The issues exercising minds today are the Tay’s potential for tidal energy, community service work, family breakdown, Libya, and Palestine.
River Tay has power to bridge energy gap
Sir,-Your correspondent Stephen Grieve claimed, “unexploited Scottish tidal generation schemes have a much better prospect of success” (than wind farms).
May a non-expert point out that we seem to have a readymade generation scheme in the Tay Road Bridge? Through its pillars the tide flows twice daily and meets the current of the largest river in Scotland.
Electricity produced would be much closer to the populous parts of Scotland than that generated off the far north coasts.
The main function of the bridge would have to be safeguarded but work on its foundations seems to be almost constant.
Ian Willock.11 Norwood Crescent,Dundee.
Gratitude for payback work
Sir,-Remarkable work has been carried out at St Marie’s RC Church, Kirkcaldy, by the Fife Council Community Payback Scheme.
Our church is a prominent listed building of considerable architectural and historical interest to the town but it has suffered considerable wear and tear.
While we have been acutely conscious of the need to carry out repairs, every penny of our available funds had to be devoted to major work on heating and roofing projects.
When the parish was approached by the community payback scheme, we were delighted to accept their assistance. We were overjoyed to witness the professional and dedicated manner with which the project was carried out.
“We can now look with pride on our newly-painted doors and railings in addition to the repaired boundary wall.
Father Edward Wanat.St Marie’s RC Church,Kirkcaldy.
Family breakdown cause of poverty
Sir,-Historians may see the collapse of family life as being the most disturbing social feature in Britain at the turn of the 21st century.
The New Labour era saw the number of births to unmarried, often early teenage, girls rise to almost 50% and over half of all teenagers will see their parents split up.
The personal grief which lies behind these bare statistics is heartbreaking and we know that the children of a single parent are much more likely to fail at school.
They are also much more likely to be unemployed as an adult and, as result, are at far greater risk of alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide.
Marriage stabilises and strengthens families and the endemic family breakdown found in Britain lies at the heart of the social devastation.
(Dr) John Cameron.10 Howard Place,St Andrews.
Pull advisers out of Libya
Sir,-The decision by William Hague to send “advisers” to help the Libyan opposition is the worst decision by a Tory Foreign Secretary since Suez.
Mr Hague clearly has no notion of the concept of blowback within history.
In 1980 Thatcher and Reagan committed to destabilising a secular government in Afghanistan in order to bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union. To do this the CIA initiated Operation Cyclone. This was their biggest-ever peacetime operation.
It involved soldiers recruiting, funding, arming and training an army of radical Islamic fanatics. One of those who was recruited was a man named Osama Bin Laden and a decade later he used the knowledge and skills shown to him by US/UK special forces to perpetrate the atrocity of 9/11.
In 1996, MI6 paid the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group an al Qaida-linked terror organisation £100,000 to kill Gaddafi with a car bomb. There is no reason to think that relationship was ever broken off.
By sending in advisers, Hague is giving help and support to possible future terrorists who one day may use the training they are about to be given against British citizens in a terror attack.
These “advisers” are not being sent because we care about the people of Libya. They are being sent so that the UK Government has some future leverage for oil deals which may be done in a post-Gaddafi Libya.
Hague and Cameron have gone way beyond what was originally proposed by the UN Security Council.
Alan Hinnrichs.2 Gillespie Terrace,Dundee.
Palestine state claim problems
Sir,-Steve Dron writes about the possibility of two-thirds of the UN membership recognising Palestine in the September agenda of the UN General Assembly (April 19).
He will, of course, realise that while no vetoes are applicable in the assembly, its resolutions are non-binding. It doesn’t matter how many members recognise Palestine because states are not created by applause.
He will know that it was the declaration of statehood in Tel Aviv that established Israel, not a vote in the UN.
To be a functioning state there are a number of basic requirements or tests. A sovereign state has to have an effective and independent system of government pursuant to a community within a defined territory.
Palestine fails on this because there appears to be two governments pursuant to two communities. There is one government over Fatah-dominated Palestine (Judaea and Samaria, or the West Bank) and another leadership over Hamas-controlled Palestine (Gaza).
Another test is that of the absoluteness of the sovereignty. A power has absolute sovereignty if it has unlimited right to control everything and every kind of activity in its territory. Again, failure. Fatah Palestine doesn’t have control over Gaza, while the Palestine National Authority in the West Bank may have legal or theoretical sovereignty over Gaza but it does not have actual sovereignty.
There is the territorial test, too. Where does Palestine begin and end? As yet the Palestine National Authority has still to reach agreement with Israel on actual borders between the two.
(Dr) Graeme D. Eddie.3 Bothwell GardensDunbar.
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