It's becoming increasingly clear that China has staked its reputation on success in the South China Sea, and accordingly has adopted a more aggressive and cocksure stance. Diplomacy will not end Chinese aggression, only a clear message from the US.

There has been some hope as the Pentagon has apparently been considering more hardline tactics to use against Chinese expansionism in the region, however it seems that the situation is worse than was first thought; the Chinese warned off an American surveillance place at least eight times with the message: "Foreign military aircraft. This is Chinese navy. You are approaching our military alert zone. Leave immediately."

Why is this important? Well it's unclear whether or not the aeroplane was actually within the 12 nautical miles of the artificial islands which China considers sovereign territory. If this zone is the same as what the Chinese referred to as the "military alert zone", then it appears that Chinese reassurances over continued navigational freedom are untrue, as they tried to command the US plane while it was in a non-territorial space.

There is speculation about whether or not the Chinese will establish an ADIZ over the South China Sea as they did with the East China Sea in 2013; that's besides the point, however, as the Chinese have been challenging American operation within that airspace since 2001, as well as more recently threatening the Philippines.

It's no secret that China has been building it up its military with the goal in mind of establishing a regional hegemony, much akin to the actions of Iran, and the artificial islands being constructed in the Sea are being outfitted with runways.

The Chinese seem to view geopolitics with a vertical structure of power, where the biggest dogs get the biggest piece of meat. Technically, China has no right to expand its sovereign territory in the way that they have--but they don't seem to care. China has a growing arsenal and collection of military equipment, seemingly tailored to American weaknesses, and will have 40,000 stealth UAVs by 2023; three versions of which will have precision strike capabilities.

The Americans need to pick up the slack and move towards the 12-mile zone which the Chinese have claimed as sovereign territory; it isn't a nice choice, since doing so will increase tensions and not doing so would only legitimise the burgeoning Chinese hegemony. Meanwhile, the government continues to sit back and dismantle US military capacity. 

We smokers are a proud, oppressed race.

It is when the end result was a ton of lives saved and the liberation of the Indian people.

Lol, Mother Theresa is probably responsible for the deaths of more people than their saving.

And read this about Gandhi.

Give me a quick run-down?

I agree on you with Theresa, but Gandhi was just doing right by his people. You can't argue that the British treatment of Indians wasn't fucking atrocious at the time.

Sure, but Gandhi wasn't the right man for the job.

It's not like they were going out of their way to hurt people really.

Theresa was; she literally believed that suffering brought people closer to Jesus.

Quote from: Icy on May 27, 2015, 04:52:48 PM

PSU isn't bad

OH FUCK ME

I'M GONE

Lol.

I just downvoted everybody in this thread.

foot fetish is disgusting

>JFK exists anywhere on that list

Opinion disregarded.

It's a list of heroes to villains. They aren't saying JFK is a villain.

https://plug.dj/sep7

Below Stalin, Mao, Lenin and Genghis Khan.

While Mohammed scored more highly than JFK, Napoleon, Washington and FDR.



And people wonder why I think academia is fucked.

I'm actually not lol

Former Mujahideen confirmed.

Here's a run-down of all the bills.

Welfare benefits bill:
- Freezes the main rates of working-age benefits.
- Reduces the benefits cap from £26,000 to £23,000.

Enterprise bill:
- Cuts £10bn of red tape.
- Creates a "Small Business Conciliation Service".
- Improves the business rates system.
- Caps exit payments to public service workers.

Tax bill:
- Bans a rise in VAT, income tax or NI contributions over the next five years.

Childcare bill:
- Will provide 30 hours of entitled childcare for 38 weeks of the year.

Housing bill:
- Extends the "right-to-buy" scheme.
- Requires councils to sell vacant houses.
- Introduces a "right-to-build", which includes the construction of 200,000 new social homes and a relaxation of the planning laws.

Energy bill:
- Gives local councils, instead of Whitehall, the final say on wind-farm applications.

Immigration bill:
- Introduces the offence of "illegal working", and allows the wages of illegal migrants to be seized.
- Consultation on funding apprenticeship schemes for British and EU workers by implementing a visa levy on companies using foreign labour.

Trade unions bill:
- Introduces a mandatory 50pc turnout for strike ballots.
- Will also require a 40pc vote in favour of that 50pc for industrial action to go ahead.
- Union members must also opt-in to political donations.

Education and adoption bill:
- Gives ministers more power to intervene in "coasting schools" and turn them into academies.
- Creates regional adoption agencies to facilitate adoption across local authority boundaries.

Cities and local government devolution bill:
- Gives the government the authority to impose mayors on certain areas.

Scotland bill:
- Implements the recommendations of the cross-party Smith Commission. This will give the Scottish parliament the power to vary the rates and bands of income tax, greater control over VAT and complete control over air passenger duty. It will also be able to change housing benefit payments.

Wales bill:
- Gives the Welsh assembly further powers, including over ports, energy developments, transport regulations, speed limits and sewerage services.

Northern Ireland bill:
- Establishes a body called the Historical Investigations Unit to look into unsolved deaths during the Troubles, as the 30 years’ of violence that beset Northern Ireland up to the early 1990s are known.

European Union referendum bill:
- Enshrines the promise of an EU referendum before the end of 2017.

Extremism bill:
- Given ministers and the police more authority to ban extremist groups.

Investigatory powers bill (AKA Snoopers' Charter):
- Makes companies retain metadata for at least 12 months.

Psychoactive substances bill:
- Outlaws certain legal highs.

Bank of England bill:
- Measures to make the BoE more transparent, requiring it to publish the minutes of MPC meetings alongside interest rate decisions.

Charities bill:
- Gives the Charity Commission more powers to disqualify both charities and trustees found guilty of wrongdoing.

Votes for life bill:
- Scrapping the system whereby British citizens living overseas lose their votes after 15 years.

The government also plans to bar Scottish MPs from voting on English laws, will introduce seven-day GP services and will raise minimum wage workers out of tax altogether. Out of fear of a backbench rebellion, wording around the scrapping of the Human Rights Act was very vague.

I can't find much to dislike here. I'm particularly a fan of the trade unions bill, the welfare bill and the enterprise bill. However, the BoE bill, psychoactive substances bill, extremism bill and housing bill don't really sit well with me.

Will try and provide more details if anybody is interested.