An unimportant little detail

With the British media totally obsessed with the Live8 crap, it seems we have to go to the Taipei Times to find out what is happening in our own damn country (excuse the French).

Anyhow, on that crucially important question that MSM finds so unimportant, it is from the said Taipei Times that we learn that Jack Straw is hinting that the EU arms embargo will stay until at least December.

This follows the news that the US congress has passed another law attempting to control the access of EU companies to US technology – something else that the British media thought so unimportant that it did not bother to report it. It now seems that Jack Straw, speaking on behalf of the EU presidency, has decided that there is little chance of the EU lifting its ban on arms sales to China.

Straw said there was still considerable opposition in Europe, given China's human-rights record and tension between China and Taiwan. "That is reflected in a series of resolutions in the European Parliament. So that is the difficulty at the moment," he told a group of journalists from across the EU. "My guess is that there is still no consensus" to end the ban, he added.

Incidentally, one wonders how the whole issue of lifting the China embargo squares with the sentiment offered by Barroso in his speech, reported by us yesterday, where he glibly states that the EU must build "on our indispensable partnership with the United States, for example, working together to promote democracy, stability, peace and security around the world."

Given that the EU is built on a foundation of anti-Americanism and is doing its best to undermine the Nato alliance, one really does wonder what planet that idiot lives on.