SIDELINES

‘Happy Christmas, Gaddafi and Saddam’ – From Maggie

IT’S OFTEN SAID that you can be judged by the company you keep. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher kept dictators Saddam Hussein and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi on her Christmas card list during the 1980s.

At the time, Hussein was a close ally of Thatcher and was armed to the teeth by the US and Britain to allow him to invade neighbouring Iran. Meanwhile, Thatcher addressed Gaddafi as ‘Leader of the Great First of September Revolution’ in his festive card which featured a picture of Thatcher and her husband Denis in front of a Christmas tree.

Another to receive a card was one of Thatcher’s staunchest critics, British Labour’s Ken Livingstone. “I thought it was a joke at first,” he told the Daily Express. Others included in the list included Chilean fascist dictator General Pinochet and North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung.

Expanding royal horizons

THE BBC has been reporting that Queen Elizabeth has visited over 300 countries. The British campaign group ‘Republic’ points out there are only about 190 countries in the world

Venezuela aims to reduce crime through music

VENEZUELA’S National Anti-Drugs Office is giving 24,000 traditional musical instruments to schoolchildren and young people to help stop them drifting into crime and building up to a massive national music festival later in the year.

Around 2,000 instruments have been handed out so far. Music classes have also been provided free of charge for the poor. Venezuela boasts more than 200 orchestras made up of young people and schoolchildren.

President Hugo Chavez says: “It’s not just about the police response to crime, it’s about preventing it.”

The Government has also launched a disarmament programme among the civilian population and placed a temporary ban on the sale of guns in the South American state.

Renaming Big Ben after queen ‘codswallop’, says British MP

“A LOAD OF CODSWALLOP” is how a British Labour Party MP has described proposals to rename the famous Big Ben tower at Westminster after Queen Elizabeth in honour of her diamond jubilee this year.

Ex-miner Ronnie Campbell said: “Every socialist bone in my body tells me we should abolish the monarchy as an outdated institution that nurtures a class  system based on birth, not worth.”

The MP for Blyth Valley in north-east England added: “Why should we be ruled over by families descended from robber barons, bandits and illegitimate heirs?”

Michael Collins – Britain’s Greatest Foe?

IRA LEADER Michael Collins has been shortlisted in an online poll for the award of ‘Britain’s Greatest Foe’ by the National Army Museum in London.

Collins, who was the IRA’s Director of Intelligence during the Tan War, is in the Top Five of a 20-strong category which included France’s Napoleon, US freedom fighter George Washington and the feared Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.

In an obvious (deliberate?) oversight, not included is the late Brian Keenan, the modern-day IRA leader described by Tony Blair’s Political Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, as “the single biggest threat to the British state”.

The competition is being run by the National Army Museum following an online exhibition to identify the most dangerous military commander to ever take on the might of the British Empire. It says it highlights the achievements of  some of the “most outstanding military commanders ever to have faced the British”.

‘Britain’s Greatest Foe’ will be chosen by an audience at a live debate in the National Army Museum on Saturday 14 April.

Israeli settlers grab Palestinian springs

THE United Nations has accused Israelis living in illegal settlements in the West Bank of seizing control of 30 Palestinian water springs and barring Palestinian farmers from access through “threats, intimidation and violence”.

Heavily-armed settlers – backed up by the Israeli Army – have turned springs vital to Palestinians for irrigating farmland into recreation centres for swimming and water sports.

The UN has called on the Israeli Government to restore Palestinian access to the water springs taken over by settlers and to conduct “effective investigations into cases of settler violence and trespass”.