Sunday, July 13, 2008

This week's news round up...

...in order of unimportance - by Johnny Taronja

Egged on by FIFA's eternal president Sepp Blatter (honest - the guy must have been at the helm of FIFA since...forever) Cristiano Ronaldo bewails that he's the victim of "modern slavery". On a £120,000-a-week salary. Whatever happened to:
a) the concept of appropriate wording;
b) good taste.
Piss off, Ronaldo.

*****
The Mirror' s Tony Parsons suggests the death penalty to try and tackle the spiralling surge in knife crime. What do you guys think? They have in the U.S. and it's no crime-free haven. Yet something radical is needed. This week the Cornish town of Redruth adopted a "voluntary" curfew scheme for everyone under 16. What a mess. If it carries on this way, soon it'll be compulsory for tourists and visitors to England to wear a stabproof vest or other forms of body armour at the borders. A bit like required vaccinations when you visit tropical countries. If you fancy a trip to Blighty you may want to take precautions.

*****
Tory MP David Davis defined Thursday's by-election victory as a "stunning message" to Gordon Brown and his government. Some chaps see it instead as a stunning waste of public money. £80,000 - that's how much it cost - to see David Davis voted back into Westminster a month after he'd resigned to prove a totally sterile political point. The East Yorkshire constituency of Haltemprice & Howden saw a pathetic turnout of 34% as both the LibDems and Labour refused to take part in the taxpayer-funded farce. Stunning.

*****
The Iranian regime spent most of the week flexing their muscles. As they launched one missile test after the other, they must have netted John McCain more votes than twenty primetime Fox News specials about Barack Obama's middle name or a whole round of fundraising. Arguing that Iran poses no threat is not going to be easy-peasy.

*****
Finally, the UN Security Council failed to authorise sanctions against the Mugabe dictatorship in Zimbabwe. The reason? Russia, China and -above all- South Africa voted against. This time it's not the usual "evil Westerners/Europeans/Americans" to blame. The horrors of a regime where -only since March- thousands of people went missing and 200,000 were displaced will be remembered as the shame of 21st century African politics. Like Rwanda became the symbol of world inaction, Zimbabwe will end up the icon of crook-eyed, criminal, African brotherhood. South Africa could give Mugabe the boot at the drop of a hat if only they wanted to.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

death penalty or not, any thug in this country knows that jail sentences are a laugh. carrying a knife doesn't even mean a mandatory sentence.
If the government don't pull their finger out to shake off this plague (and by that I mean a total overhaul of the criminal system, dont care what the human rights wets say) we truly are fucked.