Harry's Place

by Joseph W
This is the Bronze Soldier of Tellinn:

The Bronze Soldier is a hugely controversial monument that celebrates Soviet presence in Estonia, which many Estonians consider to have been oppressive rather than liberating. The Estonian government decided to move the statue in 2007, which provoked Russian ire – more on that later.
According to the Times in [...]

The only thing which saves me from turning into Mark Corrigan of Peep Show is that I prefer Radio3 to Radio4.  At this moment, however, I am listening to the latter because the former has some caterwauling from Rodgers and Hammerstein.
It is Amnesty at 50 with John Tusa and available on Listen Again for seven [...]

This is a cross-post by Shiraz Maher from Standpoint Magazine
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The gorgeous Lucy Lips, now freshly tanned from her winter break in the Seychelles, alerts me to an ongoing dispute with Tom Griffin – a writer for David Miller’s smear projects which include Powerbase (formerly Spin Profiles) and the now defunct Neocon Europe.
Readers of this [...]

It’s remarkable how honest some people can be when they don’t feel the need to play politics.
Retired Vice Admiral Mike McConnell, who served as the Director of National Intelligence under President Bush, said the Obama “administration has been as aggressive, if not more aggressive in pursuing” terror threats:
MCCONNELL: Both general Hayden [...]

Guest post by NicoleS
Christina Patterson, who back in July despaired of her Stamford Hill neighbours’ uncouth behaviour, is now surprised to find herself on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s Top-Ten list of candidates for the year’s worst antisemitic slurs award.
Who are these bothersome people?
Simon Wiesenthal, as far as I could remember, was the Holocaust survivor who [...]

Although I voted for David Miliband, I welcome Ed’s attempts to reform the relationship with the unions. If you wanted evidence that reform is required, then you don’t need to go much further than the union leaders’ own utterances.
Len McCluskey, the new general secretary of Unite, warned Mr Miliband not to weaken the unions’ influence. [...]

The Guardian reports:
Iran has arrested the family of a Kurdish student whose execution,scheduled to take place on Boxing Day, was delayed because of protests outside the prison in which he has been held for three years.
A source close to the family of Habibollah Latifi, a 29-year-old student activist, said his parents and his three brothers [...]

Pressure is building on Gbagdo, with talk of a military intervention by neighbouring African states to enforce the result of the recent election in the Ivory Coast.
The presidents of Benin, Sierra Leone and Cape Verde are expected to deliver an ultimatum to Gbagbo that includes the threat of his removal by force.
Gbagbo continues to defy [...]

October 6, 1985 was the day of the Broadwater Farm Riot. This is mostly recalled for the being the riot where Pc Keith Blakelock was stabbed to death. A key person convicted for that murder was Winston Silcott. A number of years later the conviction was quashed as unsafe. Twenty five years have elapsed since that fateful [...]

This is the final section of Bob’s politics meme – it was quite tough, but I’m grateful to him for ‘tagging’ me, as it’s been interesting thinking about my choices and reading other people’s responses too.  In this section, as in the others, my five choices were partly chosen to stimulate debate, and were slightly [...]