here in East Kent are twiddling their thumbs on vaccine production.

1M TB deaths won’t cure themselves will they?

And with 220,000 UK citizens diagnosed with pneumonia – and US Army troops – each year and over 200 viruses suggests a failing on both research and adequate vaccine stockpiles. If it’s Winter then as sure as eggs is eggs the UK’s vaccines have run out even without AMR research. US Army Europe might want to take hold of more stocks of Unilever’s Lifebuoy antibacterial soap for itself as well as in its handwashing civil reconstruction work.

UK might even need a few US Army Europe doctors to administer whatever flu jabs crop up.

Hopefully better than the Royal Marines and Royal Navy efforts on Resilience or the tax havens of the Caribbean this hurricane season - the worst beach landings since Dieppe. Or was it just a badly-organised beach holiday?

Let's hope UK military efforts in Estonia or Latvia aren't a similarly badly-organised stag do on the rates.

Certainly Kent's Ghurkas leading the way in Afghanistan and Kent's Royal Engineers in Sudan - the Sahel and Volga the tripwires to Fortress Europe.

And Kent no stranger to Cold War politicking and waste: a Russian submarine berthed off Chatham Dockyard and nuclear bunkers dotted around the countryside. The latter best only for Microsoft database storage from those NHS cyber attacks again? The NHS database and DNA rollout under siege from Crapita incompetence.

While General Hodges might want to run up the white flag given MOD efforts on procurement and planning - aircraft carriers without aircraft (do not tell the Russians!) and the Warrior armoured car farce not dissimilar to the Bradley vehicle farce of $2M each refurbishment of 380 of them as the troops to use them are cut. And where would you park 380 armoured cars? Canada? Kent struggles to be rid of the Boris German water cannon, up on bricks and out of sight of parliament.
Just possibly $700BN each year might be too much defence spending even for the Pentagon? The techwar of bombing mudhuts with million dollar missiles across the Sahel surely counter-productive in all sorts of ways?

And renewables now the power source of the future with Germany and Italy - the former with its Jamaica Coalition - closing down all their nuclear sites and coal too. Perhaps General Hughes could send a telegram back across the Atlantic to POTUS Trump to get on board as he doesn’t seem to have got the message on Climate Change and defunct technologies such as coal, tar sands and nuclear.

Equally defunct must be delays on UK and USA cooperation on their DARPA programmes - surely Israel might want to join too as their efforts on destroying nuclear sites might be relevant for North Korea rather than just Iraq and Syria or Iran. Or even Axis of Evil nations such as Pakistan building the North Korean bomb and Myanmar's and Syria's chemical weapons programmes.

Even USAF welcome guests 65 years ago at Manston airport UK's most corrupt airport with the Infratil monitors and aquifer fraud.

How foolish that Afghanistan and Iraq and now Syria and Libya and North Korea nor viewed as the nation-building work (not just building a building or building a replacement) of decades rather than months.

Let's hope General Hodges is as vocal as General McChrysal in his interesting Team of Teams book.

Surely a military lead in Africa will mean as with Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia that every problem looks like it can be bombed into submission (20% of drone strikes with civilian casualties just collateral damage? UK claiming no civilian deaths at all from its Syria strikes sounds excellent if it’s true) rather than a more considered view on nationalist or ethnic or religious conflicts.

It's hardly outrageous given the recruitment problems to reduce UK army strength from 77,000 to 50,000 and halve the RAF and RN with robotics to 15,000 each. Indeed a more Canadian approach need of a single military command under the Army - an Admiral for every ship must be wrong.

That figure again: $700BN per year. The whole UK defence budget of c.$40BN would be a mere rounding error for General Hodges Pentagon team. While the UN estimates delivering all the UN SDG goals would cost just $50BN through to 2030.

In the aftermath of the generals testimony to parliament, the City pages of the Sunday Times in its “Tin helmets! Defence giants I the line of fire” by John Collingridge details a retrenchment of UK defence spending – GKN (the former builder of Spitfires and Lord Hezza’s Westland helicopters)losing not one but two CEO’s in months and troubles at a USA aerospace factory.

Ultra Electronics making parts for tanks and warships also lost its CEO amid a 24% fall in shares amid delays on the USA’s Sparton $235M anti-submarine project. Maybe General Hodges ought to sharpen his pencil rather than Gavin’s; carrot and take a more precise look at where UK-USA defence efforts are in retreat?

So far the only US (or German) subs worth having are at Subway.

And The Sun City pages on Friday were insightful as always from Tracey Boles with Qinetiq falling 7% - the supplier of UK’s firing ranges surely vital in expanding Sahel training efforts?

Graham Hiscott Finance Editor of the Daily Mirror reporting in detail on the £770M EU fine for Scania lorries and a cartel price-fixing with Daimler, VW, DAF etc that affects 90% of medium and heavy trucks and 75% of inland transport in Europe that must impact on US Army Europe’s logistics chain and taxpayer. The various Freight Associations with undue influence herein Kent on roadbuilding and lorry mega-parks.


US Army Europe’s more vigorous efforts could even pay dividends on East Kent’s Hornby, Scalextric and Airfix iconic Great British toy brands. A third equity raise for another new CEO to buy his own company, suggests longer dole queues here without more rigorous efforts. An Airfix F35 might be not much of a best seller or even the real-life version but surely a US Army Europe boxset of soldiers is overdue even an upgrade of the US Marines Harrier model?

DARPA must also be relevant for its peace dividend of interstate highways and internet and GPS than just its military applications.

US Army Europe's mission accomplished from the Eisenhower era of not just to the outskirts of Berlin, but now beyond the Elbe and Oder to the Russian frontier.

Bases such as Moron near Almeria (as with Trump perhaps that doesn't translate into American English) and Bari must be as relevant now whether Malta's carbombs or Greece-Turkey border sabrerattling or divided Cyprus through basketcase Libya and Syria to the Sahel and Sudan and Somalia.

Without US Army Europe kicking up a gear on UK and NATO military reform then the Harlem Globetrotters might be the best weapon in the arsenal of democracy?

Time for Change
@timg33

Saturday 18 November 2017

US Army's General Hodges dodges the bullet on UK defence spend?


General Ben Hodges commander of US Army Europe couldn't have timed his remarks on UK defence spend better than just a week before Parliament's review of defence with former UK Chiefs of Staff and Kent's Defence Minister Mchael Fallon resigning and being replaced by the sharpened carrot of new Defence Minister Gavin Williamson.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41903960

But General Hodges has surely lobbed a grenade into the debate by calling for more defence spend by UK and NATO? Generals calling for more soldiers and shells is hardly surprising. And it's certainly not unreasonable for the US taxpayer to want to see bang for their buck with Europe sharing more of the defence burden.
The US military had to ship containers full of ammunition because Europe's NATO and defence industries couldn't provide it?

While the UK army and police stumbling over themselves to procure Belgian and German and Austrian machine guns and ammunition suggests the UK defence industry is harmless to the point of being ineffectual.

Presumably there's the same lack of coordination on making and buying cargo planes and helicopters? The regiments of UK defence attaches selling guns only seem to be in USA and Canada unless it's a holiday on the rates?

The 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall soon, rather needs a new Checkpoint Charlie mission for US Army Europe on the tsunami of cocaine and heroin rather than a wave of Russian tanks into Europe. While something seems to have gone wrong - despite the expense of GCHQ and military satellites and radar - with illegal flights into Europe such as KAM Air or gunrunning from Ostend airport.

And how can a Malaysian airline fall off radar and out of the sky in the 21st century? Even switching off its own radar and black box?

And how embarrassing the USAF efforts in Ukraine in WW2 go as unrecognised as the Dambusters anniversary next year and late medals, with Putin even having to step in over the heads of UK MOD officials to recognise the Murmansk convoys.

General Hodges has no view on the right ratio of civil servants to soldiers (even Royal Navy Admirals per ship?) just a bottomless pit of more money needed?
But is the NATO 2% of GDP realistic? And is UK transgressing the boundaries of its share of defence? It's of concern that the NATO quango, calling for more money for itself, is surrounded by no criteria at all of what is included or not in the 2% figure. Hardly viable budgeting from the regiments of military clerks.
Indeed the only output so far seems to be a shiny new HQ building in central Brussels just a few footsteps from the coffers of the EU parliament - and as far from the Russian frontier as is physically possible.

And the average EU spend on defence is 1.3% with UK spending - some would say badly - at least 2.3% already and The New European newspaper citing figures as high as 5.6%.

General Hodges seems to have UK in his sights yet the figures suggest a reduction is best - and his view that UK would be a less viable military partner and NATO ally is at odds with the facts.

Perhaps too the US taxpayer may want greater scrutiny of the US defence budget of 6% of GDP- a new forecast of over $700BN. Few would argue that 8,000 US troops in UK, or 30,000 US troops in US Army Europe are excessive nor 1,000 HQ staff in US Army Europe Kaiserlauten (plus that shiny new NATO HQ in Brussels) or 1,500 staff in US Africa Command in Stuttgart.

But they may question whether both HQ commands could be merged - already Senate figures such as John McCain and Lindsey Graham expressing concern at the lack of information on US troops deployed in Africa after the Niger special forces deaths. Respected journalist Nick Turse also citing the increase in US troops as part of a forever war of drone deaths and kill squads beyond democratic oversight. Details will be published of the Ajadez and Lemonnier bases?

While the US taxpayer - recognising US Army Europe's remit since 1942 might question whether troops based near the French frontier in the wealthiest parts of Southern Germany is viable or value in resisting Russian border-nibbling in Ukraine. Perhaps less so given the bierkellars are stirring once more to the sound of the ADF Nazis, but certainly a Sarajevo Shift to the Visegrad nations is needed with EU reform.

While the Messina and Balkans bridges in Italy are long-delayed from fears of organised crime involvement.

The Soviet tank training grounds of East Germany as was are empty - and a shift east and south in Europe has already begun with UK and US and NATO troops in the Baltic states and Romania.

Surely that can only continue with a revitalised Visegrad 4 and Serbia, Montenegro and Moldova membership to the EU. Russia and Turkey can’t be far behind Georgia and Ukraine too. Perhaps Belarus will be last.

While US Army Europe rightly resist Russian aggression in Donetsk and Crimea and Georgia - and that KGB playbook from Montenegro to Magnitsky. Putin’s 65th birthday marked by protests in dozens of Russian cities and concern in London over the polonium murders and Surrey Police investigation of Perepilichnyy.
And General Hughes beyond mere pounds and pence might want to consider a US move east to the Oder - further may well antagonise a Russia not unreasonably fearful of encirclement and intervention after the German invasions of 1914 and 1945 - and UK and US invasion of 1920.

PM May citing both Russian cyberattacks – and the North Korean cyberattack on the NHS - along with Bear bomber radar probes of UK and Holland as antagonistic as Bear probes over Guam and the 7th Fleet.

Indeed after Putin and his KGB playbook, future Russian leaders may well want to join both NATO and EU and focus on being a European power rather than stretched thin into Asia with only 8M citizens in the Far East. A numbers game that China's 1Bn citizens can only win - and economically the OBOR and Siberian road-rail link through the Bering Strait to Alaska and Vancouver, across the Pacific with dry feet, more useful than sabre-rattling on the Amur again.

The Chinese taxpayer must surely be wondering what 1M PLA troops are doing sat in barracks. They can’t even fit on Mischief Reef or Taiwan. From Hainan to Hartford perhaps many of those troops should be reskilled in solar panels or vaccines or robotics or teaching and nursing?

Surely the new Boston Dynamic Atlas robots funded by the DARPA Big Dog projects are the sort of civil-military technological impetus needed in not just robotics but batteries and vaccines? And Boston Dynamics don't want to forego another bowl of clam chowder by Boston harbour and export to UK and Europe?

Climate Change and the arctic sea route more a pollution concern than a military one.

But how can European or American taxpayers seriously consider massive increases in NATO funding? Not just with NATO troops closer to Moscow than they've ever been requiring more detente than sabre-rattling.

Certainly here in East Kent as the birthplace of USA (No problem. You're welcome. Have a nice day) with Tom Paine and Pocahontas and General Patton's Fortitude, and with Margate twin towned with Crimea since the 1970's, (the Soviet-style tower blocks of Arlington House, council corruption and asbestos in schools the only reminder now of those dark days) surely a New Yalta is required from the ashes of 1945 and the Cold War? At the very least fastforwarding again Kent and Virginia's links from Jamestown onwards.

For only Kaliningrad and TransDniestra as well as Belarus are looking more Soviet than Putin now. While Russia - beyond the KGB/FSB and Generals - must surely want to invest its blood and treasure in peace and prosperity rather than tanks that would rust away on the steppes.

Certainly a revived China must be thinking of a reunited Korea and US troop reductions and arms limits, and Japan its lost Kuriles and Sakhalin with a burgeoning population - perhaps a variant on the Alaska Purchase for a Russia mired in corruption, crime and sanctions.

While thousands of nuclear missiles are an accident waiting to happen rather than a viable military weapon - the mysterious radiation burst last week in Russia and America's 1960's floppy disk a warning of such decrepit technology. And that's without even considering the F35 jets - no wonder the US marines bought up all the UK Harrier jets instead. Is the UK not allowed the Apache software codes? Even if we work with US Coastguard?

US Ambassador in London Woody Johnson, and CEO of Johnson and Johnson, must surely want to expand not just NFL coverage in UK and Europe but medical coverage too whether TB and HIV or cholera that afflicts Yemen and Haiti and Zimbabwe. Surely the Stanford swab programme of a medical early warning system for new strains of flu and TB and food poisoning, and even plague in NYC, of USA trains and suwbways and airports needs importing to UK and Europe?

And a nuclear airburst over Brest-Litovsk or Birmingham (UK) might be preferable than Birmingham (Alabama)for US Army Europe - but not when factored in a nuclear winter or the radiation drift seen from Chernobyl.

And surely US Army Europe's budget should be considered an aspect of the UN 0.7 GNI aid target before the 2018 G20 Summit in Argentina. Or does USA not do USAid or Climate Change now and leave that to the rest of NATO? Norway even manages 1.1% aid.

General Hughes battle cry of more money for the military doesn't seem credible in the post-Empire and post-Cold War and now post-ISIS era.

Time for Change
@timg33

Tuesday 7 November 2017

Kent council corruption and #paradisepapers


Clearly the #paradisepapers detailed on BBCTV Panorama and every main UK and global newspaper and website has implications for Kent.

The #paradisepapers were hacked from the offices of Appleby lawyers in Bermuda one of many law firms arranging tax haven status - hence The Queen investing in Cayman islands (horrifyingly in Bright House the renttobuy firm recently fiend £14M by UK government and with interest rates of over 900%), Bono a Lithuanian shopping mall via Malta and Lewsi Hamilton his private jet via the Isle of Man.

While Kent's largest council projects are:

* Dreamland registered in Cayman Islands now via Arrowgrass and/or Sands Hotel - who knows previously for Lottery funds

* Pleasurama in British Virgin Islands via the Cardy/Colin Hill sales - so murky nobody quite knows even the council who sold it

* various other smaller tax haven items such as parts of Margate High St and hotels in Maidstone

Manston airport the only main Kent project not registered in a tax haven but the strange $1 sale from Infratil to Stagecoach-Gloag and onto it seems the SHP speculators. Nobody quite sure - even from Parliamentary testimony - who actually owns the site.

The Gang of Four: Ezekiel, Latchford, Samuels and White - the senior TDC councillors and civil servants - resigned/sacked over Pleasurama a few years ago now. Yet for over 20 years the project has lumbered on with no details of who the secret directors are.

Even the former Planning Direcotr resigned/sacked after setting up her own property firm around the Cardy sale.

Clealry Bob Bayford - sharing an office with Terence Painter the estate agent for Pleasurama - and Deputy leader and now Tory leader - must have some details he can clarifty?

While Labour Leader Iris Johnson must be keen to open up on the Pleasurama details?

As must the Toxic Two of Paul Carter and Geoff Wild at KCC - the Toxic Three now lacking Alex "Burgher" King the Deputy KCC Leader and regular meeter of Infratil etc from his hasty KCC resignation after 30 years.

This Summer's strange Stoppping up order from KCC must also need detailing.

The question remains as to why Madeline Homer TDC CEO and Tim Howes TDC lawyer haven't yet called in the police and instigated a public inquiry?

Many people view the council silence as essentially blackmail to continue civil servant jobs and pensions and even squeeze a payrise out of our supine councillors.

While TDC leader Wells and Mayor Shonk have explaining to do on Manston as the only UKIP policy suddenly cancelled.

As must both Nigel Farage and Henry Bolton as UKIP leaders with Manston as the main UKIP national policy - beyond a bit of burkabashing and badger wrestling - and Bolton suddenly resigning as Chair of Why Not Manston the pro-airport group. Surely as UKIP leader he;d want to ensure an airport the size of Gatwick is built near Gatwick and on the aquifer and explain why?

Kent Greens silent - even on Kent Environment Agency refusing EIUR requests on Thor mercury.

And Kent Libdems with resignations after the Manston Spaceport and EU Taiwan farces - you couldn't make this stuff up could you.

KCC must also face questions over its funding of Manston especially KCC-USA via various KCC quangos - add in the tax havens and it's all very murky and downright corrupt.

Kent Police it seem scared to intervene and the City of London Fraud Squad the main UK anticorruption group (although UK far weaker than most nations such as Argentina and Thailand no doubt given the proliferation of tax havens in its colonies and Commonwealth - weak too even with Laurence Stephens law firm Andrew Conway posing as an HMRC official(!). Perhaps the police fancy dress uniform was taken for the Kent police panto - Judge Mann appearing in the Daily Mirror phone hacking fraud trial from his appearance with Glick QC and Magic Guy Hollingworth.

The High Court UK's last unreformed institution and little more than an adjunct to Russian oligarch libel trials - Canada introducing a Magnitsky law, and UK trying to prosecute him despite Putin's polonium sandwiches.

OR Lord Grabiner of BHS fraud still a judge - maybe riling on One Essex Court cases too swiftly swapping wigs and dashing around the Bench. Sleight of hand worthy of Hollingworth but too fleet of foot for elderly Glick or portly Leavor. Don't tell 'em anything the One Essex Court motto. And TDC it seems.

All in contrast to Prince Mo of Saudi Arabia arresting dozens of princes and ministers in an anti-corruption drive - as well as giving women the right to drive - as he moves the Kingdom to a moderate Islamic state.

The arrests including the National Guard bodyguards - the size of UK army - and the UK MOD Sangcom guns for bungs projects. Hence Saudi Arabia having more RAF jets than the RAF and much of the UK defence industry geared to arming Saudi to allow for bungs to princes: several hundred UK MOD and military staff based in Saudi. And that not even including the secret war in Yemen or UK cluster bombs.

Former South Thanet MP Jonathan Aitken jailed over the even larger Al-Yamamah guns for bungs scandal.

And now Craig Mackinlay MP facing jail next Summer over the Battlebus largest electoral fraud in UK history - clearly Kent politics and governance is very dirty.

And merely laughable is Roger Gale MP giving election advice in Chad or Karen Constantine KCC labour doublehatter giving referendum advice in Kurdistan - let's hear them on Kent corruption rather than teaching Chad or the Kurds Kent's dodgy ways

Cheering words for basketcase nations such as Chad - don't worry Roger Gale is here and he's bringing Karen Constantine.

But Prince Mo's vigorous Davos in the Desert - part of the Vision 2030 beyond oil - should enable the dynamic NEOM city on the Red sea a city with its own laws - although some would argue that Jordan and Lebanon if not Bahrain, Qatar and Oman are the basis for well-run and moderate Islamic nations.

Even Morocco and its North African rail to Cairo and down to Senegal and Timbuktu. Or Desertec solar in Libya and Algeria and Tunisia - all the more relevant with the latter the most ISIS returnees and civil war continuing in Libya and Syria, Yemen, Sudan and even Lebanon destabilised.

And USA Senate calling for an inquiry as to lack of oversight and permission on US troops and US Africa Command in the Sahel across Chad etc with 4 Special Forces deaths and drone bases sprouting as vigorously detailed by Nick Turse.

With the Queen investing in the Caymans and KCC and TDC too should Prince Mo be called in to run UK?

the Belgians must be busy enabling peace and prosperity for the rest of European and Africa.

Wells and Shonk must go. And LocalCraig and Gale and Constantine - they are of the past and have done nothing. Even the secret BrettGate cement project fell through on Phase 2 but not Phase 1. When will they explain these?

And there are clear UK reforms:

1. Ban tax haven funds form all UK public sector projects
2. End UK and Commonwealth tax havens before the April 2018 Commonwealth Summit and G20 Summit
3. Cap UK interest rates at 9.9% not the monstrous 1,000% rates
4. End of Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall tax exempt status: the Civil List only - Prince Charles batting for Englandshire in Malaysia on Superfoods and as a weak riposte to the Trump juggernaut in ASEAN and Asia - who lost China-UK trade for Saudi guns4bungs?
5. A Police and public inquiry into Pleasurama etc - and cancellation of these projects for review
6. Boycott the KCC free seat form Ken Gregory's death - leave it free for Bessie his best pig as an airfreshener in the County Barn until we have some detailed explanations of cancer etc
7. Civil servant delays on all the above projects before TDC elections in May 2019 or Wells/Shonk resignations


Time for Change
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