Yes, that really is a man in South Ossetia riding a tricycle through a war zone wearing a Tyrone GAA jersey.No, the picture is not photoshopped. It was taken by an Associated Press photographer and was published on the Guardian website last Wednesday.I can only assume that while the lad is somewhat unhappy about Russia invading his country and looting and destroying it, he might be just a little pleased to hear that his adopted Gaelic football county slaughtered the Dubs at Croker today.Okay, maybe 'slaughtered' isn't quite the most appropriate word.Sorry!...
Here's the first context - the Caucasus is a messy place, ethnicity-wise. Lots of different peoples living cheek by jowl:Here's the second context. Let's call it the Russian version of events. The key to this map is to look a little to the right of the conflict zone in Ossetia. Yup, that really is Chechnya right next door:One final context to this conflict. Let's call this the Georgian version of events. Key to reading this one is awareness that all other pipelines go through Russia to the West, with the obvious knock-on effects on Western Europe's energy security:there are more interesting maps relating to the energy issue and the Georgian conflict from Nosemonkey, well worth reading on this issue....
Fair play to London's mayor, 'Red' Ken Livingstone for being probably the only politician in this hemisphere to own up to the fact that Muslims are being vilified on an unprecedented scale.According to Ken, nonsense 'debates' like that about the veil have been deliberately fomented in order to avert the public's eye away from real issues, such as the devastation of Muslim Iraq by the British and American militaries."Over recent weeks we have seen a demonisation of Muslims only comparable to the demonisation of Jews from the end of the 19th century," says Ken.This is actually a very useful analogy. Will we ultimately involve ourselves in statebuilding for the Muslim peoples we are currently occupying and killing, or will we simply commit genocide upon them? Or will we do both, as we did...
In a totally unforeseen move, the US kangaroo court in Baghdad -Sorry, let's try that again. The Iraqi High Tribunal has sentenced Saddam Hussein to death. He gets one appeal, then once that's refused (because it will be of course) he will be murdered by the state within 30 days.I won't be weeping for Saddam, but it does strike me as a little odd when the White House has to issue a statement denying they were scheming for the verdict. Surely that's the biggest confirmation that they were?Mind you, they probably would like rid of Saddam as quickly as possible. You wouldn't want him going and writing his memoirs in prison implicating all sorts of Western governments in all sorts of arms deals, now would......