- Vice-chair @socialistlawyer - National pensions negotiator (alt) @ucu - I teach financial regulation & state/corporate accountability
London, Brussels
Joined March 2018
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#InternationalHumanRightsDay
Key facts #AssangeCase
1/
- #Assange’s legally privileged conversations have been extensively spied upon by the US.
thegrayzone.com/2020/05/14/a…
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
FT reports that in early 2023 an unofficial channel floated a deal under which Putin agreed to pull Russian forces back to the pre-24 Feb 2022 line in exchange for Ukraine dropping NATO membership and recognising Russian control of Crimea (plus a land corridor). Zelenskyy and Yermak reportedly refused even to discuss territorial concessions, believing they could secure better terms on the battlefield.
Mediators say the US also declined to back the channel. Participants later called it a missed chance for a settlement more favourable to Ukraine than what followed.
Now, imagine how many lives would be saved, the energy sector would not be in ruins, the economy, democracy would be preserved if the deal happened back then...
TERRIBLE, DISGUSTING, INUMAN.
ft.com/content/dcb57f30-bbfe…
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
The same pattern with every war-mongering propaganda campaign. In this case, Russia is portrayed as an irredeemable evil with whom diplomacy is impossible. Blinken kept repeating that there were no "meaningful" signs of Russian diplomacy. Actual evidence of diplomatic progress -- e.g. the 2022 Istanbul talks -- is memory-holed. Media across the spectrum (including progressive media, sadly) goes along.
After years pass and hundreds of thousands are killed in the war that could have been stopped, it finally become permissible to admit the facts:
FT reports that in early 2023 an unofficial channel floated a deal under which Putin agreed to pull Russian forces back to the pre-24 Feb 2022 line in exchange for Ukraine dropping NATO membership and recognising Russian control of Crimea (plus a land corridor). Zelenskyy and Yermak reportedly refused even to discuss territorial concessions, believing they could secure better terms on the battlefield.
Mediators say the US also declined to back the channel. Participants later called it a missed chance for a settlement more favourable to Ukraine than what followed.
Now, imagine how many lives would be saved, the energy sector would not be in ruins, the economy, democracy would be preserved if the deal happened back then...
TERRIBLE, DISGUSTING, INUMAN.
ft.com/content/dcb57f30-bbfe…
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
Victoire totale du mouvement social. La marche s'est rassemblée au nouveau point autorisé et déferle dans le calme sur plus de quatre kilomètres. Les provocations aux désordres du préfet de police et de Lecornu sont un échec total. Pour les autorités, il est temps de céder, sinon il ne leur restera bientôt que la porte de sortie.
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
More footage of the protest march:
Victoire totale du mouvement social. La marche s'est rassemblée au nouveau point autorisé et déferle dans le calme sur plus de quatre kilomètres. Les provocations aux désordres du préfet de police et de Lecornu sont un échec total. Pour les autorités, il est temps de céder, sinon il ne leur restera bientôt que la porte de sortie.
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
🇫🇷 Huge crowds marched peacefully through Paris on Saturday after authorities changed the protest's approved route at the last minute, a move the leftist leader of France Unbowed Jean-Luc Mélenchon called a deliberate attempt to provoke "disorder."
Mélenchon said the government switched the route while the country was in shock over Friday's shooting in Trappes, a working-class suburb west of Paris. A gunman there killed a 26-year-old man and wounded several others, including a 12-year-old girl, in what President Emmanuel Macron described as a terrorist and racist act.
Mélenchon, the top left-wing candidate in polls for next year's presidential election, also listed what he called a series of provocations by Macron’s government. The march's original starting point was banned. Soldiers from Sentinelle, France's anti-terror patrol force, were posted outside public buildings despite having no crowd-control training. And the Paris police chief told shopkeepers to hire private security. "They are doing absolutely everything to provoke an incident," he said, while praising marchers' "collective discipline."
He warned Macron and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to meet protesters' demands before a nationwide general strike called by the CGT, one of France's biggest labor unions, for Nov. 5. "Either Mr. Macron gives in right away, or he will have to do so under much more hazardous conditions," he said.
Macron met high school student organizations for the first time Friday, after more than a month of protests, and Lecornu is set to meet them Monday.
🔴⚠️ FLASH
Situation totalement lunaire à Marseille.
Plusieurs milliers de personnes continuent d’affluer, progressivement, depuis plus de 40 minutes, sans aucune interruption. ( Aux réformés )
#24octobre
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
Jeffrey Sachs – A Framework for Peace in Ukraine
braveneweurope.com/geopoliti…
@AlwaysHappy087 @KapturekCzarny @p_chiocchetti @chrisdec71 @AlvaroOleart @NolleHallberg @anima_moma @RHdeGaspi @Atkinsopht @deepa_driver @DrSaoirse @suecramptonhill @lucyfyson @Berlin4Labour @IvoJima61
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen
The Ongoing Cancellation Campaign Against a Dissenting Academic in Norway
braveneweurope.com/geopoliti…
@d_whyte100 @dreluise @Vickie_FC @Vicky_Canning @thephilippics @richmoth @USSbriefs @deepa_driver @gerrymooney60 @Will_McGowan37 @DrJoGrady @DrLeeJones
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
Warmonger Marco Rubio is so desperate for regime change in Cuba that he is publicly asking Cubans to help the CIA organize a coup attempt.
The US empire used to organize its many coups in secret. Now it puts job postings for treasonous CIA coup-plotters on Twitter.
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
Good to see the State Dept lifting the mask of diplomacy and exposing itself as cover for malign CIA destabilization ops aimed at installing puppet governments
Rubio’s tweet proves the thesis of William Blum’s Killing Hope
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
Lula vs. Bolsonaro: I was held in solitary confinement for 1,901 days for revealing the truth about the U.S. government's killings and espionage, including against Brazil and its industries. Out of power, Lula fought for my freedom. In power, Lula discussed my persecution with Pope Francis, who decided to meet with my family and offer help. After my release, Lula and I met in Rome to mourn the Holy Father's passing. Lula was kind to my children and asked for nothing in return. In contrast, Jair and Flávio Bolsonaro did nothing and said nothing. Yet without the ability to say no to Washington and Tel Aviv, there can be no domestic policy, only foreign instructions. Those orders are always the same: "Expand our theft of resources and wages, and keep your mouths shut about us murdering children." Sellouts will surrender everything in exchange for a cut, even their own tongues.
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
Photo: The Battle of Isandlwana, 22 January 1879.
The British invaded a kingdom they dismissed as a "tribe."
That kingdom fielded an organized army capable of inflicting one of the most devastating defeats in British colonial military history.
The Zulu Kingdom did not lack sovereignty, military strategy or civilization. It lacked the colonizer’s recognition of them.
Painting by Charles Edwin Fripp, 1885.
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
What they called "tribes" were, frequently, nations.
The word choice was precise and deliberate.
"Tribe" suggests pre-political. Primitive. Blood-based. Pre-rational. The kind of social organization that exists before real civilization begins.
"Nation" suggests sovereignty. History. Law. The kind of social organization that has rights.
You cannot colonize a nation without committing a crime that demands accounting.
You can "pacify" a tribe. You can "administer" a tribe. You can "protect" a tribe from itself.
The same Zulu Kingdom that had its own legal tradition, its own military strategy sophisticated enough to defeat British forces at Isandlwana, its own diplomatic history, was a "tribe."
The same Asante Empire that controlled extensive gold trade networks, developed complex political institutions, and produced remarkable artistic traditions was dismissed as a mere "tribe."
The word did the work before the soldiers arrived.
Call it a "tribe" first.
Then the conquest is "administration."
Then the destruction of its institutions is "modernization."
Then the theft of its resources is "development."
Language is the first colonial tool.
It was used here with full awareness of what it was doing.
ALT The Battle of Isandlwana, 22 January 1879. The British invaded a kingdom they dismissed as a "tribe." That kingdom fielded an organized army capable of inflicting one of the most devastating defeats in British colonial military history. The Zulu Kingdom did not lack sovereignty, military strategy or civilization. It lacked the colonizer’s recognition of them. Painting by Charles Edwin Fripp, 1885.
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
B’Tselem urgently calls on governments and international institutions to act now, using all means available under international law, to prevent the forcible displacement of Palestinian civilians, collective punishment and extensive unlawful destruction in Hebron. Israeli leaders are openly declaring their intentions, and actions on the ground have already begun.
Following the shooting near Hebron on 23 October, in which two Israeli soldiers were killed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz openly announced plans to forcibly displace Palestinian residents and carry out extensive destruction in the area.
In a statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared: “We will apply in the cities the successful offensive model we implemented in the refugee camps.”
That same model has already displaced more than 33,000 Palestinians in the northern West Bank. Now, Israeli leaders are threatening to bring the same mass displacement and destruction to Hebron.
Implementation has already begun. Israeli forces imposed a cordon on Hebron and Halhul, while the Civil Administration began demolishing Palestinian structures in the neighborhood of Farsh al-Hawa. At the same time, Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the establishment of four new settlement farming outposts in the South Hebron Hills.
Israeli leaders are openly announcing plans for collective punishment and acts that could constitute war crimes. These plans echo Israel’s devastating operations as part of the genocide in Gaza and mark a further escalation of its ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing as part of the Elimination Project in the West Bank: the systematic dismantling of Palestinian collective life while expanding settlements and entrenching permanent Israeli control.
The world cannot stand by as Israel continues its assault on Palestinians, waiting for yet more neighborhoods to be emptied and erased before intervening, despite what we have already witnessed in Gaza and the northern West Bank. Governments and international bodies must act now to prevent these crimes and protect Palestinian civilians.
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
A definition widely criticised (see recently Omer Bartov and Mark Mazower) and recognised as dangerous even by the person who drafted it.
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
Zionism is racism which is a scourge on society.
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
When even the Zionist author of the IHRA definitions says you shouldn't use it for this purpose, but you do it anyway.
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
Interesting that the foreign secretary's account is tweeting this.
Who could the intended audience be? 🤔
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
I don't think most people realise just how sinister this is.
It is not about real antisemitism.
It aims to stamp out any criticism of Israel.
It is Labour, completely caving in to the Israeli lobby.
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
We don't have an antisemitism problem.
We have a complicity in genocide problem.
Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver retweeted
This report needs much more scrutiny before ANY of its recommendations are accepted, particularly the wretched IHRA piece of Zionist thought crime.