Latest news with #AssaSamake-Roman
The National
3 days ago
- Business
- The National
Spain cancels contract for missiles built by Israeli subsidiary
The decision will affect the purchase of 168 Spike LR2 anti-tank missile systems with an estimated value of €285 million (£241m). The systems would have been developed in Spain by Pap Tecnos, a subsidiary of Israel's Rafael Advance Defence Systems, according to local press. READ MORE: Assa Samake-Roman: France is a case study in how we approach stopping far right The Spanish government approved the project on October 3, 2023, four days before the attack by Hamas on southern Israel sparked the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The government said it had stopped exporting arms to Israel as of October 2, 2023, but there were reports some shipments slipped through. In May last year, Spain formally recognized a Palestinian state in a coordinated effort with Norway and Ireland. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in relation to the onslaught in Gaza. The Israeli government has denied accusations of genocide.
The National
30-04-2025
- Politics
- The National
The illusion of a shift to the ‘far right' is not the fault of the SNP
As a young man, I was a long-haired, combat-jacket-wearing, Che Guevara-following leftie, and proud to be so given the clear social injustice I perceived those 60 years ago, none of which has really changed. READ MORE: Assa Samake-Roman: The rise of the far-right in Europe reveals a citizenship crisis Voting Labour for much of the intervening years, I was inured in the illusion of left-wing v right-wing politics. Now, claiming Britain is moving to the 'far right', and that somehow the SNP are responsible for actions it's said they should have taken, but failed to, denies reality. Life experience brings me to understand the shades of our political spectrum, red through blue, are irrelevant. What actually matters is who is controlling who. And it's not the shades of the political parties' promoted illusion which are controlled by the funds-donating vested interests who are organising society in their interests, because they have the money and its power to do so. As we have seen with Labour, party election manifestos are merely illusory marketing tools to persuade voters to elect their brand of control. The illusion of a shift to the 'far right' is clearly not the 'fault' of the SNP, it is a global phenomenon. As we saw in the 1930s it is the prelude to over-arching fascist control, in the interest of those who profit from us. This didn't begin with the SNP, it began with the totalitarianism of the Soviet state (which Putin and his cabal are trying to recreate), the ascent of German Nazism, the spread to Chinese 'communism', North Korea etc; and its tentacles have spread to the US with Trump's latest version of the same 'elected' dictatorial ideology, a revival based on propagandised populism achieved through a media sowing discontent by feeding off the selfishness mantra it promotes to individuals in a deliberately fractured society. READ MORE: Keir Starmer denies Labour have ruled out scrapping two-child cap If Farage's Reform UK, spawned from the obscenity of his own outwardly xenophobic and racist Ukip (itself born from the National Front), are achieving prominence at the polls it is vested-interest control of the media that's promoted it. Nearly 30 appearances on BBC's Question Time alone – when the SNP, once the third-biggest party in Westminster, had a handful of appearances – is no accident; just one of many clear examples of bias from a BBC that's the propaganda machine of a Westminster establishment running Britain in the interests of those millionaires and billionaires they allow to suck the lifeblood out of our economy while refraining from clawing back the excess profits created from naked profiteering and the sweat of short-changed labour that produces them. We're taxed to fund in-work benefits to subsidise the low pay endured by those prostituting themselves to the money-makers' bottom line. READ MORE: Scottish Labour pick London councillor to contest Highlands seat AGAIN To the bankers who, by moving us to a cashless society, dip their hands into our pockets for commission every time we buy something with their cards; private profit-takers permitted by government to tax us all. It's a global problem, not specifically the SNP's fault. However, what the SNP can be blamed for is their acceptance of devolution and reticence in working with others to deliver the independence to allow us to design a better, fairer model. So, do they lack the courage to put country before party and drive independence to seize a better future for us, or are they just the Scottish branch of the political establishment demeaning us as a cash-cow for the vested interests that control us as mindless profit centres? Jim Taylor Scotland
