THE mother of teenage motorcyclist Harry Dunn criticised the government today following reports that her son’s alleged killer had served as a spy with the CIA.
Sacoolas was a senior CIA spy. At last, says PETER FROST, the Mail on Sunday has caught up with the Morning Star.
Charlotte Charles said that she and the rest of Mr Dunn’s family were “full of anger” after hearing of Anne Sacoolas’s alleged past and asked of the British government: “How could they do this to us?”
She said that the fresh reports took her back to the early days following her son’s death when she claims that the government “were trying to kick all this under the carpet.”
Dunn family spokesman Radd Seiger has called for a public inquiry into the matter, saying that Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab did not mention the suspect’s reported past as a CIA officer herself.
He said: “Something has clearly gone very badly wrong and it is no wonder that Boris Johnson has not seen it fit to meet with the parents and I.”
It is understood that the family have since written to the Foreign Office asking for an explanation as to what they knew about Ms Sacoolas’s history with the CIA.
Mr Dunn was killed when his motorbike crashed into a car outside a US military base in Northamptonshire on August 27 last year.
Ms Sacoolas, 42, the wife of an intelligence official based at RAF Croughton, claimed diplomatic immunity following the crash and was able to return to her home country, sparking an international controversy.
She was charged with causing Mr Dunn’s death by dangerous driving in December but US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected an extradition request last month.
The US State Department said that the request would render the invocation of diplomatic immunity a practical nullity and would set an extraordinarily troubling precedent.
A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: “Anne Sacoolas was notified to us as a spouse with no official role.”
FLOODS and gales that have brought chaos to Britain as Storm Ciara hit from the west are “the reality of the climate crisis,” Labour warned today.
Hundreds of homes, businesses, schools and other buildings were flooded following torrential rain and high winds and tens of thousands were without electricity.
International and domestic flights were also cancelled and many town centres were heavily flooded with shopkeepers desperately trying to protect their businesses.
In Calderdale in West Yorkshire the River Calder broke through defences and a lorry container was swept down the main road linking the Pennine communities of Todmorden and Hebden Bridge as the road became a river.
In neighbouring Mytholmroyd the town centre was under a yard of water and many homes were flooded. Rail services were thrown into chaos across the country, and many ferries were cancelled.
Scotland, where 1,200 homes were reported to be without power, was believed to be the worst hit by the storm.
Shadow environment secretary Luke Pollard said: “I want to thank emergency services, the Environment Agency and communities who have worked tirelessly to protect homes and businesses, rescue people and animals from rising waters and reinforce flood defences.
“The reality of the climate crisis is that more extreme weather will happen more often and with devastating consequences.
“Insufficient funds are being spent on protecting the most vulnerable communities from flooding and the consequences of extreme weather.”
Members of general union GMB are among those called out in environmental emergencies such as floods.
GMB national officer Kevin Brandstatter told the Star: “Our members are working around the clock to protect and assist those affected by this devastating flooding.
“They are going above and beyond in the most testing and trying circumstances to keep people safe and limit the damage.”
The storm Ciara, aka Sabine, has also caused much damage in other countries, like Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.
This 2020 video, recorded in Bavaria in Germany, says about itself:
A great spotted woodpecker and his mate spend their day tidying their nest, inside a hollow tree in the shadow of Neuschwanstein, and feeding their hungry chick.
At the 61st Annual McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club Dinner in Manchester, New Hampshire, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg received a harsh reaction to knocks against Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden.
This 9 February 2020 video from the USA says about itself:
What is the Buttigieg campaign’s biggest weakness? It might have something to do with wine caves & campaign finance. John Iadarola and Alex Sammon break it down on The Damage Report.
“It took almost 23 hours of Democratic debates, across six months and 20-plus candidates, for the first real punch to land.
The audience burst into applause. The debate circuit, which has been such a maddening display of shadowboxing and mutual non-engagement that it’s been hard to differentiate the candidates, had finally stumbled upon a substantive disagreement.
Buttigieg responded to Warren. “We need the support from everybody who is committed to helping us defeat Donald Trump. So to denounce the same kind of fundraising guidelines that President Obama went by, that Speaker Pelosi goes by, that you yourself went by until not long ago, in order to build the Democratic Party and build a campaign ready for the fight of our lives, these purity tests shrink the stakes of the most important election.”
Then Bernie Sanders interceded, pointing out that former Vice President Joe Biden “received contributions from 44 billionaires” during the campaign, while Buttigieg “only got 39 billionaires.” Biden demurred, insisting that said billionaires only provided the maximum $2,800 donation. … The absentee mega-billionaire floating over the exchange, Mike Bloomberg, was unavailable for comment.”
The electoral system for the Dublin parliament’s lower house is based on a Single Transferable Vote in multi-member constituencies. As a result, it produces an elected chamber which broadly reflects the preferences of the voters, including support for smaller parties such as Solidarity — People Before Profit and the Labour Party.
But the multiple counts also mean that all the results may not be in for a day or two yet, while close margins between the main parties are likely to result in extensive horse-trading before a governing coalition can be formed.
Ireland’s complex health system cannot cope with the growing number of patients, as hundreds lie on trolleys in emergency departments because there are fewer hospital beds now than 10 years ago. The introduction of a part-free, part-fee National Health Service alongside a large private sector has so far failed to meet people’s aspirations and they are punishing Fine Gael Taoiseach Leo Varadkar accordingly.
Next on the list of popular concerns is housing and homelessness. The economic fallout of the 2007-8 financial crash hit the Irish Republic particularly hard and was made all the worse by the drastic austerity cuts demanded in 2010 by the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Housebuilding came to a halt and the scarce supply has doubled house prices in Dublin and other urban centres. With little public and social sector housing available, private landlords are making a killing. Sinn Fein and Labour propose a rent freeze, which the chief opposition party Fianna Fail claims would be “unconstitutional”, while Varadkar’s Fine Gael merely freezes.
But it is the near-doubling of support for Sinn Fein which is grabbing the headlines in Britain as well as Ireland.
The party fought the Dail Eireann elections on a manifesto radical enough to draw condemnation from the Irish Business and Employers Confederation. IBEC fears the prospect of the rich and big business paying higher taxes to fund public-sector investment in housing and childcare and restoration of the state pension age to 65.
Nor was the party shy about Irish unity. While most southern Irish politicians prefer to stay silent on the question, proposals for an all-island Citizens Assembly and north and south referendums comprised the lead item in Sinn Fein’s manifesto.
Nor did Giving workers & Families a break — A Manifesto for Change pull many punches when it came to the European Union. It opposed the EU trade deals which undermine democracy, workers’ rights and environmental security and condemned Irish participation in new EU and Nato military structures, while pledging to restore Irish sovereignty in foreign policy and defence affairs.
How this can be achieved by “radically reforming” the EU was not spelt out.
Nonetheless, with polls putting Sinn Fein far ahead of the other parties among young people and Brexit demonstrating the logic of Irish reunification — as former leader Gerry Adams said it would — the party’s future looks brighter today.
Whichever Dublin government emerges from the horse-trading, the issues raised by Sinn Fein — and the Communist Party of Ireland — are not going away anytime soon.
From RTE.ie in Ireland, already on 9 February: Sinn Féin wins more than 20 seats as big names falter.
SINN FEIN President Mary Lou McDonald said today that she was trying to form a “people’s government” with the support of smaller parties after Saturday’s momentous general election in Ireland. She described the “historic” results, which saw Sinn Fein top the polls with 24.5 per cent of all votes, despite standing just 42 candidates, as a “revolution” in Irish politics: here.
This 12 January 2020 video shows a rare great bustard on Dutch Voorne island. The bird has a GPS transmitter and comes from a breeding programme in the UK.
“This is more than discrimination and xenophobia. The person who does these kinds of terrible things lives with us but tries to destroy the lives of all tenants,” one of the residents writes on Facebook. According to the resident, many Chinese students live in the building.
A Chinese flag has also been torn from a room door and there has been thumping on apartment doors. It is still unclear who is behind it. The police are aware of the destruction. “My colleagues visited this morning to investigate the matter,” says a spokesperson. “In the meantime, everything has been cleaned up.”
Thousands of students affected by New Zealand’s anti-Chinese travel ban: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 