Taliban rolls further in Pakistan

First it was Swat Valley. I blogged about this tragedy here, here (the consequences of Taliban rule shutting down so much freedom) and here.

Just like the 1930s in Europe, the Taliban did not stop there. It didn't say "thanks we'll be good now", the Taliban have used Swat as a base, to fight onwards and now capturing Buner District, nearer to Islamabad.

CNN reports:

"The Pakistani government appears unable or unwilling to stop the Taliban's steady advance deeper into the territory of this nuclear-armed country"

Is Pakistan a failing state? What will it take for the West to be worried about Pakistan's apparent impotence against the Taliban? Will it take Islamabad to be surrounded before governments wake up and realise that the Taliban is taking over a state that holds nuclear weapons - and if you think a nuclear armed Iran is scary....

UK government hikes up taxes and subsidies

Alastair Darling has read his (hopefully) last budget, what a fizzer.

The same government that wants to borrow and spend, in order to boost the economy, is now raising taxes at the same time.

A new top tax rate of 50% is to be introduced from 1 April at a threshold of £150,000. So the UK is back to discouraging the best and brightest to remain, back to penalising success to pillage for the bloated public sector, and welfare for the underclass. It is a breach of Labour's 2005 manifesto pledge "We will not raise the basic or top rates of income tax in the next parliament".

Alcohol and tobacco duty increase by 2% today - the typical sin tax.
Fuel duty goes up 2p a litre in September, don't pretend it is about anything other than pillaging the motorist, as 5x as much is generated from fuel tax in the UK than is spent on roads.

Government debt is going to be 79% of GDP by 2013/2014 because Darling and Brown before him have wasted the good years, constantly running deficits. Now borrowing an additional £175 billion. Fiscal child abuse on a grand scale, because Gordon Brown refuses to cut unproductive government spending.

It's Gordon Brown's huge fiscal "gift" to an incoming Tory government, which will find it difficult to cut taxes easily without massive cuts to spending - and at the same time Labour will accuse the Tories of being heartless, when Labour has been stealing from future generations to buy itself power.

He is subsidising those with cars more than 10 years old by paying £1,000 subsidies to those buying a new car who already have an old one. Nice that, so those without cars get nothing and those already with newer cleaner cars get nothing. A nice subsidy to Labour voting knuckle draggers in the north.

250,000 jobs will be "created" through subsidies, and everyone under 25 who has been unemployed for 12 months or more will get training.

£500 million to "kick start stalled housing projects", great when you already have a deflated housing sector. Nothing like government to help further deflate a sector in decline.

The bloated Scottish Executive is to get another £104m, which upset the socialist SNP government which sees government jobs being cut there - good. The Welsh are similarly unimpressed with a reported £400m cut. Good. This is all part of reducing growth in state spending to 0.7%.

Tax credits for breeding are to increase, when the UK already has a massive problem of people on low incomes breeding when they can't afford to house, educate or provide healthcare for those kids.

£1 billion to subsidise low carbon businesses. £750 million to subsidise "emerging technologies". £525 million for offshore wind generation, because presumably it isn't efficient for users to pay for that electricity.

Pensioners get a 2.5% increase even though there is no inflation - Labour's bribe to pensioners taken from their grandchildren.

Leader of the Opposition David Cameron is unimpressed according to the Daily Telegraph “the worst peacetime public finances ever known. Any claim to economic competence is over, dead, finished.” He added: “With debt like that, our children are going to be in poverty for decades.”

It's appalling. The British governnment squandered years of prosperity, milked the increases in the speculation of the housing market, and ran deficits, poured money down the black hole of the NHS, boosted welfare and kept subsidising the criminal underclass through housing, welfare, health and education, and now it is squandering more.

This budget wont boost the economy, as it borrows to subsidise some industries, and means that future budgets mean more tax increases and tougher spending cuts just to get a balanced budget.

What's most insidious is the philosophy behind it. It is class warfare returning. Labour is saying:
- If you're wealthy and successful, you owe it to the country to have more of your money taken to prop up the government's past failures;
- If you're a pensioner or a welfare beneficiary, don't worry, we'll improve your standard of living so you can vote for us to borrow and hope some more;
- If you run a business that bureaucrats decide is "new technology" or "low carbon" expect money that was taken from other businesses.

It is a return to the old Labour borrow, tax and spend. There is so much wasteful pointless government spending in the UK, tinkering here and there, subsidies here and there, schemes, projects and other nonsense that could be cut - but no, Labour wouldn't hear of it.

So the message is clear- from April 2010, the best and brightest can either be taxed in the UK more heavily, rearrange their affairs to avoid it, or just fuck off.

Why would you stay to get half of every pound you earn to pay for the UK government?

ALL budget documents here

UN Racism conference farce continues

UN Watch continues with highlights of the Durban Review Conference, to show the madness did NOT end with Ahmadinejad's tyrade against Israel.

Testimony presented at the conference challenged the Libyan chair by exposing Libya's own racism (remember the foreign nurses imprisoned in Libya for spreading HIV?). Most poignantly presented by a Palestinian, who was one of those nurses imprisoned.

"Thank you, Madame Chair.

I don’t know if you recognize me. I am the Palestinian medical intern who was scapegoated by your country, Libya, in the HIV case in the Benghazi hospital, together with five Bulgarian nurses.

Section 1 of the draft declaration for this conference speaks about victims of racism, discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance. Based on my own suffering, I wish to offer some proposals.

Starting in 1999, as you know, the five nurses and I were falsely arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned, brutally tortured, convicted, and sentenced to death. All of this, which lasted for nearly a decade, was for only one reason: because the Libyan government was looking to scapegoat foreigners."

Watch the France 24 news coverage (in English) here.

A racism conference chaired by a representative from a totalitarian dictatorship that randomly villifies foreigners.

UN Watch also notes a side event which included Iranian political dissidents, including a representative of the Azeri minority in Iran, which claims persecution by the Iranian regime.

Meanwhile the Palestinian delegate used the conference to accuse Israel of being the worst human rights violator (hardly surprising). Syria's delegate echoed this damning Israel, and saying all foreign occupation is racism. (Turkey would be a bit worried about this, China might be less keen on this, as would Pakistan and Russia, since all have some territory claimed by others).

Gee is there no racism elsewhere? Besides, can you really trust delegates from authoritarian states to give an objective view of racism in their states?

UN Racism conference was a farce before it started

While most of the focus on the UN Racism Conference (Durban Review Conference) has been on Ahmadinejad, the signs were there well before that this would be a farce. Islamic countries all wanted the conference to be an effort to prohibit defamation of religion, and to slam Israel. Cuba also wanted anything to do with freedom of speech removed. Iran sought to overwhelmingly dominate the conference proceedings.

Even more sinister is the effort by China, Cuba and South Africa to promote the idea that victims of Trans-Atlantic slave trade should be compensated - i.e. implying the old call that African-Americans should be compensated for what their distant ancestors suffered. That all fell flat.

UN Watch has excellent coverage of the background meetings before the Conference, showing just what rogues so many attendees were looking to be:

In the Intercessional Working Group for the Durban Review Conference, Pakistan, speaking for the group of Islamic states (OIC), objected to paragraph 56, which “Stresses that the right to freedom of opinion and expression constitutes one of the essential foundations of a democratic, pluralistic society,” saying that it did not see how this relates to the conference’s focus on racism.

(In which case what harm does it do? Yes you can guess).

Cuba argued that paragraphs about freedom of speech and expression should be moved to the more passive Section 1, which reviews progress of states rather than demanding action from them.

(Funny that, you don't get freedom of speech and expression in Cuba)

Cuba also endorsed mention of the ad hoc committee on complementary standards, an Algerian-chaired U.N. committee that is seeking to add an additional protocol to the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) that would define criticism of religion as a violation.

(In other words, trying to say criticising a religion is a form of racism - what nonsense).

China, Cuba, and South Africa argued that there needs to be more work on paragraphs 60-62 on the trans-Atlantic slave trade. China said these paragraphs should be more “victims oriented,” implying support for the African-led effort to demand that Western countries pay reparations for the past injustice.

(In other words, the US government should pay African-Americans compensation for the suffering of their ancestors - even though Africans in Africa today almost all have lower standards of living than African-Americans).

In a meeting of the Durban II working group at the U.N. Human Rights Council, Iran was extremely active, proposing amendments and language changes in more paragraphs than any other state, and in a few instances, ignoring the Chair’s plea to hold off on certain paragraphs for the time being and engage in a constructive manner.

The closing session of the working group on the draft Durban II declaration:

Iran asked that the paragraph on Holocaust remembrance be deleted;

(because of course, it mind never have happened right?)

The Czech Republic for the EU requested an amendment to the controversial paragraph 30, which “Takes note with appreciation that the Ad hoc Committee on the Elaboration of International Complementary Standards convened its first session,” proposing to delete, “with appreciation.” The ad hoc committee is primarily responsible for promoting the campaign to criminalize the “defamation of religions” within U.N. human rights law. Nigeria lashed back at the EU, proposing to keep “appreciation,” while adding, “and commends” the committee. The paragraph was then tabled and skipped.

(Czechs bravely wanted to dismiss the Islamic driven attempt to restrict religious criticism, while Nigeria endorses Islamofascism).

Cuba proposed the deletion of paragraphs 55 and 56, which emphasize the importance of freedom of expression, saying, “There is no reason why we should single out one right, which is not even associated with the fight against racism.”

Iran proposed a new paragraph 56 that calls for “permissible restrictions to freedom of expression.” It also suggested integration of the “defamation of religions” concept into article 66, which deals with incitement to hatred.

(Both being great opponents to freedom of expression).

So is it any surprise that New Zealand felt that there was no point going to fight a gallery of rogues that were uninterested in racism, and driven more by fear of their own appalling standards of free speech and openness being scrutinised?

Single Auckland council wont fix transport

"There will be an integrated single authority for Auckland's roads and public transport"

Wrong.

There will be three.

Megacouncil will look after local roads and contracting public transport, kind of like ARTA is meant to do now, but doesn't do a good job of local roads. You might reflect on why that is.

NZ Transport Agency will continue to look after the state highways. Ministers don't trust the Auckland Megacouncil to do that. Who would blame them? So the busiest most strategically important roads in Auckland wont be a matter of the Megacouncil.

Ontrack will continue to look after the rail network. Ministers also don't trust the Auckland Megacouncil to do that. Again, key routes for freight (set aside the unprofitable low frequency low density passenger services) are too important to leave to a local authority.

If you want to see how poorly a local authority can perform on transport planning and management you need only look at Auckland's past, which is littered with several planning screw ups. Here are a couple.

1. SH20: Land was designated for the so-called "South Western Motorway" in the 1960s, to link the Southern Motorway to the North Western Motorway. The land was empty at the time, so placing a designation on it meant anyone using the land would know it would one day be acquired for a motorway, so short term leases were the order of the day. However, the ARA and Auckland City Council decided in 1974 that the route beyond Richardson Road to the northwest was not well defined, and so the designation should be dropped from there. As a result the designation only comprises the sections now being built - from the Southern Motorway to Mt Roskill. The Waterview Extension debate is purely because previous Auckland councils decided the South Western Motorway need end at Mt Roskill. Well done. Cost of that decision now runs at least to $1 billion.

2. South Eastern Arterial: Auckland City Council decided in the 1980s that there were inadequate connections between Pakuranga, Mt Wellington and the Southdown areas so decided to revive plans for the "South Eastern Motorway" to link Church St to Mt Wellington Highway and the Pakuranga Motorway, with on and off ramps to the Southern Motorway. It did so on the cheap. The resulting road has few shoulders to accommodate breakdowns, and traffic lights on multiple busy intersections when it should be a proper motorway with flyovers. Ultimately this will need perhaps $100 million of improvements to bring it up to standard to relieve the bottlenecks on this important road.

The Auckland mega council wont change that - and in fact the government doesn't even trust it to manage its own networks.

So let's stop hearing arguments that a single council will be good for transport in Auckland - when there isn't any evidence for that.