[Majorityrights News] Trump will ‘arm Ukraine to the teeth’ if Putin won’t negotiate ceasefire Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 12 November 2024 16:20.
[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
“Where once were men but now are sheep
- a fiction and far cry,
From planet Earth’s proud animal
- who would be you and I
Alas, our forebears drank the cup of poisoned alibi
And made excuses far and wide,
And made God in the sky.
This boogaloo’s now round the world
- bad trips for everyone.
No more the man of paradise
Or the Celt of Albion
They queue like burning moths to spread
- the all time viscous lie
You Christians destroyed our tribe
- I’ll fight you till I die….”
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 02 December 2017 09:51.
President Donald Trump sits alongside Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and senior adviser Jared Kushner during a meeting at the White House in Washington on Sept. 26, 2017. AP Photo, Evan Vucci
Bloomberg, “Kushner Is Leaving Tillerson in the Dark on Middle East Talks, Sources Say”, 2 Dec 2017:
- Rex Tillerson worries secret plan could plunge region into chaos.
-White House rejects accusation State Department isn’t informed.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is increasingly alarmed by what he sees as secret talks between Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—fearful that the discussions could backfire and tip the region into chaos, according to three people familiar with Tillerson’s concerns.
The central goal of the Kushner-Prince Mohammed negotiations, as described by two people with knowledge of the talks, is for an historic agreement featuring the creation of a Palestinian state or territory backed financially by a number of countries including Saudi Arabia, which could put tens of billions of dollars toward the effort.
A lasting Middle East peace treaty has been a U.S. goal for decades, and at the start of his administration Trump assigned the 36-year-old Kushner to head up the effort to make it happen.
Tillerson believes Kushner hasn’t done enough to share details of the talks with the State Department, according to the people, leaving senior U.S. diplomats in the dark on the full extent of the highly sensitive negotiations.
“The problem is, the senior presidential adviser does not consult with the State Department—and it’s unclear the level of consultation that goes on with the NSC,” one of the people familiar with Tillerson’s concerns said, referring to the National Security Council. “And that’s a problem for both the NSC and the State Department and it’s not something we can easily solve.”
The concerns predate reports this week that Trump may move to oust Tillerson by the end of the year—reports the president rejected but which Tillerson’s team believes are being stoked by Kushner allies, one person said. An administration official said Kushner had nothing to do with those reports.
[...]
It isn’t clear how far along the discussions are between Kushner and Prince Mohammed, three people said. And some in the U.S. government are skeptical the effort will succeed, in part because of the historic intractability of Israelis and Palestinians and because any peace deal would ultimately require the support of many competing leaders in the region.
The State Department officials’ skepticism about the Middle East discussions also reveals ongoing frustration at the president’s decision to go around them and the U.S. diplomatic corps he frequently disparages. Instead, Trump placed delicate peace negotiations in the hands of Kushner, who has no experience in diplomacy and little background in the complexities of one of the world’s most volatile regions.
Yet Trump, who has long spoken of Mideast peace as the ultimate trophy for a career dealmaker, has shown unwavering faith in his son-in-law’s ability to deliver.“If you can’t produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can,” the president told Kushner onstage at a black-tie event celebrating his inauguration in January. “All my life I’ve been hearing that’s the toughest deal to make, but I have a feeling Jared is going to do a great job.”
“The greatest dangers in the Middle East today are Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Salman”
The sort of Neo-con and right-wing think tankers, who in 2003 were saying that a war with Iraq would be a doddle, are back in business in Washington, pushing for war with Iran – and are stronger than ever.
Shortly before the earthquake in Baghdad, I was making the above point about Iraq stabilising to a European diplomat. He said this might be true, but that real danger to peace “comes from a combination of three people: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East envoy Jared Kushner, and Bibi Netanyahu in Israel.”
Probably, the Saudis and the Americans exaggerate the willingness of Netanyahu and Israel to go to war. Netanyahu has always been strong on bellicose rhetoric, but cautious about real military conflict (except in Gaza, which was more massacre than war).
Israel’s military strength tends to be exaggerated and its army has not won a war outright since 1973. Previous engagements with Hezbollah have gone badly. Israeli generals know that the threat of military action can be more effective than its use in maximising Israeli political influence, but that actually going to war means losing control of the situation. They will know the saying of the 19th century German chief of staff, Helmuth Von Moltke, that “no plan survives contact with the enemy”.
But even if the Israelis do not intend to fight Hezbollah or Iran, this does not mean that they would not like somebody else to do so for them. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told me in an interview earlier this month that his greatest fear was a US-Iranian confrontation fought out in Iraq. This could happen directly or through proxies, but in either case would end the present fragile peace.
On the optimistic side, US policy in Iraq and Syria is largely run by the Pentagon and not the White House, and has not changed much since President Obama’s days. It has been successful in its aim of destroying Isis and the self-declared caliphate.
The wars in Iraq and Syria already have their winners and losers: President Bashar al-Assad stays in power in Damascus, as does a Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. An Iranian-backed substantially Shia axis in four countries – Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – stretches from the Afghan border to the Mediterranean. This is the outcome of the wars since 2011, which is not going to be reversed except by a US land invasion – as happened in Iraq in 2003.
The great danger in the Middle East today is that Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman and Jared Kushner appear to have a skewed and unrealistic understanding of the world around them. Inspector Clouseau seems to have a greater influence on Saudi policy than Machiavelli, going by the antics surrounding the forced resignation of Saad Hariri as Prime Minister of Lebanon. This sort of thing is not going to frighten the Iranians or Hezbollah.
The signs are that Iran has decided to go a long way to avoid confrontation with the US. In Iraq, it is reported that it will support the re-election of Abadi as prime minister which is also what the US wants. Iran knows that it has come out on the winning side in Iraq and Syria and does not need to flaunt its success. It may also believe that the Crown Prince is using anti-Iranian nationalist rhetoric to secure his own power and does not intend to do much about it.
Nobody has much to gain from another war in the Middle East, but wars are usually started by those who miscalculate their own strengths and interests. Both the US and Saudi Arabia have become “wild cards” in the regional pack. The sort of Neo-con and right-wing think tankers, who in 2003 were saying that a war with Iraq would be a doddle, are back in business in Washington, pushing for war with Iran – and are stronger than ever.
The wars in the Middle East should be ending, but they could just be entering a new phase. Leaders in the US and Saudi Arabia may not want a new war, but they might just blunder into one.
Politico, “Kushner took unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia”, 29 Oct 2017:
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner returned home Saturday from an unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia — his third trip to the country this year.
Kushner left Washington, D.C., via commercial airline on Wednesday for the trip, which was not announced to the public, a White House official told POLITICO. He traveled separately from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who led a delegation to Riyadh last week to focus on combating terrorist financing.
Kushner was accompanied in the region by deputy national security adviser Dina Powell and Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt. Greenblatt continued from Saudi Arabia to Amman, Jordan; Cairo; the West Bank city of Ramallah; and Jerusalem, where he was on Sunday.
Haaretz, “Israel, Egypt Pushed U.S. to Bomb Iran Before Nuclear Deal, John Kerry Says”, 29 Nov 2017:
Speaking at a Washington forum, the former secretary of state said that Prime Minister Netanyahu was ‘genuinely agitating toward action’ against Iran.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry said both Israel and Egypt pushed the United States to “bomb Iran” before the 2015 nuclear deal was struck.
Kerry defended the deal during a forum in Washington, where he said that a number of kings and foreign presidents told the U.S. that bombing was the only language Iran would understand.
Kerry said that in his opinion it was “a trap” because the same countries would have publicly criticized the U.S. if it did carry out a bombing of Iran as they were secretly supporting.
Kerry said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “genuinely agitating toward action.”
Kerry said he didn’t know whether Iran would resume pursuing a nuclear weapon in 10 to 15 years after restrictions in the deal sunset, but he said it was the best deal the U.S. could get.
In October, lawmakers in the United States approved four different pieces of legislation targeting Iran and its proxy terror group in Lebanon, Hezbollah, after U.S. President Donald Trump refused to re-certify the nuclear deal, leaving its fate to Congress.
At the time, Netanyahu congratulated Trump for what he called his “courageous decision” not to recertify the nuclear deal with Iran.
“He boldly confronted Iran’s terrorist regime,” Netanyahu said. “If the Iran deal is left unchanged, one thing is absolutely certain. In a few years’ time, the world’s foremost terrorist regime will have an arsenal of nuclear weapons. And that’s a tremendous danger for our collective future.”
Netanyahu said Trump has created an “opportunity to fix this bad deal, to roll back Iran’s aggression and to confront its criminal support of terrorism.”
“That’s why Israel embraces this opportunity,” Netanyahu said.
Earlier this month, the United Nations agency monitoring Iran’s compliance with a landmark nuclear treaty issued a report Monday stating that the country is keeping its end of the deal that U.S. President Donald Trump claims Tehran has violated repeatedly.
The International Atomic Energy Agency report stopped short of declaring outright that Iran is honoring its obligations, in keeping with its official role as an impartial monitor of the restrictions the treaty placed on Tehran’s nuclear programs.
But in reporting no violations, the quarterly review’s takeaway was that Iran was honoring its commitments to crimp uranium enrichment and other activities that can serve both civilian and military nuclear programs.
Foreign Policy, “Kushner, Mohammed bin Salman, and Benjamin Netanyahu Are Up to Something”, 7 Nov 2017:
It looks a lot like a plan to squeeze Iran.
There seems to be a general consensus in Washington that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ongoing purge of princes and businessmen — including the wealthiest of them all, the business mogul and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal — is motivated by his determination to consolidate his power, well before his father, King Salman, passes from the scene. He is in this regard a latter-day Adonijah, who had himself crowned king while his father King David was alive. And, like Adonijah, Mohammed bin Salman has made some very powerful enemies in the process. Unlike that Biblical figure, however, he has his father’s support and has taken care to arrest anyone who might threaten his drive to preeminence.
Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, was in Riyadh again only recently. It was his third trip to Saudi Arabia since Trump took office. He again met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with whom he appears to have established a close personal relationship. It should therefore come as no surprise that Trump, who shares the young crown prince’s antipathy toward Iran, has commented favorably on the recent developments in Riyadh.
Posted by DanielS on Wednesday, 29 November 2017 06:01.
Ann Marie Waters:
How it feels to me is that the walls are closing-in, and the walls are closing-in more every day. You see it all the time: There was a girl, a woman in Sweden, recently, and she was raped by Syrian migrants in her own flat. Now, the evidence was all there, her body was black and blue, there was DNA, there was semen, there was all the rest of it. And the prosecution, the police told her that there wasn’t enough evidence for a prosecution, and she killed herself.
Now, we have seen this happen up in Sunderland, with Justice for Chelsea, again, a massive load of evidence, but no prosecutions brought. So, they are closing in, they are closing-in and we are being told that black is white. We have all this evidence and we’re being told there’s no evidence. We have all these migrant rapes and we’re being told there’s no migrant rapes. We have what happened in Cologne; and the next day we were told that it has nothing to do with migrants, even though migrants had committed it.
We are essentially living in Orwell’s 1984, where we are seeing something with our own eyes and we’re told it’s not happening. And if we identify it and we dare to speak it, then we are shunned. We have people who are threatened with loss of their livelihood. A friend of mine, Annie the Greek, who some of you who follow me on Twitter might know, has lost her job. She lost her job in the NHS because she refused to apologize for her political opinion.
Now we’re in a situation, now take this in, take this in. In the last… I remember twenty years ago, it wasn’t like this, it wasn’t like this; ten years ago, it wasn’t like this; but take it in - we are now at risk of losing our jobs if we say the wrong thing. We are at risk of having our venues closed if we say the wrong thing. We are at risk of going to prison, quite frankly, if we say the wrong thing. That’s the situation we’re in. It is deathly serious. it really is. And no amount of calling me a far-right fascist is going to change the reality.
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 18 November 2017 06:56.
The UN General Assembly hall (illustrative). Photo: UN.
JNS.org – “In an unprecedented move, Israel on Tuesday co-sponsored a draft resolution against Syria that was submitted by Saudi Arabia at the United Nations Human Rights Council”, 15 Nov 2017:
The resolution, which was also backed by the US, France and Germany, passed with an overwhelming majority of 108 countries voting in favor, 17 voting against and 58 abstaining.
17 Nov 2017: Saudi FM, “Hezbollah Is a ‘First-Class Terrorist Organization.” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir described Hezbollah on Thursday as a “first-class terrorist organization” that should lay down its arms…
Although Israel has previously supported resolutions submitted by Saudi Arabia at the UN, it has never signed on as a co-sponsor.
In a statement delivered prior to the vote, Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the UN Abdallah Al-Mouallimi slammed the “the grave deterioration in the state of human rights in Syria.”
When the list of the resolution’s co-sponsors was read aloud, Syria’s UN envoy, Bashar al-Jaafari, mockingly congratulated Riyadh for Israel’s direct involvement, stating that it served as evidence of a secret Israeli-Saudi alliance. The Syrian ambassador also accused all of the resolution’s co-sponsors of supporting terrorism.
“The Assad regime, with full support from Iran, has been slaughtering its people mercilessly and with incomprehensible cruelty for years,” Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon responded. “Israel, which for years has been providing humanitarian aid to Syrian civilians hurt by these atrocities, stands together with the international community against this murderous regime.”
Israel’s co-sponsoring of the Saudi resolution came a week after the Israeli Foreign Ministry reportedly instructed its envoys to launch a global diplomatic campaign against Iran and the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, and in support of Saudi Arabia and its allies.
Posted by DanielS on Thursday, 09 November 2017 06:44.
President Donald Trump and Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense Mohammed bin Salman meet at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 14, 2017. Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
CNBC, “Trump may have pushed Saudi Arabia and Iran closer to war”, 7 Nov 2017:
- Saudi Arabia’s moves over the past few days are bringing it closer to direct war with Iran.
- But this process seems to have been kick started by the new Saudi crown prince’s meeting with President Trump in March.
- It’s crucial to keep this conflict contained to the Middle East.
Crucial news keeps flying out of Saudi Arabia at a frantic pace, but here’s the bottom line: The Saudis are marching ever closer towards a wider regional war. And the U.S. may have helped send them down that path.
Just to recap, in the last several days the new crown prince of Saudi Arabia has initiated a massive purge of dozens of his fellow princes, ministers, and others in the kingdom in what’s been labeled as an “anti-corruption” sweep. Most of the headlines so far are understandably focusing on the one celebrity arrested, Alwaleed bin Talal, the billionaire investor seen and heard frequently for years on financial news channels like CNBC.
But that was just the first wave of news from Riyadh. Since the crackdown began on Saturday, the Saudis have considerably ramped up their accusatory rhetoric towards their neighbors. First, the kingdom squarely blamed Iran for a missile attack on Riyadh from Yemen that was thwarted by the U.S.-made Patriot anti-missile system. The Saudis called that attack “direct military aggression by the Iranian regime and may be considered an act of war.”
Second, the Saudis accused Lebanon of — figuratively at least — declaring “war” against it because of aggression from Hezbollah. That statement spurred even Saudi ally and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to publicly urge for calm.
al-Sisi may be too late. Because the common denominator in all these Saudi moves is a more focused preparation for a wider and more direct war with Iran for control of the region. As I noted when he was first put in his top position by his father King Salman in June, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman was already known as a hardcore hawk against Iran. Just a month before he was made crown prince, bin Salman declared that peace dialogue with Iran was impossible.
“More aggressive anti-Iranian hawks like bin Salman may have seen Donald Trump’s election as an excuse to win the day over more dovish princes and ministers. And the White House seemingly gave Saudi Arabia a green light.”
But the direct line to these more bellicose moves begins earlier than that and goes directly to the White House. While still deputy crown prince, bin Salman visited with President Trump in March of this year. During that meeting, they publicly declared Iran as the key regional security threat in the Middle East. That was step one.
Posted by DanielS on Thursday, 02 November 2017 07:10.
Although Schumer remains as self righteous a bracket about immigration as ever, in point of fact, he was part of a group of eight which proposed a bill in 2013 to end the Visa Lottery Program. True, he was perhaps opposed to the Visa Lottery for the same reason that the Republican dominated Capital Hill shot down the bill to end the lottery - because it provided a loop hole in which some Whites, who might not otherwise be able, could actually immigrate to the Unites States despite the anti-White measures of the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act.
NBC News, “Trump: Suspect Entered U.S. in ‘Diversity Visa Lottery,’ Blames Schumer”, 1 Nov 2017:
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the Uzbek immigrant suspected of killing eight people in New York City with a rental truck entered the U.S. through the “Diversity Visa Lottery Program,” and the president accused Sen. Chuck Schumer and other Democrats of having loosened the nation’s borders.
Trump did not provide any supporting evidence for the claim about the visa program, which was being discussed on the morning TV program “Fox and Friends” that the president indicated in his tweets he was watching.
“The terrorist came into our country through what is called the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery Program,’ a Chuck Schumer beauty. I want merit based,” Trump tweeted.
At a Cabinet meeting later, Trump said he would work with Congress to end the visa program.
“I am today starting the process of terminating the diversity lottery program. I am going to ask Congress to immediately…get rid of this program,” said the president, who called the suspect an “animal.” “Diversity lottery — sounds nice, it’s not nice. It’s not good. It hasn’t been good.”
Trump continued, “We want people that are going to help our country, we want people that are going to keep our country safe. We don’t want lotteries where the wrong people are in the lotteries and guess what? Who are the suckers that get those people? We want a merit-based system.”
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security later confirmed the suspect in the attack, a 29-year-old Uzbek immigrant named Sayfullo Saipov, had been admitted to the U.S. “upon presentation of a passport with a valid diversity immigrant visa to U.S. Customs and Border Protection in 2010.”
After Trump’s attacks on him, Schumer shot back on Twitter: “I guess it’s not too soon to politicize a tragedy.”
In a statement, the New York senator slammed Trump for “dividing America” and called on the president not to follow through on proposed cuts to “vital anti-terrorism funding.”
“I have always believed and continue to believe that immigration is good for America,” Schumer said. “President Trump, instead of politicizing and dividing America, which he always seems to do at times of national tragedy, should be focusing on the real solution — anti-terrorism funding — which he proposed cutting in his most recent budget.”
Schumer also took on Trump in a passionate speech from the Senate floor, asking, “President Trump, where is your leadership?”
The New York lawmaker drew a comparison between Trump’s conduct after Tuesday’s attack and the way former President George W. Bush responded to 9/11.
Bush “understood the meaning of his high office” in the midst of a national tragedy, Schumer said. “The contrast between President Bush’s actions after 9/11 and President Trump’s actions this morning couldn’t be starker.”
The Trump-Schumer back and forth came less than 24 hours after eight people were killed and more than a dozen injured when a motorist in a rented pickup truck deliberately drove down a bike path in lower Manhattan and mowed down several people before crashing into a school bus in what officials said was a terror attack.
Police found a note inside the truck indicating the suspect claimed to have carried out the attack to show his support for ISIS.
In a planned attack which he declared on behalf of ISIL, Sayfullo Saipov rented a pickup truck and mowed down pedestrians and cyclists along a busy bike path near the World Trade Center memorial 31 Oct 2017, killing eight.
According to The New York Times, he had obtained a green card, giving him permanent legal resident status in the U.S.
Trump, in his tweets Wednesday, was apparently referring to the Diversity Immigrant Visa lottery, which was established by the Immigration Act of 1990. That bill was passed with bipartisan support and signed into law by then-President George H.W. Bush.
The program allows the State Department to offer 50,000 visas annually to immigrants from countries with low immigration rates.
Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans alike hit back against Trump.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on “Morning Joe” that “it was kind of absurd (for Trump)...to be using it as a fulcrum for…this kind of a debate.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, at a press conference later Wednesday, said Trump’s tweets “were not factual” and “were not helpful.”
“You play into the hands of the terrorists,” Cuomo, a Democrat, said when asked for his thoughts on the tweets. “The tone now should be the exact opposite on all levels.”
Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who have both become vocal Trump critics since announcing they would not run for reelection next year, also took on the president.
“I don’t think that brings out the best in our country,” Corker told NBC News, while Flake called Trump’s response “premature.”
“He should express solidarity with those trying to fix this (visa) program,” Flake said.
Another Republican defended the diversity visa lottery.
“To be honest with you, I’ve known a number of people in New York who come in under the lottery system — they’ve made outstanding contributions, they’ve become citizens,” Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., a former House Homeland Security Committee chairman, told the Fox Business Network. “So that really is separate from the idea of the vetting.”
According to the State Department, diversity visa lottery applicants must meet certain education and work experience requirements, including having obtained “at least a high school education or its equivalent” or “two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience to perform.”
The State Department determines those accepted under the program through a randomized computer drawing, its website states.
In 2013, a bipartisan group of senators, including Schumer, known as the “Gang of Eight” proposed a compromise immigration reform bill that would have eliminated the diversity lottery. The bill did not make it through Congress.
Posted by DanielS on Sunday, 29 October 2017 06:29.
Related story, DT, “Population to surge by four million due to mass immigration that will ‘change the face of England forever.” Credit: SPL/Barcroft Media
The population of the UK is projected to shoot up by 3.6 million or 5 and a half percent over the next ten years, with more than half of the growth due to mass migration. According to new data from The Office of National Statistics, or ONS, the population will pass 70 million by mid 2029 and be 72.9 million in mid 2041. The population boom is equivalent of more than three new cities the size of Birmingham appearing on the UK over a decade.
Separate ONS statistics reported two months ago suggest that over a third of babies born in England and Wales had at least one foreign born parent. In London it was two thirds.
DM, “Britain’s population will hit 70 million before 2030 and more than HALF the increase in the next decade will be from immigration”, 26 Oct 2017:
Britain’s population will surge past 70 million before the end of the next decade, new forecasts reveal today with more than half the increase caused by immigration.
The number of people living in Britain will rise by 3.6 million - 5.5 per cent - in a decade and the country will be home to 70 million by mid 2029.
The new forecast from the Office for National Statistics considers immigration, fertility and life expectancy.
It concluded that over the next ten years, 46 per cent of UK population growth is projected to result from more births than deaths, with 54 per cent attributed to net international migration.
Taking into account babies born to foreign parents in Britain, immigration will indirectly account for 77 per cent of the population growth.
[...]
Lord Green of Deddington, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, warned the projections were ‘extraordinarily low’ based on historical migration
Over the decade from mid-2016, the projections suggest that 7.7 million people will be born and 6.1 million will die, while 5.2 million people will immigrate on a long-term basis to the UK with 3.2 million emigrating from the country.
He said: ‘This is serious because it will lead to inadequate planning for housing, schools, hospitals and infrastructure – as, indeed, we have seen in recent years. Yet again the ONS have been much too cautious.
‘It is also of note that, on the principal projection, immigration, including the effect on births, will account for 77 per cent of population growth over the next 25 years.
‘If immigration continues at the ONS high migration assumption, which is roughly present levels, the population will grow by almost ten million, of which 82 per cent will be due to immigration – that is an additional eight million people.
‘This underlines the need for a successful Brexit which could substantially reduce recent levels of net EU migration, perhaps by 100,000 a year.’
Andrew Nash, of the ONS Population Projections Unit, said: ‘Over the period between mid-2016 and mid-2026 the population of the UK is projected to grow from 65.6 million to 69.2 million, reaching 70 million by mid-2029.
[...]
Over the decade from mid-2016 projected growth varies substantially between the four nations of the UK.
England’s population is projected to grow 5.9 per cent over this period. For Northern Ireland the figure is 4.2 per cent while for Scotland and Wales the figures are 3.2 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively.
As well as the direct impact, international migration has an indirect effect on the population, statisticians said.
For example, women coming to the UK who subsequently have children will increase the numbers of births.
Conversely, women emigrating before they have children will decrease the number of births.
Once the indirect effect is taken into account, international migration accounts for more than three quarters (77 per cent) of the projected UK population growth over the 25 years from 2016, according to the ONS report.
Related story, DT, “Population to surge by four million due to mass immigration that will ‘change the face of England forever.” Credit: SPL/Barcroft Media
The Spirit Lives, by 
President Donald Trump sits alongside Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and senior adviser Jared Kushner during a meeting at the White House in Washington on Sept. 26, 2017. AP Photo, Evan Vucci
17 Nov 2017: Saudi FM, “Hezbollah Is a ‘First-Class Terrorist Organization.” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir described Hezbollah on Thursday as a “first-class terrorist organization” that should lay down its arms…
President Donald Trump and Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense Mohammed bin Salman meet at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 14, 2017. Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
In a planned attack which he declared on behalf of ISIL, Sayfullo Saipov rented a pickup truck and mowed down pedestrians and cyclists along a busy bike path near the World Trade Center memorial 31 Oct 2017, killing eight.