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MicroB
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On 5/13/2024 at 4:36 AM, Pique Dard said:During the Second World War, Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian who served as a senior officer in the dreaded SS division, which represented the very essence of Nazism, was made a national hero of Ukraine by Zelisnky
He actually spent most of WW2 first in a concentration camp, Sachsenhausen in 1942, then house arrest by 1944. Early in the war, he was certainly a collaborator, but the Germans arrested him as they feared revolt. Right at the end, he was part of the Ukrainian National Committee, that was trying to extricate Ukrainian units from German command; presumably he thought the Nazis were finished, and he wanted to contunue the fight in Ukraine. He was a Right Wing Nationalist, and a bit of a thug, but never served in any of the SS Divisions (the SS consisted of many Divisions, most of which were little different by War's end from regular army) with any kind of rank, let alone a "senior officer".
On the otherhand, Putin is very interested in rehabilitating Stalin, and this started long before Russia's seizures of Ukrainian territory.
Nazi sympathies seem to be common in that part of the world, not just confined to Ukraine. The Russian army is full of them, judging from tattoos (which the Russians were using as a measure to identify so-called Ukrainian Nazis). I would put that down to people of Putin's generation who taught their youth a twisted history of WW2. leading to political immaturity. Putin might think in his head he's another Peter the great (though it seems his real hero is Czar Nicholas 1), but in reality, he's a racist, homophobic thug , with views that are indistinguishable from German Nazis, with the added touch that he's out to financially rape Russia. He doesn't have a political ideology that genuinely seeks to better the lot of the Russian people, hence he's quite happy to depopulate the Russian far east of its menfolk in his mincemeat tactics. He holds the average Russian in contempt, a serf, in the same way the Czars did.
Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are politically immature. The idea of political opposition that doesn't involve thumping each other over a disagreement hasn't yet take root. A good article:
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2023/01/ukraine-stepan-bandera-nationalist
Thanks to people with mindsets like Putin, the non-Russian former Soviet States are denied a legitimate history. In wartime, people do look to historic heroes, even anti-heroes. Many countries do this; some of the leaders of the Irish uprising had some shady views. Subhas Chandra Bose is venerated as a hero of India, even though he chose to actively side with Nazi Germany and Japan, and recruited Indian soldiers into his army to fight other Indian soldiers, who had taken a different oath. Indian National Army veterans received a pension but WW2 Indian Army veterans did not
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGJpbTDW0AAyt33.jpg:large
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When submitting supporting evidence for a UK visitor visa application, is there a need to disclose banking details. I'm happy enough to submit a P60, and a redacted front page of a bank statement (obscuring the account number), showing savings balance, because I don't really trust someone at VFS to safeguard that data. They don't need to know my bank account number, do they?
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22 hours ago, GroveHillWanderer said:
Oh, I would say you should fear the disease way more. It has a case fatality rate of over 50% in humans.
Risk of bird flu spreading to humans is ‘enormous concern’, says WHO
Likely high, but probably not as high as that
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18477756/
H5N1 infection is probably under reported.
A Thai study in a village population suggested seropositivity at about 9%. Thailand has reported about 20 deaths, with 12 from 17 identified cases in 2004 (CFR 70.6%). But deaths are likely grossly underestimated as well.
Infection in cattle might take this virus into a new direction, for better or worse. It might become more or less infectious to humans, or the virulence might be worse orless. Influenza originated in birds, and seems to have made the jump into humans about 2000-2500 years ago in Greece, about when Greeks started raising pigs in stys. Flu then stayed relatively benign until the 19th Century, first with Russian flu.
H5N1 going from birds into cattle doesn't make it more likely that birds can infect humans, but that the virus has another route of transmission. Cattle possess both human-like and bird-like sialic acid receptors, so, on the face of it, this ought to result in a virus more likely to infect humans. So its important to eradicate this virus in cattle before it gets any further. The virus to date has been found in dairy cattle, infecting the teats. You are going to hear a lot more about FLI Riems in Germany, as they work to study infection in cattle.
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On 5/17/2024 at 11:50 PM, SingAPorn said:
How come the death toll of loner falang tourists is so high in Thailand ? In no other country do tourists pass away so fast. Very sad for the deceased and his family - RIP.
P.S. It's up to the British Embassy to pay all expenses and then settle with the family back in UK.
London sends billions of pounds worth money and arms to Ukraine so they can surely help their own when in trouble abroad.
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On 5/11/2024 at 11:32 AM, stoner said:
a year ago yes. both your links are way out of date. the market has dramatically changed since then.
it's really not that complicated. hollowed out furniture hahaha. it's cannabis not cocaine or heroine. do you know the volume of both legal and illegal cannabis grown in california ? it's incredible. a number of years ago a canadian licensed producer was caught with a room they never reported to the government. they were selling it all out the back door to the black market.
corruption at both ends and bobs your uncle. you can get a pound of cannabis in cali for about 300 usd.
Your comments mean nothing without sources, and so will be disregarded. Your comment on prices in (presumably) California is irrelevant. Your comment on the 2019 Canntrust incident is irrelevant in 2024. Please cite more recent examples to support your supposition that US publicly traded companies are routinely involved in the evasion of Thai customs law to place cheap product on the market. Name these companies.
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5 hours ago, Scouse123 said:
It's amazing that they can just ignore the ' elephant in the room' which is Yaa Baa, Ecstasy, Ketamine and focus solely on the least harmful, which is Cannabis.
Now I understand that the above drugs are not legal, but they represent far more of a challenge to the peace and harmony of the country, that they love banging on about, than what Cannabis presents.
Yaa Baa usage is at epidemic proportions in the country, and so is Ketamine and Ecstasy.
A ridiculous deflection from real issues that need addressing.
A seperate issue. Much of that methamphetamine is produced on an industrial scale by the UWSA in Myanmar; Wa State is effectively a narco-state, with a dodgy relationship with the Tatmadaw, in what is a full blown civil war, as well as funding from China. The cannabis policy has not worked because it has facilitated the entry of foreign criminal gangs into Thailand, primarily from the US. To make it work, and to address the methamphetamine problems, requires a combination of much tougher border security along with regional cooperation and interdiction. Look how well that's worked between Mexico and the US. Its ruinously expensive, and appears to have made little dent. Parts of Mexico have become ungovernable as a result of interdiction policies.
A libertarian approach might be to open the Thai agricultural sector to foreign investment. Have the legitimate producers in the US, with their sacks of cash, buy Thai farms and land. That is fraught with problems, both about changes in Thai land ownership law, and the potential impacts on food production.
Thailand can't really do anything to influence what is happening in Myanmar, nor China. But it can close down cannabis shops.
Otherwise, it has to think about how it can support Thai farmers, and drive out foreign competition.
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3 hours ago, Billybaroo said:
That is a big no if you mean to bring in cannabis from another country into Thailand. Especially, from the US. While cannabis make be legal in one state to transport into other states or over borders is a violation of Federal law.
And yet the majority of cannabis sold in Thailand is US grown
Why is US-grown cannabis cheaper than Thai cannabis? Labour costs must be higher, then there are transportation costs. I can't imagine the growers with licences, such as Ultra Health, Mammoth Farms, Palo Verde Center, Copperstate Farms, Cresco labs etc, will want to get involved with shadey practices involving fruit imports, hollowed furniture. Companies like Aurora and Cronos are publicly listed, and such activities are really bad for ESG, and make shareholders unhappy. Probably organised crime, who's business is not just cannabis, wanting to defend market share by deliberately undercutting legitimate businesses, and running "businesses" in a way that most will find intolerable (low labour costs due to use of illegal immigrants, slave labour, illegal cultivation on land you don't own, construction and operation of grow houses without heed of safety law).
My understanding is that the Thai decriminalisation was primarily intended to help poor Thai farmers with an alternative cash crop, which is laudable, rather than a moral stance regarding the use of narcotics, but instead, these farmers, doing the right thing, are finding themselves in competition with essentially foreign criminal gangs, who, due to regulation of their industries in the US locking them out, are looking for alternative markets to dump unregulated cannabis. Regulation in the US has not created a free for all, but instead created cartels who were able to obtain state licences. If you don't have a state licence to grow the stuff, you are still a criminal, and now your rivals have the forces of government on their side to drive you out of business.
And it gets even seedier. Much of the illegitimate cannabis production in the US, which is being dumped in Thailand, is financed by Chinese Triads;
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/21/illicit-cannabis-china-00086125
Regulation has given a veneer of respectability to criminality. The buyers of cannabis in Thailand looking for US grown stuff are probably confusing that with legitimate cannabis, when in fact its probably grown by people involved with snakeheads, money laundry, extortion etc.
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On 5/7/2024 at 5:56 AM, Skipalongcassidy said:
BLOCKING is the newest liberal left 'SAFE PLACE'
Funnily enought I am a card carrying member of the Conservative and Unionist Party..
I take it you are a Septic Tank.
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10 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:
The documented death or injury numbers from COVID vaccines are tiny compared to the documented vast numbers of lives saved and illnesses avoided from COVID.
When governments approve a medical treatment or vaccine, I don't think they ever say there will be no side effects. What they say, and what is required for approval, is that the benefits significantly outweigh the risks, as was the case here.
Its a wasted discussion now. People are set in their beliefs.
Jonas Salk invented the first Polio vaccine. It took 20 years of research, kickstarted by Roosevelt. The vaccine arrived after 40 years of a Polio epidemic that lead to summer shutdowns of beaches, swimming pools and schools. Roosevelt, a Polio survivor, did not live to see the Salk vaccine. Eisenhower did, and Ike literally cried when he awarded Salk with the Cogressional Medal.
What is less remembered is that first Salk vaccine was a disaster. There was nothing wrong with the vaccine, which used a formaldehyde inactivated polio virus (viruses was still a novel concept, having only been discovered in the 1930s). Back then, there were no clinical trials. 3 companies were contracted by the US government to scale up production of Dr Salk's vaccine, and get it into the arms of American kids. One of those companies though didn't know how to make formaldehyde. Consequently, 200,000 does went out with live virus.
As a result, the FDA was created, because the government realised it wasn't enough to invent a new medicine, you also needed to know how to make it.
The mistake though didn't stop parents getting their kids vaccinated. The Polio vaccination campaign is the second most successful vaccination programme in history.
In the 1860s, people in Leicester rioted over the smallpox vaccine. They didn't want it. The Labour party campaigned to get rid of the vaccine act, and the formation of the NHS brought an end to it, followed by a catastrophic collapse in smallpox vaccination rates in the UK. In 1962, smallpox broke out in Bradford. People were soon queueing for it.
Some attitudes change, some do not.
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19 hours ago, Bday Prang said:
what exactly does "partially" vaccinated actually mean?
Partial vaccination means the same as for any other vaccine; failure to complete the prescribed dosages. The number of dosages depends on the vaccine. The term is synonymous with "incomplete vaccination".
For instance, if you have the HBV vaccine, which typically uses a recombinant antigen produced in yeast cells or hamster ovarian cells, you need 3 vaccinations before you can be considered fully vaccinated. The HBV vaccine gives 80% effectiveness against the risk of developing hepatitis. Conversely, the whooping cough vaccine (Pertussis) is considered non-sterilising, ie it does not stop infection, nor prevent spread, but it does mitigate the illness.
The problem is the term "sterilizing vaccine"; a vaccine that prevents infection. Its a biological myth, because its based on how a disease is measured. The usual measure of the efficacy of a vaccine is the prevention of illness, and the disappearance of cases. In most cases, disease is determined by symptoms. But its actually impossible to demonstrate infection never occurred.
The measles vaccine is held up as a highly effective vaccine; it virtually eliminates measles in kids. But, when vaccination levels falls, there is a resurgence in cases. The vaccine, it turns out, doesn't prevent infection events. It prevents kids developing measles (rash), but if you start testing for the measles virus, its still circulating among those kids.
The paradigm for infection detection is increasingly molecular. In 2020, it was PCR. In the next pandemic, it will be CRISPR, with 1-2 orders of magnitude increase in sensitivity and specificity. The myth created by Danish physician Peter Ludvig Panum when he assessed the effectiveness of measles vaccination in the Faroes, in the 1840s, which he observed to be perfectly effective, will be eroded.
The lay public, in general, do not understand how vaccines work. Why would they, its not a topic they paid much attention to at school.
The HPV vaccine is near enough perfect in preventing cervical cancer in women. Its probably the most effective vaccine known.
The Rabies vaccine, at most, provides 2 years protection, but more typically 6 months protection. One wouldn't quibble though about efficacy after being bitten by a rabid dog, like I was (and I had the early recombinant version into the belly).
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7 hours ago, susanlea said:
There is no emergency. Population increased by 2bn since 2000 and world hunger fell so people can see the climate talk as a scam which it is. Warming helps humans as cold kills far more people and crops. Anyone with an education above 6th grade can work out it is scam that has been on repeat since the early 2000s. We knewBlo last century carbon dioxide was a greenhouse gas but all the add on scaremongering is pure scam.
Blocked Susan lea for not reading.
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7 hours ago, impulse said:I am cautiously optimistic that scientists over the next 70 years will come up with plant strains that will tolerate any changes in conditions and use all that extra plant food in the atmosphere to increase yields. Even in Thailand.
Generally, the same people skeptical of climate change/climate emergency/global warming, are also the same people resisting geneticslly engineered crops, and who generally push against scientists, to the extent some want scientists to be incarcerated.
The ability of plants to photosynthesize (take oxidized cardon in CO2, and convert it to reduced carbon in sugars) is dependant on access to phosphate, nitrogen and a few metals, to manufacture the enzymes needed to fixate CO2.
Major threat to rice yields in SEA is seawater contamination of fields. So work is being done on salt-resistant rice, which also makes them more resistant to drought. But genetic manipulation of strains can lead to domination of viable strains by a small number of countries. The Beijing Genomics Institute is easily the largest gene sequencing organisation in the world, and they were part of the Human Genome Project. After that was completed, they switched their focus to studying the rice genome. Likely, China holds the knowledge and knowhow in improving crop yields.
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46 minutes ago, MangoKorat said:
'Why does the UK government have to do anything about? Because its fair? Out of pity?'
Clearly because its fair.
Nothing you have said from thereon in makes any sense whatsoever - just a load of gobbledygook. You have not offered one single justification as to why a pensioner that chooses to live abroad should not receive pension increases.
The plain and simple fact is that someone who is on basic state pension living in the UK costs the country much more than someone who has retired abroad. There is no justification at all for them to each be given a different amount of pension. I really can't understand why you can't see that.
What difference does it make to the UK government where they live? Neither group make contributions any longer and as I've pointed out, pensioners living abroad cost the UK government far less as they don't get medical treatment.
To be able to claim full state pension, a person has to have paid contributions for 30 years. A lot of people left school at 16 and currently are entitled to their pension at 66. The chances are that they have therefore, worked and paid NI contributions for 49 years (they currently stop at 65). However, for various reasons they, especially females, may not have paid in every year. So, there will be cases where a pensioner who has retired abroad may have paid in for 49 years and is no longer be entitled to any increases whereas his counterpart remaining in the UK may have only paid in for 30 years and receives every increase.
I am not retired yet but I've already cost the NHS quite a lot due to cancer and mini strokes. I am now on medication for the rest of my life and I guess the cost is £50 per month. When I leave the UK on retirement, that cost will end and I'll have to pay it myself. A hell of a lot of the pensioners I know are on some form of medication. For the first 40 years or so of my life I hardly ever visited a doctor but its a lot more frequent now - and don't forget, the population is aging. They should bloody well pay us to leave - not refuse pension increases.
Another thing you fail to be aware of is that many basic pensioners in the UK qualify for housing benefit, council tax benefit, winter fuel payments, etc. etc. My own mother lived rent free for about 20 years and was then looked after at the expense of the country in a care home for another 15 years or so until she died. Had she left the UK, the country would not have been paying for that and there are literally THOUSANDS like her.
If you had multiple TIAs and strokes, at least you won't be drawing pension for that long. My dad got through 10 extra years after a TIA, and that likely triggered the Alzheimers he had for the last 5 years.
So you think its ok to transfer the health burdens from a country like the UK to a country like Thailand.
You ask what difference does it make to the UK government where they live? And then states the reason. Saves money, and they don't even have to give you more money.
I'm aware of all the other stuff you referred to. And its 35 qualifying years, not 30 years that you confidently stated, to get a full pension.
It seems given the numbers of pensioners living overseas on reduced pensions, the UK doesn't need to incentivise anyone to leave the UK. Your mum lived rent free, but people like me paid for that. her time in the home and getting benefits off the State was also facilitated by all those pensioners living it up in Spain, Greece, Canada, USA, Australia. Thailand. And then the country voted to ruin the lives of those pensioners through an act of national suicide called Brexit. Don't worry, in a few years time, there won't be a UK to pay out pensions.
Even on a full pension, your mum would have failed to meet Thailand's retirement visa requirements of a minimum income of 65,000 baht per month. How on earth do you think the government can fund a 50% increase in the State Pension in order to retire to Thailand. So she could not have left the UK (to go to Thailand). Certainly not the EU.
I'm not justifying the government's position. Just saying why they will never change that position, and its pointless people campaigning for it. There was a Petition, that got widespread coverage in the national press:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/money/frozen-state-pension-payments-petition-32165447
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/642749
It attracted 5,352 signatures before it ran out of time. I thought there were half a million affected, and you were all going to sign this.. The simple truth is no one cares. More people signed a petition to raise the motorway limit to 100ph, to increase funding for deaf athletes, to take action to support the DRC, to bring back Kung Fu into GCSES.
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13 hours ago, nong38 said:
I believe is was in 1955 when few people ever went abroad let alone retired there! That fits with the 70 years mentioned, all political parties do not seem to want to change the situation and it comes for extension every year in February I think it is.
£10 poms. Through the fifties and sixties, about 200-300,000 people emigrated from the UK per year.
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9 hours ago, jwest10 said:
NOTHING DONE AGAIN AND AGAIN GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR AND THEY WANT US DEAD ASAP SO NOTHING IS NEW THERE THEN 650 OF THE VERMIN AND SCUM
Why would UK residents, except family, care what happens to Expats. You made your choices, eyes wide open. Only if Bona Vacantia was involved, would the treasury benefit from your passing.
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8 hours ago, FruitPudding said:
Suppose they left 40 years ago then hit their pension age, would they be started on the pension rate from 40 years ago?
So, they left the UK aged 25 years. You must pay NI for 10 years to get any pension. Most of those expats will not have paid enough NI to get any pension (you get 1 year credited in 6th form, zero NI credits in higher education, so those with any professional qualification would not get anything). 80% of UK expats have a degree, and among the pensioner population, you will likely see an elevated representation of graduates, compared to the UK domiciled population.
If you had paid in for 10 years, and 40 years later, in 2024, retired, your pension would be £63.20 per week. That's also how much you would get if you returned home, though you'll subsequently benefit from inflationary increases. You will also be able to access Pension Credit if in the UK, to bring your income up.
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1 hour ago, proton said:
USA but not Canada is an odd one, there was a very old expat woman in Canada getting about 9 quid a week some years ago, must be dead now. About enough to get a bit of bread and milk,
You really believe she was living on £9 a week in the US? Expats in the USA get their pension uprated every year. Someone receiving £9 per week didn't work in the UK for many years.
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29 minutes ago, MangoKorat said:
Complete twoddle!
If you stay in the UK they have to pay out the full state pension. If you have no private pension you remain under the tax threshold. So a pensioner living in Thailand on today's full state pension would not pay tax nor would the same pensioner living in the UK.
Both groups, provided they have no other income DO NOT PAY UK TAXES.
Furthermore, pensioners living abroad don't cost the UK thousands of pounds each year in medication, hospital costs and doctor's appointments. The UK government should give people who choose to retire abroad more money, not less.
'Their isn't the money to pay for overseas pensioners' my ar5e, they'd have to pay it if you remained in the UK so what's the damned difference?
Why does the UK government have to do anything about? Because its fair? Out of pity?
320,000 pensioners in the UK, out of about 13 million, exist on a State pension. 66% of UK pensioners pay tax.
What percentage of expatriate pensioners only have a State Pension? Vanishingly small I suspect.
Right now, you are saving them money apparently (an interesting position; I don't use the NHS much. Should I get a rebate for the money saved? I've never been in prison either, so I should get a refund there. Not been on the dole, so some more money back. Maybe I don't own a car, more money I am owed etc etc). So why should they change anything? While expats who have been out of the UK for more than 15 years cannot vote, of the numbers that can, a pitifully small number bother to register. It peaked in the run up to the Brexit vote, then has declined since. Generally Expatriates don't want to exercise their right to vote.
If you want your full pension, its pretty simple. Go back home. Otherwise, this is a life choice you made, that you knew about when you retired, and what pensioners have known about since 1955. Its a policy they effectively supported in all those elections they voted in before they retired.
What would you say to UK voters, who have no intention to retire overseas, or who can only dream about retiring to some beach, why they should vote to improve your lot? When apparently all that money that you gave up because of a life choice, could be used, for instance, to establish a National Social Service (proper residential care that doesn't involve emptying someone's estate) (because you believe there is a magic pot of cash).
I suspect if UK pensioners decided to stop emigrating, and all expatriate pensioners were repatriated, then the entire system will collapse; both pensions, the NHS and Adult Social Services.
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6 hours ago, NoshowJones said:
"There isn't the money to pay for overseas pensioners". Really!! There seems to be enough to pay for all these immigrants, legal and illegal, MP's "expenses" etc,etc,etc.
Then move back to the UK. Then you will get your pension. All 500,000 of you. Test the system. The system was built on the assumption, essentially, of the £10 Pom. That a substantial portion of British workers would leave the UK for elsewhere, effectively subsidising the home market.
The UK government claims illegal immigration costs $3 billion. Other sources dispute that, with some evidence.
Parliamentary expenses are £140 million
The cost of treating smoking related disease to the NHS is about $3 billion. Scrap treatment of a self inflicted illness, and you have your savings to boost pensions. Being humane, the government will offer free morphine to those with lung disease to help them on their way.
This is the natural absurdity when you conflate the DWP budget with other budgets. There isn't a pool of money to dip into. There is only HMG's ability to borrow money. So they would have to borrow more money, to spend on mostly well to do pensioners living in sunny climes. Or borrow the same money, , and ebut redistribute the moneys differently. So your example of illegal immigration; the natural conclusion is for the Home Office to scrap its illegal immigration budget, which would include getting rid of the UK Border Force (we never had it before), cutting back on Royal Navy patrols, having a policy of non-intervention of foreign beggers on the streets of the UK, and stopping intervention in the black market sweat shops, as it costs too much. Therefore the cost of illegal immigration goes away.
And the quote was from 1994, if you bothered to look at it. Maybe there is something about government finances that you know that has radically changed. If so, please share, rather than keeping it to yourself.
Willian Hague in July 1994 said:QuoteThe principal difficulty in extending the payment of pension upratings abroad is the cost, as my hon. Friend anticipated. This year, the Government will spend some £800 million on pension payments to beneficiaries who live outside the United Kingdom. I know that my hon. Friend is only too well aware of the huge size of the social security budget and the need to ensure that it is sustainable and affordable in the future.
If all pensioners overseas were to be paid at the same level as pensioners in this country, that figure of £800 million would rise to about £1,030 million—an increase of nearly 30 per cent. or £230 million. That figure is no longer an estimate, in that it is based on the actual count of 85 per cent. of the pensioners overseas and what their entitlements would be. It is a huge amount of money and would have to be found from the existing social security budget paid to people who are resident in this country. The House knows that there are many worthwhile claims on that budget; we cannot meet them all at once.
The only circumstances in which overseas pensions are not frozen are where the pensioner is in the European Economic Area or where we have a reciprocal agreement with another country which provides specifically for upratings. We have some 30 such agreements, including those with member states of the European Economic Area, although most of the latter were in existence before our accession to the European Community. The costs of making any further agreements are a very important consideration, as I am sure my hon. Friend will recognise.
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11 minutes ago, transam said:
You just wasted a lot of time writing a load of nonsense...........🤣
No waste of my time, Burt Reynolds-wannabe.
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2 hours ago, nauseus said:Hague is full of it. Most penioners in the UK don't pay tax either. There is always the money - we still have our own bank.
Fake news. In 2010, 50% of UK pensioners pay tax. Now about 66% of you lot in the UK pay tax. Pensions are taxable income. People just make up cobblers to suit their own prejudices.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/11/23/pensioners-paying-more-income-tax/
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50 minutes ago, Rampant Rabbit said:
and who mostly never use the NHS saving the UK millions, its an absolute farce,
And its possible, without having made no contributions in tax and national insurance, to return to the UK after a working career outside of it, and receive full benefit of that NHS.
Todays taxes are to pay for today's healthcare, not tomorrow's.
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46 minutes ago, Ralf001 said:What year did the frozen pension policy come into effect ?
In 1946, there was the first uplift, which wasn't paid out to pensioners outside of Great Britain. The National Insurance Act 1946 contained a general disqualification for payment of benefits absent from Great Britain, together with power for regulations to remove the disqualification. Upratings, of which there were three between July 1948 and July 1955, were not payable to persons not resident in Great Britain. The formal policy was made in 1955. Subsequent regulations providing for pension increases have continued to have the same effect. Between 1948 and 1955, the UK entered into reciprocal agreements with France, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, which provided for payment of retirement pension in the countries concerned. Upratings were paid. Pensions were also payable, by a special arrangement, in Ireland but were not uprated until 1966. Until 1973, recipricol arrangements were made with 30 countries to allow pension increases. This stopped in 1981. In July 1995, there was a parliamentary debate on the Pension Bill amendments for upratings to be paid, defeated by large majorities.
In theory, all UK pensioners could go home, and their pensions increased to the current rate.
William Hague pointed out that todays NI contributions pays for today's pensioner, not your future pension. So arguments about paying into a system for future entitlement falls fat on its face. There isn't the money to pay for overseas pensioners, who mostly don't vote, who mostly don't pay taxes, to have their pension increased.
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On 4/20/2024 at 9:30 AM, Misty said:
So where are British going instead?
The most recent data is to 2022:
If you consider Britons traveling to APAC as a market (ie. the choice isn't between Thailand and Benidorm this year), then before the pandemic, about 8-9% of Britons going on holiday/visiting Asia were picking Thailand. In 2021, that dipped to 3%, and it looks like India benefited from that (though India travel will be a mix of holidays, a lot of family visits and business reconnections) and in 2022, it went back up to 8%. If I strip out India and Pakistan, then in 2022, Thailand attracted 18% of British visitors to APAC, compared to 13-15% prepandemic. Non-HK China has collapsed; 16% before pandemic and 3% in 2022; 14% in 2021. Other Asia (Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam etc) went from 34% to 48-51%, and that seems to be at the expense of China, and, to a lesser degree, Japan and Hong Kong.
Countries in this selection are
Hong Kong (China) Other China India Japan Pakistan Sri Lanka Thailand Other Asia Australia New Zealand But if I consider a wider range of destinations, then a slight different story. Comparing % share in 2022 to 2019, only the following countries have increased their share. The dominating feature, except for Brazil, is the Package Holiday. Destinations more associated with more independant travel, which is basically Asia, have lost out. I suspect there is a combination of cost; the destinations closer to the UK will be cheaper, but also, post COVID, security, ie having the support of a Tui, Virgin etc to not strand you at an airport etc.. Its more complex that that, because you also have to get into spend, nights stayed etc, which is all in that data source.
One take away is that Thailand has to work hard to get the Tour Operators to fill up flights, charters. Something that might be distorting is hotel vacancies; has Thailand become a place where there are more people living out of a Hotel room?
The biggest losers, in terms of the holiday share, are USA, Cyprus, France, Ireland, China, Japan, and Other Asia (Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia etc) Thailand is down 0.2%, but Sri Lanka, which has more package tours, is down 0.1%. Interestingly, USA is down 0.8%, Canada is down 0.12%. I put that down to Florida (Disney) being too expensive. The £:$ during that period wasn't too bad.
Greece Portugal Spain Turkey Egypt Morocco Barbados Jamaica Other Caribbean Brazil Mexico Fly/cruise (stay onboard)
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Poll: Do you feel sympathetic to Putin? Did he really have no choice?
in The War in Ukraine
Posted
Share the photos you saw. They will still be in your cache. Use Google image search to identify the original source, which, I guarantee you, is not wikipedia. Clearly, you took your belief about Bandera from Wikipedia. Clearly, you have no idea how Wikipedia is compiled. Clearly, you have no idea that Wikipedia should be taken with a pinch of salt. Clearly, you have no idea that you can go into the change logs on Wikipedia, and reproduce said photo and its source.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/BANDERA%2C STEFAN_0059.pdf
When you referred to the Waffen SS "division", I knew you were talking cobblers. The Waffen SS consisted of many divisions, some all German, some non-German, some, increasingly to the end of WW2, a mixture.
The Ukrainian division was SS Galicia. It was supported by Andriy Melnyk, as a counterweight to Bandera's UPA, which was outside of german control (and why Bandara found himself under arrest by the Germans).
Maybe what you are confused about is the transfer of the 14th Division in April 1945, after Hitler killed himself, to Ukrainian National Committee, of which Bandara, and Melnyk, were members. As I stated before, the committee had the objective, at the end of the war, of extricating Ukrainians from German command, I suppose for the purposes of forming some sort fo resistance to Stalin post war, in the way the Baltic states organised armed resistance long after WW2. Bandera, disgusting individual he was, never took the SS oath that you believe he did, and never had rank in the German army.
Its easy for one's brain to be turned to mush by Russian propaganda.
I'm glad you recall that Russia invaded the Crimea in February 2014. Literally, they started it. They tried to kill the Ukrainian garrison troops there, and then they proceeded to humiliate some very brave men.
Putin is a former KGB thug who's job in East Germany, which he apparently enjoyed, was to eliminate opposition to the East German Government. You apparently admire the fellow. He's raping Russia of its wealth, with his circle of cronies. Yeltsin was on to him.
Russian TV is not free and fair journalism, and is full of stooges of Putin. You're a mug. People used to listen and believe Lord Haw Haw during WW2.
You've understood what exactly? That Ukraine doesn't deserve to exist? That the Ukrainian language is made up? That NATO has been plotting for 30 years to destroy Russia? That Stalin was right in trying to starve Ukrainians to death? That there are no Nazis in Russia? That Turtle tanks are clear evidence of a sophisticated, winning military? You by now know the term Ho Hos, because you watch to Russian telly. Oh, wait, you don't actually watch Russian telly, because you don't understand Russian. Instead you watch a English language service, delivering a message they want you to suck up. Back in the days of the USSR, you could tune in and listen to Radio Moscow, where the announcer, usually female, would give the Soviet version of the world's news. Which was usually garbage, unless it was the football results.