Arrest Warrants For Architects Over Collapsed Buildings in Turkey Earthquake
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the Architects’ Journal.
This is the sub-heading.
Turkish government officials have issued 113 arrest warrants for people involved with the construction of buildings that collapsed in last week’s earthquake – including architects, contractors and engineers – reports claim
The article is a serious review of what happened in Turkey, that might have contributed to the scale of the disaster.
These are three paragraphs.
The Guardian claimed the arrests were ‘likely to be seen as an attempt by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan … to deflect blame’, saying that the president ‘faces tough elections in May’.
As already reported by the AJ, regulations introduced in Turkey after a previous earthquake 24 years ago should have ensured that modern buildings were able to withstand quakes of this magnitude.
But it has been widely reported that tens of thousands of buildings were granted ‘construction amnesties’ over several decades. These enabled owners of structures built without the required safety certificates to gain legal exemption upon payment of a fee, a situation that critics say has long risked catastrophe.
The last paragraph sounds very much like institutionalised bribery.
The article is very much a must read.
Ukraine Maternity Hospital ‘Destroyed’ By Russian Shelling
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
These are the first two paragraphs.
Russian forces surrounding the southern port city of Mariupol have destroyed a maternity hospital, Ukraine says.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said children were under the wreckage, and called on Western leaders to impose a no-fly zone.
This Wikipedia entry is entitled Russian–Syrian Hospital Bombing Campaign.
The campaign may have been started by the Syrians, but the Russians joined in later in 2015-2018, as this paragraph from Wikipedia describes.
After Russia began military operations in Syria, aerial bombardment intensified. In 2015, there were more than 300 attacks on medical facilities by Syrian and Russian forces. From May to December 2016, medical facilities were attacked about 200 times by Russian and Syrian forces.
It does look to me, that the Russians consider bombing hospitals to be a legitimate tactic. It is not, as it is a war crime.
Twisted Mind That Gave Us Chemical Warfare
The title of this post is the same as that of an article by Ben Macintyre, in today’s copy of The Times.
It is subtitled.
Fritz Haber’s pacifist wife killed herself as he plotted Great War carnage…and he picked up a Nobel price.
Fritz Haber was a brilliant chemist, described in the first paragraph of his Wikipedia entrry.
Fritz Haber ( 9 December 1868 – 29 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesise ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas. This invention is of importance for the large-scale synthesis of fertilisers and explosives. The food production for half the world’s current population depends on this method for producing nitrogen fertilisers. Haber, along with Max Born, proposed the Born–Haber cycle as a method for evaluating the lattice energy of an ionic solid.
This description is rather stained by the second paragraph.
Haber is also considered the “father of chemical warfare” for his years of pioneering work developing and weaponizing chlorine and other poisonous gases during World War I, especially his actions during the Second Battle of Ypres.
Ben Macintyre feels strongly about Haber and finishes with this paragraph.
Rescinding Haber’s Nobel prize will not stop Assad from killing his own people with poison bombsbut it would be a profound symbolic expression of the moral revulsion over the misuse of science so dramatically demonstrated by Haber’s wife a century ago.
I don’t know whether Nobel prizes can be rescinded, but the article is a very informative read about the origins of chemical weapons.
Russia Has Killed More Civilians Than ISIS
The title of this post is taken directly from The Times.
Surely Taking Your Children To Syria Is Child Abuse?
I’m no lawyer, but I did live with one of East Anglia’s finest children’s barristers for forty years and for at least twenty of those years, C was at the top of her profession.
So to my trained-by-association legal mind, if you take your children to a war zone, like Syria, you’re putting your children in danger and that in my view and probably would in C’s mind, be akin to child abuse and should get the mother, father or guardian into Court.
As well as the case of the three Bradford sisters on their way to Syria and possible oblivion, we also have the case of the attack on the pregnant woman in Peckham.
In the second case someone has been charged and will appear in Court today.
As the Authorities knew something was up with the Bradford sisters, why was nothing done to sort the problem earlier, when they went to Manchester Airport the first time?
When I went out on Eurostar on my way to Kassel, there was a lady about fifty, who was travelling with a young girl of about four. The lady got a minute or so’s questioning from Immigration at St.Pancras. Which was quite right, as C was often in Court trying to get children produced that had been sneaked out of the Jurisdiction. I seem to have read that immigration rules have been tightened to make taking children out of the country, against one parent’s wishes more difficult.
Perhaps, if they were tightened again, it might stop a repeat of the case of the Bradford sisters and their nine children.
Violence In The Middle East
David Aaronovitch in his piece in The Times today entitled, Moderate Muslims – It’s Time To Be Outraged, makes some very good points.
But this fact is telling.
In the Israel-Palestine conflict 10,000 have been killed in the past 25 years, compared to 100,000 in Syria in just three.
All are one too many!
But where are the moderate Muslims trying to sort this violent mess out?
Boys With Be Boys
There is a lot of speculation in the media, as why Muslim men are flocking to fight in Syria and Iraq.
Was it ever any different?
Go back to the Middle Ages and it was rape and pillage in the Crusades or with Henry the fifth, and later it was piracy with Drake and Grenville.
Nelson And Wellington were not short of volunteers and in Victorian times, it was all about Empire building, with a small personal fortune thrown in, if you were lucky!
Perhaps the nearest parallel to that of Syria and Iraq today, was the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War. Many of those who fought in the Brigades or openly supported them went on to be important figures in later life.
You could also argue that both the First and Second World War was an outlet for many men, who had an excess of testosterone.
I also remember a General, saying that the Falklands War did a lot of good for Army recruitment.
I am a pacifist or more likely a coward, but we shouldn’t be too quick to condemn those, who go to fight in Iraq and Syria.
The ones we should condemn are the countries and arms dealers, who are giving the likes of the odious President Assad, the weapons they are using to kill their own people.
Farage Says Yes!
Nigel Farage of UKIP saying that the UK should accept more Syrian refugees is a bit of a surprise.l Here’s an extract from a report on the BBC.
The UK should take in some refugees from Syria’s civil war, UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage has said.
He told BBC News that Western countries should agree to take an allocation, but he did not specify numbers.
I wonder what his typical supporter thinks of this statement!
The Syria Debate on Radio 5 Live
I was invited to be a member of the public at this debate on College Green by the Houses of Parliament today.
I didn’t say much, but it was an interesting experience. I found it fascinating to see how they set it all up and I think I learned something, if ever I get interviewed by the media again.
I don’t think we contributed much to the debate, but then only time will tell what will happen in Syria.
The Two Faces Of Ed Milliband
Ed Milliband has just stated on BBC Television, that whatever we do in Syria must be totally legal.
So where was he, when Blair decided to go into Iraq as Bush’s poodle? Answers on a properly creosoted fence please!
The Anonymous Widower 