Mittelbergheim est un des villages de France ayant conservé le mieux ses habitations. En effet, la plupart des maisons dates du XVe-XVIe siècles et très peu de transformations exterieurs ont été entrepris autre que pour la conversation. Vraiment plaisant de s’y mouvoir.
How the newspaper of reference dealt with correspondence challenging an important article it published about equality
Brendan Ogle Of Unite submitted the following article to the Irish Times on 15 December 2020
Unite House
55/56 Middle Abbey Street
Dublin 1 D01 X002
Republic of Ireland
Tel: 00 353 (0)1 873 4577
Fax: 00 353 (0)1 873 4602
Republic of Ireland Head Office
15th December 2020
On 14 December 2020 Jerry Buttimer stood up in the Seanad and said that in terms of personal finances, Ireland was becoming a more equal place. ‘The reality is that income growth and inequality is falling in our country at this time’ he said, ‘and as Mr. Pat Leahy wrote recently in The Irish Times, people are getting richer and we are becoming more equal.’
Those seeking to help families and individuals suffering from shocking deprivation here this Christmas will be shocked at this news. And so they should be. Because it is false. It is not acceptable for Journalists to present as ‘facts’ things that are not facts and present them as seasonal gifts to ideologically driven Politicians practised in the policies of division, isolation, poverty and deprivation.
The article cited was published the previous week and contained the claim that rising incomes and falling inequality ‘is a neat trick, managed by very few.’ Both Buttimer and Leahy also criticised the naysayers and NGOs who argue otherwise in tones that remind me of Bertie Ahern’s infamous ‘pre-crash’ invite to those ‘talking down’ the economy to consider suicide. Leahy put himself out there as far as to say ‘the data is the data, the facts are the facts… we have been getting richer, and also more equal at the same time.’
Wow!
So let’s talk about ‘facts’. Leahy highlights this quote from a 2020 report on inequality by TASC: “while inequality was on the rise elsewhere, it was falling here.” But the next sentence – literally the next sentence – says that ‘Another explanation for Ireland’s stability is that it is only apparent, and that inequality has actually been increasing. The data presented so far has ultimately been drawn from surveys, which have well-known limitations when it comes to the measure of income, and hence inequality.’
Leahy leaves this vital context out.
The survey in question is the CSO’s annual Survey on Income & Living Conditions (SILC). It supplies the information for calculation of the ‘Gini coefficient’, a formula used to calculate income inequality that Leahy presents as showing falling inequality.
The SILC is a sample survey of just 4,183 households out of 1.7 million in the state (around 0.2 per cent of the total).
The survey is voluntary and only 40% of those sampled agreed to take part. Almost 2,000 households refused outright, while another 2,800 gave various reasons listed as ‘other’ by the CSO.[1]
So, while the CSO conducts a random selection of private households for the initial catchment, within that random selection there is a form of self-selection, there are households that will not share their income data, and it is only those that freely volunteer the information that end up in the survey.
But that’s not all. The CSO employs around 100 people to carry out this work, but often they call to a house and not everyone is at home. So they conduct interviews ‘by proxy’ – information is provided by ‘another resident of the household due to unavailability of the person in question’. [2]
Up to 50 percent of all interviews for the income survey are by proxy, which gives rise to issues ‘with the quality of data for proxy responses for certain variables’. [3]
This leads to acknowledged and well flagged ‘statistical bias’ that Leahy leaves out in his rush to declare what ‘facts’ are. He also fails to tell us that the report actually says ‘high incomes tend to be underreported when they do respond.’
It is no surprise then to hear that the data collected from household surveys has to be ‘cleaned up’ by the CSO before it ends up in the final survey. This requires the use of various statistical weights and assumptions to compensate for missing data and known bias.
However, even if the survey and its methodologies were absolutely flawless, there would still be issues with their underlying assumptions within an Irish context.
The ‘Gini coefficient’ formula strives to capture income distribution after income tax and social welfare transfers, which it labels as ‘disposable income’. However, the Irish welfare system is different from others within the EU in that it is geared more towards monetary transfers and less towards the provision of services.
Put simply, in Ireland the formula does not take into account the cost of housing, rent, health, childcare, utility services, transport, or education. In other words ‘Gini’ only measures ‘income’ before Irish people pay their bills. So much for ‘facts’!
It gets worse. The second source that Leahy draws upon is an article by UCC economist Seamus Coffey which is on RTÉ’s Brainstorm website.
Coffey argues that Ireland is ‘one of the few developed countries that has had high income growth and falling inequality’. He says that while people may disagree on the way forward, they cannot disagree on that point. As with Leahy, he says that the facts speak for themselves.
Coffey underpins his point with data taken from a paper that was published in the Journal of Income Distribution in 2018 entitled, ‘Rising Income Inequality and Living Standards in OECD Countries: how Does the Middle Fare?’.
Guess what he uses? Yes, you got it, the ‘Gini coefficient’. He even uses it to claim that Ireland ‘is the only country in the sample to achieve both high income growth and falling income inequality’.
However, the 2018 paper from which Coffey draws this information cites not one, but two, indicators of income inequality.
The first is ‘Gini’ which measures everything except what poor people need to live, and the second is the income share going to the top 1%. This shows income inequality rising. In fact it’s not only rising. Ireland actually had the third highest rise in income share going to the top one per cent – surpassed only by the UK and the USA. Yet Coffey does not mention this at all. It is completely absent from his article. Don’t you just love these ‘facts’?
The authors of the 2018 paper even helpfully address the apparent contradiction of a falling Gini ratio alongside a rise in income share to the top 1%, adding that the latter is calculated from non-voluntary data provided by the Revenue Commissioners of every single income tax return in the state (over two million individuals and couples).
So, of the two measurement’s, only one is genuinely national in scope and fact based and it happens to be the one which points to rising income inequality. It is also the one that Coffey and Leahy, and by extension Buttimer, ignore.
Coffey also interprets the singular Gini coefficient further to also argue that Irish taxation is highly progressive and those on higher incomes pay more tax than those who are not. But in doing so he makes another glaring omission – Value Added Tax.
VAT is a highly regressive form of taxation as it is a flat rate charge on every household regardless of income. It amounts to close to a 1/3rd (26%) of all tax collected by Revenue. Those on low to middle incomes pay out a much higher percentage of their income on VAT than those on higher incomes yet Coffey fails to incorporate this into his analysis at all. I suppose if you leave out the ‘regressive’ taxes then we are bound to be ‘progressive’.
It is for these reasons that many experienced researchers – such as the authors of the papers cited by Leahy and Coffey – use household survey data with extreme caution and care. I suggest it is much better to do so than to turn misrepresented ‘facts’ into mathematical boulders to fling at those who are concerned at poverty, deprivation and inequality.
There are ways to tackle inequality in Ireland, which is clearly growing when we look at it through real-world eyes instead of through the truncated goggles of the Gini coefficient and carefully selected quotations from otherwise nuanced and balanced papers, including this one.
Workers and their Unions, as the OECD points out, are crucial to addressing inequality. Ireland suffers from a scourge of low pay and involuntary part-time work which has a hugely negative effect on hundreds of thousands of households across the state. At the same time the state must invest in health, housing, education, transport and childcare. It must do this through direct intervention, not through its current approach which is to subsidise market price – a process akin to chasing its own tail. The solutions are well-known; it is the political will that is lacking. Unfortunately there is nothing not ‘factual’ about the unnecessary suffering many face in Ireland this Christmas. In a country of such riches, those riches should not just be for the few. Is there any chance at all we might honestly address that in 2021?
Brendan Ogle
Senior Officer – Republic of Ireland
The submission for publication was followed by this exchange of emails
From: Ogle, Brendan
Sent: 21 December 2020 14:36
To: opinion@irishtimes.com
Subject: Fwd: URGENT: Attention John McManus [Irish Times Opinion Editor]
– Response Piece in Irish Times : 15th December 2020
Dear John,
Please find attached a response to an article published in the Irish Times on 5th December 2020. I sent this to Mark Hennessy on 15th December and Mark has advised that he passed it on to you.
For the reasons explained in the piece I believe that the 5 December article is seriously and grossly misleading and should be responded to. It has already lead to a false narrative being provided to the Oireachtas, as is set out in the response piece.
Given the time that has elapsed could you please advise me whether you are prepared to publish this article?
Kind Regards
Brendan Ogle
(086 777 8231)
Begin forwarded message:
From: “Ogle, Brendan” <Brendan.Ogle@unitetheunion.org>
Date: 15 December 2020 at 17:47:08 GMT
To: mhennessy@irishtimes.com
Subject: Response Piece in Irish Times : 15th December 2020
Hi Mark,
Please find attached an article in response to Pat Leahy’s article of 5.12.20 as I alluded to yesterday. I think it is vital that the record, and the necessary conversation, is corrected in this regard as the Irish Times piece is already being cited on the Oireachtas record.
Thanks in advance and I hope you are well.
Brendan Ogle
Senior Officer, ROI
From: Ogle, Brendan [mailto:Brendan.Ogle@unitetheunion.org]
Sent: 30 December 2020 12:05
To: opinion <opinion@irishtimes.com>
Subject: URGENT: PAT LEAHY RESPONSE PIECE
Dear John,
I am writing to you again about the ‘hit’ piece written by Pat Leahy and published on 5 December 2020 in the Irish Times, and the rebuttal/response piece I have sent in a number of times now.
Is it your, and the Irish Times, intention to allow this very damaging and inaccurate piece to stand as it is?
Regards
Brendan Ogle
Senior Officer
From: opinion [mailto:opinion@irishtimes.com]
Sent: 03 January 2021 11:17
To: Ogle, Brendan <Brendan.Ogle@unitetheunion.org>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] RE: URGENT: PAT LEAHY RESPONSE PIECE
Hi Brendan
Sorry for not getting back.
As I am sure you know we offer right or reply via the letter’s page and if your purpose is to rebut Pat’s argument then that is the best vehicle.
We would be open to a piece for oped on how the measures of inequality relied upon by Government are not accurate and that this undermines public debate but it would have to be independent of Pat’s piece. As it stands the piece you have submitted is too long anyway.
You could also broaden the debate out a bit by looking at how we could better capture inequality levels as the obvious response to your points is that imperfect measures are better than no measures etc
John
From: Ogle, Brendan
Sent: 04 January 2021 14:42
To: ‘opinion’ <opinion@irishtimes.com>
Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL] RE: URGENT: PAT LEAHY RESPONSE PIECE
Dear John,
I have tried to ring the IT today to discuss this but can’t get through to anybody.
Unfortunately Pat’s piece is not a piece about imperfect measurement tools for inequality. In fact Pat’s piece, which has provided the basis for a political analysis now taken up on the Oireachtas record, is that falling inequality is an unarguable fact which must simply be accepted by all. In order to stand up this frankly bizarre position he relies solely on one set of measurement criteria without explaining it, while completely ignoring the other criteria in the same research that points to the opposite conclusion to Pat’s chosen one. Based on those facts it would seem to be at least arguable that ideological bias is the most relevant factor that led to the piece.
For these reasons your final point is not obvious. What is obvious is that a decision was made to provide a politically biased analysis of deprivation based on the deliberate selective use of measurement criteria that suited that bias while excluding other criteria that didn’t. I am surprised that the Irish Times doesn’t appear prepared to allow that decision to be critiqued or rebutted.
I do understand that my right to reply piece is long but no edit is suggested, and I further note that no option of online publication has been offered. I am not sure how an Op Ed piece could deal with this matter and have been trying to get some response on this for several weeks now. If there is a specific offer in this regard I would be happy to consider it as I think the Irish Times itself is the best forum to address the consequences of this piece. I think your Readers, and Journalism itself, deserve and demand nothing less. Otherwise I will have to seek publication elsewhere but I have to be candid and say that I am as surprised at the approach taken as I was at the article itself.
Regards
Brendan
[1] Standard Report on Methods and Quality for the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2019. (CSO, 2020): 55
[2] Standard Report: 30.
[3] Standard Report: 30.
By Michael Smith, February 2021
A developer got the go-ahead to build a housing estate in a former East Ayrshire mining village.
Firm Modern Spec Ltd applied for planning permission to construct 138 houses at the former Carskeoch caravan park in Patna, which closed in 2010.
Buyers can choose from bungalows and two storey homes according to designs — but there will be no affordable housing.
East Ayrshire Council’s planning committee approved the proposal with certain conditions attached to the application in principle at its most recent meeting.
Chair Councillor Jim Roberts, SNP, said: “The development would be a welcome addition for the Doon Valley. It would be good to bring new families into the area
“The site was identified for housing in the council’s local development plan.”
Plans show gardens and communal land for the potential growing of vegetables.
There were two objections, which raised concerns over construction noise, loss of privacy, whether the houses would sell and other issues.
Doon Valley Councillor Drew Filson said: “It is a good news story for the area and the infrastructure is there with the schools and GPs. And there will be a developer contribution back to the community, which may bring a new swing park.”
A supporting statement lodged on behalf of the developer said: “The hope is that these houses will attract young families back into Patna, and to provide bungalow housing – suitable for all ages and for retirement as well, so that the housing is flexible for all needs.”
The caravan park closed in 2010.
Don’t miss the latest Ayrshire headlines – sign up to our free daily newsletter here
A husband and wife who recently converted to Christianity were bullied then banished from their village in northeast India for refusing to renounce their faith.
International Christian Concern (ICC) reports that Jaga Padiami and his wife converted last December after they met with several Christians who were sharing the Gospel.
Couple banished from village in #India after they refuse to renounce their #Christian faith. Read more: https://t.co/BK5OPSzVAr
— International Christian Concern (@persecutionnews) February 21, 2021
Then last month, the couple was called to a meeting with the chief of Kambawada village, Koya Samaj, who ordered them to abandon their newfound faith, but they refused.
After the meeting, village residents began harassing Padiami and his wife, followed by the chief giving them five days to renounce or be banished.
Padiami declared, “Even though you will drive me out of the village, I will not leave Jesus Christ.”
Local villagers were enraged by Padiami’s comment and ransacked his home. They threw his belongings into the street and locked the couple out of their house, forcing them to leave the village.
Padiami said villagers even threatened to kill the couple if they came back unless they followed through with the renouncement.
They reportedly filed a complaint with the Malkangiri police, but the matter remains unresolved. Padiami and his wife are living in another village outside of Kambawada village.
India ranks 10th on Open Doors’ 2020 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult or dangerous to be a Christian.
***As certain voices are censored and free speech platforms shut down, be sure to sign up for CBN News emails and the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***
State’s bad bank fails to take responsibility for another inept hit to the public purse as it improperly sells to someone connected to the original debtor, blaming IT systems.
By Frank Connolly (November edition, Village)
NAMA Chief Executive, Brendan McDonagh, appearing before the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC), failed to deliver a credible explanation as to how the agency handled the disposal of a lucrative portfolio of loans which was sold at a significant loss.
The Committee was convened to discuss the investigation by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Seamus McCarthy, into the dis- posal in 2012 by NAMA of Project Nantes, which was part of the larger Avestus portfolio. Avestus included valuable properties in Europe and the US which in turn were part of the loans of former Revenue Commissioner, Derek Quinlan and the Quinlan Partnership.
According to the CAG, the agency, contrary to its code of practice, “did not seek current inde- pendent valuations of the Project Nantes loans or of underlying property collateral. Furthermore, NAMA did not pursue a competitive sales pro- cess”.The final valuation was short by some €29 million, the CAG said.
Instead, NAMA negotiated exclusively with a US-based fund, Clairvue, which was introduced to the agency by Avestus, the owner of the dis- tressed loan portfolio before it transferred to NAMA.
What emerged from the CAG’s investigation is that Avestus was informed by the agency of the “residual amount NAMA needed to raise through the Project Nantes loan sale in order to achieve its repayment target. The Clairvue offer was very close to that amount”.
At the request of NAMA, Clairvue made a dec- laration that it was not connected to the debtor i.e. Avestus, before it purchased Project Nantes. However, it emerged in 2018 that the loans were purchased by a Luxembourg-based com- pany in which a former Avestus director was in- volved. This revelation by then-TD, Mick Wallace, prompted the CAG investigation.
In his response to the PAC on 8 October last, McDonagh confirmed that NAMA made a loss of €10 million on the sale of Project Nantes and that it had made a miscalculation in setting a tar- get of €125.5 million for the portfolio. He said the mistake was due to the fact that “the transaction occurred early in NAMA’s life cycle when we had no central IT systems and relied on multiple spreadsheets with volumes of data”.
PAC member and FF TD, Marc MacSharry, sought to interrogate McDonagh and his col- league about the weakness of the valuation process and the research carried out by NAMA in relation to the disposal.
“At what point during the normal company searches that can be done did NAMA become aware that somebody was a director and share- holder of both Avestus and Clairvue-Nantes?”, MacSharry asked.
McDonagh said that Avestus and Clairvue had signed a declaration stating that the buyer was not a connected party (to the debtor) but conceded that “it would have been better if Avestus was upfront…”. However, he said “the man was not, nor had he ever been, a NAMA debtor and Avestus was never a NAMA debtor”.
“The only failing was a moral failing on the part of Avestus because it should have been up- front with us and said that one of its colleagues had been asked to be a director of this entity by Clairvue but that he was not a NAMA debtor”, he said.
SF TD, Matt Carthy, asserted that NAMA was ‘played’ by the individual and companies in- volved and should be “angry as hell” at the outcome.
“A guy who was operating for a company that it employed was also a director of the company for somebody who was purchasing the portf lio that was for sale through a non-competitive process…I do not understand why Mr McDonagh is not as angry as hell with this individual and the companies involved because they played NAMA”.
According to McDonagh, he is angry and unhappy that Clairvue-Nantes did not inform NAMA that “one of their colleagues who was not a NAMA debtor was being asked by Clairvue to be- come director of this Luxembourg entity which bought the portfolio”.
Fortunately for McDonagh, he was not more closely questioned on the role played by the NAMA office which dealt directly with Clairvue in relation to the sale.
When Clairvue purchased the Project Nantes portfolio in 2012 its US executives wanted to issue a press release to mark the successful ac- quisition. The NAMA office involved said that the agency did not wish such publicity as “the loans were not openly marketed”. NAMA told Clairvue that “it should be satisfied they acquired the loans at arguably below market value”.
For some members of the PAC there were echoes of the Project Eagle debacle when the massive Northern Ireland portfolio of distressed loans was sold by NAMA in 2014 to US fund, Cerberus, in extremely controversial circumstances. McDonagh deflected the issue by insisting that he was prohibited from discussing Project Eagle due to the ongoing and lengthy inquiry by Judge John Cooke into the controversial sale. One of the reasons it has gone on for so long has been the delay by NAMA in handing over crucial documents to the State investigation.
The youngest and best UN Secretary General, 60 years after his assassination.
By Chay Bowes
Dag Hammarskjold was the second ever, and some say the greatest, Secretary General of the UN. When he died sixty years ago this year, President John F Kennedy suggested that Hammarskjold had been “the greatest statesman of our century”. At 47 years of age on his appointment, Hammarskjold was the youngest ever secretary-general of the United Nations and one of only two people to ever be awarded the Nobel prize posthumously.
Are his life, innovations and untimely death relevant in 2021?
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjold was born in 1905 to a wealthy Swedish ‘noble’ family, the son of a future Swedish prime minister and politician Hjalmar Hammarskjold, who would serve during the first part of the first world war.
Dag Hammarskjold had a relatively privileged early life at the family home at Uppsala castle. Despite his materially comfortable surroundings, Hammarskjold experienced much personal difficulty within his conservative and emotionally rigid family. Roger Lipsey, in his work ‘Hammarskjöld: a Life’ (2016) suggests: “There were enough confusing psychological crosscurrents to generate sterile excellence and recurrent personal misery”. Essentially Lipsey posits that Hammarskjold was given ample opportunity to achieve a life of “high-level mediocrity” but despite the restrictions and emotional limitations of his upbringing he would achieve great things.
Hammarskjöld has been credited with coining the term “planned economy”. He co-drafted the legislation that opened the way to the creation of Sweden’s welfare state
Hammarskjold attended the “Katedralskolan” one of the oldest educational establishments in Sweden (Est 1236 ) and went on to take law and philosophy degrees in 1930 at the University of Uppsala. He had by then already been appointed to the post of assistant secretary of the “committee on employment” in the Swedish government. Hammarskjold excelled as a civil servant and by 1936 had been appointed to the Swedish central bank serving as secretary of its general council between 1941 and 1948. Hammarskjöld has been credited with coining the term“planned economy”. He co-drafted the legislation that opened the way to the creation of Sweden’s welfare state.
In 1947 Hammarskjold was made Sweden’s delegate to the organisation for European Economic Co-operation where he assisted in the implementation of the Marshall plan to resurrect Western Europe economically. Despite being appointed by a government of Social Democrats, Hammarskjold never actually joined any political party himself.
The United Nations
By 1951 Hammarskjold joined Sweden’s delegation to the United Nations General Assembly in Paris.
Hammarskjold’s conviction that smaller, less powerful nations should be protected was central to his vision for the UN as a peacekeeping entity. He quickly became Chairman of the Swedish delegation. Hammarskjold wanted the United Nations to be a dynamic tool for its members with pragmatism at its core.
The Suez Crisis, Innovation and Pragmatism
Hammarskjold exercised his own personal diplomacy to get the UN to nullify the use of force by Israel, France, and Great Britain following Nasser’s commandeering of the Canal;
At the outbreak of the Suez crisis in 1956, the United Nations had never deployed peacekeeping forces.
rticle 43 of the UN Charter provides that All Members of the United Nations, in order to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, undertake to make available to the Security Council, on its call armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security.
Working alongside Canada’s foreign Minister Lester Pearson who had initially sown the seeds of the concept in Hammarskjold’s mind, the concept of peacekeeping as we know it today was formulated. Hammarskjold pulled together enough support and commitment from member states to establish the United Nations Emergency Force or UNEF which stood ready for deployment in weeks. The essential tenets of that initial UNEF mission remain at the core of all UN missions to this day.
The Congo, Context and Global Relevance
The decolonisation of Africa had reached a pivotal moment by mid-1961. Neither the Soviets nor the Americans supported colonialism. They nevertheless saw the relinquishing of colonial possessions by Britain, Belgium, France and Portugal as an opportunity to expand their influence in newly independent states.
Certainly the remaining minority-white governments of the region such as South Africa and Rhodesia had significant concerns about the decolonisation process. In 1960 the Belgian government officially relinquished its sovereignty in the Congo and a nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba was elected Prime Minister. In a vain attempt to appease his rivals and preserve unity, he appointed the opposition leader Joseph Kasavubu as president. However, days later the army mutinied. In the midst of this turmoil, large umbers of white Belgian settlers began to leave the Congo with Belgian forces intervening on the grounds of protecting its citizens.
In May 1960 Moise Tshombe announced that the province of Katanga, which held most of Congo’s mineral wealth, was declaring independence. Among the valuable minerals and deposits Katanga held were uranium and cobalt. A Belgian commercial entity called the “Katanga mining union” immediately began to support the breakaway government based in Elisabethville. The immediate effect of such financial support for Katanga was that it was wealthy enough to stand alone against Congo proper, with the Belgian mining interests ensuring that their assets in the region would remain under their control.
In September 1961 Hammarskjold was on a mission to facilitate an end to this evolving conflict in Katanga.
Hammarskjold firmly believed that the post-colonial growth and liberty of the newly independent Congo should not be influenced or restricted by its old colonial ruler, Belgium. The defence and preservation of the infant independent Congo became a personal priority. He along with 15 others died in a plane crash on 18 September 1961 in what is now Zambia. He was on his way to negotiate a cease-fire between UN forces and Katangese troops under Moise Tshombe.
In her definitive work, which served to stimulate renewed UN investigation into Hammarskjold’s death, British academic Susan Williams, (‘Who killed Hammarskjold?’, Oxford University Press 2014) contends that his death was linked to the foreign security services of the United States, Great Britain and white supremacist influences on the African continent.
In February 2017 the United Nations re-opened investigations into the death of Hammarskjold.
Former Tanzanian chief justice Mohamed Chande Othman’s report in 2019 concluded that Hammarskjold’s plane may have been attacked and that the United States, Russia and Britain are withholding evidence that may be conclusive in confirming this.
None of the countries criticised in the report have commented on the report.
Hammarskjold’s conviction that smaller, less powerful nations should be protected was central to his vision for the UN as a peacekeeping entity
More than 30 years after the death of Hammarskjold, George Smith and Conor Cruise O Brien, both former senior United Nations officials in the Congo, contacted the Guardian newspaper suggesting that they had direct evidence that an accidental interaction with a rebel fighter had caused the plane to crash. O’ Brien suggested that a “warning burst” from a Fouga Magister jet had accidentally hit the plane”. In 1998 the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission chaired by Desmond Tutu published numerous documents that implicated the British, American and South African intelligence services in an attempted sabotage of the plane though the British government maintained that the documents were Soviet forgeries. In late 2005 Bjorn Egge, the former head of the United Nations military “intelligence” group in the Congo, recalled that he had seen an execution-style bullet hole in the forehead of Dag Hammarskjold when he identified his body in the mortuary.
Later forensic and official photographs did not record this injury. In more recent years the Swedish journalist and filmmaker Goran Bjorkdahl has collaborated with Susan Williams, concluding that Hammarskjold’s plane was indeed shot down.
All witnesses reported seeing: bright lights in the sky and hearing loud noises before the crash; seeing another “smaller” aircraft fly alongside or “over” Hammarskjold’s plane; and Hammarskjold’s DC9 circling “several times” before the crash. Bjorkdahl also interviewed six previously unknown witnesses who clearly state they saw uniformed men at the crash site soon after the event, even though the official record suggests that the crash site was not identified until later that afternoon. Bjorkdahl suggests that these witnesses were murdered too but there was, at the very least, serious intimidation.
Susan Williams’ book challenges the credibility of the Rhodesian authorities that carried out the initial investigation. Williams points out that pictures that were taken of Dag Hammarskjold post-mortem conceal an area of his face, in particular, his right eye – the area of Hammarskjold’s face where United Nations official Bjorn Egge had allegedly seen a bullet hole. The photographs have been professionally assessed as being “touched up”.
Williams also suggests that evidence relating to the only man to live through the incident (only to die several days later), Harold Julien, had said there had been an explosion before the plane crashed. Rhodesian investigators had initially discounted his evidence on the basis that he was heavily sedated; however, Williams discovered medical records that state clearly that he was entirely lucid.
Lipsey suggests that the death of Hammarskjold ended any hopes for lasting peace in the Congo and notes that the Congo is still unstable and violent.
On September 20th 1961, merely days after Hammarskjold’s death US President Harry Truman told a New York Times reporter that: “He was right on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said ‘when they killed him’”. Truman never clarified his comments.
His death was linked to the
foreign security services of the
United States, Great Britain and
white supremacist influences
on the African continent
Dag Hammarskjold’s conviction that small countries should be allowed the freedom to express their sovereignty freely would have had particular resonance in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Baltic and Balkan states have struggled to find their feet in the vacuum between Russian and NATO influence but, had Hammarskjold survived and succeeded in the Congo, the United Nations might have evolved into a more formidable, nonpartisan defender of these small states.
Hammarskjold was a supremely ethical visionary and a Renaissance Man. Deeply religious and driven by an overwhelming personal duty, his legacy is one of pragmatism in the circumstances. He noted that “The UN wasn’t created to take man into paradise, but rather to save mankind from hell”.
After his death, the publication in 1963 of his diary, Markings, revealed his “negotiations with myself – and with God”. The entries themselves are spiritual truths given artistic form. Markings contains many references to death, including this one from the opening entries, written when he was a young man and cited when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize:
“Tomorrow we shall meet,
Death and I –
And he shall thrust his sword
Into one who is wide awake”
He died in his prime leaving a legacy forged in duty of pragmatic anti-colonialism, international solidarity and in particular a solid, interventionist and respected UN.
As Ireland advances its so-far rather understated strategy on the Security Council, it could do worse than adopt the Hammarskjold template.
This was shot from my window during the mid-day snow fall yesterday. The 3K 100 fps footage on the Insta360 One X2 is fairly poor, but it’s the only slow motion option on the camera.
Issued on: Modified:
To realise his dream of satellite-powered internet, tech billionaire Elon Musk needs to install antennas around the world. In northern France, a village hopes he’ll decide to keep those antennas far away.
Saint-Senier-de-Beuvron, population 350, is none too thrilled to have been picked as a ground station for Musk’s Starlink project for broadband from space.
“This project is totally new. We don’t have any idea of the impact of these signals,” said Noemie Brault, a 34-year-old deputy mayor of the village just 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the majestic Mont Saint-Michel abbey on the English Channel.
“As a precaution the municipal council said no,” she explained.
Musk, founder of SpaceX and electric carmaker Tesla, plans to deploy thousands of satellites to provide fast internet for remote areas anywhere in the world.
It’s a high-stakes battle he is waging with fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos of Amazon as well as the London-based start-up OneWeb.
Antennas on the ground will capture the signals and relay them to individual user terminals connected by cable.
Starlink’s contractor had already secured French regulatory approval to install nine “radomes” — three-metre-tall (10-feet) globes protecting the antennas — in Saint-Senier, one of four sites planned for France.
In December, Saint-Senier issued a decree to block construction on the field.
But the refusal was based on a technicality, and the contractor, Sipartech, told AFP that it plans to refile its request, which the council will likely be unable to block.
“That worries us because we have no data” on the eventual effects of the signals on the health of humans or animals, said Brault, herself a farmer.
“And when you hear that he wants to implant a chip in people’s brains, it’s frightening,” she said, referring to Musk’s Neuralink project.
Francois Dufour, a Greens council member and retired farmer, said he believes residents had reason to worry.
“The risks from electromagnetic waves is something we’ve already seen with high-voltage power lines, which have disturbed lots of farmers in the area,” he said.
Besides, “social networks, internet, they exist already — why do we need to go look for internet on the moon?” he said.
France’s national radio frequency agency ANFR, which approved Starlink’s stations, says they present no risks to residents, not least because they will be emitting straight up into the sky.
There are already around 100 similar sites across France dating from the first satellite launches from 50 years ago, it adds.
That hasn’t convinced Jean-Marc Belloir, 57, who worries that his cows will start producing less milk.
“On our farm, we’re always online. My cows are linked up; my smart watch warns me when they’re going to calve,” Belloir said. “But when you see the range of these antennas, there has to be some research” on the potential impacts.
Still, he baptised his latest calf “SpaceX du Beuvron,” combining Musk’s firm with the name of the creek that runs through his village.
“We’re not attacking Elon Musk,” said Anne-Marie Falguieres, who lives just 60 metres from the future Starlink station with her husband and two children.
“We’re not technophobes. I’m a guide on the bay, I have an internet site, my husband works from home. But these antennas are completely new, at least in France, and we want to know if they’re dangerous or not,” she said.
She also thinks the project is hardly necessary and unlikely to interest many, based on reports from the US.
“In the testing phase, they made you pay $500 for the dish and then you had to pay $100 a month for a subscription,” she said. “I don’t think everyone’s going to be able to pay that.”
(AFP)
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CBN News Senior International Correspondent George Thomas appeared on the Friday afternoon edition of CBN’s Newswatch to discuss the on-going attacks by Islamic terrorists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Newswatch is seen weekdays on the CBN News Channel.
Sixteen people were killed and a Catholic church burned down when Islamic terrorists attacked a village in the African nation of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Reuters reports 13 civilians and three soldiers were killed on Feb. 14 by terrorists when they opened fire after entering the village of Ndalya located about 60 miles south of the city of Bunia. The village is located in the northeastern part of the country which is near Uganda.
Human rights groups say the terrorists also burned down a Catholic church during the raid. Arriving on the scene, the DRC military engaged the terrorists in a short firefight.
“For the moment our troops are occupying the village after this attack which cost civilian lives,” DRC army spokesman Jules Ngongo Tshikudi, told the news agency, adding that three soldiers and four assailants were killed when the army drove them back.
It was not immediately clear to military officials which group carried out the attack. Tshikudi blamed the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan armed group active in eastern Congo since the 1990s. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for some suspected ADF attacks, but UN officials have not verified any link between the two terrorist organizations.
Reuters noted that Congo’s eastern borderlands with Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi are home to more than 100 different militias, many remnants of its brutal civil wars that officially ended in 2003.
A spokesperson for Open Doors USA said Christians in the DRC are being targeted.
“These predominantly Christian communities are attacked by an Islamic extremist group with a clear Islamic expansionist agenda,” Open Doors spokesperson Illia Djadi stated in reference to ADF. “We need to pay attention to these events because what is happening in eastern DRC, the killing of innocent civilians on an almost daily basis, is an underreported tragedy.”
Even though 85 percent to 90 percent of the DRC’s population is Christian, Islamic extremism continues to worsen, putting the African country at number 40 on the 2021 Open Doors World Watch List for Christian persecution.
As CBN News has reported, more than a year after the defeat of ISIS in Syria, the Islamic terror group is turning its sights on Africa. The continent is currently witnessing a spree of terror attacks inspired by ISIS-affiliated groups.
Steve Killelea tracks terror around the globe for the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace. He told CBN News in December that the center of gravity for ISIS and other Islamic terror organizations is clearly moving.
“Sub-Saharan Africa now has a higher number of people killed through terrorism than in the Middle East and North Africa,” Killelea noted.
Burkina Faso, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Niger, Cameroon, and Ethiopia are among those countries witnessing a spike in attacks over the last year.
As CBN News reported earlier this month, Islamic terrorists are launching violent attacks against people in the DRC as innocent men, women, and children are being killed almost daily. In the past month, more than 100 people were murdered, and a majority of them were reportedly Christians.
***As certain voices are censored and free speech platforms shut down, be sure to sign up for CBN News emails and the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving news from a Christian Perspective.***
Excelsior Correspondent
RAJOURI, Feb 19: A Pulser bike without registration number was burnt by some unknown person/ persons at Ainpur village in Sunderbani tehsil last night.
The owner came to know about the matter in the morning and lodged an FIR with Police Station Sunderbani in the morning. The bike belonged to Manmeet Kumar alias Toni, son of Diwan Chand, resident of village Ainpur, near brick kiln. The police has taken cognizance of the matter.