Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Haphazardly to war, in reply to James George,
Take IS whose popularity (and despite the bulldust the hacks around here push these guys are immensely popular throughout the Arab speaking nations)
The Islamic State group has substantially less support in Arab nations than it does in European countries, including Britain, according to a new report into attitudes towards the brutal jihadist group.
The Syria and Iraq-based group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, enjoys practically no popularity in Egypt, Lebanon, or Saudi Arabia, according to research by the Washington Institute. Saudi Arabia is one of five Arab nations which joined the US in airstrikes on Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria.
Just 3% of Egyptian expressed a positive opinion of the IS, only 5% of Saudis, and under 1% of Lebanese respondents showed any support for the group. It does not mean, the researchers point out, that there is absolutely no support for IS in those countries as the small percentages add up to around 1.5 million people in Egypt, 500,000 in Saudi Arabia, and a few thousand in Lebanon.
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Hard News: Friday (Thursday) Music:…, in reply to llew40,
Our teenagers were totally enthralled by Tinashe. Not quite my thing, but they were all completely buzzing and grinning from ear to ear after spending the whole gig right up against the front barrier.
I wish I'd seen her! Heard lots of good things.
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Hard News: Friday (Thursday) Music:…, in reply to llew40,
Also enjoyed Earl Gateshead’s banter “heavy yeah yeah, this one is warrior reggae, but dont see too many warriors out there”
His rewind style was a laugh -- just push the needle back across the record to roughly where that "amazing" bit was.
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Hard News: Friday (Thursday) Music:…, in reply to Samuel Scott,
It was pretty cool swimming in the ocean with Mr Scruff playing tunes through a giant PA on the beach. Great festival.
It was a shame our little public conversation couldn't go ahead, but apart from that, Sunday was a sunny, happy day for me.
Cat Empire were terrible!
What even are they? I don't get it.
Trinity Roots were great, the new lineup with Ben Woods taking over the drums and Ed Zuccollo adding extra keys works great.
Gah. And I missed them ...
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Someone with armed forces insight has pointed out to me that New Zealand will be going in with no Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqis. And without a SOFA, you don’t know what your Rules of Engagement are.
I gather there are a few people troubled by this.
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Meanwhile back in Syria, Assad continues to drop barrel bombs on civilians.
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Hard News: Haphazardly to war, in reply to Tinakori,
The US fracking revolution is undermining the role of Saudi Arabia as an oil producer, that’s the key reason the Saudis are pumping as much as they can – to depress the oil price and reduce future investment in fracked wells.
Which is also having the interesting side-effect of further undermining the already dysfunctional Russian economy.
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Hard News: Haphazardly to war, in reply to Idiot Savant,
I think that ignores the elephant in the room: under MMP, with its most likely coalition partner, Labour would immediately cease to be in government if it tried to do anything of the sort. And better marketing wouldn’t work, because the Greens’ supporters aren’t fooled by it.
Do you think the Greens would pull the plug on their first term in government? Or simply and visibly vote against? I'm not sure.
At any rate, in this alternative history, I think Labour would be more cautious. They know as well as National (who lie about it for political reasons) that Hager and Stephenson were right about what became of our Afghanistan deployment. Goff has actually acknowledged that Stephenson was right.
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Newsweek reckoned last month the Kurdish forces may be able to seize Mosul soon – and may not be too keen on handing it back to Iraq. That would be very, very messy.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Christchurch,…, in reply to Mike O'Connell,
And there’s this too: Music World Records: NZ’s Very Own K-Tel’. It’s worth a closer read.
Oh, man, thank you for that link!
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