Moreover, ‘kids are playing computer games’!

The first quote is from one of the most tinpot groups of which I have ever heard, viz. er this.

So visit the PRIDNESTROVSKAIA MOLDAVSKAIAIA RESPUBLICA today!

‘After plucking him from a street in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, on Thanksgiving Day, Mahoney’s captors slaughtered goats in his honor, invited him to join in daily sessions of chewing khat, a mildly narcotic plant—he declined—and tried to keep his spirits up with cookies, tea and cigarettes. They also arranged for him to teach an English class in a local school. “Kidnapping in Yemen is hospitality,” said Abdullah Ahmar, speaker of the Yemeni parliament and the leader of Yemen’s Hashid tribe, the country’ largest. “Kidnapping is part of tourism; it’s an adventure for th etourist, because the tourist will end up learning about the customs of the tribe, as well as their good hospitality.”’

‘The 21-point directive on “rectifying formalism” is more than 4,000 words long, according to an AFP count.

during the 91 coup.

‘Eton and Trinity must have been the institutions least affected by the war. They went on dressing for dinner right through the blitz. I remember being asked down to Eton to dine once in 1940 and the invitation card said black tie; I rang and said: “Look, I’ve hardly changed out of my clothes for a week or so”. We were sleeping in what is now the music practice rooms. I was filthy dirty. The idea of putting on black tie! They were quite surprised: “Are you not dressing in London nowadays?”—“No need to dress for fire-fighting”.’

‘Editor’s note: The Central Electoral Commission informed Eurasianet’s correspondent in Bishkek that publishing the names or photos of individual parliamentary candidates during the campaign period is a violation of election laws.’

‘Imagine Kirunda Kivejinja resigned because of illegally taking fuel which he used for ubilding a road. People wouuld say you are mad if yuou said such a thing should happen in the current parliament.’

A friend says that some documents of an anti-Treaty group in Ireland they were reading dated its formation to ‘year seven of the republic’.

Dispo sur YouTube.

Instead of sensibly analysing the situation, we have this rather sad attempt to ignore Pakistan’s fairly successful strategic manœuvres amidst the Iran war. I hope at least that Akbar, seemingly rehabilitated after previous scandals, feels better about himself.

I discovered some months ago that the Pakistan Army awards a democracy medal. A friend jokes: this is a little like marking fighter jets after confirmed kills.

p 257: ‘The ANC’s left wing simply dismisses the concept as a diversion from the real problems facing South Africa. At a meeting of the SACP’s central executive committee, deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin slammed the concept as being an escapist ploy to avoid dealing with the hard issues of poverty and unemployment. Essop Pahad, Mbeki’s soul mate and minister in the presidency, was incensed. “How can the [SACP] have a discussion on the African Renaissance without coming to me first?” he demanded. “I am the minister in charge of the African Renaissance in the Office of the President.”

‘Cronin sent Pahad a note asking: ‘Did the Italian renaissance have someone in charge? Which of the two obvious personalities was charged with that responsibility? Was it Leonardo or Machiavelli? Which one do you thin you are?’

p 182: ‘Mbeki’s choice as premier, the flamboyant Nosimo Balindlela…had taken to dressing in school uniform while the province’s education minister. Stofile had fired her from that post for poor performance and dismal matric reuslts, and her more senior appointment was not well received.

‘It will be seen that, right from the commencement, the note struck by the Commander [to the general staff] is far from a happy one[.]’

‘One the 28th November, 1971 the Commander sent a signal in the following terms: “G-0866 (.) CONFD (.) for COMMANDER IN CHIEF from COMD (.) G-022, of 27 Oct. (.) most gratefully acknowledge your kind consideration in conveying highly inspiring appreciation at performance of our basic duty EASTERN COMMAND and myself (.) indeed indebted for great confidence that is reposed in us (.) nevertheless reassure you that all ranks by grace of ALL are in high morale and fine shape and imbued with true spirit of extreme sacrifice to zealously of defend the priceless honour, integrity and solidarity of our beloved PAKISTAN (.) rededicating at this critical juncture of our history I pledge on behalf of all ranks that we are at the highest STATE of readiness to teach a lasting lesson to HINDUSTAN should they dare cast an evil eye on our sacred soil in any manner, may be through open aggression or otherwise (.) trusting in GOD and your kind guidance, the impactful and glorious history of our forefathers would INSHALLAH be fully revived. maintaining highest traditions of our army in case such a GRAND Opportunity afforded.”

‘personal for COMMANDER from CHIEF OF STAFF (.) the enemy has stepped up pressure against you and is likely to increase it to maximum extent (.) he will attempt to capture EAST PAKISTAN as swiftly as possible and then shift maximum forces to face WEST PAKISTAN (.) this must NOT be allowed to happen (.) losing of some territory is insignificant but you must continue to concentrate on operational deployments in vital areas aiming at keeping the maximum enemy force involved in EAST PAKSITAN (.) every hope of CHINESE activities very soon (.) good luck and keep up your magnificent work against such heavy odds (.) may Allah bless you’

‘It is characteristic of the methods of G.H.Q. at this juncture, however, that most unrealistically and even without any foundation, the hope of Chinese activities starting very soon is being held out. We cannot help observing that not only at this stage but elsewhere the GHQ held out vague or even fraudulent promises of foreign help.’

From the governor: ‘for PRESIDENT OF PAKISTAN (.) it is imperative that correct situation in EAST PAKISTAN is brought to your notice (.) I discussed with GEN. NIAZI who tells me that troops are fighting heroically but against heavy odds without adequate artillery and air support(.) rebels continue cutting their rear and losses in equipment and men very heavy and cannot be replaced (.) the front in EASTERN and WESTERN SECTOR has collapsed (.) loss of whole corridor EAST OF MEGHNA RIVER cannot be avoided (.) JESSORE has already fallen which will be a terrible blow to the morale of PRO-PAKISTAN elements (.) civil administration ineffective as they cannot do much without communication (.) food and other supplies running short as nothing can move from CHITTAGONG or within the province (.) even DACCA city will be without food after 7?days(.) without fuel and oil there will be complete paralysis of life (.) law and order situation in areas vacated by army pathetic as thousands of PRO-PAKISTAN elements being butchered by rebels (.) millions of non- BENGALIS and loyal elements are awaiting death (.) No amount of lip sympathy or even material help from world powers except direct physical intervention will help (.) If any of our friends is expected to help that should have an impact within the next 48 rptd 48 hours (.) If no help is expected I beseech you to negotiate so that a civilised and peaceful transfer takes place and millions of lives are saved and untold misery avoided (.) Is it worth sacrificing so much when the end seems inevitable (.) if help is coming we will fight on whatever consequences there may be (.) request be kept informed.’

‘from PRESIDENT for GOVERNOR (.) your flash signal number A-6905 dated 7 december refers (.) all possible steps are in hand (.) full scale and bitter war is going on in the WEST WING (.) world powers are very seriously attempting to bring about a cease-fire (.) the subject is being referred to the general assembly after persistent vetoes in the security council by the RUSSIANS (.) a very high powered delegation is being rushed to NEW YORK (.) Please rest assured that I am fully alive to the terrible situation that you are facing (.) CHIEF OF STAFF is being directed by me to instruct GENERAL NIAZI regarding the military strategy to be adopted (.) you on your part and your government should adopt strongest measures in the field of food rationing and curtailing supply of all essential items as on war footing to be able to last?for maximum period of time and preventing a collapse 9(.) GOD be with you (.) we are all praying".’

‘This is characteristic of the kind of messages which the President has sent giving full but vague assurances. He talks of all possible steps being in hand and of world powers seriously attempting to bring about a cease-fire. He mentions efforts going on in the United Nations and gives advice as to food rationing.

Following another extremely pessimistic signal from the governor, the president replied thus. ‘The President answered back immediately by his signal No. G-0001 which read thus: "from PRESIDENT to GOVERNOR Repeated to COMMANDER EASTERN COMMAND (.) your flash message A-4660 of 9 dec received and thoroughly understood (.) you have my permission to take decisions on your proposals to me (.) I have and am continuing to take all measures internationally but in view of our complete isolation from each other decision about EAST PAKISTAN I leave entirely to your good sense and judgement (.) I will approve of any decision you take and I am instructing GEN NIAZI simultaneously to accept your decision and arrange things accordingly (.) whatever efforts you make in your decision to save senseless destruction of the kind of civilians you have mentioned in particular the safety of our armed forces, you may go ahead and ensure safety of armed forces by all political means that you will adopt with our opponent".’

The governor then sent to the president a proposed note to the Assistant Secretary General ‘call[ing] upon the elected representatives of EAST PAKISTAN ot arrange for the peaceful formation of the government in DACCA…[and] the UNITED NATIONS to arrange for a peaceful transfer of power and request (.) one (.) an immediate ceasefire…’.

To this, he received the following response: ‘"from PRESIDENT OF PAKISTAN (.) your flash message A-7/07 of 10 Dec(.) the proposed draft of your message his gene much beyond what you had suggested and I had approved(.) it gives the impression that you are talking on behalf of PAKISTAN when you have mentioned the?subject of transfer of power, political solution and repatriation of troops from EAST TO WEST PAKISTAN(.) this virtually means the acceptance of an independent EAST PAKISTAN(.) the existing situation in your areas requires a limited action by you to end hostilities in EAST PAKISTAN (.) therefore suggest a draft which you are authorized to issue (.) quote(.) in view of complete sea and air blockade of EAST PAKISTAN by overwhelming INDIAN armed forces and the resultant senseless and indiscriminate bloodshed of civil population have introduced new dimensions to be situation in EAST PAKISTAN(.) the PRESENT OF PAKISTAN has authorised me to take whatever measures I may decide (.) I have therefore decided that although PAKISTAN armed forces have fought heroically against heavy odds and can still continue to do so yet, in order to avoid further bloodshed and loss of innocent lives I am making the following proposals() one(.) an immediate cease-fire in EAST PAKISTAN to end hostility(.) two(.) guarantee of the safety of personnel settled in EAST PAKISTAN since 1947(.) three(.) guarantee o reprisals against any person on EAST PAKISTAN(.) four(.)I want to make it clear that this is definite proposal of ending all hostilities and the question of surrender of armed forces would not be considered and does not arise. unquote(.) within this frame work you may make addition or’; he then adds ‘"for GOVERNOR from PRESIDENT(.) do NOT repeat NOT take any action on my last message to you(.) very important diplomatic and military moves are taking place by our friends(.) is essential that we hold on for another thirty six hours at all costs(.) please also pass this message to GEN. NIAZI and GEN. FARMAN."’

‘“for COMMANDER FROM chief of staff(.) your no.G-1275 dec and PRESIDENTS message to GOVERNOR with a copy to you vide signal no.G-0002 of 110-130 December refer(.) one(.) for your personal information UNTTED STATES SEVENTH FLEET will be very soon in position() also NEFA front has been activated by CHINESE although the INDIANS for obvious reasons have not announced it(.) two(.) very strong pressure internationally has been brought upon RUSSIA and INDIA by UNITED STATES(.) INDIA is therefore desperately in a hurry to take maximum possible action against you in EAST PASKISTAN to achieve a fait accompli before vents both political and military are against them (.) three(.) it is therefore all the more vital for you to hold out as the PRESIDENT had desired in his signal no.G-0002 o 10430 DEC (.) four(.) good luck to you.” On what basis the Chief of Staff was stating that the Unites State’s Seventh Fleet would soon be in position and also that the NEFA front had been activated by Chinese we can not even conjecture.’

There are various other ridiculous excerpts, including an unclassified signal from the president to the effect that further resistance was no longer humanly possible (even as he had just proposed that he would manage to arrange a last-minute ceasefire at the UN).

‘Military reports of the time incorrectly correlated illiteracy in Hebrew with general illiteracy among Oriental soldiers. The explicit assumption was that if a soldier did not command sufficient Hebrew knowledge, he was illiterate or poorly educated. For example, a team of military psychologists wrote in 1953: “One can fear that had these people been tested they would have lowered the [average] scores of their [Oriental] countries even further.’

‘The only course in which Oriental draftees performed better than the others was a cooking course. The singular success of Oriental conscripts in this cooking course turned into a pattern over the next few years. Within a decade, Oriental conscripts found themselves at the bottom of the IDF occupational ladder, employed in low-prestige and menial vocations such as cooks and drivers.

‘Ben-Gurion continued to preach his military melting pot vision despite his knowledge of the facts above. In public, he pretended that the military melting pot was operating smoothly. “There are no differences within the IDF, all the tribes of Israel are included among its officers,” he declared in 1954. Yet the alleged inclusion of “all the tribes of Israel” among IDF officers was rapidly approaching the proportions of tokenism. In August 1956, he wrote in his personal diary: “75,000 Iranian Jews are living in Israel. Only 10,000 of them know Hebrew. In the regular army there are two officers of Iranian origin.” Instead of commenting on these grim data, he proudly copied into his diary the names, ranks, ages and even places of residence of the two Jewish officers of Iranian origin.’

‘Lors d’un contrôle routier, les éléments de la Brigade de prevention routière (BPR) de Kaya (not all of them! —ed) ont interpellé un motocycliste pour non-respect du port du casque. À la grande surprise des agents, l’usager détenait bel et bien un casque, mais celui-ci servait à protéger une pastèque, soigneusement placée à l’intérieur. Au cours de cette opération de routine, le motocycliste a expliqué avoir jugé utile de préserver le fruit qu’il venait d’acheter en cours de route, en le mettant dans son casque, préférant ainsi protéger la pastèque plutôt que sa propre tête’ (Burkina, Un usager préfère protéger sa pastèque plutôt que sa tête).

‘POLICE say they have not found any evidence to support claims that some men in Chingola had their private parts vanish after being tapped on the shoulder. …[The police spokesman] said, with the assistance of members of the public, the complainant apprehended a 61-year-old male suspect, also a resident of Chingola, and took him to the police station. …Mr Chilabi said with the consent of the five complainants, and while respecting their privacy, police conducted voluntary checks to verify the claims, which confirmed that there was no physical harm’ (Mwebantu, Chingola’s ‘vanishing private parts’ mystery leaves police scratching heads.).

‘I remember how shocked old Manchester workers were by the 1956 Budapest uprising: “Nobody has the right to go out gallivanting and putting his wife and kids at risk. It’s just irresponsible’ (Ascherson, Soup at La Marmite: Communards in Exile).

‘The bureaucrat-turned politician also said that he is called the “child of Macaulay” for speaking English, and questioned whether PM Modi knows Tamil’ (India, Never made casteist comment against Modi).

Nor is Aiyar (An open letter to Shashi Tharoor on moral amnesia, and more) sleeping particularly well.

• ‘I was shocked to the core by your answers to anchor Rajdeep Sardesai’s questions on India Today TV last night…I have been so disturbed that I could not sleep and have woken at 3 in the morning to write you this open letter.’
• ‘I have searhced my mind to find a basic reason for your unprincipled, amoral, and transactional approach to public policy…And the only reason I have been able to find is that you were born in 1956, 16 years after me, and, therefore, fell outside the ambit of the direct influence of Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru. THey were just names to you. For me, they were a living memory. When I was juts six, I was actually picked up…by Mahatma Gandhi who held us in his arms, a couple of weeks before his martyrdom…’
• ‘When it comes to secularism, I started having my doubts during a luncheon conversation with you several years ago. Then, I pored over your massive tome on patriotism and nationalism and critiqued it in an 8,000-word review in Open magazine.’

‘“I eat fish in the morning and evening. PM Modi has said that those who consume fish are Mughals. If BJP wins, then they will come after your fish,” Abhishek Banerjee, a Trinamool MP said’ (Das, How BJP's fish is feeding Trinamool's narrative).

‘And on the 22nd of the preceding month, November, I had equally the honour of receiving Your Lordship’s Circular of the 14th of that month, with printed copies of the conditions (accompanied by Maps) on which the designs of foreign Artists for certain Publick Offices in London would be received by Her Majesty’s Government.

‘On both occasions, I transmitted copies of the several Enclosures to the Baron de Beust who holds the Home as well as the Foreign Department, along with explanatory notes; from the Home Department I conclude that copies will be sent to the Schools of Architecture, but I cannot hold out a Prospect of any good resulting from them.

‘It would be difficult to say which is worse in Saxony, of their Publick or domestic Architecture. The two great Buildings of late years, are the Theatre and Museum, as they call the Picture-Gallery; it, in fact, contains other collections. The exterior of the Theatre is far from handsome; it is a heavy misshapen mass with two principal fronts, the one of which is flat, and has not sufficient extent for its height, whilst the other Facade is semicircular, and would be appropriate for a hot climate. The interior arrangements are very good.

‘This is exctly the case with the Picture-Gallery: The exterior is very ugly, heavy, and of a different style of Architecture from the rest of the beautiful Zwinger, whilst the Interior for the Pictures is excellent.’

FO 68/99: Francis Reginald Forbes to Earl of Clarendon, No. 59, Dresden, 21 December 1858 (British envoys to Germany, Dresden: 307).

‘An occurrence which illustrates the depth of Christian Lebanese patriotism was when, at a committee meeting at the AUB, two Lebanese professors refused to allow Lebanese students to be listed, in a statistical table, under the rubric ‘Arab students’, as proposed by a colleague, an ideologue of Pan-Arabism. The dispute was only resolved when a Greek professor proposed that the rubric be changed to ‘Arabic speaking’. This was accepted. After the meeting we retired to the cafeteria, where an American wit asked if we would like to have American or ‘Arabic-speaking’ coffee’ (Gordon, Lebanon: 159).

The editorial board of the BJPS presumably ought to have been abolished with the tribunaux mixtes.

On 4 December, just after the 1935 general election, a certain A.P. Herbert MP (later Petty Officer A.P. Herbert MP), junior burgess of the University of Oxford, made his maiden speech in the House of Commons.

Stanley Baldwin had just moved to accord government business precedence on Fridays when private members’ bills were previously discussed, to which the opposition raised no objection.

Dixit Mr Herbert: ‘Indeed, the conclusion seems to be that there is no conceivable combination of political conditions in this great democracy which would ever be favourable for tackling or even discussing these problems; and now, when I come here pledged especially by that great constituency, the most remarkable and unlikely constituency to give this message, the first thing that happens is that the Prime Minister says, "The first day on which you might move your little Bill is taken away by the Government." This little Friday, which cannot mean very much to the Government, might mean a great deal to me and to the thousands of unhappy souls who might benefit from this Bill if it were passed into law. [Laughter.] I am surprised at hon. Members on the Labour benches laughing; they are always talking to us about the human problems, and I should like to ask them by what feat of political chemistry they can isolate the problem of the slums from the problems of the sexes, the problem of unhappy souls who may live in the grandest house in Park Lane but would still be wretched, because of these laws. How can they dare to say to me that the bricks and mortar questions of housing are important, but not those problems of the home which our marriage laws create?’