EASTER!

Just another pointless day. We bring to it whatever purpose we can. The three days of Christian Easter, like Christmas, have morphed mainly into an exercise of commercial money-making and social entertainment, far removed from any genuine spiritual content. The inner spiritual life requires dedication and hard work, neither of which I am particularly good at. 

Most of us just 'muddle through' day after day, meeting the challenges of life as they arise and coping with them as best we can. But everyone I believe has that secret space of personal faith that hopefully makes them more human and contented. After all as St Paul said, "Godliness and contentment is great gain. We brought nothing into the world, and can take nothing out so be content with food and clothes". 

Of course we think of those that don't even have that! 

Whether Christian or not, and it's obviously lost its appeal to the current time and generation, the Easter story remains poignant and relevant. In a weekend event it manages to encapsulate best and worst in human affairs and actions.

Unjustified hatred, deception, duplicity, treachery, injustice, anger, violence, murder on the one hand; passivity, forgiveness, holiness on the other. 

The human account of events and of the resurrection are convincing in their detail and simplicity, sufficient to initiate a movement of belief that has lasted more than two centuries.

Both on the purely human level it remains a disturbing but rewarding challenge personally, socially and internationally, as we witness the same evil evidenced in the world. 

Easter comes around annually and its message has to be relearned every year.

And so it continues....

Jesus' Seven Last Words:

• “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” — Luke 23:34.
• “Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” — Luke 23:43.
• “Woman, behold thy Son." (To the disciple: "Behold thy mother." (John 19:25-27) — 
• About three o'clock, Jesus shouted, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which means,
• “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” — Matthew 27: 46
• “I thirst.” — John 19:28
• “It is finished.” — John 19:30
• “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” — Luke 23:46

"What I have written, I have written."

John 19

1 Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him.
2 And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe,
3 And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands.
4 Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.
5 Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!
6 When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto
them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.
7 The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.
8 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid;
9 And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer.
10 Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?
11 Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.
12 And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.
13 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.
14 And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!
15 But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.
16 Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.
17 And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha:
18 Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.
19 And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE
JEWS.
20 This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.
21 Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews.
22 Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written."

See also: 

https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/search?q=easter

https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/search?q=john+donne

The longer we live, the more we realise that it is the dead who influence our lives more than the living. The longer we live, the more we realise that life is just an aberration and illusion, into which we are locked for a miniscule period of time, the only purpose of which is to strive to do as little harm and and as much good as we are able, and to spend our lives trying to work out what they are. Success can only be gauged by the degree of inner contentment and acceptance of one's circumstance. Yet struggle and suffering are common to all men, mitigated only by faith and stoicism, knowing that all things must pass, and we too. We cannot escape ourselves or the egocentricity it imposes but we must also comprehend how we are just a tiny fraction of human consciousness and part of an incredible web of life that inhabits the earth, both past and present. We have to learn to sublimate our egos, to rise above the material, to enter a transcendent plane, where time and place lose their meaning and we become again what we were before the universe began. In sublimating the transient, we open the door to the eternal, and become better experientially as a result.

Germany: The outrageous case of Beate Bahner


https://butlincat.com/2020/04/14/germany-german-lawyer-beate-bahner-detained-guantanamo-style-for-opposing-coronavirua-lockdown-14-april-2020/

Germany: German lawyer Beate Bahner detained Guantanamo-style for opposing Coronavirus lockdown – 14 April 2020

Posted on April 14, 2020by butlincat

Coronavirus lock-down: German lawyer detained for opposing

 Tue 7:57 pm +00:00, 14 Apr 2020  

posted by Tapestry

Violent committal to psychiatric clinic

On Easter Monday, a recording was uploaded of a calm 12½-minute voicemail left by Ms Bahner for her sister, describing a massively brutal swoop on her home on Easter Sunday evening (12 April). The voice in the recording matches a previous video recording of Ms Bahner (ironically, one in which she describes nursing liability law). In the voicemail, Ms Bahner recounts:

I went into the garage and found a car following me suspiciously. After standing in front of my car for ten minutes, I sensed something was not right and ran back out of the garage. Stupidly, I didn’t run into the house, because my secretary had gone to get her car on Voss-strasse and she just didn’t show up again … I asked a passing car to call the police for me. They simply kept refusing to [respond] for five minutes, and then I realised it had been a huge mistake to call the police, because at the moment I’m Number One Enemy of the State.

When the police did arrive, I told them I felt threatened. They brought the handcuffs out and pushed me to the ground with massive force. They kept me sitting in their car for ten minutes with my hands cuffed behind my back, then they drove me around the corner to the psychiatric clinic. There were four police officers there, three nurses, and a doctor, though she only arrived ten minutes later.

I asked to be allowed to sit down and was shown to a bench. Then I asked to have the handcuffs taken off, since it was actually I who had requested police protection. But instead, I was thrown to the floor again, having my head hurled onto the stone floor from a metre (3 ft) height, which nobody reacted to. Then they asked me whether I wanted a face mask, which of course I declined.

Because I refused to move, they physically carried me to the doctor, who asked me “why I felt threatened”, even though they all know perfectly well who I am. I was told I would not be given a lawyer.

She goes on to describe in the voicemail her unfamiliarity with the psychiatric facility to which she was taken, even though she is a local lawyer who apparently had to visit clients in that clinic in the past:

Then I was forced to spend the night lying on the floor in some high-security Guantanamo psychiatric clinic, which I didn’t recognise; it’s been renovated. There was no toilet, no sink, though they did allow me water, and there was a bell I could ring, though they ignored it after the third time I pressed it.

After a further ten minutes of description of how Ms Bahner was “upgraded” from the floor of an isolation cell to a proper furnished room with good nurses, she ends the voicemail to her sister with the observation:

I have been held here for 20 hours now. If people don’t finally wake up, this is going to turn into the worst régime of terror ever … We are being tyrannised by evil, evil, evil forces. Last night, I was petrified of being killed, of being forcefully injected. I am fearful of being disappeared … Because I had been without a mobile phone at the time I was arrested, I had no way of contacting anyone … I have a summons for Wednesday [15 April] because I allegedly breached Article 111 of the Penal Code, “Incitement to Criminal Acts”. I called upon people to demonstrate! Freedom of speech was the most fundamental constitutional right in Germany, and in the space of three months it has become a criminal act.

by Alex Thomson, Eastern Approaches

Tuesday, 14th April 2020

A large number of well-established doctors and lawyers in the German-speaking countries have questioned the constitutionality of their governments’ stringent confinement measures, which are commonly being referred to by the English loan-word der Shutdown (as there is no precedent for what to call the situation in German). These measures have begun to be challenged openly on the streets of Berlin. The medical and legal dissidents number in the dozens. None, however, has paid such a price for that freedom of speech as the German medical lawyer Beate Bahner, who has been committed to a psychiatric institution for publicly disagreeing with the measures and policies followed by the German government.

No right to demonstrate

Beate Bahner, in the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg, has a 25-year career and has won three cases before the Federal Constitutional Court (German Supreme Court) in the domain of unlawful infringements of the right to practice one’s profession. She has written five books on medical law, most recently an analysis of the 2016 federal act to tackle corruption in the healthcare system.

On Friday 3 April 2020, Ms Bahner issued a press release decrying the German government’s Coronavirus measures as “flagrantly unconstitutional, infringing to an unprecedented extent many of the fundamental rights of German citizens”. The statement argued that the small minority of the public that was at risk of serious harm in the event of contracting Covid–19 could be far more suitably protected by means of targeted measures based on the principle of adult responsibility for safeguarding one’s own health.

She continued:

In particular, these measures are not justified by the Infection Prevention Act, which was hurriedly amended just a few days ago. Long-term restrictions on leaving home and meeting others, based on high-death-rate modelled scenarios (which fail to take account of actual critical expert opinions), and the complete shutdown of businesses and shops with no proof that they pose any risk of infection, are thoroughly unlawful.

Noting that the Federal Ministry of Health had failed so far to supply protective equipment to medics and care workers and to conduct enough random tests to establish the actual rate of infection in the population, Ms Bahner went on in her press release to predict that the shutdown would have “devastating consequences for society, the economy, democracy and above all human health”, and indicated her readiness to take the matter to the Federal Constitutional Court, since the lockdown represented a grave violation of the constitutional principle of proportionate measures and an abandonment by the state of its duty to guarantee the liberty and health of its citizens.

Ms Bahner followed up that press release with a nineteen-page legal analysis published on 7 April entitled Why the shutdown is unconstitutional and the greatest legal scandal in the post-1940s history of Germany. The headings of the document are as follows:

1. The Coronavirus Regulations in the State of Baden-Württemberg —
grounds;
citizens’ responsibilities and demands made on them;
lack of state competence to issue the regulations;
curtailment of practically all fundamental rights and freedoms;
the need to nullify all Coronavirus regulations with immediate effect

2. The Infection Prevention Act forms no legal basis for the shutdown —
intent and purpose of the Act;
notifiable diseases and evidence of pathogens

3. Epidemic containment measures —
those restricted to persons actually ill or suspected of being bearers;
those applying only marginally to healthy persons;
the administrative law precedent from the measles ruling;
the unlawfulness of a blanket shutdown of institutions and businesses;
shutdown constitutes a severe and unconstitutional impingement of the freedom to practice one’s profession

4. The Act is meant to ensure people assume responsibility for their own health —
spread of Covid–19 by droplets;
following the Chancellor’s guidance;
every citizen’s right to immunisation;
quarantines are supposed to confine the sick, not the healthy

5. The local state Coronavirus Regulations flagrantly breach the Basic Law —
state governments have disregarded the federal government’s lawful regulation;
the shutdown is the greatest legal scandal in the history of post-War Germany;
criminal offences by the state government and police;
the ban on demonstrations has suspended the right to resist;
fines and detentions are unlawful

After these substantive sections, Ms Bahner closed her document with three brief appeals:

An appeal to the Chancellor and all heads of government to end the tyranny at once

A call for a nationwide demonstration at 3 pm on Easter Saturday

The oaths of all lawyers and judges bind us to safeguard the rule of law

It was the second of these appeals, to demonstrate against “coronoia” (Coronavirus paranoia), that landed Ms Bahner in trouble. In full, it read:

Fellow citizens,

I hereby invite all 83 million of you across the nation to gather and demonstrate peacefully at 3 pm on Easter Saturday:

Coronoia 2020 — [Tyranny] never again. We rise up today!

In accordance with §14.1 of the Assembly Act, please give the competent authority prior notification of your intent to demonstrate.

Website takedown

The next day, Heidelberg Police announced their intention to prosecute Ms Bahner for this appeal, on the grounds of Article 111 of the German Penal Code:

He who publicly, whether in a gathering or by disseminating writing, encourages an illegal act will be prosecuted for incitement.

The police notification sent to Ms Bahner, ordering her to appear for interview as a criminal suspect on 15 April, stated:

As I have not been able to reach you personally, I inform you by this letter that due to your public call to commit criminal acts (national gatherings at 3 pm on Easter Saturday despite a ban), your website will immediately be switched off.

An order to that effect is being sent to the company 1&1 Telekommunikation SE.

Ms Bahner’s website was duly switched off that day (9 April) but was available again the next day.

Supreme Court declines case

Meanwhile, as previously announced, Ms Bahner had submitted a 36-page urgent motion to the German Constitutional Court regarding the unlawfulness of all 16 German federal states’ Coronavirus measures, on 8 April. At closing time on Good Friday (10 April), the Constitutional Court faxed its refusal to hear her motion, finding it inadmissible as a matter of inferior administrative law.

Violent committal to psychiatric clinic

On Easter Monday, a recording was uploaded of a calm 12½-minute voicemail left by Ms Bahner for her sister, describing a massively brutal swoop on her home on Easter Sunday evening (12 April). The voice in the recording matches a previous video recording of Ms Bahner (ironically, one in which she describes nursing liability law). In the voicemail, Ms Bahner recounts:

I went into the garage and found a car following me suspiciously. After standing in front of my car for ten minutes, I sensed something was not right and ran back out of the garage. Stupidly, I didn’t run into the house, because my secretary had gone to get her car on Voss-strasse and she just didn’t show up again … I asked a passing car to call the police for me. They simply kept refusing to [respond] for five minutes, and then I realised it had been a huge mistake to call the police, because at the moment I’m Number One Enemy of the State.

When the police did arrive, I told them I felt threatened. They brought the handcuffs out and pushed me to the ground with massive force. They kept me sitting in their car for ten minutes with my hands cuffed behind my back, then they drove me around the corner to the psychiatric clinic. There were four police officers there, three nurses, and a doctor, though she only arrived ten minutes later.

I asked to be allowed to sit down and was shown to a bench. Then I asked to have the handcuffs taken off, since it was actually I who had requested police protection. But instead, I was thrown to the floor again, having my head hurled onto the stone floor from a metre (3 ft) height, which nobody reacted to. Then they asked me whether I wanted a face mask, which of course I declined.

Because I refused to move, they physically carried me to the doctor, who asked me “why I felt threatened”, even though they all know perfectly well who I am. I was told I would not be given a lawyer.

She goes on to describe in the voicemail her unfamiliarity with the psychiatric facility to which she was taken, even though she is a local lawyer who apparently had to visit clients in that clinic in the past:

Then I was forced to spend the night lying on the floor in some high-security Guantanamo psychiatric clinic, which I didn’t recognise; it’s been renovated. There was no toilet, no sink, though they did allow me water, and there was a bell I could ring, though they ignored it after the third time I pressed it.

After a further ten minutes of description of how Ms Bahner was “upgraded” from the floor of an isolation cell to a proper furnished room with good nurses, she ends the voicemail to her sister with the observation:

I have been held here for 20 hours now. If people don’t finally wake up, this is going to turn into the worst régime of terror ever … We are being tyrannised by evil, evil, evil forces. Last night, I was petrified of being killed, of being forcefully injected. I am fearful of being disappeared … Because I had been without a mobile phone at the time I was arrested, I had no way of contacting anyone … I have a summons for Wednesday [15 April] because I allegedly breached Article 111 of the Penal Code, “Incitement to Criminal Acts”. I called upon people to demonstrate! Freedom of speech was the most fundamental constitutional right in Germany, and in the space of three months it has become a criminal act.

Ms Bahner’s presence at the Klinik für Allgemeine Psychiatrie on Voss-strasse in Heidelberg, a university clinic, was confirmed on Tuesday 14 April in a telephone call by journalist Hagen Grell. The clinic told him that it had put out a public statement on the case and refused to allow him to speak to Ms Bahner, but suggested that if he were able to obtain her mobile telephone number, he would be able to call her directly.

The detention has also been reported by local Heidelberg media, regional media and a national news source. Ms Bahner’s interview for “incitement to commit criminal acts” is reportedly scheduled for 1 pm on Wednesday 15 April at the K6 Heidelberg Criminal Police Department on Römerstrasse.

On Tuesday 14 April, Attorney W. Schmitz wrote to the German Federal Bar Association that it should take up Ms Bahner’s case, if only because the Psychiatric Treatment Act did not in his understanding justify the committal of a person to an institution on the “alleged perception of a police officer” that she appeared confused. He added:

I should not have to add that Ms Bahner’s claims of very grave abuse have very untoward connotations of the darkest chapters of German history. The mere fact that she claimed to have been so badly abused was what prompted me to write to you.

Ms Bahner is in the company of over 50 well-known experts in criticising the nationwide lockdown; I would be glad to furnish you with a list of their names.

If it really is the case that lawyers critical of government measures can now be intimidated using the state legal apparatus or psychiatry, and can be professionally and socially destroyed, then it is five minutes to midnight in this country.

Confinement of whistleblowers in psychiatric institutions, an old Soviet technique, has previously been reported by UK Column from Lancashire (in our most viewed ever video, an interview with social worker Carol Woods, who we understand has recently been released but remains at threat from persecutors); from North Yorkshire (in the Hofschröer case, extending to Germany and Austria); from Nottinghamshire (the case of Melanie Shaw, who is now being well looked after in another institution); and from Cornwall (the case of Emma, a mother who had reported apparent sexual grooming going on at her child’s primary school).

source:  http://tapnewswire.com/2020/04/coronavirus-lockdown-german-lawyer-detained-for-opposing/

Lahore Bombing: Familiar Red Flags!

Hotel Fall Update.



https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/media/4549669/pa-22501712.jpg


As soon as I saw the BBC headlining the Lahore bombing on the 9 o'clock news,(5) complete with moving, heart-wrenching personal descriptions and on-scene camera images, I had those familiar uneasy feelings of deja vu, those familiar uneasy questions. What was the event for? What reaction was it meant to provoke? Who was actually behind it? Was it what it was purported to be or yet another 'False Flag', with which the world now appears to be plagued?

Tragically the reputation of the BBC has been besmirched by the revelations concerning its knowledge and protection of the serious misdeeds of Jimmy Savile. But much worse for its credibility, has been its biased and factually inaccurate representation of, particularly, events in Gaza and Ukraine and of the terrorist atrocities of, particularly, 9/11 in New York and 7/7 in London.

In all these instances it has done little more than provide an unquestioning outlet for government opinion. It has also gone beyond it, trashing the factual evidence of government conspiring to present a false story to the public. 

In the case of 9/11 from the very first, with the now legendary reporting of the collapse of Building Seven, (itself clearly a planned and coordinated demolition, unconnected to any plane) before it actually took place (1); through the rubbishing of scientists and architects with compelling evidence of fraud (2); to refusing to acknowledge or disseminate the truth about it. 

The same basic criticisms apply to the London tube bombings (3) where its treatment of those who have sought to reveal the truth, vindicated in criminal proceedings, as in the case of 'Muad'Dib' the author of the widely seen '7/7 Ripple Effect'.(4)

A much more detailed 'Global Research' discussion on BBC reliability in matters of world events and public policy can be found here (6).

I am sorry to say it, but we cannot trust the BBC when it comes to fair and accurate reporting, particularly if and when the events involve the security or intelligence services of this or other countries. 

Not only has it proved itself unreliable over what it reports, it has actively gone out of its way to undermine the truth, which for any patriotic Englishman, is very hard to accept. Either in respect of the BBC or Government. Nevertheless it is with this in mind that we must view its coverage - or absence of -any 'terrorist event', at home or abroad, and most recently in Lahore on Easter Day 2016.

The received 'wisdom' in the case of Lahore, as with events in Paris and Brussels, is that the outrages have been organised and carried out by ISIS-related jihadist entities and personnel. Nothing is allowed to challenge this basic narrative. Any countervailing evidence or indication is not given the time of day or allowed air-time. There can be no whiff of 'false-flaggery', despite its undoubted existence.

The very fact that this event, admittedly quite horrific, was given such immediate and prominent coverage, is therefore an immediate a warning sign. On the face of it, it might not seem strange given the circumstances, but it needs to be set in the comparative context of how other similar events have been treated. 

Of the two hundred and forty four (244) terrorist events in just six months from July to December 2015 listed here (7) , only a handful have been reported by the BBC and even less as headline news items across the network. This must tell us something about how 'news' is created and disseminated. It also tells us something about Lahore. It is as much shaped by the news empire, as it is by the terrorist! 

In this instance the main message was merciless Muslim violence against specifically Christians on Easter Sunday. Apart from the dubious nature of the claim that it was only Christians who were affected, it is so obviously in tune with the propaganda being pumped out from certain quarters that it shouts fraud. 

Women and children, as so often is the case, are given high profile. It incidentally maintains the momentum of Paris and Brussels, whilst conveniently distracting attention from the brutality (including murder by the IDF) and repression going on in the West Bank.

So the timing, thrust of the message, its treatment and its context is highly suspicious. Despite the inhospitable and remote location, it appears BBC cameras were on scene almost immediately to record in graphic detail the suffering.

Even Facebook immediately put a warning system into play that went disastrously wrong - or did it? 

Many (we don't know how many) subscribers were warned even if nowhere the scene. (Others may be able to check the timing of this for we often find planned events are often pre-announced in the media) Or was it an attempt to personalise and make real the event and generate anxiety and alarm, particularly in the United States and Europe? (8)

Then there are a number of additional, and now rather predictable tell tale signs that everything is not quite as it should be. 

Despite causing such devastation with presumably innumerable body parts blown everywhere, it is possible for the authorities to miraculously discover a 'skull', which it can not only identify but also attach to the bomber. Further, and yet again, the very helpful contribution by a miracle document that the bomber thoughtfully brought with him and which survived the inferno, to guide the police to the likely offender! 

The preposterous nature of this phenomenon amazingly replicates 9/11, 7/7, Paris and Brussels. As always we have the predictable 'crackdown' AFTER the event with the arrest of associates. No one ever explains how they are so quickly identified or why if known, the attack could not have been prevented. Sadly the fact is that usually government agencies are not only aware but also involved!

From 'Dawn' we get this: 

"DIG Operations Haider Ashraf said that at least 15 to 20 kg explosive material had been used by the suicide bomber. He said that police found the ‘skull’ of the suspect from the blast site and sent it for forensic analysis. To a question about the motive behind the terrorism, he said it would be premature to say anything at this stage. "However, the terrorist hit a very soft target of women and children," he said.

"An identity card police found from the site of the blast may be of the alleged suicide bomber. The DIG Operations said that according to initial inquiry, Yousuf, a young man from Muzaffargarh, might be the bomber. He said four friends of Yousuf had been detained by Muzaffargarh police from Basti Sohrani for questioning.

A witness, who was running a stall near the blast site, told reporters that a suspect aged between 20 and 30 was seen roaming in the park. He said one of the security guards of the Park had questioned him for his presence and then left him unattended." (11)

Vice, an agency that exclusively brought us the ISIS 'beheadings' has this: 

"Authorities said they had recovered one leg and the head of the suicide bomber, who they said was around 23 to 25 years old. Initial reports suggest at least 20 kg of explosives were used in a suicide jacket that also contained nuts and bolts." (9) 

Reuters has this : "Rescue services spokeswoman Deeba Shahnaz said at least 29 children, seven women and 34 men were killed and about 340 were wounded, with 25 in serious condition." (10) 

The timing of the Easter attack in Lahore and the way it was presented as a clash of religions and ideology and linked to events in India and Brussels is highly suspicious to my mind.

Why was the Lahore attack given such prominence by the BBC and other news agencies, whilst other similar have been virtually ignored? That is the question that needs to be asked. 

Whoever planted the bombs needed expertise, infrastructure, material and control, which might equally, if not more likely, be in the hands of those with a much wider global and coordinated agenda.'


1. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=677i43QfYpQ

2. See the notorious interview with Niels Harrit here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF334x-xWz8

3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33253598  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVH1MEdWzW0

4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8124687.stm  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwyzpzEgUWE

5. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35908512

6. http://www.globalresearch.ca/media-disinformation-and-the-bbc/8626

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_July%E2%80%93December_2015

8. facebook apology: https://www.rt.com/viral/337417-facebook-safety-lahore-pakistan/ and http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-blast-facebook-idUSKCN0WT0PJ

9. https://news.vice.com/article/pakistani-authorities-launch-raids-bomb-death-toll-hits-70

10. http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-blast-idUKKCN0WT0HR

11. http://www.dawn.com/news/1248259

Fall from grace? 

http://nation.com.pk/lahore/17-Apr-2016/girl-dies-after-falling-from-hotel-roof

Duke of Edinburgh Recommends 'Good Read'!

"The result is a fascinating read, although an unnerving one for anyone who has the tastes and appetites of Mr Toad and the income of Mr Rat." The Times.


The Duke of Edinburgh photographed leaving a Windsor Castle Easter Day Mass carrying a copy of the critically acclaimed book by David Lough on his investigation into the heretofore hidden precarious personal finances of Sir Winston Churchill. With so many years in the public eye, this could hardly be accidental, surely? It is even colour coordinated with the Queen's impeccable daffodil spring outfit. Was it intended to convey a message to public and politicians regarding the Royal finances, or of a past political leader of stature and great achievements, or even of the story from the New Testament about Christ overturning the tables of the money changers in the Temple? On the face of it it appears an inappropriate item to be carrying from a religious service commemorating the resurrection or is it? With such a notable recommendation it must be worth reading mustn't it? Many obviously think so, as it is already sold out and in a second print run.

From http://www.davidlough.uk/

"Critics on  both sides of the Atlantic hail No More Champagne

‘Reads as effortlessly as a novel … [it] may become a classic. It will transform the way that Churchill is interpreted and understood’ – Tim Congdon, The New Criterion

‘ Brilliant new book’- Charles Moore, The Daily Telegraph

David Lough’s No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money is the first fully researched, lifetime narrative of Winston Churchill’s precarious private finances. It is now on sale in hardback, e-book and audio book formats. It was listed by The Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Mail and The Guardian among their ‘books of the year’ for 2015; and was shortlisted for theLongman-History Today Book of the Year Prize 2016.

Churchill lived for most of his life on a financial cliff edge. The popular image may be of champagne and cigars; however, behind the scenes, his friends and family came to the rescue several times to prevent his financial problems from engulfing his political career. Only fragments of this story have so far emerged. A retired banker and history scholar of Oxford University, David Lough has unearthed new material from the unprecedented access he was given to the private records of Churchill and his associates. He now tells the fascinating and surprising story of Churchill and his finances for the first time.

Find out more about the book, how David researched it, his background and his schedule of events – andhow to order a copy with a dedication from the author – or from bookshops and Amazon.

“For ages I have been puzzled by the odd bits information, often contradictory, that have emerged about Churchill’s money problems. I was surprised to find that no one had written about the subject properly before – but even more surprised by the story that emerges from my research. It is richer than I had dared hope…”"

Who is David Lough? Biography reproduced from here: http://www.andrewlownie.co.uk/authors/david-lough

"Born in 1950, David Lough won an open history scholarship to Oxford University where he won 1st class honours, studying under historians Richard Cobb, Michael Howard and Theodore Zeldin.  He pursued a career in financial markets, starting in Asia and investment banking, before founding a private banking business in 1988.  It was sold in 2013, by which time it employed a hundred people advising many prominent families across the range of their private affairs, including their investments, tax affairs and inheritance planning.  

"A former member of the London Stock Exchange and Fellow of the Chartered Securities Institute who has acted as ‘blind trustee’ for government ministers while in office, David Lough returned to history on his retirement, using his experience to research the untold story of Winston Churchill’s tangled financial affairs.  He edited a magazine that he founded in the 1990s and has written regularly  for the wealth management industry and its publications.  An experienced public speaker at conferences and dinners, he is a member of the London Library’s Founders’ Circle.

"Author News

• "No More Champagne heads the list of ‘Best biographies of 2015′ in The Wall Street Journal 27 Nov 2015

  David Lough’s No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money continues to gather superb reviews:
  “This book brilliantly illuminates one of the few unexplored aspects of Winston Churchill’s life – his private finances. Based on a wealth of fresh documentary evidence, it also reveals much about his larger-than-life character. In these fascinating pages Churchill emerges as extravagant in every way, especially in his addiction to risk.” Piers Brendon
  “This excellent and entertaining work is worth reading for the lists of more than 1,000 bottles of champagne and 250 bottles of brandy that Churchill got through in 1949 alone”.Vicky Pryce, Prospect
  “This is the first biography to focus on Churchill’s business affairs. To view someone from just one angle is usually to deform them, but David Lough, drawing on compelling material including Churchill’s tax records, more than justifies his audit” Nicholas Shakespeare, Daily Telegraph
  “a surprising page-turner” The Economist

• FT reviews David Lough's No More Champagne 15 Oct 2015

  The Financial Times review of David Lough’s No More Champagne: Churchill and his Money can be foundhttp://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/book-review-no-more-champagne-by-david-lough
  ‘This excellent and entertaining work is worth reading for the lists of more than 1,000 bottles of champagne and 250 bottles of brandy that Churchill got through in 1949 alone. ’

• David Lough on Churchill and his Money 30 Sep 2015

  In this new video, author David Lough talks about Churchill’s tangled personal finances, the subject of his new book No More Champagne.
  Full video

• David Lough and Roger Crowley reviewed in Times 19 Sep 2015

  The Times writes of Conquerors: How Portugal Seized the Indian Ocean and Forged the First Global Empire
  The historian Roger Crowley promises: “a long-range epic of navigation, trade and technology, money and crusade, political diplomacy and espionage, sea battles and shipwrecks, endurance, reckless courage and extreme violence”. His pulsating narrative does exactly that.
  http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/non-fiction/article4557758.ece
  And says of David Lough’s No More Champagne: Churchill and his Money
  He is a courteous guide, whose knowledge of the arcane world of investment (and its pitfalls) enables him to explain what went wrong and how Churchill managed to scrape through. The result is a fascinating read, although an unnerving one for anyone who has the tastes and appetites of Mr Toad and the income of Mr Rat.
  http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/non-fiction/article4560854.ece

• David Lough's book on Churchill begins serial in Daily Mail 12 Sep 2015

  David Lough’s No More Champagne: Churchill and his Money begins itsDaily Mail serial today http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3231410/Winston-spendaholic-teetered-brink-bankruptcy-saved-secret-backhanders-new-book-Chuchill-s-finances-reveals-spent-40-000-year-casinos-54-000-booze.html"