20 September 2015

Living in France, but within reach of English TV transmissions, it's interesting to compare their different news media.  For me, France24 - a French news channel broadcast in English - is far superior to the UK TV media. I don't want to watch biased reporting: something some news mogul thinks will provide 'prettier' pictures or pander more to the emotive, as the late Sir Robin Day used to say.  It's especially true in the current refugee crisis.  I want to hear the truth, and not only that:  how each country is going to deal with the thousands - which may become millions if Lebanon, Iraq and other ME countries get drawn in - coming into Europe every week and how to filter out potential terrorists. It's crucial in tiny countries like England which, unlike Germany, simply doesn't have the space/housing/infrastructure to take the numbers that the 'emotive' news pictures say they must.  Let's hope the EU gets its act together very soon to come up with a more workable solution, as I suggested below. People aren't commodities to be advertised globally one minute, then forgotten the next when something more 'emotive' happens in the world. Thank you France24 news for giving a much more balanced view.

3 August 2014

The bells of Notre Dame were pealing on Friday. Not only did they commemorate 100 years since the start of WW1 in Paris but also the assassination of anti-war socialist Jean Jaures in a Paris cafe just before the war. What would he think of the world today? So many people losing their lives. But, things are murky. Historically, countries went to war to get rid of a tyrant, innocent civilians and soldiers being the inevitable casualties. Everyone accepted that, with no modern blow by blow analysis by incessant media intrusions. Just imagine if the world had told Churchill to stop fighting the madman Hitler because of innocent German casualties. But now? How on earth are we to get rid of insane terrorist organisations, whose sole purpose is to proselytise the whole world to their way of thinking, if everyone complains (however understandably) when there are casualties displayed in the media every waking moment? Neville Chamberlain would tell you. You can't negotiate with terrorism in any form. They'll just grow stronger and stronger, eventually taking over the whole world. The only way is to eliminate them completely. Netanyahu knows this from centuries and centuries of his people being attacked. Jaures had the best intentions, but the best way to deal with a festering boil is to lance it quickly and let the poison out.