Richard W

1 hour ago, Credo said:

Well, that makes me feel a lot less critical of that Titanic running into an iceberg.   What are the chances?

The iceberg wasn't trying to avoid collisions and was hiding (90% under water), and got rammed.  It seems that American warships go about with their transponders off, and get rammed.

However, the last incident, at least, was in busy waters, and so 'open waters' might be very wrong as a description of the location.  Perhaps the English Channel might be a better comparison - where collision is a very real risk.

22 hours ago, simple1 said:

Nonsense. If someone from say Iran, with Australian citizenship and wishes to become a Federal politician they only have to cancel their Iranian citizenship. There are Muslim politicians in the Oz parliament who have cancelled their dual citizenship to comply with current Constitutional Law. 

If said person is an Iranian man who has not done his Iranian national service, he doesn't have to renounce his Iranian citizenship.  I read up on the Sue v. Hill judgement.  Renunciation is not required if it is impossible or the process is unreasonable.  So I was wrong about those born Thai being excluded from the Australian Parliament.

17 hours ago, rak sa_ngop said:

บัณฑิต

Another similar word is บัณเฑาะก์ which I assume is pronounced ban-do.

Now that pronunciation (confirmed by the RID) definitely looks Khmer.  It shows the conditional merger of final /k/ and glottal stop after P/S /a/.

10 hours ago, tonbridgebrit said:

The law on dual nationality has been put there to prevent Australians with passports from certain countries (like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Lebanon, China, etc) being politicians. Why not just say this, and get this media story over and done with ?

That's mostly gross ignorance.  In 1900, most of the inhabitants of each of the UK, Australia, the Punjab, Sindh and Bengal were British subjects.  So, prior to independence, were most of the people who became citizens of India.  The first citizenships within the British Commonwealth were Irish and Canadian.

3 minutes ago, simple1 said:

Does this not only apply if born after 1982? i.e. those born in a British Overseas Territory between 1949 - 1982 would have UK citizenship?

On 1st January 1983, citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC), became British citizens, British dependent territories citizens (now known as 'British overseas territories citizens'), or British overseas citizens.

9 hours ago, spiderorchid said:

Yeah, you lost me. someone with duel citizenship has duel loyalties.

I think all persons in US politics must be born in US and a citizen.

Does ITAR stand for Independent Taoists and Arabian Republicans?

Of course you then invoke "Secret". You must be wayyy up there in the security fraternity.

Just have one passport to represent your country, if that is indeed what you are doing.

Just google ITAR.  It means "International Traffic in Arms Regulations".

If I understand aright, the Australian prohibition is on citizens of "foreign powers" being in Parliament.  Some weird judge-made law suddenly made 'foreign' = 'non-Australian', whereas formerly 'foreign' = 'alien'.  Until the Canadians changed the system just after the World War II, the British Commonwealth had a common citizenship.  To this day, Australians are not 'foreign'  or 'alien' in the UK, though the main manifestations in the UK are now the ability to vote, liability to jury service, and not being automatically excluded from the civil service.

Do these dual national politicians have more than one passport?

3 hours ago, VocalNeal said:

I would think in Xenophon's case it means he is entitled to UK citizenship, if he applied, but is not currently British by accident of birth.

No, it means that he is a British Overseas citizen, and thus entitled to British consular protection.  He has no right to British citizenship.

11 hours ago, mfd101 said:

They have been trapped by antiquated or ridiculous provisions of OTHER countries' laws that, for accidental reasons [eg where Dad or Mum was born 80 years ago] turn out - to everyone's astonishment, including their own - to apply to them. For example: the deputy PM was born & raised in Oz, but because his Dad was born in NZ, NZ law [NOT Oz law] deems the Deputy PM of Oz to be a Kiwi. Does that make sense? No.

Your approach requires a cheap means for parents to preserve their children's nationalities.  For example, it makes perfect sense  for Abhisit Vejjajiva and Rama IX to have been Thai from birth, even though, like the British Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, they also automatically acquired the citizenship of the  country they were born in.  Britain currently charges roughly a grand a time for acquiring British citizenship, except in cases where acquisition would be automatic if the person were born nowadays.

4 hours ago, spiderorchid said:

The question is. What are all the security agencies doing other than not vetting our state and federal politicians?

 

They should be more interested in where there loyalties lie.  The US has a more useful approach to foreign nationalities when it comes to its own citizens.  They consider the passports held, rather than the nationalities held.  However, for ITAR, they seem just to consider nationalities, which could cause problems, because for the normal vetting for SECRET, the UK does not seem to investigate nationalities, but rather loyalties.

On 17/08/2017 at 6:30 AM, Naam said:

the "huge" coalition consisted of Italy which turned against its ally as it did in WWI  

More to the point, it was a drain on German resources - North Africa and Greece, which also made Yugoslavia a problem.

Japan helped by tying down US and, initially, Soviet resources.

22 minutes ago, simple1 said:

Not if they become Australian citizens and renounce Thai citizenship.

Section 39 (unless renumbered since 2016) of the constitution says, "Revocation of Thai nationality acquired by birth of a person shall not be permitted".  As I understand it, renunciation requires revocation on request.  So no can do.

The case I was thinking of was children born to an Australian father and a Thai mother in Australia.

2 hours ago, simple1 said:

Constitutional matter. Cannot present oneself for election if a dual national. Documented is in the paperwork, so obviously some Oz elected members did not bother to look into their nationality status to comply with legislated requirements.

Interesting to note that any children born to Thai mothers are now banned from ever standing for election in Australia.

I believe many people don't know all their nationalities.  "Documented is in the paperwork" is wrong, both grammatically and under any interpretation.  Also, I'm not sure that all renounceable nationalities can be renounced if it is unclear whether one has the nationality.

On 11/08/2017 at 11:13 AM, digbeth said:

While in Thai the letters ฑ ฏ ฐ and such are no longer distinguished from the ด ท ถ I believe it used to sounds like arabic, with a nasal component or like for the d, pronounce it like you have a lisp

There's no evidence that the phonetic distinction was ever made in Thai.  The difference is a difference made in Pali and Sanskrit, and preserved in much of India.  The rarer ones are 'retroflex', said with the tongue curled back or at the gums, while the commoner ones are made with the tongue against the actual teeth.  The difference also shows up in Swedish and in the Dentdale dialect in England, where the retroflexion is the reflex of a preceding rhotic consonant (broadly /r/ - I'm not going to argue phonetic details).

In the SE Asian scripts that don't have a ด do dek, the modern distinction of /d/ and /t/ is made in writing by using the retroflex consonant for /d/.  This is true for Khmer, which I suspect is the origin of the rare Thai pronunciation /d/ for ฑ, and the Lanna script, which uses its equivalent of ฑ, and no other retroflex, for /d/.  The Thai distinction between ฎ do chada and ฏ to patak would prevent confusing interference from the other specific letter for /d/ in Khmer - its equivalent of to patak.

29 minutes ago, thaihome said:

Slavery in Tuareg society is caste based.  Caste and race are not the same thing though, of course, both are inherited from the parents.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuareg_people#Slaves

http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-caste-and-vs-race/

Caste or race in the Tuareg case depends on where you draw the race boundaries.  North Africa is complicated.

What is striking in the US is the shifting definition of white v. black and the move to eliminate free(d) blacks.  For example, Thomas Jefferson's children who were born slaves were legally 'white'.  (Was Obama truly the first US president descended from a black American slave?)

17 hours ago, thaihome said:

Was the only version of slavery to evolve to be based on solely on race.

What about slavery in Tuareg society?

On 16/08/2017 at 11:08 PM, Kiwiken said:

I believe the current issue is about Statues of Civil war Commanders representing white oppression of the Negro peoples. I did not think it included the slavery practiced by the original Native American peoples? So Yes I believe in this case We are talking about Slavery practiced by Settlers from Europe and their Descendants. 

And though a minor element, also by the Five Civilised Tribes (though I'm not entirely sure abut the Seminoles).  The Cherokees recently attempted to disenfranchise the descendants of their slaves, though the constitutional amendment was ultimately (2011) ruled unconstitutional.

2 hours ago, Khun Han said:

 

I'm pretty sure that, before my wife got her British passport, she had to apply for a visa to travel to Northern Ireland, even though she had an ILR in her Thai passport.

Who do you recall issuing it?

2 hours ago, smedly said:

I can assure you 100% there will be no border checkpoints within the UK, the idea is quite frankly idiotic, there is only one border that needs to be managed - UK and the Irish republic, why on earth would the UK erect a border within the UK, border controls will be set up between the UK and EU, like I said above and now for the 3rd time, Irish citizens may retain the special status they have had for decades with the UK and it works both ways

 

The is no other way to manage a UK border with a foreign country, all the ideas and suggestions for alternatives being put forward so far are diversions and tactics, going forward a border will exist between the UK and the EU countries ...... period, no exceptions  

From 1939 to 1952 there were controls on sea crossings between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.  That did not sit well with Unionists.  Operation Gull compensates for the existing lack of border controls.

If the government does not amend the Immigration (Control of Entry through Republic of Ireland) Order 1972, the Irish arriving in the UK without a visa will not have the current special status because they will not be "entitled to enter or remain in the United Kingdom by virtue of an enforceable EU right or any provision made under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972".  If they stay for more than three months they will be breaking the law on overstaying, even though they will not "be in breach of the immigration laws" (BNA 1981 Section 50A(4)(d)), and they will not be allowed to work!

9 hours ago, 7by7 said:

The European Convention on Human Rights and the laws adopted in the UK as a consequence of the UK being a founding signatory in 1950 have nothing to do with whether or not the UK is a member of the EU. There are currently 47 party states to the ECHR, including all 28 EU members (27 after Brexit, of course).

I understand that being in the EU prevents us from withdrawing from the convention.  It's sad to think that that this is another issue that should have affected the choice of whether to remain or leave.

10 hours ago, sawadee1947 said:

There is a very easy solution. And that is REUNIFICATION !!!

I don't think the 26 counties will agree to recreating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

If I understand correctly, the government already has the power to enforce registration.  What is more, there is already the requirement for EEA adults to register to vote, though this doesn't catch non-commonwealth non-EEA family members, or minors.

What is likely is that this will largely manifest itself as a restriction on the freedom to bring in and acquire non-EEA family members.

17 hours ago, shaurene said:

All parties, UK and The EEC must respect the current rights of All EEC workers in the UK and all UK workers in the EEC. Goes without saying really.

No, it doesn't.  The UK's current intention is to expel EU criminals who are currently protected by EU law, in a weaker form of the principle by which England doesn't expel Scottish criminals (or vice versa).  The EU also seems to think that a British worker who acquired a family on the continent should be able to keep it with him if he returns to the UK.

To be fair, the UK is offering residence rights to resident EU nationals who have long lacked residence rights, something the EU27 didn't even think of asking for.  There are a fair few non-working continental wives of British citizens who seem to have assumed they were allowed to stay in the UK.

11 hours ago, dunroaming said:

I think this is a fair point as long as the Brits living in EU countries live by EU laws.  I imagine the concern is that Britain could change the law concerning foreigners rights at any time as they can (and do) with other foreign nationals.  However that would be checked by the EU being able to change the law concerning Brits rights in Europe.

They've also reduced Briton's rights, and in the third quarter of the 20th century were busy stripping people of full British nationality.  In this century, they've been stripping people of the right to remain British - dual nationals born British lost the inalienable right to remain British in 2006.  It seems that British-Thai dual nationals have now lost the right to become inalienably British by abandoning Thai nationality.

2 hours ago, 7by7 said:

Until Brexit at least, British citizens are EEA nationals. (I say 'Until Brexit at least' because who knows whether or not the UK will remain within the EEA after we leave the EU, or whether or not the UK will also leave the EEA yet agree to remain covered of the FoM post Brexit?)

 

So, what is your point?

In the terminology of the Immigration (EEA) Regulations 2016,  "“EEA national” means a national of an EEA State who is not also a British citizen".

I sometimes get the impression of hordes forming relationships with EEA nationals just in order to get into the UK.  The number of 10,000 a year provides an upper bound of the number.  We don't normally see a figure for how many non-EEA people immigrate under the EEA regulations.  Of course, 'non-EEA' also includes Australians.

On 21/07/2017 at 10:59 AM, 7by7 said:

The Freedom of Movement Directive only applies to EEA nationals and, if they have any, their qualifying non EEA national family members.

Related judgements, included in the UK's EEA Regulation, such as Surinder Singh and Zambrano, allow some close relatives of British citizens to stay or remain.  The non-EEA family members can be expected to get permanent residence cards on completing their 5 years.  Numbers of permanent residence cards issued are currently running at about 10,000 a year (2014: 10,005; 2015: 8,917; 2016: 11,897) - source https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2016/family.  This may includes some repeats - not everyone will naturalise in the first 10 years of permanent residence.

On 12/07/2017 at 1:35 PM, nauseus said:

Repeating myself, the main betrayal was by Heath, who told the electorate that signing the Treaty of Rome would lead to "no essential loss of national sovereignty". Heath later admitted to this lie. I have been in favour of leaving since realizing this and also the extent to which sovereignty has already been lost. Subsequent major constitutional changes along the way (such as Maastricht) should have been referred to the people (referendums) but they weren't. 

You should have heeded Enoch Powell.  He and Tony Benn knew full well that power was being transferred from the member countries to the union.  Mind you, the member countries have retained ultimate sovereignty - in the form of Article 50.  The tragedy has been that the European Parliament has not been taken seriously.

On 02/07/2017 at 3:29 PM, Grouse said:

There is a glaringly obvious way to square the circle. I think the whole EU wants to ADJUST the regulations on free movement. I could write suitable clauses in an hour. Then have our Micky Mouse,  Brexiteer government APPLY the damn rules properly.

It's harder than you think.  Cameron's renegotiations made a right hash of the deal to reverse the Metock judgement.  That's the judgement that lets other EU citizens bring their wives in cheaply from outside the EEA.  The form adopted meant that foreign spouses brought in under national laws would only be able to move around freely, even with their husbands, if they became EU citizens (sensu lato).  Metock is also the judgement that makes Surinder Singh a useful tool for importing non-EU spouses to one''s own country.

I think in general you'd need a lot of harmonisation of national immigration laws to make other changes work fairly.